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Samurai Jack/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions
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* Why does Jack constantly not take a chance to return to the past in favor of defeating an evil threatening some people, when doing so would allow him to eradicate the ''source'' of all the evil? Bring up [[Lawful Stupid Chaotic Stupid|lawful stupid]] or [[Failure Is the Only Option]] and you'll regret it.
** That aside, unless [[Time Travel]] in that universe can create [[Alternate Timeline|Alternate Timelines]], won't all the people Jack has saved throughout the series essentially ''vanish'' once he goes back in time and beats Aku? Assuming it will create a second parallel timeline (the alternative is way too [[Moral Dissonance|morally dissonant]]), Jack has to beat Aku ''twice'', once in the future and again in the past.
*** Actually, based on what similar plots have done, if he defeated Aku in the past, the people of the future would be the same except more prosperous because they were never under Aku's heel.
*** I always thought it had something to do with his own personal code of honour: he simply CAN'T ignore innocents in peril to go back in time because he places too much value in the life of innocents, and cannot simply sacrifice even one innocent person to achieve his ends, even through inaction. There's also the fact that he actually has TIME to save them: assuming Aku doesn't intervene, Jack can simply return to the past at the same point he left and finish the job, thus he can go back from any point in the future he likes, thus sticking around and sorting out the current crisis is no problem to him as long as he finds a way back in the end. Essentially, Jack's world DOESN'T run on [[San Dimas Time]].
*** It still makes no sense; going back to the past completely would undo his actions in the future, unless his presence in the future would somehow create a duplicate version of him that would appear and fix the same problems in an Aku-less world. I honestly doubt that Genndy Tartakovsky planned that. Also, going back to the past and killing Aku would prevent THOUSANDS OF YEARS OF SUFFERING UNDER AKU'S REIGN from ever happening and would generally help the world on a much wider scale compared to, say, saving a group of generic Asian warriors - it's a much more benevolent action if you think about it. Jack's way of thinking seems illogical: "See, I could use this portal to prevent Aku from ever taking over the world, thus creating a brighter future. Or I could avoid doing that in favor of saving a small group of innocents. Yep, I'm sure that's the right thing to do."
**** You phrase it like he had much time to think about it. If memory serves, lots of problematic things were happening at the time when he saved said Asian warriors. He might not have been thinking straight.
**** It's psychological. Jack could just leave those people to their death, go back in time, kill Aku and rain happiness on the world, but it's just psychological that those people died when he could've protected them. Also, how does time travel solve paradoxes anyway? If it's alternate universes, then he really did just leave those people to die. Yes, he's saving trillions if he kills Aku, but he actually knew those people. Plus, he's a samurai, with honor and all that.
***** So knowing someone makes them more valuable? Jack has fallen prey to compassion he could go back into the past and akus world would never have happened, but compassion prevents him from doing what needs to be done.
**** I believe there's something you all may have overlooked-Jack is a feudal samurai. How in the world would he even be able to conceive of alternate timelines, or these people being utterly different thanks to Aku having never been there when he goes back in time? He had a struggle with the relatively simple though of being flung forward in time-so how would he be able to think of possible paradoxes or such from time travel.
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*** This is partially confirmed in one episode. Jack is about to go back to the past when the portal's guardian stops him with a vision of his [[Future Badass]] self and tells him that he needs to get to that point before he's ready to go back and defeat Aku. To put it in perspective, [http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g314/Elijah_Baley/SamuraiJack.jpg this] is what he looks like. "A few extra dozen levels" indeed.
** There's no guarantee that any of the method's he's found to return to the past would've actually worked. So, suppose he did ignore an innocent victim in order to exploit a device that failed. And later found out that traveling forwards in time is easy, but traveling backwards in time is impossible. Perhaps he can't afford to take that risk.
** Also, it might be that if Jack left Future Aku around when he was next to the portal, Future Aku could also use the portal at the same time, travel back as well, and team up with Past Aku.
*** You're assuming that Aku is the source of all evil. He isn't, he's just the most powerful evil on the block. In addition to other points made about time travel not being guaranteed. The source of your potential time travel is evil? Well then look before you leap. The alien armies are attacking and you have a million to one chance that they will interrupt your time travel, which may not work, and innocents may die. Well not worth the chance is it?
** Isn't it possible that he's afraid? Think about it, if Jack went back and killed Aku then this timeline wouldn't have existed for him to be sent to. So maybe he realizes that if he goes back he'll fail. Alternatively he just wants to deal with future Aku on the off chance an alternate timeline is created.
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** Because Aku doesn't want to be found. He's capable of moving his castle, disguising it, hiding it from view, etc. The closest he ever got to assassinating Aku was that episode with the gangsters. He was ''this'' close to finishing Aku off when the gangsters sap'd him from behind. After that, Aku moved his castle; who knows where he went? TL;DR, It's a lot easier for Aku to find Jack then for Jack to find Aku.
** Jack may be eons behind the times, but he's not stupid. He attacks targets of opportunity. He doesn't waste time trying to assassinate Aku because for the majority of the series he has no idea where Aku is. So he spends most of his time fleeing bounty hunters, performing random acts of heroism, and searching for ways to travel back to his own time. Notice though that in "Jack and the Gangsters", the very ''femtosecond'' Jack senses an opportunity to get close enough to assassinate Aku he ''immediately'' drops everything and seizes it (and comes damn close to succeeding, too).
* Why is it that over the several thousand years that Aku had the Earth enslaved, those gods that made Jack's sword never thought to, I dunno, ''make another one''? Or, God forbid, they get up off their butts and lay the smack-down on Aku themselves?
** Well, they probably think Aku is a human-solvable problem. They were battling what amounted to a [[Cosmic Horror]] of infinite evil and darkness of which Aku is but a small [[Large Ham|hammy]] fragment. The Scostman's sword can probably kill Aku, and several of the magical doodads encountered on Jack's journey could harm him as well. Jack himself has already been a hair's breath away from killing him at least a dozen times as well, it's mostly act of plot that no one else (that we know of) has gotten close enough to try.
** Or it could be that many people have gotten swords, as shown by the Irishman. It's just that those people always lose and/or Aku keeps flinging them through time. Once in the future, they try to make their way, kill themselves, or some thug/Aku finds and kills them. Perhaps Jack is just lucky to have survived Aku's fight, as well as emerging into the future. Or perhaps there are hundreds more like him, phasing in time, living out their lives as rebels, and eventually dying. Aku's reign has apparently lasted thousands of years, so that's a lot of lifetimes.
** Scotsman. Aside from that, those Gods have the entire universe to look after. In the big scheme of things, Aku might not be a real threat.
** Considering the many, many threat's Aku's thrown at Jack, it's not a big assumption to say that a lesser warrior wouldn't have a prayer of lasting long enough to get near the Big A, let alone defeat him.
** If the portrayal of Ra in "Jack in Egypt" is any indication, the gods in the Jack-verse are clearly the [[In Mysterious Ways|mysterious]] kind. Whatever plan(s) they may or may not have, they're not sharing it/them with us mere mortals.
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** He's stupid? He shows this many times in the future.
** We don't know how Aku's magic works. Maybe flinging open random portals takes up less "[[Mana]]" than his eye beams do. Maybe he was desperate and just used the first spell that came to mind. Or maybe he thought forcing Jack to live in a world that was neatly wrapped around his finger would be more satisfying than just killing him.
** Aku had attempted and failed to kill Jack several times through out the fight. Jack was essentially bypassing all the attempts on his life with minimal effort, thus Aku was able to discern that killing him at the current time was impossible. So he did something Jack would not expect. Considering the course of the fight already, if Aku had attempted to simply kill Jack then Jack most likely would of evaded or stopped the attack and finished him off.
* Just what ''is'' Jack's name?
** It's deliberately never stated. In the first episode he takes up the nickname Jack, however he never states his real name, and quite possibly for good reason: considering how much time travel tech Aku has stolen/destroyed, it's possible Aku now has his own methods of going back in time. Therefore, knowing Jack's real name would mean Aku could just go back in time and kill Jack when he was a child, thus preventing him from ever rising up against him, and ensuring that he rules for all time.
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** Have you noticed how Jack hasn't gone entirely insane from the never-ending battles, the constant failure to make any progress in getting back to the past, and the knowledge that everyone he knew is now dead? The comedy episodes are the three gods' way of preventing this from happening. They can't be bothered with making another sword, but they can make his quest a little less stressful.
** It still really grates with [[Pagad|this troper]], who's in the middle of watching the entire series. How can you follow tales so heartbreaking and poignant as "Jack Remembers the Past" and "Jack and the Monks" with a story about a farting dragon with ''[[Monty Python and
*** A good balance of comedy and drama is integral for just about any ongoing series. Episodes leaning a little further one way or another are a tried and true formula, and I'm honestly puzzled as to how anyone could find it off putting.
* Whatever happened to those guys whose essence was stolen by that major Aku minion, Demongo? We see him getting creamed by the numerous essences of the guys he stole over the years, I kinda wished they'd bring them back at some point...
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** Because Humanity and its various offshoots, uplifts and variants are mostly gathered into centralized areas where they can be tightly controlled. As long as the remaining areas are too low-tech to threaten Aku, he doesn't care what refugees huddle out in the wilderness. Consequently those areas are relatively unpopulated and have returned to their natural state over the thousand years or so since Aku conquered the world. (Not that that situation makes good strategic sense, but as stated above Aku gets by on pure brute force, not brains.) The "resources" stripped away are probably mostly metals and fuel, and trees can grow without iron and coal deposits under them.
* The end of the "No! Jump Good!" episode. Or rather, [[No Ending|the lack of it]]. It's kind of annoying that [[Failure Is the Only Option]] was just taken for granted by that pointed.
** True, but consider that the episode ''began'' with Jack failing to capture the same time portal doo-hickey and being left humbled and humiliated on the ground as Aku flies off with it. If the episode ended the same way, with Jack suffering a similar humiliating failure despite spending the entire episode learning to [[Training
** I think the issue is that the episode ends with Jack catching Aku completely off-guard, in such a way that it looks like he's on his way to finally succeeding in his quest... and we never hear anything about it after that; the next episode is back to status quo, with the implicit assumption that no, he failed again.
** I always assumed it was due to [[Anachronistic Order]]. That the Jump Good Episode was actually the last in the series, where Jack finally succeeded, and everything else happened before it, but was ''shown'' after. ([[Fanon|There are probably plot points proving me wrong, but I don't care, because Jack totally deserves to make it that time.]])
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** Maybe they couldn't agree on who should be the one to cut the chain because neither one of them trusted the other not to, say, chop the other guy's hand off.
** [[Rule of Cool]]: Jumping up and letting a huge bullet shatter the chain is way cooler than just cutting it.
* What was it that freed Aku from being sealed by Jack's father? At first I thought the seal weakened on its own after a few centuries, but Jack was shown to have been born just prior to Aku being defeated the first time. Aku is then shown coming back when Jack looks to be about four or five years of age. A really short amount of time for the swords effects wearing off enough for Aku to break free. I also don't recall it ever being mentioned someone intentionally freeing Aku. On a related note why didn't the Emperor just kill Aku in the first place instead of making him [[Sealed Evil in a Can]]? The sword seems to have the ability to destroy him permanently.
** I always assumed it was part of some elaborate [[Gambit Roulette]] on Aku's part. Maybe he tricked jacks father into thinking he was dead by sealed himself into the tree until a set of astrological circumstances were met. That way he can use the time in the tree to recharge his mojo, same as he did to jack, and then catch Jackdad off guard. O.K. not that brilliant, I just like to think that aku and jack are 12th level intellects and that the shows non-sequiturs are part of the elaborate chess game they play with one-another. Jack never get's back in time because Aku has put multiple levels of blockage in place that make most methods of time travel ineffective. Aku can't be assassinated because Aku's lair cannot both exists in a sub dimension and has it's entrances shuffled around the universe randomly, and aku never leaves said lair without everything planned out. Wow, I'm way off topic.
** About the Emperor not killing Aku, he explained it in the very first episode: he thought that the sword would do all the job, and all he managed to do was to seal Aku away. When Jack expressed a similar view, he ''immediately'' corrected him, warning him that it was only a tool and that his mind would set the path to slay Aku in spite of his deception. Long story short, the Emperor tried and fucked up, but realized where he failed and told Jack how to do the job.
* In "Jack vs. the Lava Monster." I was totally waiting for the viking to, as the Valkyries took him to Valhalla, say to Jack something along the lines of "I will save a place for you in the mead-hall, my friend. I eagerly await your coming." But it didn't happen!
** He knew Jack wouldn't die in battle, as we seen Jack will surely die from old age after ruling the his kingdom after beating Aku, that still surely wont prevent him to give him a visit tho, with enough titles as he already has.
* During the quest to get the time travelling jewel, Jack falls into a pile of quicksand. Why didn't Aku just let him sink? Aku explicitly tells Jack that he destroyed the stone to prevent Jack from going back through time. Well, he would have a hard time travelling back to the past if he is drowned by sand.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Headscratchers (Animation)]]▼
[[Category:Samurai Jack]]▼
[[Category:Headscratchers]]
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