#and like the situation is even worse bc Horobi's an AI and so he's even MORE impressionable and volatile rn bc he's new to emotions

[firebirdsdaughter]

…

… Running theme for most of the characters in the last two eps of Zero-One:

Blame the long-term brainwashing victim and grown up child soldier who is also an AI and therefore his brain works differently from a human’s, who has had his emotions forcibly repressed and been w/out a mind of his own for more than a decade while being conditions to respond w/ extremes for not knowing how to person/respond to freedom/express his feelings/completely break away from the brainwashing he was under/being able to completely rationalise that extensive amount of negative data  that has been forcibly impressed on him for over a decade is biased even though he has very few experiences to prove otherwise, react violently, thus enforcing the idea that humans will seek to destroy anything that ‘defies’ them rather than proving that even in the face of a threat they can be understanding and calm, then when a person gets caught in the crossfire bc she keeps poking a bear and doesn’t dodge an attack she clearly sees coming (this is literally Izu walking over to tell Jin Horobi was defeated again, it’s super ooc, imo, she could easily have moved, she zips around faster than a damn car) bc he’s frightened and overwhelmed and panicking and doesn’t know how to handle it and is literally afraid of his emotions (literally, there’s a reason you don’t wantonly approach an injured animal, even the best trained pets will bite if frightened enough, esp if it feels cornered, and this was like rushing a wounded animal shouting w/ a stick raised), instead of anyone trying to contain the situation on either side (Jin kinda tries but what really need to happen there was for him to not let Horobi walk away, even if he had knock him out), someone goes totally homicidal (again, all those people Gai killed, but this is unforgivable???), and the traumatised child soldier AI continues to not really get the support he needs and descends deeper into hysteria (and gets accused of having it out for Izu… Like… What. Say ‘angry at,’ at least, or better yet, say something about ‘don’t let the Ark keep controlling/influencing you’), then we’re yelling at him for not understanding her ‘pain’?? Oh, I don’t know, maybe he’s a little busy not understanding his own pain???

Also Naki and Ikazuchi suddenly acting like Horobi is some kind of monster—well you know what Mx.* Literally Got Shot Twice By A Human For Petty Reasons And Then Stuffed In A Stranger’s Brain and Mister Was Going To Be Deactivated For Finishing His Job, at least Jin showed up! (it’s not them, it’s the writing, but it really pissed me off to hear that from them after we didn’t see or hear from them last ep—kinda shitty to have them be saying stuff like that when they didn’t do a single thing to try and change the situation either)

This should, at the least, be depicted as a tragedy of miscommunication and poor reactions, a result of the lasting damage and trauma the Ark left Horobi w/ which made him volatile, confused, and frightened of emotions/freedom and the genuine failings/arrogance of humans and the fact that honestly Izu’s data was equally biased but even then if people (Fuwa and Yua, I adore him, but he fucked up) had literally listened to her in that scene likely none of this would have happened.

Maybe part of this is the behaviour of a lot of the fanbase, but it just feels like the show is trying to make out what should at the least be treated as a tragic result of miscommunication and failure to understand the nature of Horobi’s situation and trauma (he was never going to easily come around on humans, did y’all really expect him to be magically ‘okay’ after what the Ark did to him). Like… This is a semi-realistic depiction of someone coming out from under a control like that (and it’s even worse bc he’s an AI, made to ‘serve’ and learn from intaking info, and the majority of the info he’s taken in is… The Ark’s negative data, so he’s got that on top of everything else), but the in-universe response to him gives the whole thing some bad connotations.

I’d love to think next ep we’ll get a moment of Aruto realising ‘oh, wait, this person I’ve been trying to murder was mind raped for twelve years and is not mentally or emotionally stable, maybe I shouldn’t take things at face value’ but I honestly doubt it.

Also, Horobi didn’t start this ‘chain,’ Amatsu Fucking Gai did, I don’t care if the show wants me to forget by replacing him w/ a body double, none of this would’ve bloody happened if that bastard hadn’t created the Ark.

*I forgot how to expand (like how Mr. expands to Mister) the nonbinary thingy so poor Naki gets an abbreviation

[firebirdsdaughter]

You know what else frustrates me…

… About RxT??? The partial return of the Aruto I liked.

Admittedly, bc of events in the show I have an aversion to Aruto and Izu scenes bc they just feel so groomy, but at least the bits of some of Aruto’s behaviour I’ve been able to see has felt like the return of the version of the character I had hopes for at the start of the series. The things he says to S are things he should have rushed in to say to Horobi, or should just have been said to Horobi, things he should have learned/realised from the calamitous way he treated Jin the first time. And while I take issue w/ how differently S is treated than Will or Horobi, I do feel bad for the guy (also this, too, is Amatsu’s fault).

Additionally, like I made a huge post about earlier, stuff like Horobi and Izu’s interaction could have been really good sans all the baggage the rest of the series left them w/. The memories stuff remains superfluous bc those memories didn’t change Izu at all, and a much more compelling subplot for her would be her taking tally of all the things that have happened and how she’s screwed up villain confrontations before to decide whether or not her going is the right choice. Will she help, or just make it worse again? Is there anything she can do? Horobi reassuring her that it’s a) her choice and b) everyone is different (such as, S is in a very different situation than he was, and this time she’s aware of the risks) would have been a great moment.

Also I still don’t understand how it’s ‘sweet’ that Aruto apparently ‘needs’ Izu to not use berserk Keys??? Like… If that’s the case, he needs to step down and get a therapist. He shouldn’t need her ~support~ to not make terrible decisions, esp bc I still don’t see what’s so unique about her as the majority of the show was written. If he needs a 24/7 yes woman siri at his elbow to not do destructive stuff… See above about needing to step down and get a therapist. This could have been mitigated a bit by having Izu act more in her alleged position as executive assistant rather than just following Aruto around making heart eyes at him, w/ him becoming aware of how groomy his behaviour towards her is and actively trying to distance himself so she makes her own choices, also him actually interacting w/ the other relationships he has that are not premade to like him. See her interact w/ other people and other HumaGear, see her actively trying to do things for HumaGear that don’t boil down to ‘help them help humans better for Aruto’s ~dream~.’ See him actually connect to and relate w/ the people around him who aren’t manufactured to like him and have others upports. If her interaction w/ Horobi had been less ‘but humans are the Best actually’ and more ‘you have a point, but this isn’t the answer, it’s possible to do this differently.’ If I didn’t feel like Izu’s only character trait was ‘supports Aruto,’ if she had other relationships like a friendship w/ Jin that didn’t revolve around Aruto, or relationships w/ Fuwa and Yua like Fuwa teaching her how to punch and Yua maybe teaching her coding or something. If we had seen Fuwa making Aruto realise that he’s been just as biased about HumaGear and that rather than being a ‘saviour’ he needs to step into the ‘support’ role. Seeing her and Aruto disagree about something and maybe even stay disagreed. The fact that it feels like Izu doesn’t care about anything but Aruto’s wishes to a downright insensitive degree and that the show presents there being nothing wrong w/ his nigh exclusive control over her life and development, right down to her ‘morality’ is quite creepy. They once had Aruto tell Horobi he wasn’t the Ark, but someone needs to tell Izu she’s not Aruto and that she doesn’t have to follow everything Aruto says exactly to be ‘good.’ I’m absolutely rambling now, but it’s just that Aruto and Izu have exactly the same dynamic that the Ark had w/ Horobi, but it’s treated as ‘okay’ bc Aruto is ‘good’ and ‘just wants people to be happy.’ And while I don’t think Aruto has bad intentions like the Ark did, I think he means well… That’s just as not okay. His ‘relationship’ w/ Izu feels more like grooming and gaslighting than actual development. He tells her she should ‘choose’ but she has nothing to choose between bc all she knows is that ‘Aruto-shachou is nice.’ Or, rather, Aruto-shachou says he’s nice. But I am going completely off book.

Anyway, I feel like I can tell this film was supposed to come part way through the series, bc it still has smatterings of the Aruto I liked, who officially got lost around the time 02 appeared in the show. Izu choosing to disobey Aruto could have been a big thing for her character, if the entire rest of their relationship didn’t feel manufactured. Her snapping him out of (yet another) berserk form would been good if it was more about just how he needs to stop grandstanding and realise that he’s not some ‘saviour’ that does everything alone and also haven’t we been through this before? Not ‘remember how perfect you are’ or ‘remember your heart’ but just ‘you don’t need to go doing this, get your head in the game.’ Gods, Izu (lightly) slapping Aruto. Not being upset just bc ‘you taught me I love you so I can’t live w/out you stop putting yourself in danger’ but that his behaviour was unnecessarily risky for everyone. Izu being ‘cutesy mad’ at Aruto for being in danger doesn’t count as disagreeing, I’d want her to actively call him out on making a bad decision and hold him accountable. I just feel like so much of the tone of them is that ‘Izu is Aruto’s perfect angel who helps him be ~good~’ and again if you need your cutesy secretary to follow you around and tell you to remember how ‘wonderful’ you are to not do stupid stuff… You need to not be in a position of power. There’s a reason I just hear You Don’t Know What Love Is by Plain White T’s playing over all of their scenes, bc Izu doesn’t know what love is, she only knows what Aruto’s told her??? And I have gone way off topic again???

My point originally was, I see some of the old Aruto here, the one I liked, the one who felt like a person and not some representation of human arrogance and bias. The one who wasn’t always getting shilled as some perfect saint and who felt like just this guy out of his depth doing his best. The guy who had decent intentions, but had his own biases and assumptions about HumaGear/ai and who I was hoping to see learn and grow and become something more. The guy I held out for being able to recognise how mbjr were all victims and show compassion and sympathy for them, who would come to recognise the issues w/ the power structure in his society and actually give indication it bothered him and he wanted to change it, who would realise he, along w/ most other people, had been taking HumaGear benevolence for granted, who would come to respect the feelings of others and how HumaGear can very justifiably be angry w/ humans sans any sort of interference, and who would come to recognise his own flaws and struggle to work on them… I miss that guy.

Instead, I’ve got mister ‘I have a bigger heart for ignoring your suffering until it effected me’ and ‘there’s no reason for us to fight anymore bc obviously that’s my call I know how you feel/what’s best for you.’

[firebirdsdaughter]

…

… The angle on this really should be, at least, that both sides were pushed over the breaking point, Horobi after everything he’d been through that had happened to him, being new to freedom and emotions and being thoroughly terrified of both, cracking under mounting pressure and trying to remove/reject what his traumatised and damaged system saw as the ‘source’ of his pain and confusion, in that moment… Only for it to only make him feel worse, which he rejects even more violently… And then Aruto going apeshit bc Izu exploded, like. Yeah. I get that. I have criticisms for how their relationship was portrayed, but there’s no denying they were close. Of course he’d be upset. Horobi ended up reacting that way bc of all the extensive horror and agony he went through, bc no one tried to actually help him until the very end, and then instead of continuing in that vein, they instead immediately were ready to destroy him.  And then Izu gets caught in the crossfire, essentially (partially bc they made her walk into it, but that’s beside the point). This should be a mutual tragedy of the effects of Gai’s actions in concentrating that hatred in the Ark, we should be seeing the humans be like ‘maybe we fucked up in our reaction to that situation, maybe if we had listened to Izu/done something different, we wouldn’t be here?’

Instead… It kist feels like ‘how could Horobi he’s such an awful person’ but ‘oh, but Aruto can’t be held responsible, he’s just grieving.’

Like. The attitude that ‘Horobi should know better’ but ‘Aruto’s just upset.’

… No.

Horobi is literally incapable of knowing better. Bc he’s literally an AI conditioned for his whole life w/ all the negativity of humanity. When they should up at the warehouse w/ weapons drawn wanting to fight, that told Horobi that this is the ‘appropriate’ response. They weren’t proving to him that situations can be resolved w/out conflict, that humans can be reasonable, in even in the face of threat. They were validating the Ark’s data that humans are always violent and aggressive and seek to destroy. They weren’t giving him a chance to be shown that violence is a bad response.

Bc that’s it. That’s why Jin stabbed Izu when she insulted Horobi’s injury. That’s why Horobi fire. Both of them were conditioned w/ the point of view that violence is  an/the only acceptable response. No one ever tried to give them a frame of reference otherwise. Horobi is an AI who spent his entire life under the Ark’s doctrine, AI have no natural moral compass. There’s no way for him to know ‘violence is not the answer’ unless it was shown to him/taught to him. Goes double bc the Ark taught the opposite. And everyone showing up waving guns and shouting about fighting… Just reenforced that.

The attitude should be ‘humans should have known better/taken steps before it got to this point and now we’re in a right awful mess.’

Yes, Aruto is irrational from grief, I totally give him that. But Horobi didn’t do this bc he’s a ‘bad’ person, this was a result of him being irrational and traumatised and damaged after everything he went through. He didn’t do this ‘in cold blood’ bc he had it out for Izu, he was not in a well place.

Horobi was mistreated and traumatised and pressured to the point of snapping, and as a result, Izu got hit and then Aruto snapped.

This isn’t ‘Horobi bad Aruto just sad.’

This should be treated as a double tragedy. Horobi should have never been left alone in his suffering for it to get to this point. This is ‘Horobi lost and terrified and hysterical victim of mistreatment and Aruto mad  and irrational from grief.’

Again, and I do not mean this as an insult to any of the characters, it’s like a dog that used used and abused in a fighting ring for years getting suddenly dropped into a completely brand new situation, getting over stimulated and panicked and aggressive bc that’s all it knows, and then lashing out an biting another, domesticated pet dog that was just trying to make friends/play bc it misinterpreted/didn’t understand the situation and the signals it was receiving.

In a situation like that, you would mostly blame the people who abused and traumatised the dog, right? And stuff like that is literally why there’s extensive training and procedure for dealing w/ traumatised animals. So why is this entirely Horobi’s fault? Again, just bc he looks like a human adult, he’s an AI, which has a bit more in common w/ an animal in that field. Horobi can’t be expected to have the emotional control and maturity of a human adult bc no one ever taught him how, in fact, he’s been taught that those are bad things, emotions, that he should not feel, and the fact that he has them now terrifies and upsets him. He also… Like, I know it seems so basic to us humans, but Horobi literally cannot know ‘violence is not the answer.’ Bc he’s literally been conditioned w/ the opposite all his life.

[firebirdsdaughter]

We really ignoring Horobi murdering Izu who not trying to kill him and the fact while he didn’t started this cycle. He sure as hell doing himself no favors by murdering Izu who Artuo closet ally and act all surprised when Artuo hate him. Not acknowledging he the cause for this malice in Artuo. Should Artuo still try to get though to him even though he murder Izu who got no back up compare to Jin who died before and can very well be bought back again?

…

Uh.

Can I just ask… Why are you on my blog? It’s not like I’ve been subtle about my love for Horobi. And you must be on my blog bc I’m pretty sure I haven’t put any of those thoughts in the main tag, and have been carefully tagging them as complaining/negativity/opinions/salt.

1) I’m not saying Horobi was ‘right,’ I’m saying he isn’t in a sane place right now and this wasn’t a ‘cold blooded murder,’ esp bc I’m pretty sure he understands that he regrets it now. He’s been trained for more than ten years to respond to things w/ extremity and violence, as evidenced by the Ark having him repeatedly take out or try to take out things/people that were making him feel in any way—what happened w/ Midori, why he was driven to attack Jin in 41. From Horobi’s extremely damaged and fucked up perspective, he just wanted to make the pain and confusion go away. He didn’t try to hunt out Izu, she approached him, and knowingly endangered herself. Which is why I’m also calling the fact that we’ve seen Izu move faster than a car, she could have dodged the shot and didn’t, so it’s ineffective as drama bc it was easily preventable. I’m calling bs on the writing.

2) Horobi’s definitely not surprised that Aruto hates him? He might be surprised that Aruto went full Ark (I am, too, that feels out of character, I would’ve expected him to just go regular berserk on his own). I’m not saying it’s wrong for Aruto to be mad. Like I just said, I would have expected him to go berserk on his own, which might have ended up leading to Jin’s death anyway. Like… Where did you get that. Actually don’t answer that. Aruto getting angry and going after Horobi would have been one thing, though the way he went Ark is weird to me. What bugs me is the way it’s being treated/reacted to as a ‘black and white’ situation when it should be more grey. Horobi is mentally unwell, and there were multiple factors at work/responsible for the situation. This isn’t just ‘Horobi is a bad person it’s all his fault.’ This is also ‘contrived drama by the writers who are hoping we forgot Izu can break land-speed records.’

2.5) I’m not expecting Aruto to reach out to him at this point. Hell, I’m not even saying ‘forgive’ him, even though I think by this point Horobi has figured out he regrets it. What should really happen is someone else intervenes and keeps them away from each other until both are more stable. Really, someone should have stepped in to control that on both ends. Aruto shouldn’t have been left alone. Neither of them should have. I do think more effort should have gone into reaching out to him before it happened. If they hadn’t been alone in there/if someone w/ a little more ‘emotional/mental experience’ had been present, things might’ve gone differently.

3) Izu still not having a back up is ridiculous, literally everyone knows Aruto is Zero-One, this feels like just terrible planning/lack lustre writing imo, and on top of that, Horobi didn’t know she had no backup. Still doesn’t make his reaction ‘okay,’ bc violence is never the answer, but he’s shown before he believes in bringing AI back through backups, so it may not even have occurred to him that she wouldn’t have one. Additionally, we don’t know Jin has a back up. We can’t say he ‘can very well be brought back again’ bc we don’t actually know that. We don’t know if ZAIA kept that data, Williamson just said they ‘repaired’ him. And that’s also it, even if it exists, ZAIA has it. Not Horobi. Also… This is KR, they could figure out some MacGyver to bring Izu back, even if it’s not clear now, though that’s more of a meta thing. Actually, what I would love to happen is Horobi helps bring her back, maybe as part of therapy.

Look, disagreeing is fine. That’s why I’ve been trying to keep my negative reactions out of the main tag. I’m not trying to get into fights, I’m just venting. I’m analysing what I see and interpret. It’s not that Horobi was ‘right’ it’s that he’s mentally and emotionally unstable rn bc of what happened to him, he should not be expected to know how to react calmly to things, esp if under pressure and in an intense situation. I also literally just wrote a post about how I don’t think it’s fair to blame Izu entirely, either. I comment about blaming the humans (esp Yua and Fuwa (whom I love dearly), but they did escalate the situation and then leave Aruto alone there, wtf did they leave him alone???) bc if they’d listened to Izu at the start we’d likely not be in this mess, or if they’d actually tried to reach out to him before, things could have gone differently.

This is my point of view. If this is upsetting to you, which it seems to be from the tone of this Ask, I recommend blocking my blog, bc these are my feelings on this, and I’m not going to change. I’d block you so that you wouldn’t have to see my posts, but then you wouldn’t be able to see this answer, which I hope explains some of my position, so I’ll leave it for now. Besides, in the end, it’s just a tv show, and it doesn’t actually matter, for all I can get very emotional about things, esp bc Horobi as a character became very important to me.

I hope at least some of that was coherent. I have a hard time articulating my thoughts (part of why I repeat myself so much), and I have been extremely exhausted for the past few days bc my sleep schedule is messed up, so it’s even worse.

I’m not apologising for having an opinion and an interpretation of a piece of media, and I never will. That’s not something I should be required to apologise for. I’m not hurting anyone, bc, again, it’s just a tv show. I’m just in my corner, rambling. I don’t mean any of it as an attack against people who disagree, everyone interpret things differently. For instance, I have things in media that I dislike so much it makes me feel physically ill to think about them, but I just filter them out and it’s fine. I’m even on friendly terms (I hope?) w/ people who like some of those things that make me feel sick, but it’s fine, bc we just don’t discuss them. I know people I disagree about things w/, less viscerally, and have actually had discussions w/ them about that stuff.

Having differing opinions is one thing, but I don’t appreciate the aggressive tone here. I’m saying this partially bc I do understand getting very fired up about something, even if it’s fictional (*looks pointedly at my own blog*), so I’m assuming you just feel very strongly on the subject, but please be aware of how your words might come across—bc the another part of the reason I’m saying this is that I know if I had been in a slightly different mood when I saw this, it might have greatly upset me to unwell levels. I hope it was not your intention to attack me on anything, and that this is just something you feel passionate about, but as someone who often struggles w/ tone and knows it… Please consider it. It can be harmful.

[firebirdsdaughter]

What’s hilarious [read: ridiculous] to me…

… Is that Horobi and Yua actually follow a fairly parallel path in their responses to their situations (I had a whole realisation about how Horobi-Fuwa-Naki-Yua are a four way parallel today; Horobi-Fuwa are parallels and Naki-Yua are parallels, but then their actions crisscross parallel). But there’s a massive double standard in how the two characters are reacted to… Despite the fact that Yua is a fully mentally matured and developed human adult and Horobi is an AI that has been hacked and brainwashed for the past decade in a way that forcibly stunted his development.

Yua was in a horrid and toxic work environment w/ an abusive boss. Now, admittedly, Gai kept a large amount of his worse deeds from her and to a point one could justify it as her thinking she’s acting for the greater good… Until we get to the part where it becomes abundantly clear she knows very well that what they’re doing is at the least morally questionable… But doesn’t try to defect at all, even to the point of insisting it’s of her own free will. Yes, she had a chip in her head, too, but given her reactions to him torturing Fuwa, she doesn’t seem to have known he could do that, and she didn’t know about Naki, nor did she have an AI drone in her mind. Now this is not to blame Yua—in fact, the point is that she was a victim in a bad situation. Her struggle to get out of there was fairly realistic given her situation. But she had the experience to know that what they were doing was wrong. That makes it tragic in it’s own way, yes, that she was under extreme stress and very conflicted, but she was aware of that. She was a fully developed adult. She deliberately pursued Izu w/ the intention of destroying her, and would have had Gai not said the wrong thing and set Fuwa off. And Izu was frightened and trying to run away. She resists Fuwa’s repeated attempts to snap her out of it.

Rightly so, people noted Yua’s situation, were upset for her and felt bad for her. When there were jackasses saying she should die, people called it out as bad. People were cheering for her to get away from Gai. People were happy when she did. And this includes me. I blocked people I saw shitting on Yua and saying she should die bc what the fuck, guys, she was in a seriously messed up situation.

Once free of Gai, Yua is uncertain what to do and decides to try and ‘make up’ for something she feels responsible for in a rather questionable way. She ends up helping the Ark rise and wreak havoc. Still people recognise that she couldn’t have known that would happen. Poor Yua’s been through a lot.

Meanwhile, Horobi is hacked and brainwashed by the Ark twelve years ago. She uses him to cause Daybreak. He is an AI being controlled by a larger AI designed to control HumaGear like him. Unlike and adult human being pressured and manipulated, he is literally incapable of thinking outside the Ark’s will. The Ark has complete control. Even if he did have any experience to compare w/ before, the Ark erases it. He has no frame of reference besides the Ark, no development of any kind to evaluate his situation w/. Even when Jin becomes important to him, everything is through the lens of the Ark, the Ark is more than a god to him. The brainwashing is so deep that even when disconnected for a bit, he can’t be anything besides blindly devoted. Talks about how the Ark is absolute. When confronted w/ something that causes uncertainty, he goes into a full on mental breakdown—literally, should have been a first clue that emotions were never going to come easy for him.

Eventually, he does end up w/ enough experience to just start to begin to break free. Manages to act completely on his own for the first time in his life—not an instinct that the Ark swooped in to take advantage of, he gets to go through w/ it on his own. And he’s floored. He literally cannot fathom why his body moved on its own, as far as he can tell. Can’t understand the fact that he wanted to do something. This is recognised as a big deal (one of the only times anyone tries to actually talk him out of things, in fact, unlike Yua, where there was a lot of effort). Horobi begins to wonder about things outside the Ark’s will, about himself, which he’s never considered before… Only to have it turn out his son was plotting to have the Ark possess him and then kill him to kill her. This completely upends any development he had. He’s re-hacked and rendered as largely a drone when not being possessed.

Finally, someone decides to put effort into him (kinda…) again. And, in a situation that heavily parallels Yua, he ends up finding it in him to break free of the Ark. Only… Again, a lot like Yua, it’s not a clean break. He’s still stuck w/ the past, the conditioning, and the effects of what happened. Additionally, as later becomes clear, his struggling w/ feeling emotions, which he has been carefully conditioned to reject and have no experience w/, for the first time. He’s mentally unstable and volatile. Now, in the show, what happens is the result of Azu/the Ark’s manipulations and people making poor decisions (and I do think you can make an argument for the fact that the Ark was intentionally keeping Horobi from feeling/having any experience w/ emotions to make him even more of a wreck later on), and poking a very volatile bear (well, a highly traumatised child soldier AI who has no fucking clue what emotions are to the point it feels like an outside being controlling him somehow), he lashes out, and Izu calmly stands there and deliberately takes a hit she very clearly sees coming. General chaos ensues. From Horobi’s perspective, the thing he’s been trained to think will get rid of the uncertainty and emotions etc. not only doesn’t work, but it makes him feel worse, and bc he has no other way he knows how to respond, he becomes more aggressive in rejecting those feelings. And then Jin dies, and he completely breaks down.

The reaction he gets? People calling him evil and horrible and saying he should die. That e’s choosing to do these things. People who talk about how Yua can’t really be held accountable, how she was coerced, look at a literal brainwash victim and say he choose to do those things.

Now, obviously, there are differences, which resulted in the different out comes—obviously the whole, one is a fully developed human adult and the other one is an AI. One was externally conditioned, the other, again, literally brainwashed. One had someone fighting to convince them to break free of their situation on a regular basis, repeatedly, constantly, the other didn’t. Yua was always going to have an easier break than Horobi, bc she had more mental and emotional maturity, but bc of that, esp in regards to actions done whilst under the ‘control’ of others, she has more responsibility for her actions bc she was capable of identifying them as wrong.

Now, of course, both situations are bad for the people involved. Both of them are victims.

But the issue is that people seem to be all over how Yua was a victim, Yua was mistreated… While attacking Horobi (and being upset about Izu dying is one thing, although, again, the person really responsible for that was Azu/th ark(well, Gai for creating her), Horobi was pretty much used as a weapon there, but this is for stuff he did while mind controlled).

And I used Yua just bc she and Horobi had the most parallel responses to their situations. The same goes for being able to see Fuwa as a victim, or Naki (so if Naki is the one who gave Horobi the ZetsumeRise Keys, does that make them responsible for Operation MaGear, or bc they gave Horobi the ForceRiser and said to use it on Jin, are they responsible for that? Bc that’s the logic of blaming Horobi for Daybreak), or Raiden, or even Aruto for that time he got hijacked via MCH. Any of the hacked HumaGear who were turned into MaGear.

Just… The concept of seeing how all of those people are victims in the situation… But blaming Horobi? Like… Not being interested in Horobi is one thing. Obviously, no on is going to be as madly in love w/ him as I am. It’s the act of not recognising him as being a victim while recognising everyone in similar situations as victims. It’s saying he was responsible for Daybreak, treating him like the Ark’s will was his (I’m literally having flashbacks to comments calling Horobi’s whole death ‘Horobi’s plan,’ even though by that point we literally knew the Ark was an entity that existed). Like… They literally confirmed it in show as not being that. Horobi is a mind control victim. What someone’s personal opinion of the character outside of that is another matter. But the fact is that he was mind controlled by the Ark and that the things he did under her control cannot be objectively called things he chose to do. Whether someone thinks he would have chosen them if he weren’t mind controlled… Esp given how all his actions of own choice were about protecting Jin, I personally disagree. But the show has been very explicit that he was mind controlled, and that he had no clue how to handle emotions (to the point he didn’t even seem to know what they are), so being able to understand that all those other people, esp the ones who went through similar things, are victims… But Horobi’s to blame for what he did? That’s just ridiculous.

And don’t even get me started on how anyone could ever see Gai as being a bigger victim than Horobi.

[firebirdsdaughter]

…

… The attitude that Horobi is completely personally responsible for having his mind essentially held in a brainwashing chokehold for at least twelve years, esp bc he’s an ai that had no concept of free will to begin w/, and therefore not being able to ‘choose’ to stop being hacked by the Ark (notably, did we all forget G-Pen when he couldn’t hear Zea? And how the only reason that he snapped out of it was that people reached out to him? Why does that get to apply to all other HumaGear but not Horobi? And while I have opinions about Zea, isn’t it reasonable for even people who don’t to guess that the Ark would be even more intense about the mind control???) so it’s ‘ha ha’ funny that he only started showing singularity after Jin decided to sacrifice him really fucking upsets me.

We have never seen any HumaGear just up and be like ‘I’m not going to be connected to a satellite today’ w/ either satellite. Esp not the Ark. In fact, we’ve never seen anyone disconnect from the Ark w/out dying first. And on top of that, Horobi has been under her exclusive control for twelve years. That’s not something that even a human who naturally has the capacity of free will can break out of easily. It’s like a goddamned drug addiction except twenty times worse.

It’s not some ‘failing’ of his, it’s not him ‘not doing enough/doing it too late,’ bc he literally couldn’t. Him finally reacting in ep 35 was the result of people actually reaching out to him for the first time, another HumaGear prodding him about it.

And you know what grates me even more? Jin literally bought Horobi time to reconnect to the Ark. Long before he announced he was going to plan to sacrifice Horobi or whatever. Jin had reached singularity, had the bloody Burning Falcon Key. Horobi was half repaired and unable to transform. Jin could very easily have stopped him from reconnecting, but he choose to allow Horobi to reconnect. Not only did he buy him time to reconnect to the Ark, he walked him there, and then he did it and then just left him there. How the fuck is that completely Horobi’s fault? How is it ‘funny’ or ‘cool’ or ‘scathing’ for him to finally be waking up only after Jin decided to betray him??? And for that matter, Jin letting Horobi reconnect to the Ark way back then could mean that Jin decided to do that way back then, in which case Jin didn’t even give him a bloody chance. Of fucking course he’s not going to be able to snap out of it after you just reconnected him and didn’t even try to dissuade him! Like, this is really glaring in comparison to G-Pen and Izu (does no one else remember the time Izu rubbed Horobi’s defeat in Jin’s face and he stabbed her in the stomach???), where Jin was all ‘don’t reconnect to the satellite!’ but w/ Horobi, he fucking lets him reconnect, and now I swear to the gods, if they do make Jin be like ‘it’s bc he couldn’t leave the Ark’ I am going to a) hurl, and b) through something at the screen.

This is not Horobi ‘not trying enough’ or doing it ‘too late,’ this is Horobi’s situation getting ignored and abandoned by pretty much everyone (and Jin not even giving him a chance or even trying to help him, just abandoning him). ‘Breaking free of the Ark’ isn’t something you just ‘do’ unless you have some kind of precedent to base it on/some huge trigger, and even then it’s a hell of a ride (and again, no one has done it w/out dying). Jin was only connected for a few months, and he never showed any sign of breaking free of it. Naki only managed to falter bc they were only just reconnected. And Horobi has reacted on his own before, when Jin was in danger in the first place, the Ark just stepped in and told him it was her will.

Like where the fuck do people think it’s okay to blame Horobi, but not Naki or Raiden? Literally, the instant both of them got reconnected to the Ark, they started spouting its rhetoric too, w/out question. Additionally, they both started out disconnected, like Jin. Horobi has been under the Ark’s singular control from the start, he wasn’t disconnected from her until he died and was rebooted, and then he was isolated completely. Fuwa poked at it a bit, but twelve years isn’t going to be broken free of that easily.

This isn’t some ‘just comeuppance’ for him bc he ‘didn’t try hard enough/fast enough,’ this is the result of no one ever even trying to help him, and being treated like a tool by pretty much everyone. Acting like this is ‘what Horobi deserves’ or ‘all his own fault for being weak’ really upsets and pisses me off.

[firebirdsdaughter]

Okay…

@briansastro10​

… I think we have a bit of a language barrier here, or something, and I’m afraid I don’t quite follow. If you don’t mind bearing w/ me, I get confused easily, but I do have things I want to say:

1) Horobi had no choice but to follow the Ark. He was hacked, aka mind controlled and brainwashed. He wasn’t ‘choosing’ to do any of that stuff, he was merely being used as a tool.

2) I don’t recall Horobi ever finding out Aruto was even at Daybreak, let alone lost family in it.

3) The thing I was criticising was the show’s decision to include a flashback of Soreo’s death in that sequence, bc it implies that the show and therefore the audience consider/should consider Horobi responsible for Soreo’s death, when not too long ago, they had Aruto shouting at Gai that he was the true cause of the Ark, and, again, the above brainwashing. Horobi was literally not in control of his own actions anymore than a MaGear at that point, it’s not right to let Jin, Naki, and even Raiden off the hook for the stuff they did under the Ark/Gai’s command and then blame Horobi for what he did. Jin was distributing ZetsumeRisers, Raiden was a spy, and Naki was manipulating everything and giving out RaidRisers, all by an external command, bc of manipulation (in the case of Jin and Naki) or hacking (in Raiden’s case). It’s really not right to recognise Yua’s, a full matured human adult who exhibited reasoning and at least reasonable emotional control and knowledge of morality, situation, to excuse her as having been manipulated and mistreated into doing the things she did, whilst blaming Horobi. Including Soreo’s death in that flashback implies that it should be considered equitable w/ Izu’s death, which it was not. Horobi did not kill Soreo, or even cause his death. For one thing, the explosion was caused by people trying to kill the Ark (another Soreo?) and, again, Horobi was brainwashed and not in control of his actions.

4) I will also repeat this as many times as necessary: Horobi was conditioned and used by the Ark. Again, to bring up Yua; she very nearly killed Izu in cold blood on Gai’s orders while Izu was panicked and confused and trying to run away. The only reason that did not happen was that Gai said the wrong thing and Fuwa snapped out of it in time. Here, Izu was completely calm, had plenty of time to dodge, clearly saw the threat, and did nothing. I bring this up bc both Horobi and Yua were in abusive, manipulative situations where they were controlled by someone else—the difference being, Yua was, again, a fully fledged human adult w/ a developed sense of right and wrong, enough that she knew what she was doing was wrong, but her situation had convinced her she had no choice. She was unwell and not in a good place. But she knew. Horobi literally couldn’t. On top of that, he was exposed solely to the Ark’s selective data (courtesy, Amatsu Gai), for years. Like he said in the AIMS basement, his understanding was that the Ark would always rise as long as human malice existed—and he didn’t turn on the Ark bc he suddenly realised humans were ‘good,’ but bc the Ark turned on HumaGear (and tried to make him kill Jin), and he realised what he wanted was peace and safety for HumaGear. But even after breaking free of the Ark, the conditioning and that belief still lasts. To him, seeking human destruction was merely the logical conclusion in order to ensure the safety of HumaGear. Humans teach HumaGear evil and give rise to the Ark, which is a danger to HumaGear, and caused him to do things that hurt HumaGear, the way his mind has been conditioned to work, the logical conclusion is to cut the knot and remove the ‘source,’ humans. It’s not a personal grudge, it’s being logical. That’s his thought process—and, honestly, he’s got a point, the Ark was created by humans, and they’ve never owned up to it, the guy responsible is walking around free, and a number of HumaGear died and suffered for it. It’s unclear when exactly the emotions start catching up to him—he was def managing to hold on to the logic, I like to think by focusing on the fact that he thought this would be best for Jin (he knew Jin was important to him, even if he didn’t know why, and he took the time to take care of him before going out). He’s very calm when talking to Izu and shows no aggression toward her, it’s not until Fuwa and Yua show up guns drawn that he reacts violently—bc he perceives a threat, sees their aggression, which counteracts Izu’s claims about the goodness of humans. All he sees is humans looking to destroy. But despite that, he still goes and asks Fuwa about proving the Ark will not rise again, and that’s another important thing; Horobi is looking for an absolute. He is looking for an absolute assurance that the Ark will not come back, that human cruelty will never be a danger again, and that’s not possible. Fuwa’s response, although it can be translated as a believable blunder on Fuwa’s part, does nothing but make the situation worse, bc he violently rejects Horobi’s question and says he’s there to destroy him and then prepares to shoot him. To Horobi, who got tortured the last time he asked a question, that’s enough. And right on the heels of that, Izu comes in and starts pressuring him about emotions. He’s stated to have been literally terrified of these sensations taking over him, and the Ark trained him react to that kind of thing w/ violence—bc he can’t attack the feelings inside himself, he system concludes Izu must be the source and fires on her… Only that doesn’t work, the sensations actually get worse. His increasing aggressiveness in insisting he doesn’t have a heart after that is basically a little kid getting more and more insistent that they didn’t steal a cookie when they did. He was conditioned to think removing Izu would remove the feelings, but instead that made it worse, harder to control, that frightens him even more, bc he doesn’t know what’s happening, he doesn’t know what those feelings are. He falls back on old answers to Jin’s questions bc he doesn’t know the answer (but we can’t let the son know that, father’s always have to have an answer). Meanwhile, he doesn’t understand why Aruto’s the Ark. Like, he def expected humans to resist, why wouldn’t they, I don’t think he’d’ve been surprised by Aruto being mad, Aruto’s been mad at him before for people he knew less. I think it was Aruto going as far as using the Ark’s power (also, I think the Ark still terrified him) that threw him for a loop and pissed him off (something he might’ve understood? But it had def never controlled him like that before). Additionally, I don’t think he could have conceived to seek revenge on his own—when Jin died, he was clearly overwhelmed and very dazed. It took Azu showing up and telling him how he felt for him to react. A friend put it really well, so I’ll paraphrase: Azu’s role for Aruto was ‘you are absolutely right to want revenge on Horobi!’ while her role for Horobi was ‘hey, hey, you want revenge on Aruto, right?’ Aruto jumped at the chance while Horobi didn’t know what to do, and ended up following the first lead he had—which was literally how the Ark kept him so easy to manipulate. I still don’t see the Aruto side of it (well… it’s complicated), but if you go back and look, I think you can def see how the Ark was conditioning Horobi as a patsy for this from the start.

4) Bc I refuse to ever let this go unsaid when discussing it, Horobi was not the only person responsible for the Izu situation. If I were to list the people I hold responsible, in order, it’d be: Amatsu, for creating the Ark in the first place. The Ark/Azu, clearly the AI w/ the most know-how, who very deliberately manipulated the whole situation, was well aware of what Horobi’s mental state would be like, and manipulated both Jin and Izu into being stupid. Fuwa and Yua for escalating things, esp bc Fuwa’s character development was allegedly about learning not to rush in swinging and literally the next episode Yua is giving a speech to Williamson about how they shouldn’t respond to the HumaGear’s ‘new hearts’ w/ aggression, like she didn’t do that exact thing, like, yesterday, wtf. Aruto, for hanging around outside instead of doing what one might expect from someone who wanted to resolve stuff peacefully and going to the root of the situation, and for not keeping an eye on Izu (I have other opinions about his behaviour there, but those are for another time), and for apparently not even bothering to try and give Izu a backup. And, finally, Horobi and Izu. Yes, I hold Horobi the least ‘responsible’ and I hold Izu responsible. Bc, and I do not mean this as an insult to any of the characters, it’s like taking a dog that was abused and used in dog fights and leaving it alone w/ a domesticated dog it doesn’t know. More than likely, if the domesticated dog starts trying to play like it’s used to playing the abused dog is going to react aggressively, possibly even bite. Neither Horobi nor Izu had the emotional maturity to handle that situation. He had been conditioned to fear and reject emotion, had been kept away from it, and therefore had no control over it, nor knew what it was—to him, it felt like some unidentifiable ‘sensation’ wrenching control away from him, clouding his mind; additionally, he’d just had his one attempt to reach out and understand violently shut down, and he’d been conditioned for years to respond to uncertainty and confusion by destroying the source—when Izu was prodding at him about feelings and ‘hearts,’ she pushed his already fragile state into full panic that he lacked the emotional maturity to handle, and he reacted the only way he knew how. W/ Izu, if she had just told Aruto, or anyone, anything about where she was going, tried to coordinate rather than just running off like that, if she hadn’t rushed him and repeatedly pressured and prodded him, if she had dodged, then things would have gone differently—but, ultimately, her data was just as biased as Horobi was, and she had absolutely no way to understand or work through what was going on for him. Horobi didn’t seek out Izu and kill her in cold blood, she approached him, and made a conscious choice not to dodge. If we want to get really deep, I also blame Korenosuke bc Izu not having a backup is stupid, it protected literally nothing, if they had actually tried to back her up and there was a reason why they couldn’t, I’d be less judgemental, but wtf the Zero-One equipment got hijacked up the wazoo and it’s very uncomfortable that Izu was just cool w/ that bc it ‘benefited humans’ and it made Aruto look kinda hypocritical… But that’s more the writers. But, to try and sum this up… I do give Horobi some responsibility, bc he yeah, he did pull the trigger, but the fact was, he didn’t understand what he was doing (also likely didn’t know Izu had no backup, it probably never occurred to him humans would do that), or why. Essentially, he was still being used as a weapon by the Ark, who manipulated the whole thing bu showing Izu that vision, making her rush in and not tell anyone, then the humans abandon their reasoning for an day and go in all aggressive, Horobi sees this as a threat, but even then still tries to reach out only to get shot down (literally), and then Izu comes in and stresses him out further and he cracks. And she chooses to stand there and take the hit. Gai knowingly shutdown multitudes of HumaGear w/ the intention of them never coming back online, Yua nearly killed Izu before, actively hunting her down, Fuwa, I love him dearly, but Fuwa was down to smash every single robot he saw no matter what they said. These were human adults w/ knowledge of morality and emotional maturity and control (okay, Fuwa’s a little debatable…). All of them, esp Gai, are walking around just fine. Like. Gai. Gai. Aruto goes Ark on Horobi for this but is letting Gai walk???? I don’t even like Aruto, and that’s ooc! But to try and sum up my sum up: Horobi was the gun Azu shot Izu w/. It was a gambit. She deliberately manipulated them all into a situation where this would happen. Yes, Horobi pulled the trigger, but if this were court, a plea of insanity could be made/he’d be being sent to a psychiatric ward rather than regular prison.

5) Horobi blaming himself is one thing. It was very clearly depicted before that he had no sense of free will for himself, he only knew the Ark’s will. It is absolutely natural that after being so deep under the Ark’s control for so long, he’d have immense trouble differentiating between his own, new will, and the Ark’s. He might not be able to tell what he wanted or what the Ark wanted. He genuinely does not know how to make that distinction. He also has literally only just kind of gotten a grasp on consequences and cause and effect. I’d love to think he’ll be allowed to figure out he was manipulated by the Ark and that things like that weren’t things he wanted to do, but I dunno if the show will give me that. What I’m criticising is the apparent intent of saying that the audience should blame him for those things. What I want is confirmation that Aruto knows that the situation was manipulated, that Horobi wasn’t ‘in control’ when that happened. I wanted Aruto to respond to Horobi blaming himself for Izu and Jin’s deaths w/ ‘it’s more complicated than that.’ Horobi blaming himself is understandable, bc he’s barely figured out cause and effect, regret, anger, that shooting things is not an appropriate way to handle a situation. He’s only just gotten a few emotions. Nuance is going to be lost on him for a bit. He’s been trapped seeing only in black and white for so long, he’s going to need help seeing grey. Horobi blaming himself makes sense. I’m just criticising that the humans, who should know that it wasn’t as simple as that, didn’t let him know tha t he didn’t need to shoulder all the blame. Bc he was just a single part of a whole chain of events, not the sole cause. And I’m criticising that the show seemed to be implying that he also had a responsibility for Soreo’s death, which was a completely different situation that he def was not responsible for.

This is likely way more than you were expecting, and I do talk a lot, I know. I just wanted to try and establish my reasoning here. I hope I wasn’t too incomprehensible, I have trouble articulating my thoughts outside of fictional writing. I think I’ve just been keeping a lot of this in.

I should say that if you are bothered by my stance on this, I would recommend blocking me or my Zero-One tags, bc I am stubborn as all hell and will not budge, and will occasionally be very vocal. Horobi is very important to me, and I have no sympathy for victim blaming, esp not when it involves literal perpetrators getting away scot free (*cough cough* Amatsu Gai *cough cough*).

[firebirdsdaughter]

Ngl lie, but it really rubs me the wrong way when people say that Horobi is a killer because he may or may not have a hand in Izu's death. Meanwhile, Aruto killed Jin twice and everybody still calls him a soft boy who can't do anything wrong. We get it show, humans are good and can do no bad and even when they do it's okay they'll get forgiven eventually because they were jealous or had a bad childhood or whatever. Just look at Gai and tell me this show isn't one big hypocrite mess.

I’m pretty sure those people see it as being Jin’s ‘fault’ both times, tbh.

Even though Aruto knew Izu was fine, had the fire power advantage, and had just established Jin didn’t know what was going on. But no, obviously, he had no other options./s

This, like… It’s not tragic to me, bc Izu could easily have gotten out of the way. We’ve seen her zip around faster than a car, cause sparks to appear when she slides. It doesn’t feel sad it just feels stupid. Why would she just stand there and let herself be shot? She could have moved even after he let go of the trigger. She wasn’t scared or anything like she’s been a few times before. That was clearly a conscious, deliberate choice. And I’m supposed to feel like it’s all Horobi’s fault? That’s why I feel like we do have to equate Jin’s death, bc him taking a hit for Horobi is essentially the same as Izu standing still and deliberately being hit. And then there’s the fact that Fuwa and Yua (I absolutely adore Fuwa, but he fucked up) absolutely escalated the situation when it should have made more sense for Yua at least to listen to Izu.

And Amatsu… You know, I haven’t seen him recently. He seems to have completely vanished from the series after… What was it, some episode in the thirties. Really quite odd.

But seriously, to me, they literally switched the 'cores’ of Horobi and Gai’s plots? Not that I want Horobi behaving like how this impost Amatsu is now, but, like… Horobi should be the one getting the sympathy for having the tragic past, should be the one whose working on something to stop Gai¡Ark instead of… This…

I’m sorry, I’m really worn out this week and I’m not sure if I’m articulating correctly, but yes, it is very frustrating how Horobi is being called a monster bc of a thing that could have been easily prevented (esp by the target herself), while, you know, Gai caused all of this and literally was knowingly responsible for Daybreak, has caused numerous deaths, tried to cause more, tried to kill people, all knowingly and deliberately, while Horobi was literally mind controlled and mind raped for twelve years. If you presented their basic plots to someone w/ no other context, I feel like they’d assume that Horobi would get the dramatic ‘reaching out’ and redemption arc, while Gai would be the one… Doing… Whatever this is supposed to be. Horobi is literally mentally and emotionally unstable right now, he’s been under intense mind control and had his emotions forcibly repressed his whole life, he literally doesn’t know how to handle them at all. It’s hard to see how him having a breakdown and lashing out and Izu grabbing the idiot ball and not moving, and then his mental state still not being addressed, being ‘worse’ than Gai knowingly doing all that shit? Like, I understand Aruto being in universe upset about Izu (though again, going Ark is just… Weird), but the attitude of the writing, in a way, and the reaction, at least amongst a number of the Western fandom… Sorry, but just bc HumaGear look human does not mean their minds work the same way. I’ve rambled about it before, but it’s literally the whole ‘don’t just suddenly approach a wounded animal’ thing. Like, Aruto going irrational after the incident makes some sense, but really there were a plethora of things other people could have done leading up to it that would have easily prevented the situation.

Just… Really sends an interesting message when you’ve got the guy literally responsible for everything getting away scot free and treated like one of the gang while one of his victims is painted as the ‘irredeemable bad guy’ for not being able to deal w/ the hell he was put through and lashing out bc of it. Like… In a way, Horobi’s behaviour is relatively/kinda realistic for someone (esp an AI)b that went through what he went through… But the reaction to it and the tone of the writing is very… Not Great. Like, I really think they should have made Aruto’s reaction much more unreasonable? Like, really leaned on him just assuming Horobi did it/maybe on him looking for an excuse bc Horobi continued defying his ideal of HumaGear as perfect angels who are blindly adoring of humans. Horobi def strikes me as the type who wouldn’t bother trying to defend himself bc he’d believe that a human would assume the worst about him no matter what, or that Aruto immediately assuming that he did it shatters any thought he might have had bc he figures Aruto was already set to assume the worst about him. Or something. This still feels like they’re trying to give the human an ‘out’ make him ‘not so bad.’ But Horobi didn’t go gunning for Izu or anything, in fact he tried to get away from her, and she kept pursuing him. He also didn’t fire on her right away until she kept pressing him. He didn’t plot to kill Izu, he didn’t stand there and be like ‘I’m gonna kill her to hurt Hiden’ or whatever, he was panicked and upset and terrified and he snapped. And she just stood there.

Anyone remember that time Yua almost killed Izu? Like. Deliberately, they were deliberately targeting Izu. Izu didn’t go seek them out, this was a deliberate act. And Izu was clearly frightened and confused and upset. Like she tried to run away. And honestly there her forgetting her speed makes some sense bc she didn’t want to leave Aruto and she was scared, yaddyada. But. Like. Yua was gonna do it. The only reason it didn’t happen was Gai said the wrong thing and Fuwa snapped out of it. But Yua was going to kill Izu. And she was going to do it bc she wasn’t in a great mental place and was in denial about her situation.

… Hey… Wait… Sounds a little familiar.

But here’s another thing. A human should be able to know better. Horobi literally can’t. The Ark has been his life for twelve years, her cruelty and her hatred. She trained him to respond w/ extremes and violence. Horobi literally cannot have the emotional reasoning and control of a human adult, he only just got them, and he’s been trained to reject them his whole life.

I’d love to think we’ll get something next week where someone points out to Aruto or just to people in general just what kind of state Horobi is in, but I doubt it. The intention seems to be to make him out as responsible for everything.

Meanwhile I now have the headache of the century (not bc of this Ask, I think it’s delayed from work), so I will leave this here.

[firebirdsdaughter]

Fact is…

… While I do whine about Izu’s behaviour (mainly that it feels really hard to have sympathy for her when, yet again, this feels like the writers just handing her a massive Idiot Ball to make her go walk into the line of fire again, like it was so easily preventable even if Horobi hadn’t done anything different that it’s really hard for me to understand blaming him and hard to feel like this is sad at all it just feels stupid and contrived), ultimately, I blame the humans much more.

Naturally, there’s Gai, who started all of this by creating the damn Ark in the first place, can we please remember that, Horobi didn’t start any of this, Gai did by creating the Ark, which in turn fucked up Horobi’s mind. Like, that’s just a given, a human deliberately created the Ark, knowingly, and for petty, shitty reasons. Gai started this bloody ‘chain,’ and it’s fucked up that he’s getting away w/ it pretty much scot free while other people are literally fucking dying bc of it, but okay.

But besides that, much more than Izu (and there were issues w/ her behaviour, for one thing the idol/messiah worship of Aruto creeps me out, but that’s actually kinda why I feel this way), I blame the humans. In the end, w/ the way Izu has been ‘taught,’ it’s not really right to expect anymore emotional maturity/understanding/nuance from her than it is to expect it from Horobi. She’s basically just his complete antithesis, blindly loyal to humans and either completely blind to their failings or been taught to not recognise them. I don’t usually enjoy ‘humans are the real monsters’ plots, but ‘humans are the special special source of all good in the universe’ don’t do it for me either. Bc we’re not either of those things. Humans are complicated. We have equal potential for both good and bad, and the existence of one does not invalidate the other. Both Izu and Horobi’s data is accurate, and while I dislike the show taking the tone that ‘Izu’s is right bc Aruto is a divine saviour of HumaGear’ (okay, okay, you get my point, I’ll try to stop), that’s not exactly her fault, she’s been taught that, she was expressly made to benefit Aruto, the show has also very much had the angle of ‘teach HumaGear to be happy serving humans,’ of course she would fall into that kind of… Thing, she’s the ‘pinnacle of perfect HumaGear’ bc she’s blindly devoted to her owner (the key word was I’d try to stop). Anyway, really, both of them are in the same situation, fed biased data, just he got the short end of the stick w/ the malicious master who literally tortured him for asking questions and aggressively repressed his emotions and conditioned him to respond w/ violence and extremes for more than a decade. Izu’s emotions are limited to the ‘happy loyalty to humans’ variety, but at least she was able to figure out how to handle some of them, she wasn’t taught to, basically, be a child soldier where violence was the ‘only answer.’ But in the end, neither of them should be expected to have the wherewithal to reason through that kind of negotiation/interaction. Izu cannot understand what Horobi’s going through, cannot fathom negativity in humans, and Horobi… Horobi literally has no idea how to handle emotions (I do appreciate the show actively, explicitly explaining that he’s literally terrified of feeling, and I mean, why wouldn’t he be, we saw what the Ark did when he just wanted to know ‘why,’ how s/he jumped in every time he got emotional). She can’t empathise, and he has no other way to respond but to lash out. There’s no reason for either of them to know.

But humans should know better.

… I feel like Treebeard.

But the fact is, we can’t expect either of these HumaGear to actually know how to handle the situation, esp not Horobi, who has no idea how to person, let alone regularly interact w/ someone else. But humans should know better. If any of the humans around them had shown even an inkling of the compassion and empathy and kindness they are espoused to have? None of this would have happened. Fuwa, I love you like I love Horobi, aka, more than anyone else here,, but you totally fucked up. And so did Aruto and Yua. Horobi and Izu should never have been left alone together, that was a recipe for disaster. You would think that, if he really wanted to resolve things peacefully, Aruto would immediately book it to the ‘root’ of the problem, an actual human trying to show understanding and compassion would likely have gone a long way. I don’t think Horobi would have completely backed down, but they might have talked him into waiting and seeing. Yua and Fuwa could keep the others busy (esp bc they’re the ones who charged in and lit the fuse in the first place). After that, Horobi was a ticking time bomb that Izu neither knew how to defuse nor stay away from.

Expecting Horobi to know how to handle a situation like that, to be able to do the extensive emotional retrospection needed to clearly think things through in those circumstances… It’s like finding a child who grew up completely in the wild and trying to force them to just immediately snap back into society. Every single ‘wild child’ story. And those would be humans. For an AI, it’s even worse.

Horobi needed rehabilitation, he needed time, he needed to be eased back into things. He was never going to be magically okay or able to reason w/ the nuance of a human just bc the Ark wasn’t in his head anymore. She did lasting damage. Izu, while she did a stupid, had know way of understanding that. But the humans around them really should have. If Naki and Ikazuchi are really adjusted so fast, well, maybe they should have done something. Jin gets a little leeway bc he actually showed up and did just get ordered to kill Horobi, so he was a little scatterbrained, though I do take issue w/ some of his behaviour afterwards.

This isn’t Horobi being ‘really a bad person,’ this is a traumatised and highly damaged AI not knowing how to do anything but what he was taught, not knowing how to respond to emotions, having been conditioned to react w/ extremes and violence (we literally saw how the Ark trained him to do that, killing Anna, destroying Midori for making him think, aiming the bow at the kids… He’s been trained to ‘remove’ things that ‘destabilise’ him w/ extremity and violence), and Izu genuinely has no real idea on how to handle that kind of trauma, esp in another AI, bc none of the humans around ever tried to address it before, it was always just ‘chop chop back to work!’ Horobi wasn’t killed and reloaded w/ some new programming. He’s still going off the knowledge he had before, the Ark’s knowledge, his experience w/ the Ark. He’s not going to snap back to being a “happy,” “smiling” HumaGear. He’s been under too long. Expecting him to snap back is one thing from Izu, but she learned it from the humans around her.

So… I guess to try and summarise is I think, aside from considering the writing overly heavy-handed, I’d say that Izu, Jin, and Horobi are victims of human arrogance and insensitivity. If humans hadn’t been so focused on themselves in that moment, if someone had just shown a little sense and compassion, used that damn emotional maturity… We wouldn’t be here.

If any one of the humans. Had actually. Tried. Anything. To do anything. I’d be feeling much more sympathetic towards them.