I am unclear about this. They seem to stress that each person is still that person. They are just also everyone else at the same time.
In a way, the “unums” maybe should be those 12 who are immune since they are still truly singular people and not a part of the plurbs.
Part of the difficulty of this show—not saying it’s a flaw—is that it does not give its viewers the vocabulary to talk about it.
By comparison, the last really popular AppleTV sci-fi adjacent show, Severance, was extremely jargon-heavy. By the end of the first episode, you knew how to talk about Lumon, the severance procedure and its chip, innies, outies, etc. And by the end of the first season—which Pluribus itself is fast approaching—you could talk about the perks, the Break Room, the philosophy of Kier, the Overtime Contingency, the Wellness Sessions, etc. Even if the real nature of those things wasn’t revealed, you could at least refer to them and say, what’s up with [that thing]?
But Pluribus gives us no names for anything, and that does make it harder to talk about.
If all life forms were plurb’d, their aversion to harming any animals or plants would make a lot more sense.
That is not the impression I have. They seem to only identify the significance of individual bodies / former individuals when Carol asks about them. Carol will ask about one of the plurbs, and they’ll respond something like “oh this? gestures at self, this individual was named so and so, he was a whatever” as though she was asking about a shirt they were wearing or something like that. They have the knowledge of all of the individuals, so Carol can ask “hey, that guy over there, what’s his favorite food?” and they’d be able to tell her what his favorite food was when he was an individual, but I don’t get the impression that they experience consciousness of any individual personality. They are completely unconcerned about what each body is experiencing and there’s no individual consciousness – it’s more like a limb than a separate thinking person. They seem interchangeable and only use an individual’s memory / former personality when asked.
That makes a lot of sense. It is fun to think about but I need time to brain on this. It’s a really interesting question.
ETA: My personal opinion would be to be really upset at what had just occurred. I would not welcome what has happened here.
As far as I can tell, none of the other immune seem to be able to trigger their temporary shutdown from her outbursts. I think Carol is unique in that respect, maybe because she’s a writer and can create “reality.”
Interesting. My assumption has been that any of the immune can trigger the temporary shutdown– it’s just that Carol is the only one (so far) who has had the kind of outburst that acts as a trigger. The other immune (other than Manousos) all seem to be okay with the current situation, and the hive mind is doing everything it can to make sure it stays that way. Manousos is interesting, because he hates the hive mind as much as Carol (likely even more) but all his interactions with them that we’ve seen have been dispassionate, matter of fact. Think about his speech to them when he torched his car. He didn’t show any passion – he never even raised his voice.
Yeah, the only reason there’s been no more world wide seizures is not because the other survivors can’t, but they saw what happened and simply haven’t tried to emotionally overwhelm the hive. Though it seems Manousos should have been pretty close at times.
Carol’s anger is more meaningful because it’s personal. Manousos doesn’t recognize the Others as people. His anger with them is the kind of anger one has for a natural disaster. Also Carol’s source of anger is grief; while Manousos’ is just reactionary.
Most or all of the others have a close family member among the Joined but neither Carol nor Manousos does. Perhaps the others can pretend things are normal with someone like Laxmi’s son around?
“YOU DO NOT MAKE MY SON CRY!!” she declares.
That’s how it was at their meeting, but things have to have changed when the news about the food and eventual starvation came out. Laxmi specifically would probably chose not to join her son just so she can feed him. While most of the others seemed excited or accepting about the prospect of joining we’ve very purposely not seen anyone but Diabate since then, who did not have much reason to join already.
And there is CHEKHOV’S NUKE!
A reminder for people that this week’s episode dropped early so beware of spoilers for the finale from here on out.
Indeed.
I do not understand the hive mind. They are absolutely opposed to violence but will happily hand someone a nuke?
I mean, I guess I like that the hive mind is consistent but that leads to its own problems.
I’m a bit underwhelmed by the season finale honestly.
Yeah, I thought there was a spoiler tag in the thread title. If a mod wants to delete or hide my comment above, feel free. I’m not looking to ruin anybody’s experience!
I don’t think that’s what it was.
Instead it’s something else more dangerous to the Joined. Perhaps a giant shortwave transmitter.
Wasn’t directed at you, yeah the OP does say open spoilers but since some people may not be aware of the early availability this week I figured I would give a heads up.
I was pretty happy with the way it ended but now we play the waiting game and the waiting game sucks.
Yeah that could make sense too.