Shinsekai yori Episode 21 Discussion

eminagnam said:
Wow I didn't imagine that fiend was a child of Maria and Mamoru. And it's female, not male. I wonder why Saki knew the fiend's name Ria. Had she met her before? Did the anime skip some stories of LN?

Yakomaru is very clever. His plan is awesome. He makes human children kill humans? Wise move. Even that mask guy failed to strike the fiend. Humans are hopeless. Rise of Rat Empire? Heil Yakomaru! To be serious, he made a valid point. Rats have been discriminated, regarded as the lower being and exploited by humans for a long time. No wonder he rebels against humans.

mikado34 said:
In ten years... humanity will be exterminated and the queerats will dominate the world.

Ncrdrg said:


He has no point at all. None. Yakomaru was a monster from the very start. His emotions? Fake. He never felt sadness, he never felt what other colonies or humans did were 'wrong'. He was jealous he wasn't the one doing this. He holds himself to no morals. If he did, he wouldn't have done half of the despicable crap he pulled.

He was there crying about how it's unfair for the queerats to be basically destroyed and their children enslaved/brainwashed should they be defeated while doing the exact same thing himself. He was only raging at the fact he wasn't strong enough to be the one dominating the entire world. And that's what he did. He used trickery, set clever and evil plans into motion to gain power and kept those plans hidden from the human colonies while doing his best at looking normal all along.

I mean, he turned their queens into what amounts to cattle by frying their brains because he couldn't withstand anyone else controlling their race other than him. He destroyed, killed other colonies, captured their offspring as spoils of war while simultaneously crying about how it was unfair other colonies could do this to theirs. He used trickery and manipulation to involve human children into destroying his enemies so he could claim their offspring and lands while faking that he had any respect for them. He managed to get a fake minoshiro to gain data to advance their colonies' technology and mutated some of his own species to be turned into weapons of wars while saying he wanted to free them of human tyranny. Then grabbed the first opportunity to shelter Maria and Mamoru from the village, had them give birth to a boy and immediately murdered them. He then brainwashed him into his command. And now he's stealing human children in a bid to create a Fiend army to eradicate all other species from the planet.

And this human 'tyranny' is basically nothing more than them monitoring colonies and making sure they don't do something too dangerous for the ecosystem. Humans basically make sure to destroy those who are too dangerous, too evil and the such. It's like he's whining 'Waaah, we're not free to cause chaos, destruction and evil however we want, tyranny!!'. If anything, they were treated too kindly.

That being said, I couldn't be more glad to see that Kiromaru is still alive in the preview. If there's anyone I want to see tear a new one to Yakomaru, it's this guy. And when he goes down, I hope it hurts like hell and I yearn to hear his death throes.

Ncrdrg said:


He has no point at all. None. Yakomaru was a monster from the very start. His emotions? Fake. He never felt sadness, he never felt what other colonies or humans did were 'wrong'. He was jealous he wasn't the one doing this. He holds himself to no morals. If he did, he wouldn't have done half of the despicable crap he pulled.

He was there crying about how it's unfair for the queerats to be basically destroyed and their children enslaved/brainwashed should they be defeated while doing the exact same thing himself. He was only raging at the fact he wasn't strong enough to be the one dominating the entire world. And that's what he did. He used trickery, set clever and evil plans into motion to gain power and kept those plans hidden from the human colonies while doing his best at looking normal all along.

I mean, he turned their queens into what amounts to cattle by frying their brains because he couldn't withstand anyone else controlling their race other than him. He destroyed, killed other colonies, captured their offspring as spoils of war while simultaneously crying about how it was unfair other colonies could do this to theirs. He used trickery and manipulation to involve human children into destroying his enemies so he could claim their offspring and lands while faking that he had any respect for them. He managed to get a fake minoshiro to gain data to advance their colonies' technology and mutated some of his own species to be turned into weapons of wars while saying he wanted to free them of human tyranny. Then grabbed the first opportunity to shelter Maria and Mamoru from the village, had them give birth to a boy and immediately murdered them. He then brainwashed him into his command. And now he's stealing human children in a bid to create a Fiend army to eradicate all other species from the planet.

And this human 'tyranny' is basically nothing more than them monitoring colonies and making sure they don't do something too dangerous for the ecosystem. Humans basically make sure to destroy those who are too dangerous, too evil and the such. It's like he's whining 'Waaah, we're not free to cause chaos, destruction and evil however we want, tyranny!!'. If anything, they were treated too kindly.

That being said, I couldn't be more glad to see that Kiromaru is still alive in the preview. If there's anyone I want to see tear a new one to Yakomaru, it's this guy. And when he goes down, I hope it hurts like hell and I yearn to hear his death throes.

mootjuh said:
I'm happy that fiend isn't Maria, someone has so slap that kid and tell him to come to his senses already! Even if he is raised by queerats.

Ncrdrg said:


He has no point at all. None. Yakomaru was a monster from the very start. His emotions? Fake. He never felt sadness, he never felt what other colonies or humans did were 'wrong'. He was jealous he wasn't the one doing this. He holds himself to no morals. If he did, he wouldn't have done half of the despicable crap he pulled.

He was there crying about how it's unfair for the queerats to be basically destroyed and their children enslaved/brainwashed should they be defeated while doing the exact same thing himself. He was only raging at the fact he wasn't strong enough to be the one dominating the entire world. And that's what he did. He used trickery, set clever and evil plans into motion to gain power and kept those plans hidden from the human colonies while doing his best at looking normal all along.

I mean, he turned their queens into what amounts to cattle by frying their brains because he couldn't withstand anyone else controlling their race other than him. He destroyed, killed other colonies, captured their offspring as spoils of war while simultaneously crying about how it was unfair other colonies could do this to theirs. He used trickery and manipulation to involve human children into destroying his enemies so he could claim their offspring and lands while faking that he had any respect for them. He managed to get a fake minoshiro to gain data to advance their colonies' technology and mutated some of his own species to be turned into weapons of wars while saying he wanted to free them of human tyranny. Then grabbed the first opportunity to shelter Maria and Mamoru from the village, had them give birth to a boy and immediately murdered them. He then brainwashed him into his command. And now he's stealing human children in a bid to create a Fiend army to eradicate all other species from the planet.

And this human 'tyranny' is basically nothing more than them monitoring colonies and making sure they don't do something too dangerous for the ecosystem. Humans basically make sure to destroy those who are too dangerous, too evil and the such. It's like he's whining 'Waaah, we're not free to cause chaos, destruction and evil however we want, tyranny!!'. If anything, they were treated too kindly.

That being said, I couldn't be more glad to see that Kiromaru is still alive in the preview. If there's anyone I want to see tear a new one to Yakomaru, it's this guy. And when he goes down, I hope it hurts like hell and I yearn to hear his death throes.

AnimageNeby said:

Yet, I do not think he has no point in the principle of the matter. Not of his conquest-plans and establishing a rat-empire, of course. But, even when he would fake his concern for the state of his people, he still had a point on the basic tenet of it. One can not deny that the rats were used as slaves, or in the best case, serfs. They were there to do the dirty work, like cleaning out the sewers. they had to obey the rules of the cantus-users, without having a say in the matter. If they disobeyed, not only the individual, but the whole colony was wiped out.

Ncrdrg said:


The reason why I said he had no point at all. Zero, is because it was never about those arguments. It was never about liberation. Not for one second. It was about domination. He's a monster because he's smart enough to fake concern about freedom he intends to rob of everyone else anyway, including his own people. Yes, the queerats are sentient beings, yes, they shouldn't be considered a slave species, although no, they did keep their free will. The human society amounts to what would be like... a U.N.-like organization with the power to destroy whoever breaks a certain set of rules. As such, they're not 'slaves'. They keep their free will but cannot break a certain code or else. The humans actually avoid interfering too much, letting them do some unspeakable things. It's a lot more of oversight than a tyranny.

If this was about living outside of human oversight, it would be one thing, it would at least have the beginning of a valid argument. But it never was because he never desired that. Yakomaru wanted to enslave every species, INCLUDING humans so they would become the master race. From the very start. He raises that moot point because he knows his people will buy into that crap about 'liberation'. Yakomaru will make everyone slaves to himself, including queerats too. It's about his own ambition, it's basically a rebirth of the Slave Empires that were born after the outbreak of psychics.

AnimageNeby said:


As said; I agree. But my point was that, while his intentions are nothing noble, and his arguments just used as a self-serving convenience for his ambitions, the argument itself is not without merrit, even if it's misused by him.

As for the arguments you raise in diminishing the harsh reality of how they are treated, I'm less mild. One has to acknowledge and face the wrongs the humans did too, me thinks, without trying to minimalise it. No, it's not like the UN: in the UN everyone gets a vote, and the main parties even a veto. This is not the case with the rats; they have no vote in the rules that were laid on them by the humans. Furthermore, 'free will' is relative: slaves had free will too, as long as they kept to the laws and rules of the state/country/masters back then. They had, however, no say over anything if their master decided otherwise, and even their lives were forfeit, if the master desired so. Exactly as it is with the humans and rats. Contrary to slaves, rats can have personal possessions, true. That's why I said 'serfs' were more correct, as a term to describe them. But serfs can hardly be called 'free' neither.

As we saw with the 'pest-control' part; most cantus-users just saw them as animals and vermin, not hesitating to kill not only the individual, but the whole colony, if a rule was broken. A rule, I repeat, that was one-sided put on them, not something they had a democratic say in.

I'll say it again: use reciprocity, and reverse the exact same situation, where humans would be considered vermin and rats Gods, have to abide to the rules put there by the rats, having to do their work for them, etc. - we would consider that unjust and a loss of freedom, *even* if the rats didn't meddle too much in our affairs for the rest. So I'm not buying the claim they have no point in this, at least as a principle.

That it is not a heart-felt argument coming from Squeeler, is a fact. That he and his clan-rats have committed atrocities and utterly immoral acts (at least seen from the viewpoint of humans, and, admittedly, from himself, hence the hypocrisy), as well. I do not deny what you said about that; hence my desire to see him dead too. But the truth is the truth: for the argument, viewed on istelf, there is something to be said. I think, if the rats had tried a diplomatic way of receiving their rights (unlikely to be achieved, in that future society though), we all here would probably think they were fully in their right.

Thus, one should not confuse the means they use, and the hypocrisy in their use of the argument, with the reasoning on its own, as a manner in which to disqualify the argument itself. That's too easy and too self-serving (for us, then).

Ofcourse, the moral dilemma of it has now become academic in nature anyway; it's long passed that, and has become simply a question of survival vs genocide. Either way.

AnimageNeby said:
As I predicted, following logical reasoning, back in the 19-20 episode thread: it was clearly the kid of Maria and Mamouru. And thus all the rest was probably spot on too; the fact that squeeler deceived Saki and Saturo when they looked for them, probably sweet talking Maria and Mamouru into staying under their 'protection' and NOT telling them they could return without any problems at that moment, and then, even worse, waiting and abiding his time, until they got a baby and then ruthlessly kill off Maria and Mamouru, so that he could raise their child as a weapon against the other humans.

rul said:
To make sure they're not defenseless they should now raise their children without all the restraints like death feedback.

I think the correct analogy to think of here is the obvious one: The Japanese Empire. Japan was forced open by Commodore Perry and bullied by the Europeans for ages. The Westerners tried desperately to do in Japan what they did in China but failed. The Westerners were much like the Cantus humans we see in the show in the way they dealt with Japan: ignorant of Japanese culture and bumbling in their attempts to control the Japanese people, but still holding malintent. The Japanese went on to build a great nation under Western guidance and then went on to enslave vast parts of Asia. To this day, relations between Korea, China, and Japan are tense because of what Japan did to these countries.

The Bakenezumi were mistreated and bullied. They were enslaved, though poorly. Still they were given broad strokes of authority. The Bakenezumi's counterplan is obviously much more Orwelian. No-one views the actions of the Japanese Empire as morally correct, even though the Empire itself evolved in an attempt to survive in a world filled with Western superpowers. Likewise I think no-one should think of the Bakenezumi's society as morally correct.

katsucats said:
Actually, I didn't understand this on 2 accounts:

1. Yakomaru had produced a bone of Maria, DNA-proven, in the week after she disappeared. This is clearly not enough time for her to get pregnant. The timeline didn't make sense.
2. Is the death-feedback genetic, or installed after birth? If it's genetic, then Maria and Mamoru's offspring should have it even if it was not raised human.
3. I said 2, but here's another one: What gives Yakumoru the confidence to be able to control every fiend? Even if they are raised by the queerat colonies, fiends are unstable by nature and unable to control their Cantuses.

Ncrdrg said:
He has no point at all. None. Yakomaru was a monster from the very start. His emotions? Fake. He never felt sadness, he never felt what other colonies or humans did were 'wrong'. He was jealous he wasn't the one doing this. He holds himself to no morals. If he did, he wouldn't have done half of the despicable crap he pulled.

He was there crying about how it's unfair for the queerats to be basically destroyed and their children enslaved/brainwashed should they be defeated while doing the exact same thing himself. He was only raging at the fact he wasn't strong enough to be the one dominating the entire world. And that's what he did. He used trickery, set clever and evil plans into motion to gain power and kept those plans hidden from the human colonies while doing his best at looking normal all along.

I mean, he turned their queens into what amounts to cattle by frying their brains because he couldn't withstand anyone else controlling their race other than him. He destroyed, killed other colonies, captured their offspring as spoils of war while simultaneously crying about how it was unfair other colonies could do this to theirs. He used trickery and manipulation to involve human children into destroying his enemies so he could claim their offspring and lands while faking that he had any respect for them. He managed to get a fake minoshiro to gain data to advance their colonies' technology and mutated some of his own species to be turned into weapons of wars while saying he wanted to free them of human tyranny. Then grabbed the first opportunity to shelter Maria and Mamoru from the village, had them give birth to a boy and immediately murdered them. He then brainwashed him into his command. And now he's stealing human children in a bid to create a Fiend army to eradicate all other species from the planet.

And this human 'tyranny' is basically nothing more than them monitoring colonies and making sure they don't do something too dangerous for the ecosystem. Humans basically make sure to destroy those who are too dangerous, too evil and the such. It's like he's whining 'Waaah, we're not free to cause chaos, destruction and evil however we want, tyranny!!'. If anything, they were treated too kindly.

That being said, I couldn't be more glad to see that Kiromaru is still alive in the preview. If there's anyone I want to see tear a new one to Yakomaru, it's this guy. And when he goes down, I hope it hurts like hell and I yearn to hear his death throes.

eminagnam said:


That's based on human point of view. From the rat point of view, he has a point. You cal him a monster, but it's based on criteria of humans, or it's just labeled by humans. He is not a monster to rats. They were created that way by nature. Also, the humans of this anime themselves are monsters from viewpoint of the *ancient* humans who were not espers. Both of the generations (non-espers and espers) each had a valid point, which is why they fought against each other in the past. Now it's rats' turn.

SetsukoHara said:
I'm surprised by the number of queerats there are in this war. Considering how cautious the humans are in this world, You'd think they would have tried to control the population of those queerats a bit more.

Anyway pretty cool episode. Yakomaru will lose but I'm definetely rooting for him. Good job on outsmarting those arrogant fuckers.

ArmorKingRulez said:
Soo what happened to Maria and Mamoru??

Did they die or what?

AnimageNeby said:
True. Yet he DID behave very hypocritical too. He was crying and complaining how dreadful it was that child-rats were captured and that they were forced into slave labour, yet he has no qualms doing it with others. He acts high and mighty by proclaiming every sentient individual has the right of free will (which is correct on itself), but then brushes aside those contemplations and turns the queen into a flesh-puppet, clearly without her consent and will.

Hence, he contradicts himself and is hypocritical: a sign that there is something wrong with his ethical stance in these matters, EVEN when not viewed from a human standpoint. I also do not think that Kiroumaru would think Squeelers' actions were noble and morally just, so I don't think it's as simple as reverting to a human vs rats' viewpoint on the matter.

Thus: I do think Squeelers' actions are morally repugnant or at least hypocritical, even without adhering to a particular standpoint, simply because of the nature of reciprocity of the arguments used. I just think that the human cantus-users can't be absolved from any misgivings neither. They both are guilty of behaviour that is ethically dubious, to say the least.

eminagnam said:


Behavior, ethics and morality do not have to apply to him. For, he is different from humans. You can't expect non-humans to have the same standards as humans.' In other words, he is free from human standards though he can pretend to have human standards occasionally.

Ncrdrg said:
I didn't mean the U.N. as in 'everyone gets a vote'. I said a U.N.-like organization as in a central entity that decides what is acceptable and what is not and enforces it very harshly. That's why I used the word 'oversight'.

Yes, they view them as lesser species, there is no doubt about that. But I've never seen them as slaves in any way whatsoever. At least, not the way we describe slaves. They don't work for humans but they do seek their favor because they're aware they were the ruling entity. Do you remember a point when they were ordered, not asked, to do anything? Because I don't. Do you remember them being threatened with destruction for not disposing of their children? I don't. Maybe it's just my memory that's bad but all I saw was a lesser colony trying to curry favor of a stronger entity.

And seriously, if we had the means to obliterate overnight a country like North Korea with no repercussion, in a world where the stakes are like, a thousand times higher because everything can go wrong so quickly, I'm not convinced I can judge this as 'wrong'.

AnimageNeby said:

His own moral and ethical considerations should apply to himself, and it doesn't neither. That's why he's being unethical, even without a human stance. We also saw in the past that Kiroumaru thought squeeler to be unethical, and no doubt he will think the same now.

This shows - as I have said, but you completely ignored this argument - that it's not due to an intrinsic difference of cultural mores of the rats vs the humans, but more of the inherent property of Squeeler. Hence, there is no excuse to just brushing it off as only morally ambiguous from the standpoint of humans, otherwise other rats wouldn't have any problem with his behaviour neither.

So, you are wrong. While maybe not all human behaviour, ethics and morality may apply to him, behaviour, ethics and morality on itself *does* apply to him. Or at least, should apply to him, if he's morally upright. However, he does not follow his own proclaimed morals, and he acts in manners to which even other rats (at least from other clans) find inappropriate, as is proven by turning his queen in a mindless puppet. I repeat; this was not found to be unethical by human standards alone, but also by other rats.

Therefore, he does not gain immunity through the claim he can't be judged by human standards, because he can be claimed to be guilty by his own stated morals - which he disregards himself, and those of other rats. He can not claim the universality of the principle of the right of freedom and ones' own will for sentient beings, and than conveniently disregard and ignore his own moral stance without becoming immoral - not to our, but even to his own standards - surely you must see that?

uniquelyme91 said:
I hate to say this, since it's japan and all, but once the world found out what was happening... they would nuke Japan. Do you really think that there would be no more nuclear weapons? Especially in America? They would nuke the areas they knew where the queerrats lived so that their 10 year plan to eventually take over the world would not happen. and anyway i would not assume that the world lives the same way as they do in this japan, I am sure there are people living without the death feedback so don't say that they wouldn't be able to because of the death feedback, people always make back-up plans and a group of people born without any of the hypnosis or proper socialization always could be a possibility and surely has a plan for it.

dankickyou said:


There are no more nukes....

eminagnam said:


You are wrong. Even not all the humans follow their own moral and ethics at times. Some politicians contradict themseves. Even though Yakomaru contradicts himself, his claim is valid. Rats have been suppressed by humans. Thus it's valid for rats to rebel against humans even though it is led by Yakomaru.

uniquelyme91 said:
I hate to say this, since it's japan and all, but once the world found out what was happening... they would nuke Japan. Do you really think that there would be no more nuclear weapons? Especially in America? They would nuke the areas they knew where the queerrats lived so that their 10 year plan to eventually take over the world would not happen. and anyway i would not assume that the world lives the same way as they do in this japan, I am sure there are people living without the death feedback so don't say that they wouldn't be able to because of the death feedback, people always make back-up plans and a group of people born without any of the hypnosis or proper socialization always could be a possibility and surely has a plan for it.

Yakomaru would also have to keep the kids apart, as the kids got older they would know they were not queer rats and band together, they wouldn't trust the queerrats. They would know they were not queer rats because they look nothing alike and once they saw other humans they would wonder why they re told to get rid of people who look like them and then the death feedback would work on them. It doesn't work on the maria's kid now because he's properly never looked in a mirror nor seen any other humans until he was told to kill them.

Id also like to add that this kid is not a fiend, he doesn't think he is human so the death feedback doesn't work on him, he also doesn't kill the queer rats because he thinks he is one of them. If he was a fiend he would kill the queer rats too because fiends just kill their our kind. I also believe fiends are born for being people who are bullied and not loved and cared for, I can only base this on the example of a fiend they showed in the show, he was abused by his mother and felt disconnected from humanity and hated people so he became a fiend.

uniquelyme91 said:


so scientists could hide out while the world was going to shit and they didn't take any weapons with them at all? really? I would not for one second believe that America or Israel would give up their nukes for anything! They may have given up science in Japan for the most part but don't assume the rest of the world did too.

MeleDeGame said:
oh my god seriously this is tearing me apart wtf
I can't wait any longer to see what happened to maria
AND THEY HAD A FUCKING KID god she must've been in so much pain when it turned into a fiend, what if she's a fiend aswell. I just wanna go cry in a corner.

ToriFuda said:

1. Yeah this one's a mystery to me too.
   
2. Saki mentioned in the next-ep preview in one of the previous episodes that "it was raised among them, taught to think [he] was one of them" or something to this effect. Basically, it probably thought it was BNZ and would only feel death feedback killing BNZ. Also we saw Ria spoke in the BNZ language.
   
3. That's a really good point actually. I don't think Ria is actually a fiend, they just raised it. But if one of those turns into a fiend or a karmic demon than I'll bet the entire BNZ civilization will just implode. But the slave empires in Asia lasted for a really long time so who knows? They mentioned that one of the Holy Sakura Empire's leaders would randomly kill people in lashes so maybe it was implied that the leader himself was sort of a Fiend?