DTB Review Crew: Episode 14
So excited for this moment! I LOVE episode 14; it is my personal favorite. And I'm also excited to toy around with what I'm now calling my Atonement Theory - at least as much as it applies to Yin.
I should also point out that I had every intention of taking screenshots but my laptop won't allow it while I'm running a DVD. The function is FN+WINDOWS+PRTSC but the "print screen button is also the END button - so it stops the DVD. At least on the video player I was using. This post is long enough without the screenshots anyway, lol.
Alright, no time to waste! Let the discussion commence!!
EPISODE 14: A HEART UNSWAYING ON THE WATER’S SURFACE (PART 2)
• I know Mao isn’t a killer, that’s not what he’s on the team for, but I think it spares him a great deal of the emotional tests Hei has to go through. Even ignoring the foreknowledge that we all have from watching the show, Mao doesn’t have to test his emotions because no one expects him to get his hands dirty. So when he asks (and also the way he asks) if Hei will have trouble killing Yin - well, the human in me wants to know if it would be easy for Mao. Or for any Contractor. Killing in cold blood versus killing one of your own - there’s always a distinction, even amongst humans…
• When Eelis is talking to Yin - I think the dub’s rendering is a bit more appropriate. They change “Aren’t you happy?” to “You were happy there once…” OBVIOUSLY whatever Yin is it is not decidedly happy. That doesn’t automatically equal unhappy but I can’t fathom why he’d bother to ask such a question looking into her expressionless face the way he is.
• I am so engrossed with Eelis’ passion for Kirsi. The best part about it is that I don’t think it’s totally or even mostly about guilt. I think he just has genuine affection for her, that he appreciates how dark her life must have been after such trauma and then living overseas; if only we could all have people in our lives so selflessly passionate about us.
• I want so badly to explore in greater detail this idea of a traffic checkpoint for Contractors. Given what we’ve learned from the previous two episodes, there’s no outward way to distinguish a human being from a Contractor. So what do they tell all the cars they’re stopping? How do they conduct the search without explaining to civilians what Contractors are? Or if they don’t do that, what do they do? Ugh, it’s such a shame they make it through the checkpoint. I mean it isn’t but it is.
• Sometimes Huang’s little “Fear the Syndicate!” speeches make him feel like he’s not a real person. Honestly, he’s his own propaganda. Nobody wants to die, but that’s usually because we have things we’d leave behind (family, friends, passions/careers). Huang has none of those things, so I don’t understand why he gets so worked up all the time.
• Nobody else in the show really talks about what it was like for them prior to becoming a Contractor, not even Hei, so I really love Bertha’s story about the death of her baby. Sounds horrible, but I don’t mean the morbidity of course. As Bertha is speaking, she really IS human - she’s not just remembering humanity but exuding it then. In her recollection, her spirit is transported. And the fact that she feels comfortable enough with Itzahk to share such a thing says quite a bit. I’d think even a Contractor would not take well to such vulnerability, but she lays open her soul. Being indirectly responsible for the death of my child - I can’t imagine confessing that to anyone save whomever might already have been involved.
• “Yin no Piano” - This scene is my favorite scene in like the entire anime. Kirsi’s mother dying enveloped in light… Again, I don’t love this scene for the morbidity. It highlights the depth, the purity of a mother’s love for her child. Kirsi is stunned by this flood of light and she isn’t moving out of the way. Her mother wastes no time and no breath; she just jumps in front of the truck and pushes her daughter out of its path. And I TRY to imagine being blind and perhaps feeling the light that took her mother, hearing with greater focus that a seeing person might all that transpires as she is rescued and her mother dies. I just try to imagine all the sensations because our sight (though our dominant sense) captures such superficial information - I wonder if for Kirsi it might have been more traumatizing or easier to bear, whether it would be easier to lose her mother with superficial information rather than everything she felt and heard in those moments. And you have to wonder what Yin feels as she’s playing the piano and remembering how she lost her mother. Though she can remember, she’s still a doll… does it hurt less or does it hurt as much but she’s unable to express it?
• And then Eelis by her side standing before her mother’s body after the accident. Maybe Eelis feels so connected to her because of what they experienced together. That’s a thing, right? People experience traumas together and fall in love or otherwise cannot bear to be parted afterward. They want to go one together coping.
• Yin’s survivor’s guilt - pretty complex emotion for a doll. Anyone kind of toy around with the idea that a doll might regain some humanity at the removal of the specter? Or is that just ridiculous? Because that was certainly the catalyst for a lot of this, that and Eelis’ return of course. I just wonder... Yin loses something in herself at the loss of her specter (she’s disoriented for pretty much all of episode 13) but she’s free to fill that emptiness with human emotion/memories.
• Since the real moon is lost, are we constantly atoning for past sins? I had to think about this concept as it applies to the show. It could be something broad, like that the simple fact that these transformations occur be the collective punishment for humanity’s sins. But what about on the individual level? Those who become Contractors or dolls - do they have pasts that they must atone for? Does the symbolism apply? Let’s say Yin is atoning for the death of her mother (though I personally wouldn’t agree that it’s actually her fault). Bertha is atoning for the death of her baby. What about other characters? Anyone want to make some suggestions, even for fun? What is Hei atoning for?
• Eelis says that the one thing he wanted Kirsi to know was that the accident was not her fault. He knew it would be the one thing to prevent her from moving on with her life. So if he convinces her of that, and she moves on [with Hei] will that override her ‘programming?’ Is that what sets her free from atonement, accepting in her soul that she did not cause her mother’s death?
• “I thought… my heart would move.” FAVORITE LINE. It’s so simple, so honest.
• Hei claims Yin as his partner. After being treated for years as a soulless creature, Hei basically accepts her humanity and takes it a step further by expressing her importance to him - she is his partner, belonging to someone, to something.
• The ‘moon’ comes ‘back’ (at the release of the specters) - kind of completing my Atonement Theory, this would mark her new future. She has been released from atonement. Who Yin is and what she represents is so much more complicated from this moment on, and it’s not just because we know about her history. She really does change/evolve into the future (in my opinion).
• I always think of my own tears as marking the release of my soul - that which I can no longer hold in seeps out. And seeing Yin cry so beautifully as her soul bears itself…
• “You decide.” Yin gets to make her first conscious decision, on her own, freed from her slavery. I feel like this moment is so much more significant than when she claims at the end of episode 13 that she doesn’t want to go with Eelis. Hei does accept her as his partner, but he reminds her that she is not bound to it - that she can CHOOSE to be whomever she wants to be. He makes no effort to coerce her.
• I love how Hei and Yin are standing alone in that field staring at each other… and Eelis is just unconscious in Hei’s arms lol
I should also point out that I had every intention of taking screenshots but my laptop won't allow it while I'm running a DVD. The function is FN+WINDOWS+PRTSC but the "print screen button is also the END button - so it stops the DVD. At least on the video player I was using. This post is long enough without the screenshots anyway, lol.
Alright, no time to waste! Let the discussion commence!!
EPISODE 14: A HEART UNSWAYING ON THE WATER’S SURFACE (PART 2)
• I know Mao isn’t a killer, that’s not what he’s on the team for, but I think it spares him a great deal of the emotional tests Hei has to go through. Even ignoring the foreknowledge that we all have from watching the show, Mao doesn’t have to test his emotions because no one expects him to get his hands dirty. So when he asks (and also the way he asks) if Hei will have trouble killing Yin - well, the human in me wants to know if it would be easy for Mao. Or for any Contractor. Killing in cold blood versus killing one of your own - there’s always a distinction, even amongst humans…
• When Eelis is talking to Yin - I think the dub’s rendering is a bit more appropriate. They change “Aren’t you happy?” to “You were happy there once…” OBVIOUSLY whatever Yin is it is not decidedly happy. That doesn’t automatically equal unhappy but I can’t fathom why he’d bother to ask such a question looking into her expressionless face the way he is.
• I am so engrossed with Eelis’ passion for Kirsi. The best part about it is that I don’t think it’s totally or even mostly about guilt. I think he just has genuine affection for her, that he appreciates how dark her life must have been after such trauma and then living overseas; if only we could all have people in our lives so selflessly passionate about us.
• I want so badly to explore in greater detail this idea of a traffic checkpoint for Contractors. Given what we’ve learned from the previous two episodes, there’s no outward way to distinguish a human being from a Contractor. So what do they tell all the cars they’re stopping? How do they conduct the search without explaining to civilians what Contractors are? Or if they don’t do that, what do they do? Ugh, it’s such a shame they make it through the checkpoint. I mean it isn’t but it is.
• Sometimes Huang’s little “Fear the Syndicate!” speeches make him feel like he’s not a real person. Honestly, he’s his own propaganda. Nobody wants to die, but that’s usually because we have things we’d leave behind (family, friends, passions/careers). Huang has none of those things, so I don’t understand why he gets so worked up all the time.
• Nobody else in the show really talks about what it was like for them prior to becoming a Contractor, not even Hei, so I really love Bertha’s story about the death of her baby. Sounds horrible, but I don’t mean the morbidity of course. As Bertha is speaking, she really IS human - she’s not just remembering humanity but exuding it then. In her recollection, her spirit is transported. And the fact that she feels comfortable enough with Itzahk to share such a thing says quite a bit. I’d think even a Contractor would not take well to such vulnerability, but she lays open her soul. Being indirectly responsible for the death of my child - I can’t imagine confessing that to anyone save whomever might already have been involved.
• “Yin no Piano” - This scene is my favorite scene in like the entire anime. Kirsi’s mother dying enveloped in light… Again, I don’t love this scene for the morbidity. It highlights the depth, the purity of a mother’s love for her child. Kirsi is stunned by this flood of light and she isn’t moving out of the way. Her mother wastes no time and no breath; she just jumps in front of the truck and pushes her daughter out of its path. And I TRY to imagine being blind and perhaps feeling the light that took her mother, hearing with greater focus that a seeing person might all that transpires as she is rescued and her mother dies. I just try to imagine all the sensations because our sight (though our dominant sense) captures such superficial information - I wonder if for Kirsi it might have been more traumatizing or easier to bear, whether it would be easier to lose her mother with superficial information rather than everything she felt and heard in those moments. And you have to wonder what Yin feels as she’s playing the piano and remembering how she lost her mother. Though she can remember, she’s still a doll… does it hurt less or does it hurt as much but she’s unable to express it?
• And then Eelis by her side standing before her mother’s body after the accident. Maybe Eelis feels so connected to her because of what they experienced together. That’s a thing, right? People experience traumas together and fall in love or otherwise cannot bear to be parted afterward. They want to go one together coping.
• Yin’s survivor’s guilt - pretty complex emotion for a doll. Anyone kind of toy around with the idea that a doll might regain some humanity at the removal of the specter? Or is that just ridiculous? Because that was certainly the catalyst for a lot of this, that and Eelis’ return of course. I just wonder... Yin loses something in herself at the loss of her specter (she’s disoriented for pretty much all of episode 13) but she’s free to fill that emptiness with human emotion/memories.
• Since the real moon is lost, are we constantly atoning for past sins? I had to think about this concept as it applies to the show. It could be something broad, like that the simple fact that these transformations occur be the collective punishment for humanity’s sins. But what about on the individual level? Those who become Contractors or dolls - do they have pasts that they must atone for? Does the symbolism apply? Let’s say Yin is atoning for the death of her mother (though I personally wouldn’t agree that it’s actually her fault). Bertha is atoning for the death of her baby. What about other characters? Anyone want to make some suggestions, even for fun? What is Hei atoning for?
• Eelis says that the one thing he wanted Kirsi to know was that the accident was not her fault. He knew it would be the one thing to prevent her from moving on with her life. So if he convinces her of that, and she moves on [with Hei] will that override her ‘programming?’ Is that what sets her free from atonement, accepting in her soul that she did not cause her mother’s death?
• “I thought… my heart would move.” FAVORITE LINE. It’s so simple, so honest.
• Hei claims Yin as his partner. After being treated for years as a soulless creature, Hei basically accepts her humanity and takes it a step further by expressing her importance to him - she is his partner, belonging to someone, to something.
• The ‘moon’ comes ‘back’ (at the release of the specters) - kind of completing my Atonement Theory, this would mark her new future. She has been released from atonement. Who Yin is and what she represents is so much more complicated from this moment on, and it’s not just because we know about her history. She really does change/evolve into the future (in my opinion).
• I always think of my own tears as marking the release of my soul - that which I can no longer hold in seeps out. And seeing Yin cry so beautifully as her soul bears itself…
• “You decide.” Yin gets to make her first conscious decision, on her own, freed from her slavery. I feel like this moment is so much more significant than when she claims at the end of episode 13 that she doesn’t want to go with Eelis. Hei does accept her as his partner, but he reminds her that she is not bound to it - that she can CHOOSE to be whomever she wants to be. He makes no effort to coerce her.
• I love how Hei and Yin are standing alone in that field staring at each other… and Eelis is just unconscious in Hei’s arms lol