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11-24-2016, 08:08 AM
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#51 | |
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Friendly Neighborhood Quantum Hobo
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Outside the M-brane look'n in
Posts: 5,403
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Last edited by Sithdarth; 11-24-2016 at 08:55 AM. |
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11-24-2016, 08:39 AM
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#52 | |
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Funka has spoken!
Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 3,087
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I was mentally prepared to see you rant about episode 16 because of what I thought I remembered happening in it. Turns out that what I remembered happened in episode 17 instead. I look forward to your next review.
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11-24-2016, 01:21 PM
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#53 | |||
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Never give up. Never give in.
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Sacramento, CA
Posts: 1,034
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A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. - Robert Heinlein |
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11-24-2016, 08:22 PM
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#54 | |
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Erotic Esquire
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 5,563
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A penny for my thoughts
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But first, I'll mention a couple points where I do agree with you: - Subaru has always been hopelessly flawed when it comes to his self-centered attitude, and that flaw is specifically on display with Crusch when he believes an unknown 'favor' from him carries any leverage, and also when he believes he has any authority whatsoever to negotiate Emilia's withdrawal from the royal selection process as a condition of a deal. - Subaru never had a plan at all with any of the negotiations (he obviously stumbles blindly into meeting Anastasia, which she obviously arranged in advance after learning he had met with the others) and seemed to sincerely believe that merely articulating the threat of the cult would be sufficient to ensure the others' aid. I view this as less moral ineptitude by Subaru and more just extreme stupidity and negligence, as he's hopelessly naive and generally assumes that his 'protagonist in an RPG with special powers' status somehow automatically bequeaths him wisdom he sorely lacks and some sort of otherworldly charismatic power to move people to commit to his plans of action. So, yeah, he's an imbecile. Rem is numb to that now because she's infatuated, which is simultaneously slightly disappointing in terms of how it erodes her own agency but also realistic insofar as lust really does fuck with peoples' judgments like that. So, here's where I do disagree with you. In Crusch's mind, she determines (in the absence of knowing about Subaru's time-bending powers) that Subaru was likely the victim of some previous attack by the Witch's Cult and that this attack has blunted his judgment. She subsequently determines (as she's apparently great at spotting liars) that Subaru is telling the truth that he 'sincerely believes' an attack on Emilia is imminent but that he's mentally unstable because of his past trauma. I follow her there! That makes sense so far. But then she proceeds to attempt to claim the moral high ground and lecture Subaru about him really being motivated out of 'selfishness' (for basically the reasons you articulate) and that's where I flip over to Subaru's side in this ordeal, because that's a ludicrously insensitive accusation to make against someone you believe has suffered severe mental trauma at the hands of an objectively evil cult that regularly commits atrocities. (And Subaru has been traumatized by all this, even more recently than Crusch suspects.) The Witch's Cult have basically been set up as Worse than Actual Goddamn Nazis in this universe. They've apparently destroyed half the world already and they're hard at work at destroying what remains. Crusch is obviously aware of what they're capable of, even if she doesn't know Sloth's capabilities specifically. So, you know how every once in a while a member of a minority community or the LGBT community or another community oppressed in everyday contemporary western society rants about wanting 'revenge' against his or her oppressors? And sometimes the language can get pretty violent, and out of context, particularly if you're privileged in ways this person is not, you might assume the person in question is actually the aggressor. At the very least you might catch some of the borderline-incoherent "I'LL KILL THEM" style ranting and assume mental instability. In truth, the person in question is mentally unstable, but that instability stems from an external source. It's coercive and the result of genuine trauma. Here my claim isn't that Subaru's tactics here are 'smart' or that he's going about his circumstances 'right,' but rather that Crusch loses her moral high ground when she witnesses someone she correctly identifies as the clear victim of a traumatizing assault by evil forces...and she proceeds to lecture him about his selfishness in desiring violent revenge against the people who persecuted him. I mean, imagine Crusch's interpretation of Subaru's background was right and in some hypothetical alternate reality Subaru had witnessed his parents' and hometown's brutal execution at the hands of the Witch's Cult. For Subaru to lose his goddamn mind over this in a moment of witness -- particularly if he's under the genuine notion that another attack against people he cares about is incoming (even if it's mistaken, Crusch knows he sincerely believes in the threat, and she even knows he sincerely cares about people like Emilia, even if he's not articulating his emotions properly in the heat of the moment) -- is absolutely normal. It's self-centered to an extent, but we expect and should encourage victims of atrocities to be self-centered. It'd be fucking bizarre if Subaru suffered at the hands of an evil cult and was nonchalant about it. Do I believe Crusch has reason to suspect that Subaru may be unintentionally over-inflating the nature of the threat? Sure, absolutely. Do I believe Crusch should be obligated to aid Subaru out of some moral imperative to risk her own life for others? Well, she is in contention for the Crown of the Realm, so that kind of burden should come with the territory, but it's not Subaru's place to enforce that responsibility upon her with unsubstantiated rumors of a possible attack. But Crusch tries to argue with a mentally unstable, traumatized person that he's being selfish and that he's been morally corrupted in some way and that he should feel ashamed of himself. If you're a good person, you just don't do that to a victim. Under any circumstances. The morally right response would have been for Crusch to empathize with Subaru over his loss and his plight but to articulate calmly and logically that Subaru needed to present more evidence to justify any intervention. Then, get the poor guy help, don't just kick him back onto the streets if you genuinely believe the Witch's Cult has somehow broken him. Crusch herself isn't a psychologist and she isn't the appropriate one to express the empathy Subaru needs but she could've also handled her interaction with Subaru here better, just as Subaru could've gone about this much differently. I dunno, I just don't see this as quite as cut-and-dry, black-and-white an example of Subaru's moral ineptitude as -- for example -- Episodes 12 and 13. Subaru is clearly risking the pain of death (if not the ultimate outcome of death as a finality) to save people he cares about, and he's not just doing it this time to get in Emilia's pants. He does want revenge, but he wants revenge because of what he personally suffered and the horrors he witnessed that were inflicted on Emilia and the villagers. His irrational state of anger directed at the Cult is a direct response to the extremely cruel and malicious acts of terror he witnessed. He loses his cool over all this, but it's not out of a selfish impetus. If anything I really want to encourage him to continue acting assertively and proactively -- I just wish he was smart enough to come up with a better plan to tackle the issues than the awful plans he's settling on. Also: If someone appears to deny or any way attempt to mitigate the atrociousness of an objectively atrocious group's atrocious actions, it is totally appropriate for a victim to lash out and attempt to make that person feel like shit. I have no issue whatsoever with Subaru trying to transparently claim the moral high ground like that, moral outrage was about the only card he had left to play against Crusch that had any chance whatsoever of moving her to action. Just my two cents, but keep in mind that I've generally had a track record in previous episodes of finding Subaru's actions and behaviors indefensible and offensive.
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WARNING: Snek's all up in this thread. Be prepared to read massive walls of text. Last edited by Solid Snake; 11-24-2016 at 08:24 PM. |
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11-24-2016, 11:56 PM
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#55 | |||
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Never give up. Never give in.
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Sacramento, CA
Posts: 1,034
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She does not, for instance, say 'how dare you insult me when you come begging my aid'. Just a simple 'don't change the subject'. I doubt very much it's even that she doesn't care about the people, but she's just not going to let Subaru's attempts to lash out and appeal to emotion get the better of her. If Subaru were making genuine appeals to compassion, I doubt she'd shut him down like she does here, because we've seen she's not unsentimental. If Subaru were coming to her like a scared and hurt warrior who needs support, I think she'd treat him a lot better than she does here. She's a feudal lord though, and Subaru is trying to come to her as a fellow noble for negotiations. The part where he breaks down at the end isn't even subtle; his entire objective is to kill the cult, saving people is an afterthought. Honestly, I don't see anything in that conversation about Crusch taking any kind of high ground. She's polite and professional to him the entire way through, even after he tries to make it personal. Quote:
"If your own lie isn't going to fool you, it won't decieve anyone else." "You haven't once said that you want to save Emilia." If saving people were what he was after, she would have been damn near the first thing out of his mouth. Quote:
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A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. - Robert Heinlein |
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11-25-2016, 04:24 AM
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#56 | |
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Erotic Esquire
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 5,563
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Sorry for the rant, not trying to antagonize, just expressing my opinion
I don't really hold Crusch's responses against her, it's entirely in the realm of her characterization to be pragmatic and look out for her own best interests.
...I just don't really hold these series of interactions in Episode 16 as an ethical failing on Subaru's part, either, which is what the episode's title implies. This conversation was sparked when you noted that "The Greed of a Pig" referred to Subaru, and my reaction is that this is one of the few episodes where I don't feel he's particularly greedy or pig-like. He's stupid, naive, fails to adequately consider the consequences of his actions and blinded by his understandable hatred for Sloth and the Witch Cultists, but in my opinion he's also trying to be proactive and trying to do the right thing, and the criticisms some of the women (including Crusch, albeit to a lesser extent than the others) are based on incomplete information and inapplicable to Subaru under his actual circumstances. And that makes perfect sense, mind you. From the perspective of characters like Crusch and Anastasia, Subaru is just some dope whose infatuation with Emilia led him to make an ass of himself during the royal selection initiation ceremony. And they're absolutely right to think poorly of him for that mess. And that's all they really know about him, so of course they're going to judge him poorly. Still, moreso than your other points the one that sticks out to me as one I viscerally disagree with is this: Quote:
Some victims react exactly the way Subaru reacted -- lashing out in anger and seeking revenge, having those thoughts permeate their being and cloud their judgment. But if an ethnic minority or a member of the LGBT community reacts to physical abuse or incidents of bigoted violence in the wake of Trump's victory in America by typing walls of text demanding that all Republicans in the country be viciously killed, the key is understanding that they're coming from a place of deep pain and they need to be comforted and consoled for what they've suffered through, not demonized for 'emotionally lashing out.' Forget about what Subaru actually experienced and assume that it's exactly as Crusch incorrectly assumes for his backstory. As a child, the Witch Cultists terrorize his village, kill his family and friends, torture and abuse him as they've done to so many others. You're then going to judge Subaru for 'lashing out' and ravenously desiring the deaths of objectively evil people? That's crazy. I'm not remotely bothered, as Crusch is, by the notion that Subaru is possessed with the thought of violently murdering those assholes instead of immediately expressing a more logical or 'compassionate' view of saving the prospective victims. For one thing, logically speaking, the two are intertwined; Subaru wants to murder those psychopathic assholes because of the pain they inflicted upon him, Rem, Emilia, and the villagers in the alternate timeline. It's not like Subaru is just responding with rage to an abstract harm or a hypothetical injury. He himself suffered, people he presumably cares for suffered, and if anything it's almost offensive for Crusch to assume that Subaru doesn't care about the villagers or anyone else just because he's too busy raging against the Cultists for being scumbags worthy of slaying to engage in some academic discussion over rescuing people he cares for. Another example: If a friend of mine who is Muslim rants incoherently and screams and shouts at the universe for a half-hour about the desire to see Trump's head delivered to him on a fucking platter after Trump starts his awful registration program, it is not my place to interject with "How immoral of you, you spent the last half-hour raving about inflicting harm upon Trump and you never bothered to articulate an underlying motivation to save your fellow Muslims! You're concentrating on the negative and not the positive and that speaks poorly of your character!!!" It isn't just understandable, it's also quite appropriate for Subaru to rage. It doesn't lead to the outcome he desires and, again, I do not fault Crusch for refusing to join Subaru's crusade for purely pragmatic reasons. Among other things, Subaru doesn't even articulate a cohesive plan to ensure victory against the Cultists so it'd be irrational for Crusch to risk her life to make it happen. Subaru calling everyone useless is just another example of what an exceedingly poor diplomat he'd be. But it's simultaneously possible to believe that Subaru fucked up any chance of garnering desperately needed aid because he descended into rage against his tormentors at the wrong moment, and to believe that Crusch was still wrong to take the victim of some horrific incident caused by the Cultist and assume, without meaningful evidence, exactly what the victim's thought processes were or what he did or did not care about in a moment where he's bordering on a complete psychological breakdown. In my mind, Re:Zero would be a weaker story and not a stronger one if every episode boiled down to "Subaru is always wrong, and also every other character is basically the author acting as a narrator, speaking through them to criticize every egregious fuckup he makes." That's quite often true, but I think the interaction between Subaru and Crusch is a more nuanced moment because they both fuck up -- Crusch fails, entirely within the confines of her characterization, to express appropriate empathy to a victim and instead views this dispassionately as an opportunity to lecture a boy who she (justifiably!) views dismissively as an arrogant, pompous douche. And Subaru is so blinded by his hatred towards Sloth and so eager to exact revenge that his rage boils into something that Crusch can easily dismiss as another sign of his immaturity, even though it's much more complicated than it seems at first glance.
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WARNING: Snek's all up in this thread. Be prepared to read massive walls of text. |
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11-25-2016, 12:25 PM
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#57 | |||
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Never give up. Never give in.
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Sacramento, CA
Posts: 1,034
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A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. - Robert Heinlein Last edited by Gregness; 11-25-2016 at 12:53 PM. |
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11-25-2016, 02:55 PM
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#58 | |
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Erotic Esquire
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 5,563
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Anyway: Without spoiling anything I haven't seen, are there any details yet regarding whether a Season Two is happening?
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WARNING: Snek's all up in this thread. Be prepared to read massive walls of text. |
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11-25-2016, 07:32 PM
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#59 |
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Friendly Neighborhood Quantum Hobo
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Outside the M-brane look'n in
Posts: 5,403
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As far as I know and can find via google searches nothing official has been announced about another season. However, there is still a significant amount of material out there that hasn't been adapted.
Oh and I highly suggest you don't try to google search anything about another season. Basically everything I've found has been super spoilery about stuff that is coming up. |
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11-25-2016, 09:51 PM
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#60 | ||
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Never give up. Never give in.
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Sacramento, CA
Posts: 1,034
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Edit: Oh, and you say: Quote:
 But I really appreciate how the show has enough substance for these kinds of discussions to be somewhat meaningful.
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A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. - Robert Heinlein Last edited by Gregness; 11-26-2016 at 12:37 AM. |
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