Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaioshin Sama
It stands to reason that the Data Entity could have just as easily made Ryoko the leader instead of Yuki, had Ryoko absorb Haruhi's powers and then just fiddle around with them herself in controlled experiments to try and understand their nature. Not to say Yuki wasn't capable of the same thing since we just witnessed it in this movie.
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Data is (are?) data, and to the Data Entity, everything is data. As we have seen previously, it (and therefore its emissary, Yuki) already has the ability to manipulate data, space and time included. I don't think it has any problems in understanding how Haruhi does what she does from a purely mechanical point of view, but it doesn't understand her on a higher level. For example, I might be able to hold a brush and mix paints, but that of itself doesn't make me an artist. In the same way, the Data Entity can manipulate space and time, but that of itself doesn't make it god. So, it tries to understand Haruhi as best it can, but it doesn't try to replicate what she does. In many cultures the timing of someone's death is regarded as the province of a god or gods. But human beings can also kill, and so we sometimes speak of people "playing God" when they make a cold-blooded decision to end someone's life. I think that is what is going on here - although Yuki has the Data Entity's power to alter space and time, she does not "play God", if for no other reason than she cannot foresee what exactly will happen. Just one small mistake, one incorrect bit of data, and she and the Data Entity could cease to exist.
Into that situation now comes Yuki's "accumulation of anomalous data", i.e. her developing emotions and falling in love with Kyon. She says that she "harnesses" or "steals" Haruhi's power, but perhaps it's more of a misappropriation rather than outright theft, and she for once "plays God" and changes the world. She doesn't really know what the outcome will be - for example, the psychotic Asakura Ryoko surely wasn't intended - all she says is that she tried to preserve as much of Kyon's "state" (i.e. his personality and memories) as she could when she created what was supposed to be a Haruhi-free paradise for him where perhaps, just perhaps, he might fall in love with her too. But she also acknowledges his right as a human being to make the choice, and so she provides him with an escape route. Which, in the end, he takes.
My own view is that to dismiss this movie simply as a moe-driven excuse to see Yuki do cute things is to do it a great injustice. It touches on many of the "great themes" of humanity, and also contains thinly-veiled parallels to the Judeo-Christian mythos* of the Fall and the Redemption - with Yuki as Eve and Kyon as both the first and second Adam (which of course was no problem for a time traveler). And if the scene near the end with the momentary 有希/雪 homophone mix-up isn't one of the most poignant ever made, I'll go back in time to when I had a hat and eat it
*I use this term simply in its technical sense without wishing to denigrate or deny the beliefs themselves