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I just caught up and I almost wish I didn't 
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Nov 25, 2017 08:12
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| # ? May 11, 2024 11:19 |
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lmfao
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Nov 25, 2017 08:27
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About not being given the choice to console Pascal, some posters mention that it's because this is a videogame. Yes, that's the correct reason, but not for the reasons you think. Think about it this way: who the hell is A2? She's basically a semi-retarded murder machine that has minimal psychological maturity. The question is more, does A2 have the ability to console Pascal? What exactly is A2 supposed to say to her, and if there is a way to console Pascal and get him out of his despair, would A2 have the intelligence and maturity to know what to say? As to the correct choice, I'm one of the people who chose to leave Pascal to his despair. It's a matter of respect for Pascal: as Camus says, suicide is the fundamental question of philosophy. Pascal has made choices, and these choices have ended badly. To murder Pascal or reset his memories is to abet Pascal in his cowardice: Pascal is unable to face the consequences of his actions, and it is for that that Pascal chooses to die, whether spiritually or physically. A2, then, can either reaffirm Pascal's choice by either wiping his memories or killing him directly. Part of being alive, for humans, machines, and androids is over being able to live with the consequences of one's choices. If Pascal wishes to die, we should not abet him in his escape. === And yes, let me point out this is why I'm so negative on Pascal as a character (in fact, the only character in this game that gets more than a C-rating from me is 2B). Pascal, to me, is that deontologist who chooses to abet crimes and hurt people through inaction as opposed to getting his hands dirty. The ultimate outcome of his choices is death: if you choose to kill everyone in the Machine Village, everyone dies with no resistance, and if you don't choose to kill everyone, the Machine Network does it for you. In the first case, Pascal at least lives according to his principles: nonviolence is taken as a strict principle, even at the cost of everyone's death. In the latter case, Pascal breaks his vow of nonviolence and everyone dies anyways. Basically, as others have pointed out, it's Pascal's clan that's fundamental to him, not his nonviolence. The entire nonviolence thing is a charade: he's not an actual deontologist because when faced with the imminent destruction of his clan, he opens fire. He doesn't actually have deep empathy for all machines, see the segment in the Abandoned Factory, for instance, where he ignores the reality of the machine suicide cult. So when he chooses death and escape at the end of his arc, it doesn't provoke pity in me, it's just another disgusting show of Pascal's lack of character. I would actually see Pascal as a satire, not only on Blaise Pascal (other commentators claimed that Pensees was about using fear to scare people into theism, so it's ironic that fear ultimately killed the remnants of Pascal's village), but on hippie idealists in general, but I have to admit I don't have enough knowledge to fully explore this idea. Two reference points for me are the Ikko Ikki communes in Warring States Japan, as well as more recent hippie communes of the 1960s and 1970s. Would anyone be knowledgeable and interested in elucidating? A brief background of the Ikko Ikki is that they were revolts of peasants, monks, and minor samurai against the system of Japanese feudalism that resulted in such incessant warfare. The Machine Village is an analogue to this, since the Machine Village exists as a non-violent revolt from the unending Android-Machine War. These involved fighting Buddhist monks, but their nominal leader Rennyo was a pacifist, who like Pascal abetted the violence of his revolutionaries. Charles_Kinbote fucked around with this message at 10:35 on Nov 25, 2017 |
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Nov 25, 2017 09:28
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Charles_Kinbote posted:About not being given the choice to console Pascal, some posters mention that it's because this is a videogame. Yes, that's the correct reason, but not for the reasons you think. Think about it this way: who the hell is A2? She's basically a semi-retarded murder machine that has minimal psychological maturity. The question is more, does A2 have the ability to console Pascal? What exactly is A2 supposed to say to her, and if there is a way to console Pascal and get him out of his despair, would A2 have the intelligence and maturity to know what to say? A2's grief counseling expertise: "Have you tried murdering children? ...Oh. Right."
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Nov 25, 2017 09:45
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Christ... I probably didn't make it clear in the actual update cuz I'm trying to be impartial and poo poo, but BOY! I cannot believe this game managed to make me mortified at a bunch of dead trashcans... I knew this robot kids would be toast and all, but they managed the one hosed direction I was not prepared for... The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 12:18 on Nov 25, 2017 |
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Nov 25, 2017 09:56
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Pascal wanted his memories erased, so that's what I did. Going a bit more in-depth, It's incredibly unlikely that Pascal's life is going to improve in any way from here on out. There's no robo-therapy in Nier's world, nor is there anything left for him to live for. He'd be living with an incredible pain just for the sake of existing. And to me, existence is not something that justifies itself. There needs to be a purpose, however small...and a lack of horrible suffering would be nice too. But really, all of that is superfluous. Pascal wanted his memories erased. It was his decision to make, not mine.
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Nov 25, 2017 10:20
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It kinda suffers from the inherent problem with all direct "Do X or do Y" videogame choices. The player is very likely to detach themselves from the context and the characters to make the choice based on acting as the moral authority removed from any actual personal drive. It's a fairly simple choice to make, the point of which is probably to stimulate the player into giving the situation some thought rather than being about picking the "right" choice, so it's not quite so bad as some other videogames with choices
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Nov 25, 2017 10:33
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Its going to be a hosed up morning for Pascal 2.0 when he wakes up. In the middle of a factory surrounded by children's corpses and even more robot wrecks outside.
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Nov 25, 2017 10:46
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https://twitter.com/VoidBurger/status/933738554160709634
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Nov 25, 2017 10:49
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KamikazePotato posted:Pascal wanted his memories erased, so that's what I did. The game gives you the choice: it doesn't shoehorn you into the hacking game to delete Pascal. When Pascal involves you in deleting his memories, it's no longer a matter of Pascal's personal decision but yours as well. About the Machine Village in general, didn't we go over a part with 9S wherein he discusses how machines end up creating the same polity over and over again? That's the funny thing. At first, it's not obvious that the Machine Village isn't really that different from the Forest Kingdom, but it's actually the same insofar as it's trying to replicate a traditional human polity. I mentioned something about Japanese communes, but the operative word in the Machine Village is village. Think about the depiction of the classical Japanese village: you have a collectivist community that works together for rice cultivation. It's supposed to be supportive, friendly, maternal; the sort of idealized vision given by Kenzaburo Oe in "Prize Stock". Pascal's Machine Village, then, is this type of communal utopia, complete with a non-capitalist resource allocation model. But what happens to these villages? These villages are either of the Ikko Ikki independent type, or they're under the control and protection of some feudal lord. The former has a habit of getting subjugated or destroyed, and that's precisely what we see here. The typical political failure of these communes is that they lack sufficient self-defense ability, and a single wandering samurai, whether A2 or 2B, is not sufficient to defend them from attack. The Machine Village and Forest Kingdom thus comprise a set; the critical weakness of the Forest Kingdom is that it has nothing to unify it without a king, while the Machine Village, having unity in ideology, lacks the ability for self-defense.
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Nov 25, 2017 10:59
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Synthbuttrange posted:Its going to be a hosed up morning for Pascal 2.0 when he wakes up. In the middle of a factory surrounded by children's corpses and even more robot wrecks outside. He's on Nier Earth. Your mistake is assuming there's such a thing as non hosed up mornings. (Or mornings anymore, given the whole non-rotation thing, but if there were mornings, they'd be hosed up.)
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Nov 25, 2017 11:01
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chiasaur11 posted:He's on Nier Earth. You know if everything is hosed up, does that make what's normal to us hosed up in Drakenier? Like, is having a loving family and a high-paying job without getting fired or dying terribly a horrible nightmare in the Drakenier universe? Is having a normal grieving process and healthy responses to adversity considered insane in the Drakenier universe?
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Nov 25, 2017 11:20
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Nier-death experience
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Nov 25, 2017 12:06
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yoko taro is probably the best human
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Nov 25, 2017 12:27
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Yoko Taro posted:(To Tom Nook's son:) Yoko Taro posted:(Tom Nook: Ah, hello! Welcome! Welcome!) Yoko Taro posted:Arriving back at the town hall, I receive an order from the dull woman (Isabelle) to make the rounds and introduce myself. Is your head alright? It’s 2:30am. But I cannot say no to Isabelle’s frozen gaze. This woman… she’s killed before, and not just once… I'll stop before I quote the whole thing, it's all gold
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Nov 25, 2017 18:07
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KamikazePotato posted:I'll stop before I quote the whole thing, it's all gold I now want to see an animal crossing game where all of that stuff is true. I know the loan stuff is already true, but I'd like to see it portrayed in a way where the "Indenturing me to labor under beasts" is entirely serious. I can have moments of... eccentricity and sometimes be quite curious about things. Please forgive me if I do something foolish or rude.
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Nov 25, 2017 18:15
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KamikazePotato posted:Pascal wanted his memories erased, so that's what I did. But if I do this to someone, that's me making the decision to do it, not them. And no, I wouldn't do this and I wouldn't murder a friend either even if their whole family just died tragically ten seconds ago and they were telling me to, because I'd recognize that obviously they're not in a great or very rational place at the moment. I would never make assumptions about there simply being no way for them to ever feel happiness or purpose again, etc. because it's not like I could make those kind of snap judgements about someone else's life or see the future, or be aware I was in a Yoko Taro game. Of course I wouldn't just walk away and leave them alone with the corpses either. That option still seems a bit out of place because even for A2 it's cold. I agree with whatever poster above said it was Anemone that Pascal needed at that time because she's certainly been through similar things and yet is still kicking and doesn't seem any more miserable than anyone else. Too bad taking him to the Resistance camp wasn't an option. Wiping Pascal's memories still seems like the worst option every time I think it over because with the other themes of the game it just makes me wonder how many times he's done this and if it always ends this way because he's never able to get through tragedy and use the lessons learned to do things differently on the next attempt. Although actually if we hadn't jumped straight to mass child death and suicide I would have been far more interested in seeing the ramifications of setting aside his pacifism explored and how he comes to terms with that. Such a significant moment for his character that just goes nowhere and is immediately nullified and (quite literally) erased. Also, I'm still not clear why every single robokid committing suicide in response to fear was even a thing besides chalking it up to off-network machines tending toward sthe crazy. It feels a bit contrived in hindsight. (Not that that lessened the initial gut punch.)
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Nov 25, 2017 19:17
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Zoe posted:Also, I'm still not clear why every single robokid committing suicide in response to fear was even a thing besides chalking it up to off-network machines tending toward sthe crazy. It feels a bit contrived in hindsight. (Not that that lessened the initial gut punch.) He taught them fear in the hopes of making them more cautious, but they took that a step further into anxiety, I think. "A bunch of our friends and family just died and Pascal couldn't protect us" -> "Even if he protects us now, something might happen again in the future" -> "The only control we have over our lives is the decision to end them". There's probably some more nuance to it in terms of what "death" is in a culture where you can get respawned as long as your core is around, but suddenly having crippling anxiety with no learned defense against it is...not good.
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Nov 25, 2017 19:34
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Yeah, the idea is that Pascal taught them fear, but not how to deal with it. They end up getting so scared that they just want to not be scared anymore, and killing themselves is the only way to do so.
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Nov 25, 2017 20:03
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I was told that there would be an escalation from Child Murder. I had no idea how that could happen. I was not prepared.
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Nov 25, 2017 20:19
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Zoe posted:Also, I'm still not clear why every single robokid committing suicide in response to fear was even a thing besides chalking it up to off-network machines tending toward sthe crazy. It feels a bit contrived in hindsight. (Not that that lessened the initial gut punch.) I'm glad I wasn't the only one who didn't think the suicide motivation made sense. Human kids aren't exactly known for their suicidal tendencies, but these ARE actually just As much as I get how tragic the event was, it felt really half-assed in execution. Would've made more sense to me if Pascal just jumped to the wrong conclusion. Sessile fucked around with this message at 21:03 on Nov 25, 2017 |
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Nov 25, 2017 20:59
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Sessile posted:these ARE actually just Yes, but as with all the attempts to mantle humanity in this game, their efforts to pretend are generally based on incomplete information or one-sided abstraction from actual human existence, often resulting in behaviors that a normal human might regard as extreme or egregious. But they're just playing out their faulty, immediate and unchecked routines to a logical conclusion.
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Nov 25, 2017 21:21
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Nina posted:It kinda suffers from the inherent problem with all direct "Do X or do Y" videogame choices. The player is very likely to detach themselves from the context and the characters to make the choice based on acting as the moral authority removed from any actual personal drive. It's a fairly simple choice to make, the point of which is probably to stimulate the player into giving the situation some thought rather than being about picking the "right" choice, so it's not quite so bad as some other videogames with choices The "videogame choices" thing pushes us to make judgements primarily on the first three levels: from the outside looking in with our value systems, filtered through the lens of the game's sense of values. Games that are generally interesting and well executed can still promote some discussion on the third level, which focuses on abstract general questions of morality or ethics or what have you. And most discussion here has been at this level, on which there probably is a reasonable case to be made that the choice is quite simple, and leaving him to his guilt is just callous. If the fourth level is engaged though, things get really interesting, and that's why I like the fact that you have to actively walk away from Pascal if that's the choice you make (and also why I'm sympathetic to the possibility that it might, in fact, be the intended choice). A2 could, very probably, just walk away here, and along the parameters of her mission and her survival, that might be the correct choice for her. And if you really are drawn into the narrative in this way, then the moment where she turns her back on him and walks away is a really rewarding moment for you as the reader and the player to encounter, even if it's heartbreaking to watch.
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Nov 25, 2017 21:38
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Momomo posted:Yeah, the idea is that Pascal taught them fear, but not how to deal with it. They end up getting so scared that they just want to not be scared anymore, and killing themselves is the only way to do so. This is an entirely believable response from severe trauma. There does come a point where the world seems so unthinkably, overwhelmingly painful that your only escape from the eternal terror is suicide. I've encountered suicidal ideation in seriously traumatized people like this (though never felt it myself) before.  If the kids' committing suicide doesn't make sense to you, well, I'm glad you've never encountered people in that level of despair.
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Nov 25, 2017 22:07
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Having come from a family with mental health issues running in it, I've been told that some of my aunts and cousins were suicidal and self-harming as young as 5/6. That said I think the source of the 'Children Committing Suicide doesn't make much sense' complaint (which I agree is legitimate) is twofold. The plot point of Pascal scaring them was only briefly introduced before this shitshow started and didn't get any grounding for us to understand that Pascal may have been borderline brainwashing them with the 'violence means your a bad scary machine' ideology. The second problem is design wise, there's no way to tell the age of the children. From what my family has told me even when they become suicidal kids below early adolescence lack the language to express and the ability to understand how suicide works and usually just self-harm in poorly conceived ways to make themselves 'not be there anymore.' Since we're lead to believe most of the children are pre-adolescent and can't see any difference between younger kids and older kids because all machine lifeforms look the same externally, we miss the possibility of there being older children and teenagers in the group who no doubt would have organized and pushed this mass suicide through. The Ghost of Ember fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Nov 25, 2017 |
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Nov 25, 2017 22:45
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I kinda feel this talk of which is the right choice is missing the point. I don't think there is a right choice at all given what we were presented. All three choices end in death. Two literal, one being the death of Pascal as we know him. Assuming he still retains some semblence of who he was, he will likely repeat his mistake again since he cannot recall doing so. The only right decision would have been to help Pascal through his pain, but even then, who would do it now that the village is gone? A2 is practically still a stranger. That said, I do love how the theme of what makes an individual themselves is continuing even here.
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Nov 25, 2017 23:07
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The Ghost of Ember posted:Having come from a family with mental health issues running in it, I've been told that some of my aunts and cousins were suicidal and self-harming as young as 5/6. I got the sense that they're the same age as the rest of the machines; they merely have the personalities of children.
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Nov 25, 2017 23:13
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DeliciousCookie posted:I kinda feel this talk of which is the right choice is missing the point. I don't think there is a right choice at all given what we were presented. All three choices end in death. Two literal, one being the death of Pascal as we know him. Assuming he still retains some semblence of who he was, he will likely repeat his mistake again since he cannot recall doing so. The only right decision would have been to help Pascal through his pain, but even then, who would do it now that the village is gone? A2 is practically still a stranger. Even if things go exactly as they did up to the point that they had to abandon the village, they could still go better later. A kid might run into a situation that terrifies them while Pascal's there to keep an eye on them, which would show him his mistake and give him a chance to talk the kid out of it, for instance.
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Nov 25, 2017 23:16
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quote:Human kids aren't exactly known for their suicidal tendencies, but these ARE actually just Correction, the machines IDENTIFY as children, not different from the Tumblr Apache Longbow Attack Helicopter except that in the latter case, it's a human being pretending to be a war machine, in the former case, it's a war machine pretending to be a human being. Obviously, if you don't accept the machine identification as human children, you are a sexist, racist, homophobic transphobe and deserve to get mutilated by enlightened SJW. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Nov 25, 2017 23:19
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Dabir posted:Even if things go exactly as they did up to the point that they had to abandon the village, they could still go better later. A kid might run into a situation that terrifies them while Pascal's there to keep an eye on them, which would show him his mistake and give him a chance to talk the kid out of it, for instance. Wasn't there a line somewhere that said that up to a point machine civilizations always just kinda.. stopped? Or hit a brick wall essentially? I kind of get the feeling this is sort of why. They come to some kind of massive mistake and wind up resetting over and over. There is that chance, sure, but that'd also require Pascal to be always babysitting, not to mention that theres equal chance that the kid doesn't learn from it or learn what Pascal wanted. Or heck, maybe Pascal could wind up being destroyed without properly teaching either. Kind of needs the perfect storm for things to go right, and less for things to go wrong I feel.
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Nov 25, 2017 23:22
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Charles_Kinbote posted:Correction, the machines IDENTIFY as children, not different from the Tumblr Apache Longbow Attack Helicopter except that in the latter case, it's a human being pretending to be a war machine, in the former case, it's a war machine pretending to be a human being. I love to have fun playing video games and injecting my weird political agenda into discussions about child robot suicide
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Nov 25, 2017 23:25
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Charles_Kinbote posted:Correction, the machines IDENTIFY as children, not different from the Tumblr Apache Longbow Attack Helicopter except that in the latter case, it's a human being pretending to be a war machine, in the former case, it's a war machine pretending to be a human being. You suck dude
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Nov 25, 2017 23:36
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You know in my day people on the internet could recognize jokes.
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Nov 25, 2017 23:46
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in my day people could make them edit: i should have said good post/avatar combo like two posts ago
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Nov 25, 2017 23:47
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Zoe posted:You know in my day people on the internet could recognize jokes. A distressing number of ironic 4chan nazis from ~10 years ago went on to become actual nazis. Parsing humor got a lot harder after that. e: Actually lets not end on that awful note and go back to our scheduled  So I think you can logic this out to some degree, but it requires taking a bunch of assumptions that you'll never get universal agreement on. But if we grant a) Erasing Pascal's memories is functionally identical to killing him AND b) the implication of the scene is that Pascal will kill himself if left to his own devices Then the most moral action does become erasing the memories. If all outcomes lead to Pascal being dead, then the best outcome morally would be the one in which some life, in this case whatever the new personality in Pascal's body becomes, is preserved (or, reallly, created) is the most moral outcome. Well, you also have to grant c) the preservation and continuation of life is the foundation of correct morality I guess if you're on the robo-murder Machine Lifeforms Cannot be Suffered to Live train then that's out, but if that's where you're at then kill him and be done with it anyway. CmdrKing fucked around with this message at 00:02 on Nov 26, 2017 |
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Nov 25, 2017 23:57
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Charles_Kinbote posted:Correction, the machines IDENTIFY as children, not different from the Tumblr Apache Longbow Attack Helicopter except that in the latter case, it's a human being pretending to be a war machine, in the former case, it's a war machine pretending to be a human being. There is a joke here, but what the joke is, is telling about your political leanings and such. Personally, I do find some of the stuff like "otherkin" really weird and easily mockable but I feel like machines identifying as children is different, and I suspect you do too. The mention of SJW's is... generally unappreciated in these parts due to many people here having leanings in the direction usually associated with "SJW's". I suspect you're deliberately trying to stir up poo poo though. Just be aware of the potential consequences of what you say, you could end up getting suspended if you push things too far. I can have moments of... eccentricity and sometimes be quite curious about things. Please forgive me if I do something foolish or rude.
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Nov 26, 2017 00:08
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 Pull up, thread! PULL UP!
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Nov 26, 2017 00:21
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This choice would be a lot easier if it was 9S rather than A2. There's no meaning in anything machine lifeforms do. ALL MACHINES MUST DIE. Maybe Pascal doesn't commit suicide if you leave him there; maybe 9S sneaks in behind you and shanks him.
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Nov 26, 2017 00:22
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Stephen9001 posted:There is a joke here, but what the joke is, is telling about your political leanings and such. Personally, I do find some of the stuff like "otherkin" really weird and easily mockable but I feel like machines identifying as children is different, and I suspect you do too. The mention of SJW's is... generally unappreciated in these parts due to many people here having leanings in the direction usually associated with "SJW's". I suspect you're deliberately trying to stir up poo poo though. Just be aware of the potential consequences of what you say, you could end up getting suspended if you push things too far. It's more about sperging out about the particularities of machine children; I agree with Poland Spring that the joke was not particularly good, but I wanted to note specifically the nature of machine identity or identification, wherein they construct an identity to present to the world. Yet at the same time, these constructs do not seem to be arbitrary, and reflect psychological realities on their part. The machines, obviously, lack sex, but choose gender and seem to psychologically feel masculine or feminine. In the same way, the machine choose to present as children, but are often psychologically children as well, due to their lack of experience or their socialization within the machine network.
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Nov 26, 2017 00:23
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| # ? May 11, 2024 11:19 |
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I recently caught up with the thread and was all set to make a joke about Pascal laying down the law, but then the mass child suicide happened. Should have figured. 
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Nov 26, 2017 00:27
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