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Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

I just popped the boxed set (rather, Disc 1 thereof) into my DVD player. I'm
about to watch it all in one sitting.

I wonder if my brain will explode.
 
Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

J. H. Frank wrote:

> Not really. I firmly believe that overload will set in reasonably quickly,
> followed by numbness. No explody.

> It's just not possible to process the entirety of Lain in one sitting.

I did, IIRC.
--
Stephenls
Geek
"I'm as impure as the driven yellow snow." -Spike
 
Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

Stephenls wrote:

> J. H. Frank wrote:
>
>> Not really. I firmly believe that overload will set in reasonably
>> quickly,
>> followed by numbness. No explody.
>
>
>> It's just not possible to process the entirety of Lain in one sitting.
>
>
> I did, IIRC.

You have to "grok" it rather than trying to reason it out. Full-series
immersion actually helps, because you don't get dumped back out into
mundane life _or_ spend time you should be working thinking to hard
about it.

William
 
Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

James Stein wrote:
> I just popped the boxed set (rather, Disc 1 thereof) into my DVD player. I'm
> about to watch it all in one sitting.
>
> I wonder if my brain will explode.
>
>
>

Wait.

Is this your _first_ time?

William
 
Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

"William" <wilit0613@postoffice.uri.edu> wrote in message
news:2hnsjcFfcrsiU1@uni-berlin.de...
> James Stein wrote:
> > I just popped the boxed set (rather, Disc 1 thereof) into my DVD player.
I'm
> > about to watch it all in one sitting.
> >
> > I wonder if my brain will explode.
> >
> >
> >
>
> Wait.
>
> Is this your _first_ time?

Like a virgin,
Touched for the very first time.

Yes.
 
Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

James Stein wrote:
>
> I just popped the boxed set (rather, Disc 1 thereof) into my DVD player. I'm
> about to watch it all in one sitting.
>
> I wonder if my brain will explode.

It's a possibility.

I eagerly anticipate your reaction.

--
Elizabeth D. Brooks | kali.magdalene@comcast.net | US2002021724
Listowner: Aberrants_Worldwide, Fading_Suns_Games, TrinityRPG
AeonAdventure | "Dobby likes us!" -- Smeagol
-- http://www.theonering.net/scrapbook/view/6856
 
Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

In article <c98432$9o1$1$8300dec7@news.demon.co.uk>,
"Simond" <simond@.boredofspamnow.apocalypsecow.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> "Julie d'Aubigny" <kali.magdalene@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:40B6FB9D.2D0A8D91@comcast.net...
>
> > I was going to suggest he try Eva for his second attempt to destroy his
> > mind.
>
> Followed by Utena-the-series, and then Utena-the-film?

That won't destroy your mind, that will save it. It's possible the
final result will be similar, though.

--p
 
Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

James Stein wrote:
> I just popped the boxed set (rather, Disc 1 thereof) into my DVD player. I'm
> about to watch it all in one sitting.
>
> I wonder if my brain will explode.
>
>
>

Well?!? Well?!? speak, if you've managed to retain the capacity
thereof. Was it not an incredible display of thought-provoking media?
Far better than what the American mind consumes on average. Oh, and I
do encourage following it up with Eva. All episodes. Be sure to watch
both endings.
 
Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

Shane Graves wrote:

> Just to say, all of that which confuses people doesn't bother me as much as
> the jumping time between episodes in terms of her growth. I found that much
> more jarring than any of the higher notions it rose.

Huh?

The series doesn't jump back and forth through time. After watching it
a couple of times I have a very strong sense of Lain's character
development.

> But yeah. I pretty much agree. Lain is God. Sorta. Maybe.

More precisely: at the end of the series, Lain is effectively God,
regardless of what she was at the beginning and regardless of whether or
not a God existed previous to her.

And the guy in the labcoat with the unusually wide smile, who calls
himself God throughout the series? He lies. He lies a lot. Everything
he says is suspect.
--
Stephenls
Geek
"I'm as impure as the driven yellow snow." -Spike
 
Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

James Stein wrote:

> What about at the end of the series, though, when it's just her and dad at a
> dinner table in the sky?

That was either the real God talking to her in the guise of her material
father, handing over the job to her, as it were, or else it was just her
talking to herself, as a way to come to terms with her newfound wisdom.
Being connected to the minds of every human being on Earth isn't
something a human consciousness can come to terms with immediately. Not
even if that human consciousness was artificially created in a lab and
then raised in an artificial home.
--
Stephenls
Geek
"I'm as impure as the driven yellow snow." -Spike
 
Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

Stephenls wrote:
> J. H. Frank wrote:
>
>> Not really. I firmly believe that overload will set in reasonably
>> quickly,
>> followed by numbness. No explody.
>
>> It's just not possible to process the entirety of Lain in one sitting.
>
> I did, IIRC.

No, you didn't. You asked me to write explanations for most of it.
Which came to nearly a dozen pages, IIRC.
--
[The address listed is a spam trap. To reply, take off every zig.]

"I wasn't aware the Tokyo police employed uneducated, paranoid,
delusional foreign delinquents."
"In my case, they made an exception."
-- MegaTokyo
 
Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

Richard Clayton wrote:

> No, you didn't. You asked me to write explanations for most of it.
> Which came to nearly a dozen pages, IIRC.

No, I mean IIRC I watched it all in one sitting.

Except I didn't. I watched it over a couple of days, while in New York.

The /second/ time I watched it, I watched it all in one sitting.

Sorry. I was misremembering.
--
Stephenls
Geek
"I'm as impure as the driven yellow snow." -Spike
 
Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

Stephenls wrote:

> Shane Graves wrote:
>
>> Just to say, all of that which confuses people doesn't bother me as
>> much as
>> the jumping time between episodes in terms of her growth. I found
>> that much
>> more jarring than any of the higher notions it rose.
>
>
> Huh?
>
> The series doesn't jump back and forth through time. After watching it
> a couple of times I have a very strong sense of Lain's character
> development.
>
>> But yeah. I pretty much agree. Lain is God. Sorta. Maybe.
>
>
> More precisely: at the end of the series, Lain is effectively God,
> regardless of what she was at the beginning and regardless of whether or
> not a God existed previous to her.
>
> And the guy in the labcoat with the unusually wide smile, who calls
> himself God throughout the series? He lies. He lies a lot. Everything
> he says is suspect.

I thought so once, too. But later I realized that a lot of the things
he says, though he MEANS them as lies, actually have an underlying
truth. When he claims to have created Lain, he's right... from a certain
philosophical cause-and-effect point of view.
--
[The address listed is a spam trap. To reply, take off every zig.]

"I wasn't aware the Tokyo police employed uneducated, paranoid,
delusional foreign delinquents."
"In my case, they made an exception."
-- MegaTokyo
 
Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

Richard Clayton wrote:

> I thought so once, too. But later I realized that a lot of the
> things he says, though he MEANS them as lies, actually have an
> underlying truth. When he claims to have created Lain, he's right...
> from a certain philosophical cause-and-effect point of view.

This is true. He believes a lot of what he says.

But his truths are poisonous and false truths.

Possibly it is Gnostic and he represents the demiurge, in which case his
truths would be the "real" world from which one must escape. Or not. I
don't really get Gnosticism.
--
Stephenls
Geek
"I'm as impure as the driven yellow snow." -Spike
 
Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

Stephenls wrote:

> James Stein wrote:
>
>> What about at the end of the series, though, when it's just her and
>> dad at a
>> dinner table in the sky?
>
>
> That was either the real God talking to her in the guise of her material
> father, handing over the job to her, as it were, or else it was just her
> talking to herself, as a way to come to terms with her newfound wisdom.
> Being connected to the minds of every human being on Earth isn't
> something a human consciousness can come to terms with immediately. Not
> even if that human consciousness was artificially created in a lab and
> then raised in an artificial home.

See, there's your problem. Lain, as created in a lab, was not a "human
consciousness." I always felt that one of the key elements of the series
was Lain learning about humanity. From the outside. Arisu is a sort of
human mirror of Lain.
--
[The address listed is a spam trap. To reply, take off every zig.]

"I wasn't aware the Tokyo police employed uneducated, paranoid,
delusional foreign delinquents."
"In my case, they made an exception."
-- MegaTokyo
 
Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

Richard Clayton wrote:

> See, there's your problem. Lain, as created in a lab, was not a
> "human consciousness." I always felt that one of the key elements of the
> series was Lain learning about humanity. From the outside. Arisu is a
> sort of human mirror of Lain.

Ahh.
--
Stephenls
Geek
"I'm as impure as the driven yellow snow." -Spike
 
Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

"Stephenls"
> Shane Graves wrote:

> > Just to say, all of that which confuses people doesn't bother me as much
as
> > the jumping time between episodes in terms of her growth. I found that
much
> > more jarring than any of the higher notions it rose.

> Huh?

> The series doesn't jump back and forth through time.

You're right, it doesn't.

It continually jumps FORWARD in time. In one episode she's meek little Lain
who can't talk to anyone without sounding like she's so fragile a harsh word
could tear her apart.

The next episode she's nearly completely ass-kicking Lain, talking to a guy
while he's playing Final Fantasy.

It was stuff like that which made me go "Wait. Did I miss a disc or
something?"

> After watching it
> a couple of times I have a very strong sense of Lain's character
> development.

Yeah. I mean, I do too, but that's because I'm looking at it over and over
again. As a personal preference, I like seeing a little more of a path than
just points on a grid.

> > But yeah. I pretty much agree. Lain is God. Sorta. Maybe.

> More precisely: at the end of the series, Lain is effectively God,
> regardless of what she was at the beginning and regardless of whether or
> not a God existed previous to her.

> And the guy in the labcoat with the unusually wide smile, who calls
> himself God throughout the series? He lies. He lies a lot. Everything
> he says is suspect.

Yes.
 
Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

Shane Graves wrote:

> You're right, it doesn't.

> It continually jumps FORWARD in time. In one episode she's meek little Lain
> who can't talk to anyone without sounding like she's so fragile a harsh word
> could tear her apart.

> The next episode she's nearly completely ass-kicking Lain, talking to a guy
> while he's playing Final Fantasy.

> It was stuff like that which made me go "Wait. Did I miss a disc or
> something?"

That's not because the series advances too fast. That's because she
takes on a different personality in the Wired.

> Yeah. I mean, I do too, but that's because I'm looking at it over and over
> again. As a personal preference, I like seeing a little more of a path than
> just points on a grid.

Point taken.
--
Stephenls
Geek
"I'm as impure as the driven yellow snow." -Spike
 
Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

"Stephenls"
> Shane Graves wrote:

> > You're right, it doesn't.

> > It continually jumps FORWARD in time. In one episode she's meek little
Lain
> > who can't talk to anyone without sounding like she's so fragile a harsh
word
> > could tear her apart.

> > The next episode she's nearly completely ass-kicking Lain, talking to a
guy
> > while he's playing Final Fantasy.

> > It was stuff like that which made me go "Wait. Did I miss a disc or
> > something?"

> That's not because the series advances too fast. That's because she
> takes on a different personality in the Wired.

Right. I didn't mean to imply it moves too fast. Just that when you get to
certain places, the plot assumes you know things that were never explicitly
told or referred to until after the fact.

It's like watching a conversation between two people while they throw a ball
back and forth, but every time you cut, you only see the person catching the
ball and then it cuts back before there's a reasonable amount of time for
them to throw it again.

It just requires study to get it. And often times, when I watched Lain (as
it was being released) I just got head-explodey from trying to study it
without all the pieces.
 
Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

"Richard Clayton" <reZIGclaytonZIG@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:2hsb1dFgmj98U1@uni-berlin.de...
> Stephenls wrote:
> > J. H. Frank wrote:
> >
> >> Not really. I firmly believe that overload will set in reasonably
> >> quickly,
> >> followed by numbness. No explody.
> >
> >> It's just not possible to process the entirety of Lain in one sitting.
> >
> > I did, IIRC.
>
> No, you didn't. You asked me to write explanations for most of it.
> Which came to nearly a dozen pages, IIRC.

And, you know, if you still have a copy of those explanations...
 
Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

Stephenls wrote:

> Richard Clayton wrote:
>
>> I thought so once, too. But later I realized that a lot of the
>> things he says, though he MEANS them as lies, actually have an
>> underlying truth. When he claims to have created Lain, he's right...
>> from a certain philosophical cause-and-effect point of view.
>
>
> This is true. He believes a lot of what he says.
>
> But his truths are poisonous and false truths.
>
> Possibly it is Gnostic and he represents the demiurge, in which case his
> truths would be the "real" world from which one must escape. Or not. I
> don't really get Gnosticism.

I wish I knew more about Gnosticism so /Lain's/ Gnosticness would have
been more clear to me when I watched it.
--
[The address listed is a spam trap. To reply, take off every zig.]

"Mmm! Power lines and paint chips! My childhood ROCKS!" -- Fighter,
8-bit Theatre
 
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