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Maria the Virgin Witch (TV).


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Rogueywon



Joined: 01 May 2011
Posts: 249
PostPosted: Thu Mar 26, 2015 6:07 pm Reply with quote
I'm not going to touch most of the discussion here with a barge pole. A really long barge pole. But there's one point above that got lost among the rest:

Blood- wrote:
For example, the show seems to be saying, "it's all well and good to pull a dragon out of a cauldron and stop a given battle on a given day, but if you don't address the underlying nature of why wars break out, ultimately all you are doing is slapping a band-aid on a gushing wound." Not only that, but there seems to be the suggestion that her methods have actually prolonged the war in her neighborhood. The French forces were on the verge (seemingly) of driving the English from France and Maria's intervention breathed new life into the English effort, thus ensuring the fighting would carry on.


This, to me, points to one of the big problems I've had with this show and one of the things that first had me worrying that the show might, in fact, be a fairly regular fantasy series rather than something worthy of massively deep investigation.

Its attitude to war and pacifism has left me confused. Now it's possible that they're going to focus on this in the last episode and render everything I'm about to write obsolete. I hope this is the case.

But instead, we've had Maria running around as a modern day Vash the Stampede/Setsuna F. Seiei, with an attitude to stopping war that is basically just breaking up any fights that break out. The show has hinted at times that Maria's actions are unwise; the quote above mentions the unintended consequences seen in episode 7 (by far the show's best episode). But it has also at times hinted at the question of whether a just war is worse than an unjust peace.

But having hinted at it, it's not actually done anything with it. Indeed, when Maria gets her powers back and has her big Disney Princess moment, the first thing she does is go right back to her old habits, no lessons learned, no self-reflection.

Now, it's quite possible that the last episode is going to address this - the set-up for it, with Maria facing Michael again, hints that it might. And if it does so properly - which is going to involve Maria having to concede at least some ground, I think - then kudos to it. But if it either fails to go back to the issue or does go there and flubs it (with Maria just doing the proverbial chanting of "Love and Peace" and ignoring the difficult questions), then I will lose a lot of respect for the show.
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Key
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Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley)
PostPosted: Thu Mar 26, 2015 11:07 pm Reply with quote
Harleyquin wrote:
Not to troll you or anything, but do you have a book recommendation for this line of thought covering the period 800-1200? I'm actually working on something along these lines so a fresh pair of eyes from outside the box might come in handy.

Actually the book I was most talking about is apparently Reformation-era, so a bit too late for what you're looking for. Still, if you're interested, it's The Holy Household: Women and Morals in Reformation Ausburg by Lyndal Roper. It lays out quite clearly, and with quite a lot of evidence based on contemporary documentation, just exactly where women stood at that time, including on expectations of virginity. Especially interesting is how prostitution fit into the picture and how the Church largely tacitly overlooked it for a variety of reasons.
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Harleyquin



Joined: 29 May 2014
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 5:36 am Reply with quote
Thanks for the tip, it is indeed beyond the chronological timeframe I was looking for but it might come in handy in the future.
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ChibiKangaroo



Joined: 01 Feb 2010
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 28, 2015 3:03 pm Reply with quote
I forgot to respond to something you asked Key. Specifically, you asked if I really thought that the villains from AgK! were more nuanced than the villains from this show. If we are talking about "gray area" characters who have notable flaws and virtues, then the answer is most definitely yes.

I spoke before about Seryu and Bols. They are the two most obvious examples. Let's just look at Seryu for a moment. I remember when I first started to see her character being fleshed out, I was pretty much dumbfounded and said something about how she appeared to be both fully good and fully evil at the same time. That characterization seemed to hold very well throughout the series. We would see scenes of her committing unspeakable atrocities (and reveling in it even!), and then we would see scenes of her genuinely caring about people, helping innocents, playing with orphans, and seriously trying to make the world a better place. She was a frightening fanatic who was so obsessed with "justice" and "innocence" that she would do the most evil things in pursuing that. But as much as she sometimes seemed crazy, at other times she would seem completely lucid and methodical in how she went about things. I don't know if we will see another villain like her any time soon. She was so intriguing in so many ways.

Compared to her, Bernard, Galfa and Gilbert seem like lightweights. She existed in a disturbingly gray area that very few have probably contemplated. So, yes, I definitely felt justified in saying that she was a much more complicated villain/antagonist than any of those guys. Smile
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Blood-
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 28, 2015 4:53 pm Reply with quote
CK, you have picked a terrible example to advance your argument - especially with respect to Seryu. Keep in mind that I was a huge fan of AgK! who also thought the show did interesting things with both its "villains" and its "heroes."

Seryu doesn't exist in any kind of gray area at all. She is completely - almost comically - black and white. You've got her "white" side: the caring, loving, gentle with kids side and then you have the eyes bulging, vein-popping, off-her-rocker "hero of justice" side. Just because a character has two seemingly diametrically opposed qualities doesn't make them nuanced. It's actually quite a simplistic construction and not particularly well grounded in psychological reality.

Bols is a little better represented in that he's not a bloodthirsty psychopath: just a soldier who does what he's told and acknowledges that he deserves whatever he has coming to him. They threw in the metrosexual element for laughs, but again I wouldn't judge that to be nuanced characterization.

Frankly, I thought what the show did with Esdeath was the most interesting, character-wise. We eventually found out that she was raised in a harsh environment where she learned that the weak die and if you are weak and die, you deserve it. So she was clearly sadistic towards her enemies, but she also wanted to fall in love. That is not a simplistic diametrically opposed quality construction. Her wishlist of what she wanted in a man perfectly fit in with the kind of character she was. And even when she fell in love, she didn't suddenly do uncharacteristic stuff - it all felt very organic.

As entertaining a show as AgK! was, it was making no real attempt to draw realistic characters. MtVW, to my surprise, does seem interested in drawing realistic antagonists. I know guys like Gilbert and Le Comte and to a certain extent, even Galfa. They are very real to me.
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ChibiKangaroo



Joined: 01 Feb 2010
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 28, 2015 6:39 pm Reply with quote
Blood- wrote:
CK, you have picked a terrible example to advance your argument - especially with respect to Seryu. Keep in mind that I was a huge fan of AgK! who also thought the show did interesting things with both its "villains" and its "heroes."

Seryu doesn't exist in any kind of gray area at all. She is completely - almost comically - black and white. You've got her "white" side: the caring, loving, gentle with kids side and then you have the eyes bulging, vein-popping, off-her-rocker "hero of justice" side. Just because a character has two seemingly diametrically opposed qualities doesn't make them nuanced. It's actually quite a simplistic construction and not particularly well grounded in psychological reality.



I certainly agree that Bols and Esdeath had a more subtle nuance to them, but I obviously disagree that Seryu was totally black or white. Her persona was often extreme in its portrayal but that was usually when she was doing the evil stuff. When she was in "neutral" or "good" mode, she was often very sympathetic and even endearing at times. Like I said, I don't think there is much precedent for a character like her so I don't find it simplistic at all. About the only thing that comes close to her is Light Yagami, but he was not so "gray" by the time Death Note really got into high gear. Light Yagami was all too happy to murder innocents to accomplish his goals. Seryu seems like the type who would never harm an innocent. She is essentially the more perfected form of what Light Yagami claimed he was, and I do think that is a very, very gray type of villain. Perhaps "intensely" gray.
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Jose Cruz



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PostPosted: Sat Mar 28, 2015 10:25 pm Reply with quote
Show looks quite interesting. Watched the first episode only so far though.
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Harleyquin



Joined: 29 May 2014
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 29, 2015 10:57 am Reply with quote
Well I wasn't sure what to expect for a final episode, but it looks like spoiler[Maria's convictions won through and even Michael's Boss decided to compromise. So a happy end for (almost) everyone concerned. ]

Did Bernard get the punishment of spoiler[being turned into a pillar of salt ] for his spoiler[attempt to modernise his religion by basing it on reason and rejecting supernatural phenomena like Michael even if it appeared right to his face? ] Irony, the punishment sounds biblical.

Cernunnos reply to Michael's question was interesting, as was Michael's address to him. Motives were somewhat inscrutable right to the end, but one would think that he/she/it got some sense of satisfaction with how events panned out.

That last comment right at the end was a nice touch.
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Yttrbio
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 29, 2015 11:05 am Reply with quote
And, as expected, Maria learned nothing. I mean, her first comment about how spoiler[everyone trying to find happiness makes everyone happy] has been so thoroughly contradicted by her experiences in this show. I guess the moral of the story is everyone should just throw about whatever power they have to meet their immediate emotional needs and hope the writers have your back. Which, now that I think about it, is an interesting comment about religion, but I don't know if it's the one the show was aiming for.
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Stark700



Joined: 30 Jan 2012
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 29, 2015 11:09 am Reply with quote
Episode 12 (Finale):

That was great. spoiler[A happy ending is fitting for this show and I'm glad that Michael didn't pass judgement to punish Maria in the end.]

A very refreshing series from start to finish and quite enjoyed it towards the end. I'm definitely rating this a very good. Might watch some of the previous episodes later as well.
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ChibiKangaroo



Joined: 01 Feb 2010
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 29, 2015 11:55 am Reply with quote
Yttrbio wrote:
And, as expected, Maria learned nothing. I mean, her first comment about how spoiler[everyone trying to find happiness makes everyone happy] has been so thoroughly contradicted by her experiences in this show. I guess the moral of the story is everyone should just throw about whatever power they have to meet their immediate emotional needs and hope the writers have your back. Which, now that I think about it, is an interesting comment about religion, but I don't know if it's the one the show was aiming for.


[sarcasm on]

Oh come on, Maria isn't supposed to learn anything! She's perfect. Main characters like her don't need to grow at all. That would defeat the point of being a perfect person.

Look, this episode had everything a fan wanted:

- spoiler[Maria sticks to her guns no matter what happens.]

- spoiler[Archangel Michael and God are taught a lesson by Maria about love and happiness.]

- spoiler[Maria forgives God for his transgressions.]

- spoiler[God, upon learning the error of his ways, makes Maria an official neighbor of his.]

- spoiler[God then implants an angel into Maria so she and Joseph can have some kind of blessed child, because that's the neighborly thing for God to do for a witch.]

- spoiler[Maria and Joseph go to the village (the one where Maria was previously stoned and sent to be burned at the stake), where they have a festival in her honor.]

- Owl blobs and lambs dance while villagers sing a happy tune.

The End.

What's not to love there!!? Seriously, this is Emmy Award stuff.

[sarcasm off]

Hmm. Sarcasm me got through pretty much everything so I don't have much more to say Smile

There were some laugh out loud moments in this episode, so it wasn't a total bust or anything. The part where spoiler[Bernard lunges at Michael like a lunatic and literally tries to strangle him, after babbling some kind of insanity] was such a fabulous end for this so-called nuanced antagonist. I mean, isn't it the true wish of every respectable antagonist to be spoiler[vaporized after spouting some crazy talk and lunging at an angel?] I literally practically fell out of my seat laughing at that part. So, I definitely got some nice entertainment here.

What I will say on the show's behalf is that the sound track for this episode was quite good. Also, the staging of the whole segment of Maria's "judgment" was well done from a thematic standpoint, even if it was kind of overly sentimental from a plot perspective.

But yea, the main takeaway from this show is a very muddled one that I think just wasn't effective. Maria said at the start of the episode that "Everyone should find their own happiness, and everyone will be happy!" It was such a simplistic/childish conclusion for this show, and to be honest I am amazed that people find something profound in that.
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Blood-
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 29, 2015 12:10 pm Reply with quote
I don't think this was quite the "Maria spoiler[gets her own way in everything"] ending that some people think. My take away is that she spoiler[found a way to integrate herself into "the natural law" that didn't put her at odds with Heaven.] It's not a hundred per cent clear, but I think spoiler[by getting together with Joseph and truly losing her purity, she lost her magic and is pursuing her peace agenda] through other means.

CK, you remain stubbornly clueless about Bernard as always. The fact that he spoiler[became unhinged by seeing irrefutable proof that God exists (through the entity of Michael)] fits in with what we already know about him. To me, he represents that line of thinking that posits that religion should not be taken literally, that its benefit comes from treating it as allegory and metaphor. Not surprising to me that having worked out a system of "religion" based on reason - one that makes no room for the supernatural - spoiler[he would snap.] The fact that you can see no nuance in his character doesn't surprise me considering that you think a character like Seryu from AgK! has some. Laughing

Anyway, I'm rating this title Excellent. It vastly outperformed my expectations going in. Personally, I would have probably enjoyed the show more if it had treated Maria more realistically - made her more of a real character the way many of the antagonists were - but oh well.
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ChibiKangaroo



Joined: 01 Feb 2010
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 29, 2015 12:14 pm Reply with quote
Blood- wrote:
I don't think this was quite the "Maria gets her own way in everything" ending that some people think. My take away is that she found a way to integrate herself into "the natural law" that didn't put her at odds with Heaven. It's not a hundred per cent clear, but I think spoiler[by getting together with Joseph and truly losing her purity, she lost her magic and is pursuing her peace agenda] through other means.

CK, you remain stubbornly clueless about Bernard as always. The fact that he spoiler[became unhinged by seeing irrefutable proof that God exists (through the entity of Michael)] fits in with what we already know about him. To me, he represents that line of thinking that posits that religion should not be taken literally, that its benefit comes from treating it as allegory and metaphor. Not surprising to me that having worked out a system of "religion" based on reason - one that makes no room for the supernatural - spoiler[he would snap.] The fact that you can see no nuance in his character doesn't surprise me considering that you think a character like Seryu from AgK! has some. Laughing

Anyway, I'm rating this title Excellent. It vastly outperformed my expectations going in. Personally, I would have probably enjoyed the show more if it had treated Maria more realistically - made her more of a real character the way many of the antagonists were - but oh well.


Yea, I know how much you love a happy ending Blood- Smile

I think my dismissal of Bernard as a quack is amply supported by how the show treats him. After his prison "conversion," he becomes an afterthought. To the very end, when he spoiler[lunges at Michael and tries to choke him out], he's treated like some wacko, whether you look at it from Gilbert's perspective or "Heaven's." In the end, he's literally spoiler[turned into a pile of salt or something.] The show made clear it wasn't going to take him seriously anymore as an antagonist, so why should I? (Akame ga Kill!)spoiler[At least Seryu's death had emotion, passion, and dignity. I was actually touched when I saw her death scene.]
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Yttrbio
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 29, 2015 12:36 pm Reply with quote
Can I change my opinion into something that CK won't agree with? I'm disappointed in the ending, but this was an excellent show.
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jroa



Joined: 08 Aug 2012
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 29, 2015 12:37 pm Reply with quote
As expected, there was no way we would all agree about the ending. There was already plenty of heated disagreement about how the story had been developing to date, so having an argument over the conclusion is no surprise. In fact, it was entirely expected given the tone of the last few exchanges in this thread

But it is also unfortunate that such a state of affairs, plus the use of unnecessary sarcasm and debatable generalizations in CK's opening salvo, threatens to make it harder to have a civil discussion at this point.

For example, there is no need to seemingly take offense towards a playful teasing phrase. The show did not present that as a statement of doctrine or anything of the sort, unless one is preemptively not willing to tolerate what even the authority figure involved took as a joke.

I'll come back to the main subject later, because there will always be a lot to discuss, but I will state that "Maria learning nothing" was absolutely not my interpretation of the show. Not because she didn't "need" to learn anything, which would appear to classify as both fallacy and misrepresentation in context, but because I would say there was in fact a subtle change in her mindset. Rather than automatically surrendering her original views in light of opposition, the matter at the heart of them was reframed in a different manner in light of recent events and shared experiences.

I guess that is perhaps too little for those who expected the character to either gradually or suddenly mature and radically abandon her beliefs at the last moment, even if there has been no prompting that would achieve that precise effect. Whether or not that lack is a bad thing is, after all, a point open to both personal and intellectual controversy. But I think this will need to be discussed in more detail over a period of time, rather than all at once.


Last edited by jroa on Sun Mar 29, 2015 12:48 pm; edited 2 times in total
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