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View Poll Results: Madoka Magica - Episode 10 Rating | |||
Perfect 10 | 294 | 82.12% | |
9 out of 10 : Excellent | 39 | 10.89% | |
8 out of 10 : Very Good | 13 | 3.63% | |
7 out of 10 : Good | 7 | 1.96% | |
6 out of 10 : Average | 2 | 0.56% | |
5 out of 10 : Below Average | 2 | 0.56% | |
4 out of 10 : Poor | 1 | 0.28% | |
3 out of 10 : Bad | 0 | 0% | |
2 out of 10 : Very Bad | 0 | 0% | |
1 out of 10 : Painful | 0 | 0% | |
Voters: 358. You may not vote on this poll |
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2011-04-05, 08:03 | Link #1061 | |
Segmentation fault
Join Date: Mar 2011
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2011-04-05, 10:35 | Link #1062 |
Hiding Under Your Bed
Join Date: May 2008
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Unless the translators failed (and they have certainly done so a number of times so I am totally not dismissing it), QB has one clear act of outright lying when he told Kyoko she could possibly save Sayako as shown when QB then talks with Homura after the fact and laughs about how silly Kyoko was for believing him because "of course that wasn't possible".
That said, whether this was just a bad translation or not, the bigger picture idea that QB is some robot constrained by a simple binary switches and and/or/not statements is incredibly simplistic and naive in my opinion. I feel like he clearly indicated in his conversation with Madoka when he tried to explain everything that the entire setup was done the way it was because his people thought it was the kind/nice way of doing things, implying that he does things this way out of kindness, not because he has to. All the truths and not forcing wishes etc can be seen as his own sticking to his own moral code of sorts, regardless of how unhuman it might be, not some set of universal laws that he must abide by. And if his acting "nice" just so happens to go hand in hand with needing the girls to voluntarily ask for a wish because the power to transform into a magical girl actually comes from them and QB is just acting as a catalyst of sorts, then from his alien race's perspective, all the better. And, if it isn't clear, the use of the word "nice" is done from the alien perspective. Obviously I think he's a bat shit manipulator that deserves anything horrible one's imagination can think up. I know people love to classify and order everything into discrete statements, but no human being acts that way and there's no reason an alien would as well. |
2011-04-05, 10:55 | Link #1063 |
Twilight lander
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He said that he doesn't know any precedents and was technically right. Besides, in theory you can use a wish to bring somone back... Althouh there don't seem to be any prdcedents either. Seriously, had Homura tried it in TL1... Could it have been a completely different story now?
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2011-04-05, 11:16 | Link #1064 |
Junior Member
Join Date: Apr 2011
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First seconds of the episode, I was actually thinking that I'd finally get a break from all heavy stuff that has happened so far(joke/filler episode came into my mind). I guess that was just my wishful thinking seeing as this is darker than the previous episodes. At least most of the questions I had were answered but it definitely opens up the big question as to how this will end.
If Homura were to indeed wish for Madoka to be revived, would she be back as a human or still an MG? I bet Kyubei would've made it so that she'd be an MG and become the witch that he hopes she would be. |
2011-04-05, 11:25 | Link #1065 | |
(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
Moderator
Join Date: Mar 2006
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His statement "of course that wasn't possible" is simply confirmation bias. You have a theory that a coin will land face up. You toss it, and it does. Theory confirmed....technically. It's rather unscientific however, because it ignores what could happen when you invoke sample size and strings of attempts. Just because it happened once, does not mean it will always happen. It also ignores other variables, for example what if Kamijou was the one trying to reach Sayaka instead of Madoka? If anything, it should be surprising that someone like Kyubey would dismiss the possibility so readily, however he also seems to be surprised at a number of other things in the show, like Madoka's potential and Homura's time travel abilities. If there's one point in the show that demonstrates to me that he didn't create the Magical Girl system, but merely subverted it, it's his conversation with Kyouko and his reply to Homura in episode 9. He may know some things about it, but he doesn't know everything. He only knows enough to manipulate it for his own gain, but he's confident that his manipulations will prevent the girls from figuring out and defeating his plans before it is too late. I sometimes wonder if his "we have no emotions" statement is yet another lie. Hell, his whole "entropy" speech screams bullshit, imo.
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2011-04-05, 12:07 | Link #1066 | ||||
Senior Member
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If and when a magical girl turns into a witch, then more energy is released, which Kyubey can further harness with his advanced technology. So I don't think that Kyubey understands magical energy much at all. He just understands it enough to know how to tap into it, and harness it. If I'm right here, the way to defeat Kyubey is for Madoka to find a way to tap into her magical potential without having Kyubey unlock it for her. Quote:
On the one hand, it's very difficult to portray a non-emotional being, and yet for that being to have some sort of personality that can be interesting to the audience. This is a problem that Star Trek sometimes ran into with Data, as in the process of making Data's personality interesting, it became harder and harder for the audience to swallow that he had no emotions. So it could be that Kyubey is a non-emotional being, but it's difficult to portray that well while keeping his character interesting. On the other hand, Kyubey does seem to have some intrinsic sense of pleasure and displeasure to him, and it can be hard to see how that arises with out emotions. He clearly takes satisfaction in getting his energy quota, and he also showed slight dissatisfaction in Episode 4 when he temporarily had to give up on Madoka and Sayaka. Quote:
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2011-04-05, 12:35 | Link #1067 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2007
Age: 35
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As far as the 'no emotions' thing, my personal perspective is that that shouldn't even be possible in any rational and sentient consciousness.
That is because, at their core, emotions are simply subconscious and subjective rationalizations. If on any level you can make a value judgement that something is good or something is bad, then you can have emotions. As such, there's no doubt to me that on some level Kyuubey is indeed emotional. However, what supports the idea of a significant separation in their species' degree of emotionality would simply be the fact that the scope of Kyuubey's consciousness, the extent of universal existences which Kyuubey is aware of with which to make his value judgements, is much wider than humans. I do believe that Kyuubey is ultimately operating out of self-interest and his species' own subjective emotionality. At the same time, it is completely believable that humans have vastly more potential for producing emotional energy, and that from his own perspective, all of what Kyuubey says is true. |
2011-04-05, 20:32 | Link #1068 | |||
(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
Moderator
Join Date: Mar 2006
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If it doesn't happen this way, I suspect we'll be spending a lot of time debating the origins of the MG system. Quote:
To me, a true emotionless being would be absolutely ruthless in achieving goals. There is no need for subterfuge when you're supposedly "advanced". If you think about his overall scheme, it is inefficient. He would achieve his goals much quicker if he simply forced the girls to contract and then forced them to break and transform into Witches. Obviously we can argue "the story would be different than intended", "Gen has difficulty portraying emotionless creatures", and other plausible reasons, but just going by what I've seen, I have my doubts that he's truly emotionless. Perhaps he has less emotion than a human, and he clearly does not share their values, but he's more disturbing than cold and calculating. To me, he's more like the ultimate wolf in sheep's clothing, a marvelous actor who understands exactly when and where to be, and what to say, to get what he wants. His job is to capitalize on the emotional states of young girls; it would be very difficult if he didn't have some idea of what emotions were and how they worked. I think it's less about his emotions, and more about his lack of understanding of human values and attachments, that makes him such a disturbing villain. He's like the kid who pulls wings off a fly, not because he wants to inflict pain, but just simple curiosity. The fly wouldn't agree, of course. It's sort of like human treatment of animals. We consider ourselves more advanced and superior, so we subject them to terrible things, and only a few of us empathize with the animals....the rest of us simply don't care. I can easily see Kyubey's race looking at us from the same perspective; we're just raw materials, cattle, something to be used and discarded...at best a pet or curiosity to be entertained with until boredom returns. Quote:
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2011-04-06, 08:38 | Link #1069 | ||||||
Twilight lander
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Too bad said Homerun didn't take him up on his offer. The only girl known to handle the truth badly was gone by that time, and bringing up the witch issue now... I'm not sure whether Sayaka would have bought it (taking her attitude to Homura into account), but it's possible that at least Kyouko would take some action. Besides, unlike in TL3, neither Kyouko nor Sayaka had any trust for Kyuubey left, what with zipped souls, meat puppets and all. Quote:
- it's highly debatable so far whether Octavia had ANY remains of Sayaka's soul at all. Barrier allusions may well be nothing but bits and pieces of memories and personality. - I believe it was said somewhere that people without magic potential cannot enter barriers and see witches. And even if they could? Kyouko had a tough time protecting Madoka who was more or less accustomed to this stuff. What about a clueless boy who has yet to get off the crutches after long hospitalization? Quote:
Of course, Madoka could also try to bypass the consequences of the system rather than the system itself (I mean the infamous "not become a witch" wish). Like I said, such an attempt could easily clarify if Kyuubey can be selective or not. If Madoka pulls it off, he might gain both a new emotion and a new expression... both decoding to "WTF?". Quote:
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There may be other explanations. Like the one with Kyuubey's race HAVING emotions... but either those emotions are too different from human and don't qualify for firewood... or our cute aliens chose to suppress them ever since coming up with the whole project. Like, "huh, so we can counter enthropy with magic and our emotions? but wait, that would mean sacrificing ourselves... erm... emotions... emotions.. is it edible? guess we don't have any "eemowshunz", so let's look elsewhere"/?? ?? ??\ Quote:
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2011-04-06, 21:44 | Link #1070 |
Style Über Alles
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: NYC/Chicago
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there is nothing deep in kyubei's entropy stuff. the whole thing is rather sickeningly cynical of absolutely everything that is good, even the very idea of anything worthwhile itself.
it's teh enemy. i have little expectation of a good ending from this particular company's production though, so whatever.
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2011-04-07, 08:12 | Link #1072 | |
今宵の虎徹は血に飢えている
Join Date: Jan 2009
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2011-04-07, 11:13 | Link #1075 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2006
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Basically: Emotions => [QB contract] => Magic (energy that transcends the laws of the universe). So, QB's tech can turn emotions into magic, which he can use to combat entropy, but he's tech can't not combat entropy by its own.
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2011-04-07, 11:23 | Link #1076 | |
今宵の虎徹は血に飢えている
Join Date: Jan 2009
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2011-04-07, 12:20 | Link #1077 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2006
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I mean, QB's tech should not be able to make Homura go back in time, because entropy and time are two sides of the same coin, and since he's tech can not revert entropy, it's only logical it can't revert time either.... Yet, he made Homura goes back in time. So this can only be possible is the wish granting is powered by the wisher's own power (magic). If that's the case, then it wouldn't be entirely impossible for QB to revert Gretchen to a human state if someone actually wished for it. But QB would mislead you, he would tell you that's beyond his power, which is technically true, thereby preventing anyone from making that wish. I think that's what he intended when he told Madoka reverting MG Sayaka to her normal state was beyond his power. I believe if Madoka wished for it, QB would be able to grant it, but then he would lose Sayaka and Madoka would not become a witch instantly. But if he convinced Madoka that she herself would be able to turn Sayaka into a human if she became a magical girl, then he'd force her to make a contract for nothing, and then use all her magic trying to revert Sayaka on her own, which would cause Madoka to go witch pretty soon.... I expect QB to be that clever!
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2011-04-07, 13:36 | Link #1078 | |
今宵の虎徹は血に飢えている
Join Date: Jan 2009
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2011-04-07, 13:46 | Link #1079 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2006
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Not force him, but I believe once you made your wish, he would have to grant it even if it's inconvenient for him.
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2011-04-07, 19:34 | Link #1080 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2007
Age: 35
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In episode 10, after Madoka dies, Kyuubey's entrance is directly after Homura makes a specific statement: "Rather than saving me, I wish that you [i.e. Madoka] lived on." And of course, Kyuubey's entrance is directly followed by his usual sales pitch where he says "In exchange for your soul I can give you that power." Of course, what Homura ended up wishing for was something other than Madoka's direct resurrection, but Homura's suggestion of that was the direct cause of Kyuubey's appearance. So yeah, it's final. Kyuubey/Puella Magi wishes can resurrect people, no question about it. |
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madoka magica, time travel |
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