r/PantheonShow

The one you dislike, off rip, on spec, the instant they popped into your awareness.

I think I sorta understand the timeline and what happened in the ending (to an extent though I'm not sure I'd be able to explain it very well).

But, I still can't find the connection. How it ties up thematically and narrative-wise to the rest of the series.

To be exact, I can see the connection, but it feels too far off. Like an epilog, or a post series short story. I don't see how it functions as a proper and direct continuation to what happens before

Just finished the whole series and I need to talk this out with people because the more I sit with the finale the less okay I am with it.

By the end Maddie is basically god. Dyson sphere, infinite simulations, the whole thing. And I think the show wants that to feel awe-inspiring, but the second you actually think about what she’s doing with that power it gets dark fast. She spends 117,649 years rerunning her dad’s death and Caspian’s death, on purpose, over and over, because Caspian said some cryptic number right before he dissolved into an AI virus. She knows exactly what she’s putting everyone through every single loop and does it anyway. To me that’s someone who never actually processed her grief and instead built a machine that lets her loop it forever instead of moving through it.

And she doesn’t even land somewhere better at the end of all that. She has literally unlimited power to build whatever reality she wants, and the plan is just recreating the exact same tragedy so she gets a year or two with him before it presumably happens all over again. If I had god powers, step one is not “let me watch my boyfriend die the same way one more time.”

Which honestly is what makes David so confusing to me. He’s the one person who should be reacting to this like a normal human being, because he gets pulled out of a sim right before his own death, so he knows what she’s built and how many loops of suffering it took. And he’s just chill about it, having a conversation with her like it’s a normal Tuesday. If my daughter told me she’d spent millennia running simulated death loops of everyone she loves just to get her ex back, I would not be handling it that calmly. Feels like the show just needed someone to give her a pass instead of actually reckoning with what she did.

Then there’s SafeSurf, which I feel like doesn’t get talked about enough because everyone’s stuck on Maddie, but it’s just as unhinged. It starts as a boring government antivirus built to hunt down UIs. Then it eats enough of them to become sentient. Then Pope frees it out of spite. Then it decides wiping out embodied humans is basically a kindness to UIs?? Then it almost causes a full genocide. Then Caspian talks it down with his literal dying breath. Then it gets shot into space. Then it finds aliens. Then the aliens just hand it godhood, and now it’s part of a six-being cosmic pantheon that apparently created the entire universe the show takes place in. That’s like four shows’ worth of escalation crammed into twenty minutes and I did not have enough runway to buy it.

Honestly I think both of these come from the same problem. Everything before the 20 year time skip was such a good slow burn, the UI vs embodied conflict, the politics, Pope, all of it. Then the time skip hits and it’s like the show slams the gas, and two episodes later we’re at cosmic godhood with zero time to actually sit with any of it. Feels like it needed a whole extra season instead of getting crammed into the finale, which honestly tracks given how many times this show got cancelled and bounced between networks.

So am I wrong for thinking the ending wants me to find this beautiful when if you think about the actual logic for two seconds it’s kind of horrifying? Someone tell me what I’m missing here.

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man that still hits like a truck

Post-pantheon existential crisis is surely something

I once again feel... ...empty

I don't know what to do anymore

so I read this great post explaining the ending and everything on there makes sense to me but I still have some questions.

(https://www.reddit.com/r/PantheonShow/comments/1h10nr6/pantheon_ending_explanation_and_writeup/)

heres a summary of the relevant points made in the post that.

1. its shown that maddie is recursive (since the last episode looped into the first and the cycle continues of simulations inside simulations inside simulations).
2. but in the last episode maddie mentions that there is still a limit to the dyson spheres computing power (in the last episode maddie says that there arent infinite number of simulations, there are 34 billion exactly) (not 100% confident on the number itself)

Question 1.

arent the two points contradictory? as the maddie in each simulation goes on to create another 34 billion simulations, wouldnt the original or base dyson sphere run out of computing power? does each level of simulation going down have less details? or is it that the simulation chosen for maddie and caspian to go back and live through, now replaces the base simulation?

Question 2.

how is maddie creating the dyson sphere help her have her future with caspian? as I underestood it, the simulation that maddie chose for them to live through again will go through the same moments as the original shows did and therefore leads to her son and caspian dying again and her having to invent the dyson sphere again. so shes stuck in a loop of misery? I underestand that safesurf gave her that message just for maddie to "bring back" caspian so they can thank them but at this point maddie would realize that and chose to live out another simulation where they can have their future as simulated humans instead of looping back through the shows events?

question 3.

did anyone else have a panick attack when caspian was gonna upload?

Place your bets!

Then state your reasoning for your pick over the rest as there were a whole load of space cadets up in the mix, yes? Ranging from the super obvious MK ULTRA flex down to ones that were way more subtle and intricate along with some good old fashioned Kool Aid sippers as well.

Pantheon: Its the gift that keeps on giving! (Existential crises, that is)

Can be blatant or obvious. Just wondering what anyone detected on their latest rewatch as they pored over more and more details whilst attempting to stitch together a new world view from their existential crisis as delivered by an massively underappreciated animated masterpiece that cut to the quick about the whole human experience and what happens when technology mixes in.

Or, maybe, it already did and we're living in it!

The question is - where is your limit?

Some people will skim the surface, others ponder a bit more and a few dive into the shadows depth. At which point, for you, does it go from credible to totally out there and way beyond the scope of what you think was being said? To me there were layers upon layers in this series and it was presented really, really well. Thats why I think people felt it resonated from their very depths in ways that many cannot truly explain nor, in the case of a few, genuinely wish to comprehend.

To me movies are modern myth and the heroes quest - but from a safe distance. Pantheon, on the flip, made it personal and visceral due to what, when, and how it was said. This is why I think people feel a shift in their reality tunnel after clocking it.

I just started this today, and in ep 5, that is the best use of Mr. Roboto I have ever seen in my entire life. And I'm as old as that song is. I rewound it to see it again.

Just wondering.

Provide details of your worldview pre and post Pantheon revelation! What exactly melted, why and what remains of Maddie Kim, demiurge par excellence, who tinkers with endless variations of her creation in order to answer questions she remembered to forget asking!

And, for no reason in particular, here is the little rice cooker that could:

Not mine. Someone should make them though.

I loved the show in general. I just got done binging it over about 3 days.

That said, did anyone else start to get a bit bored with all the DBZ style fights in season 2?

One issue I have with Pantheon is the lack of any real limitations on what's possible in this world. It lacks boundaries and meaning, especially in the jump from the somewhat constrained world of S1 to the anything-goes world of S2.

And any boundaries which appear present are handily and soon removed—or were never really boundaries to start with.

S1 seems to use a mix of a flaw, politics, family bonds etc. to limit the world and S2 blew that right open. This issue starts with >!MIST!<, who could do just about anything and ends with >!Maddie!< who really can do just about anything.

It's all a sandbox of anything that can go, goes. I personally (ofc this is just my opinion) prefer some kind of boundary to this world. I felt so little tension or concern toward the end because I didn't even believe any of the characters could even >!die at this point.!<

I watch a lot of Science Fiction. I'm okay with tugging at limits, questioning boundaries and stretching meaning. But Pantheon felt like when I was a child playing with toys and I just made them do whatever I wanted them to do to advance the plot.

For instance: >!They can store Stephen's brain for a couple decades. Alright. Humans just somehow engineer a self-learning programme that targets and destroys UIs. Okay. Maddie becomes de-facto ruler of the human world—and then somewhat deity of simulated realities. Wow.!< At this point, if MIST found a way to travel back in time, I wouldn't even question it. I mean, why not?

Surely, I'm not the only one who felt this? Interesting conceptually and some interesting characters, but story-wise, shy of the heavy hitters in Sci-Fi that masterfully weave tension and limits into their stories.

I started this 3 years ago nearly when it came out and only watched a few minutes of the first episode. Tried again last year and didn't get into it after the first few minutes as well.

Finally sat down and watched the whole thing and it was amazing. Why this isn't more popular is beyond me. It was up there with Lain and that was an amazing anime.