Shin Sekai Yori - Episode 25 [End] Discussion / Poll

[Kirarakim]

Originally Posted by Trajan

Please see my post above for evidence that the Messiah was not a slave.

Please note that people who actually read the novel seem to disagree with you. Taking children away from their parents to turn them into basically killers...you don't see anything wrong with that?

My point was that just as the PK users of the past killed non-PK humans for trivial reasons (not clapping enough), the current PK users kill queerats for trivial/obscure reasons.

Both sides killed each other in the past.

Finally, if I understand you right, you believe that if you have two groups, A and B, and A has power over B and commits unspeakable acts of horror against group B, that it is morally unjust for group B to seek its freedom, if by doing so they have to destroy A entirely. You prefer evil in power over good, if in order for evil to be destroyed good has to commit evil. That's a very interesting moral framework.

The issue is you seem to think committing another act of horror gives you the moral high ground.

I am also at a loss how you suddenly see the monster rats as the unbiasedly "good group". Were they just frolicking around in peace and love except for those evil PK users, no they were killing off each other too.

The point is there is no good or evil in this story.

[kuromitsu]

Originally Posted by Trajan

Squealer first "used" Satoru to take down the Ground Spiders in a purely defensive engagement. It was Kiroumaru who asked Satouru to act offensively against the Ground Spiders by assaulting their nest. The only other time he "used" Satoru's PK was in the skirmish with the Goat Moth's, which was most likely to show dominance and did not cause the death of any queerats.

First Squealer begged Saki and Satoru to help his colony out in battle, but that didn't happen because the kids decided to escape instead. Later on when they met up again, Squealer's colony had been more or less wiped out, save their queen, and he and his troops were out for revenge, using Satoru. He led them on a road he claimed was safe, except it wasn't, but when the kids realized this it was too late and all they could do was go ahead, keeping Squealer & Co. safe and fighting the enemy in their stead. As for Kiroumaru, he never asked Satoru anything - Satoru acted on his own, because he and Saki would've been caught up in the explosion as well. And two years later Squealer used Satoru to intimidate and literally "crack" another colony that they were on unfriendly terms with.

Originally Posted by Trajan

Contrast this with the humans, who after they have won, nevertheless annihilate all the rebelling colonies even though they no longer pose a threat to humans.

Poison gas. Poisoned arrows. Mutants. Or just plain old revenge and fear that someone who has once risen against them will rise again.

Originally Posted by Trajan

Did Squealer ever wish painful suffering on a human, like Tomiko did? Did he ever torture a human out of revenge and for his own pleasure, like the council did?

.
You're completely dismissing the humans' side of the story. Whatever your opinion is of them, they suffered. Innocent people who had nothing to do with anything were killed, had their friends, families, loved ones killed in grisly, horrible ways. Would you be completely cold-headed and forgiving in such a situation? Wouldn't you want revenge? They didn't torture Squealer for their "pleasure," they did it because they wanted justice and revenge. Did they go too far with the punishment? Yes, but there's a reason why. I'm not saying that excuses what they did, but it was a very natural and very human reaction.

Also, humans exterminating bakenezumi is bad, but bakenezumi exterminating humans is okay, just because they're oppressed underdogs? Come on...

Originally Posted by Trajan

Did Squealer murder Maria & Mamoru? Probably, but the series never says what happens to them (and way to not ever ask about it Saki!). Moreover, both were marked for death by the Board of Ed, so it's not like Squealer is somehow worse than the humans here.

1) They were marked for death for a very good reason (that ended up being proven by the story).
2) Satoru actually brings up the topic of Mamoru and Maria in the book, along with the deaths of all those humans, and Squealer's silence speaks volumes.

Originally Posted by Trajan

But there is no evidence in the series that the child was ever treated like a slave. Temporally, the first time we see the child is after the wildlife crew has slaughtered some queerats, she screams out in terror at seeing her fellow colony members killed and retaliates. She later operates completely independently of the queerats at the hospital and then pursues Saki and Satoru alone on a boat. After she defeats Shisei, we briefly see her talking to a queerat who appears to be deferential to her. And she is called the Messiah.

Okay, let's break it down. The kid is raised so her biology prevents her from turning on bakenezumi ever. They can do whatever they want with her, she'll never ever be able to stand up for herself or defend herself against them. She's completely at their mercy. As long as she behaves and does what they tell her it's all right, but if she ever tried to go against them she'd be punished and she wouldn't be able to do anything about it. They could kill her and she'd be completely helpless against them. Doesn't this sound very familiar....?

(Also, 1) she screams all the time so that doesn't mean anything, 2) she doesn't operate independently. Just because you didn't see rats with her doesn't mean they weren't there, they just didn't want to get in the line of fire, so to speak. The humans may not be able to take out the kid but they can sure take out a bakenezumi or two before they go down. 3) also, by "a rat who appears to be deferential to her" do you mean this?

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Like a dog and its owner...)

Forgot this:

Originally Posted by Trajan

Please provide evidence that these children would be treated as slaves. You are confusing the way Kiroumaru's colony, which views soldiers as pawns

No, Squealer was the one who viewed his soldiers as pawns. (He's even called out on it by Satoru.) Hell, he had the queens create malformed mutant bakenezumi just so he could use them in battle and suicide missions.

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by Trajan

Contrast this with the humans, who after they have won, nevertheless annihilate all the rebelling colonies even though they no longer pose a threat to humans.

Is it really a surprise that people who had only just experienced extreme terror, with their families and friends murdered before their eyes, their village destroyed, and their babies kidnapped to be raised as slaves would have no feelings of mercy towards the people who had just tried to commit genocide and wipe them all out, who did not regret attempting to do so but only regretted that they had failed? If the PKers did want every bakenezumi killed as a precaution or as revenge, they had certainly been severely provoked. The conflict that Squealer chose to start was one where the losers, whoever they might be, could reasonably expect to all be killed.

That said, Saki did work to prevent the annihilation of the bakenezumi, and going by the list we were shown in the anime, she was able to make it so that at least four of the local colonies were saved.

Originally Posted by Trajan

And if you think you can fight evil in this world while remaining pure yourself, you are sadly mistaken.

Which is one reason why there is no pure and "good" side in this series, because SSY is a series where people commit atrocities in order to ensure their survival. The PKers and the bakenezumi are just the same in many ways. The current PKers want to not be all horribly murdered by the overwhelming power of Fiends and Karma Demons? To do so they felt they had no choice but to ruthlessly eliminate any potential threats, even though those included many innocent children, and to brainwash most of their population heavily. The bakenezumi want to be the dominant species and/or be free from being killed by the overwhelming power of PKers? To do so they felt they had to ruthlessly eliminate all the PKers. Want to obtain individual rights and not be killed asking for them? That meant lobotomising their mother and keeping her chained for breeding.

[creb]

The only thing that makes Shin Sekai Yori not complete is the lack of a sex scene involving one of the Queens.

Whatever unlucky male(s) had that role once they lobotomized their queens...oh boy.

[Trajan]

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

Please note that people who actually read the novel seem to disagree with you. Taking children away from their parents to turn them into basically killers...you don't see anything wrong with that?

Please note that this is the anime thread, not the novel thread. The anime is a distinct work of art. The novel thread is elsewhere. People who actually read the novel also believe the akki is a boy, but that gets them jack here ;-) But the kid is what, 10? Satoru was 12 when he went around murdering queerats left and right. Is he "basically a killer"? Maybe there is more to this akki. Maybe she was loved and revered: "Lord Messiah, daughter of Maria." After all, she only started killing humans after the Wildlife officers killed her queerat buddies right in front of her outside the cave.

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

The issue is you seem to think committing another act of horror gives you the moral high ground.

Never in the history of the world has a just cause ever been successfully prosecuted without doing some act of horror. Your argument seems to be, even if you are treated as a worm, if you cannot change your situation without harming the spade that slices you in two, you are morally prohibited from acting. That's just nuts.

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

I am also at a loss how you suddenly see the monster rats as the unbiasedly "good group". Were they just frolicking around in peace and love except for those evil PK users, no they were killing off each other too. The point is there is no good or evil in this story.

Untrue. The point, at least one of them, is that there is both good and evil in this world. The question is whether a particular polity is more good than evil. this is the duality of the humans and the queerats in the series both represent "man" in different ways. It is my view that the equality professed by Squealer and the society he has built is "more good" than the society the PK users have built. Since there is a fatal conflict between the two, I side with queerats, because I believe they have a more just society than the PK users. If both cannot exist, or one has to be subservient to the other, I would prefer it be the queerats.

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

Poison gas. Poisoned arrows. Mutants. Or just plain old revenge and fear that someone who has once risen against them will rise again.

So you just gave one justified reason (queerats are a threat) and one unjustified reason (fear & revenge). Which is it? If I kill you in self-defense it is justified, but if I murder you in cold blood it is not. The reason the humans exterminate the queerats determines whether it is morally justifiable or not.

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

You're completely dismissing the humans' side of the story. Whatever your opinion is of them, they suffered. Innocent people who had nothing to do with anything were killed, had their friends, families, loved ones killed in grisly, horrible ways. Would you be completely cold-headed and forgiving in such a situation? Wouldn't you want revenge? They didn't torture Squealer for their "pleasure," they did it because they wanted justice and revenge. Did they go too far with the punishment? Yes, but there's a reason why. I'm not saying that excuses what they did, but it was a very natural and very human reaction.

Justice and revenge are diametrically opposed concepts, you cannot claim them both at the same time. Of course innocent humans suffered. It's war! Do you believe like Kirarakim that if you cannot free yourself from tyranny without killing an innocent that you are morally prohibited from acting? Just enjoy being a worm, but a righteous worm? Innocent people die in every war. Squealer targetted all PK users because all PK users were legtimate combatants. Satoru states this position clearly. When William Wallace is tortured at the end of Braveheart, were you all, "guy deserved it because he killed some innocent Englishmen!" And they most certainly did do it for their pleasure. They wanted to satiate their thirst for vengeance, a pleasurable, if ghastly, emotion.

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

Also, humans exterminating bakenezumi is bad, but bakenezumi exterminating humans is okay, just because they're oppressed underdogs? Come on...

Well, my position on this is consistent. Queerats have to exterminate all PK users in order to secure their freedom and equality. Humans do not. Therefore, queerats are more justified in exterminating their enemies than the humans.

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

1) They were marked for death for a very good reason (that ended up being proven by the story).
2) Satoru actually brings up the topic of Mamoru and Maria in the book, along with the deaths of all those humans, and Squealer's silence speaks volumes.

1. Huh, so the reason the the Board of Ed wanted to kill M&M is because the Board knew they would procreate and create a child who believed it was a queerat. Okay, that makes zero sense. It's true that if they died earlier many humans would still be alive, but the Board did not seek to kill them to prevent this specific tragedy. They also wanted to kill Saki, shame that didn't happen too, right?
2. Again, the novel thread is elsewhere. But if someone asks you to defend you actions, and all you can give is silence, it is an indication that you know your acts are indefensible. This sense of shame is only ever exhibited by two other characters, Saki and Shun--the humans with the moral sensibilities nearest our own. If anything, the fact that is aware he has committed an evil act improves my opinion of Squealer. Satoru, on the other hand, dismisses all the queerats he's killed as non-human even after finding out the truth. Maybe it's the hypnosis, or the fear of death feedback, but the point is that he is incapable of seeing what he did as wrong. That is the behavior of a sociopath.

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

Okay, let's break it down. The kid is raised so her biology prevents her from turning on bakenezumi ever. They can do whatever they want with her, she'll never ever be able to stand up for herself or defend herself against them. She's completely at their mercy. As long as she behaves and does what they tell her it's all right, but if she ever tried to go against them she'd be punished and she wouldn't be able to do anything about it. They could kill her and she'd be completely helpless against them. Doesn't this sound very familiar....?

It does, but there is nothing in the anime that suggests this is how the Messiah was raised. But what you are saying is that the human children are "slaves" to the adults in the PK community. I'm fine with that if that's the way you want to argue, but it hardly shows the humans are better than the queerats. And even if I accept your claim, at least Squealer never altered and replaced the Messiah's memories ;-) (PS, how did Saki gets her back in order to write the letter I wonder . . .)

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

(Also, 1) she screams all the time so that doesn't mean anything, 2) she doesn't operate independently. Just because you didn't see rats with her doesn't mean they weren't there, they just didn't want to get in the line of fire, so to speak. The humans may not be able to take out the kid but they can sure take out a bakenezumi or two before they go down. 3) also, by "a rat who appears to be deferential to her" do you mean this?

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Like a dog and its owner...)

You've taken that picture out of context. You want people to think that the Messiah (note the name, really the name you give to a slave, eh?) bowed down before the queerat, but in actuality the Messiah was already prostrate after batting Shisei and simply raised her head to the queerat. Also, you didn't see Jesus in the background because he was hidden too, and he was cool with the new Messiah going Old Testament on the PK users. The author told me over Skype.

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

[No, Squealer was the one who viewed his soldiers as pawns. (He's even called out on it by Satoru.) Hell, he had the queens create malformed mutant bakenezumi just so he could use them in battle and suicide missions.

I assume that second piece of info is from the book (Squealer, you should have had the Queen pop out queerats that look like humans, buddy!). Again, this is the anime thread, but I would just point out that the humans created mutant housecats to kill their own children. As to the first, when did Squealer ever just throw his troops away for no good reason? Of course he treated them as pawns in the strategic sense, any military commander would. But to take from that he did not value them at all is a bit much. His men love him; he is their liberator! In fact, the only way he wins is by conserving his forces much as possible and only committing them when absolutely necessary. If he had been just throwing his forces into combat like cannon fodder, he would have been defeated far before Tokyo.

Also, Satoru is an individual who is incapable of recognizing and accepting many things, so holding him up as some objective truth-teller is misplaced. One of them, ironically, is that he cannot understand why someone would willingly give their life for another, even though that is what he does for Saki. In the tunnel, he simply cannot accept that the soldier would willingly die for Squealer, who Satoru believes must have lied to them. But the soldier gives the same reason for fighting that Squealer gives to Saki, the queerats hate living like slaves and would rather die fighting for their freedom than continue in their current state.

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

Is it really a surprise that people who had only just experienced extreme terror, with their families and friends murdered before their eyes, their village destroyed, and their babies kidnapped to be raised as slaves would have no feelings of mercy towards the people who had just tried to commit genocide and wipe them all out, who did not regret attempting to do so but only regretted that they had failed? If the PKers did want every bakenezumi killed as a precaution or as revenge, they had certainly been severely provoked. The conflict that Squealer chose to start was one where the losers, whoever they might be, could reasonably expect to all be killed.

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

Which is one reason why there is no pure and "good" side in this series, because SSY is a series where people commit atrocities in order to ensure their survival. The PKers and the bakenezumi are just the same in many ways. The current PKers want to not be all horribly murdered by the overwhelming power of Fiends and Karma Demons? To do so they felt they had no choice but to ruthlessly eliminate any potential threats, even though those included many innocent children, and to brainwash most of their population heavily. The bakenezumi want to be the dominant species and/or be free from being killed by the overwhelming power of PKers? To do so they felt they had to ruthlessly eliminate all the PKers. Want to obtain individual rights and not be killed asking for them? That meant lobotomising their mother and keeping her chained for breeding.

But here's the difference between the two. The PKers had another choice. They could have sought to eliminate their power through genetic manipulation, hypnosis (remember how the kids had theirs blocked), and interbreeding with non-PK users, so that over the course of several generations it might fade away. Instead, they did the exact opposite; they worked to refine and control their power, eliminating anyone who showed a lack of PK as well as steering their whole education system towards polishing their abilities. It's true, this was partially to prevent the rise of fiends and akki, but don't kid yourself that they did not enjoy this power.

The queerats, on the other hand, were put into their situation by the PK users. They did not choose to be made beasts. They did not choose to have to rely on a single queen for reproduction. They did not choose to be slaves. All those things were done to them by the PK users. So when conflict between the two sides arises, of course I think the side that has been horribly transformed, enslaved, and had their humanity stripped away has the better argument for eliminating those who have enslaved them than vice versa.

And I would just point out that no one in this thread has yet posited a compelling alternative by which queerats achieve equality with humans without killing all of them. In fact, the rage the humans show to the queerats after victory proves that Squealer was right, every one of them had to be killed, lest they visit unthinkable retribution on the queerats.

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by Trajan

But here's the difference between the two. The PKers had another choice.

...

The queerats, on the other hand, were put into their situation by the PK users.
...

So when conflict between the two sides arises, of course I think the side that has been horribly transformed, enslaved, and had their humanity stripped away has the better argument for eliminating those who have enslaved them than vice versa.

The actions of the past PKers in genetically altering the bakenezumi were truly horrific, but I think you're letting that blind you to the fact that the people alive at the time of Shin Sekai Yori's action are not the same people. The PKers are also living with the consequences of the genetic alterations they received from their ancestors, and very few of them are aware either of what their ancestors did, or of the truth behind the way their society operates, and their society and genetics are set up in such a way as to prevent them from discovering and examining those issues. The people alive at the time in the story that we watched were mostly innocent people who did not have the choices you are suggesting. Their ancestors were the ones with the choices, not them.

(With Saki and Satoru, there is a small hope that they will be able to move things towards real change, but we'll never know if they succeeded.)

Are we to look at those mostly innocent people and say that it is just for them to have genocide committed against them, only because of their guilty ancestors?

So, lets pretend that the bakenezumi's plan had succeeded instead of failed. Now, they have successfully committed genocide against innocent people, and taken their children for slaves. Does this now mean that a surviving human population years on would be justified in taking bloody revenge and committing genocide against innocent bakenezumi who had nothing to do with the subjugation and genocide of the humans?

All that does is move the "justified" target around based on whose ancestors committed the previous atrocity in order to justify the current atrocity which will then become the previous atrocity that justifies the next. And so on. It doesn't solve anything, and it isn't justice. I gave my reasons above for why I think the current PKers and current bakenezumi are very similar in many ways, that both are in situations where they feel they must commit atrocities in order to survive. But you are saying that the critical difference between them which makes it morally better to kill innocent PKers, is that their ancestors had choices?

[garbage]

Beautiful final episode!

Was afraid since the series had some hiccups previously, glad everything turned out well.

Wareta Ringo remains as one of the best ED/OP song the past year.

[kuromitsu]

>Trajan

You a) are so lost in your sense of righteousness that you're dismissing or even twisting everything I say in which case there's no point in arguing with you, b) weren't paying attention while watching the show in which case there's no point in arguing with you, or c) you're trolling (Satoru the sociopath!) in which case there's no point in arguing with you.

So I'd just like to point out two things:

Originally Posted by Trajan

It does, but there is nothing in the anime that suggests this is how the Messiah was raised.

Yes, well, I mean it's not like her being incapable to harm bakenezumi was a plot point or anything... Also, if this doesn't matter because her masters treat her well unless she does something she shouldn't do, then the bakenezumi being at the mercy of humans shouldn't matter either because hey, they're being treated well unless they do something they shouldn't do.

Originally Posted by Trajan

I assume that second piece of info is from the book (Squealer, you should have had the Queen pop out queerats that look like humans, buddy!).

No, it's not from the book. Where do you think the bakenezumi mutants came from? The big dolphin-like sumifuki, or the ones that conveniently happened to have a body type similar to humans? No, seriously, did you think they just randomly popped out of nowhere one day?

Also, what Satoru doesn't understand is not the notion of self-sacrifice (lol) it's how Squealer can claim to work for his brethren when he sent hundreds of them to their certain deaths. (Do you think he seriously believed the attack on the festival would be a success?)

[Kirarakim]

Originally Posted by Trajan

Do you believe like Kirarakim that if you cannot free yourself from tyranny without killing an innocent that you are morally prohibited from acting?

Please do not twist my words. I said it was understandable that both the PK users and monster rats did horrible things.

I also understand why the monster rats see themselves differently from how the PK users treated them and they tried to change this. However I also understand why the PK users viewed them differently and Satoru's words at the end of the story "they are not like us" and the implication and what it really means. And no Satoru is not a sociopath.

There is no good or evil in this world. Both groups understandably were doing what they needed to survive and no one took the moral high ground. In the end if the monster rats had won they would have been the ones in power killing off the PK users and turning their children into slaves to kill off other PK users. The fact that you think there is a moral high ground means you are completely missing the point of the story.

[Trajan]

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

The actions of the past PKers in genetically altering the bakenezumi were truly horrific, but I think you're letting that blind you to the fact that the people alive at the time of Shin Sekai Yori's action are not the same people. The PKers are also living with the consequences of the genetic alterations they received from their ancestors, and very few of them are aware either of what their ancestors did, or of the truth behind the way their society operates, and their society and genetics are set up in such a way as to prevent them from discovering and examining those issues. The people alive at the time in the story that we watched were mostly innocent people who did not have the choices you are suggesting. Their ancestors were the ones with the choices, not them.

Are we to look at those mostly innocent people and say that it is just for them to have genocide committed against them, only because of their guilty ancestors? . . . But you are saying that the critical difference between them which makes it morally better to kill innocent PKers, is that their ancestors had choices?

What makes you think the current PKers are innocent and have no capacity to change their situation? They exist in what is essentially a slave empire. Their lifestyle and society necessarily requires the enslavement and occasional genocide of tens of thousands of intelligent and sentient creatures, all so they can maintain their superiority. Saki herself becomes part of a mechanism that recommends and tries to implement the wholesale slaughter of probably half a million queerats. She is innocent? Hardly.

Moreover, the PK users maintain a morally corrupt society by continuing on the policies of their forebears. They could choose to grant queerats equal rights, could choose to stop committing genocide on them, but they do not. You seem to believe that if you are born into a morally bankrupt society, but did not actively create that society, you are innocent if you continue the exploitation of others and reap those rewards. I simply cannot agree with that.

For example, under your theory, in the antebellum South, once a plantation was founded, any successor generations not only had no moral obligation to free the slaves, but were morally innocent in profiting from the exploitation and dehumanization of the slaves. And if the slaves revolted, killing their masters, it is the slaves who are the immoral ones. Is that really your argument?

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

Yes, well, I mean it's not like her being incapable to harm bakenezumi was a plot point or anything... Also, if this doesn't matter because her masters treat her well unless she does something she shouldn't do, then the bakenezumi being at the mercy of humans shouldn't matter either because hey, they're being treated well unless they do something they shouldn't do.

You're going far afield with this one. You have no evidence that the Messiah was ever treated poorly, but assume she must have been. It's just as easy to assume the opposite. She was loved by all and in return loved them, so when the time for war came, she wanted to slaughter all those evil humans because of what they had done to her friends and her "family". If Squealer wanted her to think she was no different than a queerat, the easiest way is to treat her no different than any other queerat. As an added bonus, that would make her a more effective weapon than your slave theory.

Also, recall that twice (outside the cave, in the hospital), she absolutely loses it and screams in agony at seeing dead queerats. Not really the screams of someone who grew up as the least among her people.

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

No, it's not from the book. Where do you think the bakenezumi mutants came from? The big dolphin-like sumifuki, or the ones that conveniently happened to have a body type similar to humans? No, seriously, did you think they just randomly popped out of nowhere one day?

I have no idea where they come from. You stated that Squealer forced the queens to create these mutants, but you apparently have zero evidence for that claim. It is certainly possible to assume the queens created them, but maybe Squealer went to Tokyo and captured them, or maybe another colony created them and presented them to the alliance as their contribution to the cause. Unknown.

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

Also, what Satoru doesn't understand is not the notion of self-sacrifice (lol) it's how Squealer can claim to work for his brethren when he sent hundreds of them to their certain deaths. (Do you think he seriously believed the attack on the festival would be a success?)

Yes, and it was a brilliant success. Squealer's forces took out the humans' two strongest PK users, killed dozens (hundreds?) of PK users, broke the spirit of the remaining population and sent them scattering to the wind, and secured a strategic location. It was an amazing tactical victory. You seem to think that if a leader puts his soldiers in a battle that he is not sure he will win, then he somehow does not care for his men. So Leonidas didn't care for his fellow Spartans at Thermopylae? Lee didn't care for his soldiers at Gettysburg? Bowie didn't care for his at the Alamo? And by your logic, Saki's parents didn't care for her since they gave her a highly difficult mission to travel to hell on earth to find a 1000 year old weapon that may or may not exist.

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

Please do not twist my words. I said it was understandable that both the PK users and monster rats did horrible things.

I also understand why the monster rats see themselves differently from how the PK users treated them and they tried to change this. However I also understand why the PK users viewed them differently and Satoru's words at the end of the story "they are not like us" and the implication and what it really means. And no Satoru is not a sociopath.

There is no good or evil in this world. Both groups understandably were doing what they needed to survive and no one took the moral high ground. In the end if the monster rats survived they would have been the ones in power killing off the PK users and turning their children into slaves to kill off other PK users. The fact that you think there is a moral high ground means you are completely missing the point of the story.

Satoru is a conditioned sociopath in the clinical sense in that he does not recognize "non-human" sentient creatures as possessing any rights. He shows "a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood." Now, it's not his "fault" due to societal influences, but it doesn't change the way he treats queerats and what label applies to him. Don't forget that the last shot we get of adult Satoru is him raising tainted cats to kill off undesirable children. His ideas of right and wrong =/= ours; Don't make the mistake of reading in your morality to Satoru.

And again, there is both good and evil in this world. To break this down simply. The queerats are fighting for freedom from tyranny and equal rights. The humans are fighting to maintain their tyrannical rule and the enslavement of millions of sentient creatures. These are not morally equivalent goals. I haven't mentioned it, but I am basically arguing that under Just War Theory, the aim and conduct of the queerats was "just", whereas the aims and conduct of the humans was not.

The queerats have a just cause (equality, freedom from enslavement) and act in a just manner (they kill no more than they must, unfortunately this is all PK users, as confirmed by Satoru and later events). The humans do not have a just cause (the continued enslavement of queerats so that humans may live simply and easily) and do not fight in a just manner (they apparently refuse unconditional surrender and instead murder hundreds of thousands of queerats). The two sides are not moral equals, either in aims or in conduct.

In closing, I'll ask again, since no one has even attempted to offer up an answer. What alternative course of action could the queerats have taken in order to free themselves from slavery and be treated as equals to humans?

Spoiler for PS - Saki saves:

PS - I'm not convinced Saki actually "saved" any queerat colonies. If the humans had no need of their slaves, why would the scientists go to the trouble of genetically altering them when they could presumably just wipe them out. The queerats were created, and continue to exist, because PK human society requires their existence (for labor, to serve as buffer states against external threats, etc.). After the war, the humans were never going to exterminate all queerats, simply because the humans still needed queerats. All Kiroumaru ensured was that his tribe would go on the "spared" list, not that a "spared" list would be created.

[hyperborealis]

Beautifully and persuasively argued, Trajan.

Since you convince me on almost every point, let me just give a rejoinder where I disagree.

Originally Posted by Trajan

Well, my position on this is consistent. Queerats have to exterminate all PK users in order to secure their freedom and equality. Humans do not. Therefore, queerats are more justified in exterminating their enemies than the humans.

I think the conflict is fatal for both sides: the humans in the end will only be able to secure their security by exterminating the bakenezumi. At his trial, Squealer promises that new revolutionaries will follow in his footsteps. Why doubt him? He almost won. And he has made clear to his descendents a clear and repeatable means to securing victory over the PK users. Saki's mercy ironically opens a future in which renewed war is inevitable, where defeat and the genocide of humans is a distinct possibility.

Given that likelihood, I think both queerats and humans are equally driven by a logic of extermination. If the humans restrain themselves from doing so, they do so as an act of noblesse oblige, a condescension to weakness of their opponents. However real Saki's kindness is, it is also an affirmation of the humans' overwhelming power over the queerats. As we learned in this narrative, this condescension is a folly.

Whatever the humans think, they and the queerats are equals in every sense except power. And the inequality of power between intellectually equal beings creates an unstable logic whose end can only be tragic.

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

There is no good or evil in this world. Both groups understandably were doing what they needed to survive and no one took the moral high ground. In the end if the monster rats had won they would have been the ones in power killing off the PK users and turning their children into slaves to kill off other PK users. The fact that you think there is a moral high ground means you are completely missing the point of the story.

Are you saying this about our world too? If not, why would there be good and evil in our world and not that of Shin Seki Yori?

Originally Posted by Trajan

The queerats have a just cause (equality, freedom from enslavement) and act in a just manner (they kill no more than they must, unfortunately this is all PK users, as confirmed by Satoru and later events). The humans do not have a just cause (the continued enslavement of queerats so that humans may live simply and easily) and do not fight in a just manner (they apparently refuse unconditional surrender and instead murder hundreds of thousands of queerats). The two sides are not moral equals, either in aims or in conduct.

The humans do have the just cause of remaining alive. Human life itself is an absolute good, which does not need justification. Of course everything else you say here is absolutely correct.

Again, beautifully argued. It is a pleasure reading your posts.

[Kirarakim]

Originally Posted by Trajan

Yes, and it was a brilliant success. Squealer's forces took out the humans' two strongest PK users, killed dozens (hundreds?) of PK users, broke the spirit of the remaining population and sent them scattering to the wind, and secured a strategic location.

Squealer who loved his men so much had no problem sending them to their deaths while he himself remained in a safe location.

Contrast this with Kiroumaru who always fought at the front of his men.

Satoru is a conditioned sociopath in the clinical sense in that he does not recognize "non-human" sentient creatures as possessing any rights.

Do you think animals have the same rights as human beings? The PK users realized the monster rats had intelligence but they did not see them as humans. As Saki said to Satoru "but they are animals". This is how they saw them, different from them. They didn't even see them as "slaves" and cannot understand why the monster rats saw themselves that way. We are talking about an unfortunate attitude that is ingrained in them. This doesn't make it right but killing them was not going to change those attitudes for sure.

In the end even learning the truth if the PK users viewed them as "humans" then the monster rats would have power over them because of death feedback. There is no win/win situation here unless they can create a situation where no one would kill each other. But in the end you just have one group in power over another group. If the monster rats won the roles would just be reversed.

And again, there is both good and evil in this world. To break this down simply. The queerats are fighting for freedom from tyranny and equal rights. The humans are fighting to maintain their tyrannical rule and the enslavement of millions of sentient creatures.

No the PK users were fighting for their lives. Maybe the PK users should have just sat back and let the monster rats slaughter them all because according to you that would have been the just cause of action. The Monster rats and PK users are going to attempt to fight back in this situation.

The queerats have a just cause (equality, freedom from enslavement) and act in a just manner (they kill no more than they must, unfortunately this is all PK users, as confirmed by Satoru and later events). The humans do not have a just cause (the continued enslavement of queerats so that humans may live simply and easily) and do not fight in a just manner (they apparently refuse unconditional surrender and instead murder hundreds of thousands of queerats). The two sides are not moral equals, either in aims or in conduct.

So unfortunately for the PK users they should just accept their slaughter.

There was no scene of unconditional surrender from the monster rat side.

In closing, I'll ask again, since no one has even attempted to offer up an answer. What alternative course of action could the queerats have taken in order to free themselves from slavery and be treated as equals to humans?

What alternative do the Pk users have? You seem to think they can just get rid of their PK and all would be right with the world. I think you misunderstand what happened with the children when their PK was masked (it was not really taken away at all or they would have been unable to get it back). They would still be affected by death feedback.

PS - I'm not convinced Saki actually "saved" any queerat colonies.

We see a list in the end of all the monster rat colonies that were saved by Saki.

If the humans had no need of their slaves, why would the scientists go to the trouble of genetically altering them when they could presumably just wipe them out.

We don't know, perhaps they couldn't bring themselves to slaughter who they at that time they knew were humans.

We don't have all the answers of what the scientists did many generations ago which have nothing to do with this generation.

Originally Posted by hyperborealis

Are you saying this about our world too? If not, why would our world have moral absolutes and not that of Shin Seki Yori?

I am saying there is no good or evil in the story or between the PK users and Monster Rats. The author created a morally gray world.

I am not saying evil or good in itself does not exist in their world or that individuals cannot take evil or good actions. Just that as the whole the monster rats or the humans are not the "good" or "bad" ones in the story.

edit: Even Squealer who I disliked through the story showed that he is not evil. I still think he did a lot of horrible things and don't agree with Tarjan's heroic view of him but in the end I understood the reasons he took many of the actions he did.

And on the other side Saki and Satoru who we sympathize with are not heroes who also did questionable things.

[hyperborealis]

Kirarakim, what is your view on the basic relationship between the humans and monster rats? Are you saying that it is morally neutral? Or that, while it is fundamentally unjust, that the humans are somewhat excused from maintaining it due to their ignorance of the monster rats' fundamental humanity? Is there a point where people become responsible for their ignorance? (Here I am speaking about the adults who are responsible for the brainwashing etc of others.)

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by Trajan

What makes you think the current PKers are innocent and have no capacity to change their situation?

I was responding to your argument, where you stated that the difference between the bakenezumi and the current PKers was that their ancestors had (previously) had other choices available to them, and this was why the genocide of their descendants was justified. I think that is a terrible argument in favour of genocide.

However, since you bring the point up, I would say that in regard to the current PKers, only their leaders truly have the ability to change their situation.

Originally Posted by Trajan

Saki herself becomes part of a mechanism that recommends and tries to implement the wholesale slaughter of probably half a million queerats. She is innocent? Hardly.

Interesting that you pick Saki of all people, because Saki is one of the few humans who was given low levels of brainwashing and is truly mentally capable of understanding the issues at hand, and as a result, she is fully accountable for her own actions. She receives as much information as the audience does, which is far more than any usual human from her society ever will, and she can be considered truly informed. She's also set to become the leader of the village, with the greatest opportunity out of all the PKers to change things. No, she's not innocent, and she doesn't have clean hands. We can already see in the final episode that she's the leader of the village and is raising the tainted cats in order to kill any potential Fiends and Karma Demons.

We do know from the series that Saki does want to change things, and that she is trying to do so. She's saved as many bakenezumi as she can, and she wants to remove the death feedback and progress to a better society. Perhaps she will succeed, perhaps not.

Now, what about someone who isn't Saki, who doesn't have the information or the capacity that she does? Remember, most of the people have been conditioned by hypnotism so heavily that even if they were given the sort of information she has, they would not be able to think independently about them. People who show any signs of being willing to break rules are murdered as children. And along with the mental and genetic conditiong, the system of rules is set up deliberately so that people will not consider the bakenezumi people or ask any questions about them.

What about, for example, the many children who were murdered in the bakenezumi attacks? What about the adults who lived in that society and had neither anything to do with the bakenezumi nor any influence upon their treatment? Did they deserve to be murdered and to have their entire families murdered?

Originally Posted by Trajan

They exist in what is essentially a slave empire. Their lifestyle and society necessarily requires the enslavement and occasional genocide of tens of thousands of intelligent and sentient creatures, all so they can maintain their superiority.

And I agree that's terrible. Also, that's exactly what Squealer was planning to do too. Human and bakenezumi society are just the same. Neither side in this conflict had their hands clean. However, I don't think that the individual humans and bakenezumi living within those societies deserve to die because their leaders set up (or tried to set up) such a situation.

Originally Posted by Trajan

For example, under your theory, in the antebellum South, once a plantation was founded, any successor generations not only had no moral obligation to free the slaves, but were morally innocent in profiting from the exploitation and dehumanization of the slaves. And if the slaves revolted, killing their masters, it is the slaves who are the immoral ones. Is that really your argument?

I'm afraid I don't know what the antebellum south in your example is, but you are certainly putting words in my mouth here. Allow me to put some in yours in return.

Your argument appears to be that if slaves revolt, killing their masters, and then put in place their own identical system of slavery with the roles reversed, that is a good and moral thing. Is that really what you're trying to say?

Look, the point that people are trying to make to you here is that there are no good guys in this series and that both sides are doing horrible things out of necessity. We are meant to conclude that neither side's actions are morally correct and that things ought not to continue the same way, but it will be a long and difficult process.

[Trajan]

Originally Posted by hyperborealis

Beautifully and persuasively argued, Trajan.

Thank you for the compliment.

Originally Posted by hyperborealis

Spoiler for mutual extermination:

Since you convince me on almost every point, let me just give a rejoinder where I disagree.

I think the conflict is fatal for both sides: the humans in the end will only be able to secure their security by exterminating the bakenezumi. At his trial, Squealer promises that new revolutionaries will follow in his footsteps. Why doubt him? He almost won. And he has made clear to his descendents a clear and repeatable means to securing victory over the PK users. Saki's mercy ironically opens a future in which renewed war is inevitable, where defeat and the genocide of humans is a distinct possibility.

Given that likelihood, I think both queerats and humans are equally driven by a logic of extermination. If the humans restrain themselves from doing so, they do so as an act of noblesse oblige, a condescension to weakness of their opponents. However real Saki's kindness is, it is also an affirmation of the humans' overwhelming power over the queerats. As we learned in this narrative, this condescension is a folly.

Whatever the humans think, they and the queerats are equals in every sense except power. And the inequality of power between intellectually equal beings creates an unstable logic whose end can only be tragic.

Well, like I said in my PS, I'm not sure that human society as it is currently constituted can exist without queerats. Antebellum southern plantations would simply not exist without slaves, and I think the same might be true here. But you are right about one thing. Both the human society itself and the human-queerat relationship are highly unstable and tend towards conflict. The humans might be destroyed at any moment if even one akki appears, either internally or with the queerats. The queerats risk annihilation should they offend the humans. It's not a system that lends itself to long-term stability. Really, the two most stable situations are: a) remove PK from everyone or b) give PK/death feedback to everyone (mutually assured destruction), but in order for that to happen, the humans have to give up their power advantage, which they do not seem willing to do.

Originally Posted by hyperborealis

The humans do have the just cause of remaining alive. Human life itself is an absolute good, which does not need justification. Of course everything else you say here is absolutely correct.

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

No the PK users were fighting for their lives. Maybe the PK users should have just sat back and let the monster rats slaughter them all because according to you that would have been the just cause of action. The Monster rats and PK users are going to attempt to fight back in this situation.

On one level I agree with you both, and I'm not claiming that once the war started the humans should have just let themselves be killed. However, once the humans have won, they reconstitute their society, which was fundamentally unjust, exactly as it was before. The queerats are back to being slaves, not only to the humans, but to their queens as well. The extermination of the defeated tribes and the return to the status quo ante is what I find unjustifiable.

And that is really the nub of the issue. For queerats to have freedom, humans must be exterminated. For humans to continue their society, queerats have to be enslaved. Some would argue that the second alternative is better, because both humans and queerats will exist, but I have to disagree. The PK users are essentially one colony of "humanity", along with all the other queerat colonies. Why should one colony of humanity be entitled to tyrannical rule over the others? Under the humans' own Code of Ethics, as I would apply it to the human colony through my concept of morality and justice, they have committed and continue to commit the most serious of crimes--crimes they themselves view as worth of genocide. If the PK users applied their laws to queerats to themselves, they would have to conclude they deserve collective death!

Spoiler for The Saddest Thing:

But the saddest thing in all of this, is that, notwithstanding Saki's hope, the lessons the PK users are most likely to take from these events is that it was a mistake to create Group 1. After all, one member turned into a gouma, and two others are responsible for the near destruction of the PK society. Saki might be the head of the ethics committee, but the other leaders might actually revolt if she suggested they should try again. If anything, the next batch of children will be even more closely scrutinized and more savagely culled.

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

Squealer who loved his men so much had no problem sending them to their deaths while he himself remained in a safe location.

Contrast this with Kiroumaru who always fought at the front of his men.

Squealer did fight at the front in the skirmishes against the Ground Spiders and the Goat Moths. Aside from that, he is a strategic genius. Do you really think he should be leading the charge only to get struck down by some stray arrow? When Kiroumaru's men made a hopeless stand to allow him to escape, does the fact that he fled mean Kiroumaru didn't care about his soldiers too? In our time, does that mean that every modern day general in every modern army does not care about his men because he isn't out there beyond the wire breaching doors or taking hilltops?

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

Do you think animals have the same rights as human beings. The PK users realized the monster rats had intelligence but they did not see them as humans. As Saki said to Satoru "but they are animals". This is how they saw them, different from them. They didn't even see them as "slaves" and cannot understand why the monster rats saw themselves that way. We are talking about an unfortunate attitude that is ingrained in them.

I do not think that animals have the same rights as humans, but I do not think that they have zero rights either. And if one day cows started talking, formed a democratic system, and asked me not to eat them, I wouldn't turn around and go to McDonalds and order up a double quarter pounder.

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

What alternative do the Pk users have? You seem to think they can just get rid of their PK and all would be right with the world. I think you misunderstand what happened with the children when their PK was masked (it was not really taken away at all or they would have been unable to get it back). They would still be affected by death feedback.

Maybe they can get rid of their PK. They apparently still have the ability to analyze DNA, and we never really got a good look at much of their society (where did that ginormous courtroom come from? I thought they didn't have crime, but they apparently have Star Trek VI). The hypnosis suggestion was one part of a program to reduce PK users' abilities, which would include breeding and genetic modification. And interesting question, if you subconsciously believe that your PK has been taken from you, can it still cause death feedback, which is your subconscious using your PK against yourself?

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

Well unlike most of your points which are in your imagination and not in the actual story, we see a list in the end of all the monster rat colonies that were saved by Saki.

My point was that the humans were never going to exterminate all queerats because their society needs queerats to exist. The "list" was always going to be created. Kiroumaru simply ensured that his colony made the list. Of course, Saki may have been responsible for saving more colonies than otherwise, but I don't think she "prevented the extermination of the queerats as a species." Now, I am aware that she says she does this, but just because she believes it, or puts it in a letter written partially to assuage her own guilt and defend herself to future generations, does not mean that is objectively what occurred.

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

We don't know, perhaps they couldn't bring themselves to slaughter who they at that time they knew were humans.

Well, I assume the PKers actually did kill off all the human commoners, otherwise they would continue to breed non-PK humans. The old emperors were killing so many commoners and slaves that the fields were becoming polluted with bodies, so it's not like in the pre-death feedback era PK users had a big problem killing off large numbers of non-PKers.

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

Now, what about someone who isn't Saki, who doesn't have the information or the capacity that she does? Remember, most of the people have been conditioned by hypnotism so heavily that even if they were given the sort of information she has, they would not be able to think independently about them. People who show any signs of being willing to break rules are murdered as children. And along with the mental and genetic conditiong, the system of rules is set up deliberately so that people will not consider the bakenezumi people or ask any questions about them.

What about, for example, the many children who were murdered in the bakenezumi attacks? What about the adults who lived in that society and had neither anything to do with the bakenezumi nor any influence upon their treatment? Did they deserve to be murdered and to have their entire families murdered?

Of course, children don't count since they don't have any rights until they are 18 ;-) Beyond that, the problem with this reasoning is that you are basically arguing that if you can convince yourself (or be convinced) that you are not doing anything wrong, then that is all that matters, and you become "innocent". Now, it is true that the brainwashed folks did not choose to be brainwashed, much as cancer doesn't choose to be cancer, but both must be eliminated for the healthy parts of the body politic to survive. And what alternative does Squealer have? Should he walk up to the brainwashed human and say "look buddy, I'm actually just like you, a human." All that gets him is blown into little pieces. From the queerats' point of view, every PK user is a weapon because their own leaders have turned them into weapons. He has no choice. His decision to kill all PK users is both proportional to the threat they present to him and necessary to achieve freedom for his people. Satoru confirms this. If you want to blame anyone for their deaths, blame the leaders who turned them into potential weapons to be used against the queerats.

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

And I agree that's terrible. Also, that's exactly what Squealer was planning to do too. Human and bakenezumi society are just the same. Neither side in this conflict had their hands clean. However, I don't think that the individual humans and bakenezumi living within those societies deserve to die because their leaders set up (or tried to set up) such a situation.

Your argument appears to be that if slaves revolt, killing their masters, and then put in place their own identical system of slavery with the roles reversed, that is a good and moral thing. Is that really what you're trying to say?

The antebellum South refers to the Southern United States prior to the Civil War, when large plantations with hundreds of slaves existed.

What evidence can you point to that shows that Squealer secretly wanted to create a new slave empire? Remember that taking the babies of the defeated colony for slaves occurred pre-revolution. A few pages back I laid out a long series of evidence that Squealer truly believed in equality between queerats and among queerats and humans, and immediately above I offer up an argument that the Messiah was most likely not treated as a slave. There is zero evidence that I am aware of that he secretly believed the exact opposite of what he consistently preached for over a dozen years.

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by Trajan

My point was that the humans were never going to exterminate all queerats because their society needs queerats to exist.

Do they, though? Why?

I don't remember anyone in the series saying that they needed the bakenezumi in order to exist. Kiroumaru thought that after Squealer's attack, if the humans won they would go ahead and kill every last bakenezumi. He wouldn't be thinking that if the humans couldn't exist without them.

[Kirarakim]

Originally Posted by hyperborealis

Kirarakim, what is your view on the basic relationship between the humans and monster rats? Are you saying that it is morally neutral? Or that, while it is fundamentally unjust, that the humans are somewhat excused from maintaining it due to their ignorance of the monster rats' fundamental humanity? Is there a point where people become responsible for their ignorance? (Here I am speaking about the adults who are responsible for the brainwashing etc of others.)

I think the relationship is fundamentally unjust but please note it is actually not just based on ignorance but seeing the monster rats as humans actually puts the monster rats above the humans. So knowing the "truth" about their origin actually does not change anything. They are no longer human to them they are new species. We also do not know who in their society actually has the knowledge of the truth of the monster rat origins.

That doesn't mean I think the monster rats should agree with this POV and shouldn't fight back for their rights. I am not judging either side, but it is easy to see the side that is "powerless" as the good side and not realize if the situation was reversed they would do the same thing as the PK users: again kidnapping the children so they could be used as killers against their own kind. How is this situation any different?

In the end the scientists have created a situation where one group will always be in power.


The situation is not about killing off one group or creating a role reversal where instead the monster rats are in power but finding a solution where both groups can live equally without killing each other. Is this a possibility, well I don't know.

In the end the scientists did not have faith in humanity hence why they created the death feedback in the first place (please note their actions were based on observations of what happened between the non-PK users and PK users in the other groups.)

The scientists created a situation where the PK users were defenseless unless they dehumanized the non-PK users. This is the situation we have to deal with.

Originally Posted by Trajan

I do not think that animals have the same rights as humans, but I do not think that they have zero rights either. And if one day cows started talking, formed a democratic system, and asked me not to eat them, I wouldn't turn around and go to McDonalds and order up a double quarter pounder.

I do think animals have right and I care very much about animals but as you pointed out they are treated very differently from humans.

The point I am trying to get across is while you and I see the monster rats as human, the PK users do not. I am not saying they are right in how they treat them. I am not saying the monster rats are wrong to want to be treated differently. But the PK users just don't see it like that. It might be ignorance but it is not evil and in the end we learn if they see them as human they become powerless against them.

[Trajan]

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

Do they, though? Why?

I don't remember anyone in the series saying that they needed the bakenezumi in order to exist. Kiroumaru thought that after Squealer's attack, if the humans won they would go ahead and kill every last bakenezumi. He wouldn't be thinking that if the humans couldn't exist without them.

No one ever explicitly claims this, but I think it's a reasonable hypothesis. The old scientists presumably had to kill off all the existing non-PK humans, otherwise they would continue to create non-PK human babies. I also assume the scientists did not simply inject them with something that turned them into queerats overnight (although this is SciFi . . .). So why bother taking the extra step of then creating a new species to serve as slave labor for the PK users if you did not need them? It's a lot of unnecessary work to do just because it's cool or whatever. And like I said before, I think Kiroumaru just wanted to ensure that his tribe made the list of colonies to be saved, not ensure that Saki would create a list.

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

The point I am trying to get across is while you and I see the monster rats as human, the PK users do not. I am not saying they are right in how they treat them. I am not saying the monster rats are wrong to want to be treated differently. But the PK users just don't see it like that. It might be ignorance but it is not evil and in the end we learn if they see them as human they become powerless against them.

I understand your point, but you have to understand that I am "reading in" my moral/ethical system to this story and making a moral judgment on the actions of the queerats and the humans. In using Just War Theory, I am picking a certain moral framework and applying it to the situation. I could just as easily say "might makes right" and therefore the humans are entitled to do whatever they want to the queerats. Or I could look at it through a species perspective and come to the conclusion that human society has stagnated (where is the new art, music, technology, etc.?) and they are heading towards a slow death whereas queerats are competing and developing a robust and growing society. Since both cannot exist in the same sphere, the stagnating humans should be exterminated so that the queerats can continue to grow. Or I could just run the numbers. There are many more queerats than humans, so we should kill the fewest number possible, which means the humans lose out.

If I may, I think your view is that since the humans do not know they are being evil, they are not acting evilly. But the queerats believe the humans are acting evilly. Since "evil" is not an objective concept, we cannot say whether the humans are acting evilly or not, or rather, we can say that the humans are acting both evilly and not evilly at the same time. And at a fundamental level, there is merit to this.

But in practice, I just don't see it as useful. You need to adopt some framework to judge a person's actions and intentions and orient your moral precepts. So when I claim the humans are acting evilly, I am really claiming that the moral framework their society has adopted is inferior to the moral framework adopted by the queerats. "Democracy and Equality are better Tyranny," basically. So my argument is that when two opposing moral frameworks cannot co-exist, I pick one (under my own moral framework), assert it is "more just", and believe that framework should exist and the inferior framework should be destroyed.

Unfortunately here, I do not see any way in which the human brainwashing can be undone except for killing the brainwashed humans. Maybe Squealer could have secretly hypnotized humans in their sleep I guess, but I find that a bit unrealistic. Killing all the "cancerous" humans is really his only option to ensure that his moral framework (which I think is the better) wins out over the humans' moral framework. Because it is necessary, and because I find his ideas of democracy and equality appealing, I find that his actions may not necessarily be "right", but they are excusable. On the other hand, I do not find the humans' slave empire to be morally appealing, therefore I do not find their actions in defending their empire to be excusable.

[Kirarakim]

Trajan well that is where you and I differ. I think the author has created a lose/lose situation here.

Please note I do not think the situation is better because the PK users won. I acknowledge that it just returned things to the status quo and there is nothing better about this situation.

However while I think the situation of the monster rats would have improved if they won. I think the death of the PK users would also not be better and I think turning their children into slaves would have just created a role reversal (I know we differ on our interpretation of this situation but that is how I see it.).

I think the power of this story is the situation is not black and white. I am not saying you should not have morals and not be upset at the situation. But being upset and saying something is wrong is different from saying there is one truly good side in this story. In my opinion there is not.

In the end we have both sides doing horrible things to each other, the only difference is who is in power.

edit: I also do not think the current situation is sustainable. The PK users might have won the war but they certainly did not get rid of the situation that created the war in the first place. There is nothing to say that the monster rats of the future will not rebel again.

[Dawnstorm]

I have a couple of things to say, but before I do, I'll have to say that I'm not concerned with what's "just" or what's "good" or "evil". I haven't ever found any of the terms to be particularly useful. I'm a social relativist at hear, I'm a materialist, and I'm certainly no humanist. I think I better state that up-front, so to avoid (or minimise) misunderstandings.

The easier points first:

If we're going with power-models, I don't think the relationship between humans and bakenezumi is one of slavery. It reminds me a lot more of feudalism, where the lords (humans) grant the bakenezumi (vassals) land in exchange for services. For much of the discussion, this may not matter, but it becomes relevant when bakenezumi society evolves. Humans may watch the procedures closely, but they hesitate to interfere. Basically, what the bakenezumi do is their own business, as long as it doesn't inconvenience the humans. That's a social dynamic that wouldn't be possible in a master-slave relationship. There would be a particular owner, and the owner would be responsible. Here, the bakenezumi themselves are on trial. Not their owners. See the difference?

That humans put bakenezumi on trial also shows that humans do acknowledge bakenezumi as sentient. I very much doubt they'd put one of the kitties on trial should it accidently harm someone it wasn't supposed to.

But humans clearly do not accept bakenezumi as equal. The feudalism-like system is legitimised - on the human side - by a perceived hiearachy of values when it comes to biology. It's better to be human than to be a bakenezumi. That's so obvious it's not questioned. Remember narrator Saki musing why the bakenezumi weren't based on meerkats instead? If they were cute, surely humans would treat them better? This is "enlightened" Saki, mind you. It's a pragmatic statement, but it's also sort of besides the point. It's not about treating them well; it's about accepting that they have as much rights as you do. Equality is not about treating them well; it's about letting them treat you as you treat them.

I do think Saki doesn't get this, and I think that's deliberate. I think we have Saki's account (as opposed to other points of view), because we're supposed to identify with her kindness, but we're - I think - also supposed to notice that Saki is - in some aspects - terribly naive, and that kindness is not enough. As long as you think you're charge, you're a threat.

Of course, this goes both ways. The set-up of SSY is brilliant that way: Trajan says there's no evidence that the kid's been treated as a slave. That may well be true, but it's every bit as much besides the point as whether or not humans treat bakenezumi well or not. On a social level, what will happen if the bakenezumi rebellion is a success and PK users are wiped out? They have their own human troupes still. What will their purpose be after the war is won? We have a class of individuals who cannot defend themselves. Literally. Will they keep them around? Or will they keep them in remote pens, guarded? (They might turn into akki or gouma, after all.)

When it comes to power relationships, in the long run, it'll be comfort, utility and desire tha determines how the less powerful are treated. And in SSY the power base is objectively biological.

That's also the reason why bakenezumi are bakenezumi in the first place; if death feedback hadn't put the PK users at the mercy of regular people whithout death feedback, there would have been no need to protect PK users from them. (I'm assuming the mechanism for death feedback involves the cantus, or it might have been simply implemented globally in the first place.)

It's a - beware the pun - rat race.

***

@Mutants: If you remember the early episodes, all the rats in Squealer's colony looked pretty much the same. Same for what we saw of most others. (Kiroumaru looked a tad different; more like a real rat than a mole rat.) The tsuchigumo tribe, on the other hand, had frog mole rats, and mole mole rats, and twig mole rats... lots of mutants. We know that Squealer got half of the tsuchigumo kids. Putting two and two together isn't hard. (Isolate them, let one of the females grow into a queen...)

What I don't know is to what extent these mutants are sentient. Imagine being a blow dog: your biology is volatile so you can blow up in someone's face. You take that role... willingly?

And that's the question, here. In human society, your kids may be taken away at any time. If you'd rather risk your life than kill your child that's fine, but you're also risking everyone else's. Are you fine with that? (The kids themselves don't get a say, either way.)

The situation for the bakenezumi insurrection is the reverse case: Squealer takes an enormous risk: succeed and everything's better, fail and everything's much, much worse. So: can Squealer make this decision for everyone? He may think the risk is worth it, but he takes it for every single bakenezumi out there. Mr. bakenezumi fanatic is obviously behind him, but someone like Squonk? Arguably, his life isn't that different whether it's threatened by divine wrath or by war conscription. Bakenezumi like Squonk might just want get on with their lives; they may not care about equality much, it's too abstract. Can you force them to be free? If nobody pays much attention to them, they pretty much do what they want to already. In the new bakenezumi society, will their lives even improve?

Believers have it easy, don't they? You believe that killing potentially dangerous children if fine. You believe that dignity is worth risking divine wrath. And off you go and "do the right thing". Except that's not what it feels like, it feels more like "do the wrong thing for the right cause". The judgement that the cause is worth the sacrifice is one the people in power make. The situation is such that these decisions necessarily affect everyone. Fair? Not?

For what it's worth, I do think that Squealer believes in his cause, and that the end justifies the both the means and the risk. There are plenty of bakenezumi who agree. So, yes, here I agree with Trajan:

Squealer is aware what he's doing. He knows what he's doing is wrong. I think that he doesn't want to enslave his queen, that he doesn't want to sacrifice so many bakenezumi for his cause, and I have a hunch that there may be humans he'd like to spare (though I doubt he cares for most of them). I'm not sure, though, to what extent he understands people like Kiroumaru, who do not think the end justifies the means. That's the problem with a democracy in the making: you have to decide who's part of it and who isn't, and then those who aren't can be conquered. Alternatively, as long as they leave you alone, they can be ignored. But if the decisions you make affect everyone, can they afford to ignore you? (We see this in politics regarding environmental issues, especially re. CO₂ emission...)

We have a situation with no good solutions. Someone in power has to decide one thing or another. Nobody can speak for everybody, but everybody will feel the consequences, one way or another.

Individuals build a society from the ground up; but a single PK user can be lethal, if unchecked. A single bakenezumi? Meh. One of the things about the show is that it encourages us to think in factions, and biological features (such as cantus, but also being a blow dog...) support that. But if you think the basis of equality is sentience, then we ought to be thinking in terms of individuals. It's hard to pull off, though, if biological features give you the edge. The world of SSY allows to flip a switch: one's on top now, the other tomorrow. This, though, is generally true: get rid of cantus and you get rid of that particular problem. However, that particular problem is just an exaggeration of a more fundamental one: where someone can abuse power, sooner or later, someone will abuse power. How do you live with that fear?

There's absolutely no difference between humans and bakenezumi on that level. It's a very abstract level, though. Make of it what you will.