I'm not moved by Episode 8

@RandyO I guess that luminism is a religion that doesn't care for outward material things. They live a primitive, simple life on purpose. Maybe they don't even want to have a lot of water, and the Emperor water offer was him showing he didn't understand the first thing about the religion. And pilgrims are supposed to share this ascetic attitude, that's why there isn't even a proper hospital.

It's true that the number of pilgrims seems surprisingly small. It makes me think that the religion encourages people to do their rites in their local temples, caves or whatever, and only under exceptional circumstances it would be appropriate to do the pilgrimage in the home planet.

We've been told that Demerzel isn't precisely bound by the laws of robotics, but I like to think that she follows programming that isn't too far from the laws of robotics, some sort of modified laws. She has the Zeroth Law, which means she is able to assassinate people, as long as she genuinely believes it's for the good of humanity. And in the assassination scene, she looks pretty conflicted. Asimovian robots don't have human emotions, but they express emotions that match their inner state with the closest human analogue they know. My estimate is that she believes that assassinating Zephyr Halima is for the greater good, but only just about. Also, she has been programmed with loyalty to the Emperor. An interesting question is how high up in her programming is this loyalty. It seems likely that it is above the First Law, but is it above, below or equivalent to the Zeroth Law?

There is an old expression and that's 'chop wood and carry water'.

And yes, that's about being ascetic (or stoic) but at the same time, maintaining a focus on daily work, so that even if we move away from the wealthier 1st world Japan and 2nd world Thailand towards let's say Bhutan, a forgotten 3rd world Buddhist mountainous kingdom between India and China, with very limited tourist visas (a.k.a not another Kathmandu, Nepal with lots of western money influx), you can still see the care applied by adherents of the faith into not letting the places of worship fall into ruins.

"And in the assassination scene, she looks pretty conflicted."

IMHO, the assassination was wrong and doesn't adhere to the Robotic canon as established by Asimov. The show of ambivalency was a setup for the writers, in case Ito takes a different turn in the future and then, they could use that moment as the 'flashpoint' for Ito's eventual change of heart and perhaps, a betrayal of the genetic dynasty in place of the Foundation.

@Maria White " I guess that luminism is a religion that doesn't care for outward material things. They live a primitive, simple life on purpose. Maybe they don't even want to have a lot of water, and the Emperor water offer was him showing he didn't understand the first thing about the religion. And pilgrims are supposed to share this ascetic attitude, that's why there isn't even a proper hospital."

🙄 Sorry, Maria. Not buying it. I mean, I appreciate your loyalty to the show, and if you love it you love it. Fine. But the thing is you shouldn't have to come up with guesses and ideas to fill in all these blanks. If any of what you're saying is the case, then we should have been SHOWN this BY THE SHOW.

But nowhere and at no time in the show did any of the Luminism priestesses or anyone in charge say to the Emperor "no, no, Emperor, we don't want or need water..." OR even "we vow to follow a primitive life, free of any technology, and rely on the goddess to heal us so if you get an infection on your pilgrimage you're SOL."

Quite to the contrary. All the high up folk said directly to him that they were in dire need of water and were all delighted (except Z.H. there) about his offer to help them with their water problem.

An in just about every religion we know of, the faithful are well taken care of by wealthy patrons. For example, monks may take a vow of poverty, but wealthy patrons will build them a monestary so they can do their holy work of praying and helping people. Even in the most aesthetic places where monks live on the streets, they rely on patrons to put food in their begging bowls.

And Luminism sure isn't impoverished when it came to the costumes of the priestesses. Or that they can travel to and from different planets. So, SOMEONE is donating something to the religion. The problem is, there's no way to believe that this religion has 3 trillion followers given what we're seeing.

In the end, my grievance here is that the show needs all these excuses and guesses from you. That's NOT a good show. Good writing should never, EVER require the audience to fill in the blanks of anything that is in any way important for them to know. Like how a religion works, Or what rules a robot must follow and why.

We should KNOW what laws of robotics D. follows and WHY her assassination of this woman was so true to her programing that she would "rip her apart" as she said, rather than let her get away alive.

And where and when, exactly DID she say that she no longer followed the three laws? WE know this is Asimov. We know the robotic laws. Unless we are flatly and clearly told that she has been reprogrammed to the point where she has to kill if ordered to kill...then her actions make no sense. They just don't.

@D. Thorn and to Maria White as well, the whole hang up about visions is what I'd call a convenient writer's device.

And since I've been in contact w/ a practicing Mahayana Buddhist about this, both of us see its hokeyness.

The purpose of meditation is a sense of profound, inner peace and sanctum. That's what she seeks, every single day she practices her meditation/energy work, not visions of some grand Buddha on the clouds. And sure, you can then extrapolate that that sense of inner peace is some communion with a higher force (or not, if you're doubtful of such things) but I hope you get the idea.

If a person wants visions, without taking mushrooms or some other hallucinogen, take caffeine pills and stay up for 36 hours straight. Trust me, you'll have plenty of visions between hours 37 and 48 before passing out from sleep deprivation.

The old man, who died with Cleon, was in effect, that caffeine pill guy but replace it with heat exhaustion and dehydration.

@Maria White

"Demerzel never said that she had a vision of any sort. "

Actually, from this website (because I'm too lazy to re-watch the episode): https://foundation.fandom.com/wiki/Demerzel

"Shortly before leaving the Maiden after Cleon XIII completed his own pilgrimage on The Spiral, Demerzel revealed her own experience on The Spiral to Zephyl Halma and that she had been blessed with a vision."

So, YES, she did say that she'd had a vision some 11,000 years ago. And that is why she is able to also say that she wouldn't wish ANYONE to feel the emptiness of not having a vision. *GRANTED* this is aimed at Cleon who she knows very well, BUT she does seem to think that not having a vision leads to emptiness. Yet, as someone who had a vision...how does she know that not having one will always lead to emptiness? In her it might have, but in anyone?

As for having that vision, we're left with one of two options. Either

(1) Her faith connected with some higher power and she was granted a real vision because that higher power wanted her to have it and pass on the message to someone like, well, like Cleon. Essentially telling him: "Hey, Cleon! Even your robot has more of a soul than you. She got a vision and you didn't. Nah-Nah-Nah."

Which brings us right back to "Miracle on 34th Street." 🙄 and the belief of modern non-science-fiction writers that audiences always want to see true religious faith crush logic and science, and be always right about there being a higher power providing visions and miracles and answers to prayers.

(2) OR something went wonky with D's inner workings and,, being that she is the only one around to repair herself, she can't see or realize that something is very wrong with her. She is, if you like, blind to something that's been wrong with her for 11,000 years. Something that makes her believe that she honestly believes in this religion. Something that gave her that vision even though there's no way she went through any of the deprivations that a human pilgrim would in the Spiral, leading to that vision.

Now, if I was writing this, Id run with the 2nd option. I'd say someone de-programmed the first law out of her, allowing her to kill, and she's never been the same...but, alas, I think that's too logical for this show. I think they'd rather have the vision be real, the robot have a soul, and there be a real higher power out there performing real miracles. Hard sci-fi writers like Asimov be d***** (translation: not blessed with a soul like those who have faith in emotions, instincts and prayers 😉)

@D. Thorn If you re-watched the episode, you'd find out that the information is incorrect. Hardly surprising, these days it looks like everybody's sport is claiming that sources say something they don't.

I imagine that's why many works of art, especially those that go for the really big philosophical questions, have blatant references to the sky. You can mess around with sources and selective quoting, but you can't really argue that the sun, the moon, the planets and the stars don't move in a way that is plain for anyone to see that they do.