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In true sports anime fashion, we can’t conclude a climactic battle without a flashback. Remember that time Subaru had to fight the mind-controlled Ginga? It’s kinda like that.
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In true sports anime fashion, we can’t conclude a climactic battle without a flashback. Remember that time Subaru had to fight the mind-controlled Ginga? It’s kinda like that.
Vivid Translations 
Jail: I would disagree about the morals. He might thing he has them, but his moral compass is mostly about the science and anything that gets in the way of him obtaining the results he wants gets stomped no matter what morality of the other people says, so he might as well be imoral. The only moral rule in his compass is more science is good, which is the only case where he is willing to sacrifice his life. And I hated his guts by the end. Not as much as Quattro but I did not like him at all.
Also he is unlike previous Nanoha antagonists who were human but broken in some way. His way of thinking is frankly alien.
For example him using non lethal (tell that to Ginga who Numbers butchered or other Forwards to whom Wendy gloats about how she can kill them) during the Conference siege, is not really him caring for the lives of the TSAB personnel as using it to thumb his nose at TSAB. His speech was about how his drones, which are technically a mass based tech weapons, backed up with his cyborgs (which also mostly use mass powers I think?) defeated the best TSAB could throw at them (no they didn’t really but Jail never lets fact stand in the way of self aggrandizement) all the while using nonlethal means, which means TSAB’s ban on mass based tech to protect the society is false.
Quattro didn’t really erase the personality of all the Cyborgs. Jail didn’t want them too emotional and never really bothered on the emotions department with them. After all Wendy and Sein are numbers and neither is really logical. What Quattro is to blame for is probably the Sette and her complete lack of personality.
Sein earned my ire through her hax powers that were mercilessly used by the writers to enforce the plot status quo until Jail had all of his powers lined up for the crescendo. Think how things might have turned out had Lutecia been captured and talked to? Or Cinque?
Dieci: I think they intended for her to have always been a bit more moral than the rest, because she asks about Vivio’s safety if she shoots down the helicopter. But this did not work for me and neither did her misgivings in the throne room. Great job Dieci, you are quesy after assisting with a horrendous operation on a kid while she terrifically screamed her head off.
Artificial Mage Team: I wouldn’t call them Jail’s. At best they are outside contractors. The most aligned of all of them with Jail is Lutecia since she is a easily impressed and manipulated kid. Zest and Agito meanwhile trust Jail as far as they can throw the Cradle bare handed.
Lutecia: I don’t think Quattro really did anything to her before flipping the switch in the finale. She has a clear motive and is basically a less scrupulous Fate from the first Season.
Zest: Well people are trying to manipulate him, but they are mainly doing this by feeding him screwed info and by the High Council promising to protect Lutecia. And the effects of the manipulation are hardly visible given that even without that he still would have wanted answers from Regius. He is DEFINITELY NOT Jail’s ally and is mostly in his mind using the confusion to go after the bigger fish, the potential actual source of the crysis, the man that might be responsible for Jail getting the funding and his team dying. Jail is a criminal in his mind but ranks just a step below a potentially corrupted friend that is a high official in TSAB, and the possibility that the corruption is more widespread. We see that in the finale where as soon as he fails to clear things up with Regius, he switches to the next target/objective on his list, bringing Jail down and protecting/taking in Lutecia.
Regius: I actually tend to go easy on old Reggie. Was he an biased asshole? Categorically YES! But was he evil or doing this for himself? No. He truly wanted the same thing RF6 to protect the people of Midchilda. His problem was that he had unscrupulous superiors and his forces REALLY needed an edge. So he supported the cyborg program, which I might add even the cast say is not a bad idea except that it kind of doesn’t work. Also his program that he initially supported failed and only later did Jail come along and improve upon it. And Jail was no his creature. He is High Council’s creature born from the biological science research the HC was interested in (probably to extend their lifes and create an ultimate leader) and it was they that created him and then foisted him on Regius to work on Reggie’s project.
He also truly did seem to be badly surprised by Jail’s gloating about how his cyborgs managed to defeat Zest (I would even wager Jail was doing this deliberately knowing Zest was his friend) since it was never his intention to kill his friend.
In a way he is a tragic opponent more in line with previous flawed but human antagonists. Sadly they did not really give him justice in the show because his entire subplot was the part of investigation and with the cutting of that most of his things went away.
I’m actually sad him and Zest died and Jail and Quattro survived.
The High Council: Ehh the show really did not do them well I think, and stuck them with a bad case of holding the idiot ball since the only time we do see them they are doing something stupid. I don’t think they were stupid, since these are the same people that kicktarted the formation of TSAB and getting even some of the powers that be to let go of their mass weapons during constant wars between Belkan successors and colonies could not have been easy. They did seem to work well for the last 150 years because TSAB was still here, so I think they simply critically misjudged Jail and how far he would go in his defiance of them. Still does not absolve them from brain splattering idiocy of having anything to do with any project with the name such as “Unlimited Desire”.
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Compared to mea you are being really concise since my section on them is a rambling 3000 words long so I should not be posting it here.
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Jail does not just think that he has morals – he genuinely does possess his own moral code. The problem is that his moral code is not particularly compatible with the conventional moral code of Mid-Childa, and especially that his motivation of FOR SCIENCE overrides just about all other concerns. Precia had her Alicia, Jail has his science. Part of the reason this does not come through clearly is that he is rarely shown in a situation where that would matter. I find it hard to see him as a one-dimensional monster – mostly I regard him as a victim of the council (the true villains of the piece).
The biggest thing that is shown to keep him from becoming a complete, one-dimensional monster is the main difference shown between him and Quattro. Whilst he will happily do horrible things to people, he needs a reason to do so – she, on the other hand, would need a reason NOT to. I also do not buy your explanation about the conference siege, either – slaughtering them in the heart of the Bureau’s land side power would be a more effective way of thumbing his nose at the TSAB charged with protecting them. Judging from his little speech to Fate later, it seems more likely that he does not kill TSAB personnel (at least, not many) because he regards them as valuable (or at least, potentially so). Between his overriding obsession and lack of screen time, however, it is difficult to see past the mad man’s masque.
The main point I was trying to make in my previous comment was that Jail’s moral centre is weak, not entirely absent as many seem to assume, and usually subservient to his scientific obsessions. It’s just unfortunate that his moral code gets about as much screen time as Hayate’s political ambitions.
The council, on the other hand, actually made Jail what he is. It is left ambiguous as to whether they found and altered him, or just created him from scratch, but they deliberately forced upon him an overwhelming passion for science (especially bio-manipulation technology and lost logia), attempted to erase his moral centre (reasonably effective but incomplete – see above) and infused him with unspecified insanity. I think being stuck as jars watching from the shadows has divorced them from the society they watch over. They no longer understand the world they are trying to manipulate, relying on intermediaries that ultimately are not enough. They are the root of the ‘evil’ in this scenario – the ones who actually had a choice.
R.E. Quattro’s project on the numbers, see Manga chapter 12 (page 13). she states that she has been monitoring the last 8 and conducted a project concerning the removal of all “Excess Elements” from the last three, whilst lamenting that two of those three (Otto and Deed) still have too many excess emotions. It is implied that she was doing something to all 8 (whether psychological warfare or cybernetic lobotomy is never stated) but only really went to town on the last three. Otto, Deed and Sette. Especially Sette. There is no indication that Jail actively tried to mould or create their personalities – he may well have been more interested in monitoring their natural growth.
Sein changed the plot, I won’t argue that. Lucetia mass teleporting everyone as soon as she got a minutes breathing space had a similar effect.
Dieci’s growth did work for me – before we see her, she has only ever been targeting pixels on her training monitor, maybe the odd target drone. There is a big difference between seeing a blob wink out on a target screen and coming face to face with the wreckage left behind – it is the sort of reaction soldiers new to the battlefield have experience throughout history. Right up to the “If I stop now the enemy will slaughter us all” reaction she has at the end. As I point out in my generic Numbers section, they have been raise (or perhaps indoctrinated) to believe that they are incapable of having their own dreams. As illegal machines, they also have good reason to believe that it will not end well for them if they yield. We can see from a privileged perspective – the Numbers don’t have that much data.
Given that Lutecia admits to amnesia and an inability to feel, and we know that Jail has been messing around with her, I doubt the ‘Consideration Console’ is the limit of the alteration to her mind. Quattro seems like the most likely candidate (given that she definitely did that to three of the Numbers at the very least) but the reverse could also be true (Lutecia’s modifications inspired her to modify her younger siblings). At the very least, Lutecia seems to be suffering from an understandable level of psychological trauma.
Regarding Zest’s decision to go after Jail once he finished with Regius – don’t forget that this came after Due murdered Zest’s close friend (Regius) and announced that he had ‘served his purpose’ (by distracting the victim) implying that Jail had set the whole thing up (making him culpable for the earlier deaths as well). That does not imply that he had always intended to chase Jail next – only that his understanding of the situation had changed.
We cannot say how strong Mid-Childa was before Regius’ rise to power – we only have his word for it that things became safer. Even early in his climb to power, he is snapping at his closest friend over the issue – it seems that he just stopped apologising after he started climbing. He became fixated on his particular goals, rejecting all alternatives or problems as “They just don’t understand”. There was no way that wouldn’t end in tears. Being happy to hire an actively criminal genius whilst objecting to Hayate’s penal sentence (and subsequent service) just struck me as especially hypocritical.
The only unscrupulous superiors we see are the High Council – everyone else either reports to him or is trying to counter his less-than-scrupulous plans. He also did not seem at all bothered by Jail’s gloating – until he saw the picture of his friend’s corpse. Not caring if your force looses knights but suddenly growing a heart when it turns out to be your best friend is not the mark of benevolence. At the end though, after he sees Regius coming for him, he suddenly seems to realise what he has actually done and resign himself to Fate. That is what truly makes him human to me.
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Concision, on the other hand, is a well practised gift of mine (blame the screwed up school system I was forced through). It often causes problems, however, as I say a lot between the lines that does not come through to everyone.
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Jail: That is why I consider his moral system allien.
You are correct about the difference between him and Quattro though.
If he had done the slaughter it would have sent the opposide idea than he wanted to. In that case TSAB would have swept this all under the propaganda idea of “Mass weapons be dangerous yo, so don’t be using them”. He wants that restriction gone, along the rest of the restrictions on research. Therefore it is important to show that his devices are as effective and nonlethal as magic. And sweep under the rug the simple fact that to take down/capture anyone not suprised by gass Numbers had to inflict grevious and cripling harm.
Yes the Council is the blame as far as they made him is concerned. I think he was made, considering they do tell us he was a product of a Project Unlimited Desire, in which as you say they were planning to create probably an ultimate bio-science researcher unburdened by human morality. Which would line up with their interests into bio research.
Quattro: Yeah, while she has done an unspecified amount of work on the last three (which is probably not a lot considering how young they are) it’s only Sette that she has really messed up.
And yeah Jail doesn’t really care what they think as long as they are efficient at carrying out his orders.
It could be that that is the case with Lutecia. It’s just that all the in universe explanations I have seen char it up to her being sad about he rmother, and determined to help her at any cost.
Zest: I hardly think he was going to stand by and let Jail go if he had his plate clear. He clearly doesn’t want to help him in any way and is only cooperating wtih his plans to a) Help Lutecia and Megane and b) take down the person that betrayed them.
Regius: Oh I’m not arguing he was a good person. He had an abrasive personality of an ASSHOLE and a demagogue. Still doesn’t mean he was not right and the problems he was trying to solve weren’t important.
As for his effectivness, we don’t have just his word. Pretty much everyone from HQ INCLUDING one of the Legendary Admirals does respect him for his actions on the field of keeping peace on Mid. That was never a debatable thing with them. And in the flashbacks Zest doesn’t feel like he dissagrees with Regius that there is a problem with crime, it’s just that Dimensional crime takes precedence over local stuff. Was he also not a nice person during his campaigning? Sure, but neighter are most of the politicians but they still might have positive goals that they want achieved.
What was wierding Administration out and why RF6 was formed was that for some reason he was ignoring the Gadgets/AMF problem.
I don’t think he really hired Jail personally. My headcannon is that after the Council created Jail (he might have done some work for them on the cloning projects and like) they sent him Regius’s way to help him with his combat cyborg problem. So he was accepting somebody that his superiors and people everyone trusts to know what is good for TSA are sending him a scientist to help with a project he thinks is the only way to solve the problem of mage shortage. Hell in a way Jail’s research was sanctioned by TSAB* and he was part of it all the way untill the GFHQ strike and the rise of the Cradle.
Was it ethical to support a scientist with a less then ethical code of conduct? No. But he certainly thought that was the only way he could make GF finally ensure the peace planetside.
And Hayate thing is just extension of his biasses against the Navy, that truth to be told does have a track record of turning ex-criminals into officers. So it’s hardly suprising that probably skimming the report on her he charted her up as another criminal that Navy set loose and it’s just a matter of time before the GF have to clean up her mess.
As for his end, I’m more on the side that he was willing to accept any punishment Zest demanded for what he did to him, but he would still have lobied for the cyborg programm, just maybe not by employing Jail. His comment about his daughter here is important. It shows that in his mind nothing he did was done for his own interests but in the interests of general public. And also begs a question of how much of an influence on his policy is result of her “management” of him.
High Council: Yeah your interpretation could work. They still had a noble goal they were pursuing, it’s just that lack of contact with people has made them forget empathy.
* Part of the MANY High Council sponsored black research teams. Some of them for example were working on cloning Kaiser Olivie.
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