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View Poll Results: Psycho-Pass - Episode 15 Rating
Perfect 10 25 36.76%
9 out of 10 : Excellent 24 35.29%
8 out of 10 : Very Good 15 22.06%
7 out of 10 : Good 4 5.88%
6 out of 10 : Average 0 0%
5 out of 10 : Below Average 0 0%
4 out of 10 : Poor 0 0%
3 out of 10 : Bad 0 0%
2 out of 10 : Very Bad 0 0%
1 out of 10 : Painful 0 0%
Voters: 68. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 2013-02-02, 00:15   Link #61
Hypernova
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One bet down that the sybil mainframe uses the brain of those that are PP immune as it's processing elements.
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Old 2013-02-02, 00:41   Link #62
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One bet down that the sybil mainframe uses the brain of those that are PP immune as it's processing elements.
Maybe it's just 'cause I like a good conspiracy, but I still think there's some connection between Makishima and Sybil. Maybe he's being manipulated by them.
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Old 2013-02-02, 02:43   Link #63
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Maybe it's just 'cause I like a good conspiracy, but I still think there's some connection between Makishima and Sybil. Maybe he's being manipulated by them.
Well I think it might be obvious that the director and Makishima have a connection or some sort of history. She might have just known who his real identity is, but it looks like she is aware of an existence like his for a while already, which in turn suggests that Makishima's been doing something for a while already.
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Old 2013-02-02, 04:01   Link #64
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Originally Posted by Qilin View Post
Not much to say about this episode, except that the inevitable happened. Here you have a large scale loss of trust in the Sybil system, leading to lots of mass rioting. The police force is finally retaliating, but it doesn't look like they're willing to make a commitment, given that their strategy is built around disabling the helmets rather than disregarding Sybil altogether. It's an understandable choice based on all we already know about this society, but I do wonder if it really is the best one given the circumstances...

Well, regardless, I'm happy that this episode gives us an even clearer picture of Makishima's character along with his intentions. One thing that's clear is that simply causing havoc and destruction isn't his goal. Another is that he isn't exactly concerned about the society's welfare either. Given all that, I wouldn't call him a utilitarian anti-villain in the least. Rather, he's much closer to an artist with a very particular aesthetic sense. He wants to revert the world to what he perceives to be normal for its own sake. He pays no regard to the means by which he does this, nor does he care for the consequences of his actions.

Simply put, he's a human being in pursuit of beauty. He's a dreamer trapped within an ideal, to the point where the material world loses much of its meaning. Call him a mass murderer or a psychopath all you like, but his intentions are the purest I've seen in this series so far.
I think that you're probably giving Makishima a bit too much credit here. Makishima is willing to victimize countless people in order to achieve his goals. You can't really separate that from "The Ends Justify the Means", imo. So saying he has "the purest of intentions" strikes me as a bit of an overly idealized way to assess him.

He has a highly sympathetic and understandable end goal, and so it would be nice if he succeeds, but the way he looks down on people to the extent where he's entirely comfortable in snuffing out lives to test people (as we saw in how he killed Akane's friend) is certainly monstrous in a way.


But I will say that I could now imagine Makishima being a person who could live non-violently and non-criminally in a world like our own. I don't think he needs chaos for its own sake, but he will create chaos as a means to an end.
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Old 2013-02-02, 04:26   Link #65
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I think that you're probably giving Makishima a bit too much credit here. Makishima is willing to victimize countless people in order to achieve his goals. You can't really separate that from "The Ends Justify the Means", imo. So saying he has "the purest of intentions" strikes me as a bit of an overly idealized way to assess him.
Let me clarify what I meant when I said that:

Makishima is essentially a person who has disconnected himself from the material reality. He is single-mindedly dedicated to that one ideal that he strives to achieve with all his power. He cares about absolutely nothing else but that goal, not Sybil, not society, and most certainly not human life. So yes. As abhorrent and potentially destabilizing it all is, in my eyes, there is no purer intention than the single-minded pursuit of knowing and the beauty that comes with it. After all, even the great tower of information that humanity has built-up over the years was originally a product of the simple desire to know and understand the world with little regard for humanity's interests.

Just to be absolutely clear here, the purity I'm talking about here is probably not the same kind of purity you have in mind. As dangerous as it is, I believe that there's a certain beauty, or even innocence, in being able to pursue an idea without considering anything else.
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Old 2013-02-02, 07:41   Link #66
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One bet down that the sybil mainframe uses the brain of those that are PP immune as it's processing elements.
At which point, Akane turns all Jesus figure on us, sticks her brain into the mainframe, and her sacrifice causes a more moral and rational sybill system to be manifested.


Does this sound familiar?
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Old 2013-02-02, 08:05   Link #67
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I think that you're probably giving Makishima a bit too much credit here. Makishima is willing to victimize countless people in order to achieve his goals. You can't really separate that from "The Ends Justify the Means", imo. So saying he has "the purest of intentions" strikes me as a bit of an overly idealized way to assess him.
I want to add to the whole "ends justify the means" thing. I think anime often creates villains whose end goal might actually be something we can sympathize with. After all this creates a morally gray area and it's certainly better than the mustache twirling villain.

In Makishima's case yes his goal of overthrowing the Sybil system is something I can agree with. I think the system is obviously wrong as demonstrated by Makishima's actions and other instances in the story.

However is Makishima's actions the only way to overthrow the sybil system? Makishima (and his partner) have been shown to be geniuses. The only think they can come up with is this type of violence? I just can't sympathize with that. You might say evil to fight evil but there are certainly innocent people caught up in all this.

In fact while the sybil system is wrong I imagine when it was created it was probably also created with the purest intentions to improve the country.

No I don't have an idea of how Makishima could have went about this a different way, but then I am no genius.
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Old 2013-02-02, 08:21   Link #68
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Qilin View Post
Let me clarify what I meant when I said that:

Makishima is essentially a person who has disconnected himself from the material reality. He is single-mindedly dedicated to that one ideal that he strives to achieve with all his power. He cares about absolutely nothing else but that goal, not Sybil, not society, and most certainly not human life.
Well, I honestly think you're misinterpreting Makishima here. I think it's very clear that he cares about Sybil (i.e. he sincerely wants to rid the world of it).

I also don't think he has just one single-minded goal. I think he has multiple goals, or at least hopes. Yes, he hopes to rid the world of Sibyl. However, I think a big part of him is also hoping that Kogami figures out his plan so he can have a thrilling challenge (and, perhaps a meeting of the minds) with Kogami.

So I don't think that Makishima is all about any one lone thing. I think he's more complex than that.


Quote:
So yes. As abhorrent and potentially destabilizing it all is, in my eyes, there is no purer intention than the single-minded pursuit of knowing and the beauty that comes with it.
Why would this be any "purer" than any other single-minded pursuit? Is it more or less "pure" than a person who devotes his life to some sort of political ideal?


Quote:
After all, even the great tower of information that humanity has built-up over the years was originally a product of the simple desire to know and understand the world with little regard for humanity's interests.
I don't think that's accurate. Much scientific research, and certainly numerous inventions, were all about high regard for humanity's interests. For example, many cures were discovered not out of some desire to "know things" for the sheer sake of knowing things, but out of a more practical desire to help people combat a horrible disease.
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Old 2013-02-02, 08:51   Link #69
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Well, I honestly think you're misinterpreting Makishima here. I think it's very clear that he cares about Sybil (i.e. he sincerely wants to rid the world of it).

I also don't think he has just one single-minded goal. I think he has multiple goals, or at least hopes. Yes, he hopes to rid the world of Sibyl. However, I think a big part of him is also hoping that Kogami figures out his plan so he can have a thrilling challenge (and, perhaps a meeting of the minds) with Kogami.

So I don't think that Makishima is all about any one lone thing. I think he's more complex than that.
Sybil only exists an obstacle towards his perceived ideal, which is to say that he only cares about it just enough to be able to get rid of it. As for Kogami, let's not forget why Makishima so interested in him. It's because he sees "something" in Kogami, something that that he's looking for. I'd say Kogami has that spark of humanity or normality that he's been pursuing all this time. It all leads back to the same thing in the end.

Of course, I'm not denying that Makishima has an ego because he has a damn huge one, but it's precisely because of that that he can cause so much terror and chaos without batting an eye.
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Why would this be any "purer" than any other single-minded pursuit? Is it more or less "pure" than a person who devotes his life to some sort of political ideal?
I've emphasized that I perceive the pursuit of knowledge or beauty for its own sake as purer than anything else. For me at least, it's when people pursue knowledge with the intention of benefiting from it that it becomes "tainted" with human interest.

Take my view with a grain of salt of course. It's mixed in with a lot of personal sentiment.

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I don't think that's accurate. Much scientific research, and certainly numerous inventions, were all about high regard for humanity's interests. For example, many cures were discovered not out of some desire to "know things" for the sheer sake of knowing things, but out of a more practical desire to help people combat a horrible disease.
Now, you seem to be misunderstanding me. I'm not saying that all knowledge is borne from a simple desire to know. I was simply talking about the foundation. Also, you're not looking far back enough.

It's no surprise that religion, art, and science all sprung from the same source: a fundamental appreciation of the nature, a desire to translate the vastness of the universe into the realm of human understanding. In ancient Greece, for example, these three concepts were nearly indistinguishable from each other, and I suppose it need not be said that much of today's knowledge base comes from this age of human history. Of course, it was inevitable that practical applications began to take precedence, and I don't condemn that at all. I just think it's quite fine and wonderful to return to the roots of it all, to pursue such things as an end, and not just as a means.
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Old 2013-02-02, 09:15   Link #70
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Sybil only exists an obstacle towards his perceived ideal, which is to say that he only cares about it just enough to be able to get rid of it.
I think that's downplaying it a bit. Makishima thinks that Sybil is a system that has made many humans something less than human (which is partly why he can kill so easily and without remorse). I think he views Sybil as an abomination that should be done away with for the good of humanity in a larger sense.

Makishima clearly doesn't care about human life for its own sake; he only sees value in human life if that life is free from the corrupting influence of Sybil or a system like Sybil. But nonetheless, I do think he cares about the future of humanity in general.


"Give me freedom or give me death" - Patrick Henry.

I think that Makishima feels that this applies to humanity as a whole - Any human that isn't free has a truly worthless life.

Don't get me wrong - He's not a wild-eyed idealist. He realizes the great practical obstacles that stand before him. And so he's aware that destroying Sibyl may leave nothing but destruction in its wake. But I think Makishima hopes that there is something of value beyond Sibyl.

I'll leave it at this for now, but I might discuss this more with you later.
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Old 2013-02-02, 09:21   Link #71
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I want to add to the whole "ends justify the means" thing. I think anime often creates villains whose end goal might actually be something we can sympathize with. After all this creates a morally gray area and it's certainly better than the mustache twirling villain.

In Makishima's case yes his goal of overthrowing the Sybil system is something I can agree with. I think the system is obviously wrong as demonstrated by Makishima's actions and other instances in the story.

However is Makishima's actions the only way to overthrow the sybil system? Makishima (and his partner) have been shown to be geniuses. The only think they can come up with is this type of violence? I just can't sympathize with that. You might say evil to fight evil but there are certainly innocent people caught up in all this.

In fact while the sybil system is wrong I imagine when it was created it was probably also created with the purest intentions to improve the country.

No I don't have an idea of how Makishima could have went about this a different way, but then I am no genius.
There's a simple explanation for this. Makishima isn't trying to destroy the Sybill systems for reasons that the layperson would regard as heroic. People had previously postulated that Makishima might not actually CARE if anything was left standing after the Sybill system fell down, and they were pretty much spot on. Makishima just happens to find the system to be distasteful. I think it's extremely unlikely that he opposes the system based on any kind of mainstream humanistic/human rights basis.


"Ends justify the means" isn't really a good way to describe Makishima's actions either. Quite frankly, helping to provide cyborg hunter guy a steady supply of *game* to hunt and kill in secret isn't exactly a revolutionary activity, and it didn't contribute anything to this latest large scale operation. In fact, the ending of this episode makes one wonder if this operation is less of some kind of end run plan on Makishima's part, or him helping to set things off, then tagging along as the hacker guy and his buddies indulge in their curiosity about the Sybill system.


I will say though. As fundamentally fascinating/scary Makishima is, I can't help but think of him as being a bit of a hipster. What with his "E-books are too plebeian" spiel. I can't but think when Choe actually gets a paper back of the books Makishima suggested, Makishima will lecture him again about how he should have gotten the incredibly rare first edition printing, since current day printings lack *character*
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Old 2013-02-02, 09:39   Link #72
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I think that's downplaying it a bit. Makishima thinks that Sybil is a system that has made many humans something less than human (which is partly why he can kill so easily and without remorse). I think he views Sybil as an abomination that should be done away with for the good of humanity in a larger sense.
That was pretty much what I was trying to say, so cool. Just that, like I've been saying a lot in these threads, I don't think he's doing this for humanity's sake, but for his own ego and the deep-seated preconceptions that lie within it.

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But nonetheless, I do think he cares about the future of humanity in general.
I'm of the opinion that he only cares so much as it adheres to his ideal concerning how humanity "should be". So no, I don't think he cares about the human race in general. Rather, what he seems to care about is the idea of "humanity", that is to say, the state of being "human". And it's that idea that he's trying to recover at any cost.

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I think that Makishima feels that this applies to humanity as a whole - Any human that isn't free has a truly worthless life.

Don't get me wrong - He's not a wild-eyed idealist. He realizes the great practical obstacles that stand before him. And so he's aware that destroying Sibyl may leave nothing but destruction in its wake. But I think Makishima hopes that there is something of value beyond Sibyl.
I don't disagree with you. I'm not downplaying his motivations in any way. He genuinely wants to take down the Sybil system which pretty much strangles the human spirit. My issue here is with motivation. All I'm saying is that he's closer to an artist in pursuit of an ideal than some humanist with a utilitarian mindset.
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Old 2013-02-02, 10:04   Link #73
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There's a simple explanation for this. Makishima isn't trying to destroy the Sybill systems for reasons that the layperson would regard as heroic. People had previously postulated that Makishima might not actually CARE if anything was left standing after the Sybill system fell down, and they were pretty much spot on. Makishima just happens to find the system to be distasteful. I think it's extremely unlikely that he opposes the system based on any kind of mainstream humanistic/human rights basis.
Actually that isn't what I got from this episode at all. It's not that Makishima doesn't care, in fact I think he would rather there be "something" after the destruction or he is at least curious what that could be. However I think he believes "nothing" is still better than then the current state if it comes to that.

As for the "ends justifies the means" I am not sure if Makishima himself thinks in these terms, but I still see him as this type of antagonist and it is an antagonist/character that Urobuchi likes to write. After all we constantly measure Makishima actions vs the Sybil system in discussions. For example lets say there is something after the destruction and the world does become a better? Then how do we judge Makishima's actions?

If you are saying that Makishima did not care about coming up with another method because for him this isn't about "basic human rights" then yes that I agree with. But then I have another question is Makishima's extreme of humans turning into wolves any better than the sybil system turning humans into sheep?
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Old 2013-02-02, 11:24   Link #74
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As for the "ends justifies the means" I am not sure if Makishima himself thinks in these terms, but I still see him as this type of antagonist and it is an antagonist/character that Urobuchi likes to write. After all we constantly measure Makishima actions vs the Sybil system in discussions. For example lets say there is something after the destruction and the world does become a better? Then how do we judge Makishima's actions?
Still pretty poorly I'd say. He certainly has no empirical interest in humane society, so if anything like that originated it'd be more because of the people like Rina or Akane than because of him. You certainly wouldn't judge a typhoon that killed thousands of people a good thing just because it demonstrated how inefficient a government was, and allowed humanitarian reformers to change it, would you?
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If you are saying that Makishima did not care about coming up with another method because for him this isn't about "basic human rights" then yes that I agree with. But then I have another question is Makishima's extreme of humans turning into wolves any better than the sybil system turning humans into sheep?
Well that depends on whether or not you think the Sybil system is worse than a place like Somalia. Which can't really be fairly evaluated until you consider how much starving sucks.
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Old 2013-02-02, 11:51   Link #75
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As dangerous as it is, I believe that there's a certain beauty, or even innocence, in being able to pursue an idea without considering anything else.
And how exactly do you know, that all he can think about is this one goal? He does not give the vibe that he is in any way obssesed with the idea of destroying the sybil system. Yes, he does a lot of planning and manipulating to get there, but that just boils down to what kind of person he is.

To me he looks like a definition psychopath. Highly intelligent, manipulative and no feelings of conscience. For him this is nothing but a game. He is meassuring his strength with the sybil system and he is disgusted with the petty humans, who have stopped thinking and became sheep. Because being able to think freely, plan things ahead like a chess player is Makishimas specialty.

It is correct he does not do this for the good of the society, but I dont see any indication of this being anything more to him, but a game. A game he needs to play to keep his twisted mind pleasantly occupied. Not much beauty in that, nor is this something to be admired.
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Old 2013-02-02, 12:37   Link #76
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It's clear to me that one of Makishima's goals is to take down or interfere with the Sybil System, but I don't see him doing it as a heroic act, either. He's just out to have 'fun,' according to his definition of the word, which happens to include chaos, violence, and a lack of societal stability. I assume this is the 'normalcy' he was referring to when speaking with his collaborator.
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Old 2013-02-02, 12:53   Link #77
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Makishima said this:

Quote:
If there's something beyond the destruction, that's good.If there isn't,then I'll accept it.
The way I see it is that if this was all just destruction for destruction's sake he wouldn't care either way.If he's ready to "accept" there being nothing,it's because he hates sibyl enough that he'd rather there be nothing.

That doesn't mean I don't think he's twisted (he's capable of cold blooded murder) but to me this is more than just a game to him.
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Old 2013-02-02, 12:58   Link #78
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I think his desire for destruction is a bit more sophisticated than to just destroy things. He wants to take down the system, for sure, however I think his ultimate goal is a lack of stability. He finds entertainment and garners enjoyment from watching the bonds of the system break down. His plans have shown that he wants more violence, more panic, but not for any reason other than that he considers it 'normal.' In this light, he does want to take down Sybil, but I do think, on some level, it's something of a game for him.
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Old 2013-02-02, 13:10   Link #79
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Gu Seung indeed put it very simply and succinctly when he stated, "Those who are perfectly happy entrusting everything in their lives to some nonsense like that are the ones who're crazy."

Bang.That one line just perfectly captured my own misgivings with the Sibyl system.
...Can anyone explain how the two bolded things are the same thing? Because I'm not seeing it.


You can't really agree with what a guy says unless you actually realise what he's saying.
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Old 2013-02-02, 13:55   Link #80
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Oh no... this series could go anywhere from here. I hope they aren't in the "Matrix."

There is no mention of a national or federal government yet! Where is the army/self defense forces? Where is the backup?

This series could go Big O now. This could all be a simulation. Everyone in the city could be a prisoner, mental patient, passenger in a spaceship.

What or who is the Sibyl system?
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