Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ll be returning to The Big O, as Roger continues to unravel the secrets of Paradigm. Well, I certainly hope Roger unravels some secrets, because at the moment, we’re actually some distance ahead of him in terms of our understanding of this world.
In episode ten, we learned that there are still human civilizations beyond Paradigm, and that Paradigm’s alleged city council all ultimately answers to one man. In eleven, we learned that that man is well aware of Christmas’ pre-amnesia cultural significance, yet chooses instead to frame it as a secular city festival. Given his awareness of humanity’s culture both pre-amnesia and outside Paradigm’s walls, it seems reasonable to assume that Paradigm’s monarch is enforcing a policy of strict information control – and beyond that, that he might even be responsible for Paradigm’s amnesia in the first place.
If he’s attempting to create a private kingdom, provoking a wave of mass amnesia is certainly a great way to start. While we generally think of confinement in terms of physical barriers, the most robust imprisonment is generally imprisonment of the mind – total inculcation into a specific way of thinking, or denial of the education that might inspire someone to question their circumstances. While we can rage against injustices we can define, if we can’t conceive of a world beyond our own, we tend to accept our circumstances as simply “the way it is.” By collectively frying Paradigm’s memory, a dedicated tyrant could reshape its society into whatever shape they choose, and fill in the blank slates of its populace with a wellspring of comforting propaganda.
So that’s probably not good. But as I said, Roger wasn’t actually there for most of the scenes that revealed this information – he’s currently some distance behind the audience, and I’m not exactly sure what use that dramatic irony could serve. For the moment, let’s quit with the conjecture, and find out what secrets the city will offer next!