Lonestar said:

still fond of this one

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I always think of my youth when the power goes out. The black-outs were a... every day occurrence.

Finch: The Blitz.

Greer: The German air raids lasted 9 months, felt like years.

Finch: You must have been very young.

Greer: My mother and I used to sleep in the tube with many other families. One night we were late getting to the station. And I saw a sunset for the first time in... Months. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. But it wasn't a sunset at all. The sky was on fire.

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Juan29.zapata said:

Really amazing performance from John Nolan there. I hope to see many more moments like that this season. Person of Interest: were you are sympathetic to the villains motives and plans.

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Tugatrix said:

usually stories don't show the human side of the villain, they must be the hateful guy not someone we can relate to, but that what make a villain more terrifying, thinking that he's just a guy like us that one something change him.

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shadowkat said:

YES!

I'll be able to participate in this thread in real time.

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shadowkat said:

YES!

I'll be able to participate in this thread in real time.

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Funky Papa said:

I can't wait to see more of Elias. I suspect he's going to play a much bigger part now that the gang has been forced underground.

For good measure: Person Of Interest - The Outliers

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Funky Papa said:

I can't wait to see more of Elias. I suspect he's going to play a much bigger part now that the gang has been forced underground.

For good measure: Person Of Interest - The Outliers

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Funky Papa said:

I can't wait to see more of Elias. I suspect he's going to play a much bigger part now that the gang has been forced underground.

For good measure: Person Of Interest - The Outliers

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Ducarmel said:

Checking in.

I did not post much in season 3 thread after Carter was killed felt really down after that, also I did not like the slight personality change to Shaw. When she was introduced I kind of liked the silent all business cold blooded attitude she had, but cbs is going to cbs now she is popping off sarcastic remarks left and right like everybody else.

Overall I did like the last season a lot, and looking

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Ducarmel said:

Checking in.

I did not post much in season 3 thread after Carter was killed felt really down after that, also I did not like the slight personality change to Shaw. When she was introduced I kind of liked the silent all business cold blooded attitude she had, but cbs is going to cbs now she is popping off sarcastic remarks left and right like everybody else.

Overall I did like the last season a lot, and looking

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StuBurns said:

Next time I click on this thread, there better be a lot more Acker gifs.

I can't wait for this season, the recent teaser was just amazing.

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Sober said:

There was no personality change.

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NotTheGuyYouKill said:

Shaw's been pretty consistent from the start, I think. She's pretty much still all-business, she just has... friends(?) now? Kinda?

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Sober said:

But can you show up to the TO Gaf meetups? Real question!

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Phlebas said:

Got you bro

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kudoboi said:

wow that was fast. didn't expect a new season till 2015

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exYle said:

I was hoping for the title to be the Irrelevant Seven =(

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Phlebas said:

Got you bro

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shadowkat said:

One day I will shock you all.

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Bobosaurus said:

I just hope this season airs more consistently - the 1 & 2 week breaks between episodes that kept popping up last season were killers

I need my weekly Shoot fix!

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Phlebas said:

Got you bro

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Phlebas said:

Got you bro

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Bobosaurus said:

I just hope this season airs more consistently - the 1 & 2 week breaks between episodes that kept popping up last season were killers

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Lonestar said:

What, you don't like the title based on a indie PC game that many might not know about?

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Nobility said:

I think I'm going to re-watch the last 3 episodes this weekend.

I know that by Saturday morning I'll try yet again in vain trying to get all the clues for S4's tone.

I think I remember one already.

I have a feeling that what the machine found out about Control in 4C will play a heavy role this season...

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Phlebas said:

Which episode was it again where they didn't kill the senator at the end?

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Sober said:

Two things I noticed while rewatching some of S3:

1) Holy fuck the intro to Devil's Crossing with Johnny Cash's cover of Hurt is godlike, especially when you consider they played the whole damn song and didn't just cut a montage to like a verse or something.

2) Michael Emerson's commentary for the S3 finale, haha, it's amazing he just talks right past the end of the credits, fucking A.

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Phlebas said:

Which episode was it again where they didn't kill the senator at the end?

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Claypool: "Everything slides towards chaos. Your creation, it brings us poor souls a cup full of order. Your child is a dancing star."

Finch: "It's not my child, it's a machine."

Claypool: "A false dichotomy -- it's all electricity. Does it make you laugh? Does it make you weep?"

Finch: "... yes."

Claypool: "What's more human?"

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Autonomous Monster said:

So, one of Claypool's lines in Aletheia leapt out at me: "Everything slides towards chaos. Your creation- it brings us poor souls a cup full of order. Your child is a dancing star." The phrase "dancing star" in this sense (as opposed to the Strictly Come Dancing sense) is pretty rare: I don't think I've ever seen is used except in connection to a certain line in Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra: "'I say to you: one must still have chaos within, in order to give birth to a dancing star. I say to you: you still have chaos within you.'"

This is from the fifth section of the Prologue in the First Part:

When Zarathustra had spoken these words, he looked at the people again and was silent. 'There they stand,' he said to his heart, 'there they laugh: they do not understand me, I am not the mouth for these ears.
'Must one first smash their ears before they learn to hear with their eyes? Must one rumble like kettledrums and preachers of repentance? Or do they only believe a stammerer?
'They have something of which they are proud. But what do they call that which makes them proud? Culture, they call it: it distinguishes them from goatherds.
'Therefore they dislike hearing the word "despising" said of them. So now I will speak to their pride.
'So I will speak to them of what is most despicable: and that is the last human.'
And thus spoke Zarathustra to the people:
'The time has now come for the human to set a goal for itself. The time has now come for the human to plant the seed of its highest hope.
'Its soil is still rich enough for that. But this soul will some day become poor from cultivation, and no tall tree will be able to grow from it.
'Alas! The time will come when the human will no longer shoot the arrow of its yearning over beyond the human, and the string of its bow will have forgotten how to whir!
'I say to you: one must still have chaos within, to give birth to a dancing star. I say to you: you still have chaos within you.
'Alas! The time will come when the human will give birth to no more stars. Alas! There will come the time of the most despicable human, who is no longer able to despise itself.
'Behold" I show to you the last human.
'"What is love? What is creation? What is yearning? What is a star?"- thus asks the last human and then blinks.
'For the earth has now become small, and upon it hops the last human, who makes everything small. Its race is as inexterminable as the ground-flea; the last human lives the longest.
'"We have contrived happiness"- say the last humans and they blink.
'They have left the regions where the living was hard, for one needs the warmth. One still loves one's neighbour and rubs up against him: for one needs the warmth.
'To fall ill and harbour mistrust is in their eyes sinful: one must proceed with care. A fool, whoever still stumbles over stones or humans!
'A little poison now and then: that makes for agreeable dreams. And a lot of poison at the end, for an agreeable dying.
'One continues to work, for work is entertainment. But one takes care lest the entertainment become a strain.
'One no longer becomes poor or rich: both are too burdensome. Who wants to rule any more? Who wants to obey? Both are too burdensome.
'No herdsman and one herd! Everyone want the same thing, everyone is the same: whoever feels differently goes voluntarily into the madhouse.
'"Formerly the entire world was mad"- say their finest and they blink.
'One is clever and knows all that has happened: so there is no end to their mockery. One still quarrels, but one soon makes up- else it is bad for the stomach.
'One has one's little pleasure for the day and one's little pleasure for the night: but one honours good health,
'"We have invented happiness"- say the last humans and they blink.-'

And here ended Zarathustra's first speech, which is also called 'the Prologue': for at this point the clamour and delight of the crowd interrupted him. 'Give us this last human, O Zarathustra'- so they cried- 'Turn us into these last humans! Then we give you the Overhuman!' And the people all jubilated and clucked with their tongues. But Zarathustra became sad and said to his heart:
'They do not understand me: I am not the mouth for these ears
'Too long have I lived in the mountains, and too much have I listened to streams and trees: now I talk to them as to goatherds.
'Unmoved is my soul and bright as the mountains in the morning. But they think I am cold and a mocker in fearful antics.
'And now they behold me and laugh: and even as they laugh, they still hate me. There is ice in their laughter.'

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(this from Graham Parkes' translation for Oxford World's Classics)

...which I find interesting for several reasons.

Nietzsche argues that to "give birth to a dancing star", "one must still have chaos within"; that to create something beautiful and transcendent, one must be passionate; one must be subject to strife. Conversely, the death of strife is the death of passion, and thus creation. Perfect order is perfect sterility, and perfect meaninglessness. This doesn't mesh particularly well with PoI- Finch, the creator of the dancing star, is one of the most orderly and least chaotic characters on the show. He is unfailingly polite, neat, universally placid and intensely cerebral. He strenuously resists any attempt to relate to the machine emotionally, or to anthropomorphise it ("It's not my child, it's a machine."). So, if we want to read this as a reference to Nietzsche, it either has to be a refutation of TSZ's thesis or an indication that Finch is not nearly as buttoned-down as he thinks he is or wants to appear.

The former is probably the better supported, and the more interesting, but the latter ties into Finch's character arc, so I'll start with it. This season, or, technically I guess since the second season's opener, but especially this season, Finch's central conflict has been the argument he's been having with his dark mirror, Root, about the nature of The Machine: he insists it's just a machine; she believes it's God. But Finch's position isn't nearly as clear-cut as he pretends it is; even as he says The Machine is just a machine, he speaks of it in terms of a living, thinking creature. Nathan says as much at the end of 1x11. While, superficially, he takes the same line as factions like Northern Lights, he easily accepts concepts that they have repeatedly been shown to have trouble grasping: that The Machine could move itself, that it could have agency and continue without human direction. He envies and fears Root's more immediate connection to his creation. I think Finch was so easily swayed by Claypool's arguments ("A false dichotomy— it's all electricity. Does it make you laugh? Does it make you weep? What's more human?"), perfunctory as they were, in this scene because he already believed, deep down, that The Machine is alive, that it is a person- he just didn't want to admit it to himself. Maybe he feels guilty for what he did to it. I don't know.

Turning back to the reading of the scene as a calling out and refutation of TSZ, I quoted the full context of the "dancing star" line because I realised, reading it, that the world of the last humans is the world of Banks' Culture; a world where (thanks to the management of benevolent god-like AIs and functionally infinite resources) strife has been eliminated, and humanity enjoys a life of tranquil hedonism. Nietzsche, and Finch ("It is extraordinary. And it is beautiful. ...so are mushroom clouds, in their own way. [...] I'm not sure if we should have built it...") sees in this a nightmare, and the death of everything worthy in the human race; Banks and Claypool ("Your creation- it brings us poor souls a cup full of order.") see a potential utopia. And if Claypool states the thesis, then Finch, unwittingly, provides the proof: if he was able to bring forth this dancing star from a place of such tranquillity and quiet contemplation then the death of strife is not the death of passion, and Nietzsche's nightmare is just that- a bad dream.

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