You bring up a lot of good points! I kind of got that the family sharing thing is supposed to be unsustainable, because in essence only Kanba was supposed to be alive post-flashbacks. I didn't read this as transferred sins of the parents as much as it was just the circumstance of Kanba's and Sho's and Himari's birth/situation, like they just got shitty lots in life and made a family to share the burden. Kanba decided to give part of his apple to Sho, and Sho gave part of his part to Himari. That's why Himari is the "weakest," because the sum of apple portion working against fate with her is least. In this sense at the end there is a net gain actually, I think the math is like:
Sho's apple 1/4 + Himari's 1/4 + Kanba's 1/2 = 1 apple for Himari (which Kanba has been trying to do all along)
Ringo doing a fatewsitch + Sho's love = Ringo's life + bonus nobody dies + bonus apple (because Himari is free of the curse)
Kanba and Sho share the bonus apple
It's like one of those games where the guy in the boat has to get the cat, the mouse, and the dog across in the right sequence or whatever. And at the end nobody has really been lost; I mean you can read Kanba and Sho as dead if you like but you can also read them as no longer imbalanced by having Himari along. And Himari doesn't have to die. So they actually do break the curse, but they break it by kind of steering into the skid. Like the moral I got was "don't fuck with fate unless you are willing to pay the price," and the whole fatechange thing being a cycle that inevitably has consequences. Because you can't just bring people back from the dead. But through what is basically a set of paths crossing together perfectly, and through the love these people have for each other, everyone manages to stop the cycle and still keep their proceeds. Which is ok because they didn't start the cycle, Akio2 and Momoka did when Akio2 decided to be an asshole and Momoka had no choice but to stop him.
Haha I think it helped that I wasn't in it for the pairings, I was in it to see how everyone would get out of an impossible situation, and it pleased me that the ending actually solved a carefully set up puzzle instead of copping out.
the family sharing thing is supposed to be unsustainable
I get that's it's supposed to be that, according to the show, but I don't like that premise. Why can't it be sustainable? The show sez it's unsustainable because of the "curse," which I do read as the sins of the parents transmuted into society's disregard for the kids. I mean, the reason they're struggling orphans is that their (adoptive) parents were terrorists, and that's not just a shitty lot in life, that's a really specific family history tied to a specific incident that garners specific hatred. I guess my issue is, I'm not convinced of the unsustainability of consciously formed families, and I was looking for a more hopeful/optimistic outcome i.e. a way that the kids could save each other that didn't involve death by self-sacrifice because self-sacrifice (however noble and uplifting, yadda yadda) is the only way out of the loop.
the whole fatechange thing being a cycle that inevitably has consequences. Because you can't just bring people back from the dead
Idt it's a load of crap, I can defs argue for the K side of things as well :Dv It's just that independently I didn't get the same thing out of the series.
RE: sustainability, nyonyo actually brings up something that I think the anime (non deliberately) handled so subtly that I didn't consciously pick up on it, which is the observable backlash of these people paradoxically being a "real" family while uh not being a real family. They love each other and need each other and share happiness, but even in the midst of that each of them is afraid that if they were to open up about the extents/costs of that love the whole circle would collapse. Like Kanba's situation with Himari is pretty fucked up, Sho only becomes himself with Ringo, Himari turns off her front so rarely that until like halfway through the series we don't even know her (tho I think she ended up being my favolite :D), etc. I think if the show had been more up front about this, the full arc of it would have been way cleaner. But my brain picked up on it anyway because idk I watched like 60% of show while sober (rare)
Idk about the sins of the parents thing being validated by the show, despite what Shoma has to say about it. Like we're watching the action from a bird's eye view and are not required to throw in with any of the characters in order for the story to work*, so seeing the bigger picture kind of countered Shoma's pov for me. Like 1) is this really why Himari is dying? and b) the bigger message seemed to be, "don't repeat your family's past mistakes."
*This is actually what bothered me most about MadoMagi. It's weird to watch plot validating characters who behave irrationally, in manner of being asked explicitly to sympathize with the protag, then watching the protag walking upstairs to check if the killer who just called the house is really upstairs, then finding out the killer is NOT actually upstairs. Like, a) the protag should be called out for being a lucky moron, and b) THIS IS NOT HOW LIFE WORKS.
Sho's apple 1/4 + Himari's 1/4 + Kanba's 1/2 = 1 apple for Himari (which Kanba has been trying to do all along)
Ringo doing a fatewsitch + Sho's love = Ringo's life + bonus nobody dies + bonus apple (because Himari is free of the curse)
Kanba and Sho share the bonus apple
It's like one of those games where the guy in the boat has to get the cat, the mouse, and the dog across in the right sequence or whatever. And at the end nobody has really been lost; I mean you can read Kanba and Sho as dead if you like but you can also read them as no longer imbalanced by having Himari along. And Himari doesn't have to die. So they actually do break the curse, but they break it by kind of steering into the skid. Like the moral I got was "don't fuck with fate unless you are willing to pay the price," and the whole fatechange thing being a cycle that inevitably has consequences. Because you can't just bring people back from the dead. But through what is basically a set of paths crossing together perfectly, and through the love these people have for each other, everyone manages to stop the cycle and still keep their proceeds. Which is ok because they didn't start the cycle, Akio2 and Momoka did when Akio2 decided to be an asshole and Momoka had no choice but to stop him.
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Lol a nice way of saying "what a load of crap"
the family sharing thing is supposed to be unsustainable
I get that's it's supposed to be that, according to the show, but I don't like that premise. Why can't it be sustainable? The show sez it's unsustainable because of the "curse," which I do read as the sins of the parents transmuted into society's disregard for the kids. I mean, the reason they're struggling orphans is that their (adoptive) parents were terrorists, and that's not just a shitty lot in life, that's a really specific family history tied to a specific incident that garners specific hatred. I guess my issue is, I'm not convinced of the unsustainability of consciously formed families, and I was looking for a more hopeful/optimistic outcome i.e. a way that the kids could save each other that didn't involve death by self-sacrifice because self-sacrifice (however noble and uplifting, yadda yadda) is the only way out of the loop.
the whole fatechange thing being a cycle that inevitably has consequences. Because you can't just bring people back from the dead
Law of equivalent exchange etc. Thanks FMA
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RE: sustainability, nyonyo actually brings up something that I think the anime (non deliberately) handled so subtly that I didn't consciously pick up on it, which is the observable backlash of these people paradoxically being a "real" family while uh not being a real family. They love each other and need each other and share happiness, but even in the midst of that each of them is afraid that if they were to open up about the extents/costs of that love the whole circle would collapse. Like Kanba's situation with Himari is pretty fucked up, Sho only becomes himself with Ringo, Himari turns off her front so rarely that until like halfway through the series we don't even know her (tho I think she ended up being my favolite :D), etc. I think if the show had been more up front about this, the full arc of it would have been way cleaner. But my brain picked up on it anyway because idk I watched like 60% of show while sober (rare)
Idk about the sins of the parents thing being validated by the show, despite what Shoma has to say about it. Like we're watching the action from a bird's eye view and are not required to throw in with any of the characters in order for the story to work*, so seeing the bigger picture kind of countered Shoma's pov for me. Like 1) is this really why Himari is dying? and b) the bigger message seemed to be, "don't repeat your family's past mistakes."
*This is actually what bothered me most about MadoMagi. It's weird to watch plot validating characters who behave irrationally, in manner of being asked explicitly to sympathize with the protag, then watching the protag walking upstairs to check if the killer who just called the house is really upstairs, then finding out the killer is NOT actually upstairs. Like, a) the protag should be called out for being a lucky moron, and b) THIS IS NOT HOW LIFE WORKS.
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