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ouyangzizhensdad · 3 years

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Unfinished Meta #2

WWX is established in the text as observant, making it incongruous that he’d also somehow be at the same time ‘oblivious’

We all know that WWX is a genius and a prodigy, which is not that interesting (how many characters are geniuses and prodigies?). But WWX is not only smart--he’s very observant, which is already more interesting. It is not clear, to me, whether these observation skills come from WWX’s innate abilities, the way his parents brought him up in his early years, the challenges of surviving in the streets, or the result of having to negotiate the pitfall and tensions as a permanent guest of the Jiang household--or even a combination of all these. Whatever the source or reason, WWX’s quick wit and deductive skills is perhaps his most established character trait we get in our first introduction to the character. While the Mo Mansion arc is dense with characterisation (WWX kicking the door with his foot and then throwing the bowl to the side! WWX calling LSZ ‘xiao mianzi’ in his internal monologue 😭), there is a clear bias towards establishing very early this part of his character.

(here I wrote “add quotes” but you can just refer to the meta I actually wrote about the Mo Mansion arc lmao)

WWX is good at reading people, understands how to goad them into reactions or how to diffuse tensions (although is not a master manipulator like JGY or NHS, nor as good of a arbiter as JYL or LSZ). This is made clear even in the earliest memories we see of him, when he angers LQR into throwing him out of class, or angers LWJ into destroying the evidence of the spring book he brought into the Library. We see it in his treatment of other characters; for example, he realizes early on that Jin Zixun is a prideful prat who needs recognition, so WWX purposely pretends to forget his name to antagonise him.

But more often, especially as an adult, his ability to read others and guess their reactions is used to scrutinize them or assess a situation, to make people confess or say something they hadn’t meant to divulge. During Guanyin Temple, until the moment JGY brings up LWJ’s feelings, WWX is very clearly trying to make JGY reveal more about his plan and his past deeds, or trying to find ways to distract him and his goons. Likewise, he sees through JGY’s attempt to do the same (up until the moment he brings up LWJ, at which point WWX is too heartsick and heartbroken not to pursue that line of enquiry, even while knowing it is part of a ruse, of a means to best him), warning LXC against falling for his tricks, and having to witness JC falling hook, line and sinker later on when JGY goads him.

At times, he’ll play-act a character to achieve this goal, as we see in the Mo Mansion arc when he puts on the persona of a lunatic in front of the Lan Juniors so that they will not suspect him of being a skilled cultivator while he assess the situation and finds how to protect them from the unknown enemy. (here it said add more examples of play-acting lmao)

On top of it all, WWX is also established to be well-learned and knowledgeable about the cultivation world and politics throughout the novel, as well as being creative and inventive, coming up with a new branch of cultivation and many devices to help his endeavors, like the zhaoyin flags or the empathy technique.

Being observant and having good deductive skills should not mean however that the character cannot ever be wrong or misled in their observations and conclusions; in fact, most pieces of fiction including such a character will often use the character’s personal or internalized biases and prejudices to make them grow or to shape some parts of the plot; Sherlock Holmes was bested by Irene Adler because of his prejudices against the ‘fairer sex’; Lizzie Bennet, who prided herself on her abilities to read people, was fooled by Wickham both because she mistook his genteel manners for good nature and because she held prejudices against Mr Darcy and was already willing to believe him to be a villain. What is important in these examples is that there is always something that explains, something that contextualises why the observant character came to the wrong conclusion (and how they finally understood their mistakes).

The novel often puts WWX in a situation where he doubts his observation/thinking, and has to face conflicting or contradicting information in order to decide whether or not he’s sticking with his initial assessment or not. For instance, in Chapter 10, he starts questioning whether or not LWJ really is unaware of his true identity after surprising him in the Cold Springs, even he remains uncertain until LWJ tells him so (and then, it takes him a while to figure out how LWJ did realise his identity, but WWX does ultimately figure it out on his own).

He did doubt that Lan Wangji might have guessed who he was. However, the doubt was lacking in both sense and reason. As sacrificing one’s body was a prohibited practice, there were probably not a lot of people who knew about it. The scrolls passed down the generations were most likely partial pieces of the entire work, unable to reach their full potential. Things continued like this, and so there were less and less people who believed in it. Mo Xuanyu only summoned Wei Wuxian by looking at a secret scroll, wherever he found it in the first place. Anyhow, Lan Wangji couldn’t have recognized him just from the awful flute melodies that he played.

He asked himself whether or not he had a heartfelt relationship with Lan Wangji in his past life. Although they had studied with each other, went on adventures, and fought together, all of these experiences were like falling petals and flowing water—coming and going. Lan Wangji was a disciple of the GusuLan Sect, which meant that he had to be “righteous,” quite incompatible with Wei Wuxian’s personality. Wei Wuxian thought that their relationship wasn’t exactly bad, but it wasn’t that good either. The chances were that Lan Wangji’s opinion of him was the same as everyone else’s—being overly wanton and not virtuous enough, it would have been only a matter of time before he caused a disaster. After Wei Wuxian betrayed the YunmengJiang Sect and became the Yiling Laozu, he had a few significant disputes with the Lan Sect, especially during the few months before his death. If Lan Wangji was sure that he was Wei Wuxian, they should have already been engaged in a large-scale fight.

Yet, he wasn’t sure what to make of the current situation—in the past, no matter what he did, Lan Wangji didn’t tolerate anything, but now, even though he used whatever methods he had up his sleeve, Lan Wangji could still tolerate him. Should he be congratulated because of his progress?! [Chapter 10]

#unfinished meta #mdzs meta #wwx

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giveamadeuschohisownmovie · 4 years

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After going the Ace Attorney games again, here are my rankings of the six main series prosecutors:

(Side note: Still haven’t played any of the Investigations games or the Great Ace Attorney series)

6) Nahyuta Sahdmadhi

Poor Nahyuta. I hate to place him in the last place slot but after going through Spirit of Justice again, he still hasn’t grown on me. Let me just say, I don’t really like Spirit of Justice. There are a lot of aspects of that game I was not fond of, such as the final case being a repeat of Farewell, My Turnabout and the underwhelming Khura’in Civil War storyline. However, in Nahyuta’s defense, I don’t hate the character.

Nahyuta has a decent storyline and he has a unique gimmick. It’s just when compared to the other 5 prosecutors, he doesn’t really do anything for me. His storyline with Apollo feels like a rehash of the previous games (oh, the prosecutor was close friends with the defense attorney? Hmm, where have I heard that before *coughPhoenixandMilescough* *coughAthenaandSimoncough*). Also, he’s not as fun or as interesting as his counterparts.

Basically, I don’t think Nahyuta’s a bad character, he’s just my least favorite of the prosecutors.

5) Franziska von Karma

This one hurt me, mainly because I love Franziska. She seems like a fun character outside of the main Ace Attorney games based on her appearances in the Investigations series. However, if we’re going purely with her role as prosecutor in the main series, then I have to place her in the 5th place slot. But it’s not because I think she’s a bad character. She’s great! She’s a fun character to interact with and she has an interesting backstory. The problem is Justice for All.

In my opinion, Justice for All is the worst Ace Attorney game in the main series. It’s to the point that it affected my placement of Franziska on this list. First off, it’s already bad that one of the main cases she’s the prosecutor in is Turnabout Big Top aka the worst case in the entire franchise. But then there’s Farewell, My Turnabout, which absolutely screws over her character by making Miles Edgeworth the focus of the finale.

Now let me back up. Before you Miles Edgeworth fans jump down my throat, I am aware that Miles is not the prosecutor for the final case in the first game. I am NOT saying that Franziska needed to be the prosecutor in Farewell, My Turnabout. I am NOT saying Miles ruined the story. The point I’m making is that even though Miles wasn’t the prosecutor in Turnabout Goodbyes, he was still the main focus. Everything in that episode revolved around Miles’ past and his relationship with Manfred von Karma. He still got a complete character arc even though he wasn’t the rival.

In Farewell, My Turnabout, Capcom just went and said, “Go fuck yourself Franziska” and made everything about Miles again. Franziska was barely a presence in that final episode and by the time the game ended, her arc felt incomplete. Yes, the writers attempted to make her relevant to the story by having her be the one to deliver the evidence but just think about that for a second. She’s the main prosecutor of the 2nd game and the most significant thing she did in the finale was deliver items. I honestly feel her appearance in Trials and Tribulations was damage control for how shit she was treated in Justice for All.

Thankfully, it looks like the Investigations games treated Franziska better. But as for the main series, she deserved a whole lot better. I’d love to place her higher but with the storyline she got, I have to mark her down.

4) Klavier Gavin

I don’t have much to say about Klavier. I think he’s a cool character and he has a kickass gimmick. However, he’s just a mid-tier kind of character for me. Like with Franziska, it’s mainly to do with Apollo Justice / Ace Attorney 4.

People have already pointed this out but the storyline in Apollo Justice feels more like set-up for something bigger. When I first went through Apollo Justice, it felt like there was going to be more to Kristoph Gavin, more to Klavier Gavin. Phoenix Wright was at the start of a different kind of character arc and the Gramaryes/Trucy Wright would be the main focus of the Apollo Justice trilogy, just like how Maya and the Feys were the focus of Phoenix’s trilogy.

In fact, just going off on a little tangent, I already made a post about this but I was thinking that the abandoned Apollo Justice trilogy would lead to Phoenix becoming a Godot-type character. He had the seeds of that character arc planted, with his darker behavior, willingness to bend the legal system to get what he wants (using forged evidence and trapping Kristoph with the jurist system) and a similar reason to become an anti-villain (Godot was poisoned by Dahlia, Phoenix was disbarred thanks to Kristoph). He would then show up in the final game as the main rival, leading to a Phoenix and Apollo showdown.

Sorry, this was supposed to be about Klavier. The point I’m trying to make is, Klavier is a cool character but he feels wasted. Since the 5th and 6th games didn’t follow-up on the 4th game’s story, it feels like Klavier was left behind as a result. That’s why he’s low on the list.

3) Simon Blackquill

Ah yes, the twisted samurai. For the record, Dual Destinies is my favorite Apollo Justice-era game, so it’s not a huge surprise that Simon is my favorite Apollo Justice-era prosecutor. For me, what makes Simon stand out is that he’s the most “complete” of the three AJ-era prosecutors.

My issue with Klav was that his storyline feels incomplete while my issue with Yuty was that he wasn’t that interesting of a character. Simon doesn’t have those problems. For one, he has the best gimmick between the three of them. It’s an interesting concept to have a prosecutor be an actual death row inmate. What’s cool about that is that the death row inmate gimmick worked for Simon’s character arc.

Dual Destinies set Simon up as the embodiment of the dark age of the law. He was a death row inmate who constantly talked about killing his foes. That’s why the reveal that he’s actually an honorable man who never killed anyone works so well, it’s a strong contrast to how he’s set up. Also, it’s a twist that works with Simon’s character as he’s supposed to be a psychology expert. He plays up his image of a crazy killer to intimidate his enemies.

Other than that, I also feel like Simon had the best storyline of the AJ-era prosecutors. Also, even though his appearance in Spirit of Justice was a bit silly, it was still fun to see this character in a more lighter tone.

2) Miles Edgeworth

Yeah, of course Edgey is this high up on the list. Like I wrote, I can’t count the Investigations games as I haven’t played them but even then, Miles had a pretty good run in the main series. He had a strong character arc in the first game, a decent return in the 2nd game, and a strong return in the 3rd game. It was great that you actually got to play as Miles in T&T and that he was the acting defense attorney. For me, Trials and Tribulations felt like the end of Miles’ character arc as he finally became a defense attorney, just like his dad.

And honestly, Capcom should’ve left him at that. I’m not saying this is why he’s only 2nd on the list but I just want to say, I don’t think he needed to be in Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice. Yes, I am aware that Miles’ appearances in those games were just fun guest appearances for people who want that AA original trilogy nostalgia. However, I felt that his appearances in 5 and 6 slightly ruined his character arc.

Why? Because he was back to being a prosecutor. Last time I checked, wasn’t his entire character arc about him becoming a defense attorney? He wanted to be a DA like his dad, he developed a misguided hatred of defense attorneys due to the DL-6 Incident, he was misled into believing that the number one goal of an attorney is to win court cases by Manfred von Karma, he was rescued by his friend Phoenix which led to him reassessing his life goals, he goes on a trip around the world to find himself, and then in the final game, he becomes Iris’ defense attorney, overcoming his initial hatred of DAs and fulfilling his childhood goal.

Maybe it’s just me but having Miles come back as a prosecutor in the AJ-era games feels like a step back in character development. But once again, that’s not the reason why he’s 2nd on the list. I like Miles, but I like the next guy even more. It should be obvious who it is by now.

1) Godot

Yes, I know, this is potentially a controversial choice. I just wanna say, I don’t care if you love, like, dislike, or hate Godot. Let me write the reasons why Godot is my number one prosecutor.

When I was writing this list out, I was measuring the prosecutors based on several factors. Story, character arc, design, strength as a rival, humor and so on. Just to be clear, I don’t think Godot is the best of all those categories. For example, when it comes to strength as a rival, I’d say Miles and Franziska were stronger opponents. Godot is definitely a mid-tier rival, which makes sense as he’s supposed to be a rookie / defense attorney out of his league.

So, why Godot then if he’s not the best in every category? Honestly...I’d say it’s the character overall. Regardless of your feelings towards the character, I feel that we can all agree that Godot’s story is the most tragic.

Let’s recap; Godot’s story is of a good man who was destroyed by a wicked monster. He was then abandoned by the people around him and lost the love of his life. With no one to help him, he let his grief consume him to the point that he became a bitter shell of his former self, obsessed with shaming the people he feels are responsible for the death of his lover. It’s only at the end when he realizes that all of his hatred and anger was just him projecting his own self-hatred onto someone else. That even though it wasn’t his fault, he still holds himself responsible for his lover’s death. However, it’s too late to make amends as he’s damned himself. In a moment of blind rage, he doomed himself by committing murder.

That is some HEAVY material for a game series that features the main character cross examining a parrot and conveniently developing amnesia just to set up a tutorial sequence.

Going on another tangent, you know who Godot’s storyline reminded me of? Jax Teller from Sons of Anarchy. Both characters started out as honorable men who were deeply in love. Then, tragedy struck. They lost the love of their lives and, in their final character arc, they took their rage out on everyone. Sons of Anarchy season 7 is still some of the most devastating TV I’ve ever watched and part of the reason was because of how sad it was to watch Jax fall. He fell so deep into his rage and anger that by the time he got his revenge, he burned so many bridges that the only place his character could go was death.

Same with Godot. He’s a damn Shakespearean tragic protagonist in that he was ultimately undone by his own rage and anger. You can sympathize with him based on how he came to be but at the same time, he destroyed himself. It’s a devastating character arc and, as someone who loves Shakespeare and all things theater, I absolutely loved it. It’s the one character arc that has stuck with me after going through all six games over again, even more so than Miles and Simon’s arcs.

In addition to all of this, the fact that Godot’s character arc tied the entire trilogy together is definitely worth noting. From his storyline, the game tied together Mia Fey’s death, highlighted Mia’s importance to the main storyline, and even set up Trials and Tribulations’ main villain, Dahlia Hawthorne. I love it when stories do that, when the character arcs actually work hand-in-hand with the story that the writer is trying to tell.

On some smaller notes, Godot definitely has the best character design in my opinion. Also, the best character theme (I still have the Fragrance of Dark Coffee playing in my head). Lastly, he has the best case in the original trilogy (Bridge to the Turnabout), as well as the best moment (the original pursuit theme plays when you expose the knife wound underneath his mask).

So yeah. In my opinion, Godot is the best Ace Attorney prosecutor. Those are my reasons, feel free to disagree if you want.

#ace attorney #phoenix wright #miles edgeworth #franziska von karma #godot #diego armando #klavier gavin #simon blackquill #nahyuta sahdmadhi #apollo justice #athena cykes #aa #capcom

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themattress · 5 years

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Evangelion: the manga > the anime

Reason 13: The Ending

This is it. The big one. The reason above all else why I think the manga is a better-told version of the NGE story than the anime in spite of all the anime’s many strengths.

Only the manga has a fully satisfying ending.

The anime TV show ending is a preposterous puzzle, filled with increasingly low-budget animation and long-winded philosophical musings as Anno finally makes good on what he had been building to: using the show and characters for his own personal therapy session, which we are a captive audience to. The main details is that Instrumentality has happened...somehow, and that Shinji is in control over whether or not it will go through to completion...somehow. In his depressed state of mind, Shinji is tempted to just let the process run its course so that all life will merge into a single immortal being who will never feel emotional pain again. But with realizations such as there is no real sense of self without the presence of others, truth and reality is what an individual make of it, and that he’s projected his own fears, anxieties and self-loathing onto others in order to shape his negative self-image and that this can fixed, Shinji realizes there is value in living as himself and destroys Instrumentality.

I love the message in this ending and I especially love the conclusion - yeah, everyone clapping and telling Shinji “Congratulations!” is cheesy, but seeing them all smiling and then Shinji himself smiling as a beautiful instrumental version of “Cruel Angel’s Thesis” plays in the background is a great, uplifting note to end what has been such a dark, depressing story on. BUT the lack of details, plot development, or conclusive character development for anyone who isn’t Shinji in favor of all this sermonizing is really annoying. From what can be surmised, a lot of things in the outside world seem to have played similarly to EoE, but it is strongly implied that it’s Gendo’s version of Instrumentality that succeeded here: Gendo, with Adam inside him, merges with Rei who returns to Lilith, creating the Adam/Lilith hybrid being but with Gendo’s mind in control of it. However, his plan to merge with Unit 01 and reunite with Yui goes awry thanks to the mentality of its pilot, Shinji (no thanks to Gendo himself, so it’s pretty karmic), who inadvertently causes the interfusion of souls to happen. The two-part series finale transpires within the minds of all who are caught up in this, particularly Shinji. But by then, viewers were fed up with this kind of mind-screw, so this ending was panned.

Then we have EoE, where we finally get actual details and plot development in the outside world. The big difference is that Rei abruptly turns on Gendo, taking Adam for herself and entering Lilith without him. The Adam/Lilith hybrid being merges with Unit 01 and puts Instrumentality in Shinji’s hands, and this time Shinji consciously and deliberately enacts the interfusion of souls, saying “everyone can just die” (boy, doesn’t that make him likable, huh?)

This is part of EoE’s biggest problem: it is made when Anno is no longer in a state of therapeutic pondering, but a state of anger and hatred. This anger and hatred permeates throughout the entire movie, informing every choice made in it. Shinji jerks off over Asuka’s comatose body. Misato is cold and abusive toward Shinji, and then dies for nothing. Shinji doesn’t honor her final wishes and just mopes. Asuka receives an uplifting emotional closure that brings her badassness back, only to be defeated in battle and utterly brutalized. Ritsuko fails because one of her mother’s AI computers betrays her in favor of Gendo, who shoots her dead. Gendo is killed in a mind-screwy way that plays to his worst fears and offers no redemption whatsoever. Shinji strangles Asuka within his own mind, then proceeds to willfully destroy humanity. And during the equivalent to the TV show’s therapeutic sequence where Shinji changes his mind about Instrumentality, the Adam/Lilith hybrid being has its throat sliced open right after actual written death threats to Anno from fans disgruntled over the TV show’s ending flashes on screen. And through all of this, Shinji just keeps SCREAMING!!!

This cinematic ending is wonderfully directed, beautifully animated, and contains a lot of great ideas, but it is just so unpleasant to watch. Even when coming to the same uplifting message, it falls flat when the last scene is Shinji washed up on the shore of a barren hellscape along with “Asuka”, who he truly does strangle this time, only to stop when she touches his face which leads to him breaking down into heavy sobbing. Asuka quietly says “How disgusting”, and suddenly “The End” comes on screen. That’s it, that’s how it ends: not with Shinji being congratulated and smiling, but Shinji crying while being insulted yet again. What. The. Fuck!? If the TV show’s ending was the equivalent of Anno guiding the viewer through a slow, tranquil therapy session in order to lead them to the story’s moral, this ending is the equivalent of Anno mercilessly beating the shit out of the viewer until they grasp the story’s moral. And the problem with that is that most viewers aren’t going to remember the moral, they’re just going to remember the beating! Anno failed to stick the landing twice, and unfortunately I’m hedging my bets that he’s going to strike out with his third attempt next year in the ending to the Rebuild film series, especially with how that series has gone thusfar.

With the manga’s ending, Sadamoto combines the tranquil therapeutic sensibilities and clearly uplifting message of the TV ending with the plot and detail of EoE. It’s essentially EoE as it should have been, since it’s being made by someone who isn’t in such a negative state of mind as Anno was. Each alteration made here is an improvement, and these include:

- Shinji doesn’t jerk off to Asuka’s comatose body, and instead tries to shake her awake while yelling about how much she means to him. She wakes up in a fit of indiscriminate madness and (hilariously enough) strangles Shinji before being restrained by the infirmary staff.

- That scene with Gendo and Shinji is added, doing wonders for both characters.

- Misato, while maintaining a hardened edge, isn’t abusive to Shinji. After slapping him when it’s necessary, she pulls him into a hug, saying that she isn’t like Gendo - she wants him to pilot Eva, but not just for others: for himself, too, and that she won’t allow him to lose hope.

- Misato is given a more triumphant send-off, blowing herself and several enemy troops up with a grenade rather than just being shot down. We also get a chapter cover where she is reunited with Kaji in the afterlife. I still hate that she died, but this is better than EoE’s version.

- Rather than moping and wasting Misato’s last request when he sees Unit 01 stuck, Shinji rediscovers his backbone and wills it free by appealing to Yui’s soul within it. (“MOVE!”) Because of this, Shinji is able to rescue Asuka before she can be brutalized by the MP-Evas.

- After Rei turns on Gendo, it is revealed that Ritsuko isn’t quite dead after Gendo had shot her after all, and she is able to fatally shoot him through the neck before finally expiring.

- Shinji’s mind-fucking when the Adam/Lilith hybrid being merges with Unit 01 is portrayed completely different, centering around a flashback between him and Yui. The decision he comes to deliberately initiate the interfusion of souls has a completely different motivation: he wants to save everyone rather than destroy them, Lilith messing with his mind has skewed his noble intentions and made him believe that Instrumentality is the only way to stop everyone from suffering ever again. This, along with what ends up happening later, maintains sympathy for Shinji, as he is trying to do the right thing and is being misled on how to do it.

- Asuka gets “tanged” during Instrumentality, with the Rei spirit who does so to her appearing to her as Kaji, whom Asuka is happy to realize did love her even if in a fatherly way and not in the romantic/sexual sense, which provides some closure to that relationship. Given that Asuka spoke of Kaji after her mind rape in both the anime and manga, this is appreciated.

- Gendo’s death isn’t a cruel WTF moment, but his only measure of atonement as Yui’s spirit guides him to remember that he did love Shinji from the start and denied that to himself because he was afraid of loving his child and being loved by his child given the issues he developed with his own father. Gendo’s dying wish is for Shinji to survive...and to live.

- The climax within the merged Adam/Lilith hybrid and Unit 01 is between Shinji and Rei (no needless Kaworu cameo here). Instead of Rei, then Kaworu, and finally Yui convincing Shinji to reverse course, Shinji decides it all by himself: his head is now clear of Lilith’s meddling and he realizes that this horrific result isn’t what he wanted after all...yes, everyone will no longer suffer, but only because there no longer is an “everyone” to suffer. Even if it comes with pain, people can only be people when they are allowed to be their own individuals and co-exist with each other. Rei had re-joined Lilith hoping for this exact outcome, and together she and Shinji re-awakens Yui’s soul and they destroy the Adam/Lilith hybrid being together, reversing Instrumentality and returning all souls to where they belong in a truly spectacular sequence. Thus, as “Cruel Angel’s Thesis” says, does a young boy become a legend.

- Rei has an emotional death scene where, without Adam/Liltih to sustain her, her soul breaks apart and is fragmented across the new Earth, becoming snow. Her final words to Shinji are thanking him for helping her develop her own individual self, and her final thoughts are that she, merged with the new world, will be waiting for Shinji to be reborn there. It’s beautiful.

- Before Shinji fully becomes LCL in preparation for his rebirth, he actually sees the souls of Yui and Gendo, projected from Unit 01 which remains in space. This brings closure to the main theme of the story: the relationship between Shinji and his parents, combining a visual from the TV ending (Shinji smiling as he is congratulated by his parents) and Yui’s inspiring words from EoE (”As long as the sun and the moon and the Earth exists, it will be all right.”)

- The perfect epilogue to the story, where we actually get to see the new world and humanity reborn into it rather than just Yui’s claims that it could happen. It is snowing, which means a proper weather cycle is back rather than endless summer. The MP-Evas are frozen like statues, and are considered mysterious artifacts by humans, who no longer remember anything involving Evas and the Angels. The new, well-adjusted Shinji meets the new, well-adjusted Asuka for the first time (oh, and Kensuke too). And the sequence of Shinji walking down the street mirrors the beginning of the manga, except this time his inner monologue is different: uplifting and optimistic rather than depressed and cynical. As we see that he still bears the crucifix that Misato gave him before she died, we hear that he is keeping his promise to her: “I will do my best. I will find my own path. It may be rough and winding, with driving wind and rain, and some days may be freezing cold. But...I know the sun will light the way. My future...holds infinite possibilities”. Damn it! It brings tears to my eyes every time!

Sadamoto is the only one to end the story of NGE in a truly ideal way. And this factor alone is justification for my unshakable belief that the manga is the definitive version of that story.

#Evangelion #Opinion #Comparison

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nothingman · 7 years

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It was an extraordinary critique of a sitting president’s behavior and character.

James Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday was an extraordinary public critique of President Donald Trump’s conduct in office and character as a whole.

“I knew there might come a day when I would need a record of what had happened, not just to defend myself, but to defend the FBI and our integrity as an institution and the independence of our investigative function,” Comey said.

Speaking at length and in great detail, Comey laid out four main examples of behavior by the president he found either inappropriate or troubling.

First, Trump repeatedly asked for Comey’s “loyalty” at a private dinner in January, in what Comey interpreted as an effort to “get something in exchange” for keeping him in the FBI director post.

Second, on February 14, after Trump asked a set of other White House advisers to leave the room, he told Comey that he hoped he could “let” the matter of fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, then the subject of an FBI investigation into whether he’d made false statements about his contacts with the Russian ambassador, “go.” Comey says he “took it as a direction” from the president, not a request, but that he decided not to carry it out.

Third, Comey said that in a pair of phone calls, Trump asked him to publicly state what he was saying privately — that Trump wasn’t personally under investigation — as a way to lift what he called a “cloud” over his presidency. Again, Comey says he refused.

And fourth, Comey argued that Trump and his White House initially told “lies” about why he was fired and attempted to “defame” him. He also said he believed his firing was related to his handling of the Russia investigation, citing the president’s own words.

Now, Comey did not draw any conclusions about whether the president was attempting to obstruct justice, saying that that would be up to special counsel Robert Mueller to determine. And it is important to note that, per Comey, Trump never actually asked him to shut down the Russia investigation.

Furthermore, Comey straightforwardly confirmed that while he was in office, President Trump was not personally the subject of an FBI investigation. Comey also confirmed that he privately assured the president of this several times, which makes Trump’s desire to have Comey make the same statement publicly more understandable.

In a statement released afterward, Trump’s personal lawyer Marc Kasowitz denied that he ever asked Comey for loyalty or suggested that he stop investigating Flynn, essentially accusing the former FBI director of lying under oath, writing, “The president never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone.”

But the revelations didn’t stop with Trump. Comey tantalizingly suggested that there is more nonpublic information about Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Russia that was bound to force his recusal from the probe. And he confirmed reports that President Obama’s Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s conduct around the Hillary Clinton email investigation seriously troubled him.

The big picture, though, is about the president. Comey has laid out a troubling pattern of the president’s refusal to respect or understand the traditional independence of the FBI director — a pattern that culminated in his own firing under a transparently bogus pretext.

The Flynn request: “I took it as a direction ... this is the president of the United States”

Before Comey’s firing, the incident that raises the most serious questions about whether the president was trying to obstruct justice occurred on February 14, 2017.

According to Comey, on this morning, Trump asked all other administration officials to leave the room after an Oval Office briefing so he could speak to the FBI director alone. The president then brought up Michael Flynn, who was fired as national security adviser the night before. Comey’s prepared testimony states:

The President then returned to the topic of Mike Flynn, saying, “He is a good guy and has been through a lot.” He repeated that Flynn hadn’t done anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but had misled the Vice President.

He then said, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” I replied only that “he is a good guy.”

At the hearing, Comey was questioned extensively on how he interpreted this exchange. Some Republican senators, including Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), focused on the president’s words “I hope,” suggesting that he was merely vaguely expressing his wishes rather than making a direct instruction.

Comey didn’t buy it. “I took it as a direction,” he testified. “This is a president of the United States with me alone saying “I hope” this. I took it as, this is what he wants me to do. I didn’t obey that, but that’s the way I took it.”

He later elaborated: “It rings in my ear as, well, ‘Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?’” — making a reference to the tale of how King Henry II “suggested” to his advisers that someone kill Thomas Becket, which someone soon did.

The specific ask Comey thought Trump was making was for him to drop the FBI probe into Flynn for making false statements about his contacts with the Russian ambassador (including whether he made false statements to government investigators). He says he didn’t think Trump was referring to investigations into Flynn’s foreign lobbying, or the larger Russia probe. He continued:

I don’t think it's for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct. I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning, but that's a conclusion I'm sure the special counsel will work towards to find out the intention there and whether that's an offense.

Now, Trump’s personal lawyer Marc Kasowitz released a statement Thursday afternoon claiming that “the President never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr,. Comey stop investigating anyone, including suggesting that Mr. Comey ‘let Flynn go.’” (Kasowitz does, however, confirm that the interaction happened, writing that Trump told Comey Flynn is a “good guy” who has “been through a lot.”)

But Comey was testifying under oath, and he says he documented the incident at the time in a memo and shared it with other FBI leaders. It does not seem particularly likely that he is lying — especially since President Trump has already brought up the possibility that tapes of their encounter exist, lying under oath would put him in serious legal jeopardy. (“Lordy,” Comey said, “I hope there are tapes.”)

A troubling pattern beyond the Flynn request

On its own, Trump’s alleged request about “letting Flynn go” — a seeming attempt to protect a former close aide from criminal charges by having the FBI drop an investigation — demonstrates a troubling lack of respect for the rule of law.

But Comey laid out a larger pattern in which the president made clear that he either does not care about or does not understand the traditional independence of law enforcement agencies like the FBI from the president.

Comey made clear that he was wary of Trump from the get-go and had a low opinion of his honesty and character. He testified that he felt compelled to meticulously document all his interactions with Trump because of his opinion of the president’s “nature,” saying that he was “honestly concerned that he might lie about” what went on in their meetings.

January 27 was the unusual dinner in which Trump repeatedly asked for Comey’s “loyalty.” In the context Comey provides, this looks even worse, because he says that Trump had already told him three times that he hoped he’d stay on as FBI director and Comey had confirmed he would. So he concluded that Trump wanted something from him.

The next Friday, I have dinner and the president begins by wanting to talk about my job. And so I'm sitting there thinking, wait a minute, three times we've already — you've already asked me to stay or talked about me staying.

My common sense, again I could be wrong, but my common sense told me what's going on here is, he's looking to get something in exchange for granting my request to stay in the job.

(Trump’s lawyer Marc Kasowitz denies Trump asked for Comey’s loyalty, saying, "The President also never told Mr. Comey, 'I need loyalty, I expect loyalty,' in form or substance.")

Then there were Trump’s complaints to Comey about the FBI’s Russia investigation in two phone calls, on March 30 and April 11 — he called it a “cloud” hanging over his presidency, per Comey.

This could be interpreted as an attempt to vaguely pressure the FBI director, but Comey testified that Trump never asked him to shut down the Russia investigation as a whole and in fact said that if his “satellite” advisers did anything wrong, it would be good to find that out.

Trump’s specific ask in these calls, according to Comey, was that the FBI director publicly state that he wasn’t personally under investigation. Comey may have had his reasons for refusing to do this, but considering he confirms that he freely told the president in private, several times, this request seems understandable from Trump’s point of view. (He wanted Comey to put out true information.)

Still, all of these tensions, unfulfilled requests, and awkward interactions lead in the end to Comey’s firing under transparently false pretexts (the reasons given were that he was too tough on Hillary Clinton in the email case, and that the FBI was a mess with poor morale under his leadership). Comey minced no words here, calling these “lies” and saying the administration tried to “defame” him:

Although the law requires no reason at all to fire an FBI director, it confused me when I saw on television the president saying that he actually fired me because of the Russian investigation, and learned again from the media that he was telling privately other parties that my firing had relieved great pressure on the Russian investigation.

I was also confused by the initial explanation that was offered publicly that I was fired because of the decision I had made during the election year. That didn't make sense to me for whole bunch of reasons, including the time and all the water that had gone under the bridge since those hard decision that had to be made. That didn't make any sense to me.

And although the law requires no reason at all to fire an FBI director, the administration then chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the work force had lost confidence in its leader. Those were lies, plain and simple.

The hearings also revealed newsworthy information about Loretta Lynch and Jeff Sessions

In addition to raising these troubling questions about President Trump’s conduct, Comey made news on two other matters — one involving his boss in the Obama administration, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, while the other involved his boss under Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

First, in defending his extraordinary public presentation about the Hillary Clinton email case in July 2016 — in which he criticized Clinton’s conduct but announced he wouldn’t charge her — Comey confirmed that he was troubled by Lynch’s behavior around the case.

What made up his mind, Comey said, was the infamous impromptu tarmac meeting between Bill Clinton and Lynch. But even before that, he continued, Lynch made a request of him that sounded odd:

The Clinton campaign at the time was using all kinds of euphemisms, “security review,” “matters,” things like that for what was going on. We were getting to a place where the attorney general [Lynch] and I were both going to testify and talk publicly about it

I wanted to know, was she going to authorize us to confirm we have an investigation? She said yes, but don't call it that, call it a “matter.”

I said why would I do that? She said, just call it a matter. ... That concerned me because that language tracked the way the campaign was talking about the FBI's work and that's concerning.

And elsewhere in the hearing, Comey made a statement about Jeff Sessions that raised eyebrows in Washington. In explaining why he didn’t brief Sessions on Trump’s request that he drop the Flynn investigation, Comey said:

Our judgment, as I recall, is that he was very close to and inevitably going to recuse himself for a variety of reasons. We also were aware of facts that I can't discuss in an opening setting that would make his continued engagement in a Russia-related investigation problematic.

So, Comey appears to be indicating that there’s more to the story of Jeff Sessions and Russia beyond the two encounters with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak (a meeting in his Senate office, and an exchange at a public event) that Sessions failed to disclose at his confirmation hearing, and that led to his recusal in the first place.

Overall, though, Comey’s account of Trump’s conduct was rightly treated as the major story coming out of this meeting. He has given his side of the story, and now, the ball is in special counsel Robert Mueller’s court.

via Vox - All

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