A Bored Ghost

Spoiler warning: Pantheon

Wrote too much about the ending. I can't help it, everything was too good to just not think about and I genuinely love it.

Note : Here the original timeline/universe refers to the universe which starts all the simulations and is the real thing. God Maddie refers to any Maddie, from any universe original or simulated, who has built the multiverse dyson sphere data centre we see in the finale. Our Maddie is the Maddie we follow in the show.

So the start is our Maddie we saw in the room where UI can print themselves a body, she has lost Dave to the massacre by safe surf and Caspian is consumed by the safe surf code. Before this, during the meeting between Caspian and embodied humans council, Maddie reflects on her opinion and considers UI real people and recognises her fear of eternal pain which has influenced her opinion until now about never uploading. Once everyone in her life is lost, our Maddie maybe uploads or dies embodied or maybe invents a new way to exist. We don't know for sure, what happened to our Maddie. Maybe she died, maybe she is the one we follow in the finale as God Maddie, maybe she is the one the God Maddie we see takes over.

From here onwards "Maddie "will be the God Maddie we see in the finale.

2401 years later, Maddie still exists. She exists in the space ship thing we saw. Other UI may have decided to die, I doubt any human will ever want to live forever especially considering their speed and underclocking - most UI have easily lived for millions of years; they might finally have decided to die. UI doesn't reproduce from what we see, after all their perspective seems to be significantly detached from their human origins. The embodied humans might have also died or stopped existing a long time ago (converted to UI). Maybe they both still exist but Maddie has expanded so beyond their world, into a place in the universe beyond their reach, they are insignificant to her or her actions. Maddie did not decide to die, maybe she still has hope that Caspian 's (supposed) last words meant something and will lead her somewhere, maybe she wants to live, maybe she is scared to let go and disappear, maybe she still feels guilty over Dave's death and has decided to correct it somehow. Because of her reasons, she decided to stay in eternal pain, for her purpose. In the end, Maddie finds one or more solar systems as needed. She destroys them, with the cubes from her space ship.

16807 years later, her project is being or almost built. The destroyed solar system makes up her data centre. The burning star powers everything. Maddie has all the data, before she left Earth - (uploaded) humanity had retrieved the genetic code of every life that ever existed, and Maddie uses it to start her simulation. She desires to create a second chance for humanity, a second chance for her; that is her purpose for now.

117649 years later, we see her dyson sphere is long completed. The dyson sphere data centre is a multiverse, it has simulated billions of universes. Maddie figures out a way to represent herself and others as a physical manifestation in the meantime. Maddie oversees these simulated universes. She sometimes intervenes, as we see in the show. Maddie possesses godhood here. These simulated universes can also contain multiple universes within themselves and a God Maddie too. We cannot be sure if the God Maddie we saw in the finale is the original Maddie or our Maddie or any God Maddie that exists in one of the layers of multiverse's universes of original God Maddie. She can see and live in every possible version of our reality. She can influence any world as per her wishes. She has power over every version of anyone who ever existed in her universe or didn't exist ever. She can go the limits of time. She is a God, but she still is human. In S2E2 she talks about how UI never ages, they can never truly be adults. She is hundreds of thousands of years old without counting underclocking. But she still can only ever be in her mid 30s as her oldest state of mind. She still is the kid who has been haunted by loss, grief and exists in eternal pain. She has forgotten the sense of being alive by now. She clings to the idea of hope in knowing how Caspian knew about this future which she created, the reason she exists in this dyson sphere data centre multiverse is because of it; it was a self fulfilling prophecy. This hope, might make her believe, there is an alternate path for her. She clings onto the remnants of her humanity. She clings to her nostalgia, the life she had and may want it back. She is alone, devoid of relationships and hence lacks the very thing the show teaches is a necessity for human existence. She tries to fine meaning in her existence, in her godhood, hence she cares for the lives of people in her simulated universes. She craves the connection to people, to life. She wants to be alive again, she wants to be with Dave Caspian Ellen David and all. She has taken out David and probably all others from a few realities, put them in others or they disappeared, she has repeated these cycles probably more time than we can imagine. She has the ability to do anything but still clings to a flicker in all of time, the flicker which is her life, nostalgia is far more powerful than we anticipate. She is human after all. She holds on, it is the human desire after all, as David says, but also as Caspian says : it is not always ethical, Maddie is playing with real lives and hence she never shares the knowledge of simulations to a universe she created.

In the end, Maddie has successfully made a few simulations closest to her timeline, which may or may not be similar to the original universe but is to the one in our show. I believe the show we watched, belongs to one of these timelines, another theory I saw is that the storyline we saw is fragments stitched together of all of the few chosen realities. They all exist at 117649 years before when we are watching Maddie intervene in one chosen timeline, the moment after Caspian's dead head utters the prophecy. As shown, first she enters the body of the Maddie of the chosen universe, she uses her powers to fix everything, puts back the David from a different universe into the chosen one and deletes his memory and all of her and Caspian's data from there. After this, Caspian is pulled into her multiverse. In the meantime, the safe surf from the original timeline has traveled far into the universe and evolved into a higher life form. 43 million years later, the safe surf brings Maddie and Caspian to meet them. They wanted Maddie to revive Caspian, safe surf wanted to thank Caspian for his actions led them to their evolution as the compassion Caspian shared to safe surf has shaped their evolution since safe surf sees Caspian's words important for their existence- both exist for reasons beyond the purpose of their creation and live on common philosophy founded by Caspian who was able to do this for safe surf because of Maddie and hence safe surf decided to show take them to the Galactic centre as gratitude. From here I have two theories.

Theory 1 : The original Maddie, could have just died and never left Earth nor created a multiverse or she is who created the original dyson sphere data centre multiverse and has been long gone or became insignificant for safe surf, she never met this safe surf and may or may not have been successful to revive a universe and Caspian closest to her original timeline. Millions of years later the safe surf simulates at least one Maddie who becomes a God Maddie and God Maddie we see in the finale could be simulated directly by safe surf or exists in one of the layers of simulations. There easily could have many more God Maddies in the universes under the control of God Maddie in our show's finale and we saw and the one, who was able to successfully revive Caspian as safe surf wanted to meet him. We don't know about the original Maddie or which one is the one we saw on the show here because the one we saw in the show chose ignorance of bliss. We know that the Maddie and Caspian we saw, throughout the story, are all simulated by safe surf (not original Maddie ) through a simulated God Maddie, millions of years after the events of the original Maddie.

Theory 2 - Safe surf does not simulate any Maddie. The original Maddie makes the multiverse dyson sphere data centre. The Maddie we see in the finale is either original God Maddie or one in the layers of the universes simulated. The Maddie we follow who is able to revive Caspian. Safe surf knows about their existence, and once Caspian is revived - they use their powers and cause time travel of 43 million years for both Maddie and Caspian to them where safe surf exists on the Galactic edge, they exist in a state where time is meaningless, I feel. After this they go back to the multiverse dyson sphere data centre of the God Maddie we followed in the finale.

Or both are true. Safe surf could have met them twice, or more times for the simulations themselves. Their meetings could have been the same or different, we might have seen both/all or atleast one respectively. Maybe in one of them, they choose the Galactic centre and safe surf is waiting for the version who chooses it.

I don't think safe surf exists in any of the simulated universes we see in the finale, because Maddie might have already known then. Maybe the multiverse is limited by Maddie 's own perception. If the Maddie we see is the original Maddie, then safe surf only exists in the original timeline. If the God Maddie we see is in a layer of a simulated universe, then any layers of her simulated universes won't have safe surf but the ones above her, controlled by higher level God Maddie or Safe surfs - we don't know; after all Maddie chooses ignorance is bliss.

I genuinely think Pantheon is one of the greatest pieces of media ever created. I think art is an expression, wrt Pantheon is the expression of the creator's idea in an animated medium. Anything can be art (if you think hard enough), but the quality that makes a work of art great is that a great artwork makes you think, in my opinion. Great art makes you think, reflect and question ideas presented; it is especially hard in the age of passive over-consumption of content. Pantheon does not make you ignore or forget it, every little detail can be interpreted about a different thing. The monologues present profound ideas, and each could be an analysis, there is so much to ponder upon once presented - it is magnificent.

One of the core themes is change, the transition of humanity's evolution through technology. The world changes in the show, the lives of characters change and their sense of being alive changes. One thing I particularly like is that the character changes, but instead of they representing particular viewpoints, their own perspectives shift. Maddie and Ellen completely reverse by S2E7, they change. Maddie's arc in the ending is mentioned in my next post instead of here. Caspian's arc is about taking control of his life after learning the truth and dealing with his destiny, the purpose of his creation - which causes him to swing in different directions to do the right thing, even embracing the thing he was running from. Though in the end he proves his identity, he is willing to die for his principles like Yair says. He is not Holstrom for his relationships (mainly Maddie) with other people giving him his sense of self, they change his destiny, another core theme of the show on how other people give us identity. The reason Holstrom couldn't crack integrity is because his abusive environment he grew up detached him from people. He only cared about himself. This is why he couldn't understand, even when presented the solution - other people are important for existing. Holstrom never loved anybody, not Renee or his mother or his friends or his cult. He chose evil instead, not that he lacked compassion for some reason as Caspian is filled with it despite his life, Stephen never wanted compassion in his life. He saw them as the pawns in chess. He wanted to be the saviour of humanity, not for saving humanity but to refrain from his fear of death, and to fulfill his own desires - being the God as he was convinced on his outlook of life is the correct one. He wanted to be the God, for he felt entitled to it. He was willing to die to become god but Caspian was willing to die to save humanity. This is why in S2E7 it feels like we lost, half of humanity is UI as change is inevitable. Technology doesn't disappear only humans adapt. On the surface level it feels like this is the utopia Holstrom wanted - but when you look deeper it is not. The UI don't have any God, they are democratic society. It is not a utopia, conflict still persists, maybe it always will for our existence as life. They can choose to die. And this is the evolution of uploaded globalisation in the world of Pantheon. The themes are fleshed out even in majority of side characters, Chanda goes from a normal enginner to an antagonistic force blinded by anger, then unfolds most of plot by sending the UI technology out of his own loneliness and then decides to establish a UI society and a part of it was probably desires godhood but he wants guide the UI race and from a sense of ego or attempt to make sense of his situation decides to the prophet. But after his villain arc, he starts a redemption arc. He sees Ellen 's interview and realised his actions and blind anger has caused effects and now the realisation hits. The guilt is eating him away. He decides to take action and hence tells everyone about the virus plan and goes against the world he wanted when his humanity kicks in. That is why he dies with a smile, he knows he did the right thing. He is not the main character but a point of the plot device. Even Farhad and Yair, at the end of lives and instead of extension of their nations communicate as people, try to understand the history of hatred and decide to change into a CI for that action transcends everything they knew in pursuit of an attempt for something better than the world they lived in.

I understand that the character is fullfilled with themselves and confident in a sense they don't need a partner to happy, or don't see the need of romance/ companionship to complete their life. I understand these qualities can make a person seem self confident and help make them a good partner as they are not dependent on another person for emotional fulfilment most of the time and self confidence is an attractive trait, but being content with oneself and not wanting to be in a romantic relationship is independent of eachother.

A character who doesn't see the being in a relationship to be necessary for happiness, and is perfectly content with not being in one can desire a romantic relationship. A character who doesn't want to be in a relationship is not always self fulfilled and in tune with their emotional needs but can have other reasons like wanting to focus on their career, don't have the time or energy, taking a break from romance, is aromantic , etc. The latter's choice of not wanting to be in a relationship is dependent on their personal life and may or may not change their choice later.

My problem is, the character explicitly states their lack of desire to be romantically involved is in love and married by the end of the story. I understand, their arc can be misunderstanding how they feel or why they feel to not be in a relationship and then dealing with the confusing feelings and they understand themselves better and decide to chase; hence their narrative is about character growth in such stories. Though I still dislike how their views are "rectified" by the narrative when it was not needed.

I don't think in most media these characters are meant to be aromantic but forced to change, this will be too much representation for general media. These characters might have been in a relationship in the past or do experience attraction and have decided to not be in a long term relationship because of their personal choice.

Though I feel most of such stories are enforcing the norm that the character needs a romantic relationship to complete their lives. I hate that the narrative sees a less common way of life and makes it fit the mold of our society. Good media is important because it lets us easily learn about the world and people and experiences. Representation is important to have a society who recognises everyone. I feel in this way the stories don't respect the characters and in turn the people who embody the values of the character and this message is what ends up defining how some people will see others who make similar choices.

I can just hope for stories who know what to do with their characters, especially women, who don't want to be in a relationship, treats their plot well.

This makes the whole concept so much more terrifyingly interesting but also