The Novel and Manga of Haruhi Suzumiya

[ClockWorkAngel]

There's many rhetorical things about "good" and "evil" I just use those as terms, there's in fact no "good" and "evil" just a common agreement on what it is. Is killing one person to save someone else wrong? Some may ask, who is the other person? And depending on that it can be overlooked. But no doubt if absolute judgement is used, then it IS wrong. But human judgement is corrupted like that. Though we may think as long as the good from the action is greater than the bad of the outcome means that its right, in reality as long as we're doing something bad, though the entirety of the action may be concieved as good, there are evil aspects to that action.

Lao Tzu once said, “The words of truth are always paradoxical.”

And in this case its true, often enough, for you to do something "good" something "evil" is done, of course in a different person's perspective. Perspective is always the key.

[ganbaru]

Originally Posted by Sol Falling

:
As far as morality goes, absolute moral relativism seems to be the standard nowadays, what with stuff like Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil. I had this revelation on the crapper the other day, though, that humans as social animals will have a sort of engrained internal morality scale, that runs on two axes. Basically, as far as right and wrong goes, even humans without a concious moral compass will subconciously measure acts by empathy (the social aspect) and necessity(the animal aspect). Any acts which violate either one of these principles may be considered 'evil', and any act which violates one in the name of the other may be considered 'ambivalent', on a scale determined by the degree of adherence versus the degree of violation for each aspect.

That more a ''acquired'' than a ''engrained'' internal morality scale, because it based on the ''value'' teached fron parents/elders/society/surrounding. And of course thoses value came from the time humankind ''created god(s), devil as a mean to help to live in group, but also to protect themself ( ''he did something harmful agains me because he is evil'' or ''bad thing happend to me because of god(s)/the devil'' )

[Roger Rambo]

It's hard to argue that one side is evil or not. We simply don't have any idea about the real identity of either faction.

And while we might not like sneering bastard because he kidnapped Mikuru, lets stop and think for a moment about the 2 rival time traveling factions.

Faction Mikuru:Wishes to maintain their historical continuity.
Faction sneering bastard:Wants to prevent the invention of time travel.

The thing that strikes me most about the Mikuru faction, is their adherence to continuity. This was explained in the short story where they manipulated Kyon into causing a random guy to get injured, so that he'd meet his future wife who was working at the hospital. The Time travelers did this, because they need that guy to have the children he did, so that the future as the future people remember it exists.

This seems lovely and noble, until you begin to examine the mechanics of it further.

What if in order for the time travelers future to come true (as in, history has to stay the same) has to include a major war breaking out between two countries who have a dispute with each other. Lets say diplomats from the two countries meet together, and find a mutually beneficial compromise that would avert war, and put the two countries on friendly terms.

To ensure that the war does happen, and future remains the same, the time travelers sabotage the peace talks. A war breaks out, and hundreds of thousands of people die in it.


Given that Future Mikuru has openly stated that ensuring the future that people from her own time experience is her ultimate objective, I'm not going to jump to the conclusion that the rival future faction is necessarily evil.

[ganbaru]

Why would we not be looking at the intend of all faction:

Nagato' faction; getting information for archiving evolution
Kuyou's faction: ?
Koizumi' faction: Keeping their god (haruhi )happy, worshipping their god
Kyoko's faction : Having a full god ( Sasaki), worshipping their god
Mikuru's faction: preserving the present time-line
Sneeking bastard' faction : Prevent time travel

Saying than one side is good and the other is evil is only a mather of partisanship, all the daction than we know the intend may have some very good reasons for having those intend.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

Koizumi' faction: Keeping their god (haruhi )happy, worshipping their god

The organization is one more unknown groups involved. We're not sure if every member of it is an Esper, and that it didn't exist before "three years ago" event. Their goal seems to be more along the lines of preserving the human race, and reality as we know it from chaos.

The groups with Espers in them really are a wild card compared to the time travelers and the data space people. We are fairly knowledgeable about how their groups are organized. Much less is obvious about the organization, and the anti org.

[PastPrime]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

Mikuru's faction: preserving the present time-line
Sneering bastard' faction : Prevent time travel

I don't think that he is actually trying to prevent Time Travel. If he was then he would not have given Kyon the memory chip. It is quite possible that he represents an alternate future. One of the new time lines could lead to him and the other to Mikuru. And the decision that Mikuru big told Kyon that he would have to make will determine which time line to follow. But it must involve a lot of other things too since she was worried about what his decision would be.

[azziz]

Originally Posted by PastPrime

I don't think that he is actually trying to prevent Time Travel. If he was then he would not have given Kyon the memory chip. It is quite possible that he represents an alternate future. One of the new time lines could lead to him and the other to Mikuru. And the decision that Mikuru big told Kyon that he would have to make will determine which time line to follow. But it must involve a lot of other things too since she was worried about what his decision would be.

i read all the novel but don't remember that,which novel(and chapter) was it?-Kyon already decided to correct nagato interferance when she stole haruhi power,is that what you're talking about?

[PastPrime]

Originally Posted by azziz

i read all the novel but don't remember that,which novel(and chapter) was it?-Kyon already decided to correct nagato interferance when she stole haruhi power,is that what you're talking about?

No. Volume 7 when Mikuru from a week in the future comes back and Mikuru Big leaves them tasks to accomplish. One of those tasks is to recover the damaged memory module with Time Travel formulas on it and send it to an address. SB got it first, but he gives it to them saying that it is necessary for his future too. At the end Mikuru Big meets with Kyon and tells him what she can of why he and Mikuru from a week in the future did what they did. And she mentions that he will have to make a big decision and she hopes that it is in her favor.

[Tyabann]

For the good/evil thing...

The "greater good" is a form of justification for immoral acts. In reality, there is no such thing.

Evil acts are evil acts, regardless of the motivation behind them.

Sometimes you do have to commit evil acts to create a good outcome, but that's a slippery slope.

It's better to find a way to create the best outcome without committing atrocities.

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

What if in order for the time travelers future to come true (as in, history has to stay the same) has to include a major war breaking out between two countries who have a dispute with each other. Lets say diplomats from the two countries meet together, and find a mutually beneficial compromise that would avert war, and put the two countries on friendly terms.

To ensure that the war does happen, and future remains the same, the time travelers sabotage the peace talks. A war breaks out, and hundreds of thousands of people die in it.

Interesting idea, but, because of the way time travel works, they would already have interfered, from their perspective.

They have no choice but to cause the war. They cannot choose, because the future has already happened.

Originally Posted by PastPrime

I don't think that he is actually trying to prevent Time Travel. If he was then he would not have given Kyon the memory chip. It is quite possible that he represents an alternate future. One of the new time lines could lead to him and the other to Mikuru. And the decision that Mikuru big told Kyon that he would have to make will determine which time line to follow. But it must involve a lot of other things too since she was worried about what his decision would be.

Time travel does not work that way.

The Haruhi series seems to follow the Novikov Principle (for the most part).

Essentially, the future cannot be changed, because it has already happened. There is only one timeline, and it cannot be changed. It can only be fixed, restored, or otherwise affirmed.

The only exception appears to be the "Harupowers", and it is this last that I believe Fujiwara and his people want control over. With Haruhi (or Sasaki) under their command, they could rewrite history and thus create the ideal world they want.

If the time travelers and data entities, due to their foreknowledge of events, have no free will, then Haruhi's powers, to them, must represent the freedom they have been looking for.

[cicero]

Originally Posted by PastPrime

No. Volume 7 when Mikuru from a week in the future comes back and Mikuru Big leaves them tasks to accomplish. One of those tasks is to recover the damaged memory module with Time Travel formulas on it and send it to an address. SB got it first, but he gives it to them saying that it is necessary for his future too. At the end Mikuru Big meets with Kyon and tells him what she can of why he and Mikuru from a week in the future did what they did. And she mentions that he will have to make a big decision and she hopes that it is in her favor.

The text of that would be:

Spoiler for for length:

The stranger’s smile vanished off his face, and was replaced by a look of extreme boredom. With a flick of his finger, he flicked the transmitter towards me, as the small, black, board-like item traveled through the air in a trajectory course. Before it landed on the ground, I quickly shot forward to catch it.

“Take it then. It’s something I have to do after all. Do as you wish with it, and you can follow those silly orders for all I care. Continue to do as the time travelers tell you to, if you really want to.”

I looked at the object in my arms, which resembled a digital camera’s memory card, albeit one which I had never seen before. I couldn’t tell if it was dirty after being placed in the flowerbed, or if that was its original color.

Ah, whatever. Most importantly, it was safely in my hands right now. The thing which I had to worry about was this guy before us now.

“Who the heck are you, and how did you know we would be here?”

“Hmph.”

The guy’s sneer became more apparent.

“Aren’t you the same? What are you doing here? Why have you come all the way here? Why? Aren’t I supposed to ask you that first?”

Seeing someone who was roughly of the same age as I behave so arrogantly made my anger boil. However, I knew that I couldn’t let my anger get the best of me. Now was not the time to do things according to my own feelings.

Plus, Asahina-san was tightly hugging me, apparently very much intimidated by the stranger.

“The person you should be questioning isn’t me.”

The stranger said, as his gaze fell onto the figure by my side.

“Isn’t that so? Asahina Mikuru?”

I tightly held Asahina-san’s hand, as she continued to clutch onto my jacket.

“W-What do you mean? I d-don’t know you… Where have you…”

The stranger’s smile turned into a frown.

“I see… It’s your first time meeting me eh. Treat this as ‘Nice to meet you’ then. But to me, I’ve already met you several times now. You get what I mean Asahina Mikuru?”

I never loathed someone so much in my life before, as I found myself being pushed to the limits. From the malice in this guy’s eyes, it was obvious that he viewed Asahina-san as his enemy.

I may be mistaken, but I definitely felt that he was human. I’ve never met someone who so openly showed his animosity before. I never liked him from the first time I saw him, and it seemed that he had no intentions of hiding his hatred either, as he openly made snide remarks. I hate these type of characters, and I was sure Haruhi did too.

“If you have anything you want to say, just spit it out.”

Whenever someone suspicious appeared before me, I would find myself toughening up. The only person I would allow to babble such crap would be Koizumi. I continued, as my voice became firm, “If there’s anything you need from me, just say it out loud. Do you need me to relay a message to Haruhi? Or how about I introduce you to her, huh?”

“There’s no need for me to meet with Suzumiya Haruhi.”

Upon hearing his reply, I was initially shocked, but quickly got over it. I thought that this guy had some business with Haruhi. Apparently I was wrong.

“I am different from Asahina Mikuru,”

The stranger said as he shifted his eyes, gazing at the time traveler of the SOS Brigade, then shifting them towards me.

“You should think twice before following her orders so blindly. Reality is not just bound to you only. The same rules used to apply to me. That memory chip is an important artifact to the future. As long as you picked it up with your own hands, the future will not change no matter who obtains it. Isn’t that so?”

No, I’m afraid I don’t agree. I’ve been following my schedule pretty tightly until now, and that schedule clearly doesn’t state the appearance of a stranger like you.

“You’re pretty dim, aren’t you? Don’t you get it? What you’re doing won’t make much difference. Why am I here, you ask? Well, what do you think I’m here for?”

Actually, reading it again now, it seems pretty ambiguous. He seems to be saying that he's handing the chip over because he has to for timeline consistency.

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Time travel does not work that way.

The Haruhi series seems to follow the Novikov Principle (for the most part).

Essentially, the future cannot be changed, because it has already happened. There is only one timeline, and it cannot be changed. It can only be fixed, restored, or otherwise affirmed.

The only exception appears to be the "Harupowers", and it is this last that I believe Fujiwara and his people want control over. With Haruhi (or Sasaki) under their command, they could rewrite history and thus create the ideal world they want.

If the time travelers and data entities, due to their foreknowledge of events, have no free will, then Haruhi's powers, to them, must represent the freedom they have been looking for.

While I agree that there is initally one timeline, I would point out another possibility. Fujiwara could be from a different timeline if this different timeline came into possibility with a flexing of Haruhi's powers. Since Haruhi's powers can rewrite the timeline, then many things are possible around her. That is, if her power's existence created the possibility of an alternate timeline with time travelers and Fujiwara, then the probability of the originally privileged Mikuru's future automatically drops from its original 100% and existence becomes something meaningful to fight for, centered around Haruhi. To be clear, the new timeline would could into existence because their suddenly exists the possibility of fujiwara and co. intervening to cause Haruhi to change the future. And they only exist because the timeline now does. So yes, a closed causal loop. No one really understands how those work...
All this assumes that:
Time travelers can arrive from any timeline that has a possibility of existing, not just the most likely one. And that multiple possibilities are even tolerated by the universe.
In some sense, Haruhi's existence nullifies Novikov's principle.
There are self-consistent theories of time travel, etc. which don't invoke the principle, and I think that once you bring Haruhi's powers into play, one of these(ie multiple timelines) takes precedence.

....that was really difficult to type. I still don't think I got it out clearly enough. Oh well.

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by cicero

While I agree that there is initally one timeline, I would point out another possibility. Fujiwara could be from a different timeline if this different timeline came into possibility with a flexing of Haruhi's powers. Since Haruhi's powers can rewrite the timeline, then many things are possible around her. That is, if her power's existence created the possibility of an alternate timeline with time travelers and Fujiwara, then the probability of the originally privileged Mikuru's future automatically drops from its original 100% and existence becomes something meaningful to fight for, centered around Haruhi. To be clear, the new timeline would could into existence because their suddenly exists the possibility of fujiwara and co. intervening to cause Haruhi to change the future. And they only exist because the timeline now does. So yes, a closed causal loop. No one really understands how those work...
All this assumes that:
Time travelers can arrive from any timeline that has a possibility of existing, not just the most likely one. And that multiple possibilities are even tolerated by the universe.
In some sense, Haruhi's existence nullifies Novikov's principle.
There are self-consistent theories of time travel, etc. which don't invoke the principle, and I think that once you bring Haruhi's powers into play, one of these(ie multiple timelines) takes precedence.

Multiple timelines can't exist, though. It's the whole point of the principle.

Unless Haruhi created the alternate timeline, it can't exist. Specifically, her powers only nullify the principle when used to do so.

In addition, a time traveler from an alternate timeline would more fall under the definition of "slider" than anything else.

Besides, Fujiwara has actually met Mikuru before, and since she doesn't remember, he probably means her older self.

[cicero]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Multiple timelines can't exist, though. It's the whole point of the principle.

Unless Haruhi created the alternate timeline, it can't exist. Specifically, her powers only nullify the principle when used to do so.

In addition, a time traveler from an alternate timeline would more fall under the definition of "slider" than anything else.

Besides, Fujiwara has actually met Mikuru before, and since she doesn't remember, he probably means her older self.

Well what I'm saying is that if there's a possibility that in the future she does so, then that future can't be any more privileged than the "original" because when Haruhi overwrites, she overwrites everything
So yes, Haruhi overrides the principle only when she actively uses her powers, but when she does do so it applies to all time, so even the possibility of her doing so in the future, unless it is definitely resolved by Haruhi herself, is enough to allow another timeline to semiexist, in the sense that it's not really secure unless the other timeline is eliminated.
Also, if there were two timelines, I would say that they would both be part of the universe, competing to be "the" timeline, and neither would really be an alternate, unless you define the less likely one as such.

Look, I'm not saying that the books make this obvious or there is tons of (or even any) evidence for this. I'm just saying that the wide scope of Haruhi's powers make such an interpretation possible, and we won't really know for sure until Tanigawa resolves it (whenever that happens...).

Also, I've always interpreted Fujiwara's statement more along the lines of, they've met each other while maneuvering through the past, and possibly fought.

Edit: Just to make my point especially clear. Supposed Haruhi has some chance in the future of creating another timeline, or even just changing the timeline. Then if that timeline sends people to the past to before she changes things, you would expect to see those people in the past. It's Haruhi's power which allows such sketchy things as possibilities of people to have a somewhat real existence.

[PastPrime]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Multiple timelines can't exist, though. It's the whole point of the principle.

Unless Haruhi created the alternate timeline, it can't exist. Specifically, her powers only nullify the principle when used to do so.

In addition, a time traveler from an alternate timeline would more fall under the definition of "slider" than anything else.

So you are saying that in volume 9 both Alpha and Beta are one timeline and Kyon is talking on the Telephone to two people at the same time and doesn't realize it. If not then I don't see a problem with the possibility of the time line split leading to two different groups of Time travelers. And I do not see why it would require a slider to go back to a time before the timelines split which would be common to both groups. If they do lead to different futures then in one of the Time Lines Mikuru should no longer be able to reach her superiors.

[Kogetsu Shirogane]

Time travel is a difficult concept to accurately convey, and nearly impossible to use as an "afterthought" to a story. Every theory or principle that exists about time travel is guaranteed to conflict with one another, and is impossible to actually prove, simply because time travel itself cannot occur.

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by cicero

Well what I'm saying is that if there's a possibility that in the future she does so, then that future can't be any more privileged than the "original" because when Haruhi overwrites, she overwrites everything
So yes, Haruhi overrides the principle only when she actively uses her powers, but when she does do so it applies to all time, so even the possibility of her doing so in the future, unless it is definitely resolved by Haruhi herself, is enough to allow another timeline to semiexist, in the sense that it's not really secure unless the other timeline is eliminated.
Also, if there were two timelines, I would say that they would both be part of the universe, competing to be "the" timeline, and neither would really be an alternate, unless you define the less likely one as such.

Occam's Razor.

Originally Posted by cicero

Edit: Just to make my point especially clear. Supposed Haruhi has some chance in the future of creating another timeline, or even just changing the timeline. Then if that timeline sends people to the past to before she changes things, you would expect to see those people in the past. It's Haruhi's power which allows such sketchy things as possibilities of people to have a somewhat real existence.

Now that is an interesting idea. The possibilities of people...

But again, the simpler explanation is that Fujiwara is from the same timeline as Mikuru.

Originally Posted by PastPrime

So you are saying that in volume 9 both Alpha and Beta are one timeline and Kyon is talking on the Telephone to two people at the same time and doesn't realize it. If not then I don't see a problem with the possibility of the time line split leading to two different groups of Time travelers. And I do not see why it would require a slider to go back to a time before the timelines split which would be common to both groups. If they do lead to different futures then in one of the Time Lines Mikuru should no longer be able to reach her superiors.

You make an excellent point, but chances are one of the timelines (probably Beta) isn't going to survive Vol. 10.

So the timeline never existed, hence Fujiwara never existed, if he was from that timeline.

Originally Posted by Kogetsu Shirogane

Time travel is a difficult concept to accurately convey, and nearly impossible to use as an "afterthought" to a story. Every theory or principle that exists about time travel is guaranteed to conflict with one another, and is impossible to actually prove, simply because time travel itself cannot occur.

In real life, yes. In fiction, things like the principle are useful because they help to avoid universe shattering paradoxes.

[Kogetsu Shirogane]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

In real life, yes. In fiction, things like the principle are useful because they help to avoid universe shattering paradoxes.

Amusingly, pretty much every work of fiction that involves time travelers actually interacting with the past and/or future creates paradoxes, and Haruhi is no exception. About the only instance that doesn't create a problem of some sort is the John Smith thing, which seems to be the only one that was planned ahead of time. Though, given Melancholy's very standalone-ish nature, Haruhi noting that Kyon seemed familiar could have really meant anything until Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody.

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by Kogetsu Shirogane

Amusingly, pretty much every work of fiction that involves time travelers actually interacting with the past and/or future creates paradoxes, and Haruhi is no exception. About the only instance that doesn't create a problem of some sort is the John Smith thing, which seems to be the only one that was planned ahead of time. Though, given Melancholy's very standalone-ish nature, Haruhi noting that Kyon seemed familiar could have really meant anything until Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody.

Where are there paradoxes in Haruhi other than those caused by her or others using her powers?

And no, I'm not counting predestination paradoxes and time loops. Those still make sense.

[Kogetsu Shirogane]

Disappearance has a rather nasty one which basically makes Kyon's entire existence afterwards questionable.

Spoiler for ... I'm not even sure why I'm putting this in spoiler tags...:

The scene features Ryoko going in to kill Kyon after non-fatally stabbing him. However, she is stopped by an alien version of Yuki before she can reach him. This Yuki was brought from the future by Kyon and the younger version of Mikuru to save Kyon.

Wait, did I say what I think I did? "This Yuki was brought from the future by Kyon... to save Kyon?"

There is absolutely no way that Kyon could have been able to arrange for that to happen if he was already dead for months. If he had managed to survive somehow, he still wouldn't be in a world where Yuki and Mikuru were the alien and time traveler we know and love. Even worse, Yuki would probably be so shaken by the whole act that she'd try to avoid him altogether, and an earlier point in the story shows that Mikuru wouldn't believe a word he said. Plus there's the whole fact that there would be two different Kyons in the same point in time.

If you have an explanation for this instance, I'd really love to hear it. This isn't sarcasm, I truly do wish for an explanation to this situation, as it's the one moment in Disappearance I've never really understood.

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by Kogetsu Shirogane

Disappearance has a rather nasty one which basically makes Kyon's entire existence afterwards questionable.

Spoiler for ... I'm not even sure why I'm putting this in spoiler tags...:

The scene features Ryoko going in to kill Kyon after non-fatally stabbing him. However, she is stopped by an alien version of Yuki before she can reach him. This Yuki was brought from the future by Kyon and the younger version of Mikuru to save Kyon.

Wait, did I say what I think I did? "This Yuki was brought from the future by Kyon... to save Kyon?"

There is absolutely no way that Kyon could have been able to arrange for that to happen if he was already dead for months. If he had managed to survive somehow, he still wouldn't be in a world where Yuki and Mikuru were the alien and time traveler we know and love. Even worse, Yuki would probably be so shaken by the whole act that she'd try to avoid him altogether, and an earlier point in the story shows that Mikuru wouldn't believe a word he said. Plus there's the whole fact that there would be two different Kyons in the same point in time.

If you have an explanation for this instance, I'd really love to hear it. This isn't sarcasm, I truly do wish for an explanation to this situation, as it's the one moment in Disappearance I've never really understood.

Did you read Vol. 7?

It's a predestination paradox, or a casual loop or sorts.

Kyon remembers hearing his own voice (as well as the voices of Yuki and Mikuru) at the point where he passes out, therefore he knows that he has to go back in time to save himself, and bring Yuki and Mikuru with him.

In the prologue of Vol. 7, he does just that, closing the loop.

It's a bit confusing, but it's not a universe-shattering paradox.

[Kogetsu Shirogane]

I'm not referring to the predestination paradox of him knowing he has to go back and do it, I'm referring to the ontological paradox of him only living because he will eventually go back and do it. You seem to have missed that point.