Ergo Proxy

[silverkitsune]

@tenunda
Nice post, that really cleared up lot of things for me.

[tenunda]

Thanks. I'm sure there's more to it than what I posted, but I think I got the general idea.

Another point I forgot to add for everyone:

I don't think the fillers were actually fillers. If you watch over them again, there are details in every one of them that lead to the goals that the characters are trying to achieve in discovering the truth and realizing that illusions can exist to alter or conflict with your chosen path. In knowing what is real and what is not real, perception is key.

[Melancoholic]

That is true, tenunda, there's pertinent information in every episode (even if it's symbolically hidden). The only problem with that is, an episode with events unrelated to the main story, even if it contains hidden messages, will still feels like a filler. Then again, I've already said I enjoyed most of them, it's just I felt they disrupted the flow of the anime and sometimes bored.

Regarding your previous post, good job, well thought out. One point to make though, it's only one possible interpretation. You made it all sound like the hard and fast truth, but, as I'm sure you'd agree, truth is entirely subjective. Maybe.

And you forgot about Pino! The only truly human character in the story! And she's not even human! Everyone else seems to just be a representation of different aspects of humanity (Raul=Revenge, for example), but no one else has the emotional diversity that Pino displays. She is the emotional glue that keeps the different characters hanging together. I was a little disappointed that her story was detached from that of Vincent and Re-l at the end...

[tenunda]

You're right, Melancoholic, I did make it sound like the hard, fast truth because this is what I believe it to be (you're referring to my conjectures of each character's representation in the anime, right?). I based my interpretation on the facts and the overall theme of the anime, especially on those surrounding Real since she is most definitely key to the whole thing. Of course everything is left open for discussion or disagreement. I left Pino out because I felt she was pretty self explanatory, acting out the part of innocence, the start of a new beginning, and discovery. She forced the main characters to question their preconceived notions and was always a present force. Another thought: maybe she was serving as a kind of "guide".

Whereas I can see where you're coming from concerning fillers, I still can't agree that the episodes in the anime were really fillers. I felt like they were relevant to the main story and that they were meant to disrupt the flow of the anime to remind you there were other things going on. They were a part of the journey that Vincent had launched into in order to find the truth. Every one of them revealed something new about each character in their development as they continued to learn new things from the obstacles that were placed in their path. Each aspect of their journey altered their perceptions, and a few episodes were also used to further illustrate that the truth can be hidden behind illusions. Fillers are simply meant to take up space and sometimes stall for time. In this series, I found every one of the episodes relevant, even if they didn't appear to be so at first.

The show is largely centered around meaning, after all. Everything that seems pointless serves a purpose later.

[junesue]

this anime confuses me

alot of stuff is going on and i don't really understand it =_=;;

[Melancoholic]

I agree that they aren't fillers. However, like I said in my last post, they do feel like fillers. It's partly to do with the construction of the anime, I suppose. At the beginning and at the end, events progress in a traditional story like way. Events lead to consequences, discoveries throw up questions, etc. The characters interact with the world and their motives intertwine. Each episode leads into the next and keeps the anime flowing.

However, in the middle section, when the trio begin their journey, the episodes become one shot affairs in which the actual events (not the hidden meanings) have no relevence to the next episode or to the one before. At this point the flow is disrupted, and it's only natural that some people would become dissatisfied at this point. They all come at the same time, as well, again due to the construction of the story; they have to all happen during their time in the outside world and so inevitably are clumped together.

Let me repeat this. I do NOT believe they are fillers. However, they are relevent only under the mask of a filler.

On your point about the hard and fast truth, it's interesting that you say that and then in the same sentence say that you are making conjectures. Conjectures are conclusions based on incomplete evidence, so therefore cannot be the hard and fast truth... I may be being pedantic now, of course.

But the point I was making was that you made out that it was something that other people should just accept as the truth. Interpretation is personal, just as truth is. Or do you believe there is one truth that the whole world subscribes to?

Aaargh! Long post!

[tenunda]

[Melancoholic]

Don't you tell me my point's moot! Gah! you're making me out to be evil or something!

I wasn't having a go at you for saying they weren't fillers, you know? I simply said that they felt like fillers and therefore they might have spoilt people's enjoyment. It was a further point, not a challenging point. You seemed to a) misinterpret that statement and b) take it as an attack, which it really wasn't.

Now, I misinterpreted the tone of your original post and for that I apologise. I do have a number of issues to take with your interpretation and I even wrote a huge long post detailing them, before deciding it was just ridiculously long and deleting most of it. In the end, I decided to simply make the point that there are other interpretations.

So, how about I make one point this post, you can answer it and we can move on from there.

Okay, point one:

[darkshadows]

I havent seen this anime yet, but I plan too. The art looks amazing!

[tenunda]

To Melancoholic: if you didn't mean any offense, then I'm sorry for taking offense.