Again, speaking as a professional actor here, there are a lot of ways you can read this dialog, and without a whole bunch of context clues almost all of them are valid. We have to be really careful to not let the author manipulate you into a false reading. For example you said: "but she doesn't agree with it and doesn't seem to want any part of it." But what she said is that she didn't agree to "this." For example, I could ask you to help me save a life, but then you find out that means amputating a limb with gangrene without any kind of anesthetic. Or I could tell you that I need your help somebody overcoming their fear, only to find out that I'm asking you to do Exposure therapy, which can be a real traumatic experience if you're not forward.
I'm not saying I'm right at all, I'm just saying that there is some big wiggle room in the text here, and that Sel is a very very very deliberate writer.
I agree with a lot of this, save modern medicine has a lot more "breaking" going on it then you think that it does. Chemo therapy is maybe the best example. But you can also find a really hard to listen to episode of Radiolab about how pretty much most doctors have DNR orders because they know just how badly you're broken in order to save you. I'm also deeply agnostic on the "ultimate teenage-fuck monster," being de jure bad. IRL absolutely bad. "Higher Powers" do work outside mortal frameworks of morality. Jehovah never asked for Mary's consent before knocking her up with Jesus.
I'm talking more meta-textually here and when the game goes 4th wall breaking. The thing about cycles, and if we trust that this is a cycle, then even this point in the game has to have happened before. The billions of Akiras that have happend before are only a "thing that happend" when we are actively playing the game. When we turn it off...non-exitance for everybody.
There is a fine line between a "jumbled mess" and "begging for a deeper hermeneutical reading." The first time I played a year ago, I didn't make it to the end of chapter 1 because I thought it was just a bunch of edgy shit, but the first season change convinced me that there was a method to Sel's clear madness.
Eh... I'm not sure if I'm seeing things the way you're seeing things fully. Of course there are a lot of ways to interpret things without being given the answer directly, and a lot of the story is purposefully left vague and up to interpretation, or simply isn't answered yet. But if the game is begging for you to read into it because it has the answers, then seemingly straight dialogue from an otherwise mysterious character is not where we should be poking holes. Regardless of exactly what she means by "didn't agree to this," she didn't agree to it. Your own example is seemingly what happens in Untitled. Whatever reasons she's there for, she's there, then sees what's happening, and she doesn't agree with it. And the information we have about her can only point us in so many directions until we have more.
I don't agree that teenage-fucking monster is 'bad' from an inherent or objective standpoint in the game either, as that's clearly a good or neutral thing in some characters' eyes. HOPE is all about impregnating vessels. But the point was that people's ideas of fixing someone and 'good' are different. It's abundantly clear that Himawari and someone like 79, HOPE, etc. are different in that regard, and that's the author's intent in writing her to be appalled. It's not the author tricking us. Not unless Himawari is revealed to be evil, or something.
The game does break the 4th wall and seem aware of its own 'non-reality' but that doesn't discredit anything else shown or stated in the game. If you're referring to characters telling us the only way out is to stop playing, then yeah, that's true for us and in real life. But does that negate what we know or are told about the world having existed and almost certainly being able to continue without us, knowing that the player and current version of the character we primarily see the world through can isn't necessary for the world and characters to exist in-universe? I highly doubt it.
I'm not sure if you're referring to hermeneutical reading more as a methodology for adding context and information to reach new conclusions, or more traditionally as interpreting scriptural or canonical themes and messages, in this case of the story/game. The first is kind of what we've been doing the whole time (others for a long time, me for a couple weeks) and the second is just one piece of the whole of the first. I think trying to use a specific framework to fully understand and question the game might trip you up, though. Especially in trying to apply theological or philosophical perspectives to things where the exact influence and perspective is unclear, or is an amalgamation.
I do love when NiB is referenced yet actually using it as a crutch is not recommended since not noly is it incomplete but it will aso be re-written.Praise be
I think it's more likely that Nodoka stumbled upon Shiori (Himawari's coworker) just a month ago, and that's what Himawari's referencing in "scientific research". Then Nodoka kept the name "Shiori" from that encounter, just as she does to all sorts of fragmented information. But who knows... It could very well be that Shiori directed her there, and even Nodoka is a part of their plans to interfere with this cycle.
Again, speaking as a professional actor here, there are a lot of ways you can read this dialog, and without a whole bunch of context clues almost all of them are valid. We have to be really careful to not let the author manipulate you into a false reading. For example you said: "but she doesn't agree with it and doesn't seem to want any part of it." But what she said is that she didn't agree to "this." For example, I could ask you to help me save a life, but then you find out that means amputating a limb with gangrene without any kind of anesthetic. Or I could tell you that I need your help somebody overcoming their fear, only to find out that I'm asking you to do Exposure therapy, which can be a real traumatic experience if you're not forward.
I'm not saying I'm right at all, I'm just saying that there is some big wiggle room in the text here, and that Sel is a very very very deliberate writer.
I agree with a lot of this, save modern medicine has a lot more "breaking" going on it then you think that it does. Chemo therapy is maybe the best example. But you can also find a really hard to listen to episode of Radiolab about how pretty much most doctors have DNR orders because they know just how badly you're broken in order to save you. I'm also deeply agnostic on the "ultimate teenage-fuck monster," being de jure bad. IRL absolutely bad. "Higher Powers" do work outside mortal frameworks of morality. Jehovah never asked for Mary's consent before knocking her up with Jesus.
I'm talking more meta-textually here and when the game goes 4th wall breaking. The thing about cycles, and if we trust that this is a cycle, then even this point in the game has to have happened before. The billions of Akiras that have happend before are only a "thing that happend" when we are actively playing the game. When we turn it off...non-exitance for everybody.
There is a fine line between a "jumbled mess" and "begging for a deeper hermeneutical reading." The first time I played a year ago, I didn't make it to the end of chapter 1 because I thought it was just a bunch of edgy shit, but the first season change convinced me that there was a method to Sel's clear madness.
Perhaps a sort of digression but I fully agree that Sel is a very deliberate writer. He just stuffed too many symbols and content and tried to confuse readers in every possible way. I basically considered LiL as a deranged piece of work at first but progressly I started to "grape the line"— There are themes always reoccuring and reiterating from different respectives for so many times that it started to get tedious.
As for those "Higher Powers", I would believe they are merely "machinery" and mirrors on the theatre as almost everything in LiL is more or less parodied and carnivalied. Even on itself as it's blatantly written "Non est deus" (There is no God or He is not God. Thus you must apply poetics rather than theology). I hold deep belief that everything here starts, pivots and ends on distorted figure Akira (and perhaps its corresponding in reality, the player, though I have yet to see more content on free will and agency of the players in LiL) and others are "interchangeable" (e.g. Maya—Sekai).
By the way apropos of those theological discussion, I in general see them simply as post-modernism cliches since there are really nothing worth talking about individually. Trite Dostoevskian ramble at best.
Moonflare: "This thread is too intellectual."
Moonflare, but as a character drawn in Microsoft Paint that was cut from my Noriko fanfic due to budget and time constraints:
Yeah I dunno wtf is up with the character card I have of Akira. It doesn’t seem to match up precisely to what’s in the game fsr. I have one named ‘Sensei’ from the front page and another named ‘Akira’ that someone else posted awhile back on the thread when they updated some character cards (that’s the one I used).
Probably will try the card from the OP next time and see how it does.