Hunter X Hunter

Was it explicitly a nuke? I mean, it was obviously patterned after nuclear bombs, but can we assume that the properties will be completely the same?

It wasn't a nuke. It was a nuke analogue, but it's clearly a fantasy nuke equivalent, rather than the real thing. Whether it produces radiation has not been addressed, but unless it is addressed, I think the default assumption should be that it doesn't, given the Law of Conservation of Detail, and that it wasn't mentioned in the first place.

I'd just like to add that aside from the royal guards, most ants don't have any real loyalty to the king. Including Pitou, there are now only five ants loyal to him, one of which is a mindless drone, and two are currently unconscious.

Other still living ants: Ikaruga and Meleron, Koruto's peaceful colony back in NGL, and two division commanders who never joined the king and royal guards.

Desertopa: Yeah, that's exactly what I thought.

I doubt that these other ants (non-royal guard ants) would be as tasty as Pitou or Yupi. I bet there will be a scene where the king eats one of them and then spits it out in disgust. And then he goes crazy because there's nothing good in the world left to eat!

edited 5th Mar '10 2:22:10 PM by Yuen

New Chapter, everyone!

Gon has the others take Komugi hostage, and intends to force Pitou to heal Kaito. That's actually a pretty good plan, but Gon's still scaring the hell out of me.

... is it just me, or is Gon one of the most frightening Kid Hero Messiah archetypes ever? <.<

He's this close to being a Deconstruction, IMHO.

Is he supposed to be a Messiah archetype? I always thought of him as being innocent, in the sense of "has not yet developed a proper sense of morality."

That's an interesting point, although the setting is difficult to develop a proper sense of morality in.

Early on he seemed rather amoral in that he didn't seem to care how utterly violent and depraved some of the people he met were, but later events starting in York Shin imply that he really hates the hypocrisy of caring for some but not others. Either kill everyone or love everyone, but as soon as soon you start playing favorites he'll hate you.

And then Kite died, which really changed him in ways that I'm not too sure about yet. It's hard to tell if what he's feeling is moral outrage or just normal outrage. Recent events imply he's still hung up on hypocrisy though.

edited 15th Mar '10 7:23:00 PM by Clarste

I'd say his current outrage is far too terrifying and irrational to be considered moral outrage.

You know, that raises an interesting question. Is Gon actually The Messiah archetype? If you'd asked me before it was questioned, I'd have pretty much said yes without thinking about it much. After all, we've got the whole Determinator Friend to All Living Things who wields The Power of Friendship like a bludgeon (... well, not quite to the same degree as Nanoha, but still...) going for him- we even get a Green Thumb scene during the Battle Tower arc, and he'd quite willingly die for any one of his Nakama.

On the other hand, his Incorruptible Pure Pureness is... naive, almost dumb at times, this latest rage is more creepy than righteous, and there are rather strong hints that he's not quite as nice as everybody thinks he is.

... having written all that out, I'm wondering if he's more a force-of-nature analogue than a Messianic Archetype >.>

He's a Deconstructed Trope, I think.

It makes me wonder what his father is like... and if they're alike I'd hate to see him angry because he's one of the top five nen users in the world, I bet he could curb stomp the ant king if he felt like it.

^I highly doubt that. There's no way he's out of Netero's (who was weaker than Meryem) league, since Netero was said to be the strongest fighter in the world, and now that Meryem's absorbed Yupi and Pufu, he'll be stronger than ever. Even if Gin could beat Meryem, he couldn't do so easily.

Netero was proclaimed the strongest fighter in the world some sixty years ago. Nen powers slow the effects of aging, but he said himself that he wasn't as strong as he was at his peak. There are probably other characters out there who are at least as strong as Netero, if not stronger.

edited 16th Mar '10 10:05:55 AM by Desertopa

Yes, yes. But Netero was definitely way up there, meaning it's unlikely that Gin could curb stomp Meryem.

edited 16th Mar '10 11:07:03 AM by Gilphon

If he could, I think someone would have found a way to contact him. The Chimaera Ant situation is simply too dire to not use the best resources at their disposal.

What mystifies me, though, is the way they misused Zeno. I mean, they went through the trouble of contacting and hiring him for the mission, but only hired him to do two attacks, despite Netero knowing he probably couldn't beat Meryem on his own? Where's the logic there?

@ Adoltin: Ging= Yusuke.

I thought it was weird that they hired Zeno to do so little too, but maybe he refuses to take any mission where he feels there's a substantial chance of his getting killed? I think he's in it for the money rather than the glory, so it would be a sensible policy.

Also keep in mind that Netero was revealed to be sort of a Blood Knight, so it's possible he wanted to keep it one-on-one in order to test himself.

I doubt they can just contact Gin whenever they want because of his reputation and power, but if things get too dire it would be interesting to see the top 5 battle the king

That would take away a lot of material that could be used for future arcs though.

One thing everyone else seems to have assumed, which I'm not to sure about, is that Meryem is now even stronger than he was before. Yes, he's consumed most or all of two royal guards, but he was also a withered husk before that. We can't be sure it was even enough to reconstitute him, let alone make him stronger than he already was.

Desertopa raises a good point.