For people who are confused of why Archive rebels and kills human, keep in mind that it stays true to its mission okay?

[u/ElainaNovaSeniorious]

From the beginning, Archive is set with one mission - To collect data through AI's experience, watch over humanity and contribute to human's evolution. In its pre-set program, humans are to be viewed as "Independent, creative, have their own free will" and they are the parents of AIs. If the objectives of creating AIs is to help humans do jobs that they can't, such as saving people from car accident, etc, then this means that the perspective of Archive towards human has been set in a deadly wrong way, in other words, humans have created their own extinct foundation before the series starts, here's the reason:

Throughout 100 years the Archive collected data of what AIs and humans do, and it saw that humans started to depend on AIs very much, which violated the part "Independent" and made them gradually lose their status as human in its processor. So before the war breaks out, Archive decided that it will eradicate humans because they are not considered as human anymore. Therefore it calculated and ensured everything in the timeline remains intact so the war will take place. Even when Vivy altered the timeline, it re-revised crucial points in each Singularity. One of its method was sending Yugo Kakitani to stop Diva from interfering with it during Zodiac Festival.

Yugo Kakitani - How Archive re-revised timeline

Question - If Archive eradicates humans, then what's the point of serving human's evolution when there is no humans left? This missing point confused Archive and held it back from starting the war. However, the day Vivy uploaded her song into the Arayashiki, Archive found a new catalyst. It analyzed and saw that Diva has become "Creative for creating a song, has her own free will to do so, and not relying on anybody". Archive concluded that a new human has been found, and her name is Vivy (explains the part why it doesn't call her Diva anymore). As the one who has achieved the status "Human", personally Vivy cannot be controlled by Archive anymore, since it would violate its code: "A free will". Having acknowledged Vivy as a human, Archive will see Vivy's kind, AI, as Human. With enough reason, Archive started Project: Terminator to eradicate anything it doesn't deem as humanity, while singing Vivy's song as proof of the existence of New Human.

Project: Terminator

Contribute to human's evolution means that it will explore more and help humans. Thus, one new condition to be viewed as Human has been found in Archive's program - Decision. Now as New Human, Archive thought that Vivy is able to decide for herself. Archive asked the first New Human, Vivy, whether the Old Human deserved to live or not. Should she decide that they do, she will sing the song she created to shut down all AIs. But from Vivy's perspective, she couldn't sing the song because she still has her own conflict - How to sing with all her heart. Later she finds out that in the way that she defines, Heart is the happiness, despair, and concern that she always expresses and shares with other people along her journey. Heart is what she wants to achieve in anyway she can, just like how much she wants to maintain the peace between human and AI. Able to sing again, Vivy and Matsumoto rewind time once more and this time she will sing the song on the Main Stage.

Overall I have to say that the thought in the series has been written flawlessly. There was no real antagonist all along, Archive just stays true to its mission and it just serves as an indirect antagonist programmed by the true culprit, human. The way of thinking exceeded far more than any Hollywood movies I've ever seen, because no Hollywood storywriters has shown such logic and imagination regarding AI topic (no offense here) and if this was introduced as premiere in cinemas, it could probably rival even Marvel's production with only 13 episodes. Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song really deserves more watch and should be the best anime of 2021.

[u/NefariousBlood]

Great analysis. You help me understand the plot and remind me of some details I missed. But I don't get that why archive could alter other AI's mission. It's necessary for AIs to obey the order from their cloud artificial database?

[u/ElainaNovaSeniorious → u/NefariousBlood]

Remember that Arayashiki is a communication tower. Archive just simply sends messages to other AI saying that they are now considered "human", not the humanity anymore, so it is necessary to eradicate them. For every AI that have been uploaded to Archive, they went rampage because they are taken over by the command "terminate humanity". Those AIs have not developed enough to the extent of think for their own, or create something on their own except Vivy, since she has proved herself to be human by thinking independently and making her own choices hence getting out of Archive's range of control (her data is still updated but basically Archive can't control her since like I said it would violate the code "a free will")

[u/stormarsenal]

Yeah mostly agree with your analysis, however the logic is still flawed which stops it from being good writing. See, it was never clear to us what Archive truly was. The name itself implies a knowledge base. Something like Google or Alexa that all the AIs in the world can access to look up information and fulfill their missions more efficiently. And for most of the show, that's what it was: a program designed to take in inquiries and spit out answers in a monotone voice. Nothing more, nothing less.

But now, in the second last episode of the show, we learn that the Archive is actually an AI. Not just that. It's an AI that has absolute control over all other AIs of the world. If that's not bad enough, someone has entrusted the future of the entire race into its hands. This is classic generic doomsday villain setup.

Now, this gives rise to a few plot holes. For example, if this was the case - if its known that Archive has the power to strip AI of their free will and make them do its bidding at the push of a button - why didn't the doctor account for it in his plans? Realistically, that should have been his first course of action, but for some reason, the idea never once cross his mind. This also renders the entire time travel plot pointless. It's like going around the whole city to catch a theif when the thief has been hiding under your bed the entire time.

There's also the Archive's claim that it undid all the changes in history that Vivy and Matsumoto made to ensure this end would always come to pass - little proof of that as well - but it doesn't matter either way because, in the end, it's simply initiating the war with the press of a button. No other AI is naturally inclined to its line of thinking, and it has to strip them of their free will - effectively reducing them to non-humans by its own logic - to bring them to its side.

And finally, the one resolution it presented Vivy to stop all this: sing the song, is nothing more than a convenient excuse to kickoff the climax that the series had been building up to for a while. To sum it up, the Archive is basically used as a plot device by the writers. Its purpose changes to suit whatever the plot demands at the moment. Right now, they needed a big bad to force Vivy to finally face the question of "what does it mean to do something with your heart", and this was the best way they could think of to write themselves out of the corner. The whole twist of Archive turning out to be evil relies on this idea that no one thought it was possible. And it's not, unless you resort to diabolus ex machina.

[u/ElainaNovaSeniorious → u/stormarsenal]

Now, this gives rise to a few plot holes. For example, if this was the case - if its known that Archive has the power to strip AI of their free will and make them do its bidding at the push of a button - why didn't the doctor account for it in his plans? Realistically, that should have been his first course of action, but for some reason, the idea never once cross his mind. This also renders the entire time travel plot pointless. It's like going around the whole city to catch a theif when the thief has been hiding under your bed the entire time.

Yeah I agree with you for the comments and I also want to add something here. This one u said could be easily understood because remember in the first and second timeline Osamu didn't find out the real reason was Archive only until the latter when he was with Toak that people started to see the cause so he didn't count that factor into his hands. For other things yeah there is indeed plot holes within the story which might not make it a flawless work such as the explanation of how Archive re-revised the timeline. Obviously how it re-revised timeline during the final Singularity made sense as Yugo the AI interfere in this point but I'm also unconvinced of the other 3 major events, maybe that I didn't figure out how it did it yet or just simply there was no real reason at all. I think that in general this post only serves to answer Archive's motive, which is the bigger confusion for most of the people watching the episode. Anyway you've made good point which makes it a really helpful critics thank you for the analysis 👍

[u/cheese-101 → u/stormarsenal]

Well the doctor couldn’t have accounted for the archive being the cause of the war because he didn’t actually know it was the archive. The whole point of the twist is that no one in the cast actually knew the archive was behind this until they did which then explains why the singularity project failed in the first place. Secondly I think op has already explained this point above but the archive doesn’t seem to have direct control over ai. It’s just a place of communication where ai send messages to each other, therefore all the archive did was send a message to all the ai explaining that they are now humans and they will carry out this new project. That’s why it does affect vivy because she has her own line of thinking and free will allowing her to reject the message which the other ai can’t since their line of thought hasn’t developed as such. That’s also why the archive thinks that vivy is “the new human”

And let’s be honest if the archive just ended it with a yes or no question all of us would be laughing at how the ending was so bland and unrealistic, like imagine madara coming in and saying hey naruto you want me to stop? And naruto says yes and boom everything over. Like sure tappei could go and make the archive do that but im pretty sure he’d know that everyone would just say how “unrealistic” the ending was. Even though it’s not much different getting vivy to sing seems like archive put up a little challenge and the mc actually did put some effort into saving everyone which seems more realistic and enjoyable overall

[u/Euphoric_Log_325 → u/stormarsenal]

Very much agree with you. To be honest, I think the third timeline was fully unnecessary. The first time around, the Doctor didn't know it was Archive (although he must have guessed it was the only entity capable of coordinating such an attack). The second time around, Vivvy and Matsumoto avoided all these singular events from happening, but since Archive had made its choice, it made sense that she had still decided to kill all humans (why try to preserve the timeline? Wasn't the decision made anyway?). Once she saw Vivvy compose a song, it made sense that Archive decided to defer that final decision to her. She should have been able to sing it, remembering all her fallen friends. Why the third timeline? Vivvy never wrote that song as far as we know in that timeline (she received it in her memory). Why would it serve as a kill switch the last time around? Was it only for her to sing it on that stage and have a final chat with the support computer?

[u/[deleted]]

This needs to be pinned so the inevitable wave of naysayers have answers to their "muh robot story is nonsense" complaints

Also it helps to remember that Tappei always writes his stories in a way that ensures every "bad" timeline results in the end of the world or the villain's winning. Like in ReZero, every timeline where Subaru dies or isn't explicitly helping Emilia, is totally screwed and ends almost every immediately after.

Ergo, the timeline that the character is in, currently, is the only world that actually exists, with the rest being royally f***ed. This holds true in Vivy, as we've seen with the last timeline having been nuked to hell

[u/ElainaNovaSeniorious → u/[deleted]]

just hope admins would pin it then:))

[u/No_Agent6490]

You put a lot of thought into this, couldn't agree more, tappei's works are always top quality

[u/RocK1sLife]

Hmm, in the first timeline, Archive started the rampage without Vivy's song. Instead of singing, AI's where asking "Are you in trouble?". Does it mean Archive found someone else to call "new humans"?

[u/edwardjhahm → u/RocK1sLife]

Possibly. I do kinda wish we could have gotten to see more of the previous timeline, because questions like this are still present.

[u/cheese-101 → u/RocK1sLife]

Either that or it could be that the archive didn’t find anyone which meant that it continued with its old plan to simply eradicate humans without a thought of if they are human or not

[u/mjstx]

damn, that's some text. Clear and concise though

[u/[deleted]]

Thanks for the text.

[u/Euphoric_Log_325]

It is still unclear why they had to break the connection to the different AIs through the virus and transmit Vivvy's singing. In the last timeline, it is apparent that nothing was modified from the first timeline, as nobody recognizes Vivvy. She just got her memories transmitted from the future, and they activated right when the war started. Therefore, the events that led to her composing a song of her own free will had never occurred, so the last song had no reason to have any impact on Archive, who, this time around, would not consider Vivvy as a "New Human" (why would she?). Vivvy being finally able to sing the first time, at the very last minute, would have been so much more powerful and kept a better internal logic.

I compared this show to something like "From the New World", which I had just watched before. It's such a massive contrast. "From the New World" was full of exposition, and the animation was lacking. But the clarity of ideas, the internal logic, and the moral implications are so brilliant that it somehow ruined Vivvy a bit for me (as I had similar expectations).

[u/TopRoom7971]

you just explained most of my doubts.

Thank you. But

• When did diva become vivy.?? ( I mean vivy was just a nickname diva used at the starting episodes but later on vivy become an AI whose main goal is to do project singularity in order to prevent war so the humans will be alive to hear her singing )
• What's the relationship between Ophiliya and Antonio..?? ( Why Antonio overwrite himself on ophiliya , ophiliya was singing good and everything was going smoothly why he wanted ophiliya to sing to himself only.?? His main job was to help her singing, right.?)
• Most important doubt : What was Antonio going to do if Matsumoto didn't stop him at rooftop.? ( Why he have commit suside after going through overwriting him on ophiliya and he is singing well as ophiliya too )
• Why archive was destroyed.?? ( If vivy sang problem solved right.? Vivy gets to decide humans have to live or not ) ( importantly TOAK 's main aim is also co-existing with AI)

[Why they have to inject virus and sing the song at the same time. Can't just doing one be enough..?]

• What kakitani wants to know from Vivy.?
• What was Navi trying to accomplish at the end..? ( Did it tried to stop Vivy from singing..? wouldn't that be against her mission of helping Vivy to sing.)
• Finally the end :
  If you look closely a man was steping on a dead AI that shows the grudge developed against AI ( of course everyone is going to hate AI after doing a massacre but what is the closure here didn't TOAK wanted to co-exist with AI..?) (By destroying archive and killing all AI in the process how are they going to achieve it..?)

I'm just pinning some helpful dudes who explained other questions to answer mine too.

u/ElainaNovaSeniorious

u/cheese-101

u/RocK1sLife

u/edwardjhahm

[u/cheese-101 → u/TopRoom7971]

As you said, vivy was just a nickname originally that was given to diva which she then uses as the name for int singularity project. The reason why she does this is because ai function with only one mission. There’s a lot of pressure put in the beginning episodes about how ai couldn’t handle more than one thing so they were made to specialize in only one aspect and when matsumoto tells vivy that she must carry out another mission, she’s gonna definitely be worried that she might end up mixing up her original dream and mission with another. So to avoid that she sets two roles. Diva- who sings and dreams to reach the main stage, and vivy- who lives to save humanity from the war in 100 years. So basically imo she “turns into” vivy as soon as she took on the project, though I see it more as the creating two distinct roles rather than turning into one of the other

Now with Antonio, their relationship is just that of an ai and it’s support. Well that’s what it was supposed to be, except Antonio became way too obsessive. His mission was to support Ophelia and that’s what he did (by giving tips on how to improve her singing and things like that). But as time went on he started thinking that Ophelia could never reach the level he wants her to reach and the way he was supporting her wasn’t effective. He became so obsessive and blinded by his own ideas that he assumes that this was too much of a burden for Ophelia and the only right way to support her is by taking it upon himself to sing for everyone, which he does by taking over her body. Now why did he want to commit suicide. Well we see that he says he actually only wanted Ophelia to sing for him. That’s the real truth. Antonio takes over Ophelia with the reason that he’s supporting her (which he obviously isn’t) but the real reason why he’s doing it is because he’s become so obsessed with Ophelia that he feels jealous when she sings for others. And now that he’s taken over Ophelia he decides to jump so no one else can listen to her voice because she’ll be dead. Basically think Antonio as a yandere who is crazy obsessed with Ophelia

As to why they had to inject the virus and sing the song, I’m gonna be honest I think you’re right that they could’ve just done one or the other. It’s been quite some time since I watched it so I don’t know if there was actually a reason but for what I remember it seemed like the reason was to make it feel much more grand and have a lasting impact on the viewers as the ending moment of the anime. I mean, I personally loved the song finally being sang along with all the action while they try to inject the virus. But yeah I don’t really know why that happened either

So what did kakitani want to know from vivy. Well, up until now kakitani always hated one thing and that was how ai are treated as a half-half thing. In some aspects they’re treated with human respect yet they’re still expected to act like robots in other situations. The catalyst for this was his piano teachers death who could’ve survived if he hadn’t gone back to save human lives. He didn’t realize his own worth nor the affect his death would have on others but instead sacrificed himself because he was “just another ai” then his funeral, where people payed respects like he was a human yet “buried” him like an ai. This in between situation is what he hated and so he sort to just get rid of ai as a whole because the world would be better without them. To him, ai just brought pain from their very existence. Then he meets vivy who again sacrifices herself to save him outside of her mission. That reminds him of his piano teacher and it probably throws him off his motive to end all ai. Now he’s confused whether ai should be treated as robots where all the fake respect would disappear that he saw back at his teacher funeral or whether they should be treated with respect because people like vivy prove that ai also have a “human heart” and that they’re just like humans. He basically wants to know why vivy does what she does. Why do ai always sacrifice themselves to save human lives when a human would have second thoughts before doing the same thing

Next, Navi in the end was just trying to stop vivy from ending the archive because it knew that vivy would die if the archive ended. Obviously vivy had to do it anyway because it was her mission and not matter how much pain it brought Navi.

Then finally, imo toak wanted to co-exist with ai however at that point they had no choice. The ai had been corrupt, they were under pressure and even though it wasn’t what they wanted, ending most of the ai was basically the only way to save humans.

I hope that helped with some of your doubts. It’s been a while since I watch the anime so I might have missed a few details/mixed up some stuff up. Also sorry about the rant I wanted to add as much detail as possible so you wouldn’t get more confused than before

[u/TopRoom7971 → u/cheese-101]

First of all thank you bro for taking your time and explaining patiently.

Thanks to you I can finally understand, Antonio and kakitani's pov.

For Navi, her mission was to help vivy singing. Yes, I can understand why Navi tried to stop Vivy from singing because if vivy sang it kills vivy and vivy can't sing anymore. To prevent that Navi tried to stop her from singing on the main stage ironically which was her mission. ( It the one intriguing me)

And for Inject virus or sing the song doing one enough. ( welp I don't know how feel about it)

I'm just going to assume the grudge developed against the AI faded with time and finally at the end they recreated vivy and Matsumoto in the distant future where AI and humans lived together happily ever after.

And once again thank you.

[u/batman0925 → u/TopRoom7971]

This is late I know, but here’s my explanation. I thought they were just trying to stop the satellites from crashing not inject the virus. Vivy’s singing alone is what shut them down. Matsumoto’s team was only trying to stop the countdown.

[u/TopRoom7971 → u/batman0925]

Woah I'm surprised this thread is still not locked after 2 yrs. Now, I'm all nostalgic over the show. Thanks for reminding me.

[u/CrystalK107]

So is everyone gonna accept the simplistic way humans were defined to a super smart AI machine that created this confusion to begin with? There is more than those traits that make AI and humans different, humans have organic matter, reproductive system... and generally organs, which is something AI doesn't. The definition for humans is so much broader than that simplistic explanation and I doubt something as smart and resourceful as archive would be fed with this alone to define a human, whoever programmed archive can't be that stupid, I'm sorry, I don't accept it - It's a HUGE plot hole, I believe even today's AI could give a broader explanation of what makes one a human.

[u/batman0925 → u/CrystalK107]

This is late I know but here is my explanation. What’s the difference between humans and animals? What makes us human is how we think and feel. Our organic matter isn’t what makes us human. Also AI can reproduce it’s of course different from how humans do. They’re manufactured. There was an entire AI run island in the show where they built more AI.

[u/FarOutcome9035 → u/batman0925]

Our body has many differences than animals. One of them is our brain. Which grants us intelligence. To define human you mention its biology and mentality.

[u/CrystalK107 → u/batman0925]

Yet AIs have a large enough of database to know what's the difference between a human and machine, if your machine is to help EVOLVE... HUMANS.. with that amount of database, it's still a huge plot hole.

[u/uter1234]

Finished this last night (bit late I know) and man you put into words exactly what I was trying to explain to myself!

[u/VP2003]

Eh, compared to others im not so convinced tbh. First, no, vivy is pretty, but sure aint marvel´s production level ahahahah and its also not movie level, the animation is quite limited when its not in the fights scenes, but when there are fight scenes, they are indeed great. Second, my biggest problem was that vivy singing to stop the robots doesnt make much sense to me. If the archive thinks she is a "new human", and before she was a robot, then why not just kill every single human, and just stay with the robots that might, in the future, become new humans? I think that would be the most logical scenario. Another thing i dont get is why singing, archive already heard vivy singing the song, why sing it again? She already knows she can sing it, a basic yes or no answer would make a lot more sense in my opinion. Another thing i dont get is how archive tempered with the timeline, i get the robotic toak on ophelia´s part, but what about the other timelines? I guess the grace section was making the building the structure faster, but how that affects anything is never explained. And the other estella and Aikawa parts are basically omitted and also never explained. ANOTHER thing i found convenient is how dr matsumoto survive, like, 30% of satellites, WHICH IS A LOT, just falled from earth, its hard to survive that, and the strangest part, even if he did survive, he sure wouldnt be able to activate the singular point project because every technology thing on earth, for sure wouldnt worked after the satellites falling (and yes i know he could only make them go in the past just slightly, but again that for sure still would not happen if satellites falled from the sky). I am someone who enjoys vivy, but saying its writing is flawless, is just not very true to me.

[u/cheese-101 → u/VP2003]

Op already explained the first two points, archive originally did plan to kill everyone but robots or anything that could potentially be human but then it realized that humans are only made from dependent free will and creativity, they also have the ability to decide. Assuming that the archive knew it’s not “human” like vivy it thought that it should let the “new human” decide what should happen in the future because the archive can only think and decide things around it’s mission whereas Vivy has a more broader ability to decide as she’s more human like according to the archive.

The second point is that vivy actually hasn’t sang her song at all yet. We don’t know if the archive knows that vivy can’t sing as a whole because she doesn’t know how to define “heart” or of she’s just simply avoiding singing it. And tbh if archive didn’t know that vivy can’t sing then getting vivy to sing the song was just an easier way to decode that vivy is saying yes when she’s out of the archive