A Certain Magical Index/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance

• In A Certain Magical Index, I was confused as to why the Touma vs. Accelerator fight was called the Weakest Vs. the Strongest. Sure, Touma may be a level 0, but there are others, and he's not exactly physically weak either. Then I remembered something that was mentioned way back in the beginning. Touma, due to his power doesn't come up under the scans at all, while even other level 0's do, something that I realised when he saw Saten had been given grades, despite being a level 0. Since he shows no power in either the scans or tests, officially, he really is the weakest ESPer.
  • ...wasn't that explicitly stated?
  • Not during the Sistera arc, and probably no where else in the anime.
  • Original poster here. I think it was stated in the anime, but it was a simple throw away line in the first episode. Something along the lines of even the most talentless Espers will be able to bend a spoon with enough effort, but Touma will never reach that level. He was never outright called the weakest until the Sisters arc.
  • From chapter 5 of A Certain Scientific Railgun manga:

His right hand contains a mysterious power that he calls the "Imagine Breaker," but Academy City's system scan is unable to detect it, so officially he is a Level Zero.

• The Sisters' method of self-narration initially struck me as just an oddball quirk that they share. Something to distinguish them from other characters in the series. But then I watched Episode 17 and Misaka-10032 made the following comment to Last Order: "If you have said that, then it has already been broadcast through the Network. So there isn't a need to say that again in words." Their self-narration isn't just a quirk, it's how they input information into the Misaka network so all the other Misaka know exactly what's going on.
  • This theory seems to be enforced by Misaka WORST, a Sister who isn't directly connected to the Misaka Network. She's still a Third Person Person, but doesn't narrate herself because she has no one to narrate to.
• Touma is the only known person with the ability to cancel out anything out of the ordinary, and due to how he fights his opponents, Touma represents the true nature of humans. Think about it, he figures out normal ways on how to deal with supernatural opponents, is firmly grounded on reality, and relies on his own skills rather than on his abilities, and if you kick his ass he will just get back up.
• Much like their speech style mentioned above, it struck me as odd that the Sisters all wore the Tokiwadai uniform as opposed to "civvies." Only now does a reason occur to me. It's a rule at Tokiwadai, as stated in Railgun that students must wear uniforms at all times. The Sisters are wandering around town, and Mikoto is well known. The reason they all wear the uniform is so that they don't inadvertently get the original Mikoto in trouble at school for breaking the rule.
• Academy City isn't a city of science and technology, it's a gilded cage for the army of level fives they're attempting to produce in order to make the world their plaything, led by a regime so cruel as to make the Warhammer 40,000 universe look like the home of Amnesty International. Logic on this is supported by several things:
  1. The cover-up of the Parameter List and the implication that they knew Misaka Mikoto would be a level 5.
  2. The willingness to lock up Takitsubo Rikuo due to her "academy individual" potential, as well as the fact that they entered World War III specifically to unlock it, all so that they could create an army of level 5's and cull what the helmeted board director called "unnecessary abilities" (i.e, anything not related to militarization).
  3. If Academy City was only interested in research potential, then they would share their technology with other nations to increase the amount of lines along which tech is developed (like how the US shares all the non-military tech it develops). The fact that it doesn't shows purely malicious intentions. For example, Yomikawa Aiho claims that people outside, even the best and the brightest from MIT can't understand Academy City's best tech, and that's the reason they're not releasing it, which is complete and utter bullshit. The reason science exists is because it can be understood given time and research, by anyone. Did anyone other than Thomas Edison understand the lightbulb when he developed it? Do, but he demonstrated the technology and taught others how to replicate it. Same with Alexander Graham Bell and the telephone.
  4. The willingness of Academy city to assassinate the families of espers who left the city, as well as the creation of special forces teams such as GROUP, ITEM and SCHOOL to suppress any and all dissent amongst the populace, using force as the first and only option. Also, their assassination of the US senator who tries to restart the Stargate Program (which it seems that Academy City originally sabotaged in the first place). Also, Academy city seems to be in possession of a massive brain-trust, as though every single MIT grad simply went there, or anyone with an IQ of 120+, which is unusual because it would be political suicide to concentrate every single R&D program in one nation with dubious ties.
  5. The Daihasei; it's a sports festival, practiced along the lines of fair sportsmanship, but this is averted; espers are encouraged to use combat grade powers against the opposing team, to the point that all Tokiwadai has to do is simply knock unconscious every single person on the team opposing them. This is malicious for two reasons:
     1. It encourages the idea that it's ok to use lethal abilities on regular people.
     2. It encourages the sense that having abilities somehow makes you more than human, a superior race that by their very genetics has the right to lord over others. This is only encouraged by the fact that level 3s, 4s and 5s get massive discounts in the marketplace in addition to their lives being funded by multi-million dollar military paychecks. I could go on forever, but I think I've provided enough evidence to safely say that Academy City is more of a threat to world stability and a bad actor on the political stage than, say, the religions (magic) it's trying to wipe out. I'm honestly shocked that Hamazura hasn't released the data he has on Parameter List yet.
  • As of the latest^[when?] translated volume, it can be said that Academy City also serves as a way to control the members of the Kihara family. Without Academy City, the tech it has would be released into the world and Kiharas would start popping up all over the place.

Fridge Horror

• Episode 18 in the second season has Touma running into Misaka Imouto. When he buys her some animal-shaped pastries, she thinks the chick-shaped pastries are actually real birds and is horrified when Touma actually eats one. This seems silly at first and looks like something that Touma could easily handle by setting Imouto straight...until you realize that in order to explain the situation, Touma would have to use some of the very same rationalizations that were used to justify the Sisters being mercilessly slaughtered in the Level 6 Shift experiments in the first place!

Fridge Logic

• Granted, you can't easily dissuade a person committed to action. But nobody, not even people who you'd expect to know their way around the Bible, ever even begins to attempt appeals to Scripture. Anywhere. Even where it would make sense, as with the nun-vs.- priest showdown. The best that you get is some vaguely Catholic-sounding pronouncements. Sure, if someone pointed out the Church was violating Thou Shalt Not Kill the answer would probably have been "You're heathens, you don't count," but it would have been nice for it to brought up.
  • There's no way the Vatican would give so important responsibilities to women.
• Innocentius (the big fire monster) would've melted the surrounding area by its very presence. The anime even showed it melting metal door handles. Even if Touma's right arm can block magic/esper abilities, it probably wouldn't be able to cool the entire surrounding area and prevent everything from catching fire.
  • Seeing as it's a magical monster, it's quite likely that the heat is contained to just outside its "skin".
• Uiharu has an incredibly useful power despite being classed as a level 1. Her ability is temperature regulation. Anything she touches will maintain it's current temperature indefinitely. At a first glance, this may seem like a mostly useless ability, but when put into real-world applications, it's uses become apparent. During Misaka's battle with the AIM Burst, it attempted to reach Academy City's nuclear power plant and cause a meltdown. Had Misaka not been able to stop it, the most useful person to have around would be Uiharu. By maintaining the temperature of the reactor core, no amount of damage caused by the AIM Burst would create a nuclear meltdown. In a somewhat more unfortunate situation in which the reactor had already begun the process, Uiharu would still be one of the most useful people to have around. By maintaining her own body temperature, she could travel within the facility and shut it down without any risk of receiving thermal burns caused by the overheating core. The damage sustained by radiation poisoning is an entirely different matter. In a similar vein, Uiharu is invulnerable to extreme hot and cold weather. By, again, maintaining her own temperature, she could scale Mount Everest completely naked without getting so much as a chill. She would also be invaluable as a traveling companion, as she could maintain the temperature of anyone she stays in contact with, preventing frostbite, heatstroke, and any other effects caused directly by harsh temperatures.
  • Uh, Uiharu isn't immune to hot and cold. That's why her power is normally only useful for things like keeping food warm.
    • Which is probably the reason why she is a level 1, she has no real control over her power that would allow her to implement such applications.