How exactly do the Commandments prohibit indirect oppression without direct violence, through propaganda, economic pressure, denial of essential resources, and other means of inflicting suffering upon the less physically and magically able races? These would have likely become the primary, predictable instruments of geopolitics, with the actual games being reduced to enforcing sanctions (I.e. actually commanding someone to lose on pain of any of the above punishments).
They don't, evident by the Warbeasts worrying over Elven invasion. However, each game requires both parties to wager something of perceived equal value. This inherently creates a high stakes paradigm that could have severe repercussions if the challenger lost. Furthermore, the challenged determines the game, which puts the challenger at a disadvantage. Basically, it's not worth the risk of attempting to oppress other nations.
Besides, the Commandments aren't designed to prohibit oppression, they're designed to prohibit violent war (likely specifically war with collateral damage, which the rules do keep from happening). The assumption here seems to be that Tet set forth the rules to make the world some sort of utopia, when that's clearly not what he was going for at all. (For one thing, a utopia would require the complete suppression of free will, which would make games pretty boring.)
Jibril addresses this in Volume 2, saying that through the games, you can still kill people indirectly. As she puts it, if Blank were to win against the Warbeasts, the ones who'd been living in the territory seized by Elkia would be left jobless and homeless, likely starving to death. Sora ends up engineering a tie, but not everyone thinks outside the box like that.
Since we later learn that the Elven kingdom's society is based on enslaving the lower races, what the hell makes Kurami think her plan to incorporate Imanity under Elvengard is a good plan? Especially considering that she herself (at least nominally) is also a slave!
Eiel is the de facto successor to one of the most prominent Elven families . Kurami likely believed her benevolent nature would be a better gamble than it being overtaken by a more aggressive nation. Put simply, it wasn't a good plan, but a desperate one.
Kurami's plan would involve Elkia being a Protectorate ally of the Elves, rather than their property and live on without playing games against opposing powers. Again, it's done out of desperation, as well as the belief that Imanity can't win (likely informed by Kurami's great-grandfather getting his family enslaved by losing to the elves).
During Sora's rematch against Kurami, Shiro questions Jibril about what does she know about her masters. Predictably, according to the rules of the Memory Stealing Reversi game that is still underway, she only remembers Shiro, to the point where, in her memories, Shiro did all the things that both siblings really did on her own (such as solving the late king's mystery). That also includes her own game of Materialization Shiritori against the siblings... Except late in THAT game, the siblings were only capable of giving an answer in pure oxygen enviroment because they were able to circular breathe together. Jibril should have immediately noticed that her former defeat by Shiro alone made no sense and realize something is wrong.
Shiro didn't tell Jibril to explain the exact detail on how she lost, she was thinking of the overall outcome at the time.
Having done some research on effects of pure oxygen environment (in which one can breathe just fine for a short time), I suppose you're right... which brings the question why exactly they needed to kiss to give their answer ("atmosphere") back then, if one can actually speak in pure oxygen?
While they could speak in pure oxygen, they needed the circulation in preparation for Jibril's next counter; if they hadn't done as much, they would have been suffering from the same effects Jibril and Steph were, and not have as much time to place their winning piece.
I can just guess the first part was just an error on the Animator. As for Othello. Looks to me Shiro can only see the pieces that she played and the the one she flip over. The pieces that Sora played remain invisible.
For the chess game, Shiro technically cheated according to the rules of standard chess, but the thing is that Jibril never called her out on it. Remember, according to the pledges, it's only considered cheating if you're caught. Whether by accident or design, Jibril failed to call out Shiro's illegal move, therefore allowing Shiro to win.
There is an issue with this explanation. Right after she makes that move, it's treated as a win. Instantly. No time between "Piece is placed" and "Game is declared a victory". At best, this could be considered a draw.
Shiro put Jibril's king in checkmate with a Knight, a Bishop and two Pawns. Basic rules state that for a king to escape a check, it has to be able to maneuver out of one or more piece's advantage on it, or place the other king in checkmate, which Shiro did and Jibril had no way out of. The real question is, why was her king that far up on the board in the first place?
Not according to standard rules. According to standard rule the play following a check MUST BE to remove the King from check. This is a requisite, and if it's not possible the game is over. If the move check(mate)s the opposite king at the same time, great. But the requisite is to remove your own King from check. Since even if you checkmates the opponent's king, he'll just use his "next" turn to "take" your king, while his is still alive. Also of note is that Shiro's King is in Checkmate. She can not move out of check, can not block the check, and can not take the Queen checking her.
So all of this is predicated on the assumption that they're using a standard ruleset, but makes sense if they were using a different but still established ruleset? The logical assumption would seem to be... they weren't using standard rules.
The Othello/Reversi could simply be they haven't (and didn't) finish animating all the pieces flipping over.
The rule that the king must immediately be removed from check is a later addition to the rules, dating only to the 19th century. Outside of FIDE-approved play, it's actually optional.
Keep in mind that, in context, the hardline reason for the chess game at all was to snap Shiro out of what was, at the time to everyone else, Shiro having some sort of episode where she was speaking nonsense. And they expected Shiro to go along with the game simply to feel better. In all likelihood, they may have just abandoned the game, regardless of actual piece position, once Shiro regained her conviction and put her foot down. Her making any sort of move at all to avoid a technical loss in that moment was likely more important than any actual loss or victory.
This is a good point, but it's strange that the Ten Pledges don't have any provisions for when one side decides to forfeit a game, or for when games are incomplete or end in draws.
They don't really need to specifically have a clause in order for there to functionally be the ability to do that. Think of the coin flip between Blank and the Shrine Priestess Warbeast. When the coin flip ended in a draw, they afterwards had the option to either say both won or both lost, because there were no specific provisions in place to say what would happen in that unlikely event. And one can expect a forfeit to mean that the forfeiting player is accepting their own loss of the game. The Ten Pledges are less ironclad rules and more general guidelines to make a baseline level playing field. There will always be wiggle room to interpret a game's outcome if it's not an outright win or loss, so long as both parties can agree on the outcome. Which leaves plenty of room for actions like, say, the players agreeing to end the game without coming to a solid win/loss allocation. It's basically just the players agreeing to put the cards back in the box and everyone walking away from the table with everything they came with.
During the Materialisation Shiritori game in Episode 6, when Sora decided to remove 'Nether Regions', wouldn't he have ended up technically castrating himself for the duration of the game?
This one is simple. That was a [Woolseyism], which the subtitles are full of. The word used was a crude slang word for female genitalia, in reality. But even if it wasn't, would it matter? His goal was to see his SFW Paradise, who cares if it affected him too.
During the same Materialisation Shiritori match, the heroes win by removing the Coulomb force, therefore initiating transformation of the planet into a hypernova. However, their bodies did not undergo the same process, even though they were also built from matter; and even if it wasn't so, removing this force would have destroyed their neural systems, which essentially runs on electric charges. Why were they still alive?
I think it's a case of stretching moments of time for drama. Actual loss doesn't come from being dead, it comes from being unable to answer. Thus, even if Sora and Shiro die before Jibril and she is able to hold her body and mind together, supernova explosion obliterates her before she has a chance to answer (within fraction of second, that is).
The rules for victory are that the opponent repeats a word, or is unable to answer within 30 seconds, or crucially, is "unable to continue". Dying does count as a loss from being "unable to continue", so Sora and Shiro answering then dying before Jibril would mean rule 3 activates giving Jibril the victory and she doesn't need to answer.
One of the rules is that players cannot directly attack each other. Removing Coulomb Force from the bodies of the players would presumably count as an attack, and so all three players are simply rendered immune to the direct effect, keeping the Coulomb Forces active on the matter in their bodies. That just leaves the hypernova, which would be fatal to Jibril just due to the heat, and would reach her first, leaving her unable to continue whilst Blank still could, and giving her the loss.
By that logic what constitutes an "attack"? They stole her spirit circuits so they can obviously affect each other directly. And even then why didn't their clothing explode? Being unable to continue also means you lose which means that even if the energy in her clothing wasn't enough to kill Jibril it would still probably disqualify Blank. And ignoring that, the hypernova itself wouldn't have to hit them to kill them. The heat and radiation should have killed them before it killed Jibril.
Except that it wasn't their turn. Had Jibril successfully countered, then yes, they would have lost due to eliminating themselves from the match. Under the rules as stated and agreed upon, however, Jibril had to answer or lose.
The game probably allows for items that the player Needs to be used, just because words like "blood" or "organs" do exist and would probably directly incapacitate the player if used. It just wouldn't be directly fatal. If one of them had said, say, hair, probably everyone would've gone bald, since hair is nonvital to living and wouldn't be an attack. The Spirit Circuits were probably allowed because, as Jibril says, she doesn't need them to remain alive due to the spirits that naturally reside in her body. But even after saying "oxygen" and "air", probably the gases still in their lungs were exactly the same in type and quantity as it was before the words were said. The reason it affected her and not them was just because they held their breath, knowing what it was going to do, and she didn't. So they kept the same amount of other gases in their lungs via circular breathing while still taking in oxygen, but Jibril lost all the normal air in her lungs because she just kept breathing normally until it was too late.
Why don't people ever seem to refuse games? Imanity seems to have constantly lost land to others and at the end the Warbeasts fear attacks from the Elves and Flugel. Right after Shiro and Sora's coronation they claim to have said certain things to buy time from any other race invading. Yet all conflicts are to be solved with games and nowhere is it stated that they must participate. During the game with the Warbeasts, they even mention backing out after hearing the rules. So, why is everyone so afraid of being "invaded"?
Because all they're fools that take everything way much serious than it actually is? Sora and Shiro, while considering the games itself Serious Business, they're practially slackers in terms of ruling over Elchea and don't see anything wrong with taking over the world as a way to challenge Disboard's god. Why? Because they're savvy enough to know that everything is just like a game.
That doesn't answer the question though. Like previously stated, Sora and Shiro both say they declared war to keep other countries off their backs. Being genre savvy has nothing to do with why people just don't refuse so they don't lose their land in the first place. Nothing is forcing them to play the game.
But, if they don't play the game with one race (and furthermore, that race being the lowest rank, Imanity) it's like saying to the other 14 races that they're weak in a way. Others aside Imanity will come. They could refuse the game but sooner or later they'll need more resources, lands and whatnot, leaving them in a corner, dying slowly. One could say, they don't refuse to play games because of pride, greed and necessity. Pride and greed are not as stupid as it may appear. The rule states that the challenger must offer up something of equal value as he demanded of the challenged. But it's quite clear that this value is set on the standards of the challenged. This means the challenged most likely wants the prize offered by the challenger just as badly as the challenger wants to prize he demanded of the challenged. So then according to a risk-reward type of thinking, what you get out of winning the game is always going to be worth risking what you will loose. For both sides.
"reuse to play games" was actually part of Kurami's plan if she became Elchea's king. She said this to Sora. It's similar to an isolationist foreign policy.
Sora usually goes to some effort plotting and scheming to make sure that the challenged party can't refuse without disadvantaging themselves in some way that would be worse than taking the risk of playing. As for why other characters don't refuse, it's usually because someone did the same thing to them, because they're arrogant and sure of victory, or in at least one case where it was Steph, she was simply so tired and so used to needing to resolve issues via games that she just plain forgot she could refuse. Add on the simple meta reason: It's a series about playing games, there's very little reason to include a scene where someone is challenged to a game, the challenger refuses, and that's that.
The woman Sora and Shiro win money off in the first episode in a card game largely does so because she's arrogant and insulted enough by Sora's implication of her being a coward for backing out of the tournament. Steph agrees to play with Sora and Shiro numerous times largely due to either wanting payback for personal slights or defense of her grandfather's honor. Kurumi probably can't refuse their challenge to the crown due to some rule of the coronation tournament, like being unable to declare full victory so long as one other undisqualified challenger remains. Jibril was coaxed into agreeing to play with Sora and Shiro, despite not being interested in losing her library, because of the promise of over a thousand books from another world if she wins, and her being arrogant enough to think weak Imanity like Sora and Shiro could never best her at her own game. The only ones who had to really be coerced into a game were the Warbeasts. Izuna's grandfather planned on refusing their game challenge to start with, due to being nervous about what Sora and Shiro could do, but eventually relented to playing the game with them once Sora raised the stakes and reward so ridiculously high that, had he refused, it would've looked like the Warbeasts were either scared or hiding some clear cheat, as well as concern that Sora and Shiro would spread the knowledge of the game to others without the Warbeasts being able to intimidate others by being able to show how good they were at the game. As for Sora and Shiro, well, Blank never backs down from a game.
Is there a reason why the Warbeasts, at least when challenged by an Imanity, do not simply decide to play tagging, or even simpler, racing, which they should win due to their superior physical strength?
Obvious reason one: they would confirm Sora accusations with this choice. Obvious reason two: seems like Blank has a right to substitute Jibril for themselves in any challenge they take. Good luck winning against her (at least in real world).
Adding on: They specifically requested for all four of them (Sora, Shiro, Steph and Jibril) to play the game at their meeting, and we all know Jibril would destroy them.
They had no reason to believe Blank had any knowledge of what a FPS was, thus no perceived risk. It's actually a subtle example of fringe logic on Blank's part, who likely accounted for that very question.
Jibril shielding Sora, Shiro and Steph from the hydrogen bomb. While shielding Sora and Shiro made sense (she didn't want the game to end on the first move), there was no reason to protect Steph, especially since at that point Jibril cared so little about Steph that she basically said "Why don't you sit in that corner and shut up while the big people talk" in the novel (cut from the anime). If anything, you think she'd want to see what an H-bomb does to a person, seeing how she'd never seen one before.
This one's hard to find a proper explanation, but I'm just going to go out on a hunch and say that she shielded all of them out of instinct since she was taken by complete surprise. She probably didn't have enough time to notice Steph's presence and cast a shield around Sora and Shiro's general area, which fortunately included Steph.
Likely so. She probably only intended to shield Sora and Shiro intentionally. Steph just happened to be sitting close enough to them that she got protected by the bubble. (Probably also why Shiro ordered her to "sit" just before the game began, too. Had she run away, she would've likely been out of the protection radius and thus died in the starting explosion. Which means Sora and Shiro wouldn't have had her to lure away any monsters or other dangerous beasts throughout the game like they needed her for.)
In the Materialisation Shiritori game, how was Jibril using "empty headed academic" supposed to help her?
It wasn't suppose to help her. She thought she had won at that point and was saying it to gloat, since Sora and Shiro won't be able to talk either at that point. Though I am surprised that she didn't think of the high possibility that they were using it to bait her. I guess even the perfect weapon is fallible...
That tied into Sora's explanation thereafter. She was too distracted to actually think strategically, and essentially ended up reacting to everything Blank did.
Additionally, Jibril has a mad obsession with knowledge, literally drooling over new books and considering them worth more than her very life. Sora predicted, with very good reason, that if he taught her a word she didn't know before, there's no way she'd be able to resist using it as soon as the occasion presented itself.
What stops the challenged part from deciding upon a game that's impossible for the challenger to win? Nothing in the 10 pledges says that the games have to be fair or even winnable. Sure, soon no one would challenge you if you kept setting things like "being me" as a win condition for your games, but that's arguably a win in itself.
Would you agree to play a game like that?
It was covered while explaining the Warbeast game tactics. If a game seems fundamentally impossible to play, then the challenger would just refuse the game and the resulting reputation of the challenged would lead to no one challenging them in the future. Which would suck for the challenger in Disboard as it is the only form of force allowed as such a key negotiation tool.
The simple fact that the game doesn't start and become binding until all parties involved say "Aschente!" Up until that point it's all negotiation and debate. If the challenged insists on it being such a game, the challenger can withdraw at that point. This is usually why Sora lays social/political traps so that it would be just as bad for the challenged party if he dropped the challenge and went away as it would be to accept it; it means they're actually encouraged not to choose a game that would be literally impossible for Blank and company to win.
Really the only conceivable way to force someone to play an unwinnable game is if they've been backed into a corner with no choice, or if they've agreed to lose. Remember directly after becoming Elkia's rulers, Sora and Shiro proceed to wrangle the truth of the kingdom's finances and status from the lying officials by challenging them to a game of rock, paper, scissors, wherein all the officials are told they Must choose a specific move to lose and will be forced to tell the truth. Considering they work for the kingdom, they wouldn't have much of a choice. Either they choose to play to win or tie anyway, in which case there's no reward in store for such a move, or they can choose not to play at all. Which would likely result in them losing their jobs either way, as they've proven untrustworthy and disloyal to the king. But other other than a very unusual circumstance like this, there's really no scenario in which a challenged party would agree to a game they're certain to lose.
Why did the Old Dei wage war against each other to become Disboard's one true god? Were there any privileges to becoming the world's One True God? Furthermore, why did Artosh, being the strongest Old Deus, simply not declare himself as Disboard's supreme deity? He could've done so and nobody would be able to do anything about it because, well, he's Artosh.
The only reason that Tet's pledges are inviolable is because he is the One True God. Therefore, it stands to reason that this title enables its possessor to control Dishboard's reality.
Correction: It's not the title that enables this, but being in posession of the Suniaster, which is the core of the planet, an infinite source of mana, basically (not necessarily literally infinite, but for all intents and purposes), which is why they wanted it so bad. The Suniaster is also responsible for creating all of the infinite number of Old Dei
How do Sora and Shiro's electronic devices live for so long? They're in Elchea most of the time and the country isn't technologically advanced.
While I cant talk for the novel in the anime they have a solar panel charger
The first light novel also mentions that they both have solar chargers among the possessions that came with them to Disboard. Apparently despite being shut-ins they were prepped for potential power outages.
Why doesn't the second Pledge work? Obviously not every conflict has to be resolved by games, otherwise any disagreement over what constitutes equal value would be delegated to a game instead of haggled over and that's just off the top of my head.
Two reasons. First, most likely because the Covenants as people are familiar with them are just meant to convey Tet's intent for them, not outline the entirety of their function... it's to give the general idea, rather than tacking on a bunch of stuff like "Oh having an argument over what color panties is cutest is okay." Second, resolving a conflict via pledging a game with "Aschente!" is the only way to make that resolution utterly and completely binding; any conflict that isn't settled in this way can be assumed to be still in progress and the parties involved simply either came to a non-binding resolution and set it aside or are still in conflict over it. The conflict only becomes truly settled if one of them plays a game to determine the outcome of the conflict and the other wins.
Why hasn't anyone bet things like skill, luck or proficiency in magic? I mean betting for 1% of an elf's ability to use magic would at least give you a rudimentary magic sense. And if you beat a fairly small number of the higher ranked Exeeds you'd still be a better magic user than most of the lower ranked ones. Or if you bet one percent of your luck against one percent of someone else's luck and won it'd be an exponential curve of winning at fifty percent of all games. Sure stuff like chess and the various word games wouldn't work but anything with an element of chance. The third pledge just seems underutilized.
The rules can't make people do something that isn't possible, such as give up something that's immaterial and give it to someone else. You can use the covenants to enforce certain behaviors on a person. You can take away a flying person's ability to fly, but you cannot grant the ability to fly to someone who cannot do so. An enforced behavior that's possible for the individual WILL be carried out regardless of any physical or magical limitations placed on them by something else, like when Steph shot Izuna even though she was dominated by Izuna. But that's still within the confines of what is physically possible. Similarly, to forget about something is as simple as forcing someone to not remember.
This is pretty clearly not true. Materialisation Shiritori is shown to be able to warp reality to the degree of removing fundamental physical laws, in addition to one of the first effects being the removal of Jabril's spirit circuits. The rules of the game stipulated that everything would return to normal, but removing and adding matter is controlled by the magic blue gem, which was also used to facilitate Memory Stealing Othello, so the capacity to remove or add magic circuits exists and thus it could be wagered.
Materialization Shiratori wasn't using the effects of the Covenants to play, it was using a Flugel device to create what was basically a virtual reality pocket dimension. The light novels say outright that you very specifically cannot use the Covenants to make someone do the impossible, and spend a part of a chapter demonstrating this. Text and Word of God has spoken.
You cannot, say, tell someone with brown hair to suddenly make their hair grow out green, because it's biologically impossible. But you Could tell them "from now on you'll have green hair", and they'd probably be forced to go out and dye their hair green or get a green wig. The reason people in Disboard have magic is noted to be internal spirits, spirit circuits, or other such things that are part of their bodies. No more than you could order someone to grow a sixth finger, you couldn't order someone to gain what's not there. And you can't exactly Make someone get luckier, because luck is an uncontrollable force of the universe that cannot be quantified in a person. Skill, however, is one thing that Could be affected. Though not instantly. Ordering someone to get better at, say, cooking, could result in them suddenly gaining the drive to go out to study and practice and learn until they've improved their ability to cook to a level that satisfied the order.
During his rematch with Kurami, why did Sora need to pull a super risky move by letting his existence get erased and banking entirely on Shiro to finish the match? Yes, he's trying to give his memories to Kurami to prove his innocence, but couldn't he just play a normal game with his winning condition being "both parties must share their memories with each other"? Way to traumatize your sister, Sora.
Presumably because he needed the wager for the bet- the ability to make two demands of the losing party- for the next stage of his plan. While the first was keeping the memories they got from each other, the second was the ability to alter Feel's memories so she could give a false report to Elven Gard.
What exactly did Sora learn from the former king's diary, apart from the fact that the king actually had a plan when he futilely challenged the Warbeasts eight times? Sora deduces that the Warbeasts are using Cold Reading because he does so himself, the fact that they wipe people's memories of the game is evident from Jibril's account, and Sora still goes into the game blind and doesn't expect that he'd wind up in Tokyo. The story makes a big deal about how important the intelligence was, but Sora is never shown using it.
There's likely more in the diary that we didn't hear him say because the anime wouldn't have him read the entire old man's diary aloud. The King probably wrote descriptions in the book of what the game was. Even if he didn't have the exact words to describe it, Sora and Shiro would have probably been able to easily confirm from his writings that the game the warbeasts were challenging them to was a virtual reality FPS video game, even if the content of the game is different. Considering the name of the game is "Love or Loved 2" there's probably different versions of the game, and its possible the Warbeasts made sequels or the game is a series. So the version of the game that the former King played may not have taken place in a metropolitan city, which is why the environment took them by surprise
Why is Pledge #10, which asks everyone to have fun playing games, listed after Pledge #9, which states the previous pledges are irrevocable? Wouldn't that mean Pledge #9's rule of irrevocability doesn't apply to Pledge #10?
You can't Force someone to have fun in a game, and no one is really having fun when they have no other choice. You can play a game all you like and still be miserable, like how Izuna was too worried about her people's future to possibly consider their game fun for the majority of it. Tet's whole aim is to have a challenger finally approach him to play a good game, and only the people who really understand the 10th Pledge could have a hope of getting close enough to challenge him. Who wants to play with a spoilsport who isn't enjoying the game on the same level as you, after all.
◊. Not could she force a checkmate. It ended as a checkmate for Jibril. Why is it treated as victory? Same for their Othello/Reversi game
