Alright, for your second theory, all the support you have is the fact that it takes months to produce the red eye. There's no evidence that shows any connection other than what is at best, very flimsy support and with no other evidence in the series proper, that seems to be nothing other a coincidence at best and and a theory based on absolutely nothing at worst. Fridge Brilliance it doesn't make.
As for your first and third theory, given the rest of the plot, both of those theories make absolutely no sense whatsoever narratively and are countered by the other parts of the story. So once again, not fridge brilliance.
Is... is THAT what you are saying?
Your second theory is dependant on your first theory, which does not have adequate proof and is as I've stated countered by the show itself. Also, there's anime that can say whatever they want and we just accept that. Cowboy Bebop is not one of them. There are exaggerations in what human beings can do and the science, but that's part of the genre standards which Cowboy Bebop is in. Just saying "it's anime, so anything goes" doesn't do jack shit for your argument.
Imagine Rakan applying Calling Your Attacks to doing paperwork.~Anarchy Rakan for the hell of it COMMISSION THIS BRIDGE!~EHK"As for your first and third theory, given the rest of the plot, both of those theories make absolutely no sense whatsoever narratively and are countered by the other parts of the story. So once again, not fridge brilliance."
What parts of the plot explicitly counter the theory that Gren is Julia (Exposition ABOUT julia, BY gren, doesn't count, because he/she could be talking in third person.
Seriously, I would like to know.
"Your second theory is dependant on your first theory, which does not have adequate proof and is as I've stated countered by the show itself."
And how does the show counter it?
"There are exaggerations in what human beings can do and the science, but that's part of the genre standards which Cowboy Bebop is in."
Dude, it's a Science Fictiony story... Unless you want to start talking about hyperspace, the deltaV requirements of the Bebop and it's power source for escaping earths gravity well, BLOWING UP THE MOON, Fung Shui making holes in hyperspace, And the *EXISTENCE* of "Bullet Time" drugs, then I don't think we should be going into the "What is realistic" mode of discussion in the first place.
Yes, it's meant to look as realistic as it possibly can... but most of that stuff isn't Real, and you KNOW IT.
-Edrick
edited 23rd Jul '11 2:17:09 PM by Edrick
Seriously, I would like to know.
Let's see, there's always the fact that Gren died. And don't give me that he survived that. The point of internal bleeding narratively and coughing up blood is a cue that someone is horribly injured, so that's one point. Secondly, there's the point that Gren asks to go back to titan one last time. In most cases, given the tone of the story and there's no reason Bebop should be an exception to this rule, Gren knows he's going to die and asks Spike for a last request, so that's shorthand for us to know that Gren is dying. Then we get the recap from Bull that parallels the start of Jupiter Jazz part one. Given gren's situation, it's supposed to symbolize Gren's death as the statement fits Gren well. There would be no point for that scene if Gren wasn't dead. I mean, that's like symbolism 101.
Then there's the fact that Gren is implied to have succumbed to his injuries before spike even releases his spaceship towards Titan,as he's shown with his yes closed looking serenely before spike releases the tow cables. That by itself wouldn't be enough, but we also have the whole internal bleeding and coughing up blood which is pretty good support that he's dead by that point or about to die.
Also there's no point for Gren to talk in the third person given everything we know about his character, so That claim makes no sense whatsoever. Also, in the Japanese, Gren uses the pronoun Boku when speaking, which is a male pronoun in japanese so there's no reason for us to think he's Julia. If they wanted to make it ambiguous, they would have used gender ambiguous pronoun, like how Crona's Gender is ambiguous.
And finally, the hormone distortion that Gren went under caused him to grow boobs. That's semi-realistically based on how drugs that effect the hormones cause affect the body. However there's no indication that Gren in fact grew a Vag or uterus, so it would be physically impossible for him to menustrate. There's no drug that can do that. Cowboy Bebop is definitely not completely realistic, but it makes it clear when the show is going for a realistic feel. Also, Faye looks at Green crotch after seeing that Gren has boobs and asks "Which one are you?", which of course implies that Gren has a penis. Which is further support that Gren doesn't have a vagina and can't menstruate.
See above.
Yes, it's meant to look as realistic as it possibly can... but most of that stuff isn't Real, and you KNOW IT.
And and FLCL is a science fiction story too. And yet between them, there are a vast number of difference. There are different genres within science fiction and just because they fall under the catch all of Science fiction doesn't mean when should have different expectations about what stretches willing suspension of disbelief within those shows. And let's see, minus the Feng shui bit, which I'll admit stretches my WSD, everything you listed is either a staple of Science fiction or fiction in general.
The hyperspace, the ship requirements for the Bebop and it's power source are unrealistic, but are necessary for the setting to work. I wouldn't call Bebop speculative fiction, like Star Trek is, but it does take elements from that genre that would be necessary for the whole space bounty hunters thing. The bullet time drug is of course not realistic, but like speculative fiction, takes elements from reality, which is the time distortion effect that people feel in stressful situation. The whole moon thing, while definitely unrealistic, falls under the category of Applied Phlebotinum.
And of course I know it isn't real, but as I mentioned there are are certain elements that we accept as unrealistic and yet we do not question it because of the setting of the show, it's tone, genre and our own willing suspension of disbelief. Menstrual blood being used as a doping agent is not one of those and as I've said before, the show gives us no indication to assume that the people in the series have found a way to use it as such. So yeah, Occam's Razor.
edited 5th Aug '11 2:47:51 AM by Thenamelesssamurai
Imagine Rakan applying Calling Your Attacks to doing paperwork.~Anarchy Rakan for the hell of it COMMISSION THIS BRIDGE!~EHKJust to nitpick: boku isn't exclusively male. Some women use it in casual company (some even use ore when it's 'just us girls', from what I've heard), and in anime there're so many girls who refer to themselves as boku that there's an entire moe trope for it.
That said, it'd be out of character for Julia to use it as Gren and then switch over to watashi later on.
edited 23rd Jul '11 3:37:17 PM by FurikoMaru
A True Lady's Quest - A Jojo is You!@Thenamelesssamurai
Well, thank you for taking the time to actually Respond in a rational manner, as opposed to some other tropers here...
"Let's see, there's always the fact that Gren died. And don't give me that he survived that."
Considering the extent of some of spikes injuries sustained during the series, I'd say that it is entirely within the realm of plausibility.
"Then we get the recap from Bull that parallels the start of Jupiter Jazz part one."
That a warrior has "Finished his battles in this world, and is on to the next?"
Bull isn't exactly one for spelling things out specifically... it could have been a metaphor:
Kid: What warrior is it? Laughing Bull: A lost soul who has finished his battles somewhere on this planet. A pitiful soul who could not find his way to the lofty realm where the great spirit awaits us all.
IT COULD be a metaphor for death, but it COULD also be a more literal interpretation that he DIDN'T die.
"Then there's the fact that Gren is implied to have succumbed to his injuries before spike even releases his spaceship towards Titan, as he's shown with his yes closed looking serenely before spike releases the tow cables."
Yeah, I'll give you that... but it still isn't really an implicit declaration of death, and I have heard it said before that if you don't KNOW they are dead... then they may not be.
"Also there's no point for Gren to talk in the third person given everything we know about his character"
We also don't know that much about his character to actually make that determination, especially if he is somewhat desirous of maintaining his gender façade, it is possible that an attempt to hide it is being made.
it seems like the logical thing to do if one were in that situation.
"And finally, the hormone distortion that Gren went under caused him to grow boobs. That's semi-realistically based on how drugs that effect the hormones cause affect the body."
Yes, but there is also heavily implied that Callisto had a peculiar atmospheric effect that actually turned women INTO men.
The entirely male population, the transgendered hookers....
"However there's no indication that Gren in fact grew a Vag or uterus, so it would be physically impossible for him to menustrate."
No, there is no Direct indication of this, you are correct, but I disagree that the story actually contradicts this.
"Also, Faye looks at Green crotch after seeing that Gren has boobs and asks "Which one are you?", which of course implies that Gren has a penis. Which is further support that Gren doesn't have a vagina and can't menstruate."
Well, he also states that he arrived on Callisto several months ago, and "Met Julia" (I am still convinced that he is stretching the truth to cover himself) MY hypothesis is that the atmospheric effects that deprived callisto of women are somewhat slow working. And since there is not really a SOLID indication of elapsed time in between each episode of the series, there could have been months for any changes to manifest.
"Menstrual blood being used as a doping agent is not one of those and as I've said before, the show gives us no indication to assume that the people in the series have found a way to use it as such."
Okay, here's where I feel that there may have been some misscommunication.
It is not my assertion that menstral blood IS a drug, but that the procedure that was preformed on gren is what CAUSES his transformation, and that gives his blood these properties.
I am saying that the hormone procedure that was preformed on gren (by an interesting con-job / blackmail from vicious, mind you) was to turn gren into a drug producing factory. By messing his hormones up in a specific way that causes his "Menstral Blood" to have specific narcotic properties, maybe some engineered form of adrenaline or something.
"Also, in the Japanese, Gren uses the pronoun Boku when speaking"
Which is exactly what he WOULD do, if he were attempting to not draw attention to his condition.
Again, thank you for the *actual* discussion on the topic.
-Edrick (How do I quote text?)
I think Cowboy Bebop is quite a straightforward, unpretentious anime with a simple yet elegant story format. I don't think most usual radical WM Gs fit it well at all.
And that's a big part of its charm in this time and age.
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I'm doing a marathon of Bebop, so I'm going to watch those two episodes again before I respond to make sure I have my facts straight. Is that agreeable?
QFT. No matter how many times Raw Power tried to argue otherwise (about it being pretentious I mean).
Imagine Rakan applying Calling Your Attacks to doing paperwork.~Anarchy Rakan for the hell of it COMMISSION THIS BRIDGE!~EHKMassive post incoming. Fair warning.
The entirely male population, the transgendered hookers....
Okay, I'm going to start with this one first, since It seems to be a big part of your argument. I believe you are making a mistake here and it's playing a large part in your argument. There was never something implied about the atmosphere of Callisto of women becoming men. Yes you're right that there is an all male population and the cross dressing hookers, but that doesn't say that there is something about the atmosphere, just the fact that women don't live there.
There could be any number of reasons for that. It is stated to be an economically depressed planet, which seems to have mostly low paying jobs. So there's not a lot of economic incentive for a women to be there. There's the possibility that it was a work colony or some similar reason that there are no women there. The fact could be that it just fucking cold and almost no one except the those trying to hide or are down on their luck go there. The bartender mentions that this is mostly a place for outlaws and vagabonds, so it's not really the kind of place you'd bring a women to. The only reason Julia had to go there is the fact that she was on the run anyway, but we know too little about Julia to really speculate.
And lastly, as I said the show gives no indication about the atmosphere having anything to do with the male population. To use an example you used for something unrealistic in Bebop, let's work with Wen and the Gate explosion in episode 6. In the episode the reason for Wen's unrealistic situation and condition is explained through Applied Phlebotinum and are brought up in series. For another unrealistic example, take episode 11. It goes through the possibilities of a mutated animal or alien for the thing that's biting them and lampshade it. It's a less serious example, but the show still brings it to the audience's attention. This leads to my ultimate point for this paragraph, which is tat if what was really happening was that the atmosphere was somehow changing women into men, it would be brought to the audiences attention and given some sort of handwave or the like, but since the show does not, we have no reason to assume the atmosphere turns women into men. The hookers are just there because they are gay men who chose prostitution as a profession and happen to be into cross dressing. Honestly the whole Julius/Julia thing seemed to be a joke to that relied on Spike's reaction to that situation. That and it sets up the information gathering that eventually leads Spike to vicious on Callisto.
Already covered the whole atmosphere turning women into men thing. That and if the process was slow going, I really think the (other) bartender would have mentioned the fact that Julia was gradually becoming more manly and not just say she disappeared two years ago when Jet was questioning him for information about Faye. And Julia showed up two years ago according to the show, so Gren's been there for much longer than a couple of months.
No, there is no Direct indication of this, you are correct, but I disagree that the story actually contradicts this.
I'd say the implication is strong enough for us to infer that conclusion without direct evidence.
it seems like the logical thing to do if one were in that situation.
Both of these counter arguments rely on the assumption that Gren is Julia and he is lying about his gender or otherwise obscuring the truth. You're trying to prove that Gren is Julia with an argument that relies on them being the same in the first place. That's circular logic and is a logical fallacy. That's not going to work if you're to try to argue that position.
Granted, I might have used the wrong word when I said character, but we catch a decent glimpse of his basic personality. He makes a point of spilling his whole back story to Faye when he's known her for a short time and Faye chastises him for telling her all this personal information about himself when he going off to die. With his interactions with Vicious, he asks him straight forwardly about Titan. Given what we see of his personality, we see a straight forward, pretty honest guy, so we really have no reason to assume he's lying, because that contradicts what we see through his actions.
3 things: Fair enough, Spike has survived a lot of shit in this series, but that doesn't mean much for your argument. When Spike was thrown out of the cathedral, he relaxed his body to that there would be any tension when in his muscles when he impacted the ground. The tension in muscles is what causes the most damage when you impact a hard surface. Yes we don't see it happen, but it's a logical assumption, so there's a reason spike didn't die. 2) While spike did take a lot of damage that could be debilitating, but his team mates were always nearby or close enough to be on their way, from what I can remember, so he had access to medical treatment. Gren refused medical treatment and Gren had an internal injury that was making him cough up blood. He wouldn't be able to survive being that injured without medical treatment (Not to say this is true in every case, but there's a reason why Spike wanted to call the paramedics). There's also the shorthand I mentioned last post for it being a common way to show someone is gravely injured int the genres Bebop takes influence from. And 3) Spike is the main protagonist, so he kind of has Plot Armor.
Bull isn't exactly one for spelling things out specifically... it could have been a metaphor:
Kid: What warrior is it? Laughing Bull: A lost soul who has finished his battles somewhere on this planet. A pitiful soul who could not find his way to the lofty realm where the great spirit awaits us all.
IT COULD be a metaphor for death, but it COULD also be a more literal interpretation that he DIDN'T die.
Thing is, the whole star symbolism comes back at the end and is understood to be about death, so if it's used here and not used as a metaphor for death, but is used as such later, that means the symbolism is inconsistent and that doesn't make any sense. Also, there's not a lot of reason to include that scene if your trying to show that Gren is not dead. There are better more effective tropes for showing that someone is still alive after they are supposed to be dead. Again unless the show gives a cue or something of the like that Gren is still alive, There's no reason to suspect that gren survived that.
So what you're saying basically is that Gren is Schrödinger's Cat, because just because we don't see him get a death rattle, there's a chance of him being alive? I'm not buying that at all.
Also if you want to put something in quoteblocks, it's [[ quoteblock ]] Text you want quoted [[ /quoteblock ]]. Just get rid of the spaces between the brackets and text.
edited 5th Aug '11 7:16:01 AM by Thenamelesssamurai
Imagine Rakan applying Calling Your Attacks to doing paperwork.~Anarchy Rakan for the hell of it COMMISSION THIS BRIDGE!~EHKMe? Nah. I just couldn't sleep last night/today for some reason, so I typed a ridiculously long reply to be 1) as comprehensive as possible and 2) to try to deal with my boredom.
Did I come off as frustrated?
Imagine Rakan applying Calling Your Attacks to doing paperwork.~Anarchy Rakan for the hell of it COMMISSION THIS BRIDGE!~EHK

Wow, this thread is stupid.
Always, somewhere, someone is fighting for you. As long as you remember them, you are not alone.