Comments | darker_than: On the end... questions

paulownia in darker_than

On the end... questions

Nov 10, 2007 12:04

I rewatched the entire series in the past few days while killing times on planes and at airports X3....

LJ-cut because of spoilers inside and a lot of typing. Be warned.

( Regarding Episode 25 )

spoilers, discussion

Comments 35

firehawk05 November 10 2007, 18:14:19 UTC

Hrm. Prompted by this post to de-lurk. Just discovered Darker than Black for the first time recently. Devoured the relatively short series in, like, 2 days. This is my 2 cents worth ( ... )

paulownia November 10 2007, 20:17:11 UTC

*chuckle* Well, I'm glad someone delurked to discuss the show. I love all the fun fan stuff, but I haven't found a lot of conversation on this show, which I think is kind of sad. There's a lot of stuff I couldn't get until I rewatched the series all at once, and there's still a LOT I don't get and would like people's theories on the events in the show ( ... )

firehawk05 November 11 2007, 04:55:14 UTC

The yellow lit world appears first in the scene with Nick. The scene in which they had the Meteor Fragment. Was wondering if it was the power of the Meteor fragment that fulfils the wielder's dreams, just before the release of energy kills them, since that was what happened in the scene with Nick, ie Nick saw his sister again and blasted off into space with her in a rocket. Then the scene cuts back to Hei who is sitting in a huge crater. Nick is by this time, gone. Presumably dead ( ... )

paulownia November 11 2007, 05:23:52 UTC

ahhh. My interpretation of her power from the previous episode was that she could show events prior to them happening or "possible events." Amagiri had a vision of being attacked by
Mai and then realized what it was and then preemptively blasted her down. (Unfortunately she got back up.)

Likewise, I think what she was doing was showing Hei the possibility of the world where he would be by himself.

And I'm not too sure that Nick "died." It's possible he was obliterated, but I also considered that he just got yanked elsewhere. However, I also wondered about that yellow-lit world because if it was just Hei's mind, he should be able to bring back those folks anytime, right? The way it was so final on part of Bai and Amber made me question that. Then again, who knows? We'll have to go nail down the writers on this to ask them if they were being intentionally vague or if there was an analogy they had in mind.

Thread 9

pheonix_varg November 10 2007, 18:24:13 UTC

Wow- thank's for posting this, that cleared up a lot for me, especially because I was impatient and decided to watch the raws at the series end. Good series do that for me, though it's not really best for my understanding of the series, especially with such an abstract show as this one.
I too, want more. The ending was satisfying, but they could do so much more with the characters, the setting, the concept... More MI6, that would be wonderful.
I didn't read much of the manga, the character designs kind of drove me away.
Also, tomorrow is November 11th. This makes me extremly happy. :D

paulownia November 10 2007, 20:20:15 UTC

Ahh. The subs showed up in various places... make sure to recheck this community for f-lock posts.

I don't think I quite got everything right. I may have inferred things that were not meant to be linked together, although I have to say that I think they're logical steps and pieces.

And, I think we ought to post tomorrow in honor of November :D. Odd that he picked the US holiday Veteran's Day though of all days in November. I wonder if that was intention by the series writers!

shimizu_hitomi November 10 2007, 23:16:29 UTC

I wondered about the date as well -- he's the only one who gets an actual date, instead of just a month, isn't he? (I probably need to check that episode with the file on April.) Of course, it could just be the whole 11/11 thing. It's snappy.

paulownia November 10 2007, 23:34:27 UTC

It's very James Bond :3. I also think numerically as a code name it's kind of fun. (I'm # 1!!!)

And it is somewhat ironic as he makes a joke at the end how he's not meant to be the protagonist (following on that #1, cool spy thing), which is too bad. I'd like a show just about him X3

Thread 5

fusakugyoku November 10 2007, 20:04:25 UTC

I thought the person picking up Mao was just some random person, showing that Mao is gone and it's just a cat, whatever.

Agh, the manga has been a little frustrating. I really love Li and want to see more of him, but kind of not like this-- the main character is such a Mary Sue, it's kind of sad. And she's not nearly as interesting as similar characters like Kashiwagi Mai. I hope that this is going to be something episodic and introduce new characters (women?) in new arcs.

Yaaaaaaay d-black!

paulownia November 10 2007, 20:27:11 UTC

Yeah, I think Mao is definitely gone if one accepts the events in the last episode. ALl the other people in the group who met Hei in the pocket-verse were dead contractors, although Huang was in there too for some reason ( ... )

paulownia November 10 2007, 20:27:38 UTC

(btw, that's what I thought about the manga as well. it was really perturbing.)

shimizu_hitomi November 10 2007, 23:13:04 UTC

Squeals at the big meta post. :P

After sleeping on it last night, I'm actually seeing A LOT of parallels between "The Hollow Men" and DTB -- I wonder if it was an inspiration.

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid riverStrikes me in particular in terms of episode 24. The pocket world = the last of meeting places (the final meeting), and of course that wonderful image of the river crossing ( ... )

paulownia November 10 2007, 23:40:58 UTC

I'm not familiar with The Hollow Man, so you will have to redirect me ( ... )

shimizu_hitomi November 11 2007, 00:34:23 UTC

Here ya go: http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/784/... )

paulownia November 11 2007, 02:39:18 UTC

There are definitely some problematic powers, but I really thought that some of the powers were tuned a certain way or trained a certain way. Shioko's powers actually seems a bit weird, although mechanically speaking should could have a variation of a sonic power or something like pressure displacement. Because contractors can't seem to think outside the box for whatever reason when it comes to their obeisance, I was considering that she had never considered another application for it. It simply wasn't on her mind ( ... )

Thread 16

shimizu_hitomi November 11 2007, 20:43:55 UTC

Oh, and question: is the old stargazer lady basically some uber-Doll? XD

paulownia November 11 2007, 21:04:35 UTC

Hoshi-sams gave me some trouble because she was clearly a medium or diviner, although she did not try to influence events of time and was said to have rarely spoken at all. Her appearance on this show to speak or not speak was played off as a significant event.

I think she doesn't fit the definition of a Doll or any of the other classes we discussed.

So I am guessing she's either not a powered being in any of the classes, and possibly could just be a standard medium or seer with powers not necessarily fueled by anything. She may be simply a watcher of stars past and present.

(Noteably, it's only the old folks who remember the old stars well. I find it interesting that for the most part, most of the older ones don't "talk much" -- e.g., landlord's husband -- until this story arc takes place. Again, this seems like what I call a "Hajime Yatate" device that figures somehow into seers speaking truth while the silly younglings run about all confused and causing trouble.)