Ah! My Goddess/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions
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* In one manga mini-arc, the water-creature [http://manga.animea.net/ah-my-goddess-chapter-205-page-20.html thinks]{{Dead link}} that what Belldandy and co. are doing is a "conspiracy" to destroy her and her people. Why doesn't she realize that if a 1st class goddess is really as powerful as they claim, just snapping their fingers would be enough to destroy her, were that the goal?
** She might not be the brightest crayon in the box...
* Why, in the episode where they all go to the spa, is Mara afraid of Belldandy's threat of punishment? In her first appearance, she ignored a direct order from Belldandy to change Keiichi back, and later fought her in a magic duel. Mara was even ''winning'' said duel before Urd came out of nowhere and hit her on the head with a thrown good luck charm. Even then, Belldandy had to use a special sealing CD (which she no longer has) to get her to give up the password to revert Keiichi to human form. Why has she suddenly become a gutless coward who fears the wrath of Belldandy? Isn't she supposed to be a 1st class demon?
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* Why is Belldandy (at least in the early manga/anime) thick as a brick when it comes to actual basic human behavior? For example, she actually had to be told that using magic to change your clothes in public is not considered normal. Her one and only job involves constant interaction with humans. Why didn't they bother teaching her this kind of thing?
** Seeing as how usually Goddesses do not end up in a contract like this with a human, it makes sense. She never spent her time day in and day out with humans. Therefore, her not understanding using her magic to changed clothing in public really DOES make sense if you think about it.
* In chapter 243 of the manga, Hild [
** Well given it has never happend most likely it is all talk. Remember Mara wasn't exactly expecting what happened with the king of terror who is so far the only demon that seems to be willing to destroy the world.
** Other then the Lord of Terror there hasn't been any demons trying to destroy the world. And the LoT is suggested to pre-date the current way of things.
*** Yes, but the LoT was still written by demons to destroy the world, while Hild makes it plain that the world is their source of energy and that gods and demons used to fight (sometimes to the death) to grant wishes. So writing it still makes no sense.
**** The LoT either predates them using human wishes or he doesn't care because of the whole "destroy everything to remake it in my own image" thing he had going. More importantly, just because they say that he acts like a virus doesn't mean he isn't an actual demon.
*** And we and Russia both had thousands of nukes even though we both knew acutally ever using them was basically assuring our own deaths as well... It could have been a "nuclear option" a weapon of last resort or of spite for if back when they still actively warred aggressively with each other it looked like they might acutally be wiped out. Demons might not be suicidal, but they're certainly vindictive enough to have a doomsday "I'm taking you with me!" plan in there back pocket.
**** "Mutually Assured Destruction" hell can use the LoT to hold all three planes of existence to ransom if necessary....it makes a certain amount of sense
** They ''[[Exact Words|can]]'' destroy the world, they can do it if they want. If they want destroy it that's another story.
* What happens if there is someone with a pure heart in need of a wish that doesn't have a phone? Does Heaven just say "screw them"? And for that matter, how did goddesses grant wishes to people in the era before phones were invented?
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*** Belldandy alright, but ''keichi''? exactly how old are belldandy and her sisters?
**** skuld has matured somewhat (in terms of her powers at least) in the time since she was introduced so it is possible they operate on a vaguely human time scale...but when urd had her licence suspended they were saying she would get it back in 50 years. if she's as old as she looks then it'll take longer to get the licence ''back'' than it took her to get it in the first place
* In chapter 240 of the manga, Hagall showed that a coup against Hild is as easy as placing three spells and a counterspell-destroying virus somewhere where she would step on them. Given that these are demons we're talking about here, why isn't there a coup attempt every single week? Especially since Hild's rule seems to depend solely on intimidating subordinates with her power.
** All in all demons seem to be Punch Clock Villains and aren't exactly too bright given that Mara is an example of one of the brighter ones. Also most of them like the current setup. Hild stated that the revolt happened because they weren't able to make more commissions because Hild was dealing with it herself.
** There may also be the practical limitation of power necessary to do those three spells--Hagall is implied to be the second most powerful demon alive, at least pound for pound, and the same tactic might not have continued to hold Hild (or worked at all) with lesser demons.
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** Because that only happens in the anime.
* Why is Hild ever treated like anything other than an irredeemable psychopath? In her first appearance she causally announced that she would slaughter the entire world for the right "compensation".
** It's the "for the right compensation" part. She's not THAT dangerous most of the time just malicious.
*** Oh yes, because sociopaths willing (and able) to kill billions for the right fee aren't dangerous.
**** "For the right compensation". We have no idea just what that is--and I hardly think it would be anything simple or even remotely easily obtained.
**** Belldandy also announced that she could destroy the world when she was explaining about wishes on her first appearance, although she said she'd rather not deal with those sorts of people.
***** That would make beloved Bell, as well as all other goddesses and demons abiding by the transaction agreement, sociopaths. There's no evidence that Belldandy or anyone else can actually, flat out, say "no".
****** But it has been implied that they can and its stated that Belldandy can break her contracts through sheer power alone.
******* Belldandy might be able to break the rules. It's only implied, and it would probably have to do with Keiichi. Then again, we've seen what happened when she broke a 'lesser' rule in the film. Hild, on the other hand, likely got to where she is by breaking certain rules. If either of them were afforded some leeway, I'd say Hild has a lot more experience with both using it, and knowing when to.
** First off, she was repeating what Belldandy said to mess with Keiichi. Second, Hild is an older more mature version of Urd to the point that they think and act alike.
** Hild wouldn't slaughter the world unless she had a better way of keeping the misfortune flowing than a world full of humans. "The right compensation" needs to be taken in that light; she really does prefer that the world stay intact.
* If goddesses and demons are not allowed to kill each other then why do the Valkyries carry (and use) large pointy weapons that are clearly lethal?
** Since there have been shown to be other realms, demons probably aren't the only nasty around. It's also an easy visual that they are a ''combat'' force rather then regulatory admins like Skuld or Urd.
** Case in point, Lind's battleaxe is actually a power limiter.
* In the city where the series takes place there has been a gigantic dark wolf (Fenrir), meteors systematically destroying buildings, a giant flying coil of white snakes (Midgard), and a huge red, glowing symbol in the sky during the Lord of Terror incident alone. The city was also wrecked during the incident and Belldandy used her magic to repair it ''right in front of everyone''! Magic regularly flies out from the goddess' temple. Explosions there are also quite common. How can the goddess' possibly be keeping what is going on a secret?
** Either the ''[[Men in Black (
*** Note the original version of this story also involves some [[Techno Babble]] about multidimensional strings, including how the goddesses exist in more than 4.
** According to the manga, after years of student pranks the residents of Nekomi are simply used to everything.
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* Why does Belldandy maintain her rather childish naivety about truth and lies? She has been tricked and conned by demons, humans, and even her own sisters. Why hasn't she gotten it through her head that not everyone is as honest as she is?
** She has. She's simply idealistic enough to give anyone and everyone the benefit of the doubt anyway.
*** At times this seems rather stupid to me. Especially when she is willing to trust Mara, who has ''repeatedly'' shown that she has nothing but ill will for the goddesses.
**** Not precisely true. When Mara split Urd into pure demon and pure goddess, and then realized that the process was killing Urd, she came to the goddesses and begged them for help: "I can't lose her ... I can't lose '''you'''!"
* Since we know it is possible to some extent for goddesses to age (we see our ladies as young children in flashbacks to heaven), at what age do they stop?
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** Truly disturbing thought: maybe the demons have tried it both ways and have decided they prefer this timeline over others, which would make this the worst of all possible worlds, and the demons are working hard to keep it that way. But then, too, I find it hard to accept cute-as-a-button Mara and sexy Hild as truly monstrous (of course my fictionalized idea of a terrifying alien inhuman demon would be closer to Etrigan or Nyarlathotep anyway, possibly because I spent the 90s reading "The Demon" and too many Delta Green sourcebooks). Doesn't the manga make multiple references to the conflict between Heaven and Hell being not so much Armageddon as a semi-friendly professional rivalry?
*** Easiest answer is that Kami-sama would simply change things back the way they were. Perhaps the current timeline is a carefully negotiated settlement.
*** Naturally, this probably works in reverse--Grandfather Complex. Kami-sama, or a powerful subordinate, may have been asked by someone wide-eyed individual to do away with Hitler, or some seemingly-supremely-benevolent act, only to so badly screw up the timeline so badly that Hild elects to undo it. And there's nothing to say that they can't correct their own mistakes.
** [[Even Evil Has Standards]].
*** Well, having a monster (the Angel Eater) consume the angels (essentially the souls) of the goddesses does not sound very "friendly" to me. Especially ''Hild's own daughter''. No wonder Urd refuses to love her. What kind of horrible parent has their child's soul removed?
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*** Heaven doesn't give them away either. Both sides follow the same rules, one of that there are only certain people that can qualify for wishes and another was implied that they have to be able to achieve those dreams themselves.
* Since all of the people who receive wishes from the goddesses are all supposedly kind, caring, giving people, why hasn't one of them wished for something reality-warping like an end to poverty, end to disease, world peace, etc.? Since they are informed that they can wish for "anything", why hasn't one of these supposedly giving people tried this? Or are they all just idiots?
** I believe the wishes have to be approved by Heaven, so any such wish would be constrained by the author. I did once read an [https://web.archive.org/web/20180115193229/http://www.yggdrasil.org/omg/index.html AMG fanfic], though, in which one character, a man in young middle age, meets Skuld and finds her charming, and offhand says aloud that he wishes he could be her big brother. Hilarity ensues.
** Belldandy herself implies ''in the first chapter'' that while wishes can theoretically be for anything, the candidate selection and approval process seems to lend itself to certain kinds of wishes. Note that Keiichi's wish has far-reaching implications but is still approved despite protests, possibly because it's non-malicious and humble.
** Also, the goddesses have outright denied multiple wishes throughout the series. The excuse was usually "That's not what you really want" or something along those lines. I haven't seen a single wish granted that wasn't either made in jest or wished for off-hand accidentally. I think [[God]] has a little bit of an ironic sense of humor.
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** Because something like that happening would be... well, an Act of God.
* Is the Almighty One a name or title?
** If you listen to the Japanese language track He is referred to as "Kami-sama" (Kami being the Japanese word for a god or spirit and sama being a highly respectful honorific). Kami-sama is usually used for non-Japanese gods, specifically for the Jewish/Christian/Islamic/etc style monotheistic God. It's something of a misnomer considering that everyone else is from Norse mythology.
*** Maybe it's Odin. And I've read some Lovecraft pastiche that held out the idea that Odin and Jesus were both the Elder God Nodens in humanoid guise anyway (and he was also Nuada of the Silver Hand, Cernunnos, etc.).
*** A lot of them aren't from Norse mythology and the ones that are seem to be based off of the Germanic versions. More over Odin was suppose to be referred to as different person then Kami-sama in the Japanese version of the manga.
* In one episode of the anime, Skuld has convinced Belldandy to come back to Heaven with her to fix a problem with their computer system. Belldandy tells Keiichi that time works differently in Heaven than on Earth, so it is very possible that she will be gone for Earth years or even lifetimes in a few Heaven days. However, in a later episode, the goddesses are clearly presented as having the ability to time travel at will. So, um, what was with the emotional reactions the two of them had? Keiichi can be excused as simply not knowing this, but Belldandy had no reason to not simply inform him of this. Think about it, she could have just gone back to Heaven, helped to fix the problem, and then just time travel back to five minutes after she left.
** Honesty? Not to mention that you would think time travel would be something that they would not screw around with too much. They were willing to screw the rules to stop Hild, but it may be something for which permission is normally way "above their pay grade". There was a risk that the boss would've said no.
** Also, the bit about time working differently in Heaven is from the source material, while the time-travel abilities are anime-only. This is [[Adaptation Decay]] at work.
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** Because the goddesses block the phone's signal and 'steal' it during the call. If Keiichi pushed the redial button, he would call the place he originally wanted to, the restaurant.
*** Then just have the phone display what number you just called (or remember it) and write it down. Sell the number anyway. Again, I'd buy it.
**** Because the number doesn't matter, there is no phone number for heaven. Its a cosmic lotto. the exactly right person has to dial the exactly right numbers (that change all the time) at the exactly right time. The odds of someone dialing it are trillions to one. The goddess themselves were shocked when K1 ended up doing it a second time and getting the 4 goddess to show up.
**** Urd was also shocked/impressed when Keiichi once managed to call her ''deliberately''.
* When the Almighty one sealed up the Lord of Terror program, ''why in the blasted infernal hells did he put the container on Earth'', instead of a top-security vault in Heaven?
** Negotiated settlement? Earth ''is'' the intersection between the realms.
* What would happen to the doublet system if one side managed to out-breed the other?
** Is it impossible that part of the doublet system is a little side-program that basically equates to: "If one Goddess/Demoness gets pregnant, a random Demoness/Goddess also becomes pregnant as well"?
*** [[Mister Seahorse|Better hope the gods and demons have identical gender ratios as well as populations, then]].
** The doublets seem to be set up in some sort of ceremony (which is then forgotten). Presumably the pairs don't need to be the same age, and so any differences in birth rates can be dealt with by averaging them out over several years, and even if a few members of one side aren't in a doublet the fact that everyone else is would still prevent anyone trying to kill anyone, because the odds of hitting the undoubleted minority is too small to be worth the risk. The only real threat is if one side managed to double it's population compared to the other, and the new group killed off their predecessors to get rid of the other side as well, which is probably enough for them to make sure that they keep their birth rates approximately even.
* Why doesn't Hild pull a [[You Have Failed Me...|you have failed me for the last time]] on Mara? Given that Mara has proved that she is pretty much worthless as a demon, you'd think someone as sadistic as Hild would've killed her by now. As a bonus, whatever god or goddess that was in a doublet with Mara would drop dead (sweet).
** Because (a) Hild prefers to keep her playthings around so that she can keep on tormenting them; (b) the death of a god and demon like that would probably bring Heaven and Hell back into open warfare despite the Doublet system; (c) it's hinted that Urd and Mara were friends before working on opposite sides, and Hild doesn't want to alienate her daughter further; or (d) any and all of the above.
** According to chapter 135, "In the battle between demons and gods, it seems nothing is forbidden except the taking of life." Evidently this applies to one's allies as well as one's enemies. Then again, it would fit the series perfectly for Hild to say, verbatim, "You have failed me for the last time... shoo. Off with you."
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*** Seeing that Hild and Mara are the only two demons that we've seen that makes no sense unless you're taking about the 'lesser' demons.
** Because Hild isn't evil.
*** More specifically, Hild isn't Darth Vader. Contrary to popular belief, that sort of behavior goes against long-established rules of good management going back centuries in human history. It's the exception, not the rule.
* If Mara and Hild want Belldandy and the other goddesses gone so bad, why don't they just break out a gun and kill Keiichi? That would cause the goddesses to leave Earth. Remember the combined power of the goddesses is ''minuscule'' compared to Hild's, so they can't be afraid of retribution from Belldandy.
** Heaven and Hell have a strict "No Killing" policy to both Goddesses and Humans (Presumably, as its only stated for Divine Beings and I'm going by the official Manga for authority on this) and the general attitude is that Demons take more pleasure in the misfortune of humans, and that killing would be both A. Human no longer around to make miserable, and B. No way a Human could defend itself against a Divine being. Furthermore, As far as Hild's power goes though, its considerably less then the Almighty (That is the De Facto most powerful existence uh... existing), so if she tried anything like killing one of the Almighty's creation without just cause (Keiichi's death to rid Belldandy & Co. from the planet earth is certainly not reason enough) then the Almighty would lay the smack down and well, obvious death and destruction is bad for business.
*** No, it's stated that the powers of the Almighty One and Hild are roughly equal. And second, what business? You could easily set up some human to take the blame, and Demons aren't bound by the rules of Heaven. Heck, you could just hire a human hitman to do the deed. They're ''demons'' and one is the ''devil herself''. The demons have created a program meant to eradicate all humans, they can't have any qualms about bumping off just one.
**** Mara once tried to trap Keiichi inside of a burning car when she was in Megumi's body. Her intention seemed quite murderous to me there.
***** But she really wasn't trying to kill him just hurt Belldandy. She wasn't really thinking it out at all.
** Still, It would be nice to see Mara get the upper hand once in a while though.
*** Yeah, it would. Too bad we never get to see the villains think logically.
** One other possible reason not to off Keiichi is simply that Hild has admitted ''she's'' hot for him, too. "That Keiichi -- ''Rrrowr''!" (Chapter 136 of the manga)
*** More over its hinted that she has feelings for him.
**** Hild may have discerned--either through simple rationalization or some eye into the future--that killing Keiichi, or even just harming him, doesn't really help her personally. Hence her lack of an attempt, and Mara's abandonment of those kind of tactics. Also, on the whole, Hild seems to be quite fond of the main cast, and her affection isn't just limited to Keiichi. If it doesn't benefit her, she honestly might not want to upset Bell or Urd to such a degree. Her affection for Bell seems more or less as substantial or truthful as her affection for Keiichi (in the manga) anyway.
** Because demons aren't evil in this series just like the gods aren't good.
* Why don't they say "no, this is not a wrong number" when they answer the phone, since mortals seem to always reach it by apparent accident?
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*** That would just be counteracted by the demons who make misery on earth. After all, they can't all be as incompetent as Mara, so there should still be at least a few million people with worse lives than Morisato "Balls of Glass" Keiichi. As for there being no genocides, it's worth noting Keiichi's mental images in the first chapter show he has a very good idea of how would a nuclear genocide look like.
**** Well, we're talking about the balance of Good and Evil/Happyness and Misery here, right? Perhaps the amount of misery on Morisato Keiichi's Earth is as high as the amount of misery on our Earth? Although, we're talking about a Universe where there's a gate which completely separates a couple if they have any doubt in themselves at all, so maybe the amount of misery in AMG's universe is just concentrated elsewhere.
*** [[Tokyo Is the Center of
*** The anime at least attempted the explanation that wishes are granted as a means of Karmic correction: Keichii was a good person with a disproportionately sucky life, and therefore was granted a wish to rectify that. That however would have equally [[Unfortunate Implications]] implying that decent people who suffer horrible war crimes, etc, deserve it to a point.
*** Maybe The Almighty got sick of Keiichi not making a move on Belldandy and decided that throwing Peorth at him would help him man up a bit, not that it worked mind you. Keiichi got the wish form Belldandy in the first place for being so damn nice and honest in the first place. He knew Belldandy was in good hands, those hands just won't wander lower than her shoulders unless someone forces them to.
* Why isn't Keiichi himself a god yet? It would make sense if it was just finale material, but with everything that's happened to him, and his understanding of everything... Keiichi becoming a god of machinery or something isn't that outrageous.
** Keiichi's a human. He can't cast spells or use any form of magic. The closest to anything supernatural he can do is to have an angel reside inside himself. That and ignore his sex drive. If he had some magical ability, he might be able to become a god, but he hasn't shown any magic.
*** On the other hand, it's fairly obvious that he's earned it. Maybe they're just waiting for his mortal lifespan to run it's course?
* I saw the sub first, so watching a dub episode and hearing "Mister Keiichi" was off-putting. I was used to hearing "Keiichi-san", and that's what seemed natural; the idea that even though she was a goddess and he was a human, she still regarded him as a superior because he was "the client." If anything I'd prefer "Master Keiichi".
** I don't exactly claim to be a master of the japanese language but isn't 'san' basically 'mister' in japanese? Sama being the term one has for a superior.
*** Bingo. But gratuitous use of "san," as in Belldandy's case, can be edited out, as with many of the Japanese honorifics. In that case I guess they wanted to emphasize the awkwardness of her politeness.
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[[Category:Headscratchers]]
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