GB world assumptions

[branchandroot]

Catching up on Getbackers summaries.

I see a lot of people suggesting the manga will end just like the anime. Clearly, it can't end /just/ like, because the characters are dispersed in different ways. I could see a very similar ending, of turning back from power/knowledge in favor of companionship, and basically hitting the world-reset thereby. But one basic point keeps nagging at me.

In the anime, there is an implicit assumption that the world outside Mugenjou is real. In the manga, starting with the card arc and accelerating since, there is an implication that it is not. Whether this will culminate in some kind of statement about what reality is or unravel in a lot of messy loose ends, I don't know. (And if this whole thing turns out to be some kind of virual reality and the 'archive' is the entry/exit point, well that would be consistent but it would also be a total cop out.) So the ending can't be as simple as it was in the anime.


I will actually be rather disappointed if Ban lives through his current contretemps. The fact that a fourth use of the Jagan results in backlash, in the erasure of the user, implies that there is some kind of natural limit on how the reality of others may be manipulated--if you do it too much or too often, the recoil will contain and erase you from the world and the memories of those you have dealt with. If he lives after having used it too often, that will imply that the Brain Trust is right, that limits can and should be broken, and will lend validation to all the really appalling things they've done in order to make humans 'evolve' or 'leap forward'. After all, screwing with people's reality is what the Brain Trust is all about, witness the 'lost time' that is the current object of retrieval.

So either Ban is going to win and then die, or there's going to be a huge and infuriating ethical failure in this story, or, just maybe, the authors are going to do something completely different and pull it off while still letting Ban survive.


Also. Really, really want a good translation of issue 80, which seems to have been some explanation of Rai Tei.

Comments

[branchandroot]

I don't know anything but the screen name; I just kept seeing them verbally slobbering all over people who were attempting to have serious discussions about the plot--interjecting all sorts of Definite comments! About what will happen! And what the first commenter meant (usually totally mis-stated)!

It was enough to decide me against making any comments on the getbackers comm.

*nods* That would make sense for Ban; especially if there /is/ some sort of overall reboot coming at the end. And that would satisfy all the ethical implications that have been brought up so far.

The tenor of Makube's appearances to date seem to point toward her thinking the the BT would not succeed, or would not succeed in a useful way. I'll be interested to see what /her/ way turns out to be.

[gisho.livejournal.com]

Ah - thought you were referring to one of the characters. I think they're just a drive-by idiot. Hopefully they will decide Sailor Moon is shinier and run off and leave the serious plotty speculators alone.

Probably they will pull off an ending where everyone gets to live happily ever after, but it will probably involve a reboot of at least some character's history. Then again ... ROD, which has some similar themes - wait, have you seen ROD? I can't remember.

Someone suggested, IIRC, that Brain Trust was trying to use mysticism and she wanted to use technology. It's difficult enough to figure out what Brain Trust wants I'm reluctant to speculate on her motives by contrast. It's possible she thinks BT might suceed in a useful way if they had sufficient challenges and were forced to adapt to meet them, and is attempting to act as the Loyal Opposition, so to speak.

[branchandroot]

I have seen ROD, yes! Both ova and tv, in fact. I could see GB going that way, too--making hash of everyone's lives and then sending them on as best everyone can. I'd rather like that kind of end, actually. Except that they've already killed off just about /everyone/, some kind of reset does seem indicated.

*nods* I could see that, given that she's clearly still in some kind of touch with BT and it doesn't seem directly adversarial... though the whole question of who it benefits to lead Ginji up those stairs still seems up in the air, to me.

[gisho.livejournal.com]

If you have seen it, I was gonna say - the difference is that in ROD the protagonists were attempting to *prevent* someone from implementing a world-conquering scheme that would involve eliminating the self-determination of most of humanity, wheras in GB it's quite possible that the scheme has already gone into effect and they're trying to undo it. In either case, The Power Of Love will probably prevail. Maybe Ban's vanishing will alter history enough to somehow retroactively defeat them?

... maybe they THINK she's the loyal opposition and she's actually trying to blow them to bits.

[branchandroot]

*nods* I remember, recently, seeing someone ask what tied Ban and Ginji, saying that it was clear what Ban did for Ginji, but not clear what Ginji did for Ban. I think that's being answered in the last handful of issues, more clearly than ever--if the world is created by will, then what Ban believes he is what he will become. And Ginji is the one who believes that Ban is something good and true and right, believes it strongly enough to counter, for example, his mother's words. I can't believe that won't be the deciding factor in the end.