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I genuinely have no idea how you can watch this entire show and be upset at the ending. The characters going through life after life until they achieve apotheosis and move on to something beyond even gods and demons. It feels like the only way the show could have ended and it made perfect sense. Like I honestly don't get how anyone can view it as suicide. It requires such a staggering and honestly kind of offensive misreading of the text that it's sort of bewildering. The entire point is that the characters have reached the point where they are willing to face what comes next, content and at peace with their lives. It is their own choice and the 'sudden realization' is them being aware and making the choice of their own free will to go what lies beyond even those who know everything. It is the quiet acceptance of death on its own terms, satisfied with the life you have lead and preparing for the next great adventure. There is no a single loving element of suicide in it and trying to claim that shows some insane fundamental misunderstanding of what causes suicidal urges.
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Feb 1, 2020 08:07
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Undead Hippo posted:Humans die, then go through a system of refinement and improvement until they have become the best version of themselves. Then go to a holiday resort for a few thousands years. Then choose to fade into nothingness. This is pretty blatantly demonstrated in-show. Humanity improves over time and that includes improving in the afterlife. Everyone in the afterlife discovers new things, explores new experiences, and grows in doing so. They remold themselves time and time again over eternities until they reach their apothesis. When they chose to go through the door and move on to whatever is next, they don't disappear. What they are returns to the universe and in doing so adds something to the universe. Eleanor (and presumably Chidi and Jason) went through the door and became a part of the universe and in doing so the refinement they went through also did. Eleanor may not exist as Eleanor anymore but what she was became something that makes the world better and we have no clear idea of what exists beyond that for the people who went through the door. Eternity, as a concept, is difficult for human minds to envision. Eternity is beyond what our minds can reasonably comprehend. Having an eternity to experience everything sounds amazing but eventually... you can't anymore. You can see all of human history, you can visit every alien planet, you can eat every food, pet every dog, read every book and then do it all over again. And then you still have an eternity to go. After a certain point the human mind will run out of things to do and ways to improve. (And honestly a lot of things you might think of as exciting would lose their interest once they are easy and without struggle.) The door represents something new, something different, something beyond. Maybe it is rest and peace. Maybe it is becoming something more, evolving to something beyond humanity. Maybe you become a god. Who knows? That isn't the important part. The important part is that you, as a person, have reached apothesis and are choosing to face the great unknown as an adventure, not a fear.
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Feb 1, 2020 20:50
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Taear posted:Bearimy is silly because we know time is demonstrably passing as new people come to the afterlife and it's not just "everyone is here because time doesn't properly exist". You have absolutely no idea how long a time passed because people don't come to The Good Place until they've genuinely changed enough to get there. This is in fact the entire point of the new Afterlife system. The protagonists live hundreds of lifetimes (and honestly are portrayed as fairly exceptional despite their flaws) beforehand. Someone like Brett might require more than we can imagine. It's a small refinement over countless lifetimes.
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Feb 1, 2020 20:57
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Taear posted:If bearimy doesn't have a set time then everyone should either be in the afterlife all at once (not specifically the good place, just the afterlife) or arrive at totally random times regardless of when they died. Okay Bearimy exists in the infinite between times, but people still arrive in the afterlife at a set time, which doesn't fit together. Uh, we have absolutely nothing showing that people arrive in the afterlife all at once. In fact we have pretty demonstrable proof otherwise. Taear posted:I think that's a lovely attitude for you to reply back with as well - if anything I'm thinking too much about each part of it. You're in heaven and the concept that a good place can exist where people can end their existence because they're not happy there doesn't sit right with me because it's heaven, it's paradise. There should be no boredom, no end. It isn't possible to have a paradise with no boredom and no end without fundamentally changing the minds involved. Because, again, eternity. You will, eventually, see and do everything that could possibly hold your interest. The paradise without boredom and end? That is implied to be what the protagonists willingly go on to, even if it's just nothingness. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Feb 1, 2020 |
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Feb 1, 2020 21:20
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Mulva posted:Also you'd think there would be people taking the 'middle' option of just forgetting the poo poo they experienced if they get tired of it and doing it all over again. "How is that different from non-existence?" says the moron, who I can't hear over all that cocaine I'm doing. Again, this is addressed in the show. You can make an afterlife where people are all one way but that isn't the actual people anymore. It's just you forcing them to act a certain way. They no longer grow or change. The central idea of the Good Place is that growth and personal betterment is the most important thing, not just a limited idea of happiness. Also even if people forget everything and do their entire experience over... they're not the same person. This is shown repeatedly throughout the show. Human souls change over time and they can work towards improvement. Again this is a central part of the entire idea. That simply erasing your memory doesn't erase the undefined part of you that is your soul. That is how people can improve over countless lifetimes. And if they do it again... then what? They go back to the Good Place and anyone who has improved themselves enough to get to the Good Place doesn't really seem like the type to want to redo life over and over for no reason. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Feb 1, 2020 |
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Feb 1, 2020 21:25
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Sub Rosa posted:Honestly I'm increasingly okay that of the infinite things to be done, some people would have a finite list to do. It's not that they couldn't have went to ancient Greece thousands of times, it's just that they didn't choose to. And going through the door when you have that feeling of peace isn't required. The literal last thing we see in the show is that Eleanor's essence continues to help people even after she goes through the door. Tahani didn't feel like she was yet ready to go through the door because she still has reasons to continue refining herself. Jason, Chidi and Eleanor did not once they found their apothesis. Jason stayed behind because he *did* have something left undone and he felt it was important enough to delay, but once he did it he was happy to go onto Whatever Is Next. You are assuming that the three who went through the door just gave up and not that by becoming part of the universe they are continuing to improve and to help in other ways even if it isn't as the specific construct of whatever that was their human form. Which, again, is demonstrably untrue because we see a part of Eleanor touch another human and encourage them to do a simple good act. (And we can assume they are not the only one, just the one we're shown so we can see the last scene with Michael.) ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Feb 1, 2020 |
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Feb 1, 2020 21:30
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RBA Starblade posted:The weird thing is that the door doesn't need to exist because there's obviously more than one answer as Tahani showed and what she chose wasn't something they actually changed to allow I mean... they did. For literal untold amount of time. Jason wanted to play the perfect game of Madden which is far less important but he still spent an unknowable amount of time working on it before he felt complete. Tahani found a reason not to go through the door but you're acting like that's forever and... it isn't. Tahani found her reason to keep improving herself but she may still find a reason to return to the door once she feels complete. Again, we are shown only the smallest infinitesimal part of their lives. We are also shown that they *did* do other things. They didn't just get to the Good Place and then run right through the door.
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Feb 1, 2020 21:35
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RBA Starblade posted:He played the perfect game of Madden in the Good Place. The point is, there are clearly other things to do to move on from The Good Place, and always were, and apparently only Tahani actually considered it and as far as we know ever will Again, he played the Perfect Game Of Madden among god knows how many other things, including his relationship with his father and Janet. Jason is not a complex or even a particularly ambitious person. He is straightforward and he is very happy with himself. Like yeah "lol Jason dumb" but also Jason is one of the most at-ease people in the entire cast. He reached his apothesis and he was okay with that. He only waited because he had something he wanted to do first. (And in doing so he quite literally became the monk he was jokingly assigned as, sitting quietly and alone and becoming one with the world around him.) Likewise Tahani didn't change forever and now she'll never ever leave. She found something she wanted to do to improve herself and others and so she is doing it. Elanor and Chidi also did these things as we're shown onscreen. They just reached the point where they wanted to move on to something more than the Good Place could offer. You are talking like Tahani found the One Weird Trick and not... Tahani just found something more but someday she may get past that too, like she did all the other things she mastered. The characters did so many things. They talk about them briefly and they sound amazing. They can't cover a near-infinite number of lifetimes in a single episode of a television show but they did their best. Taear posted:I know, that's exactly what I said? So did you not watch the show? Because it's kinda an important plot point for the last four episodes that they are literally restructuring the afterlife and rather than people getting a single chance and then getting tossed into the Bad Place they are now given the chance to refine themselves and earn The Good Place? They literally changed how it works. This is an actual important part of the plot. YaketySass posted:I guess what's rubbing me the wrong way is that the show has spent so long exploring themes of duties toward others that the finale comes off as very self-centered. Even before the conclusion of the door, it's all about "is this hedonistic happy ending good enough for eternity y/n?", and even if we're shown self-improvement Tahani is the only one to really use it for something beyond her own gratification. The last thing the show shows us is Elanor's essence helping someone!! Sub Rosa posted:They very literally according to the show are not doing that because they no longer exist, just like a wave no longer exists once it crashes on the shore. They cannot improve or help because they no longer exist. That the wave-water of their soul-essence splashes on someone and makes them do good is no more an act of their agency than it would be if they were cremated, and their ashes thrown in the face of Donald Trump, and that act made him realize he needed to be less of an rear end in a top hat. Except we are, again, literally shown they are still helping people. I feel like every argument boils down to "Well that doesn't count because it isn't their exact specific mind doing it but rather the matter of the universe which was a part of their soul" ignores a whole lot of storytelling to grumble about how selfish and spoiled it is. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Feb 1, 2020 |
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Feb 1, 2020 21:50
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Mulva posted:Counter-argument: Who gives a gently caress? ... the show? I don't get how you can watch 4 seasons of this and think the takeaway is "actually you know what'd be great, if humanity gave up all free will to live a life of perfect artificial bliss forever."
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Feb 1, 2020 21:59
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Sub Rosa posted:No we aren't. It's literally the same episode as the wave story. This is a show about moral philosophy, so agency is a fundamental concept. Their agency in walking through the door is not to help people, while they could use their agency to choose to help people as we have the example of Tahani doing so, and they are no more the gold dots that give people a conscience than the water on the beach is a wave. So are you aware of the full quote there? "When we look at the ocean, we see that each wave has a beginning and an end. A wave can be compared with other waves, and we can call it more or less beautiful, higher or lower, longer lasting or less long lasting. But if we look more deeply, we see that a wave is made of water. While living the life of a wave, the wave also lives the life of water. It would be sad if the wave did not know that it is water. It would think, 'Some day I will have to die. This period of time is my life span, and when I arrive at the shore, I will return to nonbeing.' "These notions will cause the wave fear and anguish. A wave can be recognized by signs - beginning or ending, high or low, beautiful or ugly. In the world of the wave, the world of relative truth, the wave feels happy as she swells, and she feels sad as she falls. She may think, 'I am high!' or 'I am low!' and develop superiority or inferiority complexes, but in the world of the water there are no signs, and when the wave touches her true nature - which is water - all of her complexes will cease, and she will transcend birth and death." The quote is not "and then you are gone forever!!!!!!" It is that you transcend the limitations of your form and become something more. The wave returns to the water. Eleanor's complexes and issues are gone but she is not. She is the wave that returned to being water. In this case what she did was return the part of her back to the universe which is demonstrably shown as adding more goodness to the universe. By accepting the next step she made the world better because she understood her time as the wave was done, but that does not mean her time as water was at an end. Edit: Hell, think of what Jason said? ""I just suddenly had this calm feeling, like the air inside my lungs was the same as the air outside my body." Jason chose to move on because he had finally realized that he wasn't just the physical body Jason but something more. He was not being selfish or hedonistic. He realized, after countless Bellamys, that he was more than Jason, more than the Wave. He was part of the universe and so he sought to return to that. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Feb 1, 2020 |
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Feb 1, 2020 22:01
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Sub Rosa posted:Not only the full quote but key Buddhist texts like the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā and how important the ramifications of śūnyatā on svabhāva are in regards to personal identity. Mādhyamaka is really loving sweet tbh So how the hell are you getting your reading there? Because what you said previously makes no sense with that. "It would be sad if the wave did not know that it is water" is loving central to the episode. It is quite literally voiced by Jason that the feeling he got was this realization. It was not self-annihilation or suicide, nor was it giving up and being selfish. You act as if they made the decision out of a desire to give up and without any thought as to what comes next and not... you know, that they came to an understanding of what their true nature is. There is a reason Chidi used that quote.
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Feb 1, 2020 22:23
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Edge & Christian posted:Maybe we really have been watching different shows, I agree with pretty much everything you said in your post but am sad I did not get to watch the show that explains all of time and space based on the unit of Bill Bellamys. Man I don't know what happened there. I can't even blame autocorrect! v  v
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Feb 1, 2020 22:29
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RBA Starblade posted:You're not getting what I'm saying. The problem with the Good Place, as the show presented it, is they have limitless perfection and nothing to do with it, which gets pretty old after the first billion years. Except, they actually did have something to do with it. Tahani walked away from Endless Utopia to help other people. That wasn't a thing they fixed - someone always could have done it. There wasn't anything or anyone stopping Hypatia from putting down the milkshakes and doing the same, or something else. They always had the ability to move on from Perfection. We literally saw Chidi (and IIRC Eleanor) helping onscreen. They also did that. They were in fact central in doing it. Eventually after an eternity, they moved on to other things. Which they also did. They didn't get 'bored after a billion years." They kept doing different things until, at least, they reached their apothesis and understanding of the universe. You frame it as "and they stopped helping people" when, again, the ending showed that they did move on from perfection and they did continue to help people, just in a form that transcended what we know. You are arguing they didn't show us the entirety of the character's afterlifetimes and thus clearly they never tried anything else when both onscreen and textual evidence shows otherwise. It wasn't 'the only choice.' It was the choice that felt right to them after everything they had done.
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Feb 1, 2020 22:39
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RBA Starblade posted:We see them helping in the Good Place. They kept doing different things in the Good Place. What I'm saying is, everyone in the Good Place always had the ability to leave it and help people or something else even, before that door got put in. They simply didn't do so. In other words, they put in a solution to a problem that wasn't there. Okay. So let me ask: What do you think Tahani's future is. Is she going to remain doing what she does for eternity? Why are you approaching this as "Tahani discovered the SECRET TRUE ENDING" and not "This is just one more step on Tahani's path before she achieves apotheosis?" Again, the reason they went through the door wasn't because they had nothing to do. They went through the door because they had come to a metaphysical realization about the nature of the universe. Chidi and Jason both try to explain it in their own ways. Both of them lingered because of their emotional attachment to their love interest but at the end of the day they were leaving because what lay beyond the door is what they felt they should be doing. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Feb 1, 2020 |
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Feb 1, 2020 22:50
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RBA Starblade posted:I thought he lost a point No, he was a bad person until the very end where his numbers skyrocketed but was just 2% away fron improvement Presumably if he'd had enough time to apologize he might have made it.
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Feb 2, 2020 19:42
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You mean the song whose explicit and intended purpose was to be ""stupidest song ever written" It's also a reference to the character name, not suicide being actually painless.
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Feb 3, 2020 23:37
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I work at a print shop and I am extremely tempted by a physical version of that
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Feb 4, 2020 22:44
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Khanstant posted:That's a super boring question that you basically figure out in middle school the first time they teach human development, and possibly just by reading that question for the first time ever. *waves hand at the vast majority of Americans*
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Feb 6, 2020 23:31
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The time knife exchange is probably mine.
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Feb 13, 2020 05:24
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Jason pushed a lot of the plot by being the guy who did things the others wouldn't and also was a primary factor in Janet's growth.
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Feb 16, 2020 18:36
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:A lot of the little jokes like that were my favorite (Janet's learning she can be passive-aggressive, Vicky's refusal to read a report without pictures, Tahani trying to make Jason and Janet feel better in the mailroom, and Michael getting his gifts from the team all come to mind) , and I feel like that is the general consensus. That said, I REALLY hope this show is remembered for more than that. I feel like it will be. If nothing else I've seen a ton of praise for being a show that told its story and ended strong which is a true relief after the vast number of popular shows that ended like rear end recently.
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Feb 16, 2020 22:29
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Android Blues posted:I mean, yeah probably, but not necessarily. There are people working on indefinite life extension right now. It's an incredibly difficult project, but with decades (or centuries) of technological advancement, there's no reason to believe we couldn't see human beings with indefinite lifespans. Death is a natural phenomenon with causes we can target. Most people who die of "old age" actually die of organ failure, or of illnesses their body has grown too weak to fight off. These are solvable problems, even if they might take a century to solve. Death isn't going to be avoidable for our generation, most likely, but it may be avoidable for future generations. But death is still inevitable. Even if you can make yourself physically incapable of dying of sickness/old age you're still eventually going to lose the gamble on a car crash or whatever. And even if you assume immortality and invincibility well... Doesn't that sound like hell? Eternity is far, far, far more than we can think of. A 'mere' billion years is beyond all sense of scope. Even if you could be immortal and invincible what happens if, for example, the world suffers a catastrophe? Or what if we somehow master space travel and there's an accident, leaving you floating for an unknowable amount of time in the empty blackness of space? What happens when the suns fade? Would you want to be immortal and invincible if you were trapped on a dead Earth? A longer life is a good thing but at the end of that longer life is still an ending because no matter what you're eventually going to reach the end of everything. Premature and unwilling deaths are a tragedy but the key here is 'unwilling.' Not in suicidal methods but in the fact that there will come a point in infinity where infinity becomes a burden, not a reward. And that assumes you are the only immortal one. If everyone was immortal then it becomes loving horrifying because the worst people in the world are also immortal and you can bet they will be very good at exploiting that. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Feb 26, 2020 |
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Feb 26, 2020 01:16
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MikeJF posted:An afterlife that is better than life on earth in every measurable way. Without Earth the good place would have no meaning. It is living that defines death. This is like a central idea of the show.
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Jun 30, 2020 19:46
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I actually like Chidi's relatively 'kind' flaw being treated as something significant because it really is his biggest flaw. His inability to make decisions constantly hurts his life and the lives of those around him and it isn't because he is malicious or cowardly or anything, it is just a flaw in who he is. Which means it becomes more and more significant when he *does* make decisions and why it means so much at the end that he makes the choice to move on before Eleanor does. He is making his own genuine decision out of his own genuine belief and he isn't double guessing himself. It is really satisfying how all the characters grow in such a natural way that the ending for each is a perfect culmination of their character. Jason is never a smart man but he becomes a wise man in his own way. Tahani devotes herself to helping others and is happy to do so. Chidi becomes comfortable with himself and willing to make decisions. And Eleanor as a person may no longer be there but her essence goes on to make the universe better and kinder no matter how selfish and self-centered she might have been in life. God drat I love TGP. it is really stunning just how *good* a show it is.
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Aug 10, 2020 04:25
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