Log Horizon Discussion Thread
- Thread starter Snow
- Start date
- Anime
- Location
- Tokyo, Japan
Empathion is a resource for the Travelers, but on the flip side, is nothing new for the Adventurers(especially for the likes of Kanami), which is probably the cause of all the confusion.
The easiest way to understand "Empathion" as the Travelers say, is to imagine a situation where each and every word you say is equated to a sack of wheat to this weirdo in a purple suit.
To you, you are just saying stuff, but to the weirdo, you are saying stuff that is measurable in weight and very important somehow, but you can't know why. It doesn't help when you quote something important to you, somehow the wheat gains weight. Or you remember a tender moment, the sack gains weight. It is creepy, but it has a pattern.
Not the cleanest way to think, but still.
I'm having a feeling that Mamare went for something that would deliberately sound like Engrish.
The easiest way to understand "Empathion" as the Travelers say, is to imagine a situation where each and every word you say is equated to a sack of wheat to this weirdo in a purple suit.
To you, you are just saying stuff, but to the weirdo, you are saying stuff that is measurable in weight and very important somehow, but you can't know why. It doesn't help when you quote something important to you, somehow the wheat gains weight. Or you remember a tender moment, the sack gains weight. It is creepy, but it has a pattern.
Not the cleanest way to think, but still.
I'm having a feeling that Mamare went for something that would deliberately sound like Engrish.
So Rudy really IS a dog? That makes the joke much less funny.
He doesn't seem to have been any dumber or gotten any smarter, but he doesn't seem subhuman right now.
Razor One
When Science Goes Too Far...
Let's take things back to basics.
Let's assume that an empathion is all of the above wrapped up into a measurable and quantifiable unit. Prior to that, the best thing that players had to describe the system they were in was a combination of their actual memories and the experience their characters had. Feelings add a new dimension to the mix, but makes sense once contextualised. If you lose a memory, do you also lose the feelings attached to that memory? If you lose a thought, do you also lose the feelings attached to that thought?
It could also be a clue as to the ranking system. A rank one life form might have one of thoughts, feelings, or memories, but not any two or three of them. A rank two might have any two, but not all three, and a rank three might have them all. It's just guesswork on my part, could be wrong.
And I suppose I should weigh in on the aliens plot. I'm unphased. Blizzard already pulled that with space goats.
empathy said:
empathy said:
Let's assume that an empathion is all of the above wrapped up into a measurable and quantifiable unit. Prior to that, the best thing that players had to describe the system they were in was a combination of their actual memories and the experience their characters had. Feelings add a new dimension to the mix, but makes sense once contextualised. If you lose a memory, do you also lose the feelings attached to that memory? If you lose a thought, do you also lose the feelings attached to that thought?
It could also be a clue as to the ranking system. A rank one life form might have one of thoughts, feelings, or memories, but not any two or three of them. A rank two might have any two, but not all three, and a rank three might have them all. It's just guesswork on my part, could be wrong.
And I suppose I should weigh in on the aliens plot. I'm unphased. Blizzard already pulled that with space goats.
Kyte
Never quacked for this
My imagination supplied:
Rank 1: Capacity for self-determination (Coppelia is here)
Rank 2: Capacity for self-realization (Landers and Genius)
Rank 3: Capacity for creative expression (Adventurers)
It sorta fits and I got the feeling it was being implied that interaction can raise others' rank, which is what I assume happened to Coppelia.
Rank 1: Capacity for self-determination (Coppelia is here)
Rank 2: Capacity for self-realization (Landers and Genius)
Rank 3: Capacity for creative expression (Adventurers)
It sorta fits and I got the feeling it was being implied that interaction can raise others' rank, which is what I assume happened to Coppelia.
A dog would be Rank 1 or less, though.
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- Location
- Tokyo, Japan
And it is also implied that it happened to Elias Hackblade (the Ancient from the Kanami Arc) as well, since after getting the impromptu pep talk from Kanami, he managed to get over his predetermined limit of "I can't kill" and dealt the killing blow to the Genius; heck the original text even says that it marked his own "rebirth".
I imagine the difference between People of the Land and Adventurers lies in facts like the PotL only had 42 songs until recently. They were completely unable to change that remember? Which frankly suggest to me that there are other limitations lurking about as well. What else does this explain?
While The People of the Land are clearly sapient beings who deserve all consideration and rights as such... Sometimes they don't seem quite human to me.
While The People of the Land are clearly sapient beings who deserve all consideration and rights as such... Sometimes they don't seem quite human to me.
I meant in the sense that he really was "less human" than Isuzu.
The dranei were actually PART of the setting, though.And I suppose I should weigh in on the aliens plot. I'm unphased. Blizzard already pulled that with space goats.
In this case, the aliens aren't a part of Elder Tales OR the world the Adventurers come from.
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Rudy probably made Class 3 when he sacrificed himself to take out the wolf by ramming his arm into its mouth for fireball. Thats not PotL behavior
Razor One
When Science Goes Too Far...
The Draenei were intimated to be human-like from Draenor and were wiped out by the Orcs. Their every appearance prior to Burning Crusade was by default what we today would have called Broken.
When Burning Crusade hit, Blizzard reworked the lore, folding the broken in as a mutated subrace and made them the uncorrupted form of the Eredar, which we had seen since at least Reign of Chaos.
Prior to BC, Draenei were about as alien as Orcs were to the setting, if a background element at best. Afterwards, they were a more prominent part of the setting, but their alien nature was very much at the fore front and frequently lampooned by the community.
I think this, in addition with other details, highlights the nature of empathions. Rudy's experience and exposure to adventurers enriched him sufficiently to qualify as a Rank 3. Empathions shared are empathions increased, but we also know that empathions can be lost.
I actually just had a thought. What if Real Life is restricted in the same way that Landers are restricted, but we never noticed because we didn't know any differently? Earth has no magic, but Elder Tale does. If adventurers begin to return, would they then bring the empathions needed to introduce magic into the world?
NothingNow
Corpse Wrangler
- Location
- Tampa
RL humans can actually innovate and have the ability to creatively express themselves though, while the Landers cannot create new music on their own, which is actually a decent enough dividing line between Rank 2 and Rank 3 intelligences, so IMO it's unlikely that such is the case.
Namer
ᵘʷᵘ
- Location
- Bangladesh
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The main divide between Adventurers and Landers is that Landers aren't creative. Adventurers are creative, and can express that.
This makes me wonder exactly what blocks them from doing so, then. Like, is there a mental block preventing landers from expressing creativity? Or do they not simply get them at all? The former makes sense, while the latter means there's a massive, fundamental difference beween Rank 2 and 3.
And where does Rudy stand? He's a rank 2 upped to Rank 3, but he's shown no real difference before and after where it counts. It could be that nothing's come up yet. But, it was also shown that he couldn't create music either (he's the only one sitting and watching instead of playing in the concerts). So, is he still a Rank 2? Or 3? Or some kind of 2.5?
Razor One
When Science Goes Too Far...
You misunderstood me. That or I was terrible at communicating my thoughts there. The idea I have in my head is that empathions enrich those that they are shared between. It wouldn't so much bump Earth humans up from Rank 3 to a hypothetical Rank 4 as expand their capacity for creative expression down a new path that was unavailable to them due to a lack of the proper empathions.
To clarify, each rank is arbitrarily broad. There could be differing species who are both Rank 3, but one occupies a higher position of Rank 3 because a civilization that has most of the five senses except for sight would have less of a range of potential expression as a civilization who has all five senses, plus electromagnetism and a keener sense of smell. You can overcome these limitations with technology, which allows for new modes of creative expression and thus new empathions to be born into the world and enrich others.
- Location
- Tokyo, Japan
I'm of the stance that those Ranks don't really mean anything in themselves; that is that it only denotes what sort of activity that these people had been involved in, and that is the only way the Travelers can really understand people.
So, in my view, ever since Rudy chose to Masquerade himself as an Adventurer(whenever that was), he was Rank 3; his moment where he sacrificed himself in the face of the Wolves was just where it came to shine. Though, it was Shiroe that allowed Rudy to really survive his attempt at going Rank 3, in a sense.
And the Landers in Akiba are most probably Rank 3 or close to it by sheer proximity around the Adventurers; it is implied that everyday interaction involves Empathion in the Travelers' eyes, so that would mean that most Landers in Akiba would be starting to bridge the gap, if not already.
The Landers in Akiba having meetings (which Rudy goes to) does say things enough about the effects the Adventurers have on the Landers; the Travelers simply give a measurable (I hope) thing to follow the effects.
In that sense, I'd say Re-Gan is already Rank 3 in a sense, along with Demi's Wife.
jwolfe_beta
Semi Genre-Savvy Overlord
- Location
- Canada
The Landers becoming class 3s on their own through exposure to the new Adventurers could explain some of the actions by Genius.
If the Landers had remained at class 2 they could harvest Empathion in a sustainable fashion forever, maximizing total production over time. Now due to events they are on a time limit and so have shifted over to strip-mine/rape & pillage to get as much Empathion as possible before they get kicked out.
If the Landers had remained at class 2 they could harvest Empathion in a sustainable fashion forever, maximizing total production over time. Now due to events they are on a time limit and so have shifted over to strip-mine/rape & pillage to get as much Empathion as possible before they get kicked out.
Does anyone still feel that Seldelsha is a fake world?
I'm holding to my theory that Seldelsha was always a real world, but that the Second World Fracture did some serious, horrific damage to the place when it turned it into the setting for an otherworldly MMORPG.
They managed to preserve their species against the immortal predations of the demi-human monsters unleashed by the First World Fracture... but at the cost of being effectively frozen in time; arrested in development. "Medieval Stasis", as the trope name.
People gained the power to make food through the menu... and continued to do so even when eating unprocessed fruits and vegetables would have been tastier.
People were given 42 songs... and never realized they could write more.
I'm holding to my theory that Seldelsha was always a real world, but that the Second World Fracture did some serious, horrific damage to the place when it turned it into the setting for an otherworldly MMORPG.
They managed to preserve their species against the immortal predations of the demi-human monsters unleashed by the First World Fracture... but at the cost of being effectively frozen in time; arrested in development. "Medieval Stasis", as the trope name.
People gained the power to make food through the menu... and continued to do so even when eating unprocessed fruits and vegetables would have been tastier.
People were given 42 songs... and never realized they could write more.
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Or the Third World Fracture is fixing the damage from the second.
al103
Grumpy Russian Bear (SV edition)
- Location
- Russia, Krasnoyarsk
Fffffffffffffff!!!!!!!!!!
I just realised what is Henrietta's problem and all unfunny jokes became 10 times as unfunny and quite scary really...
She is career woman. In Japan. Which means that she can't have children - or she would be sacked from her workplace and probably wouldn't find any good work. And she is nearing 30... Amount of psych troubles that she have is probably enormous. So of course she sublimates - Marie, Guild (especially after transition), anybody small and cute...
I just realised what is Henrietta's problem and all unfunny jokes became 10 times as unfunny and quite scary really...
She is career woman. In Japan. Which means that she can't have children - or she would be sacked from her workplace and probably wouldn't find any good work. And she is nearing 30... Amount of psych troubles that she have is probably enormous. So of course she sublimates - Marie, Guild (especially after transition), anybody small and cute...
al103
Grumpy Russian Bear (SV edition)
- Location
- Russia, Krasnoyarsk
Mamare is exactly kind of dude to write that.