#displaying humanlike sentience

[spiribia]

what is a furry? if you don't mind. like i've heard of it for years but i realized i don't actually know what it means other than animals are cool

it just means animals are cool

[kafkaoftherubble]

HAHAHAHAHAA! Putting Atom first is CORRECT. I fucking adore that kid, grrrr. He was really the highlight for me!

How the fuck did you know I like Epsilon?!

Even I didn't know I liked Epsilon until the end, when I said, "Damn, I fucking like Epsilon." SO HOW?!

I'm favorable toward Uran and Ochanomizu, but they aren't really my biases. It's okay, you already got them right, holy shit

Hmm... Maybe I can help clarify some things for you! I'll address some of your criticisms and tell you my thoughts under the cut!

Thracia and Roosevelt

I actually liked the Thracian president's side plot! They are the hidden theme in the story: the poison of imperialism.

The war resulting from imperialism was what made Pluto exist.

The story dealt a lot with the emotional and psychological consequences (among other things) of wars, especially one that was never fought with even a shred of semblance to a just cause. It had always been an unprovoked war from Thracia based on a conspiracy that, even if true, could have been easily resolved with diplomacy and a few roundtables instead of an all-out war. But the reason why Thracia didn't do that was because Teddy Bear Roosevelt advised against it; as I explained in the other post, Teddy was created to foster Thracian imperialism, which evolved—without the President's knowledge—into Robot Supremacy and dominion.

The story deals with grief and revenge and the cycle of hatred, but what this story would like us to remember is that these things are also easily produced by terrible ideologies AND the actual grievances resulting from them (Adolf's prejudice against robots; Pluto's hatred toward the other robots; Persia's hatred against the rest of the world, especially Thracia—these were all expressing this same theme).

Thracia's bit was, to me, the piece supplementing this side of the story.

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Brau 1589

I would argue that the fact that Brau was—at first—a gleeful and sadistic observer who later changes into an active agent was actually the point of his character.

You're right in that Brau was a spectator the whole time and had no stakes in this. That's because Brau was broken and caged for ONE past active decision—the one where he decided to kill a human and went with it. From that point onward, he has resigned to become a cynical spectator. He didn't have stakes because he chose not to give a fuck about everyone else.

The only few people he was intrigued by were those he resonated with:

Gesicht, who had experienced hatred before but had his memories wiped;

Tenma, who acted more robotic than even most robots;

and Atom, who was the one who apprehended Brau and displayed one of the most sophisticated sentience levels comparable to Brau himself.

The comparison between Brau and Atom is the key to understanding what made Brau act in the end.

Brau and Atom are "comparable in sentience," meaning they are both "similarly humanlike." If Brau, due to his humanity, is capable of murder, then so can Atom. This part is then shown in detail when Atom is successfully rebooted; not only does he feel hate for the first time, but he also has to actively fight his own murderous intent in his battle against Pluto.

The difference between Brau and Atom, however, is that Brau didn't have the combined hard-earned wisdom of other robots to guide him when he experienced hate and killed a human.

Brau's high level of resonance with Atom is also why Atom managed to convince Brau to act one last time. Before the battle, Atom talked to Brau, right? It was actually a conversation between equals—Atom now understood Brau because he had learned how to hate and the desire to kill.

Now, for the longest time, Brau has become cynical about what "humanity" means because his "humanity" is recognized through his act of murder. To Brau, humanity is ugly, sadistic, cruel, and hateful. This cynicism provided the basis for his inaction even as things were heading to ruins.

But Atom, his "equal," presented him with another side of being human. Gesicht could probably teach Brau the same thing or two, but Atom is someone Brau resonated the most with. Here is a robot who knew hatred but managed to suppress it once.

Remember the scene where Brau asked Atom to hold his hand? The former's comment was, "It's warm."

Well, what was warm?

Atom's "heart." It was warm, like a human's.

This was what finally thawed Brau from inaction. Through this short meeting with Atom, Brau got to see the other side of being human: the strength to overcome their own hatred and malice through love and kindness.

It's even what Brau recalled when he attacked Teddy, right? "The human heart is warm."

This realization, I think, was what convinced Brau that he, too, could do the same. That he, too, could act in a human way that brings out good consequences instead of the bad. That he, too, could be redeemed.

Atom was the one who requested Brau to help him take out Teddy (he didn't believe he would survive his fight with Pluto OR the gigantic Michelin Tire-looking Robot). Brau knew what Atom was doing and that added a layer of respect for him. After all, Atom was also showing him another trait of humanity: the willingness to sacrifice himself for the benefit of others.

Granted, Epsilon, Brando, etc. could also teach Brau this, but they never interacted with Brau. Via Atom, though, this quality of humanity reaches Brau.

Note also that Brau had mentioned that he could not remove the javelin embedded in him without killing himself in the process. His act of killing Teddy by pulling out that javelin, therefore, mirrored Atom—and the other robots'—display of selfless sacrifice, which again, is what the story is trying to remind us human audience. "You're capable of this too. It's part of your humanity."

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Darius and Abdullah

These two were also very much part of Pluto's exploration of imperialism and its poisons. The catalyst for their hatred, which they then further perpetuated, was the unjust war Thracia and the rest waged against Persia. Without it, neither two would have embarked on a journey of vengeance and become agents of hate and destruction. They are integral to the themes of the story.

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Gesicht's Closure Reveal

Hmm. I agree the placement of that reveal, if changed, could probably provide a different emotional effect.

But I remember liking it personally. I like the reveal after the fact that they actually had closure because the time-placement ties it more closely to Atom's own battle against his newfound hatred and how he overcomes it.

I think the story is trying to show how Atom's victory against hatred is really a collective victory instead of one pure-hearted individual's win.

As I've talked about in the Brau section, Atom is shown to be completely capable of murder—mass murder, in fact, since he devised a world-ending bomb formula. He isn't some incorruptible pure goodness (no matter how adorable he looks on the outside.) He's guided by the other robots who all earned their own understanding/enlightenment regarding what it means to be human, PLUS the love Ochanomizu, Uran, and Helena showed him.

So to show Gesicht's closure near the end, to me, is to sell how much of an important influence these robots have over Atom. All previous robots had not been able to stop Pluto, but the wisdom they gained as themselves combined was what helped Atom to not destroy Pluto—but to establish a connection with him and empathize with him.

Instead of a battle, we get reconciliation. Again, it ties to the "let's stop the cycle of hate through some motherfucking empathy and effort" theme in this story. I think it's effective to have it placed near the end, given that the closure itself provides the biggest punch.

With that being said! It's totally a subjective thing to say which placement is better, hahah!

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Themes on Grief and Revenge

I respectfully disagree about the themes being too late for the reveal, yo!

I caught the themes pretty early on. But then again, I watched this last year in October. I can't rule out the possibility that the Israel-Palestine war, which had just erupted, might have made me more... receptive (?) to these themes as they run in the background.

Urasawa (the author) seems to favor expressing his themes in the background in steady, quiet streams. Hell, Monster was even more slow-burning in this department than Pluto is, goddamn! So I'm afraid this is just his style and way of telling a story, hahahah!

Nonetheless, I disagreed that Brando and Hercules would have been dead set on killing Pluto. Yes, they were hellbent on doing that when it was their turn to fight, but that was because they lacked the information about Sahad.

Brando didn't want to kill Pluto because he hated the latter; he did it because he wanted to live to continue being with his kids and wife.

Hercules didn't want to kill Pluto because he loved doing it; to him, it was revenge for killing his friend Brando.

Bear in mind that all of them were soldiers or witnesses of the Great War and were all traumatized by the brutality and futility of it (except Atom, because he didn't participate in the battles himself). The reason why Atom believed they wouldn't want to kill Pluto was because all of them would have realized they were all victims of a greater enemy. The robots, if they knew who Sahad was, would immediately recognize him as one of them—broken and traumatized by the horrors of war and being tools serving humans' nebulous interests.

Pluto is a victim just like them.

Of course, logically, Brando, Hercules, North No.2, and the rest were unaware of Pluto's real origin. However, Atom and Gesicht (more or less) did. In that fight, Atom was drawing strength from those who inspired him, and quite humanly, he tried to imagine what these dead people would think if they knew what he knew.

He concluded that due to their experience and shared understanding of these horrors, these robots will all choose to empathize with Pluto and try to help him instead of killing them... with Gesicht's voice being the loudest of them all.

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Whoo! I sure hope my explanation helps clear up some of the confusion you might have had! I heard that there had been some changes and condensation from the manga when the story was adapted to anime, but most of the essence has been preserved. Still, I guess one can probably also attribute the jankiness of pacing to this adaptation shenanigans? Hahahhahahah!

Thank you for reading my ramble! Because I really did ramble, damn.

Hi I just finished Pluto

CONGRATULATIONS.

Have you any thoughts? Ooh, make it a ramble if you like!

Didja like it? What themes caught your eyes?

Guess my biases!