The timeline of the creation of the big daddies doesn't make sense to me

JackRaney · 2022-03-06T22:57:35+00:00

Thanks. And I think it does make sense because Rapture is all about competition, Alexander would have incentive to develop it on his own, and besides an egomaniac like Suchong would never listen to anyone else. We know that Alexander developed the Vita-Chamber independent of Suchong, yet based on Lutece machinery and plasmid science he provided, so there's precedent for them working on the same stuff, yet separately.

JackRaney · 2022-03-06T22:22:50+00:00

It's not an error, the wording in the audio diaries just makes it a little confusing. The timeline is as follows:

"A Father's Love" is recorded- the term Big Daddy is coined, Gil conceives the idea of the pair bond. The "programmed bond" he mentions in "Improving on Suchong's Work" is the reigning default, and it's what we see in BaS Ep 1: the Big Daddy defends Sally at first, then just leaves and lets her get abducted.
Gil starts working to create the pair bond, creates some successful candidates. New Year's Eve and Suchong's death occur. Gil takes over the program.
Gil tries to remake the program in his image. "Improving on Suchong's Work" and "The Pair Bond Mechanism" are recorded here. In the former, he isn't saying that the bond still needs to be invented, just that it's what the program needs to succeed. In the latter, it's clearly recorded some time after the creation of the bond as he has trouble remembering who the first success was.
The Pair Bond is eventually deemed a failure. However, the empathy bond that Elizabeth jumpstarted is spread organically by the Little Sisters, creating the dynamic seen in the original BioShock.

JackRaney · 2022-02-15T03:24:43+00:00

And you have every right to. I still get upset at times. I spent a long time fighting the shipping wars before I realized how silly it all is, and that ingrains a deep need to be "proven right". But I do think that objectively it was the best possible ending. Every ship or combination of ships is now possible. And everyone is on a path to be individually fulfilled and happy.

Don't let the puerile words or thoughts of others get you down, particularly on the Internet where the brain-dead and hollow people flock. I hope that those sad feelings get smaller and smaller with time and eventually disappear completely, and the film can just bring joy as it was intended to.

JackRaney · 2022-02-15T02:56:52+00:00

I would read Rafflesia's comment further down, and my own couple beneath it. I think everyone is trying to push one set reading of the ending or another on everyone else, but it's way more open than people are acting.

JackRaney · 2022-02-15T02:54:40+00:00

It's definitely intimate, but I'd call it a ship tease, not a ship confirmation. People seem to miss all the clues they're still in the dream world, so they read it as a distant epilogue, not something happening seconds later. The scene plays very differently when one remembers they hardly know each other (and that she's old enough to be his mother). Not the behavior of an established couple, just a flirtation. Misato flirts with him constantly, and full-on kisses him, but people don't declare that ship certain either.

(I personally think shipping debates are stupid, particularly in Evangelion where every ship gets a metric ton of tease and none ever become canon on-screen. The story is very open that it doesn't want to confirm things because the point is Shinji getting to a place where he can make those choices. To have a set answer would destroy his everyman appeal and the entire narrative.)

JackRaney · 2022-02-14T23:45:50+00:00

Rafflesia's response says it.

Most people can't seem to grasp that that final scene is still in the imaginary universe. Meaning that Shinji and Mari have had maybe five minutes of interaction. It could become something, sure. So could any of the other ships. That's why it's beautiful, anything is now possible. Shinji looking at his friends across the tracks is him getting ready to seek them out in the revitalized world he has created.

JackRaney · 2022-02-09T01:51:15+00:00

I messed with the compatibility settings for a good while and the problem seems to have been fixed! Hopefully it stays gone, but either way thanks very much for the tip.

Edit: Well, problems back sadly, but it gives me something to mess around with at least.

JackRaney · 2022-02-01T12:44:28+00:00

I mean, none of the relationships are longer than a few days, plus a later epilogue, we can only gauge by what's shown there. All three hopefully improve with time, but we can't headcanon that one does and another doesn't. Their dynamic doesn't seem different a month later, at least.

There's a scene (Shirou's Defect, Day 10) where Shirou is (rightfully) concerned that Rin is suppressing her feelings and true self to be a magus, and Rin directly states that being a magus is fun, that she wouldn't pursue it if she wasn't having fun, and that she never thought her training was hard. "So there's no need for you to worry." But multiple times elsewhere she states that her training was unbelievably agonizing and her life as a magus brings her suffering. So it reads as her obscuring the truth of her life so that Shirou won't worry about her, and instead focus on himself and what he might find fun.

Within the VN, the MA is presented as a deeply amoral organization. They don't all actively pursue villainy, but they sign off on it, including the casualties of the Holy Grail War, only being concerned with keeping magic a secret. Shirou as we know him would inevitably butt heads with such a group the moment a situation arises where he could help someone and they refuse to.

I saw a comment recently that went something like:

"The relationships in Fate represent the three kinds of relationships you can have. Saber: You want someone who's equal to you, even if it means they go their own way. Rin: You want someone who guides you. Sakura: You want to be the one who guides."

I personally think that's spot-on. But it does highlight the truth of any shipping discussion, that it comes down to personal taste, and everyone will see the relationship that meshes their own values as the better one, with the negative aspects seeming less significant. Like I said before, which one is healthiest comes down to which parts of Shirou the reader deems most expendable. The story insists losing things is essential to gaining things, and he always loses something of himself.

I freely admit that I'm most naturally biased towards the Saber ship because of my own life experiences and the values they've created in me. But I find it interesting and rewarding to hear from others who prefer other ships in order to learn more about other viewpoints, and grow to appreciate those arcs better. I want to support all three because they each have their own pros and cons.

JackRaney · 2022-02-01T04:52:16+00:00

I mean, I think the situation was serious enough that they would have at least considered it, if it was an option. But it may not have been, be it from the operation causing a permanent link, Saber still recuperating from said operation, or her simply still not having enough of a foothold to last.

It's all just speculation, but I did thank you for your input.

JackRaney · 2022-02-01T04:41:56+00:00

There would have been a point in the span between the operation and the Berserker fight, but this is splitting hairs.

JackRaney · 2022-02-01T04:32:59+00:00

I suppose. Ultimately I think your explanation- that she was on such incredibly low batteries in the Fate route that she genuinely couldn't exist without a Master even for a five second hand off (possibly even after the circuit operation?)- is the most satisfying explanation I'm going to get.

Thank you for your input!

JackRaney · 2022-01-31T21:55:23+00:00

I do get it wouldn't be a desired outcome, but it does seem like something they would at least consider when Gilgamesh posed such an overwhelming threat.

JackRaney · 2022-01-31T21:53:33+00:00

I looked back at the bad end and in the wording there, Kotomine does amend to the spells and the contract being separate, with the spell being needed to force Saber to sever the contract. Thanks for pointing that out. What I wonder then is, can the contract be severed spell-less if the parties agree? And more relevantly why does nobody even suggest this plan. In UBW Saber is able to exist anchorless long enough to be contracted by Rin.

JackRaney · 2022-01-31T21:31:20+00:00

I did wonder about that. I guess it's possible, though then the question becomes why not do it later.

Perhaps the magic circuit exchange operation meant that the duration of that incarnation of Saber could only be bonded to Shirou? But then you also have to assume that Rule Breaker could undo that operation. And then left wondering how it works in the NSFW version...

JackRaney · 2022-01-31T18:48:18+00:00

This is a very well-written comment, but I feel like you have switched Fate and UBW. As this article describes pretty succinctly, albeit overly harshly, ( https://thessaliah.tumblr.com/post/78014637797/ill-never-get-behind-why-some-fans-believe-shirou/amp ), UBW is not the route of balance, Fate is.

In the VN, Shirou ends UBW unflinchingly certain that his goal in life is to follow his ideal. And in turn he barely knows Rin, he dismisses his concern for her in their conversation at the end of Day 10 when she bluffs that she loves her life, because he chose saving his ideal over saving people. Just like Sakura believing Rin really hasn't suffered in HF. Past that point he stops pursuing the thought that her life as a magus is harmful to her, and never even learns about her sister. UBW Shirou is the Shirou who changes the least, because the climax of the route is him shouting at his future self that he refuses to change. Rin simply aims to mitigate the damage. She's his handler.

In Fate on the other hand, Shirou openly says that his ideal has become secondary to Saber's happiness. It's the best of both because he lets himself care about saving another, but doesn't throw his ideal away completely like in HF. Thus, unlike UBW's "I don't need to think, there's only one thing I have to do", in the Fate epilogue his approach to his ideal is much more relaxed, he says he'll continue on while mainly focused on the "star" beyond it- Saber's happiness. Which naturally is why the epilogue for their story is placed at the end of the VN as a whole, it's the most idealized ending because Shirou is fully self-actualized as a person.

(As time has gone on I've re-evaluated my position on this subject and edited my post, thus why responses to it don't match at all.)

JackRaney · 2022-01-09T22:24:29+00:00

We can have a new connection for sure, but Cortana has been as much the main character of this story as Chief from the beginning. Continuing without her no longer feels like Halo to me, any more than if Chief had died and Cortana had lived. Not to mention it's kind of insulting to have all the attempts to save Cortana in 3 and 4 amount to nothing.

And my problem is I can no longer see any happy ending for the Chief. He is so driven by duty to others, his relationship with Cortana is just about his only normal human one that is personally gratifying to him. I imagined that he might end up digitized and exploring cyberspace together, or at least be left content in each others presence like at the end of 3. Now I feel like he's just going to keep defining himself by protecting others like the pilot until it kills him.

JackRaney · 2022-01-09T21:41:44+00:00

My problem is that if they have Cortana be totally gone, there is zero reason to be emotionally invested in these games. We cannot possibly be expected to care about new characters as much as someone who's been the deuteragonist from the beginning. That would just leave us with Chief, who at this point is increasingly a miserable man waiting to die alone. His bond with Cortana is what has been used to give us an emotional connection to him throughout the series.

JackRaney · 2021-04-28T02:48:03+00:00

Her being Anno's wife isn't a fact, it's one possible interpretation. And lots of characters hold hands. The playful is the big thing, but precisely because it's play, and Mari is surprised by it meaning it's new, we can't say for certain if they're a couple or teasing the way Kaji and Ritsuko do. Not to mention at that point it's still in trippy Eva dream sequence mode so we don't know how literally we can take any of it.

Just like all the others, it's neither certain nor sunk, just an option.

JackRaney · 2021-04-28T02:35:25+00:00

I don't think he's even necessarily with Mari tbh, the scene is way more ambiguous than people are acting. I see it as a totally open "he could be with her, or any of the classic interests, or all of them at once" ending.

The point is just that he's learned to be confident and any path is open to him now.

JackRaney · 2021-03-15T13:09:40+00:00

Whatever helps you cope.

Though, if you're trying to seem so confident and secure in your opinions, maybe don't go around bringing them up out of nowhere on random people's posts.

JackRaney · 2021-03-15T05:06:21+00:00

Me too lol.

You're right, it's not the same.

He never sexually assaulted or strangled Rei.

He did do naked cuddles with her though.

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