Siriel

Let's talk about Twice H Pieceman.

Mostly remembered for his silly name and hijacking Fate/Extra's finale by expositioning his backstory and motivations for half an hour, Twice's way of thinking is actually central in Type-Moon as a whole, do I figured I'd write about it a bit. The sources I'll for this are Fate/Extra and Extra Materials, whcih adds a fair amount of information by giving us Twice's inner thoughts on the issues of Fate/Extra rather than simply the conclusion he reached.

What comes to mind immediately when talking about Twice is war; his entire plan was to start a world war, his entire backstory revolves around witnessing wars, it has to be important right? I actually affirm that it's not; war is a tool for Twice, one that he hates but still just a tool. It's as irrelevant for his actual motivation as his white lab coat. (It's important for why he thinks the way he does, but that's not what this blog is about.)

The logical first step when trying to grasp a philosophy is to find the core of it, the general idea that everything else springs from. When studying a real philosoph that usually takes a lot of reading between the lines, but fortunately we can cheat here because Nasu tells us what Twice's core motivation is in Extra Materials. It's not war, or hatred, but rather the belief that humans can be more. That's the central belief that Twice possesses, and it's to carry it out that he, while hating war, is willing to start the greatest war in history to wake up the humanity that fell into a torpor in Extra.

Of course, believing that humans can be more isn't enough; you need a reason why humans must be more if you want to say that they should. The reason that Twice gives why it's necassary to change, why simply becoming happy isn't enough, is that any animal can be happy; if humans were going to stop at happiness, there was no reason for all the crimes, suffering and struggles in history. In a fairly great example of sunk cost fallacy, the fact that so much was paid in the past means that humanity has to continue paying now and in the future to become more, because if they don't then it was all for nothing. Since we started walking down the path, we have a responsability to reach the end.
In the modern day we hear a lot about the responsability that we have toward the future generations; that we can't leave things screwed up for them and so on. Twice's philosophy poses the opposite of that; those who live in the current era have a responsability toward those who lived in the past to continue to walk forward. (Incidentally, according to Extra Materials, this point is where he was in conflict with Hakuno, since Hakuno thought that each era had the right to choose what direction to take.)

But what is that 'end', the 'more' that Twice wants humanity to strive for?

He doesn't say. You can look through every line he has; he never defines it, probably because he has no idea what it is himself. He does give two criteria for it though: 1) It has to be something that the humans of the past couldn't imagine and 2) It has to make up for everything that was lost along the way, all the pain and suffering in history. His philosophy is deeply unfair for everyone who lives in the present; because someone in the past decided that being happy wasn't enough, they have to keep going through suffering and conflict to evolve for an end that isn't even defined. That end does exist though; he notes in CCC that the objective of all life is a completion that humanity will one day reach.

(That talk in CCC is actually quite relevant to other elements of Type-Moon, because the two ways to define "eternity" that Twice outlines help make sense of, for example, Roa's idea of eternity that a lot of people seem to have problems with. A topic for another time maybe, if anyone is interested let me know.)

It's ultimately kind of a strange philosophy because it's both so vague that it's hard to classify and yet too narrow to be made to fit into any theories that I'm familiar with. Either way, the salvation that Twice offers humanity isn’t a kind one; it’s hard path full of suffering that’s walked while feeling the weight of thousands of years’ of accumulated responsibilities, with only the promise that there is a light at the end to show for it.

I’ve called Twice the anti-Kiritsugu before because of their opposed mentality and oddly similar backstories, but in a way Twice stands in contrast with most of Type-Moon’s would-be saviors from Kiritsugu to Zouken to Amakusa, because all of them gave up on humanity and instead tried to bring about world peace or salvation forcibly by imposing their vision on the world, while Twice’s faith of humanity never wavered and he intended to let the next generation continue along the path – he just thought they needed a push to get motivated again. Particularly interesting given that he personally knew Buddha, yet never tried to make humanity follow in the latter’s footsteps.

That's it for today - I might have more to say about Twice later, but this is all I could write at 1 AM.