Who's the Worst Villain in Kara no Kyoukai?

[RoydGolden]

works for me

Who are you responding to?

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Maybe bringing the legal system into it isn't a great idea because I think the courts might get confused by the keeping everybody's brains alive in jars and resurrecting them in new bodies every day aspect of the case, and arresting Araya would probably be hard.

Well, forgive me for not bringing in the perfect metaphor. And the core fact of the situation is that "accelerating" someone's demise is still tantamount to murder, under both law and morality. Even granted the highly dubious premise of fatalism.

[Snow]

woke

You have your opinion and I have mine.

[Dullahan]

You have your opinion and I have mine.

that was wholly without irony, I agree with you

[GhostDIGIT]

Kokutou is the best and the worst villain in Kara no Kyoukai.

best in how he manipulates and worms his way into shiki's heart and worst because he's a protagonist?

[You]

its p clear that the arguement shiki and araya are having is
"they would have died like this anyway" <- this is true
"yeah but you sped up the process" <- this is also true

and then its up to you to decide who is more correct
it's the whole broken 80's protagonist vs 90's protagonist dichotomy that Nasu loves so much

[Dullahan]

Thank You.

[RoydGolden]

its p clear that the arguement shiki and araya are having is
"they would have died like this anyway" <- this is true
"yeah but you sped up the process" <- this is also true

and then its up to you to decide who is more correct
it's the whole broken 80's protagonist vs 90's protagonist dichotomy that Nasu loves so much

The "like this" is sort of irrelevant anyway. Regardless of where you stand on fate and destiny as metaphysical concepts, humans are all in a very real sense fated for the grave (at least, barring unprecedented technological innovations). You could just as well make the (transparently murderous) argument that "Well, people are all going to die anyway, so what's the harm in hastening things along a little?" *stab*
Or as an exchange between BBC's Sherlock and Moriarty went:

Sherlock

"People have died!"

Moriarty

"That's what people do!"

[Mcjon01]

The "like this" was very important to Araya.

[RoydGolden]

The "like this" was very important to Araya.

Clearly so, but is it actually important philosophically? If I'm no slave to the author, then I'm certainly not indentured to the words of his fictional villain.

[You]

The "like this" is sort of irrelevant anyway. Regardless of where you stand on fate and destiny as metaphysical concepts, humans are all in a very real sense fated for the grave (at least, barring unprecedented technological innovations). You could just as well make the (transparently murderous) argument that "Well, people are all going to die anyway, so what's the harm in hastening things along a little?" *stab*
Or as an exchange between BBC's Sherlock and Moriarty went:

Sherlock

"People have died!"

Moriarty

"That's what people do!"

okay
i'm sure you've at least watched ubw. This argument is the same thing when Shirou tells Archer that "your right isn't the only right." This is exactly the same conversation
Araya without a doubt is right
Shiki is also right
but they are different types of rights: the logical moral right or the emotional individualistic right.
And this is what I believe the text was trying to convey to everyone who had the privilege of reading it.

You can argue your point, but it doesn't really matter imo because you're just preaching to the choir. Nasu has already acknowledged your side of the argument, but adds there's another side you have to consider which is equally correct, Araya's side and his attempt to save everyone.
If you think Araya's side is dumb and invalid then inno what to tell you.

[Dullahan]

Clearly so, but is it actually important philosophically? If I'm no slave to the author, then I'm certainly not indentured to the words of his fictional villain.

you go on about not holding with fatalism but have completely missed that the presence or absence of fate is precisely what Araya was testing for with the loop

the entire point of the experiment was to see if anyone would break the cycle

the fact that after 200 loops no-one had suggests that 'fate' is a statistically significant influence over the nasuverse

[Ronove]

The "like this" is sort of irrelevant anyway. Regardless of where you stand on fate and destiny as metaphysical concepts, humans are all in a very real sense fated for the grave (at least, barring unprecedented technological innovations). You could just as well make the (transparently murderous) argument that "Well, people are all going to die anyway, so what's the harm in hastening things along a little?" *stab*
Or as an exchange between BBC's Sherlock and Moriarty went:

Sherlock

"People have died!"

Moriarty

"That's what people do!"

Araya isn't the reason they died that way though.

He's not responsible for forcing these people to die or kill. He's "just" accelerating the speed at which they inevitably choose to do it so while there are obvious moral complications involved, that comparison doesn't pan out.

The middle-man can't be considered irrelevant in this instance. Its actually the point.

[SeiKeo]

you go on about not holding with fatalism but have completely missed that the presence or absence of fate is precisely what Araya was testing for with the loop

the entire point of the experiment was to see if anyone would break the cycle

the fact that after 200 loops no-one had suggests that 'fate' is a statistically significant influence over the nasuverse

And Enjou meeting Shiki then gets you into CF fuckery, which seems to confirm the point even more.

[You]

And Enjou meeting Shiki then gets you into CF fuckery, which seems to confirm the point even more.

yes
the can of worms known as the CF

[Dullahan]

ZETTAI
UNMEI
YOKUSHIRYOKU

[RoydGolden]

you go on about not holding with fatalism but have completely missed that the presence or absence of fate is precisely what Araya was testing for with the loop

the entire point of the experiment was to see if anyone would break the cycle

the fact that after 200 loops no-one had suggests that 'fate' is a statistically significant influence over the nasuverse

Didn't Enjou kinda-sorta break the cycle by escaping the apartment complex? Granted, he still died, but in a different way.

[SpoonyViking]

"They were people who had everything destroyed. Within a mere month, everyone killed each other and died" - certainly does not imply that meaning. What Araya actually says at that point in the novel, however, does.

Ah, I see. Thanks for explaining, then!

That said, from the point of view of ethics, I'd argue Araya intervening in the process (even if only to hasten it) and Cornelius helping him do make both culpable.

...Because she's the protagonist? Who are generally to be trusted over the story's villain in an explicit clash of ideals/viewpoints, unless a specific point is made otherwise.

That way lie the Bellas of literature. Personally, I took Shiki's assertion to be true because she was consistently shown as knowing what she was talking about when it came to the complex, and no statement in the movie contradicted her.

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And Enjou meeting Shiki then gets you into CF fuckery, which seems to confirm the point even more.

Araya manipulated their meeting, no?

[Arashi_Leonhart]

Didn't Enjou kinda-sorta break the cycle by escaping the apartment complex? Granted, he still died, but in a different way.

Enjou didn't do anything. Araya and the Counter Force did. Enjou is a rotting corpse and a preserved brain in a basement.

That way lie the Bellas of literature. Personally, I took Shiki's assertion to be true because she was consistently shown as knowing what she was talking about when it came to the complex, and no statement in the movie contradicted her.

Nobody's going to put all of Nasu's word salads into a movie unless you want the movie to be 7 hours long.

[SpoonyViking]

Nobody's going to put all of Nasu's word salads into a movie unless you want the movie to be 7 hours long.

True, true.

[Altima of the Gates]

I guess you can say the

satisfaction

pleasure

is why they keep going in spite of that agony. I mean, Rin in particular outright says she only practices magic because she enjoys it.

Rin out of the group of herself, Sakura and Shirou has more of a stake in being a magus, plus Nasu does press that if certain factors hadn't influenced her, than its not unheard of that she would have walked away from practicing magecraft.

Part of it seems to be her personality, part is the filial piety, and part because she was ironically nurtured pretty well in the art considering her teacher is the one who orchestrated the deaths of her parents.

Shirou and Sakura seem to see magecraft as a tool more than an art, but since one's abilities are so intrinsically linked to who you are as a whole, it's still a personal thing.

Rin makes the song and dance about how a magus dances with death and the whole magilla, but she has reasons to take pride in what she does, so its natural she would be more passionate.