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A Version of the truth behind Mai-HiME (MAJOR SPOILERS)




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Exaar



Joined: 19 Apr 2006
Posts: 279
Location: Delaware
PostPosted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 11:24 am Reply with quote
Mai-HiME is my favorite anime, and I've just recently begun watching it through for the third time (as a friend of mine wanted to see it, so I am watching it with him). Doing so has made me once again consider all the details we're never told about the background of the story. The show focuses on the characters: what makes the show so good is the interaction between the characters, not necessarily the whole background about the Carnival and stuff, so it doesn't really matter that the origin and true purpose of the Carnival basically go completely unexplained... but it does make you wonder.

And so, I have constructed a theory regarding the Carnival, the Obsidian Lord, Nagi, and the HiME Star. I'm not claiming that this is the truth, I have read no official documents stating that any of this is 'correct', but I think it COULD be the truth. It's just a theory I came up with that I thought I'd share.

**BIG SPOILERS FROM HERE DOWN**

This theory begins with the extremely robotic appearance of the HiME's Childs, as well as the Obsidian Lord, when we see his true form. I was thinking this: The HiME Star is, in fact, a starship, piloted to Earth hundreds of years ago by some advanced alien race. This race uses psychic energy to fuel it's technology. Emotion, in a way. Anyway, for some reason which is both beyond my ability to guess and unimportant, their ship was damaged, and they were forced to leave it in deep orbit and come to Earth. However, because the ship was so damaged, it's power source was failing, and it's orbit would eventually begin to decay, causing it to drift nearer and nearer to Earth: which would eventually destroy Earth, either just by it's gravitational proximity or by a direct collision.

Hence the establishment of the Carnival. The aliens on Earth were either too few to procreate or unable to for some other reason, and so they set up a system for a new power source for their ship to be chosen from Earth's population. Randomly chosen, but all in the same area, and all female (perhaps because Females are generally considered to be more emotional, and thus a better power source for psychic energy?) The twelve candidates (an arbitrary number, I assume) are each linked to a Child. The Children are robotic creatures created from templates (which is why there are only 12 that are re-used in each Carnival despite the destruction of 11 of them in the previous one), which are, like all the other alien technology, fueled by psychic energy. The stronger the emotion, the stronger the Child: and so they were linked not to the HiME herself, but to the one she loved most, since generally one's love for a 'special person' is greater than one's love for oneself, and therefore is a better power source for this type of technology. The Child is therefore linked to the HiME's "MIP (most important person)" as it's power source. When the Child is defeated, the life force of the MIP is sealed into a column. When 11 of the Children have been defeated, all of the power gathered in the columns is funneled into the last remaining HiME, who is sealed into the crystal and becomes the new power source for the ship, forcing it back into deep orbit and keeping Earth safe for anothe 300 years until the power reserves gathered through the Carnival are depleted and it must be done again.

The Obsidian Lord, in this version of the truth, would be the ship's AI. Since the aliens themselves are long gone, he is responsible for overseeing the Carnival and making sure the ship does not crash to Earth. Miroku is his guardian, another AI, his 'firewall', if you will. Significantly less intelligent, but much more powerful. And what about Nagi? A servant of the OL, but also clearly with his own agenda. Perhaps he is also an AI, represented by a holographic avatar. A lesser AI, surely, but not necessarily linked to the OL, as he survives the OL's destruction. His being a hologram would certainly explain his appearing and dissapearing at whim. Plus, if you think about it, he doesn't really ever interact with anything. Just his book, and he sits on/stands on things. I haven't gone back and checked the whole series, but I can't think of any time he actually touched any other character, except when he was pushing Mashiro's wheelchair at the end.

Anyway, that's my crackbrained theory of the day. Not particularly supported by the series, but not denied by it either. Is it what the creators intended? Probably not. But it's as good an explanation as I have ever heard! Smile
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IchigoK90



Joined: 13 Aug 2005
Posts: 1634
Location: Scarborough, Ontario
PostPosted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 12:59 pm Reply with quote
Pretty good theory though it fails to explain the creation of spoiler[an artificial HiMe in Alyssa and her child].

"Believe it!"

- IchigoK90
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Exaar



Joined: 19 Apr 2006
Posts: 279
Location: Delaware
PostPosted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 4:01 pm Reply with quote
Well, if the HiMEs are just randomly selected humans linked to emotion-fueled, super-advanced robots, then the Searrs foundation could have studied them and found out how to create their own version of the Children by duplicating the technology. That's all there would be to it. It's obvious that they DID figure out the HiME technology... as I talked about at length in my post about Mai Otome from a month or so ago. Smile
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sweet gimmick



Joined: 16 May 2006
Posts: 69
Location: Somewhere in Everyone's heart...hopefully
PostPosted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 6:33 pm Reply with quote
OMG....that is a brilliant theory. I mean it makes perfect sense, well at least to me. I mean, I just finished watching Mai-HiME today ( Like 5 or 6 hours ago). And when I think about it that theory explains a whole lot, and put it in a different perspective. Thanks, that theory of ours helped me understand what really happend ( or possibly happend). That is a solid theory Exaar. Thanks and Laters.
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frentymon
Forums Superstar


Joined: 27 Nov 2005
Posts: 2362
Location: San Francisco
PostPosted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 11:26 pm Reply with quote
Plausible, but then again, it's still all speculation. I don't think Mai-HiME was intended to have such complicated rationales behind all its workings; in fact, I'm not even sure that the creators themselves have crafted up an official explanation for it. Sometimes I wonder what watching Mai-HiME would be like if it gave you as much to think about as something like Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni.

Props though for being able to formulate such a detailed theory given the narrow context and conditions set by happenings in the show itself. The best I could probably come up with myself is probably something like, "Uh...maybe Lord Kokuyou was just lonely and wanted a girl? And maybe he was bored too so he crafted some complicated 'HiME Carnival'?"
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Exaar



Joined: 19 Apr 2006
Posts: 279
Location: Delaware
PostPosted: Sun Jun 11, 2006 11:09 pm Reply with quote
You're right of course: As I said initially, it's all just my speculation, and it's quite possible that the creators of the show didn't really put that much thought into the background. What makes the show great is the drama between the characters, so the nitty gritty details of the background are less important.

That being said, I find it hard to believe that the creators didn't have at least a sketchy outline of the 'truth' behind the Carnival and all of that. The extremely detailed world-building in Mai Otome shows me they are more than capable of it, and there are so many hints and little half-statements made throughout HiME (which you especially catch if you watch it through more than once, as I have) that lead you to believe there is definitely a bigger picture here... we're just not being let in on it. Whether or not they'll ever 'officially' explain it I don't know (or even if they have and I just haven't heard about it), but I'm the kind of person who sees a mystery and has to explain it, at least to myself, for peace of mind. I enjoy doing it.. hence my long detailed posts full of very big assumptions. Smile
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