Why are ogres so strong?


As far as I know Ogres and Karmic demons are regular humans who (explained in
conventional terms) have suffered and become full blown Sociopaths and heavily
depressed individuals, respectively, who use all their might in throwing and
restraining, again respectively, all their power at those surrounding them,
but one way (consciously) or another (unconsciously) it goes out and hurts
others.

My first question is: Does this affect anybody or just a few? The Second
question is more a set of questions than anything: If just a few, then who?
Talented/powerful people? If everybody, then does that mean that the world was
filled with Ogres and Karmic Demons before the current order came in to place?
If so, when why did the false Minoshiro (whatever that means) forgot to
mention it? Or did I forget to watch it in the 3 times I watched the episode?

But the one thing that bothers me the most, which is basically based off all
the previous questions is my third and last question: Why the hell are Ogres
so goddamn powerful?

I mean, look at the Messiah, child of Maria and Mamoru, taken off them by
Yakomaru. The first and only human kid the rats get in their hands on, breed
to adolescence (which is when they get their powers) and turns out to be a
killing sociopath with powers as immense as the most powerful dude in the
village. This case essentially brings up all the previous questions I asked,
which if you didn't notice, is driving me mad.

So, does anyone have any answers?




**Contains spoilers**

> As far as I know Ogres and Karmic demons are regular humans who (explained
> in conventional terms) have suffered and become full blown Sociopaths and
> heavily depressed individuals, respectively, who use all their might in
> throwing and restraining, again respectively, all their power at those
> surrounding them, but one way (consciously) or another (unconsciously) it
> goes out and hurts others.
>
> My first question is: Does this affect anybody or just a few? The Second
> question is more a set of questions than anything: If just a few, then who?
> Talented/powerful people? If everybody, then does that mean that the world
> was filled with Ogres and Karmic Demons before the current order came in to
> place? If so, when why did the false Minoshiro (whatever that means) forgot
> to mention it? Or did I forget to watch it in the 3 times I watched the
> episode?

Before the current order, power users had no in-built restraints on their
power. So ordinary people could, and did, cause tremendous damage. Basically
every time someone lost their temper there was a risk of nuclear war.... To
prevent this, humanity re-engineered themselves and their society with heavy
constraints on power. They put in place a multi-layered defense against using
power against other humans:

**Genetic engineering:**

  * Attack Control from wolves - A strong aversion to hurting their own species
  * Sex and affection from bonobos - An inclination to resolve stress and conflict with sex rather than violence
  * Death feedback - The ultimate control. A physiological response to the guilt of hurting people which would kill the perpetrator. My understanding is that the death feedback kicks in, at a modest level, even when contemplating hurting someone. Therefore it actually prevents attacks. If for some reason you accidentally or unwittingly hurt someone, the consequent guilt is lethal. So it also punishes harm.

Taken together these mechanisms mean that a human CANNOT volunatarily harm
another. In particular it is not possible even to decide to suicide-attack
another person - you just can't bring yourself to attack in the first place at
all.

**Social conditioning:** From birth the people are raised with stories,
conditioning, and hypnotism to control their behaviour. The biological
controls are strenghthened with this process. In addition there is a huge
emphasis on obedience and harmony. Because it is impossible to control people
with violence in the new society, you can't have normal policing and
punishment. Instead the control is psychological.

**Selection:** Children are closely monitored as they develop. If they don't
develop properly they are weeded out. The show portrays the selection as very
heavy handed, because they would rather kill many innocents than let one
failure slip through.

Ogres and karmic demons occur when these methods fail. Karmic demons lose
conscious control of their power. Shun says that in fact a little power leaks
out of everyone, but in most cases it does little harm. Karmic demons leak a
lot of power from their unconscious. They are potentially extremely dangerous
as a consequence. However they near no malice. The karmic demons we see retain
their human morality and voluntarily kill themselves to prevent harm to the
world around them. They are dangerous, but not excessively so, for this
reason.

Ogres/Fiends are a nightmare. They are humans for whom the safeguards have
utterly failed. They are psychopaths. The Death feedback relies on guilt
emotions to function. Psychopaths lack such guilt, and the other emphathetic
emotions that control Power. They are able and willing to use their Power
against other humans.

Precisely because of the various safeguards, other humans are unable to
counter-attack, making ogres capable of causing essentially unlimited harm. A
single ogre could destroy the entire planet. Hence the excessive selection
above: you can't afford to run any risks.

Ogres Power is no stronger than anyone else's. Although there are degrees of
control over Power, the idea is that any normal adult has almost unlimited
power. They can do almost anything. There is no practical upper limit to what
they can do. So even a weak person, if they become an ogre, has civilization
ending capabilities. Normal folks around them may have equivalent or even
materially stronger Power, but their self-imposed constraints prevent them
from deploying it.

> But the one thing that bothers me the most, which is basically based off all
> the previous questions is my third and last question: Why the hell are Ogres
> so goddamn powerful?
>
> I mean, look at the Messiah, child of Maria and Mamoru, taken off them by
> Yakomaru. The first and only human kid the rats get in their hands on, breed
> to adolescence (which is when they get their powers) and turns out to be a
> killing sociopath with powers as immense as the most powerful dude in the
> village. This case essentially brings up all the previous questions I asked,
> which if you didn't notice, is driving me mad.
>
> So, does anyone have any answers?

The Messiah is not an ogre. All the constraint mechanisms work great in them.
But the constraints work for monster rats, not humans, because they believe
they are a monster rat.

They are not a sociopath. They kill humans as lightly as humans kill monster
rats, because they don't see them as fellow creatures.

The Messiah is probably a rather weak human, because they wouldn't have had
the sophisticated education in manipulating their Power. But they can deploy
100% of their (relatively) weak power, whereas others cannot deploy any of
their far stronger power.

The reason the Messiah whips the most powerful guy (Shisei) is due to an
additional piece of information we are given:

You can't make two Powers interact. If they come into contact, space time is
warped and you get a rainbow iridescence effect.

This makes it very hard to use Power defensively. Basically, the Messiah
attacks Shisei directly. If he does nothing, he dies. If he tries to
counteract the Power with his own, they interact. This is what we see: we see
the rainbow and he gets warped as space-time bends. This kills him. Power is
useless defensively.

In the last arc, Saki figures out that the Ogre is no ogre. She and Satoru try
to show it that it is really a human, using Satoru's mirror skill. This
doesn't work - the Messiah just seems confused. They defeat it by using
Kiroumaru. Once Saki understands they are not really dealing with an Ogre, it
becomes rather easy to defeat.




There's a few subtleties that aren't easy to pick up. Which is normal. From
the New World is a very deep show and it isn't easy to get everything - even
after rewatching it multiple times.

> As far as I know Ogres and Karmic demons are regular humans who (explained
> in conventional terms) have suffered and become full blown Sociopaths and
> heavily depressed individuals, respectively, who use all their might in
> throwing and restraining, again respectively, all their power at those
> surrounding them, but one way (consciously) or another (unconsciously) it
> goes out and hurts others.

Correct so far.

> My first question is: Does this affect anybody or just a few? If just a few,
> then who? Talented/powerful people?

It's fair to say that everybody could become an Ogre. The determining factor
seems to be the person's mental and psychological state of the person.

Power is not a factor. But depending on how you define "talent", it can be.
For example, if you can't control your Canti, then you may turn into a Karma
Demon.

> If everybody, then does that mean that the world was filled with Ogres and
> Karmic Demons before the current order came in to place?

It wasn't filled with them. Ogres were rare. It was mentioned at one point
that there only like 20 recorded events of them over several hundred years.

It's only in case where a person is going through extreme stress and or innate
desire to hurt do that have any chance of becoming an Ogre.

> But the one thing that bothers me the most, which is basically based off all
> the previous questions is my third and last question: Why the hell are Ogres
> so goddamn powerful?

See my answer to this question: [Where do "fiends" get their abnormal
strength?](https://anime.stackexchange.com/q/3097/17)

