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I think it's wrong to view Benten as villainous - or as a victim. She's more... capricious. She's basically the RPG protagonist of this story, the agent of change that shakes things up. Her relationship with Akadama is... complicated - it seems quite possible that taking away his powers is kinda a good thing, because the mellow Akadama that might potentially in the future have a re-approachment with his son is the result. I'd identify the supernatural creatures in the show as ultimately bound by rules and traditions, and as a human Benten is beyond that, and that's why she is important. I don't think the Tanuki allow themselves to be eaten because of a simple reason like 'they are too afraid to fight back', but because of a reason like 'it's right and natural for Tanuki to be eaten by humans, it's a more honorable way to go than old age or being run over by a car'. Think of humans as like your Baba Yaga of fairy tale - are they evil? No, they simply *are*. Fangz fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Apr 19, 2017 |
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Apr 19, 2017 02:42
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It's blatantly wrong to say Benten is entirely self serving given she saves various people loads of times.
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Apr 19, 2017 02:52
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Obviously if this was real life Benten would be going to jail for a long time but I think the story really wants us to inhabit the headspace of Yasubaru in particular, in which case Benten should be regarded with not man-morality but kinda god-morality. Like Zeus has killed loads of people for dubious reasons and eaten his own daughter and raped lots of women and he's still sorta the good guy because he is above normal morality somehow and helps the hero and abides by promises. Similarly the Friday Fellows thing is more like a religion with human sacrifice - you might individually not want to be the guy on the chopping block but everyone recognises that it just happens and it's not the domain of normal people to question why it happens. Also the head of the Friday Fellows might actually BE a god so things get complicated.
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Apr 19, 2017 03:35
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Pavlov posted:Now that's almost what I was expecting the show to get into, because for things like human sacrifice, people don't tend to say "we do it because tradition", they tend to construct an extensive series of justifications to support it, and the worse the practice the more extensive the justifications. It's how you get divine right of kings, the white man's burden, and manifest destiny. This is a little inaccurate. Volunteers did provide some victims for the aztecs, but captives from war was also a common source, as is in the case in many other civilisations. You can pretty easily balance being comfortable with the idea of having someone die now and then with also not personally wanting it to be you or someone close to you. Souichirou debatably volunteered, it seems like. I really should watch the first season again, but wasn't the subtext there that he viewed his death as a way of securing the favour of Benten for his family? Fangz fucked around with this message at 14:06 on Apr 19, 2017 |
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Apr 19, 2017 14:02
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Jeez OP, tag those spoilers.
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Apr 25, 2017 10:36
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Doc V posted:What exactly did I spoil? Everything in the OP is either stuff that has been previously established or basic character traits that are common in-universe knowledge. Tournament in next week's episode? The thing about the guy's hat that might be later revealed in the show? Even really talking about shuffling around events from the novel has implications about events happening. Please, I think it would just be polite to spoiler tag all discussion of the novel.
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Apr 25, 2017 18:23
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I'm not gonna dance around discussing whether particular details are spoilers or not, I just think general discussion of the novel and differences between it and the show should be tagged. If you aren't spoiling the show you are still spoiling the novel.
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Apr 25, 2017 19:11
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Again, I think it would just be nice to spoiler tag everything, and I don't see a reason not to. Safer too. Even making the implication that 'X is not important' and 'Y that I am very clearly not talking about *is* important' is arguably a spoiler.
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Apr 25, 2017 19:33
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