Invincible
- Thread starter Harshaw
- Start date
Seananigans
Honorary Shit-PhD
- 12,142
- 29,655
This show is pretty great. Wanted to talk about the overall concept going on with Omni-man and his son.
The whole thing about second generation being a challenge when it has no connection to where it came from is spot on, but I think the story would have been even better if Nolan had taught Mark from birth that he's a Viltrumite. As it is, it makes a lot of sense that Mark would feel more connection to his life as a human, since he was only recently told about Viltrum. That's sort of a no-brainer, and honestly felt contrived. Like they did it that way so they could have obvious conflict between the two. But I think the story loses something for it.
The disconnect between first and future generations with regard to culture, knowing who you are, where you come from, etc. is a real thing and manifests even if the future generations are brought up fully aware of "the homeland" and everything that goes along with that. I think there would have been more authentic weight to the conflict between Nolan and Mark if Nolan had treated Mark as a full son, knowing he would be Viltrumite, and had shown an obvious strong bond. Even in that scenario, Mark would have been hard-pressed to choose Nolan over his human mother and friends. It would have been an agonizing choice, unlike what we got, which was the no-brainer "dad you're being a psychotic dick wtf" stuff.
It's even more glaring when you introduce a multiverse where the vast, vast, majority of dimensions involve Mark siding with Nolan. One or a few Marks siding with their human family/friends stands out from that as a meaningful and hard choice on Mark's part. Not simply an "oopsie" on the part of Nolan for bringing Mark up without regard for his Viltrumite heritage, and having little to no bond shown between them.
Anyway, show is pretty great, figured it might be interesting to discuss one of the only things I find a bit off about it.
The whole thing about second generation being a challenge when it has no connection to where it came from is spot on, but I think the story would have been even better if Nolan had taught Mark from birth that he's a Viltrumite. As it is, it makes a lot of sense that Mark would feel more connection to his life as a human, since he was only recently told about Viltrum. That's sort of a no-brainer, and honestly felt contrived. Like they did it that way so they could have obvious conflict between the two. But I think the story loses something for it.
The disconnect between first and future generations with regard to culture, knowing who you are, where you come from, etc. is a real thing and manifests even if the future generations are brought up fully aware of "the homeland" and everything that goes along with that. I think there would have been more authentic weight to the conflict between Nolan and Mark if Nolan had treated Mark as a full son, knowing he would be Viltrumite, and had shown an obvious strong bond. Even in that scenario, Mark would have been hard-pressed to choose Nolan over his human mother and friends. It would have been an agonizing choice, unlike what we got, which was the no-brainer "dad you're being a psychotic dick wtf" stuff.
It's even more glaring when you introduce a multiverse where the vast, vast, majority of dimensions involve Mark siding with Nolan. One or a few Marks siding with their human family/friends stands out from that as a meaningful and hard choice on Mark's part. Not simply an "oopsie" on the part of Nolan for bringing Mark up without regard for his Viltrumite heritage, and having little to no bond shown between them.
Anyway, show is pretty great, figured it might be interesting to discuss one of the only things I find a bit off about it.
- 2
Burns
Golden Baronet of the Realm
- 6,209
- 12,475
There is no majority in something that is infinite, which is another reason why multiverse shit is shit.
On your other points, I somewhat agree, but I think they tried to keep Nolan more like a sleeper plant from a spy show. Where he can't risk a child letting something slip, and possibly tip Nolan's hand.
- 1
- 1
Seananigans
Honorary Shit-PhD
- 12,142
- 29,655
Can't say I agree there can't be a majority when considering infinity, inasmuch as the human brain can comprehend it (it can't really). If someone were to randomly traverse dimensions in the world of Invincible, it's portrayed such that around 95%+ of the time the world they encountered would be dominated by Nolan and Mark's team-up. I'd consider that a majority. If you expand your selection to include more dimensions where Mark rebelled, you'd necessarily include vastly more dimensions with the Nolan-Mark status quo, such that the majority ratio was maintained. I saw nothing in this episode that suggested otherwise.
Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
- 18,734
- 34,928
You're still operating from a point of a limited sample size, even if that sample size is in the trillions. If we're talking about actual infinity, no such limitation exists.
That said, I agree that there was nothing within the episode's internal consistency that suggested actual infinity, however.
Burns
Golden Baronet of the Realm
- 6,209
- 12,475
I agree that the human brain has a very difficult time understanding probability and statistics (mine included).
There are an infinity of dimensions where Mark sided with his father, and there are an infinity of dimensions where he didn't, therefor there can be no majority. What someone traveling through infinity experiences does not mater.
Lets use a non-infinite example of what's happening: There are 1000 dimensions with a 50/50 split of evil/good Marks, but the traveler can only visit 100 of them. If out of the 100 he visited, 99 Marks sided with his father. He then presumes that Mark almost always sides with his father, when it is not the case at all. Keep adding 0s to the 100 out of 1000 numbers until your brain breaks (or to put it another way, for ever dimension he visits, he spawns 10 more dimensions with a 50/50 evil/good Mark split).
Until they somehow clarify, and I hope they don't because the sooner they move away from the multiverse bullshit the better, we must assume they are using the same multiverse rules that almost everyone else uses.
Caliane
Avatar of War Slayer
- 14,619
- 10,118
marvel claimed there was an infinite multiverse. I don't remember comic invincible ever claiming theirs was infinite. does the show say its infinate, or are you just assuming it works like marvels?
DC's multiverse constantly changes... theres 52 universes. there's infinite. there's a fractal snowflake., theres 52 again. a dark mirror multiverse for 104 total... no, every story is cannon, and its own universe. every single one. including fanfiction and porn parodies.
sometimes authors, or character in universe claim infinite, or even the 52, which are wrong.
the Animated feature, JL: Crisis on two Earth's is actually pivotal on there not being infinite earths. Owlman want's to destroy the multiverse because its infinite and nothing matters. Takes batman to Prime earth to set off a multiverse bomb. But, Batman correctly points out, where are the others? if its an infinite multiverse with infinite owlmen, and batmen, why are they alone?
that last one is actually the correct answer for DC. DC is very meta. 5th dimensional imps, live between the comic book, and us. the Source wall, is the 4th wall, separating comic books and the real world. theres multiple stories that directly reference fans, and authors effecting the DC universe. outright in a circle. Superman inspires us, and we then write stories about Superman.. (some authors fuck it up, like having characters go beyond the source wall.. which was not supposed to ever happen... can't happen.) Which also means, again, that fan fiction, that porn, movies, tshirts, etc that authors and fans read all affect actual main stream comics. Its ALL real, its all canon in the multiverse.
most character in universe of course aren't really aware of this. they only know of the 52.
DC's multiverse constantly changes... theres 52 universes. there's infinite. there's a fractal snowflake., theres 52 again. a dark mirror multiverse for 104 total... no, every story is cannon, and its own universe. every single one. including fanfiction and porn parodies.
sometimes authors, or character in universe claim infinite, or even the 52, which are wrong.
the Animated feature, JL: Crisis on two Earth's is actually pivotal on there not being infinite earths. Owlman want's to destroy the multiverse because its infinite and nothing matters. Takes batman to Prime earth to set off a multiverse bomb. But, Batman correctly points out, where are the others? if its an infinite multiverse with infinite owlmen, and batmen, why are they alone?
that last one is actually the correct answer for DC. DC is very meta. 5th dimensional imps, live between the comic book, and us. the Source wall, is the 4th wall, separating comic books and the real world. theres multiple stories that directly reference fans, and authors effecting the DC universe. outright in a circle. Superman inspires us, and we then write stories about Superman.. (some authors fuck it up, like having characters go beyond the source wall.. which was not supposed to ever happen... can't happen.) Which also means, again, that fan fiction, that porn, movies, tshirts, etc that authors and fans read all affect actual main stream comics. Its ALL real, its all canon in the multiverse.
most character in universe of course aren't really aware of this. they only know of the 52.
Last edited:
Seananigans
Honorary Shit-PhD
- 12,142
- 29,655
Does it just need the clarifying/disclaiming adjective "effective" then? If as you sample dimensions, the ratio is lopsided 95/5 then that's a majority. It doesn't matter if everything expands to infinity. I get what you're saying but it feels pedantic.
By your logic, all of our human statistics on earth are moot because there are infinite worlds in the universe and on those worlds inevitably some are where women are 3x stronger than men, so we can't say that the average man is stronger than the average woman because infinity.
Within the frame of Invincible, there is an effective majority of worlds who are under the Nolan-Mark regime. Like, all things being equal, it's irrelevant if there are infinite rebellions because there are infinite non-rebellions at a monstrously higher rate. Unless you're somehow selectively sampling things, you're going to see a majority in any way you experience the multiverse.
Burns
Golden Baronet of the Realm
- 6,209
- 12,475
A finite multiverse would be even dumber than an infinite one, because then they would really need to try to make up some reason why it would be finite. I would wager that's a reason Marvel writers keep switching back and forth, because both are dumb, but trying to make it finite is harder to explain with something other than "because."
What I was trying to say is that the part of your post I originally quoted does not lend credence to anything, since it's just a bunch of multiverse bullshit. That one person sampling the multiverse and getting 95% of one result is just one person getting that result (aka it is meaningless). Another person could get the exact opposite result. If you flip a coin 99 times and it lands on heads, what is the chance it will land on heads the 100th time it's flipped? It's still 50% (it's a magic coin that cant land on it's side, so no 49% bullshit).
In Invincible, so far, they have only shown that the multiverse traveling dude can only travel through the multiverse, not that he can see all the verses and know how things have played out there. Otherwise it would make his need to merge with 10,000 other hims, much less important, since he should already know what's going on in those verses.
As for real life, the multiverse as a scientific theory does not mean it's real, nor does the theory necessary resemble what some non-physicist trained comic book author, or worse, Hollywood writers tries to portray it as.
Last edited:
Tmac
Adventurer
- 9,401
- 15,981
The jumping around seemed pretty clumsy.
I mean, I get that they're showing different dimensions, but the storytelling aspect was...not lazy...just...idk...not very clever.
- 1
Seananigans
Honorary Shit-PhD
- 12,142
- 29,655
Yeah man, this is exactly what I'm disagreeing with and suggesting that this is pedantry. It's not meaningless, it's the only thing that IS MEANINGFUL. If humans can't actually experience infinity, then the only relevant thing is what they CAN experience. If their only experience of it is this dude's ability to open portals, and through those portals are 95% Nolan-Mark regimes, then that's what's relevant; it's the only thing that's relevant (to the point where it's the thing driving his actions, in fact). The pedantic ackshually schtick is what's meaningless.
With the second part, you seem to be implying that our human experience is irrelevant, and that somehow infinity overrides statistics. That somehow everything that exists in infinity is a coinflip, rather than having statistical probabilities based on its fundamental nature. If you start sampling multiverse women, they have a 50% chance of being a woman as we know them, and a 50% chance of having a giant purple dick on their forehead. Because infinity. Coinflip.
This makes no sense. And who knows, it might actually be correct, but we'll never know one way or another. Regardless of whether or not it's correct, it's irrelevant, because we can expect that random samplings will continue to play out existing statistics, all other variables remaining unchanged.
The only way your post makes any sense is if you believe Earth is not a meaningful statistical sample such that we can draw conclusions as to the nature of humans. That somehow our Earth is an outlier, and the other infinite humans adhere to a different statistical distribution.
Burns
Golden Baronet of the Realm
- 6,209
- 12,475
To make believable characters, the writers should be able to write them having bad/wrong opinions. The best I can distil it down to is: he is wrong and therefor your statement based on his wrong opinion doesn't add anything to your argument.
As for the real life stuff I'm not sure wtf you even mean. You know this is a fictional show and the multiverse that comic books use has no relation to the real world? We are talking about rules within their universe. When writers use words like multiverse without laying out their internal lore, then all we can go on is what other pop-sci versions that writers like to use along with what other popular media has adapted from the real theoretical physics theory.
A real life human can not and will not ever experience a multiverse, if it exists, and talking about how we can only evaluate a fictional multiverse from how a real human would experience it is silly.
- 1
What ? Of course there is.
For example, there's an infinite number of integers, the majority of which aren't prime. See infinite sets.
Infinity is a concept, not a number, you can't do basic arithmetic operations like infinity - infinity = 0.
- 1
Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
- 18,734
- 34,928
Your concept of infinity only being a concept and not being a number only exists in your universe, not mine.
Checkmate, nerd.
- 1
Cybsled
Avatar of War Slayer
- 16,519
- 12,175
Mark knew about Viltrumites from a young age. 1st season included a flashback where Nolan is talking with a very young Mark and telling him a lie about Viltrum stood for. Mark always knew about Viltrum, he just didn’t know what they were really like.
Nolan at the end of S1 regrets not telling Mark the full truth about what Viltrum was doing from a young age because as a result, Mark lacked the history of conditioning that would have made him more receptive to becoming a world conquering force
I suppose the show will eventually reveal why our Mark is good and the other Marks are evil. Omniman deciding to raise Mark in a way that shielded him from the truth would probably be a prime divergence point
Burns
Golden Baronet of the Realm
- 6,209
- 12,475
So what does the majority of a binary outcome, when both have an infinite number of instances, look like?
Edit: As it relates to infinite multiverses.
Last edited:
Seananigans
Honorary Shit-PhD
- 12,142
- 29,655
A ratio? You haven't explained what infinity looks like, so I'm not sure why we need to explain what two infinities look like.