Psycho-Pass - 11

"Saint's Supper"

I have little to say about this one, except damn.

I think it's safe to say that Urobuchi is hardly a happy man inside his head. That much is obvious to anyone who's had experience with his works, but the manner in which this episode was handled and just what it means about the world of Psycho-Pass really makes that fact stand out. I think plenty of people can boast to have called Yuki's death this week, (though I myself wasn't one of them, interestingly enough) but the scenes leading up to it were chilling in their implications.

I'm no psychologist, but this is a good a place as any to try and explain what it is that happened between Sibyl and Makishima using real-world analysis. Everyone has their own interpretation on just what morality consists of, but to put it as simply and scientifically as possible, morality is a social construct used to delineate what is and is not acceptable in a given society or group. This is of course all subjective depending on which cultural group you belong to, but all moralities share three types of people in common, though just how these people are classified remains subjective. The first category is "moral"; these people are the ones who understand their set of morals and tend to "do the right thing" because they believe in what is right and wrong according to their set, and choose to follow it. The second category is "immoral"; these are the people who understand their set of morals, but choose to disregard them for whatever reason they deem fit. They do what "moral" people consider wrong, and they know it, but enjoy it or find some sort of redeeming factor in doing so. Then there's the final category: "amoral". These are people who know that morals exist, but don't understand them and thus have no idea what the difference is between a moral code's right and wrong, and care nothing for which one they choose. They're different from "immoral" people because they don't necessarily feel that they've done anything wrong when others think they have, and thus they're not bothered by things that would bother both "moral" and immoral" people.

So why is this important?

The thing is, Sibyl is a system that measures how much stress and psychological turmoil people are in. When a "moral" person does something "immoral" or is affected by something "immoral", then their Crime Coefficient is bound to rise, and an "immoral" person themselves has some feelings of ecstacy or fear when they commit their crimes. Their mind-sets are bound to be troubled because they know that they're doing something wrong, even if they like what they're doing. But Sibyl has no power to analyze "amoral" people because they're unfazed by their "immoral" actions. Watching Makishima's Coefficient count down to zero until the moment he slits Yuki's throat is terrifying because it means that Sibyl has no means to counter true psychopaths, ones which feel nothing at cold blooded murder. On what basis is Sibyl then able to say that it's really removing psychopaths from the world? The safety which the people in the world of Psycho-Pass have traded for their freedom isn't even able to protect them from these very real threats, so is it even worth implementing?

It's scary to see the parallels between Makishima and Akane; both have exceptionally clear Psycho-Passes, and are unfazed by the horrible things they witness. Well, unfazed is a strong word for Akane, since she's clearly affected by Yuki's death and by her line of work in general; but her Psycho-Pass has remained consistent regardless. However, her inability to kill Makishima even when her friend was in danger shows that she very much believes in her morals and also that she desperately wants to believe that Sibyl and her society are not wrong. It will be interesting how this event changes her, and Kougami as well (who took down Senguji at the cost of several wounds and losing Yuki), since both now seem to be viable targets for Makishima's game.