Haruhi Suzumiya/Headscratchers

I has Haruhi's powah.

If some of the characters can hijack Haruhi's power, why don't they ever just use it to strip her permanently of her powers? She wouldn't be hurt. She would even be aware that she'd lost anything. And you take the universe out from under her heel, as well as the significant risk of her destroying it.

• • Because Yuki still has the Entity's goal to follow. If Haruhi's ability isn't functioning uncontrollably, Yuki-tachi have no way to study it and complete their nonlinear evolution or whatever it was.
    • So the Entity has a death wish? Which would (and most likely will) happen when Haruhi becomes bored and kills everything.
    • The Entity has a goal for which it is willing to risk its life. That's not the same thing as a death wish. Presumably it hopes that once it finishes its evolution, it will then be able to safely depower Haruhi. Or simply be powerful enough to withstand her power, or escape it.
      • I'm not even sure if the Entity is affected by Haruhi's reality warping at all. Apparently, It's neither related to space, nor to time in a major way. It's so completely unrelated to our world that it cannot influence us at all. (Which is the reason the Interfaces were created, as a bridge). If I recall correctly, when Haruhi was about to destroy the world, the Entity was only concerned about losing its observation target, not about its own death.
        • That makes no sense. If the IDE can't affect reality, then how did it create the interfaces? Or are you simply saying that it's so alien that it can't relate to us?
          • The IDE is likely beyond human understanding.
          • Haruhi's power even once deleted the IDE so yes, the IDE can be affected by Haruhi's power.
  • One of Itsuki's theories is that Haruhi is dreaming the universe. How badly would you want to wake her up?
    • Were I in the universe it depicts, I would kill myself rather than be subject to her mad whims.
      • Some of us believe reality is controlled by a deity far more malevolent than Haruhi, and yet we still live with it.
        • See, here's the thing about that... as tyrannical as any given depiction of God is, it's at least a minor symbiotic relationship with his followers. Look at the Abrahamic God; his punishments were over the top on the slightest things, he was childish, petulant, violent, and simply cruel at times. Yet he was a provider as well, often to the very people he was stifling. He destroyed their enemies, blessed his favored, gave the Israelites a homeland, and pulled their ass out of the fire sometimes. No matter how lop-sided it was, it could still be called symbiotic. With Haruhi... what does anyone gain? Seriously, what? It's clear she doesn't value the people around her, except for Kyon. Everyone with an emotion is miserable and abused and looks like they would pack up and leave if they weren't in constant fear of oblivion. What does she give? Nothing. It's the equivalent of having a sociopath point an anti-matter gun at your temple and say, "Dance with me forever or your family will never know existence!" I guess what I'm saying is; what's the benefits package for the Haruhi-verse?
      • How could you be sure that death would place you outside her control? If she is God and created the universe, then she also created the afterlife.
        • Assuming afterlife exists.
          • If you believe there is no afterlife, then you believe that death = final oblivion. If so, then why deliberately seek it out? Life in a universe with the statistical possibility that you might get messed with by an unaware-of-her-power goddess may not be ideal, but surely its still better than total and permanent nonexistence.
          • Speak for yourself.
          • Actually nonexistence would be much better than torture. (Afterlife is still life only after death.) Still, Haruhi's universe may be a little bit better than ours. (If ours is the case of no deity at all.)
          • It seems to me that you are missing the big picture here. Even tough she does have some serious Jerkass behavior and calling her a sociopath initially is not far from true, most of her actions turn ot to have an ultimately possitive influence in the world. Asahina is coming closer to be the strong, independent and confident self that we know she'll become. Nagato is speeding towards full autonomy (That it's said may be de key to the non-linear evolution that was the whole point of her mission and very existence) Even Kyon, the number one fan of the "Haruhi's power is just trouble" idea finds himself utterly horrified of a world where she is just a normal human. Even further, the computer club president states that Nagato has greatly improved their club, fixing any problem they may have and programing a full OS from scratch that leaves any major company OS far behind, this is the result of them seeing her computer prowess in the Day of Sagitarius competition, wich in turn is a direct result of Haruhi blackmailing a computer out of the club (One of her major Kick the Dog moments). Thanks to her The school has a competent student council and even Taniguch gets in a brief relationship with a gorgeous girl from a private school and Kunikida gets to be close with his crush,she has also used her powers to unconciously protect the members of the club, even getting them out of seemingly unsurmountable odds (What she pulled in the Eleventh novel was simply superb). All of this is the result of her reality manipulation powers, and all anybody has to do in exchange is humour the antics of a teenager that have so far failed to do any serious damage to anybody. So to recapitulate, Symbiotic relationship? Check. Provide for her people? Check. ¿Crush their enemies? Check. Bless those with her favor? Check. Pull their asses from the fire? Check. What else can you ask from a teenage deity?
  • Another theory is that she controls all local probability, so no one stops her because she won't even let them try.
  • When Yuki remade the world Kyon's retained all of his memories and was ultimately able to undo what she did, and the Anti-SOS Brigade claims they need Kyon's assent to return Sasaki's powers to her. That's probably not a coincidence and Kyon has stated he has no intention of letting any one else have those powers.
  • I've always been under the impression that the only reason people can affect her powers is because she subconsciously lets them to see what would happen. If they tried for a permanent cutoff, she simply wouldn't allow it.
  • Fridge Brilliance: perhaps the reason that Nagato, and not any other interface, is able to tap into Haruhi's power is that Nagato develops emotions.

Nothing to see here, just alien interface who acts nothing like a human.

Why does Yuki risk drawing attention to herself by acting in an obviously un-human manner where outsiders can observe her? The other known entity of her kind seems perfectly capable of blending in and adopting the manner of a popular schoolgirl.

• • Answer! Because that makes her more of a Shrinking Violet. I think nobody would really pay attention to the girl that just sits in the clubroom, doing nothing but reading all the time. Besides, she doesn't seems to have any friends other than Kyon, Mikuru and Itsuki. And well, Mikuru is a time traveler, Itsuki is an esper, and Kyon is Haruhi's friend. Think about it.
    • I was primarily thinking of the bit where she reprograms the game on the fly, earning the notice of the computer society president. Any reasonable person would think "no one human could be so fast!".
      • It is this Tropers' belief that any REASONABLE person would think "Man, that person sure can hack fast!". Surprisingly enough, jumping to the conclusion that someone is not human is usually NOT something a reasonable person does.
        • Speaking as a computer science major, anyone who knows anything about computers (and I think it's safe to say the members of the COMPUTER club should know a good deal), would be aware of the utter impossibility of what Yuki did. They'd think it was a bug in their program (a high likelihood considering these are a bunch of high school programmer wannabes). Really, the only time you'll hear "OMG THIS ISN'T WORKING I'M BEING HACKED" is from a complete newbie.
      • That particular incident is meant to show that Yuki is allowing herself to be herself, free of duty to Haruhi and normality.
      • Plus she was too busy having fun. Naturally I knows the hacker.
      • She had no way of knowing that the computer society would assume she hacked it during the game. There was plenty of reason to believe that they would cheat. She had physical access to the computers. A keylogger could tell her how they're activating the cheat if it's in the game, and it would be even more obvious if it was a second program, and a trainer can tell her exactly what bits it's flipping. She knew what time the game would start. Once she has all that, writing a script to run and flip the right bits (and make sure nobody flips them back) would be trivial. I don't know enough to know what it takes to keep someone from just closing the script, but I doubt it's difficult to make it too hard for someone to undo it mid-game.
      • There is also the bit at the school festival where she acts as a fortune teller and makes extremely detailed predictions, which people should find very odd. The Weirdness Censor is probably at work here.
        • I can imagine Yuki accidentally predicting something to her classmates and said classmates squeeing over her "uncanny fortune-telling abilities", resulting in them casting her as a fortune-teller with the instruction to "predict the future". Literal Genie and all that. Of course, this is only speculation.
        • Well, the guy she was giving the fortune to in the anime did look like he was starting to freak out. Nagato mysterious character has managed to generate a large amount of fame, actually, and combined with the fact that she rarely speaks at all, it is mentioned in the novels that her class treats her every word like an oracle. So fortune-telling really isn't that surprising an assignment. Plus, she looks good in her wizard hat and robe (though she terrifies Kyon).
          • Wouldn't you be terrified if a girl like her put on her robe and wizard hat?
        • Ryouko tried to blend in by becoming a popular student. Yuki simply has another way of hiding. And Yuki's worked.
        • As for the hacking, remember that Mikuru spent the whole game wandering around uselessly. I always thought that the Computer Club President would assume that this was Yuki's fleet, accomplishing nothing because she was focusing on cracking the game. It becomes a tiny bit less blatantly superhuman then.
    • It has been suggested that some of the interfaces use "Don't look at me" fields to remain unnoticed. These are (as usual) not 100% effective, so Yuki has the backup of just being a person who would normally be overlooked anyway. Ryoko seems to have failed to cover up her murder scene as her stealth skill isn't as practived.

Yuki and Itsuki says they don't understand the plot

I don't think there's any way Yuki's and Itsuki's theories about how Haruhi powers work could be correct. If anything she wants really happens just by her wishing it, well...

• • Why would Yuki have to manipulate things so they'd win the baseball game? If Haruhi wants to win, shouldn't it be a done deal?
    • But they did win therefore what Haruhi wanted happened.
      • Not to mention what Haruhi may have wanted was Kyon to be pivotal to winning the game. He just couldn't do it from the batting order alone. Hence he calls in Yuki.
  • Why would Haruhi ever have to complain about the heat (in some episode where she's wearing that bunny costume)? If she's too hot, shouldn't the weather change to suit her wishes?
    • Worth noting that as the episode progresses she's wearing progressively more fanservicey costumes and gets upset that Kyon isn't paying her the same attention he usually does to Mikuru.
    • It just annoys her. She isn't nearly passionate about it enough for it to actually change. And she would consider it against her common sense.
  • Why weren't they getting all the hits she wanted on the webpage?
    • They did eventually, and in the weirdest, most unlikely way possible (an interdimensional data creature choosing it as a breeding ground). Thank you for asking the question that made me realize the point of that episode.
  • Why would she need to blackmail and rob to get a computer and Internet access? Shouldn't the classroom have contained everything she wanted?
    • Because that wouldn't be any fun.
    • Because while she is neigh-omnipotent and yadda yadda yadda, on some subconscious level she realises that life shouldn't bend over backwards to suit her will. Or, more to the point, she has to make life bend backwards to suit her will; it shouldn't just do it. Itsuki explains it better. Look below.
    • She wanted internet access, but she had nothing against getting it the way she did. Besides, it didn't occur to her until she knew she didn't have it, at which point her common sense got in the way.

• What is a "slider"? Many seem to think that or suggest that Kyon is one.
  • A slider is someone who can jump from one dimension or world into another. Kyon has been called this by Haruhi in Disappearance.
    • That's later disproved by Yuki when you find out that Yuki didn't create an alternate world, she merely altered the one they were already in. Only a time frame of one year was affected by the changes which is why when Kyon traveled back in time 3 years, it was the still the same tanabata he had already been too.
• When I first started watching this series, I figured Haruhi was just really into science fiction, but then her ballpark revelation seems to suggest that she's only interested in the supernatural because she wants to experience something no one ever has before. Now, I have to wonder - why restrict yourself to aliens, time travelers, espers and sliders? Haruhi doesn't appear the least bit interested in applying the scientific method to her research to begin with, so how come we never hear her rant about, say, ghost sightings or hidden wizarding societies?
  • She did look for ghosts in the 8th novel, and they practically turned out to be real. Nagato explained them as incorporeal data aliens, but Kyon lampshaded that there is no real difference, as they look like ghosts, swim like ghosts, and quack like ghosts.
  • Perhaps it was because those were the things Kyon told her about (save for sliders) in Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody.
  • For that speech, perhaps it was for brevity. She could have added "ghosts, witches, wizards, fairies, demigods, demons, robots, werewolves, vampires..." but it would take too long.
  • Even if anything for her is fair game, if she is more into Scifi it is understandable seeking for this kind of creature first.
• This probably ranks among the silliest aspects of the series to tear your hair over, but seriously, Haruhi's apparent Skepticism Failure is making it really hard for me to grasp her character.
  • FLCL is the cure for that. Otherwise, consider this: "If a phenomenon arises due to a time loop, then the phenomenon cannot be observed in isolation of that time loop."
• Were Haruhi to become aware of her powers, would she be capable of being usurped? Say for instance Kyon drops his John Smith bomb and then says something to the effect of "You're God but I'm more powerful than you are." Would Kyon then become a Reality Warper stronger than Haruhi?
  • Only if she 1) believed that she really was God, which everyone seems confident she won't, and 2) she actually believed him, then, if she truly perceives Kyon as more powerful, it may be so. Fortunately or unfortunately for everyone, Haruhi's pretty conceited and it'd probably be a cold day in hell before she thought of someone else more powerful than her, even if she did believe the "God" thing.
  • Her power doesn't just work on the principle of Clap Your Hands If You Believe. It's just as important that she wants it to be true. She certainly doesn't want anyone to be more powerful then her.
  • I'm not sure that would be necessary. You just need to convince her to giver her powers to someone else. This would give absolute power to someone she has no reason to trust, sort of like letting an AI out of a box.
  • In the movie she is usurped, without even asking her and the events in the novels following the movie she isn't the one being asked to transfer the powers.
• Why are people saying the art style of the second season is different than the first one?! THEY ARE EXACTLY. THE. SAME. I can't see any difference!!!
  • After watching some episodes of K-On!, just take a look to all Mikuru's facial expressions in the second season. She turned into a Yui rip-off.
  • It could be that you're just seeing similarities because you've been watching K-On. It looks close enough to me.
  • Nah, he's right, at least during the Endless Eight arc. Whenever Haruhi smiled, it was as if Yui was cosplaying as her (as seen here). Thankfully, that was gone by the time Sighs rolled around.
  • There was one ∞8 episode in particular that was very reminiscent of K-on but the art was not consistent across these episodes, presumably intentionally; other than the first and last no two ∞8 episodes had the same director, storyboard artist and animation supervisor despite the content being almost identical.
  • Uhh, no, you are wrong. Some of the characters' designs are differant, resembling more to K-on!. Compare this Haruhi in season 2 ^{[dead link]} to the main characters of K-on!.
• How is it that Haruhi is unaware of her power? How can one create the universe without noticing?
  • Why not? It's an unconscious power. She doesn't have to notice what she's doing, especially if there's no indication visible to her that anything has changed, or if she just doesn't notice it, being focused on whatever her current goals are.
  • The later novels seem to agree with Itsuki that Haruhi isn't really totally omnipotent, nor did she create the universe.
    • She has most likely also created herself, without a memory of being a god. Obviously she hasn't been in the same form since the creation of universe, so at some point she took the form of Haruhi, complete with fake memories. Or she recreated the universe so that she exixst as a schoolgirl instead of as whatever she was before.
  • I don't think they mean she literally created the universe, as in there was no such thing beforehand. It means when she uses her power, the universe as they know it is either changed or in large cases, entirely written according to her blueprints. So as such, she has 'created' a universe. Also, even assuming she does something really big, the universe is wiped clean and redone how she wants it, why would she guess that she did it? If I wanted to find vampire ninja rabbits and I did, no matter how unlikely that is I would not assume I had created them. I'd think that they'd always been there and someone had simply finally found them.
  • She has two layers of consciousness, one of a human girl and one of an omnipotent being. For the time being the larger layer stays separate.
  • There is no proof that Haruhi is unaware of her powers. She might know that she created the world and is playing along with it because that's the best way to experience her creation. She could have tried playing God in an earlier world and found that it got boring fast, so now she is playing girl. She deliberately tries to ignore overt evidence of her powers because she is just as aware as everyone else how her acknowledging her powers would ruin things.
    • As far as this troper can tell, Haruhi didn't create the universe. Rather, going by Yuki, Itsuki and Mikuru's suggestions, Haruhi formed what can best be described as a "closed instance" based off of the already existing wider universe, or--more simply--hijacked the already existing universe and started subconsciously altering it
  • There have been signs that Haruhi is subconciously aware of her powers, and she may actually bevoluntarily unaware of them. Since she goes as far as to create a subconcious manifestation of herself that is capable of counter some carefully laid out plans to strip her of her powers, wich this troper finds a feat a bit too complex to be performed subconciously. So perhaps she is using her powers to keep hersef from knowing she has them (wich adheres to the theory that the whole "looking for the supernatural" attitude is all an act and she just wants to have a fun, ordinary high school life. This also serves to justify how she promptly buys whatever bullshit explanation Koizumi comes up with to explain away anything odd that happens around them and they fail to properly cover-up.
• Why is it that Yuki bleeds when Ryoko's knives embed themselves in her torso? Given how indifferent she is to them, she obviously doesn't need blood for oxygen transport or anything like that, and if the blood is there for "realism", a lot more should have been spilled.
  • Because almost everything animated for public in television is softer than the real version. Censorship. (But sometimes they release the uncut one in DVDs). I hope this answers to every question like "Why is anime blood black?".
  • She's in a human body, but as shown in The Day of Sagittarius, she can control it with much more efficiency than any normal human without rewriting reality, so she could probably identify any injuries that are not immediately threatening and ignore them. Using her rewriting power, possibly a "shortcut" that works with her body alone to reduce the necessary concentration, could have sealed the wounds as much as they needed to so as not to lose so much blood her body stops working. The blade-stick-things were shoved through her torso, so it would make sense for splatter and/or tearing at the entry and exit points.
  • She has blood so that if she gets a papercut or whatever, people don't ask why she isn't bleeding. But she doesn't have 8 litters of blood because it's highly unlikely she'd be in a situation where she'd be bleeding that much without her powers already being in use.
  • She isn't a robot, shw is biologically human (she is frequently seen eating) with the added data powers, she has blod and therefore is spill when she is hurt, she is just powerful and resiliant enough to stand more damage for a longer time. The repair of his body is completely necessary, it jus isn't urgent
• Does Kyon actually spill the beans to Haruhi at the end of Part 6? The rest of the series would indicate otherwise.
  • Answer He does; the scene is shown in the novels. She doesn't believe him. "That would be too easy."
    • This is why all three SOS paranormals are cast semi-accurately in the Non-Indicative First Episode -- Haruhi took the idea from Kyon's attempt to clue her in.
      • New question. If the paranormals were able to use their powers, then why were most of the special effects in Mikuru Asahina's Adventure so terrible? Koizumi apparently used his esper powers at the end (even though they weren't in closed space), yet Yuki didn't use any of her reality-hacking effects.
    • The event is also shown in the anime, as of the second season. The event is a part of Sigh, so it happened in that group of episodes.
    • Haruhi was the director of the movie. The members have already decided to hide their identities until (and maybe even after that) she shows an overt indication of knowing and believing it.
• On a related note, why do Yuki and Ryoko Asakura fail to be thorough in their masquerade? In the case of the latter, the building attendant found it odd that rent was paid in cash and that he never saw hair nor hide of the parents who were supposedly living there as well. Yuki's apartment is almost completely bare, which would seem odd to anyone that would have to enter in case of emergency repair or the like. Surely it would be within their capabilities to have some other entities pretend to be parents, manipulate the banking system to pay the rent electronically and add some furniture to the apartments?
  • Ryoko's masquerade was rather effective, at least until she decided not to go through with it anymore. I'm of the impression that Ryoko was supposed to be the one to interact with Haruhi, while Yuki was to observe from the sidelines, but Haruhi's hijack of the Literature Club room threw that plan off, and Ryoko was relegated to backup. As for the rest, I think Yuki knew that her actions would be considered odd, but not odd enough for others to notice. It's weird that she's not more thorough in her masquerade in the beginning, but after she had established the "personality" she was going to use, it would probably be even weirder to change it suddenly.
  • Hello? They're totally alien beings. Their masquerades are probably as well-considered as they can be from their points of view -- remember that Yuki and Ryoko have essentially the same task that cultural anthropologists have, with the additional requirement that they remain disguised at all times. Imagine being dropped into Integrated Thought Entity world with a data-being interface you talk through, and are told, "Now, blend in absolutely seamlessly". Yuki comes closer to that standard than you ever could in an analogous situation.
  • Also don't forget their abilities and their ability to lie. As well, don't forget how apartments and homes work; people can't enter your home without explicit permission (as far as say, a building superintendent goes) and without any real friends, it's not like someone would simply drop by unexpectedly that didn't already know who Yuki was. And in the event of something like a broken pipe, either Yuki can claim that she had a private repairman do the job or simply use her powers to correct it so no one has to enter her place to begin with. As far as other things, it might be odd but it's not necessarily suspicious - there are a host of reasons in the real world why these things like missing parents or paying in cash would be okay.
  • Anyone a fan of the Terminator series, especially The Sarah Connor Chronicles? Why don't people notice the obvious flaws in behavior? Because no one believes in killer robots from the future! You're just not likely to think of that. No matter how weird Nagato and her "relatives" act, unless they do something obviously superhuman, they'll be seen as nothing more than possibly deranged people. (There are weird enough people in real life, what's a few more?) Although I have to wonder, assuming Nagato gets to last many more years, once she graduates from high school, how does she get a job with her crippling lack of social skills? And one wonders, what happens if Japanese Intelligence or some other organization finds a reason to investigate them? (Given their reality altering powers, though, I suspect such an investigation simply wouldn't last long.)
    • It's an inside job. One of the three factions (and what seems to be the most numerous) is native to present-day Earth and is very well motivated to keep a lid on things. The espers at the very least don't need to fake their long-form Birth Certificates.
  • Also, in the 10th novel (or as of this moment the preview of it) has Yuki outright state that she is the way she is because the Entity made her so. In other words, she can't be anything other than her stoic self. The same would go for Asakura, who never loses her upbeat personality.
• What's with the focus on Kyon's mole at the end of Remote Island Syndrome? It's a mole.
  • Maybe Itsuki has a mole-fetish. Or maybe the phantom killer they were talking about turned into a mole and hitched a ride on Kyon.
    • I seriously want to know though. :(
      • Answer: It's not in the novels, it's got nothing to do with the plot of the anime either. It's a reference to a movie, I think it was Austin Powers? Not sure anymore. Either way, not many people understood that it was a reference, and a lot of them thought it was genuinely plot related..
      • Well having mole prone skin is a genetic thing and which other character has a mole?
        • Wait, wait, wait... are you implying that Kyon and Mikuru are somehow related? Either there's all sorts of messed up stuff going on in the novels that I don't know about, or that was one hell of an Ass Pull, my friend.
          • How does Mikuru survive the time changes she randomly imposes on the past by say breathing? (See The Butterfly Effect.) The only (non Mystery Science Theater 3000 song) explanation that makes sense to me is that she's a descendant of Haruhi and so under the protection of Haruhi's powers. (Wouldn't it be fun if Mikuru's true present age was like negative one or two years? "Daddy, mommy, don't fight!")
  • There's a WMG that says when the anime adapts Snow Mountain Syndrome (where, while staying in a mysterious mansion, each brigade member meets a phantom fake of another member), it will be a plot point. In the novel, Kyon realizes Mikuru is a fake because her mole is absent. Guess who Itsuki sees.
    • Another thing is that due to the insane number of Chekhov's Guns and gunmen in the plot, Kyo Ani might want to put a red herring in.
  • It's possible that the Snow Mountain Syndrome might not be adapted, because of its similarity to the Island episodes. Plus, they already somewhat modified the Island episodes so they could fit Kyon's sister in, who wasn't at the novel's Island but was in SNS (and played more or less the same role).

• What's with the focus on Emiri Kimidori? Sure, she's cute, but an entire image album, and showing up in all sorts of related media and art seems kind of unusual for a character that was onscreen for all of two minutes of one episode.
  • Answer The novels spell it out rather more clearly: Emiri is another (rival) Data Entity's representative like Yuki. Her "faction" is more like a neutral party than actively opposing Yuki's, at least for now. She also shows up more often in the later novels. As for her popularity, I'm thinking Ensemble Darkhorse.
    • I thought Tsuruya was the Ensemble Darkhorse. Or can there be more than one?
      • Is Emiri Kimidori actually popular? I figured it was the Kyon's Mole effect at work - executives trying to milk more money out of the series's popularity. (Speaking of the later novels, it's worth mentioning that Tsuruya actually interacts with characters and does things; Emiri Kimidori appears a few times, but when she does she's mostly just there.)
        • Emiri's popular enough to have quite a bit of fanart of her out there, at least. Not as much as, say, Yuki Nagato, but still substantial. I'm thinking that any female character in that series tends to be popular, although I have to admit I haven't seen a lot of Sasaki in fanart form. Also, Emiri does appear in the opening credits. I think her being "just there" is because that's her job (so to speak), while Yuki had her role subverted by Haruhi's (and Kyon's) attentions.
        • I thought Emiri was from the same entity as Yuki?
          • She's from the same entity as Yuki and Asakura, but not from either of their factions.
            • Just on the topic of Emiri, if you were to de-Engrishify her name, replacing the r's with l's, you'd get Emili, or more likely Emily. I know it reads Emiri on the image song CD, but I'm just saying.
              • Except that Emiri is an actual Japanese name - take Emiri Katou for instance. The are several possible kanji renditions of that name, and the author even gives a specific one - 江美里.

• In the second part of "Lost Island Syndrome," Kyon falls from a short cliff, prompting Haruhi to panic and check if he's still alive. (I believe this happened only in the anime, not in the novel.) Of course, he wakes up a few seconds later, not badly hurt. What I've been wondering ever since I saw that scene is, was he badly hurt before she checked on him?
  • You know, I've been wondering something else about that episode. Was the victim really still alive/was it all a game before Haruhi "realized" Kyon and Koizumi were the murderers, and maybe changed reality to exonerate them?
    • Yes, he was and it was. Haruhi did change reality for exactly that reason, but she did so by creating the shadowy figure that she and Kyon see on the cliff. (As I recall, that also only happened in the anime.) As Kyon points out, the murder was too bizarre to have actually happened without Haruhi making it so, and she wouldn't really wish someone dead. Kyon's insights into Haruhi's character are pretty much always trustworthy.
      • She might have created a shadowy figure. They never mentioned it again, and a moving shadow isn't very mysterious on an island full of foliage during a storm. Also, how big does an island have to be for there to be animals on it?
• Why does Kyon ask important questions like "exactly what the hell is going on here?" to Itsuki and Mikuru, neither of whom will give him a straight answer, but never Yuki, who has been pretty forthcoming with answers the few times he has asked her something? (This question probably doesn't make much sense if you haven't read the books, I don't think the anime has gotten far enough along yet)
  • Considering novel 4 onward, Kyon probably just doesn't want to trouble/rely on Yuki too much. He doesn't care what Itsuki thinks, and any excuse to talk to Mikuru is probably nice. Yuki tends to answer with a lot of long-winded Techno Babble anyway. Care to list any specific examples?
  • He does this in the anime (second season). She gives him a honest non-answer - anything she could tell him, he wouldn't understand but don't trust anything the other two say. And, for the matter, don't trust anything -she- says. Basically, at this point, he knows everyone's lying/not forthcoming but only Yuki has been honest in that (the other two basically try to make the other one look to be an idiot while playing on Kyon's emotions).
    • She never actually states that anybody is lying, she just says that her opinion differs from that of Koizumi and both differ from that of Asahina, and that Kyon has no proof that any of themr isn't lying, all of wich is true. Even the other two just exposed the point "You have no proof that the other one isn't lying" Yuki just added "You have no proof I'm not lying either"
  • In addition, Disappearance reveals that Nagato is actually concealing information from Kyon in order to protect him from the culprit of the time anomaly.
• It is me or just because the show is (seemingly) aware of all the tropes and its usage, it doesn't mean that it doesn't fall into the same, tired anime cliches? Particulary aggravating when the show tries to take itself seriously.
  • This is unlike any anime I've ever seen. Keep in mind how familiar I am with Evangelion. It uses cliches in the freshest, most unique ways.
  • Any particular examples you have in mind? It's kind of hard to answer a question like this without any details whatsoever; don't assume your words speak for themselves.
  • Cliches, like tropes, aren't inherently bad (or good). Cliches are only cliches if one remains formulaic.
• In short, aside from a few (albeit very weird and very dangerous) incidents, the world seems just as uncooperative with Haruhi Suzumiya as it is with the rest of us. What is really going on here?
  • It might be explained by the scene in the cab where Itsuki is taking Kyon to show him a Closed Space. During that cab ride, Itsuki speculates that, in addition to her latent omnipotence, Haruhi has "a practical side" that realizes the absurdity of aliens, time travellers and espers, and that the resulting internal conflict results in the paranormal existing, but in such a way that Haruhi is unaware of their existence.
  • In addition to the above, to quote Haruhi Herself, "because life's more interesting that way." If everything Haruhi wanted happened automatically with a hand-wave, she'd be bored. So instead, she makes Kyon do it or something.
  • If you want to see Haruhi bending the world more freely to her whim, go read the second novel (the making of the movie). The subconscious restraint on her powers is significantly relaxed because she starts viewing the world as a stage for her movie. The cat still doesn't talk in front of her, though.
    • • I thought that the cat did speak in front of her though (assuming that she was there on the roof when the filming of that scene happened, it's never explicitly mentioned) and then Yuki handwaves it to be ventriloquism.
    • Maybe her powers work the same way Jesse Custer's do...
      • Jesse has conscious control over his powers.
    • There's also the "Kyon Is God" theory: that Kyon is the one controlling reality and wishes Haruhi into existence to fulfill the childhood fantasies of aliens, time travelers and espers that his cynical side won't let him admit. He passes the role of Mystical God to Haruhi because he sees himself just as every supporting character does: a normal human. In truth, he's The Man Behind the Man, he just doesn't realise it. Thus, the reason that the world is just as uncooperative as ever is Kyon's cynicism and down-to-earth view at work.
      • That "Kyon is God" theory you stated just sent chill's down my spine, i always found it funny what Kyon and Haruhi seem so intertwined to the point that we cant tell who IS the main character here, Kyon could very well be the true omnipresence and is subconsciously using Haruhi as a decoy to avoid detection.
      • This troper has but one question: Why isn't this in Wild Mass Guessing yet? (If this isn't fixed in a couple days I'll probably do it myself.)
        • This is not a guess. The later novels are driving at exactly this point. This may explain why Kyon understands his puppet Haruhi better than he does his servant Yuki.
  • Well, at least Haruhi made herself extremely good-looking, which is not that bad.
  • To answer this and the previous top-level question: I'm not convinced that Yuki ever presents a theory of Harhui's powers that's understandable to us poor language-ridden earthlings, and I think it's fair to say that Koizumi and his Organization's just don't have a complete understanding of Haruhi's power. Koizumi himself says that "Haruhi = God" is the theory that the Organization is acting on because it's the "worst case scenario." This is a form of Pascal's Wager: you better worship God even if you can't prove that He exists, because if He does exist and you don't worship him, you might go to hell. At any rate, Haruhi powers are a mystery.
  • It always seemed to me that whatever Haruhi wants, Haruhi gets, but always in a way that doesn't interfere with her Willing Suspension of Disbelief. At some superconscious level she just wants to be a normal girl, and that level grants the whims of the more limited aspect of her mind in such a way that it still appears as though everything happened normally.
• It's mentioned that before founding the SOS Brigade, Haruhi briefly joined and quit every single club in the school. Did that include the literary club (of which the only member was Yuki) and the computer club?
  • Probably at least the literary club. It'd explain how she knew of a club with only one member that wouldn't mind her taking over its space.
• Is Kyon a player or just that laid back? At times in the anime, he seems to be attracted to all three girls in the S.O.S. brigade.
  • I'm pretty sure he's just laid back. Despite all those perverse inner thoughts about Mikuru, he doesn't really seem to bother chasing girls. As far as the Light Novels go, they all seem to be hinting towards Kyon/Haruhi as an the Official Couple; the Yuki thing is more a 'friendship and/or teaching to be human' thing, whereas the Mikuru thing is blocked by that whole future/past thing anyway. Also, he's like a 16 year old guy surrounded by moe archetypes through no fault of his own. It's not like he's chasing them.
    • He may have wished for four types of potential lovers to present themselves to him so he could take his pick. That all of them have in some way expressed an interest in him adds another token to the Kyon is god pile.
• Speaking of which, how exactly did Haruhi get so Genre Savvy? Her knowledge of tropes would imply that she's been analytically reading novels and watching TV and movies for years, but she seems to spend most of her time trying to find things in fiction in Real Life. Did she just watch them a lot and then get bored with them a little while before we met her? Did she just reads all of this stuff elsewhere? (OK that last one is more like Wild Mass Guessing)
  • Didn't she mention that she was bored, like, in the first episode? Maybe when she said that she was 'bored', she was practically bored of EVERYTHING. Including fiction.

• Why does everyone use the word "Esper" for Koizumi? The word is Japanese in flavor and "esper" itself isn't actually used in the entire anime for as long as I can recall. Why didn't anyone use "psychic" or something to describe him? Did one fansubber make a stylistic decision and everyone else followed forever?
  • It seems to be a stylistic choice. The word was coined by Alfred Bester and used to refer to people with psychic or paranormal abilities (used first in a short story, Oddy and Id and later in The Demolished Man). Nevertheless, it's an appropriate word to describe Koizumi, so I don't see a problem with it.
  • Are you sure that ESPer/esper isn't used in the anime? Because the novels use it constantly--or, at least, Baka-Tsuki's translation of them, anyway...
    • The word "esper" is not used in the Japanese script (Haruhi's line is, I think, "chounouryokusha" which means "psychic person/super brain power person"). It's probably not in the original Japanese novels either (The fan translation project didn't take off until after the anime, so they just as likely followed the fansub). "Psychic" in most English fiction just implies mind reading/clairvoyance, wheras Espers in Bester's work were a bit broader based, so that's probably a better referece.
  • In the sixth episode (chronologically) and the seventh chapter in the first novel, Kyon refers to Koizumi as "Shounen esupaa sentai (Squad of esper boys.)" Besides that, I think he uses "esupaa (esper)" a few other times in the novels.
  • Even worse than the word esper is the use of the word Slider which is never given a meaning in the novels, and not even used in the anime (that I remember) all of the WMGs relating to it suggest its supposed to be a dimensional traveller but the only other place I have heard it being used like that is in Sliders I wouldn't think bad North American Sci-Fi and Japanese Light Novels have that cultural overlap.
    • Again, the Japanese text uses "isekaijin", or other-world person. it's pretty clearly talking about someone who travels between parallel worlds, which is a pretty common sci-fi trope. "Slider" is used for brevity.
  • Possibly also just a matter of differing cultural schticks.
• Okay, I can understand Haruhi not realizing she's God. But seriously...you'd think that she would have realized by now that something's up with her personally. I mean, seriously...she's incredibly skilled at just about anything she tries, extremely athletic, and has random outbursts of downright absurd luck. Shouldn't she have noticed?
  • At fifteen? Do you remember what successful people are like at fifteen?
    • Not really, no. I was a reclusive Captain Failure at fifteen. That aside, though, I would think that the same common sense keeping her from making Crazy World would have noticed "hey, wait a minute, I just learned to play guitar like an expert in fifteen minutes, isn't there something wrong there?"
      • Haruhi has no frame of reference though. She doesn't know that no-one else can learn guitar in fifteen minutes (and the only other person she's seen try is Yuki...)
        • That would explain why she expects the brigade-members to behave like Kamina 2.0 when dealing with something. What do you mean you're exhausted?
      • Plus, I don't think it's ever been so Egregious as that. In fact, in the twelfth episode when she did play guitar she commented that she wasn't able to learn the songs in time for the show and had to just play the main chords. It seems to me that she's an especially talented person, but she does have to put effort into learning new things.
        • Who said Haruhi learned to play guitar in fifteen minutes? She already knew how to play a guitar.
    • Wait, when does she or anyone who produced the show say she knew how to play already?
  • The question though is "Noticed what?". As far as she's concerned, she's just The Ace. Subconsciously, she's also grounded in normalcy. What would make her jump to the conclusion that she was special especially after her childhood realization that she's just another snowflake. And in the real world, there are in fact people who are just as talented as Haruhi - Jim Thorpe for instance was an Olympic gold medalist in the pentathlon, decathalon, Hall of Famer in both college and professional football, a professional baseball player and basketball player, as well as held the office of NFL commissioner. And this is just his sports career.
  • Haruhi is pretty good at a lot of stuff, but it's worth noting that she isn's supernaturally good at them, and not even at everything (She is pretty useless playing computer games, for instance). In the tenth novel, after Yasumi proves capable of keeping up with a running Haruhi and Kyon thinks this is a sign of her being supernatural in some way, Koizumi states that he could easlily find dozens of high school girls capable of it if he wanted. Even in the incident with the band, in the novels she just sings, it is stated that the injured band member did both vocals and guitar, but since Haruhi wouldn't be able to learn both in such short notice, she need Yuki's help, and even learning the vocals is hard for her in such short notice, again, this might be just a manifestation of her own subconciously self-imposed boundaries, since she always comes on top, but often trough the help of her friends or just good luck. Perhaps she just thinks it's more fun that way.

• According to Yuki there are four factions in the Entity: Moderates, Innovative, Compromise, and Thinking. So which factions do each of the interfaces represent?
  • I'd think Yuki belongs to "Thinking". Her boss appears to be neutral and logical.
  • I'm pretty sure it's been stated at some point (or maybe it's just accepted Fanon) that Yuki is from the "Thinking" faction, Ryouko is from the "Innovative" faction and Emiri is from the "Moderate" faction (or possibly the "Compromise" faction; can't quite remember properly).

• Why do most people assume that Koizumi is correct about the universe being created three years ago when Haruhi, Nagato, and Sasaki all refer to events prior to July 7, 2007.
  • Those events were Ret Cons. There may have been a universe before 07/07/07, but it's been overwritten by Haruhi's and only exists where it serves to fill in details she isn't interested in.
  • Besides, if the entire universe was destroyed then remade with changes including everyones memories being retroactive...how would YOU know? Does it really make a difference if it has been or not, then?
    • Unless someone has Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory, there is no way of knowing. But the only characters who demonstrated this trait are Nagato&co and Kyon. And this ability failed them as often as not. Integrated Data Entity is likely to have been created by Haruhi at 07/07/07, and Kyon is not particularly reliable.
  • I think most people go with it because they're just not skeptical enough of Koizumi, and it's the only explanation presented in the anime so far. The first season of the anime doesn't really do a lot to cast doubt on the Organization's theory about Haruhi, as told by Koizumi to Kyon. The novels do so, and the anime will likely pick this up in the second season.
  • It's also mentioned that the people of the future can't travel back in time before past 07/07/07, because the timeline may start at that date.
  • Remember that the IDE exists outside time so they can know if the world existed before that date (and Yuki confirmed). And of why Mikuri couldn't travel further back, Yuki said the TPDD, Mikuru's time machine, isn't an optimal tool for time travelling. So maybe with a better time travelling technique they can travel even before the July 7, 2007.
• In the chapter "Melancholy of Mikuru Asahina", Mikuru and Kyon go out alone to save some kid. When Haruhi, Nagato and Koizumi find out that they went out on their own, they are relatively justifiably angry for their own reasons. (Koizumi because Haruhi could erase the world, Nagato for the same reason and also because she was just left there without explanation and Haruhi for not being informed and also all three for their "fascination" with Kyon) Now all of this could have been avoided if they just took Nagato or Koizumi along. Or even Tsuruya! Heck, Mikuru didn't even have to bring Kyon, just any person who can save a kid's life. Heck, even bringing Haruhi along could have been a better idea. Bringing Kyon alone is the WORST idea she could have had. The only benefit to her it brings is that it could have brought them closer together when she KNOWS that they can't have a romance in the first place.
  • Mikuru didn't seem to know they were there to save that kid until it happened, only that she had to bring Kyon. Unless she's completely full of crap about everything (possible but not likely at this point) her superiors aren't in the habit of explaining themselves to her. When ordered to bring Kyon there, it makes a certain degree of sense not to bring the others too, in that doing more than she was ordered to could cause unforeseen problems.
    • If she doesn't bring Kyon along, he can't get creamed by a van. I do not trust her.
  • This sort of thing is usually hand waved as being a predetermined event, adult Asahina knew that it would happen and how, she gave the orders in the same way she remembered recieving them and knew how they would be carried out. In the same way, adult Asahina knew that they would be busted and Haruhi would get jealous but also knew that Haruhi wouldn's ultimately destroy reality, so it was better to do things as they were done and just deal with Haruhi's reaction than going trough a more peaceful route and risk creating a paradox.
• Might be better suited to WMG, but bringing it up here for now: Whose hand is Haruhi grabbing onto at the beginning of the OP?
  • I would say it's Kyon's, since he "pulls" her out of her melancholy.
  • Always kinds thought, it was god.
    • That's what I thought, too...until Fridge Logic hit and I remembered that she is God.
    • According to Koizumi. The book specifically mentions that that belief is not held by Mikuru nor Yuki and even Koizumi states his doubts about it. In any case, it could still be God, passing on the baton just for the lulz.
    • It could be Haruhi's "higher self". She's basically an avatar of God, since God itself is a too great and incomprehensible thing to directly interact with the mortal world. The concept is present in at least a couple of major religions, so it's not like there isn't a precedent.
    • I always thought that this was supposed to be a variation of Sistine Steal.
    • The official answer is "No idea, but it's probably Foreshadowing." Personal pet theory? It's Kyon, and judging by Haruhi's age and the look in her eyes, this is Tanabata three years ago. Time Travel is great for WMGs, eh?
• If what Haruhi wants becomes reality, why doesn't Kyon pay her more attention? Such as the final (broadcast order) episode of the anime where her clothes get skimpier and skimpier throughout. The only thing I can think of is that the kiss worked because she was remaking reality so that he DID like her, and so the kiss satisfied her that doing so wasn't needed... only she doesn't realize it actually happened.
  • Haruhi's reality warping abilities are based on her beliefs not her desires. Even then their seems to be restrictions on how much her belief affects reality. For instance she doesn't believe any of the members of the SOS Brigade are aliens, time travelers, or espers, but they are. Also, Sasaki has espers, despite not having believed in them when she had her powers.
    • Um, the implication throughout the story is that she invented espers at the very least and probably the others as well (not that they would admit it). She doesn't believe in them either which does act as a limiter so that they are uncommon. So it's based on what she wants. If her beliefs controlled reality entirely, there wouldn't be any aliens, espers, time travelers, talking cats etc.
      • Espers are the one thing that Haruhi definitely didn't invent since Sasaki had them first.
    • How so? Koizumi notes that all the espers got their powers instantly knowing they came from Haruhi. Sasaki, even if she really was a reality warper, is noted as someone who wouldn't change anything ever. She doesn't want the world to be special. The esper on her team was not created by her, she simply disagrees with Koizumi and the espers of his faction about what to do with Haruhi. The other two groups were also possibly around before Haruhi made them as they do not associate Haruhi with their own existence, leaving it implied that she might have made them or she might have just drawn them to her.
      • Kyoko notes that she instinctively knew her powers came from Sasaki.
  • Maybe it's because Kyon is defined as "stone so heavy God can't lift it"? After all, Kyon seems to be the only person who can stop Haruhi. "Kyon is God" theory fits here perfectly as well.
  • Maybe she can't fuck with people's free will, or doesn't want to. That's what I've always assumed.
  • Maybe she could have Kyon or whoever she wants just fall in love with her the moment they lay eyes on her, but why would she want to do that? If she has to struggle for his attention, against a rival for his love (Mikuru), by the time he finally admits his feelings for her, she'll know that he likes her because of who she is, and she'll feel that she's "earned" him.
  • It may be that she just makes thigs to play out the way se believes a relationship should go, a theory supported by the love story in the movie she directed. In the movie, first Mikuru is rescued by Itsuki [Kyon rescues Haruhi from her boring life] then, he tries to kiss her while she is unconcious [Kyon kisses Haruhi during the "dream", and in the movie they were supposed to actually kiss, Kyon just didn's allow it] then they star getting to know better, in wich time she becomes friends with his sister [even played in the movie by Kyon's own sister, that Haruhi is particularily fond of]. Following that, the villainess infiltrates the school to seduce him [The theory that Mikuru is just being so moe to play on Kyon's emotions]. Finaly, the guy realizes he has great powers [Kyon is God theory here] And chooses her, and they live happilly ever after.
• When Yuki rewrote reality why did she remove the classroom that Koizumi had used from existence.
  • so that there would be some boys going to the previously all girls school, and to make Koizumi one of them.
    • Kyon says Koizumi's homeroom "was a class for those interested in the Science and Mathematics Field, so it was naturally comprised of sharp-witted know-it-alls who did nothing but study". In novel four Kouyouen was apparently the best school in the area so it would seem obvious that those students would go there.
• @ the entire series: What the hell am I looking at?
  • It's a series about a girl with mysterious, god-like powers. What else?
    • What do you see?
      • I see an old lady with mysterious god-like powers.
      • A girl who wants the world to be special, but for her to only be specialy to her one special guy. Oh god that was sappy.
• Why doesn't Haruhi recognize Kyon from the time he helped her draw that message on those school grounds? It could not have been that dark, since there was obviously enough light for them to see what they were doing. Haruhi also got a good glimpse of Mikuru and she is by no means stupid. I consider this quite a plot hole.
  • It's not dark enough to make them invisible, no. But it is dark enough to obscure faces and features. She also didn't pay Mikuru much attention. As for Kyon, she does ask if she knows him, probably based off his voice and speaking patterns. But he completely honestly gives a negative. Also, why would they still be the same age three years later, and still attending the same school? The idea probably crossed her mind but she went Meh, it just doesn't work out and he has no idea what I'm talking about anyway. Plus, Kyon at the beginning is much more oppositional than he was as 'John Smith.'
  • Do you remember exactly what someone you met three years ago just once looks like? Probably not even if it was something 'big' (outside of something really big) - you might think you know them if you saw them later, but as mentioned, without any real supporting evidence, it'd be a long shot to be able to say definitively.
  • She seemed to recognize him a little.
  • In addition to the above, Haruhi believes John Smith is a good three years older than her (or more) and has already graduated from North High. So according to common sense, it just can't be Kyon.
• This is probably just my lack of research on the subject, but where exactly does Itsuki say that he acts gay to trick Haruhi just in case she's a yaoi fangirl? I don't recall anything of that sort being said and people throw that line around.
  • Is it? I thought it was all WMG. Then again, I haven't been able to get hold of the novels, but I doubt it's there, either.
    • Check the novels on baka-tsuki. But seriously, does anyone know? I'm getting suspicious that the line isn't anywhere in the books and someone just said it was. Then, everyone quoted that person.
    • Same here. The last time This Troper read the novels was quite a while ago, but she doesn't remember that line either. Although she might have just missed it, seeing how everyone else treats it as a given?
    • There is no line saying Haruhi wants Koizumi to be gay, but there is one in book 6 where he says that he puts on a facade as that's how Haruhi imagined him. Seeing as Haruhi doesn't know about Koizumi being too impersonal with Kyon it's unlikely she thinks he's gay. It more likely to be his actual personality coming out whenever it has the chance to.
    • This Troper took that line to mean that Koizumi adopted a Stepford Smiler facade as that's what Haruhi expects of the New Transfer Student, and didn't see any specific reference in that line to suggest that it's about his Ambiguously Gay behaviour being put on for Haruhi's benefit.
  • Koizumi is practically confirmed to be truly gay, in the "snow storm" short story all the five of them were seduced by replicas of their desired ones, and Koizumi saw a fake Kyon.
    • Except, as has been mentioned elsewhere on this page, who they liked had no influence on who appeared. The person who appeared was based on a mathematical formula devised by Yuki to give the key to escape. Secondly, Koizumi was specifically disturbed by what the version of Kyon in his room did.
    • Wouldn't you be disturbed if someone you knew acted completely out of character after coming into your room at night?
• Anyone else find it odd just how powerful Koizumi's organization is for a group that only formed three years ago? I mean, I know we're not getting the whole story story from Koizumi (like we ever do), but it feels like it is missing something.
  • How are they powerful? There's clearly lots of infighting and they don't seem to have many extraordinary resources. Patrons like Tsuruya's family could easily cover the expenses we've seen.
  • It is likely that it is an Ancient Conspiracy, but it only recently got involved in the esper-Timetravel-IDE-Suzumiya mystery. At least in the first novel, Koizumi says that there are only about 10 espers, and he doesn't know all of them, that suggests a vast organization that only uses esper boys for this particular job.
  • If it wasn't an ancient conspiracy, it began three years ago, but immediately had all the members it has now. Once enough time passed for them to organize, it wasn't a question of how long they existed; just who was in it.

• I just have to say this. Who puts their digital pornography on the desktop these days?! The hidden folder flag would have been a clever trick in 1999, but these days we have flash drives, password protection, and several more reliable ways to keep files out of reach that I'm sure any of the computer-literate characters could have come up with on their own. What an Idiot!.
  • For easier storytelling purposes I believe. In the novels he uses a password-protected folder, but consider that you had... 3 seconds? so show something and let everybody understand Kyon is hiding the photos.
• Who's the adviser for the Literature Club?
  • Someone who's been sent to observe, but would rather read her books in peace without hearing "So. Whatcha reading?"

• Why aliens, time travellers, espers and maybe sliders? When Haruhi created the universe what was so special about these four paranormal things that they were the ones that were real? Why not werewolves, angels, vampires and maybe ghosts?
  • Haruhi likes sci-fi.
  • The aliens were probably already around as well as the time travelers. Even the ESPers may have been judging by what the anti-SOS Brigade is saying. Maybe she chose to call for something that would actually show up?
  • Because if she wanted vampires, Kyon would turn into an Edward Cullen Expy and there would be a headshaped hole in my wall.
  • During Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody, 'John Smith' mentions to Haruhi that he knows aliens, espers and time travellers, but hasn't met any sliders. Later on the brigade encounters ghosts - more accurately "incorporeal data entities", but as Kyon notes, it's all the same thing anyway and a ghost is a ghost regardless of what it's made out of. As for werewolves, angels and vampires, Haruhi hasn't expressed any interest in those, and that's as close to deducing the reason as we can get until we know what the hell is really going on.

• Why don't they ask Yuki to remind them of the loop?
  • It's the sort of thing you'd think of after experiencing the loop for a long time... Which they have, but since they don't remember any previous loops, they don't think of it.
    • Every episode he sits and asks her, why didn't she say something earlier? And she says, her role is to watch. And it zooms in on him. Dramatic tension rises. He might say something else! ...but he never does. It's infuriating. It looks like he very much WANTS to tell her, next time you can tell me earlier... but doesn't.
    • Since there are subtle differences during each recursion, you'd think that they'd come up with the idea at least once, out of sheer probability's sake. And after they come up with the idea once, Yuki will continue to remind them, so it would cease to be an issue.
    • Sounds like the timeloop from Stargate SG-1 to me.
• More importantly, how on earth are Bandai going to dub this?! Will they be able to improve it somehow through varying the deliveries or the dialogue up? Or... I dunno. I hope they do SOMETHING.
  • They're dubbing every episode of endless eight, and releasing them as if the weren't the same episode 8 times in a row....Oh Bandai...

• Okay, here's a question that has nothing to do with Season Two, any of the craziness and plotlines of the light novels, or Haruhi herself. Itsuki (or was it Yuki?) said that the corrupted SOS logo in "Mysterique Sign" was some number of pictobytes or some other large file size. The thing is, if it was that big, wouldn't it take hours or days to load, even with good internet speed?
  • When the file was put up, it was only a couple kilobytes or whatever. However, the first explanation was that the abnormal classroom warped the file and made it way larger by activating the cricket, or something to that effect anyway. The second explanation was that Yuki may have staged the whole event as something of a bonding event for the SOS Brigade, which would mean she made the file larger, and still while it was already uploaded. For people loading it, perhaps they only had to load the small visual file which then acted as a kind of gate? Bit fuzzy on the details of how they said it worked.
  • You can fit far more than a kilobyte of information into a one kilobyte image. All you have to do is read the image in different ways, I assumed that Haruhi took it to the (il)logical conclusion.
    • Not quite. You can only fit more than a kilobyte of information into a one kilobyte file if you have a decompression algorithm that extracts more than one kilobyte of information from that file; but that decompressor has a size, too, which may easily be more than one kilobyte. The amount of information in the file (which is not the same as the size of the file) cannot exceed the size of the file + the size of the decompressor. Which gives us the answer to the puzzle: the alien life form possesses a decompression program that extracts petabytes of information from Haruhi's image. That implies, however, that the decompressor must contain petabytes of information itself. Though perhaps a better analogy is that Haruhi's image file is the key that the alien needs to decrypt a file that's got petabytes of information.
      • You can test that theory without difficulty by taking your favorite zip program, determining its size, then experimenting with compressing stuff, but even that is more effort than you need to determine that compression does not work that way. Just imagine a 2KB compression/decompression program and a 3KB file that compresses to 2KB. That should be possible according to the above theory, but if so then you should be able to compress three files just as easily. Three files that are each 3KB would be 9KB that compresses to 6KB in total, but 6KB + 2KB < 9KB.
  • IIRC Yuki said the image was several petabytes (1000 terabytes.) Most major corporations don't even have that much storage, so how the hell did it get uploaded to a school's webserver? Only a tiny fraction of that could've fit, so what happened to the rest of the data?
  • Perhaps the extraneous petabytes of data were in a pocket universe that Haruhi created?
  • Okay. The file itself was only a few kilobytes because it merely told the computer what the file type was and what color each string of pixels was. The image itself, made when the pixels were put in the right order, contained over a thousand terrabytes of data that was detectable/comprehensible by the data entities and the thing behind the camel cricket. The reason it was so important was because it compressed so much information into a block of coloured tiles only a few dozen tiles square. If she had made the same image out of square clay tablets on the athletic field, it could potentially have had the same amount of data (minus the data that told the computer what image to draw, plus the data that tells the universe what the individual tiles were), though the compression (matter metaphor, not computer metaphor) probably wouldn't be as great. It's like how one of Claude Monet's paintings is, if you look at it one way, just a few tens of thousands (random and probably inaccurate estimate) of dots, but if you look at it another way, it's a detailed scene of a park that tells you the weather that day, the season, what people were there, what the people were wearing, the emotions they exhibited, so on and so forth.
  • Here's a shorter answer: the world 'infinite' is only 8 letters long but represents... a lot. Note that the use of terrabyte doesn't necessarily imply amount only representation. The use of terrabyte as a measure of information is useful only in the sense that it helps break down representation into discreet blocks. Also note that the speaker is Yuki who uses a lot of technological terms in odd places because of what she is - note she'll talk about corrupted data in reference to a classroom for instance (and indeed, a desert larger than the classroom existed in the same space as said classroom). Data as information and data as ones and zeroes aren't always the same thing.
  • Yuki tells kyon the image holds data Equivalent to a whole lote of terabytes, meaning Kyon replies that it can't be since the image is just a few kilobytes in file size. Yuki replies hen that the terabytes aren't contained in any way that humans could read, process or understand. It pretty mucho settles the notion with a "You, nor any other human could possibly ever understand" probably to avoid specifically this kind of questioning.
• On Haruhi's name what do the characters 涼宮 (Suzumiya) mean and why on Earth is Haruhi spelled in katakana?
  • I can't tell you what the Kanji mean, but it's very common to use Katakana to write ones first name. It's simmilar to how the western varian of the name "Hannah" can be spelled "Hannah", "Hana" or "Hanna".
  • Kanji is taken from the Chinese language, and the Chinese language cannot handle Hiragana, Katakana, or Romanji adequately. In the official Chinese translations, "Haruhi" is translated to "春日", or "spring day" ("spring" as in the season).
  • An internet search suggests the Kanji might be read as Unflappable Royalty.
  • Haruhi derives from "Haru" spring and -hi, diminutive suffix. "Suzu" means bell, and "Miya" means shrine, so "Shrine Bell". At least, that's how I translated it. Alternatively, maybe her parents wanted to make a female version of the name Haruki, just as we make Micheal-Michelle, etc.
  • Literally translating the kanji in "Suzumiya" (not conjecturing random homophones) gives us "cool shrine" ("cool" as in the weather).
  • This last point is correct. The first kanji is "suzu" from "suzushii", meaning "cool" (there IS a "suzu" that means "bell" as in the surname "Suzuki", but the kanji is 鈴). The second is "miya" for "shrine". As for the spelling of her first name, that's a stylistic choice. Some people choose hiragana or katakana for their names, sometimes even because they never had kanji for them. Haru does mean spring, but it can also mean "stretch", "affix", "tighten", etc. So the exact meaning of "Haruhi" is up for debate without the kanji.
• About the first season: If Ryouko, just like Yuki, can control reality to some extent, then why didn't she just make Kyon's parents to get a job in... let's say... France, the same way Yuki transfered her to Canada??? It certainly would have provoked a similar response in Haruhi (though it would have meant no awesome battle between Yuki and Ryouko)
  • A couple of reasons: Primarily, she was trying to provokme Haruhi, which taking away Kyon (her most significant source of inspiration) would not have done. She was trying to kill him, not merely get him out of the way. Second, Yuki didn't change reality so that Ryoko's parents were transferred to Canada, she just changed the files the school had on Royoko and told the landlord that their family had moved unexpectedly. If you recall, it's canon that Yuki lives alone, and I think it's been stated (at least in the anime) that Ryoko did, too.
• How is it when Haruhi is holding Mikuru's colored contact lens it rests on her finger (like a real one would), and yet when Mikuru wears it it covers the entirety of her huge moe-tastic eye?
  • Giant anime eyes are merely a visual effect -- it's not something the characters actually have in the fictional universe. I presume Mikuru "really" has normal-sized human eyes, and so the contact lens is probably depicted close to its "real" size when taken off. It's the same in Code Geass -- Lelouch's Geass-blocking contact lens is realistically sized when it's shown off his eye.

• So is there an explanation why the anime episodes aren't in chronological order? Or did the producers just want to make it seem more interesting that way?
  • They were in the second run of the show.
  • It's because the Haruhi series are composed of lots of little stories. Until the fourth book, the only real climax was in the original light novel. However, a full anime that was based only on the first book would be dragged out far too much, so they had to include filler: the smaller, modular stories that worked anywhere. So what do you do? You can't play it straight, because that means we have the real story blown out of the way in the first half of the season, with a bunch or minor plots filling out the rest. OR, you can keep the first six episodes in order but cram the minor ones in between, delaying the climax until the end of the season. From a storytelling perspective, that makes the most sense, so that's what they did.

• Since the SOS Brigade smooth Haruhi's way to prevent her having a world-destroying sulk when she, say, loses at baseball, what are they going to do when she leaves school and enters the intractable world?
  • Haruhi is improving over the books, with Itsuki noting that closed spaces have become much rarer since she's been around the SOS Brigade. And since the future -- Mikuru's time -- exists and the whole story is one big Stable Time Loop, you can figure out that the world survives until at least then. Presumably by the time they graduate, Haruhi will become reasonable enough that there will be no need for the Masquerade, and there's no reason the SOS Brigade can't just continue as a circle of friends even after Mikuru (being in an upper class) graduates before the rest.
• Why does Kyon tell Haruhi about the secret identities of the rest of the Brigade at the end of Season 2/start of the second novel? Note that Kyon's answer to Haruhi's reaction is finding her not believing him "obvious" in the novel, and in the anime he looks completely pleased only giving a happy facepalm. Kyon either expected to Haruhi not to believe him or he didn't want her to know (the later is from the anime reaction).
• In Bamboo Leaf Rhaspody, when Yuki freezes Mikuru and Kyon in time, how is it that Mikuru's watch has continued tracking the flow of time for 3 years, when it should have been frozen too?
  • Because it is special clock made just for that purpose? I believe it is wrong see it as a "clock", you should see it as a "machine able to reconise which time plane it is" or something similar.
  • I recall the novel mentioning that it's one of those watches which is set by radio signals (which would be a good choice for a time traveller anyway, as it would give them an easy way to find out what time they're at). When Yuki unfroze time, the watch, frozen on the date in the past, would pick up the signal in the present and change the date.
• Why is Shamisen in the disappearance/vanishment part? Because in that timeline there would be no reason for Kyon to pick up Shamisen, coz Haruhi isn't there to force him to take it home. No Haruhi the Director=> no Adventures of Asahina-san 00 => no Shamisen.
  • This is not how that world works. By that logic, there would be also no reason for Mikuru be in the present, yet she is still there. I believe Shamisen is tehre just because he was there when the world was remade. The Vanishment world is not a "what if Haruhi didn't had powers world" (where there would be also no Nagato or Ryouko) but more like "a world similar to the old one but without supernatural powers". In that world Kyon habe Shamisen for anoter reason.

• What is a Slider? I've tried looking it up in the internet, and all I got was baseball pitches, GUI terms, and greasy hamburgers! What is a Slider!?
  • A person who jumps from one alternate universe to another. See also: Sliders, for a specific example of the trope (the show didn't invent the term).
• This is about the gender bender fan series actually. It seems like Kyon and Haruhi's roles are switched at times. Shouldn't they both act like their canon counterparts but..Well, a bit different since they're the opposite gender. Haruki's a bit OOC, same with Kyonko. Also, is Haruki still a god and Kyonko his snarky BFF?
  • First, there is a separate page for this. Second, there many versions and no official one. Which one you are talking about?
• I don't get why the fandom, not the people in the show itself, ever question anything that Koizumi says, even though he's a self admitted chronic liar. Stuff lie Kyon being ordinary, or that Koizumi would stand by the SOS Brigade if push came to shove. How come no one ever says "But Koizumi has a tendency to lie and withold information, so everything he says should be taken with a grain of salt"?
  • So, when he admitted being a chronic liar, why did you believe that to him?
    But seriously, when did he say anything like that? I can only remember that sometimes he suddenly ended his monologue with "I was just joking", but there was no actual proven example of him directly misleading others (except Haruhi, of course).
    • In "Charmed at First Sight he admitted faking a personality to appeal Haruhi (is from where many people assumed he fakes all the Ho Yay). In the same conversation he said he was lying/joking when said he believed Mikuru was also faking back in Sigh. He even mentioned he is glad Kyon believed on him enough to consider the idea. Even if he is not that of a lier, he still lie, or "joke" from times to times.
• Why does everyone always use the term "Haruhi CREATED the world" instead of something more probable like "she REWROTE the world"? Clearly everyone else is older than three years old, but this isn't my point, since everyone refers to events before 07/07/07, and fake memories for everyone who just got created just seems like a too easy explanation for me. I haven't read the novels so I might be missing out on something, or is this just an error in translation?
  • She can refer to events before three years ago, because when the world was "rewrote," she added a long, complicated, history. Like if you were writing a novel and came up with a background story for your setting, to add color.

• Why was the Data Entity enraged at Yuki for killing Ryoko to the point it wanted to kill her? I thought it was clearly established that Ryoko had betrayed the Entity by trying to "force" a reaction from Haruhi, so its not such a big loss on its part.
  • She said there are multiple factions to the Entity itself, possibly like a person's ego, super ego, and id. Maybe the part that was angry with her was't the one that created her.
  • Were it was said they were angry about that? They were much more concerned with Yuki erasing them from existence in Disappearance. Quite understandable, I think.
• In the episode where Haruhi started making a new universe, Itsuki mentioned that the old one might end. Mikuru is from the future. That wouldn't make sense if it wasn't going to come.
  • They fixed it, so the future still happened. Also, the universe being destroyed is a very weird subject, so there isn't a very good way of telling how it would react. As a side note, since we know the future happens, we also can guess that the universe is never destroyed, since that would cause Mikuru to have never exist.
    • That's what I meant.
    • Itsuki believe Haruhi is powerful enough to just change the laws of time traveling (thus breaking the Stable Time Loop). Not he is the only one particularly concerned with the 'end of the world'. Both Mikuru and Yuki were just afraid Haruhi and Kyon would vanish.
• Why do people act like there's no sliders? Itsuki is a slider. He can go into those closed spaces.
  • Those aren't other universes yet, and the belief is those would cause our universe to be overwritten, rather than making a new one.
    • They don't take up space in our universe, and they can't be entered by normal people. In what way are they not universes?
  • To explain, the word slider in English (taken from the show of the same name) implies that the universe one is going to is based on the manner worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. A slider would go to a universe that is a little bit different than our own (i.e. A universe where Hitler never came to power, where Neanderthals did not become extinct, etc). The "universes" that Haruhi makes do not follow the same laws of physics, are not stable, and have no true independence from our own. They are merely Haruhi's way of relieving stress. Simultaneously, the original Japenese word means "people from another world" and Itsuki is not from another world, nor is the place he goes to another world (it is a small isolated area that mimics certain properties of are world, but has no independent existence). Finally, Haruhi wanted four specific things: an alien, an esper, a time traveller, and a slider. Itsuki has already identified himself as an esper, ergo he is not a slider. As a side note, using your definition we could just as equally call Yuki a slider (because patron comes from a place outside of spacetime), as well as Mikuru (because the future does not take up any space in our universe).
    • That's just brilliant.
• Why does everyone allow Haruhi to make a second film after what happened the first time? They obviously have to let her if she insists enough, but I didn't get the impression that they tried very hard to stop her.
  • They have already figured out how to avoid the reality-warping consequences, so doing so again isn't too difficult.
• What IS a slider, anyway? I've heard of espers, time travelers, aliens and reality warpers, but never is my long career of reading/watching fantasy and sci-fi have I heard the term "slider."
  • Someone from an alternate dimension. Like the TV show named Sliders.
  • I've heard of sliders, but not espers. I know what they are now, though.
    • I hadn't heard of espers either, but I made the connection to "ESP" and fiqured out they were phcyics. Funnily enough, I made it when I learned the name origin of the Pokemon Espeon.
• Why does Yuki use her ability to remember the future so little? Kyon got attacked by another humanoid interface, who seemed to think she'd win, when she should have remembered otherwise. She didn't cheat in the baseball game until the others knew what was at stake. At the beginning of training for that computer game, it was clear she didn't know how to use a computer, despite the fact that she spent the next week or so practicing. When they were making the movie, when she blocked BBs with her wand, the way she moved it would require that she knew where Mikuru would hit, but she said she didn't have time to shield against the Mikuru beam. She kept injecting Mikuru with nanomachines to stop the Mikuru beam after it was fired, rather than before, when it would have been useful.
  • Two reasons. First, "why Yuki didn't act earlier?": it's because that's how the Stable Time Loop works. Do you want to make something different from what you know it's the future and make a time paradox? remember that Mikuru, who is from the future, exists here and now. Second "why Yuki doesn't synchronize more often?": it's because she doesn't like synchronization. In the seventh novel it's revealed that Yuki asked by her own will to the IDSE that her ability to sinchronize to be locked. As a result she got "freedom beyond what she had imagined (...) being able to act by her own free will, unbonud by the future".
  • The stable time loop only exists because Yuki didn't act earlier. You don't see her jumping off a bridge because she remembered jumping off a bridge. She has been seen remembering the future for less useful purposes, such as fortune-telling and blocking airsoft BBs. Admittedly, those examples she'd know when to remember the future, but you'd think she'd figure at least the movie Haruhi made would be dangerous enough to merit it the whole time. Also if it's just Yuki that doesn't like synchronizing, that doesn't explain why Ryoko didn't know Yuki would beat her, or why Yuki's higher-ups didn't warn her.
  • Yuki may not jumped from a bridgebut the same principle can be used to other acts, like why did she keep wearing glasses after the synchronization. Again, that's what a Stable Time Loop is all about (note: it's never addressed how much Yuki remembers of the synchronizations, specially the second). I don't consider Yuki's fortune telling as using synchronization, it's more like simulations she executed that predicted which things will happen, the same with blocking BBs (by the way, what are BBs?). As about why Asakura didn't use it, I can throw three wild guesses: she didn't consider synchronization as neccessary, synchronization was denied to her, and that she was ordered to attack Kyon and fail.
    • BBs are small round pellets shot from toy airsoft guns.
• I got the impression that the nanomachines Yuki was giving Mikuru were supposed to make the various versions of the Mikuru beam impossible. They were already impossible. Is making it more impossible supposed to stop Haruhi's reality-warping?
  • It looks like the nanomachines Yuki injects Mikuru work only for neutralize one kind of Mikuru Beam. So each time Haruhi changes the kind of beam Mikuru has to be bitten again.
  • I mean, before she put in nanomachines it was impossible for Mikuru to shoot the Mikuru Beam. I admit Yuki only seemed to be doing it because it might work, but the idea that it could still seems silly.
  • Wrong, Mikuru shot the Mikuru Beam before getting bit. Actually this is the reason why she got bit in the first place, so Yuki could neutralize the Mikuru Beam. The issue here was each injection of Yuki's nanites are specifically designed for one type of Mikuru Beam, thus Mikuru having to be bit again each time Haruhi gave her a new beam.
    • I know. It was impossible to shoot the beam because she didn't have a laser (or monomolecular filiment launcher etc.) built into your eye.
  • When Haruhi changed reality, the change she caused was in Mikuru herself. Yuki's nanomachines canceled out that change. Haruhi could overcome them if she wanted to, but since she doesn't focus on it, they do their job.
• The tiniest nitpick has been festering in my head, nothing to do with any new aspect of the series. In Melancholy I, when the class switches seats, it's implied Haruhi's Reality Warper power had (or helped, or whatever) her draw the seat directly behind Kyon (not to mention, they switch seats every month, and Haruhi and Kyon are always shown to have the same seats, making it difficult to believe it's coincidental). But in Melancholy III, when the SOS brigade draws toothpicks to split into groups, she didn't land in the same group as Kyon either time and was visibly displeased that it didn't go her way. Though it does make it easier to tell the story, I suppose (as Kyon's outings with both Mikuru and Yuki turn out to be significant), it seems inconsistent.
  • My theory on that is that it's easier for Haruhi's subconscious to put them together when she cannot see herself as being directly responsible for it ("Why are YOU here?" when she almost remade the world). IE., because someone else (the teacher) initiated the shuffle, the result she wants comes up. Getting in the same group with Kyon would be what she wanted, but because she initiated it, she suppresses herself. Barring that, we do know that Yuki can cause the straws to give the result she wants, so it's also possible that the straws have been 'hacked', and for that matter, Organization/Agency meddling could possibly have interfered with seating assignments, so it's not as random as it seems....
  • But it is implied (rather, stated by Koizumi, however trustworthy he is) in "Editor In Chief! Straight Ahead!" that Kyon drew the "Romance Story" lot directly from Haruhi's hand because Haruhi wanted him to write a romance story. But not to let the toothpick problem be forgotten, it's implied in Dissociation that Haruhi stopped doing the toothpick lots because it never turns out her way.

• Why does Haruhi stop changing her hair after forming the SOS Brigade? The aliens will still be observing it, no?
  • I think you're missing a large part of the Kyon-Haruhi relationship here... Basically, it wasn't for aliens. It was for whoever was strange enough to ask her about it. And probably other reasons besides that. Eccentrics aren't exactly masters of fool-proof logic, they just do whatever strikes their fancy. In general, Haruhi was waiting for someone or something interesting to come along. Once such a thing is found, the entire equation changes.
    • Kyon isn't strange; he's so normal it hurts. But on re-watching the episode, I actually get it, 'cause I didn't remember it properly. She stops changing her hair when Kyon asks about it, not when she forms the SOS Brigade. Your explanation now makes sense.
• The first time Haruhi strips Mikuru, Kyon gets up to interfere. Mikuru, however, tells Kyon not to watch her being undressed, so he leaves. I can understand Mikuru not protecting herself, but why would she tell Kyon to not help her? (I actually do have a wild guess as to a solution, but no canonical explanation exists to my knowledge.)
  • Her protest, IIRC, was, "Don't look!" It's not that she's opposed to him helping; it's just that it was too late. She's already partially undressed, and immediate modesty supersedes the mild embarrassment she'll have later.
• After reading novel 7, I'm confused. Between the night that Nagato altered the universe, was stopped by future Nagato who turned the universe back and Kyon being tossed down a flight of stairs by Nagato, there was an entire schoolday in which Kyon attented school with Haruhi, decorated the clubroom, agreed to be a reindeer at the Christmas party and left the clubroom that Kyon never actually lives through. Was this Kyon a fabrication of Nagato? Alternatively was this Kyon real and when the universe was turned back a Kyon was included that woke up tht morning only to be deleted by Nagato before she tossed the Kyon that went through the events of Disappearance down those stairs?
  • Does the universe really exist when Kyon (and only Kyon) isn't watching it? This would explain volumes about why various groups need to move him through time and space to get him to take part in certain activities and how easy it is to overcome any incident which kills him (and so removes his reality lock). Also closed spaces seem to move to those times of night when he is himself asleep.
• Does anyone know what the Organisation and Koizumi has actually done to deserve such severe distrust from Kyon? At one point after the Disappearance he actually says that he'd trust the Dataovermind more then them (volume 10 prologue seems to have been a moral event horizon in his eyes though), in volume 7 after Michiru doesn't want to stay at Nagato's he feels there is one more person he can trust her with... This being Tsuruya. When Koizumi shows up to explain who and what Tsuruya is (which Kyon admits he doesn't know) Kyon tells him the affair has nothing to do with him, it's something between Asahina and him alone. When Koizumi leaves however, he pulls out his cellphone so he can call up Nagato to kindly update her on the goings on? That's some Nakama!
  • Two things: secrecy and lies. Nagato tells Kyon everything about her organisation (at least as much as he can understand) and Mikuru is physically unable to share her "classified information". On the other hand, Koizumi chooses to reveal as little as possible about his superiors. He also shamelessly gives false and misleading information to Kyon just to test his reaction (as far as we know), so Kyon has every reason to be paranoid around him. Personally, this troper expects the last novel to reveal that Kyon was Properly Paranoid about the Organisation all along, which would also reveal whether or not Koizumi was being honest when he said that he would pick the SOS Brigade over the Organisation.
  • Also, the Tsuruya family may be part of the Agency, but Tsuruya herself is not. What she did was not related to the Agency at all.
  • What lies and secrecy? They are a group of people that three years ago awoke powers and awareness of Haruhi and each other, they formed a group dedicated to her. Not all of them agree what their goal should be, or what Haruhi is. They have lots of money (one of the guys that turned Esper was apparently rich and in a position of power). All this Kyon knows because Itsuki told him, we haven't been given any information that contradicts that yet. Nagato didn't bother telling Kyon about their class representative being a Humanoid Interface made with every intention of effecting him and Haruhi quit a bit, until became hard to deny. She never actually told him about Kimidori-san either, or even directly came to them about the Computer President until they happened to ask, after which Kyon reflects that there are probably many things that Nagato doesn't bother them with and handles by herself.

But Nagato isn't my problem. The Data Overmind itself>Koizumi in Kyon's group of people he trusts? WHY?

• Why was The Adventures of Asahina Mikuru so terrible? Haruhi both wants the film to be really good, and believes that the film is really good (apparently the conditions necessary for her powers to be invoked), so reality should have warped and made the film really good. Yet, clearly, it's still a terrible film.
  • You answered your own question. Haruhi believes it to be a good film, and that's enough. Film quality is subjective, anyhow.
  • Original poster: I asked before seeing Sighs, which indicates that all the special effects in the film were (probably) generated by reality warping. Thus, Haruhi's powers did activate, because the movie was terrible, and said powers produced the special effects. Presumably said powers are the reason why the film is So Bad It's Good and not So Bad It's Horrible.
  • Furthermore, she was able to archive her main goal. It was displayed in the festival and it bombed. Half of the school (the male half) watched it.
• Ok, this troper is not very familiar with the show in general, but he saw the scene with Haruhi blackmailing the computer club president through false incrimination, who then... gave in. What the hell? Aside from the moral implications of such appeasement, what is to stop her from distributing the pictures ANYWAY, after having been given the computer? After all, if someone is willing to BLACKMAIL through FALSE INCRIMINATION, it shows how dishonest she is willing to be. A better solution would have been for Kyon to block the door, and if she tries to escape, to knock the camera out of her hand and shatter it against the floor. That blackmail and false incrimination would be played for laughs in the first place also bugs this troper...
  • By your logic, he had 2 choices: Ignore her, and she leaks the pictures, or give in, and she MIGHT leak the pictures. When given a choice between definentely and maybe, it's best to go with maybe.
    • But it's NOT a choice between definitely and maybe. They could have found some way to stop her from leaking the pictures, such as, let's say, destroying the camera. Seeing as how I already mentioned that in the bullet point you're referring you, you really seem to be Completely Missing the Point.
  • First, you are acting as if Kyon would get involved. Most of the time (generally in the beginning)he just lets Haruhi do what she wants. At best he tries to talk her out of it. Second, Kyon was the one taking the pictures. Third, Haruhi is the best athletes in the school, I have my doubts that Kyon or even the entire Computer Club could stop her. Fourth, even if they tried, what would happen if she was injured. She could use that as an excuse to blackmail them. Fifith, how easy is it to break a camera? Even if they could get it away from her, could they break? Sixth, how long did it take you to think of this plan? The Computer Club (and Kyon) were a) probably in shock (who would expect some random girl to burst into your club, force your hand onto another student's breast, take a picture of it, and blackmail you) and b) horrified at what else she could do. At this point she is only asking for a computer, but what if after you get the photo back she decides to completely ruin your life. The computer is replaceable, the live's of the club members are not. Seventh, she has the power to manipulate reality. What she wants happens. She wanted to blackmail the Computer Club President to get a computer, so it occured.
    • Kyon is involved, in the novel, anyway. He is the one taking the photos. Which make less likely for the Computer Club President to take the camera, anyway.

• So Kyon is sent back three years into the past, together with Mikuru, to help out a younger Haruhi with the activities that likely set everything in motion. After that he and Mikuru get put into stasis for three years, so they can resume their lives as if nothing had happened. But wait a minute, that means that there would be two Kyons roaming the earth: the original one and the one sent back in time. None of that ever gets any mention, despite the huge amount of problems that would cause.
  • Yes, there is a second Kyon in that timeframe. Why that should cause any trouble? After all, when he time travelled his past self never noticed him (and, like present!Haruhi and 3-years-ago!Haruhi, Kyon must look different enough than his non-time-traveling self so the people who see him at night might not recognize him as Kyon). As for mentioning, Kyon asks Yuki the natural conclusion to that (in the Melancholy arc the Kyon frozen in time and the one unfrozen are in adjacent rooms), and she confirms.
  • Still, after unfreezing Kyon from time-stasis there would still be two Kyons three years later. What did Yuki do? Put the other one in stasis permanently? That would be nothing less but criminal.
  • The unfrozen Kyon is sent to the past to help the younger Haruhi as your first question said. The unfreeze is done after the time travel so when the frozen Kyon awakens there's only one of him.
    • So then there are three versions of him: one in the past, one being sent back to the past and one being revived in the present. So Yuki is keeping one version of the Kyons in stasis, in a never-ending loop, for all eternity. That sounds rather nasty.
    • No. In Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody never are more than two Kyons shown at the same time. Take "freeze frames" (for giving a name) of the story and count how many Kyon's there are: ^[1] in the three years ago, after the time travel there are past!Kyon and time-traveler!Kyon; a few hours later after the time freeze there are still two: past!Kyon and frozen-in-time!Kyon. As the time passes to the present past!Kyon becomes present!Kyon with the second self (frozen-in-time!Kyon) still in that special room. Then, in the Tanabata present!Kyon goes to three years ago, leaving frozen-in-time!Kyon as the only one. After he's unfrozen, unfrozen!Kyon is still the only one. Thus, no Kyon created, no Kyon destroyed and always two Kyons at most.
  • To go along with this, I know that This Wiki once said that the three-years-ago Stable Time Loop caused their to be four Kyons and three Mikurus at Tanabata. Thing is, I've gone over this many times and there only ever seems to be three Kyons (the middle-schooled aged Kyon of the past, the Kyon who got sent back in "Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody", and the Kyon who got sent back in Disappearance) and two Mikurus (big and small) at that point. Can someone please tell me where the extra Kyon and Mikuru are?
    • The troper probably got confused about the Kyon and Mikuru who went back to the start of the alternate timeline to save Kyon.
• I reread the first novel and while reading the part where Mikuru introduces her identity, something hit me. I don't know how to put this, so this is the dialogue I had with my friend.

Me:Hey, so if the future Mikuru is here, then where's the present Mikuru?
Friend: She IS present Mikuru.
Me: Wait, wait, what? How would that work? Then how does she have all that memory from future then?
F:Maybe she's the future Mikuru, sent back to the past with her body reverted back as well.
M:That doesn't make any sense either; if her body get reverted back, her brain, therefore memory, would be reverted back too.
F,M:.........

• • I'm not sure I understand the question. There's only one Mikuru, and she travels around in time. It is unknown how many years in the future she is from, or how old she is. She's probably not born yet in the time of the series, given how strange her perception of technology is said to be. So she's born in the future, grows up to however old she is, including a normal education and training in the future, and then is sent back in time to the present as a low-level agent. She now lives in the present, but at some point in her life will go back to the future and become a higher ranking agent (and her own boss). There is no Mikuru from the present.
    • Yeah, neither do I. But then what is this loli^[2]-Mikuru and the adult-Mikuru thing? As far as I know, adult-mikuru is her real self, but her younger version is born in the same period and sent back in to the past.....? Ow, my head hurts.
      • You are greatly overcomplicating the situation. Adult!Mikuru is Mikuru from further along in the timeline than Loli!Mikuru. To put it another way, Adult!Mikuru is what Loli!Mikuru will become after she completes her mission with the SOS Brigade. They are the same person, but from different points on the timeline, the same way that the five year old version of you is the same person as the fifteen year old version. The only difference is that due to time travel both are able to exist simultaneously at the same time and space. As far as what happened to Loli!Mikuru, it is likely that she is either asleep (Adult!Mikuru has the ability to put Loli!Mikuru to sleep when she is in her presence), or that she was just not at the same location as Adult!Mikuru (perhaps in the classroom eating lunch). By the way, which translation are you reading, because I do not remember her referred to as Loli!Mikuru, I remember the term Asahina-san (small/big) being used to define them.
      • What I want to know is that exactly how Loli!Mikuru has the knowledge from the future, regardless how distant it is. For the title, well, I read Korean version and you know how Haruhi described Mikuru as a lolita looking girl with a big bust?
      • Loli!Mikuru is from the future. Adult!Mikuru is from further in the future. To put it another way, let us say that the first novel takes place in a time now called 'X'. Loli!Mikuru is from 'X+1', while Adult!Mikuru is from 'X+2'. Due to time travel, Loli Mikuru can enter time 'X'. Adult!Mikuru can enter time 'X' as well. Both can occupy time 'X' at the same time. Neither is regressed or altered due to the time travel and both retain all knowledge of the future (although Adult!Mikuru would know more of the future due to having lived more of it). Loli!Mikuru is one extra pixel added onto the timeframe, and Adult!Mikuru is an additional extra pixel. Oh, alright I tend to use the translations from the Japanese and (I think) Chinese versions, I guess diferent translation teams use a different method to refer to the different versions of Mikuru.
      • Not trying to be annoying or anything, but then where's X Mikuru?
        • This troper assumed X Mikuru was not even born yet.
• Kouyouen Academy (from Disappearance). If Nagato only modified the period from last December to December 17th, how did she change Kouyouen from a rich, all-girl school, to a co-ed academic school? I mean yeah, she has the power to do that, but IIRC, Kunikida said that Kouyouen had always been a co-ed school. So did she simply modify memories to make it so that they had always believed Kouyouen was a co-ed school and simply changed the school to co-ed when the students had to enroll?
  • Nagato basically recreated the whole universe. This means she could have everyone reappear in Amsterdam, let them go to Dutch schools and speak Dutch, if she had wished so. But she obviously wanted a personally more pleasant version of the world created by Suzumiya.
• Surely asked like 9000 times, but is there any source for "Asakura asks Yuki, during their fight: "You love Kyon-kun, don't you? I know you have realized it." Is it japanese/original specific or was it preserved in the English translation?
  • I think it was when during their fight, the said conversation was in one of the slowed down version of SQL chants in the anime. You are forgiven for never hearing that.
  • If you slow down and reverse what Ryoko's"incantation" during her fight with Yuki, that is what you hear, although whether of not this is just an Easter Egg or somthing more significant is disputed.

• Forgive me if I am Completely Missing the Point here but the alternate version of the SOS Brigade...what's so wrong about that Kyon decided to go "screw this" and hit the reset button? After reading some discussions about Kyon's choice...it made me wonder that it wouldn't have been all that bad if Kyon decided to just go with the Alternate Universe...
• See above, Kyon rejected the Alternate Reality because it wasn't his brigade, further, the Yuki of that reality actually annoyed him a little. That wasn't Yuki, it was what she believed he wanted her to be. Kyon wanted her to develop on her own, not mold herself into what she felt another person, (even Kyon himself) wanted.
  • Huh? Alt!Yuki was what she thought Kyon wanted her to be...? Uhm, did it really say that in the novel?
  • Also, Kyon actually enjoys the craziness life with Haruhi inflicts on him, so ultimately, he chose the dangerous fantastic realm over the safe normalcy of the AU... huh, puting it that way almost makes the choice seem Out of Character doesn't it?
    • In addition, if you ask me, it's something of an Unfortunate Implication that normal life isn't worth persuing.
    • It is not Out Of Character, because the fact that Kyon actually enjoys all the craziness was the whole point of him being an Unreliable Narrator, before that became this series' equivalent of "A Wizard Did It".

• It just makes me curious that there hasn't been any appearance of Clock Roaches.
• Just wondering, does everyone in the fandom, at least those who read the novels, actually understand all that Time Travel from the 4th novel and on? I'm not going to lie here, I have no idea how Kyon solved all that clusterf**k that is the 4th novel. D:
  • I haven't read anything past the fourth novel, but I'm with you. The fourth novel was confusing, to say the least.
  • I understood how it worked... until the last two novels messed everything up.
• So what the hell is Ryoko's problem with Kyon? No matter the situation, no matter the place, whether Data entity or human, she seems to really want to stab him? What. Is. Her. Beef? It can't just be her original rationalization anymore can it?)
  • She said herself that she (or rather, her organization) wanted to see how Haruhi (because of her powers) would react if Kyon was stabbed/killed. Most likely, it's programmed into her to kill Kyon, no matter what.
• Excuse me, but where the hell are Haruhi's parents? Her dad is mentioned during her recollection of the ballpark incident, ("I asked my dad how many people were in the stadium") but her parents are never mentioned again. Do they know that Haruhi is the leader of the SOS Brigade? Do they know about their daughter's obsession with the supernatural? Do they have powers, too? And wouldn't that make Haruhi a demi-god? Is she really an orphan? It just bugs me how there's nothing about her parents, when there's so much potential there...
  • She mentions in Surprise that her mother has a job and is a Cordon Bleugh Chef, which implies she at least still lives with her. (It also implies her mother is powerless, as Haruhi makes it seem as though she's oblivious to the fact that she can't cook; if she had powers, her cooking would probably be delicious 'cause she wanted it to be.)
  • Keep in mind that absence or near-absence of parents as characters is very common in high school anime, manga and light novels (Azumanga Daioh, K-On!!, Sketchbook, Hidamari Sketch, Minami-ke, etc.), perhaps more so than in Western fiction, so there is really nothing unusual about this.
• Ok, I can see how DITE figure out where that "Data Explosion/Flare" came from, but how did Mikuru and Koizumi's factions found out that Haruhi is responsible for Temporal Plane Block (how d'ya call it?) and Esper empowerment respectively? How did they track it down to Haruhi?
  • Time travelers have instruments beyond our comprehension, but surely they are at least able to measure anything that interferes with time travel. For the espers, gaining spooky improbable knowledge is part of the definition of "esper". Knowing things is their business, so naturally they just know.
    • ....ok, about the TT, since they are technologically advanced to the point of being able to time travel, guess I should just accept that there's SOME WAY to track down the location of the phenomena...but Espers...I doubt that they have ANY method to figure it out. Also, how did the Organization figured out the existence of other two factions anyway? Surely they have a lot of connection, but I don't think it helps in that kind of matter, unless it somehow involves NASA and MIT. Hmm, wonder if they any affiliation with Freemasons or the Illuminati...
  • It is explicitly stated by Koizumi that one day [[[Arc Words]] three years ago] he and the other espers just woke up knowing:

1.That they had powers 2.How to use those powers 3.That their powers came from Haruhi No investigation, no instruments, no research. The second they woke up they just knew it. It just camee with the package.

• Aya Hirano has been banned from working on new anime, but she can still work on shows with second seasons or extended runs. Does this mean she can't be Haruhi anymore? Would a new Haruhi season count as a new anime project?
  • She will probably still be Haruhi. "Second season" don't need to be called as such. Even if a new Haruhi run is not called 'The Melancholy of' anymore, it will still be Suzumiya Haruhi second season.
  • If this troper remembers correctly, they said she'd be allowed to work on ongoing anime that she's already a part of. Then again, considering that she apparently left the voice acting agency that imposed that rule for a new one, it seems to be one less problem for now.
• The gender bent versions. Most depictions switch Kyon and Haruhi around in terms of roles; at least how they behave, their personalities, and their reactions to others. Why not keep it the same as the regular series?
  • Double Standard. That being said, such thing is not that frequent at all. Such reversal does happen in some situations, but most of the time it is keep the same as the regular series. Specially their personality. Even if they switch their role in a particular story, the personality is kept mroe or less the same.

• Kyon goes through thousands of Endless Eight loops, knowing he's in a loop, and yet never once says something like: "Yuki, henceforth when you are aware that I am unaware of being in a time loop, I order you to discretely inform me about it." At which point she would salute, and say "Yes Sir!".

• "Fan me too." How exactly does she expect Kyon to cover both of them with one fan? Sit in his lap?
  • Thanks so much for the imagery. XD
    • And I just had to write it up: http://haruhi.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Hcobb/The_Uneventful_life_of_Haruhi_Suzumiya

• During the Endless Eight arc, why doesn't Haruhi ask Kyon to bring his little sister along to the swimming pool? Haruhi normally seems to be rather fond of her, and at the pool she is seen playing with other children.
  • Not if it means that she has to take her own bike and so doesn't get her hands on him.
• Why doesn't Haruhi realize that the Mikuru song in her movie must mean that Kyon recorded this song with Mikuru, while Haruhi wasn't around?
• Why does Mikuru have to wait to get permission for time travel? I would expect that they'd send their reply to the time the request was sent. Did they decide to use San Dimas Time and make everyone wait pointlessly for the bureaucracy?

• This is a little bit less complex in fact you can even disregard it completely since it's just a nitpick but how come the literary club had no members apart from the ones that graduated the year before? I mean I can understand that Yuki would be the only member before she changed the world since she's super quiet and most people would scratch her as weird but when she created that alternate world I still don't understand why in six month no one even joined I know that not a lot of people prefer reading but there are a few that like to read. And for that matter how come there was no one before Yuki either not even someone that might've become a third or second year student after the previous group graduated.
  • In one of the author notes at the end of the novels Nagaru Tanigawa reminisences of the literature club he was a part of in high school that consisted in two members: A girl and him, so a literature club having only one member doesn't seem to be so far-fetched, even without the powers of the Data Overmind

• How does Mikuru still exist during the Endless Eight arc if she comes from the future?
  • The ending of Surprise seems to imply changes in the past don't immediately (or maybe at all) affect time travelers in the present. Fujiwara says that he's Mikuru's younger brother, but neither kid! Mikuru nor adult! Mikuru admit having a younger brother at all, and imply that this change was the result of a messing with the timelines. In a Back to the Futuresque Set of time travel rules, this would have deleted Fujiwara from existance, but he seems to be very much existant. Similarily, since Mikuru was in the present during Endless Eight, she wasn't retroactively deleted, but all the Mission Control from the future dissapeared.

• In Boredom, after the baseball game Kyon sells the magical bat (Now devoid of any power) to the opposing team, even stating that there's where the money for the club's later meal is coming from. However, in later novels he comments on the bat still bein in the clubroom, even remembering of the period in wich it was imbued with powers. How is it that they got it back?

• So in the first episode or 2, Kyon is looking over the "requirements to make a club". One of them is "A teacher to supervise". ...Sooo, how come they never got one, and how did they manage to become an official club without one?
  • They didn't become an official club; Kyon applies but the application has not been accepted so far. This is covered (only partially) at various points in the later stories. The only bit of this that has been animated is "Mysterique Sign': the SOS Brigade poster that Kimidori says she responded to was something that Kyon came up as part of the process of applying to become a club.

• Please explain this: Koizumi mentions that "three years ago", "something happened" that awoke all the Espers. Nagato says there was a "Huge explosion of data". Mikiru says that no one can time-travel to before 3 years ago... SO, if the event that caused the world to be all screwy WASN'T Haruhi making all those symbols (Seeing as how Kyon was able to time-travel to an hour or so before the event), then WHAT exactly was it? The only hint seems to come from Disappearance, when Alternate!Haruhi says something like "You're the strange high-school boy who helped me... back when I was...-" back when she was... what? What exactly happened during the day or late afternoon on Tanabata? There's also the fact that Nagato is already there observing Haruhi, as seen in Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody, as Kyon is able to gain her trust by saying he knows Haruhi Suzumiya not 15 minutes after he's helped her draw the symbols. There's also the matter of the anti-SOS brigade who's entire purpose is to give "Haruhi's powers" to someone ELSE who they thought should have gotten said powers in the first place. I should PROBABLY read the novels for myself, but mweh, effort.
  • I thought it was clear that Haruhi recreated the universe three years ago because she was dissatisfied with whatever it was before. The espers weren't just awoken, they were actually popped into existence with full false memories, and aliens were drawn to Earth, and time travelers were created who cannot travel to before 3 years ago because the universe did not exist before 3 years ago. In other words, the event that caused the world to be all screwy was just something similar to the event that Kyon managed to prevent with a kiss this time around.
    • Well here's the thing: It was hinted that Haruhi drawing the symbols ("I am right here") is what GAVE her the powers to begin with. So if she didn't have powers BEFORE making those symbols, how did Mikiru and Kyon manage to time-travel to 1 hour BEFORE that point? And if drawing those symbols WASN'T the catalyst, then what was?
      • If Haruhi really did reset the universe once before, then the catalyst you are talking about was some event in some other universe where Kyon probably didn't exist, time travelers cannot reach, and even the aliens probably don't know about. It's surely beyond the reach of the audience as well. We'll never know, and probably couldn't even imagine it.

1. ↑ past!Kyon is the middle-schooler who lived 3 years ago; present!Kyon is the one when the story starts, soon after the creation of the SOS Brigade; he becomes time-traveler!Kyon after Mikuru carries him to the past, and then in when he helps Haruhi and asks Nagato for help; when he is in the room frozen in time he becomes frozen-in-time!Kyon for the three years he goes through The Slow Path; when he's freed he's unfrozen!Kyon and continues his not-so-normal life
2. ↑ what? that's how she was described in the novels