My Theory

you are totally right!
i'm kind of new to the series, and it does seem like angel is the creator.

Angel can't be the creator. Because it doesn't make sense that she is for one very compelling reason...Dorothy. People continue to stumble on the issue of Dorothy because of the romantic angle theory regarding Angel being Dorothy's rival for Roger's affections.

I think we all may be overlooking two big possibilities here. One is...Dorothy is Angel. If Angel is a Memory...and the Memory is a woman...then it's possible that Dorothy is the manifestation of Angel in its true form...android. This could explain Dorothy's curious growing romantic interest in Roger Smith. Why would this be happening from Angel's creation for? It wouldnt' make sense for this to happen if Angel is the one in control. Why would she create Dorothy for Roger to fall in love with?

The other possibility here is Angel and Dorothy could be sisters. You have to admit..there's a strange going on between Angel and Dorothy that has me thinking there's more to the eye then we've seen from Season 2. There's no question both of them have Roger Smith's well being in mind...but it would be interesting to see if there is a Season 3..*ahem* (hey, Sunrise Enterprises, you listening?) that this Angel/Dorothy situation were clarified.

Now in conclusion...I've stated previously a theory that Angel and Dorothy are the Dominus' for Big Duo and Big Fau. This would complete the Trinity theory that's being speculated right now in another thread titled "3". It ties neatly to that memory fragment showing Big O, Big Duo and Big Fau working in tandem.

quote:

Originally posted by DorothyFan1 Angel can't be the creator. Because it doesn't make sense that she is for one very compelling reason...Dorothy. People continue to stumble on the issue of Dorothy because of the romantic angle theory regarding Angel being Dorothy's rival for Roger's affections.

I think my previous message posted in this thread already gave a full answer to this lline of objection. This objection overlooks one obvious fact: One can always create something that defies or competes with oneself. There is no reason to reject this fact unless we want to simplify creation as a simple-minded self-serving act only. Is there any rule that says one cannot create one's rival? What is the fun of the game of love if there is no competitor (or failure)? Don't we ourselves from time to time create a gamelike situation where we have to gamble our way to win and stand the chance to lose? This is a simple way to put it. A more complicated way to analyze The Big O is to appreciate the fantastic imagination that characters of a play can come out and negotiate with the playwright, or a sole Creator yearns for interaction with or even challenges from her creatures (please refer to my previous message).

Angel is the playwright and director, undeniably, as Act 26 clearly shows her as the author of the book Metropolis and as the one sitting in the control room of the TV station. Conversely speaking, there is NO visual evidence showing that Dorothy is Angel or Angel's sister. Can we find a family photo featuring Dorothy and Angel as sisters? Does any single shot ever show any mechanical parts in Angel's body? Quite the contrary, we clearly see Dorothy is only a model kit being held in Angel's hand, a creature in Creator's palm. Speculation could be good, but only when supported by evidence.

quote:

Originally posted by dancinggummi88 you are totally right! i'm kind of new to the series, and it does seem like angel is the creator.

1. I think you were responding to me

and

2. Actually I was referring to Angel as the director and the creators of Big O being her 'god' or commanding force (what drives and inspires her to realign everything as well as how her digital wings appeared to speed the plot along.).

I wasn't clear on that but there are numerous theories about these last episodes and their weirndess, something has to click sooner or later, it may not click very loudly, but that just inspires you to pay more attention.

quote:

Originally posted by paradoxx: Actually I was referring to Angel as the director and the creators of Big O being her 'god' or commanding force (what drives and inspires her to realign everything as well as how her digital wings appeared to speed the plot along.)

The problem is: if we admit Angel is the director, then director of what? The answer can only be the director of The Big O, the TV show on air under her control. That means in this moment of self-comment, the figure of Angel overlaps the creators of The Big O. So there is no clear-cut distinction between Angel as the director and the creators of The Big O being her "god," because Angel is the stand-in for the creators of The Big O within the show.

quote:

Originally posted by lhlam The problem is: if we admit Angel is the director, then director of what? The answer can only be the director of The Big O, the TV show on air under her control.

No, this is not the only answer. An answer that is equally good, and probably better, is that, if there IS a show, it's the movie, "Winter Night Phantom."

Why? We see the old version of the movie in the episode "Winter Night Phantom," and we see the climax re-enacted in that episode as well. Then, towards the end of the series (Acts 24-26), we see a NEW version of "Winter Night Phantom" in the theater. Not only that, we see little Dan Dastun and little Sybil Rowan watching the movie, and we even see little Dan receive the head injury that will result in his having the prominent scar that we see in "our" Dan Dastun.

In other words, we see events move in a way that will allow the movie to be remade yet again when little Dan and little Sybil grow up.

So the remake of the movie is already under way. You can't say the same thing about the putative TV show.

I think the most interesting clues are the negative ones. Where's the audience? Every time we are shown an audience, it consists entirely of the "actors" of the "show." This happens at the end of "Roger the Wanderer." I'm pretty sure that Dan and Sybil are the only ones who have ever seen "Winter Night Phantom" (unless you count Roger seeing it in a dream in "Roger the Wanderer"). Schwarzwald reported that the equipment in the sky was abandoned. The studio underground was abandoned too. There's no audience, no stage crew, and even the director is a member of the cast, unaware that she's the director until the last possible minute.

To me, Paradigm gives the impression of a closed system. Whatever might once have existed outside, they are cut off from it. Things seem to be running more or less on autopilot, with only intermittent attention from the people of Paradigm, who can't remember how things really work.

quote:

Originally posted by A Clockwork Tomato quote: Originally posted by lhlam The problem is: if we admit Angel is the director, then director of what? The answer can only be the director of The Big O, the TV show on air under her control. No, this is not the only answer. An answer that is equally good, and probably better, is that, if there IS a show, it's the movie, "Winter Night Phantom." Why? We see the old version of the movie in the episode "Winter Night Phantom," and we see the climax re-enacted in that episode as well. Then, towards the end of the series (Acts 24-26), we see a NEW version of "Winter Night Phantom" in the theater. Not only that, we see little Dan Dastun and little Sybil Rowan watching the movie, and we even see little Dan receive the head injury that will result in his having the prominent scar that we see in "our" Dan Dastun. In other words, we see events move in a way that will allow the movie to be remade yet again when little Dan and little Sybil grow up. So the remake of the movie is already under way. You can't say the same thing about the putative TV show. I think the most interesting clues are the negative ones. Where's the audience? Every time we are shown an audience, it consists entirely of the "actors" of the "show." This happens at the end of "Roger the Wanderer." I'm pretty sure that Dan and Sybil are the only ones who have ever seen "Winter Night Phantom" (unless you count Roger seeing it in a dream in "Roger the Wanderer"). Schwarzwald reported that the equipment in the sky was abandoned. The studio underground was abandoned too. There's no audience, no stage crew, and even the director is a member of the cast, unaware that she's the director until the last possible minute. To me, Paradigm gives the impression of a closed system. Whatever might once have existed outside, they are cut off from it. Things seem to be running more or less on autopilot, with only intermittent attention from the people of Paradigm, who can't remember how things really work.

An answer to this movie-closed system can be: First, the movie is embedded in the TV show (i.e. The Big O), so instead of privileging the movie as THE show, I would say it's only a show within the show of The Big O. The fact that a show (the movie) within THE show (The Big O) is being modified is no surprise, as far as The Big O that embeds the movie is always being made and broadcast on a higher level. We did see the TV show being made and revised as every episode was being deployed, continued, followed up, flashed back to with small modifications constantly. The TV show has developed from Season One to Two, and left a big tail apparently promising a third season... Who said its remake is not already under way?

Second, the notion of "closed system" mixes up two different levels. One is the world within the show, another is the world where Angel as the director is broadcasting the TV show. The final moment that reveals the control room in the TV station already breaks down any "closed system," revealing that there is indeed another bigger world outside The Big O, the bigger world on the same level as ours actually (because we are the audience watching what Angel the director is broadcasting in real time). Of course witihn The Big O, no one including Angel the foreign spy knows nothing what is really going on; that doesn't mean it's a closed stand-alone system, but quite the contrary, it means there is another world or system determining their world from outside.

Third, as for the actors themselves as the director or the audience, I absolutely agree, because The Big O is a show about its own production, that is, it tries to refer to the bigger world outside itself, that bigger world that determines its production as a TV show. It's in this moments of self-comment (or self-consciousness as a TV show) that the two worlds mentioned above can communicate to each other. They are NEVER closed to each other. Rather, (1) the actors would be the stand-in for the audience of the show, implicitly referring literally to us. And (2) Angel as the director can also play a role in the show (as a character within the show of course she cannot say or know anything that only the director knows, which is the usual convention I have explained in this thread). Finally, (3) we have the Negotiator, who as a character within the show can finally get out of the Big O world and enter the TV station to negotiate with the author or director Angel. These three points show us clearly how this so-called "closed system" breaks open from within.

In short, there is not only one world but at least two, and they are not closed but open to each other. The Winter Night Phantom is far from the name for a all-embracing closed system; rather it's only a show within the show of The Big O. It's only a fragment inscribed within Angel's book Metropolis and her TV show The Big O. At best this fragment reflects something about Dastun (but even Dastun's head injury happens not within that movie but outside the movie, i.e., in a theater belonging to the Big O world), but hardly the entirety of the show.

quote:

Originally posted by lhlam An answer to this movie-closed system can be: First, the movie is embedded in the TV show (i.e. The Big O), so instead of privileging the movie as THE show, I would say it's only a show within the show of The Big O.

You're arguing from an a priori conclusion, one that reminds me of the nineteenth-century idea of progress:

1. Assumption: I am the finest example of evolution and progress.
2. Conclusion: The purpose of the universe was to create me.

If you extend the conclusion to include "...and people like me," you have the basis (or non-basis) of "scientific racism."

You are assuming that the TV show "The Big O" that we watched on Cartoon Network is the purpose of the world of Paradigm City.

You can assume that the world of Paradigm City exists to provide programming for Cartoon Network if you like -- it's not something that can be disproved. But it's just as easy to assume that this is NOT what Paradigm City exists for. For example, we can assume that we there's a lot we don't know about Paradigm City, and its ultimate purpose (if any) is one of these unknowns.

There's a trap built into the idea that Paradigm exists to create the show we watched on TV: namely, that shows can be fact, fiction, or a mix. If you assume that the camera in Big O never lies, then we can analyze the underlying reality of Paradigm. Once you introduce the possibility that the camera lies, then we have no real evidence about anything.

(There's a similar trap in theology, with a similar resolution. It goes like this: If God ever lies, then you can't trust what he says, and then scripture isn't reliable. Thus, God never lies, and theories that dinosaur bones were placed in the earth to test our faith are necessarily wrong.)

If the camera in Big O lies, there is nothing to analyze. It's all just a fake, and it pretty much doesn't matter what kind of fake it is -- and you can't tell, anyway.

Interesting analyses require that we assume that the camera DOESN'T lie. Instead, it shows us true glimpses into Paradigm and whatever passes for reality there. Furthermore, it's necessary to assume that the camera doesn't lie by omission, and the characters don't turn into little green men from Mars (or whatever) as soon as they're out of view.

I admit I was profoundly confused by the response above, which has not really engaged any single point of my reply. Rather, it starts with a wild association with a 19th century idea of progress, which has sheer no relevance to the discussion of this thread, followed by a long digression about many assumptions that allegedly belong to me but actually not.

I can only guess that I am being accused of "assuming" something I shouldn't, including the assumption that the camera "lies." But anyone who have really read my messages posted in this thread would have failed to find such an assumption in me. Instead, I ALWAYS insist on "visual evidence," that is, to see is to believe. I never speculate anything not shown on the screen. Period.

So instead of "assuming" a movie in The Big O as THE show itself, I suggested we should open our eyes and see the show: does the movie embed The Big O? or the other way around, The Big O embed the movie? I think anyone who believes what he or she see on the screen, that is, through the camera, can determine that the latter case rather than the former is true. I didn't assume it; I CITED EVIDENCE to prove it. It is really unfornate that evidence is mistaken for assumption.

By the same token, as I believe what the camera shows us -- or more precisely, my analysis only sticks to what the camera shows me -- I pointed out that it is in the Big O world, rather than in the movie Winter Night Phantom, that the child Dustan got injured on his head. Actually many things happen outside the movie but inside the TV show that is The Big O. So all evidence points to the conclusion that the TV show EXCEEDs the movie, and therefore the movie can hardly be privileged as THE show itself. Unfornately, this evidence and logical inference are convenient ignored by the criticism against me.

Again, I was never "assuming that the TV show 'The Big O' that we watched on Cartoon Network is the purpose of the world of Paradigm City." I NEVER touched upon the tedious topic of purpose. I am only describing the traces of how The Big O as a TV show reflects upon its own condition of production. I never say a word on the purpose of the existence of Paradigm City. The question of "purpose" is mystified and misguided, as if something must have a purpose in order to exist. I am not interested in that metaphysical question. My concern is very simple and well defined: GIVEN Paradigm City exists in a TV show, What interesting things does it tell us about the nature of a TV production? As The Big O is extremely rich in suggesting this aspect, I proposed to collect visual materials in this regard to analyze the show, which are displayed in my other messages in this thread. In this spirit, I suggested that Angel the director in the TV station control room is on the same level as we the audience, because what she is broadcasting is precisely what we see in Act 26 in real time. That's it. See, my analysis is based on what I see on the TV screen; I DIDN'T ASSUME. And I simply don't care about any notion of "purpose." I am only describing phenomena I capture from the show.

Back to our original topic: if Angel is a director, director of what? Answer, the TV show named The Big O, that is what Angel is broadcasting, NOT the movie "Winter Night Phantom," JUDGED FROM WHAT WE SEE IN THIS SCENE. That is a judgment of visual evidence, NOT AN ASSUMPTION.

If you disagree with someone, please show evidence to contradict him or her, but never turn the opponents' evidence into assumptions, because this would only show that you are the one who has a bunch of assumptions that hinder your judgment of any evidence contradicting your point.

I have some questions:

1. Does Angel think Paradigm is real or fake?

2. Is her answer correct?

3. Are the injuries and deaths we see real?

4. Do the people in Paradigm think they are in a real world, or are they just actors?

5. If they're actors, can they leave Paradigm, or are they trapped?

quote:

If Angel represents Venus does Roger represent Mars, opposite forces working in tandem for a conclusion of satisfaction?

Whoa very interesting theory... As we already know, the Japanese divide nature into elements and each planet stands for a certain element. Which brings me to a curious thought: We know that each megadeus type is best in its own element, like Shwartzwald's was good in the air, so perhaps Shwartzwald could be the destructive and aloof Uranus, mysterious, shadowy, a loner and a little "retrograde" as well... Old Mr. Rosewater is Jupiter, because he is regarded as the "boss" of a sort and he sure likes to plant... And he does display wisdom. I don't think Roger makes a good Mars though, not warrior-like enough. His element is intelligence and negotiation, some ethics perhaps, but never pure anger and war. He clearly doesn't like violence. He's pretty cool-headed. I think he is Mercury, 'cause Mercury was a messenger, or a negotiator, and he had to be fast, so there's Roger's obsession with clocks. Saturn is the god of time and rebirth, Old Father Time, so who would be Saturn??
Dr. Waynewright is Vulcan, the Gods' smith, who was said to make women out of Gold (Dorothy) ^_^

quote:

Originally posted by A Clockwork Tomato I have some questions: 1. Does Angel think Paradigm is real or fake? 2. Is her answer correct? 3. Are the injuries and deaths we see real? 4. Do the people in Paradigm think they are in a real world, or are they just actors? 5. If they're actors, can they leave Paradigm, or are they trapped?

Clockwork Tomato...I'm with you on this debate. Your answers to the "theory" posed seem very logical and I LOVE your answer to the other poster in here. It reminds me of the critical responses to the St Anselm theory in God's existence. In that some sly people use a priori speculation that can't be disproved to show its "truth".

I'm especially interested in your speculation on question number 3...because it fits into my earlier post post on whether or not characters like Schwarzwald are now alive or dead. As far as the series is concerned we've never gotten an answer on why we see all those Roger Smith clones and what happened to them. Assuming the "camera never lies" theory...then these Roger Smiths are dead and remain dead. But we don't know this for a fact. It's "assumed".

And then there is the curious dismissal of Dorothy. I'm interested in knowing why people claim Dorothy is just a creation of Angel when it's been posted on the board that Dorothy "experiences" the real memories and events of the previously "real" Dorothy Wayneright? Why would an android remember events to the real Dorothy in flashbacks?

Now, I have an answer to the Angel is "creator" theory. If this theory is correct...then Angel is evil in the sense she doesn't tell her own creations why and for what reason they were made for. If Paradigm City is just a stage with no prior memories to 40 years ago as Big Ear postulated...then events repeat ad nausem as I've posted in a previous theory. If these events "repeat" over again...it seems to suggest that main characters also appear in the same drama over and over again as my theory on the photograph appearing twice in Act 26 shows. What's not clear though is why would the "creator" keep its own creations in the dark about the past though? Freedom of choice is something that is denied the people of Paradigm City thanks to the "resets". Why would Angle need to reset only to repeat the same things over and over again. Paradigm City is never allowed progression on its own terms...only via the whims of the "creator". But we seem to be forgetting that Paradigm City is ONLY a hologram...and as far as I can tell...there is no evidence that Angel is so sophisticated that she actually created that hologram technology. If so...it begs the question of what happened to its original creators.

It's nice to have a chance to give answers to more than one person on one single occasion, I mean to both A Clockwork Tomato and DorothyFan1. It means the discussion has stired up active responses that would keep The Big O very much alive. But once a disagreement is articulated in some unncessarily humiliating terms like calling your interlocutors "some sly people," that means you are not really having a discussion and dialogue. That's the end of any meaningful conversation. Worse still, this betrays your own anxiety that with your logic and analysis alone you can't really convince anyone, so instead of really debating a problem you choose to humiliate people first. To prevent further degeneration of our discussion, let's stick to proper and gracious language.

I appreciate A Clockwork Tomato's questions posed to me, because it shows that even in the heat of our debate he can keep the coolest mind asking for clarifications. All the questions are pivoted around the dichotomy of real vs. fake. My general answer is, neither and both. It depends on which level you are making the judgment of truth value. My theory is a multi-world, open system. So to your question no. 3: Within the Big O world, injuries and deaths that happened there are painfully real, but that doesn't prevent some characters (Gordon, Roger, Seebach...) in that world from pondering another level of reality. On the other hand, in our reality, or in the reality within the TV control room, of course we don't need to take seriously the injuries or deaths broadcast in a TV anime show, but that doesn't prevent us from identifying with the characters, going into their world to feel sympathetically their pains that turn out to approximate very much ours. Paradigm shifts, loss of memory, historical trauma, manipulation by incorporations, political deception, futility of wars... that are only fiction of a TV show, but also a fiction that conciously refers to our own reality right now, at this point of human history.

To the questions no. 4 and 5: I think both A Clockwork Tomato and I agree that from time to time characters of The Big O would have chilling moments of epiphany that they are actors or audience of a show. That doesn't mean that they are ONLY actors or audience. Quite the contrary, the realization that one might be an actor on a stage means that one now gain an access to another reality. Roger has the stronger sense of identity crisis because he realizes he is not just a negotiator in Paradigm City but at the same time an actor performing a show of The Big O on another level of reality. So if the characters realize they are actors, that already implies that they are no longer trapped only in their own world; rather, they can now ponder a higher, broader reality embedding them. That makes possible the final scene where Roger the Negotiator gets into the TV control room and negotiate with the author or creator Angel. (See my previous comments on an Italian play Six Characters in Search for the Author).

To Questions no. 1 and 2, if we are talking about Angel as the author of Metropolis and the director of the TV show, of course she would have more than one sense of reality. The answer to the question no. 3 goes well for no. 1: Angel the director knows well the fictionality of her TV show, but also has a strong sense of identification with the characters she creates (she herself also plays a role in the show). Question no. 2 is the trickest one: is her answer correct? The problem is, as I argued previously, if Angel the director broadcasting the TV show we are watching in real time, then we are on the same level as her, so Question no. 2 is applicable as well to us as to her. Are we sure we are watching a TV show? Or instead we are looking at another reality that would compromise our sense of certainty of our own reality? Have we ever realized that we are not only creating various shows in the world but the world in which we are living are scripted and manipulated by some other forces (political, economy, religious)? So Question no. 2 can be the one really about ourselves, and the answer should be searched out by our lifelong effort and not put down easily here.

To DorothyFan1, let me keep my answer brief: 1) I have no intention to downplay the marvelous capacity and importance of Dorothy in the show. She is a marvelous creature who has memory that doesn't belong to her and who can be reactivated even without memory device. And she is a marvelous creature created out of a model kit by the hands of Angel. Angel as the director and scriptwriter can put whatever marvelous capacity and memories in her creatures. I don't see why if Dorothy is created by Angel she will not have the memory of the "real" Dorothy, as long as the "real" Dorothy is no more than another creature in Angel's script.

2) One reminder: Dorothy is Angel's creature in fact as much as Roger, Dastun, Rosewaters... are her creatures. But that doesn't deny their "free will" to search out the truth about the world and themselves. The most interesting point is, as Gordon tells Roger, we can have a negotiator to negotiate with the one in control of the world. The negotiation with Angel as the director is the expression of this "free will" if you like. And finally, as we see, both Roger and Dorothy show up in the TV control room and "come to terms" with Angel. Dorothy sure plays an extremely important role here, but NOT as a creator but as a creature with free will to negotiate with the creator.

3) Whether the creator is good or evil doesn't deny her status as a creator. The author can reset -- or rewrite -- everything if she finds the characters she created develop in a direction not ideal to her, or if she finds the character fail to have a good negotiation with her. Or conversely, she chooses to reset everything PRECISELY depending on the way the characters negotiates with her. So each time we have different kinds of reality, determined not solely by the Creator but by the creatures who negotiate with the Creator.

4) We need not resort to the technology of "hologram" to explain the fictionality of Paradigm City. Actually the whole show has never touched upon "hologram." Fictionality is expressed in many other forms of media: drama, model kit, cinema, TV show... By the way I wonder if we can be so certain that Angel (I mean the director Angel, not the character) is NOT sophisticated enough to have the hologram technology. There is no evidence at all supporting this certainty. And hologram is simply unncessary in this context.

P.S.: A few words on methodology. I think DorothyFan1 has misread Clockwork Tomato's message: Clockwork Tomato did advise us NOT to assume the camera "lies"; otherwise no analysis is possible. We MUST venture to ASSUME the camera doesn't lie. That's what Clockwork Tomato and I agree very much on -- on this point I think we have come to terms, and I hope DorothyFan1 someday will accept this basic rule of analysis. What Clockwork Tomato and I might have a little bit -- just a little bit I believe -- disagreement about is that he further insists the necessity to assume even "what the camera omits doesn't lie." Now the problem is: what is exactly what the camera omits? I have no way to determine whether this omission lies or not in fact, because in the first place I don't know what it can be. So I think "does the omission lie or not" is not a right question to ask. Rather, we have to ask: how can we know something that the camera doesn't directly show? The only answer is: to stick to our first principle, to carefully look at what the camera has shown, and then deduce cautiously from the visual evidence to reach some inference about what the camera hasn't shown. Ultimately, we still have to believe the camera, not the omission itself. So one way to certify that a person won't turn into a green Mars alien outside our sight is to say that he doesn't turn into it as far as we see him, so we have a reason to believe he won't transform that way outside our sight, UNLESS others report that they SEE him transform.

Finally, the analogy of believing the camera and believing the Bible is misguided. I am not arguing for the TRUTH of Angel as if I am really arguing that a Goddess called Angel really exists and she creates a show called The Big O. That would be sheer nonsense. I am only talking about that there is an animation called The Big O which portrays its own creator as Angel who is in control of everything but still needs the interaction and negotiation with her characters. To fix the analogy to the Bible, we have to say: we can only search for the meaning of The Big O by taking as evidence what the camera shows, just as we can only understand the meaning of the Bible by carefully examining what it says. Be careful: I am not saying we have to believe everything the Bible says in order to know God's existence; I am saying we have to take the words of the Bible seriously in order to know what the Bible as a book, as the text, really means. If you are talking about The Big O but don't stick to what the show really shows us, then you are just talking about a different story you are inventing yourself. At best, it's a fan's fiction, not The Big O itself.

I would like to quickly respond to Ilham for suggesting my remark about "those sly people" was directly referring to him. It wasn't. And I certainly didn't mean to suggest it to "humiliate you". I apologize if you got the wrong impression...but even if you refuse to believe me on that count...please understand I was referring to religious authorities in different cultures who resort to the St Anselm Theorem about the God proof.

Now since we're talking about Big O...and Paradigm City this philosophical debate can and should remain about that and not spill into other unnecessary territory that has nothing to do with Big O.

However, this philosophical discussion about Big O and the final episode shows there is plenty to discuss and critique regarding its true meaning. Now I haven't had the time to fully digest Ihlam's long post...but I did glance fleetingly over it to see a point not addressed from Clockwork Tomato's list of questions...and that's number 3...are the characters still alive or dead?

The answer to this is CRUCIAL...if we're to really understand the merits of anybody's theory on the true nature of Paradigm City and it's meaning. Is Micheal Seeback (Schwartzwald) alive or dead? That's a very important question to this entire discussiona about Paradigm City. Not to mention the importance of not skipping over the fact that Roger Smith doesn't seem to age...while Gordon Rosewater does. We may have to shine the spotlight onto Dorothy as well because since she's an android...who's to say she's not unaware of the "truth" herself but chooses not to devulge this to Roger Smith.

quote:

2) One reminder: Dorothy is Angel's creature in fact as much as Roger, Dastun, Rosewaters... are her creatures. But that doesn't deny their "free will" to search out the truth about the world and themselves. The most interesting point is, as Gordon tells Roger, we can have a negotiator to negotiate with the one in control of the world. The negotiation with Angel as the director is the expression of this "free will" if you like. And finally, as we see, both Roger and Dorothy show up in the TV control room and "come to terms" with Angel. Dorothy sure plays an extremely important role here, but NOT as a creator but as a creature with free will to negotiate with the creator. 3) Whether the creator is good or evil doesn't deny her status as a creator. The author can reset -- or rewrite -- everything if she finds the characters she created develop in a direction not ideal to her, or if she finds the character fail to have a good negotiation with her. Or conversely, she chooses to reset everything PRECISELY depending on the way the characters negotiates with her. So each time we have different kinds of reality, determined not solely by the Creator but by the creatures who negotiate with the Creator.

You have some good points...however I must point out that since Angel as "Creator" has such absolute control over her creatures...it does bring into question the morality of why she has to ALLOW certain things to happen or NOT happen depending on whether or not a reset occurs. Because if we keep in mind that Angel is the "Creator"...then one has to ask is free will or choice really possible? And if so...are they "judged" by their actions? Once again...I come back to what happened to Schwartzwald. Was he good or evil? And if he was "evil"...what did Angel do to him? Is he alive or dead? Answering this is important to the entire concept of Paradigm City...because we have yet to learn in this reality whether people get "second chances".

Now the theory about Roger Smith as "Negotiator" for Paradigm City towards the "Creator" comes dangerously close to religious overtones because this is hinting obliquely that Roger Smith is the Christ figure who "sacrifices" himself for the "sins" of Paradigm City in order to save its citizens. Uising this scenario...then Swartzwald is John the Baptist, Beck is Judias Iscariot and Dorothy is Peter. I don't think we need to go down that road.

I appreciate the reply of DorothyFan1, which spells out some of his (her?) important premises and convictions. And I found them not really distant from mine.

Both of us are alarmed by any theological reading of The Big O. One has to admit that there is strong temptation to do such a reading given so many religious references here and there throughout the show. But I strongly believe Christianity is only one of the many intellectual resources that the director and writers of The Big O have drawn upon and creatively transform into an idiosyncratic show that really sticks out from the main stream.

So in my very first message in this thread, I have emphatically written:

quote:

While this could be a very interesting revisionist reading of Christianity (God needs human beings for interactions), we should regard The Big O as an allegory of the production of the TV show itself. We know a 1921 Italian play called "Six Characters in Search of an Author," in which a group of characters complain that the author who created them hasn't finished the story (sounds familiar?) and try to search him out (for negotiation!). Episode 26 has this final fantasy realized when Roger, along with Dorothy, gets into the TV broadcasting control room (see the signs "On Air" on both sides of the big screen ) and places a hand on the shoulder of Angel the director/producer/scriptwriter.

So my reading is a secular one distancing itself from theological explanation. Nothing is more un-Christian to say that creatures have the power to negotiate with the Creator (that approximates more Greek or Chinese gods, not the Christian God). Moreover, I repeat more than once that WE (humans) are on the same level as Angel the director in the TV control room, simply because I never really regard Angel as "God," but rather only a TV show director, producer, scriptwriter, AND one member of the audience who would be moved to tear just like anyone of us.

Once we recognize that Angel as Creator is merely a creator of a Japanese anime, not a Christian God of the world, then questions like "Does she think Schwartzwald is good or evil?" become irrelevant. Judgment of good and evil is God's task, not Angel's. Characters are created, modified, condemned to death, brought back to life; storylines can be continued, suspended, started all over again, truncated and expanded -- That is what we know very well about the tortuous process of making The Big O detailedly documented in the Official Guide. That's the topic interestingly brought out within the show, which refers to its own process of production as amnesia, reset, paradigm shift, confusion about role playing... These are the pretty mundane reality of producing a TV anime show. We don't need to, and I never, bring in Christianity in order to understand it.

Characters complaining about the incompletion of a show and negotitiating with the author is something within the literary tradition (which is called metafiction or metadrama) as my quote shows. It's nothing religious. So we don't really have to worry that Roger is too much like Christ, Dorothy like Peter, Swartzwald like John... Nothing can be more distant than these analogies from what I have been describing. Can we imagine Christ saying: "I don't have memory and I don't know my identity but let me negotiate with you my Lord"? Only Roger the negotiator can do that to a TV show creator. Once again, we find ourselves in the most secular fantasy possible available in literature.

I have always prevented any theological analogy; it's only when my interlocutors make such analogies that I have to try to "negotiate" with them and "fix" these misleading analogies. But now that DorothyFan1 wants to end these analogies for good, I can be no more glad to give my consent.

But one disguised theological concept seems to lurk behind our discussion: "Free Will." DorothyFan1 writes, "if we keep in mind that Angel is the "Creator"...then one has to ask is free will or choice really possible." He is defending a theological concept unknowingly, because precisely in theology, we are told that God create humans and at the same time allow them free will to choose their course of action. Divine creation and free will are never contradictory, because free will by nature IS a theological notion. Do we really want to defend such a notion? Or does it need to be defended at all, provided free will is well established by theology? I am always dubious about "free will" and have deliberately avoided this term. Only because DorothyFan1 brought it up in the first place did I try to accomodate it. But if we want to get rid of theology for good, we have to see how The Big O creatively transforms this theological notion. Remember what Roger says in Act 25: "The manner in which you were given life has nothing to do with the way you live that life as a human being." So Roger doesn't deny creation (artificial or divine, it makes no difference), but he maintains that we are free NOT because we are created in that manner. That is a radical answer to theology. While theology tells us that creation brings about free will rather than contradicts it, Roger says something apparently similar but actually vastly different: yes, free will doesn't conflict with the idea of creation, but at the same time creation has nothing to do with it. Again, this deomonstrates how to give the old theological language a totally new and secular meaning.

To end with a small point, I did answer Question no. 3 posed by Clockwork Tomato; indeed that's the very first question I chose to answer. That DorothyFan1 omitted my answer, just as highly possibly I omitted some of his points in this or other threads, shows that both of us read and write under great time pressure. That's not a bad thing because it proves both of us are willing to squeeze time to contribute something to the Forums.

I'm only just now rejoing this discussion so I hope y'all will forgive me for resurrecting a dead thread.

I just wanted to add that I am partial to the idea of Big O being a commentary on the art of fiction (Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses comes to mind in addition to Six Characters.

This theory also makes sense to me because it has a good explanation for the multiple Rogers we see being manufactured (they are merchandise not previous Rogers) in 26, the fact that Roger doesn't seem to age (he's fictional so why not?), that he and others seem to have hazy memories of moments that they don't ever seem to have lived (military Roger, human Dorothy, etc.).

If this theory in general is true, though, it seems to me that it doesn't imply that the drama we all love is a commentary on itself, the television show "Big O," but rather it is a commentary on a show "Big O." It may very well be that in fact, the show is not a television show but some sort of other entertainment which doesn't at present exist.