Episode 26 Discussion: "The Show Must Go On"

ok that dead Roger thats inside of a dead Big o he's not an error in the animation, he's not underwater, and hes not a robot. That is what used to be Major Roger Smith (the guy seen in the torn photo with Gordon) He had died fighting alongside Big O in the event of fortie years ago but was killed in action thus never completing negotiations with Gordon thats why the Roger Smith we know and love today was created.

OMGWTF, I think your theory is the simplest one here, but it makes a lot of sense.

I agree that an entire third season would be too much, but a movie explaining how the world got to be that way and how Angel got in that situation would be a nice conclusion.

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Originally posted by GoGoArlo ok that dead Roger thats inside of a dead Big o he's not an error in the animation, he's not underwater, and hes not a robot. That is what used to be Major Roger Smith (the guy seen in the torn photo with Gordon) He had died fighting alongside Big O in the event of fortie years ago but was killed in action thus never completing negotiations with Gordon thats why the Roger Smith we know and love today was created.

I think you are right, Arlo. That explains the collar tabs on his shirt.

Pygmalion

woah.... that was interesting. thank god i taped it to watch it over again... when roger was underwater, what was with the gears? and all those flash backs...... first was the memories of Major smith, fighting with Big O, and seeing Big V with its wings shooting down Paradigm city with laser teeth, then it turned to a roger production plant, then a model and blue print of dorothy.... now i know Angel is the director now, but didn't Gordon hand down the book to her, and cause he didn't write a past, nobody new what happened, and since she didn't care, nobody would know......whoever said Big V had blue dots on its plucked wings, not pink, maybe you saw the non negatized one.....

Oh, if I may be so bold as to ask- would someone mind de-negatizing ALL of the shots of Venus? I want to know something about it's structure, but the neg version doesn't look right.

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Originally posted by Echoe woah.... that was interesting. thank god i taped it to watch it over again... when roger was underwater, what was with the gears? and all those flash backs...... first was the memories of Major smith, fighting with Big O, and seeing Big V with its wings shooting down Paradigm city with laser teeth, then it turned to a roger production plant, then a model and blue print of dorothy.... now i know Angel is the director now, but didn't Gordon hand down the book to her, and cause he didn't write a past, nobody new what happened, and since she didn't care, nobody would know......whoever said Big V had blue dots on its plucked wings, not pink, maybe you saw the non negatized one.....

Roger underwater and the gears: In the first season, it was stated that all of the memories were buried underwater. When Big O drifts past the gears, the light beams shoot through Roger's head and eyes, and he begins to remember. The machination including the gears are where the memories are stored.

I believe that all Roger saw, including the apocalyptic visions of the Event, various shots of Angel's worldbuilding--populating Paradigm with characters, building models for those characters, creating a backstory that caused everyone to lose their memories 40 years ago. Gordon didn't write a past, because if we take what he said as truth, the Event couldn't have happened. The Event is the backstory Angel used for Paradigm's current state.

However, the memory of *something* apocalyptic is left because of the damaged building leaning on its side after the "rewrite".

[Edited to add: I don't mean to imply that everything is "just" a TV show. There are metaphysical/supernatural things afoot.]

I have avoided posting these last few days because I wanted everything to sink in and for real conclusions to be drawn. I present some ideas that I have come up with. Kind of lengthy. I have only been able to read back a few pages so I apologize if I cover something that has already been said. I hope this post doesn't get lost in the size of this thread because I would love to hear some constructive thoughts on these ideas.



I'll start with the fact that they are always mentioning Oedipus in regards to rosewater. This could have multiple meanings. The main conflict in Sophocles masterpiece was the battle between fate and free will.

I want to also throw in an idea that I recalled from watching Babylon 5 a few years ago. In that series one of the races religions was based around the fact that sentient lifeforms were created as a means for the universe to understand itself. Perhaps that is true for paradigm as well. The entire city was created in order for the director to try and discover what happened in the great event, and maybe find a way to prevent it from happening again.

As was mentioned before, each time the Tomatoes were grown, they would become better until eventually they would become the real thing. Maybe that is what is going on with the resets. The director, god or whomever is trying to find a way for Paradigm city to keep from destroying itself. The problem is that Roger and Big O are always fated to have a final showdown with Big Fau which ends up destroying civilization, thus forcing a repeat.

It’s been suggested that each time a repeat happens there are differences. Here are some of the things I think may have been different this time around at least in the final episode. Perhaps before, Roger had accepted Big O’s request to integrate and become one in order to save his life. O and Fau battle it out and destroy each other forcing a reset. We see a memory of a dead roger and big O during Rogers trip to the bottom of the sea. Perhaps this is because roger refused to integrate and drowned and Big Fau destroyed the place by himself. Note that Roger was unable to negotiate both of those times.

The iteration that we see in the series has some major differences. In the final episode we see major characters doing things that are pretty unexpected. Beck making some kind of deal with Dorothy, Dastun quitting the Military Police and defending big O instead of fighting against him as in the memory, Dorothy waking up with no obvious means of operation, as well as others that I may have missed. These things could all be examples of free will finally overpowering fate.

Perhaps the feelings between Roger and Dorothy are another example of free will and weren’t present in previous iterations. It seems that she is linked with him through Big O and these strong feelings were able to bring her back to consciousness when he was near death. She was able to save him and provide a method to seriously damage Big Fau without destroying himself thanks to the free will of Beck. Since Roger was not integrated into Big O(or dead), he was able to negotiate with Angel, thus causing Angel to realize that continuously resetting the system wouldn’t fix the problem.

Perhaps fate is the result of the simulation being too exact. So many things were programmed to be as exact as possible that it prevented the inhabitants from being able to stop the final destruction. The only way to change things significantly would be to free the people to do as they pleased. I theorize that they changed things in order to prevent the destruction from happening once and for all. This next time it will be possible for free will to completely overpower fate, and for real answers to come about as a result.


Or maybe not... What do you all think?

I think the whole roger smith assembly line has something to do with beck.

remember how beck created those duplicate wrist comunicators and the bust with rogers vocal's to call Big O? remember how there were like hundreds of Big O's in the flash backs.

and ya know how beck knows a whole lot about the bigs..when it comes to how theyre technology works.....i think roger and beck were once on the same side.

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Angel, or whoever, resets everything. So nothing that happened before was significant. Not that it matters, because all the people we cared about were just part of a fake existance. Everything gets thrown back into some kind of restart mode. No one remembers anything. So angel was producing a hyper-real TV show? This is complete bullsh*t. That's it? That's the big end? The old Roger is dead, or maybe he never existed, there is no proof the new Roger knows Norman, or Dorothy, or Dastun, or anyone else. There is no watch, and most of all, there is no Big O.

It reminds me of a reaction I heard to the ending of Monster A Go-Go:

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Sorry. False alarm.

Sadly, that's the message I got from the ending of Big O as well.

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especially with digimon 02, you will see why open ended endings are a good thing.

To me, the endings of Digimon 02 and Big O are on opposite ends of the spectrum. It's good to have an idea of what happened during an immediatly after the series, but it shouldn't look too far into the future.

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Bring back my ghost, missing cat, and daemonseed didn`t connect with the plot, but they were decent episodes.

As has been previously said, Bring Back My Ghost did shed some light on the relationship between Dominus & Megadeus.

Also, Missing Cat gives us a very good look at Dorothy's emotional side. I certainly consider that worth an episode

dudes! I WANT A SEASON 3! *scribbles on piece of paper letter to cartoon network* dudes, ever notice this, alen says die to roger then alex says die to roger. man, those 2 have a obsession for killing roger. dudes, I WAS RIGHT! ALEN IS opps i mean WAS A FRIGGEN CYBORG! man, i knew he was one after that little hand thing in act 15.
dudes, WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH BECK ALWAYS CLAPPING HIS FEET! ADD THAT FRIGGEN LAUGH AND WELL....HE HAS PROBLEMS! wonder where he picked up that habit. dudes, NO MORE BIG O! JUST RERUNS WHICH IS COOL! *runs around very happy. celebrates at joes crab shack * but i'm wonderin this though. why did roger asked dorothy that she could give him mouth to mouth? she is an android here. she doesn't need oxygen. well then roger could of been a little dazed. hmmmm oh yea.
if ur wonderin why i'm sayin DUDES, is because i'm celebraiting the dvd release of finding nemo. it is soo cute, but it's not good as BIG O! now what was i gonna do? ohh yea. *writes letter to cartoon network asking, nah not strong enough, demanding a season 3. !)
i wish i had a t-shirt like this. *sighs*

• Attachment: got big o.jpg

RandD you should consider making those t-shirts! I want one now!

This is my theory of what happened and the overall symbolism, which is very repetitive and redundant:

What happened forty years ago: In a normal, natural universe, Gordon Rosewater builds/develops pardigm city/NYC. He enlists Roger Smith as a member of the military police and in charge of the megadeus project, and assumes the role of Major Smith. This may sound strange, but I think Angel was his attache in the military at this time. That's the role she takes in his dream during ep 14, and I think that dream was something of flashback as well as a bizarre hallucination. (It also seems to be based on an actual memory because there is a picture her in uniform in one of the screens in the TV room). She is probably Rosewater's daughter at this point.

Anyway, Roger and Gordon embark on their megadeus war. This basically destroys the world, and Angel, for whatever reason-it might have to do with Roger I dying, takes the ultimate Big, Big Venus, and uses its reality warping power to try and fix the universe. Thus we get stage Paradigm city. Thus we get a Roger the Wanderer period, his casting as the negotiater, and his reinvolvement with the military police.

Symbollically, I think this actually judgement day, the megadeuses are the power of god wielded by man, thus, they are here judge everyone for god, i.e. their message "Cast in the name, ye not guilty." However, everyone who dies are the saved ones, because they go to heaven (including roger, symbolically Christ). Everyone who survives, the winners of the war, gets to go to hell, Paradigm city. Paradigm City's cycle like existance is very like the classical idea of hades, like the story of sysiphus rolling the boulder, just as they get somewhere, they have to start at the beginning. it also shows the writer's sense of humor, they liken hell to a syndicated television show. Angel, who is now director and thus caretaker of hell, AkA lucifer, now pulls the strings. Roger's job to negotiate with lucifer is christ's task to save the damned, and to do it he must do the ultimate task of goodness and redeem lucifer.

Oh, this is a little out of place, but I think I have connection for dorothy and beck. Dorothy, I think, is actually an alter ego of angel/lucifer/God. Note, before the war of the megadeuses, she is not mentioned at ALL. This suggests to me that before the war she did not exist. i think she was introduced by the director to relate to Roger in a way angel could not. The fact there are plans for her in the Roger flashback suggest she was made for a purpose. Angel and dorothy are exact opposites. Angel is emotional, whimsical, secretive and clever. Dorothy is cold, purposed, direct and witty. It's like they are two halves of single person, highly suggested by the last scene of the two standing together, the last two people scene besides Roger. This suggests she is like a part of the whole controlling force of the world, and Roger's negotiation also involved reconciling the two.

Beck, I would say, is what his last name is: Gold. Gold is one of the gifts to christ by the three kings, and Beck takes on a wiseman like quality in the series. The whole "Mysteries of the Orient" stuff also suggests a three kings connections. So he like Gold to Roger, that is valuable but also very troublesome.

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but i'm wonderin this though. why did roger asked dorothy that she could give him mouth to mouth? she is an android here. she doesn't need oxygen. well then roger could of been a little dazed.

It seemed to me that he was just reacting to the violent nature in which Dorothy forced the water out of Big O's cockpit, and probably not meaning it in a literal sense.
Kinda' like if your friend comes running up from behind you and surprises you with a huge slap on the back.
It might startle the crap out of you, and you could say:
"GEEEEEEZZ!!!
Why don't ya' just knock my head off while you're at it?!"[/B]

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Originally posted by Echoe first was the memories of Major smith, fighting with Big O, and seeing Big V with its wings shooting down Paradigm city with laser teeth,

I don't believe it was Laser Teeth. I believe it was all part of what happened 40 years ago. The Bigs destroying everything, the Bigs fighting the Levithans....And a note on that fact - The Levithans were made by whomever Paradigm was at war with. That would explain why the Bigs were fighting them.

And I do have to agree on the Big Venus issue. The first scene with Venus is when it shows up in shadow, above the burning Paradigm. When we next see V it's holding a Levithans head and has the light coming out of its mouth.

One more comment: I believe CN changed the color of the lights on the back of Big Venus in Act 26 to reflect "Who" Venus was/is. I'm sure someone noticed that Angel has "Pink" glowing scars on her back - Venus had "Pink" glowing scars on its back too.

ok lemme get this strait, Paradigm is a city that is caught in a constant loop. Every 40 yrs a megalomaniac in some sort of Rosewater form pisses of a foriegn country due to shady dealings and a Roger Smith and his Big O ground unit come between the two. Meanwhile a memory of unspeakable power is awakened who has some connection with the negotiator and reaks havok on the city and resets it making everyone lose their memory. The End. All supporting characters resurrected in the same shape or form and similar events are constanlty being duplicated. Is that what Paradigm is, a constant cycle or loop? how does this tie into those who still have their memorys. Like say... that android in negotiations with the dead or the rest of those senators? what about R.D whats the deal with her?

I've seen a few really excellent theories here. Although an ending like this does not provide closure, it does provide much ground for discussion and debate.

i say the loop is definitely over. The repeated scene isn't totally repeated. They add Angel and Dorothy in there at the end, and at the begginning of the first act, they aren't even introduced (and why would they be hanging out, together no less, unless something earthshattering happenend?) This suggests they are of a new routine, different from the loop.
The biggest thing is that the Big O watch scene in Roger's glasses in the original is not there at the end. This means there is no Big O anymore, no Megadeuses, and no power of God wielded by man. This means the megadeuses are no longer a factor in Paradigm City, and the corresponding power they are all derived from is gone. The only reasonable explanation is that Roger doesn't need Big O anymore because the job of the megadeuses was to ensure the continuation of the loop and act as judges of man. Since Roger convinced Angel to give up the director post and live as normal person (as demonstrated by her casually on the street with dorothy), the whole overseer element to paradigm city is gone, and its agents the megadeuses.
Thus, the ending gives closure, explaining we're back to business as usual (and by our own hands), but without the horribly destructive, if fun, giant robots.

Ok, i have been waiting to post this for a while, but never got around to it:

The world is caught in a time loop right? And each time its supposed to correct something wrong in the previos rotation, right? Well could this, the new timeline at the end of Act 26, be the last rotation? Dorothy and Angel were both in the new reallity right from square one, and Grandpa Rosewater, as I call him now, wished for all the memories to fill Metropolis and i think they did.

And on a side note:

I guess Angel really did have wings...

ok, this is for all of u wondering about the differences between the japanese verison and the american one.

I just finished watching both side by side, on my computer, and the only differences i saw where slight editing of mouth moments, and small details such as dastun's hat being on in one scene. There are other small things, such as slowing down of some scenes, like big o sinking in the water, and other scenes are sped up a bit, another scene is zoomed in, etc, etc. I could take screenshots of both, but that's only if u guys really want me to. Anyways, just wanted to let u all know