Shin Sekai Yori - Episode 21 Discussion / Poll

[tanqexe]

Cantus depends on visualization and/or concentration, right? Distracting the fiend seemed to work, temporarily, so I'm wondering if it may have been possible for Shisei to hold out even longer by continuing to catch the fiend off-balance, trapping him at a distance, or disorienting him in any way imaginable. For instance, Shisei could continue to tear the ground from underneath the fiend, freak him out a little by surrounding him with the corpses of the queerats. Could've bought extra time for the villagers who had more common sense to run away, at the very least.

Also...I wonder if the hypnotic light effect of the minoshiro (like from the first arc) would have an effect on the fiend?

[Trajan]

Originally Posted by tanqexe

Cantus depends on visualization and/or concentration, right? Distracting the fiend seemed to work, temporarily, so I'm wondering if it may have been possible for Shisei to hold out even longer by continuing to catch the fiend off-balance, trapping him at a distance, or disorienting him in any way imaginable. For instance, Shisei could continue to tear the ground from underneath the fiend, freak him out a little by surrounding him with the corpses of the queerats. Could've bought extra time for the villagers who had more common sense to run away, at the very least.

Also...I wonder if the hypnotic light effect of the minoshiro (like from the first arc) would have an effect on the fiend?

The simple solution is to kill the fiend the way the the queerats have been killing humans . . . by shooting him with a rifle. I like this show a lot, but it's not believable that the humans have no fail-safe to deal with this situation. The "sheep" might not be able to do it, but Tomiko could certainly gun down a child without hesitation.

In "reality" the humans would have a loyal "praetorian guard" of queerats who could kill a fiend once it has awoken, or the village elders would simply keep some traditional weaponry around so they could kill the fiend themselves without resorting to Cantu use. But of course, that would prevent the author from telling the story he wants to.

Honestly, I think it would have been more interesting to see the queerats rise up against the humans using their own wits, not by lucking into an unstoppable superweapon, but the downside to that is that it makes the story less personal for Saki, and probably less emotionally engaging.

[Tempester]

Images

courtesy of /a/

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

[BBOvenGuy]

Okay, my thoughts...

First of all, Yokumaru's master plan for world domination is doomed to failure. Like all megalomaniacs, he overestimates his own abilities, in this case his ability to keep an army of fiends under control. It would just take one of them to go rogue, and he'd be screwed. That doesn't help Saki & co. with the immediate problem, but it's still worth pointing out.

Second, I guess I'm still not clear on how the Death Feedback works. How much of a causality chain do you need for it to kick in? The village has been using the tainted cats to kill off "dangerous" children for who knows how many years. The people who release the tainted cats can't have any illusions about what they're doing, and yet they don't seem to suffer any ill effects. There must be some way to kill the fiend from a far enough distance that you don't kill yourself in the process.

Third, one character comes to my mind who has so far been unaccounted for in this part of the story, and that's the queerat Saki helped in the first arc, who then rescued Mamoru in the second arc. I lost track of what happened to him after Yokumaru captured his colony.

And last, I like that the queerat told Saki and Satoru why they were so willing to sacrifice themselves for their cause. Saki needed to hear that, because it's a situation that has to be changed if there's to be any future for their civilization.

And I still say Yokumaru reminds me of Bin Laden more than anyone else. Only now he's Bin Laden with nukes.

[taichi-kun]

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

You're out of luck, we never learn this for sure. I think some of the theories in this thread and the previous ones are very plausible.

Oh man, I'm disappointed. Do you have a theory?

The rats probably tortured them

[Griffith]

Originally Posted by taichi-kun

Oh man, I'm disappointed. Do you have a theory?

The rats probably tortured them

I don't see how they'd manage that. Cantus users can easily obliterate queerats under normal situations.

[kyobi]

re-watch episode 4
you will knows how the Death Feedback works.

[BBOvenGuy]

Originally Posted by kyobi

re-watch episode 4
you will knows how the Death Feedback works.

Well, yes, I got that. But as I said, how far back up the chain of causality do you have to go in order to escape the Death Feedback?

For example:

I shoot a person. Death Feedback kills me.
I order someone else to shoot a person. Death Feedback would kill the other person, but would it kill me?
I'm flying a drone by remote control, and I order it to drop a Hellfire missile on someone thousands of miles away. Does Death Feedback kill me?
I pick up a telephone and order someone in another building to drop a Hellfire missile on someone that I never see. Does Death Feedback kill me?

Or more germane to the current situation - I release a tainted cat, knowing it will go out and kill a child. Does Death Feedback kill me? The evidence would seem to suggest it doesn't. Otherwise, who would be stupid enough to be in charge of the tainted cats, knowing it was a suicide job?

[SagaraSouske]

Originally Posted by DragoZERO

The difference is - this isn't a traditional fiend. It's a human with no control not one out of control. They really stood no chance.

It doesn't matter if it is traditional fiend or just a wild child raised by queerrats to kill humans. All it takes is one human to willing to die from death loop feedback to kill him or her. It seems there are no defense against jyuryuku. If one human wants to kill another instantly with flames or completely explode the body or contort the organ, etc, they can do it instantly if there is no such thing as death loop feedback. We all saw how powerful Shesei was against queerrats. A fiend would have die instantly the moment someone decides:

1. I will sacrifice myself to save the town.
2. Fuck it, I am going to die anyways and might as well take the fiend with me.
3. Oh, he is going to kill my wife and kids, let me kill him first so at least my family survives...

or other possible scenarios.

[ChainLegacy]

Originally Posted by BBOvenGuy

And I still say Yokumaru reminds me of Bin Laden more than anyone else. Only now he's Bin Laden with nukes.

Other than suicide attacks and sociopathy, I don't see the comparison. He seems more like a Julius Caesar (combo of orator, tactician, "bender of truth", and egomaniac), but leading a rebellion while attempting to piece together his empire. I think he does have pride in his colony and species, as the captive rat said in this episode, but he's also your typical egomaniac leader willing to go to any lengths to increase his own power. You could make the comparison that anti-human sentiment in this world is similar to the anti-Western sentiment Bin Laden used to further his goals, but it's a shaky argument. The rats are more openly and culturally subservient to the humans, and there is no element of religious zealotry.

Also, I agree that the aki story element is pretty weak... I can't believe they have the ability to specifically code that you can't hurt other humans without throwing in some kind of 'reasonable defense' element into that code...

Originally Posted by Tempester

In the end, it all comes down to instinctive loyalty and interest in one's own species. I respect and sympathize with the rats' earnest efforts to fight off their oppressors, but I personally side with the tyrannical human overlords because, well, they're human. I don't need any other excuse.

There are shades of grey in this story, so I'm not saying either side is on a moral high ground, but I probably sympathize more with the rats, myself. These cantus wielding humans are just as alien to me as the rats, and I'd be rebelling against them, too. Also, I'm not sure about your premise of siding with humans just because they're humans. While the conflict presented here is more nuanced, I can definitely think of story examples where the audience will consider humans' enemy morally superior (Avatar springs to mind).

[Shadow5YA]

Originally Posted by SagaraSouske

Regarding Death Loop Feedback, even if it is both genetic and mental conditioning, it should still be possible for some individuals to kill the field in the same manner as he is slaughtering all the humans. Even if the overwhelming majority choose flight instead of fight, some, especially those like Tomiko or Shisei should have been able to double KO with the Akki.

We have the Doctor that applied lethal injection that killed K. He was able to overcome his conditioning and sacrifice himself and Tomiko saw it happen. I don't see why she could not do the same knowing that herself and the town is doomed if she doesn't act. Shisei also had plenty of opportunity to do so as well. Death feedback loop may be an ill conceived idea, but making Akki the end all be all doom weapon for humans does not make sense.

It won't work. Death feedback doesn't kick in during the act of killing. The moment you perceive yourself harming another being, your body shuts down.

Remember when the elder stabbed himself to test the young Saki's death feedback. The elder didn't die, and Saki wasn't the one who stabbed him, but the mechanism still worked.

The injection is a different case because 1) fiend K was not visibly harmed during the injection and 2) the moment he did show pain, K already killed the doctor before his death feedback mechanism had a chance to trigger. It wasn't a case where the doctor bypassed the mechanism because he was already dead before it could happen.

[Gohan78]

I also have a lot of problems in accepting the death feedback mechanism.
If it's encoded in their DNA, then Maria's child should also have it. Even if it wasn't reinforced by hypnosis, the "fiend" should still suffer some consequences from slaughtering all those humans.
If instead the death feedback is mainly the result of conditioning, then it should be possible to remove -or at least weaken- it by a reverse hypnosis.
It's a plot device that Maria's child doesn't show any signs of death feedback while the other humans can't do anything about it.

Furthermore, it's unrealistic that the humans didn't keep some good old rifles in stock for such a case. I know that they were carefully nipping the potentially dangerous children in the bud, but the threat of an Akki is so great that they should have implemented more than one failsafe mechanism.

[NoemiChan]

Originally Posted by Trajan

The simple solution is to kill the fiend the way the the queerats have been killing humans . . . by shooting him with a rifle. I like this show a lot, but it's not believable that the humans have no fail-safe to deal with this situation. The "sheep" might not be able to do it, but Tomiko could certainly gun down a child without hesitation.

Made me think that at least they could have "trained a human" to kill another human starting from birth. Like born to be an assassin instead on relying to cats...

[Archon_Wing]

Well I certainly have to give it to Squealer, managing to train so many fanatics to die for his cause under the guise of freedom and equality, like all dictatorships that need more breathing space.

Collectivism is bad!

Also, raising people to become killers, hmm...

[Solace]

It's believable in the sense that the humans never considered the Queerats would go the lengths they did to rebel, and they certainly never expected someone like Squealer to lead that rebellion.

All of their focus was on the internal threat of fiends and karma demons. They never expected, or planned for, the external threat of one. Remember, this is an otherwise peaceful village. They weren't constantly at the ready for a fight, like we are in our world. On the other hand, the Queerats had wars all the time, approved by humans even. Colony fights were normal and watched over as if you would a sporting event.

Whatever knowledge the elders had about the past, most did not seem to know it extensively. And even if they did, they seemed to have no interest in using that information except to create a peaceful society based on preventing another PK war.

Ultimately this is a story about how history and the lessons of the past are forgotten and doomed to repeat. This includes shares of our modern politics, our nature as humans, and morality itself in the face of extraordinary circumstances.

For example, most of you probably didn't bat an eye when Kiromaru took the babies from the Queerat colony, but I bet you were more disturbed when it was human babies that Squealer took. I know I was. Having it happen to Maria's kid was bad enough, but then you're like "oh crap, he's going to do it to other kids too!", and this turns the act from tragic to disturbing.

[Archon_Wing]

Ah, yes, end war and violence by... more war, violence and genoicde.

People are quite famous for doing these things. :S

[Tougarashi]

Originally Posted by Trajan

The simple solution is to kill the fiend the way the the queerats have been killing humans . . . by shooting him with a rifle. I like this show a lot, but it's not believable that the humans have no fail-safe to deal with this situation. The "sheep" might not be able to do it, but Tomiko could certainly gun down a child without hesitation.

I don't think it will work because once the intention to harm another human is formed in the brain system, the central nervous system will shut down. So forth unable to pull the trigger if the subject is using a gun.

[Jimmy C]

Originally Posted by Gohan78

If it's encoded in their DNA, then Maria's child should also have it. Even if it wasn't reinforced by hypnosis, the "fiend" should still suffer some consequences from slaughtering all those humans.

The thing is, how do you define a "human"? If that has to be "taught" to kids, then it's possible to bypass it by not teaching the kid what a "human" is. The feedback is still there but doesn't kick in because the fiend doesn't know what a "human" is, even subconciously.
Ever since ep4 I had wondered about how enforcers can operate with the death feedbeck. And it turns out, they don't have any!
Using queerats to dispose of troublesome children was a serious mistake. They make the queerats worship them as gods, yet ask them to kill gods. And they're surprised that the queerats can revolt!

[kuromitsu]

People here keep saying Tomiko should do this, Tomiko should do that - you do realize that Tomiko is very much dead, right?

Originally Posted by Jimmy C

Ever since ep4 I had wondered about how enforcers can operate with the death feedbeck. And it turns out, they don't have any!

Wait, what enforcers? You mean Inui & Co.? They're killing bakenezumi, not humans.

Originally Posted by Jimmy C

Using queerats to dispose of troublesome children was a serious mistake. They make the queerats worship them as gods, yet ask them to kill gods. And they're surprised that the queerats can revolt!

They used bakenezumi to dispose of humans only once, cca. 200 years ago (and I hope you don't think they left those bakenezumi alive to tell tales to their people at home...). Since then they're using the kitties.

Originally Posted by Solace

On the other hand, the Queerats had wars all the time, approved by humans even. Colony fights were normal and watched over as if you would a sporting event.

Nobody watched bakenezumi colony wars as a sporting event, where are people getting this from? Saki and Inui weren't there for sightseeing, they were working: Saki observing the battle and Inui acting as a bodyguard of sorts. And there was no other human there.

[Jimmy C]

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

Wait, what enforcers? You mean Inui & Co.? They're killing bakenezumi, not humans.

I meant law enforcers at least. In every human civilization, there are people who are given sanction, by that society, to visit violence upon their own people to preserve order or keep people in line.
When we learned about the death feedback, my first thought was, "how do they deal with criminals?"
Then we find out how they use the cats and rats, but that's preemptive and rather useless once a fiend or karma demon is actually active. In the end humans are our own worst enemies and the best weapon to deal with ourselves. The way the death feedback was implemented completely cancels this.

They used bakenezumi to dispose of humans only once, cca. 200 years ago
Since then they're using the kitties.

Note that even in the present, they still think nothing of ordering the rats to kill humans. It wasn't just rounding up a few rats for the task and then disposing of them afterwards. They issued general orders to all colonies.
They're telling the rats, "worship us as gods." and "while you're at it, kill these of our people."
They're telling the rats that their gods can die, can be killed by them. Worst, they let the rats figure out how to do the killing themselves.