[Reckoner]

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

Therein lies one of my issues with Psychopass. Gen is always trying to have it both ways. He presents contradictory ideas but doesn't make a decision on what is more important. In the end it creates something very wishy washy.

I admit this was also a strength of a series since it allowed the characters to explore many different ideas but when push comes to shove I feel Gen did not follow through with any of these ideas. Maybe for you it works, but for me it makes for a very boring narrative.

And again this is reflective in the end where Gen leaves it open whether Akane or the Sybil system is right about its future.

Giving the viewer leeway in a kind of show like that is very important. It's boring to be preached to. Let the viewer think for themselves.

However, our main character is Akane and her speech about serving the law is not one that should be ignored. It was the most important one in the final episode, and it is exactly what she decided to follow through on. Once the people decide that Sibyl is no longer viable, then and only then would it be OK in Akane's eyes to turn off Sibyl. I think that's a very important point.

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

I never said I thought Akane should completely overthrow the system. So let me be clear I was not expecting that. I was hoping Akane would come up with her own solution and yes in some ways she did. But I feel Akane's solution is not really an answer.

I respect that Akane doesn't want to commit any crimes to bring down the system but her answer of working within a corrupt system because it is the law to bring down that corrupt system just doesn't work for me. I found this again a contradiction and a weak statement.

I think Karice said it better in the PP thread than I could:

Originally Posted by karice67

I'm not trying to argue that the system isn't bad. But I interpret Akane's decision as one of having the people in the society choose the rules and system of order that they want to follow. As per her admittedly idealistic argument in the final episode, people are always striving for a righteous way of living. And they cannot truly make that choice if someone makes it for them, whether by destroying the system that holds up what they believe to be righteous, by undermining it by cultivating a backlash based primarily on emotion (as revelation that human brains were actually running it would provoke), or by making a unilateral decision to remove what everyone believes is upholding the law without explaining it (which they would have to do if they just stopped using the Dominators). Akane's ideal world would consist of people just like her, people able to distinguish between right and wrong not based on what a system tells them, but based on their own values, and she strongly believes that it is still possible to achieve that peacefully within the system as it now is. I would even argue that to deny that implies denying her own existence. And though they left us with "Sibyl still continues", I choose to hope, and trust that Akane and others in their society are still working towards that hope. As at least one of the credit scenes suggests.

I'm not going to say that Akane's logic has to work for you, but that's why this show has different perspectives. Maybe you thought Makishima had the real solution. Maybe you agree with Kogami instead, that if the law is not worth protecting, it's time to take justice into your own hands. You say that this creates a weak statement of some sort, but Gen's main point about Sibyl stands. No matter which perspective you choose, aside from Sibyl's, Makishima, Kogami, and Akane all do not like Sibyl for the same reasons. They just have different ideas on how to manage and deal with the Sibyl system, which is an important philosophical discussion to have. I believe Akane chose the hardest path, but she also chose the most righteous.

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

This was shown right after the war when there would be obvious hostilities on both sides. The fact that Saki kept her promise to kiroumaru about preserving his tribe and some others was significant enough.

That being said it might never be fixed because of what Satoru discovered. If they think of the Monster rats as human the monster rats have an advantage over them. At the very most we can hope Saki and Satoru will try to treat them with more dignity.

They didn't actually show us how they treat the rats. All we're shown is that they preserved some villages and the master-slave relationship presumably continues to exist. We can hope that they will treat them with more dignity, but in the same we can hope that Akane in PP will also do something positive for the society around her.

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

Once again they are researching Akki and Gouma to look for answers of how they come about. That is "work of note" to me.

Saki and Satoru not being afraid of their child is at most meant to be symbolic. That being said again I admit actual tangible change might take a long time to come.

Saki and Satoru aren't afraid of their child because they have hope. This hope though is not based upon anything tangible. It's great to have hope. PP ending also leaves off on a hopeful note with Akane.

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

Only if you have a strong psycho pass to you live more prosperous lives, for everyone else well it sucks to be you.

The series also told us the citizens were safer but it didn't really show us (besides showing us that the citizens did not know how to react to a violent crises). If anything the series went out of its way to show us how bad & tolitarian the sybil system was. Which is also why I don't buy the idea that the sybil system was originally created with the wishes of the people in mind. But there are a lot of things that make no sense about the world building of the series. And maybe that is my overall problem there is a lot of telling the audience but not showing and a lot of what is shown contradicts what is told.

When we have had regimes like Nazi Germany in our world, I'm not so sure why it would be hard to believe that people would put in place a system like Psycho-Pass. Having that ability to predict people's criminality with near complete accuracy is a powerful tool, and I believe humans would use it as well.

But regardless, I think the key scene about Sibyl society was Gen's "bystander" effect seen. People have become so used to not seeing any crime whatsoever that they could not realize at all what was happening in front of them. This shows perfectly the complacency of its citizens in that they no longer are able to recognize danger. They even tell us that people leave their doors unlocked these days because there's no concern. Does that not show us sufficiently well as one example?

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

The entire plot line of Psycho Pass centers around the sybil system. It was either about Makishima trying to destroy the system or trying to stop Makishima. The sybil system was the core of Psycho Pass' focus. In fact the series is even named after it.

SSY was never about changing its system. In fact the series goes out of its way to show the audience the absolute necessity of that system. Its themes run a completely different course than Psychopass. If anything SSY is more about survival. Both the PK users and the Monster rats did what they did for survival. Neither side was more morally right or wrong. The world of SSY is pretty dark and if anything it ends on a dark note, but Saki and Satoru still have hope despite that.

I realize that this might seem similar to Akane's situation where she has hope despite not being able to destroy the sybil system today but I just felt this was presented in a more wishy washy fashion that even Gen himself can't decide if the series is ending on a hopeful note or not.

In the end I had a more meaningful experience from SSY. It is perfectly fine that you got meaning out of both or someone else got more meaning out of Psycho Pass but just because series might seem similar on the surface doesn't mean you and I are going to get the same thing out of them.

The society in both stories were established for different reasons. PP was just to preserve order and peace by eliminating crime. SSY was a matter of survival like you said. However, this doesn't make the focus on their systems less or more important.

Psycho-Pass is in the end, a crime detective story. Makishima was the sociopathic villain and the police force were the ones to hunt him down. The twist in the story is of course the Sibyl System and the Psycho-Pass ratings. Thus, a lot of the story is spent musing around law and order and Sibyl itself. But the police force were never the people here seeking to change the system. So in reality, this story really wasn't about changing the system. Our main characters were never seeking to do that, and at no time was there a reason to believe that they truly wanted to undo their society. That was only Makishima, and Kogami did not care for his goals. He simply saw him as a criminal that needed to be judged.

SSY's story is just about growing up in a dystopia setting in which the truth of it is slowly unraveled to our main characters. The driving force of the plot is learning more about the society around them and the horrifying experiences they undergo as this happens. In some ways, you could argue that the focus on their society is even more prominent than in Psycho-Pass's case. We were given sufficient understanding and justification about the "necessity" of this system for their survival, but it does not make it any less horrible. But then in the end, we see that this system breaks down anyway. They were arrogant and their practices were extreme. While the adult's actions were understandable, I don't think it had to be that way. And judging from Saki's actions in the end, she hasn't found a solution either. She didn't manage to change that horrible system.