I had a epiphany about Amber in Darker than Black which made me realize how much of a Magnificent Bastard she was. Amber pretty much knows the future, and thus the reason she had no problem having Maki and Wei in her group, is that she knew both of them would act against her wishes and die in the process. It's also interesting now that the Gaiden has shown Amagiri to have survived. In the first season, it looked like while Amber had tried to do something to save both Amagiri and Brita, it didn't work, and both were burned to death. Now that it's clear Amagiri survived (but ended up badly scarred), I tend to think that maybe Amber was only trying to save him- because he was loyal to her and the nicest of her main supporters- and she succeeded.- Jordan
This show does not like to explain things, so a few things listed as fact on its page are the product of Fridge Brilliance. Namely, that Mundane Utility moment in the first episode: we just see that Li smacks a broken TV, some sparks fly out of it and he jumps, and all of a sudden the picture clears up. Since it takes a while before they explain much about who and what he is, you may have to watch it again before you realize that he had his eyes closed when he laid his hand on it; Hei used his Shock and Awe abilities to fix the TV, and the Eyes Always Shut smile hid the telltaleredglow.
Anything launched high enough into the atmosphere disappears without a trace. NASA and the space agencies of other countries would find themselves defunct, except for the fact that in the new sky every star is connected to a contractor. If a contractor uses their powers, their star shines brightly. When a contractor dies, their star falls from the sky.
Analyzing the sky is the main way to determine what is happening with Contractors, so NASA and other governmental space agencies, (which should have fallen apart when the stars vanished and space essentially stopped existing) have become intelligence agencies whose sole purpose is to analyze the sky and the stars to tell what is going on with the Contractors.
Hell's Gate is Mind Screw incarnate, to the point where the characters know and comment on it. But a bit of sideways What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic? logic and remembering that its main rule is, "It'll give you back what you lost, but for a price" can make sense of some of the oddities that happen around it. Misaki's reappearing tape recorder, for example. She lost it, needed it, and wanted it back badly, so when everything went really weird, it showed up back in her pocket. If you want to get overanalytical, she finally got the opportunity to reveal the crimes of people who thought they were above the law, and in exchange she lost her illusions about a person she liked and even loved.
My assumption on the reappearing item was that Amber had returned it, in order to ensure nothing like that could happen again. Which also explains why it had been working the whole time, rather than only since it was returned. If the Gate works like the similar areas in Roadside Picnic then ascribing any motives to it is a bad idea. The entire place doesn't care about humanity or how we think the universe works.
In episode 9, Hei (undercover in a hotel) is talking to Saitou (much more clumsily undercover in the same hotel) about Kirihara. There's an exchange along the lines of: "She's beautiful." "Yeah, but once you get to know her, she's actually pretty scary." Now think about who one of theparticipants inthis conversationis.
November 11 is James Bond's birthday, damn it. How could I miss that one?!
It's also Remembrance Day, which honors those who died in the first world war.
Until Evening Primrose shows up, November 11 is the only Contractor badass enough to survive more than a two-parter fighting Hei, making him essentially the main villain for a while. Based on that, his white suit and light-colored hair and eyes could be a deliberate contrast with our hero, the Black Reaper. The same thing goes for Hei's Morally Ambiguous Counterpart Nick.
Quite a few bits of the (first) Gainax Ending actually make a surprising amount of sense if you think about it way too much. For instance, special attention is drawn to the fact that Kirihara gets her tape recorder taken when she goes through Pandora security, but it appears in her pocket a little later, when she challenges Director Horai. The reason? Amber put the recorder back in her pocket while time was stopped. Why Amber? Because in Gemini of the Meteor, Amber's message concerning the Mitaka Document is on that very same recorder.
At one point during Heaven's war, Hei was apparently about to strangle Pai as she paid her price when Amber walked up and started taking about how cute/romantic they looked. Later, when Amber and Hei were alone in Hell's Gate, she said that she must have fought Heaven's War a hundred times trying to get it right. That means in several timelines Pai wasn't alive to seal the area and win the war.
Remember Hei's coat and how it's supposed to be bulletproof only when he wears it? Maybe it's made of a fabric or something that becomes rigid when electricity is passed through. (Hei's powers are not 'making electricity' it's quantum manipulation. This is stated in his fight with his morally ambiguous counterpart. It's easy to make electricity when you can manupulate atomic structures.)
In the second season, The original Suou died early on and the copy was born two years before the start of the second series. Since, by his own admittance, Shion has no normal human emotions, he did a lot of guess work in creating her. What results is what Shion envisions his sister would be like had she survived, i.e. a Mary Sue. It's not great for her but it works for the series.
He also used memory and emotions extracted from her corpse with mind screwing technology. They were incomplete, but should have helped.
See all those pretty shooting stars in the openings? Remember what that means?
Hei's contractor power was originally thought to be generating lethal electrical discharges. In the first episode, the Tokyo Police couldn't determine the Contractor Louis's cause of death. It turns out that his power was really Molecular Manipulation, allowing him to manipulate the electrons of matter.
The human body itself generates electricity. Everything we do is controlled and enabled by electrical signals running through our bodies. All matter is made up of atoms, and atoms are made up of protons, neutrons and electrons. Protons have a positive charge, neutrons have a neutral charge, and electrons have a negative charge. When these charges are out of balance, an atom becomes either positively or negatively charged. The switch between one type of charge and the other allows electrons to flow from one atom to another. This flow of electrons, or a negative charge, is what we call electricity. Since our bodies are huge masses of atoms, we can generate electricity. The electricity produced by our bodies is what allows synapses, signals and even heartbeats to occur.
Electricity is a key to our survival. Electrical signals are fast. They allow for a nearly instantaneous response to control messages. If our bodies relied entirely on, say, the movement of chemicals to tell our hearts to speed up when something is chasing us, we probably would've died out a long time ago.
In other words, Hei's power doesn't stem from zapping people to death by arrhythmias of the heart, meaning that the heart would not contract in synchrony between the different chambers, essentially causing elimination of blood flow. But rather screwing up the electron flow in a person's body.
This would be awfully long and unnecessary complicated way to kill someone. The reason police couldn't find anything in the first episode is the fact that this death was so unnatural. Just imagine the report "We found a guy with recent massive bruises, severe internal bleeding and broken fingers. Cause of death: natural, his heart just stopped working." Hei's Shock and Awe attacks are not necessarily powerful, but hold just enough power to kill someone without leaving much traces.
Hei derives his powers from his sister, a Contractor who lives inside his head (for a given value of 'lives'). What happened to her when he got de-powered?
It's a common theory that contractors were humans who crossed the Despair Event Horizon around the time the gates appeared. What happened to Pai?
Fridge Logic: Wei's power has some incredibly confusing implications/logical fallacies (all of which should be ignored for the sake of his story, fight scenes, and other important moments to the show, but they'll be mentioned all the same for the sake of the trope). For starters... If he can disintegrate things that his blood is touching/detonate his blood, why doesn't he just explode whenever he uses his power because of the blood in his body? Of course, there is a lot of Fridge Brilliance (which has counter-Fridge Logic) to go along with this...
First off, he doesn't seem to have any control over what he detonates. Every time he snaps his fingers, everything his blood is on gets destroyed (often demolishing entire rooms during a few of his... messier fights).
The most believable explanation is probably that he does have control, he just doesn't exercise much— Wei is crazy, so it would make sense that he likes to cause as much destruction during fights as possible, and often uses his missed shots to create obstructions and distractions for his opponents.
It could be that he only destroys blood that is no longer in his body.
No, because that would mean he'd blow up his hand, covered in blood. It could be blood that is no longer even in contact with his body.
But that would mean he'd destroy the blade he uses to cut himself.
He is able to control what he destroys as-long as his blood is on it, hence how he destroys the wall or how the blade he uses doesn't disintegrate.
The answer to any plot/story/Deus ex Machina question: Amber did it.
