In the sixteenth episode of Steins;Gate, Okabe does his best to repair the world and change the future, but, unsurprisingly, things do not go as planned. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Steins;Gate.Â
Trigger Warning: For suicide, incest
How does this show keep getting more fucked up HOW DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING.
Barrel Titor
It’s not until Suzuha’s goodbye that her affect on Daru truly hit me, and I admit that this is because I’m still weirded out by the show’s decision to have Daru lust after and hit on someone who could very well be his daughter. This episode remains ambiguous on the truth, as I could still see all of this explained away by Daru’s attempt to be kind to someone who honestly meant a lot to him. I don’t doubt that part at all. We discover from Okabe’s time leap that Barrel Titor is DARU. After hearing how much Suzuha pined to meet her father, he decided to have the badge made himself, so as to give her hope. So, extrapolating from that, is it possible that he is not Suzuha’s father at all, but just left all these little breadcrumbs so that she would never lose hope? To me, that would make this story a little more palatable.Â
At the same time, I wonder if there are translation or cultural issues here I don’t understand, and they’ve influenced my opinion. I had this sneaking sense that the show might be poking fun at the complicated nature of time travel, that the Daru reveal was meant to embarrass him for his comments toward his own daughter, but y’all, I can’t tell. I was uncomfortable, and I’m voicing that discomfort, but I think I’d rather talk this one out? REGARDLESS: Oh, my god, did I ever get sad once Suzuha stepped into that time machine and Daru realized she really was leaving. THAT PART WAS UNFAIR AND EXTREMELY SAD. Which is saying a lot, given how viscerally upsetting this entire episode is. A secondary character is revealed to be one of the most important figures in this whole journey, and just as we’re truly getting to know her, she’s gone. Not only that, but her big monologue in the previous episode means so much more once you consider that she’s so happy to have made friends because SHE ALREADY KNOWS SHE CANNOT STAY. Oh my god, she was going to leave earlier in the series, y’all, I JUST REMEMBERED THAT. But Okabe changed the world line, and she ended up staying. HELP ME, I’M JUST NOW PUTTING THAT TOGETHER.Â
(You’re welcome to laugh at that and also me recognizing what 42 CRT means while watching this episode. Oh god, IT WAS ALL THERE.)Â
1975
Ugh, y’all, I’m so sad. I figured that when Mr. Braun was at the door with a letter, something awful was about to about to unfold. There could not be a good reason why Suzuha was not there herself. I WAS STILL NOT PREPARED FOR WHAT WOULD UNFOLD.
Here’s what makes me most sad about this. There’s a tragic irony in the first iteration of her past, one that I am glad is erased by Okabe later in the episode. One of the lines in her gut-wrenching letter says that she felt sorry for living an easy life (or something to that affect) instead of remembering earlier why she was in the past in the first place. First of all, no one could have predicted the amnesia caused by the time machine, so that’s not her fault. But there’s a terrible tragedy in all this that I only thought of just now. Suzuha was thankful for what Okabe and his friends granted her because she came from a world where casual friendship was probably not possible. Again, we know little of 2036, but everything Suzuha told us made it clear it was a terrible, unending nightmare. When had she last ridden a bike freely? Had dinner parties? Seen cosplay? HAD STRESS-FREE DAYS?Â
And yet, that is the things she apologizes for before killing herself. She’s sorry she had things easy.Â
I get why she feels like a failure, but I also didn’t see her as one. I also get why Okabe had to grant her final wish, despite how incredibly dangerous it was. Well, not just dangerous, but Mayuri points out that all the wonderful experiences they’ve had since Suzuha’s arrival might be erased, too. Is that worth it? And what if this act undoes something else?Â
Yet he does it anyway, all in the hope that he might grant Suzuha a chance at a life she feels happier with. But it’s not just this aspect of her story that’s so touching and CRUSHING. I fully did not expect Mr. Braun to get his own backstory but GUESS WHAT LET’S BREAK MY HEART WITH THAT, TOO. Oh my god, Okabe’s D-mail worked. In the new world line, she went back to the same house, bought it, and then let Mr. Braun stay there when his burnt down. SHE BOUGHT THE BUILDING THAT WOULD BECOME THE LAB and Mr. Braun would LITERALLY not be where he needed to be without her. And he needs to be there! Without him, there’s no lifter in that television set downstairs at CRT!!! So she still gets to take care of Mr. Braun, but in a different way. She’s weaved into the history of this story, too, and it makes me think that even if she never found the IBN 5100, she still got to contribute and help her friends.
At the end of it all, Mayuri also survives. Somehow, her “pre-destined†moment of death comes and goes, and she didn’t die. So, was Suzuha’s time machine the thing that shoved the world lines into the reality where Mayuri always died? AH, I DON’T ACTUALLY KNOW. The episode is over before Okabe’s question is answered. But they’re not out of the clear yet, and I’m certain that they didn’t stop the SERN dystopia. So what now?
The video for “Sacrificial Necrosis†can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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