关于《万神殿》的结局（内含剧透）

On the Ending of Pantheon (Spoiler Included)

近几天终于看完了被很多人（包括OpenAI的总裁萨姆·阿尔特曼）认为堪称神作《西部世界》的继承者的《万神殿》。这一部一共两季、加起来十六集的动画，围绕着“意识上传”这个主题展开，从内容上也很契合现下这个充满了元宇宙与人工智能讨论的时代的精神。大致上来讲，故事的女主角是一个父亲早亡的韩裔中学生，她的核心愿望就是能够再次见到已故的父亲；故事的男主角是一个已故的科技领袖斯蒂芬·霍斯特罗姆的克隆体，被克隆出来就是为了能够继承科技领袖的天才大脑，用于解决意识上传技术中的一个核心困难。他们的对手则是一家邪恶的科技公司，从起名来看很难不让人联想到当下的某个短视频巨头。

In the past few days, I finally finished watching Pantheon, which has been hailed by many people (including OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman) as the true successor to the masterpiece Westworld. This animated series spans two seasons, with a total of sixteen episodes, and revolves around the theme of “mind uploading.” Its subject matter also resonates well with the current era, full of discussions around the metaverse and artificial intelligence.

Broadly speaking, the story’s heroine is a Korean-American middle schooler whose father passed away young, and her deepest wish is to see her late father again. The male protagonist is a clone of the deceased tech leader Stephen Holstrom, created specifically to inherit the genius mind of this leader in order to solve one of the core difficulties in the technology of mind uploading. Their adversary is an evil tech company, whose very name makes it hard not to think of a certain short-video giant of today.

整个第一季无论从设定、剧情、深度来讲都堪称优秀；尤其是在第一季的结尾，“上传智能”的存在被公之于众，世界秩序分崩离析，各个试图利用意识上传获取地缘政治优势的主体都在暗地里谋划利用这项技术攻击对手，社会陷入了巨大的混乱，希望、恐惧、贪婪、迷罔交织，而故事的大反派：斯蒂芬·霍斯特罗姆的上传意识也因为男主角解决了关键技术问题而得以苏醒。所有的这些要素都为第二季的展开做好了完美的铺垫。

The entirety of the first season can be considered outstanding in terms of its setting, plot, and depth. Especially at the end of Season 1, when the existence of “uploaded intelligences” was revealed to the public, the world order collapsed. Various actors seeking to leverage mind uploading for geopolitical advantage secretly began plotting to use the technology to strike at their rivals. Society fell into immense chaos, with hope, fear, greed, and confusion intertwining. At the same time, the story’s main antagonist—Stephen Holstrom’s uploaded consciousness—was awakened thanks to the male protagonist having resolved a key technical obstacle. All of these elements together provided the perfect setup for the unfolding of Season 2.

然而，在看完了整个第二季的结局后，我却被一种强烈的欺骗感与巨大的遗憾所充斥：一个如此好的故事题材就这样被一种肤浅的宏大叙事给毁掉了。

However, after finishing the ending of the second season, I was overwhelmed by a strong sense of betrayal and immense regret: such a brilliant story premise was ultimately ruined by a shallow, grandiose narrative.

在第二季中，第一季末尾所塑造的那种全球性的紧张感，仅仅表现为几天时间的短暂戒严，然后就戛然而止，故事的主线开始转向被上传的完整版的斯蒂芬·霍斯特罗姆（及其跟班团队）与到处流亡的主角团队之间的斗智斗勇。本来一个可以写成在世界级的大动乱背景下，主角团队依靠其智勇合纵连横，逐渐凝聚各方共识，终结乱世，并在这个过程中塑造新时代的旅程，格局上一下子就小了很多。斯蒂芬本人也在第六集中（共八集）便匆匆领了盒饭，在大反派的压迫感上远远谈不上合格。而斯蒂芬被消灭后，剧情在第七集便一下子跳跃了二十年，直接来到了上传智能已经完全普及的新时代；而这个新时代仅仅是一个更豪华版本的数字世界，转换过程中涉及到的伦理、社会、哲学问题都被一笔带过。

In the second season, the sense of global tension built up at the end of the first season is depicted only as a brief few days of martial law, and then abruptly cut off. The main storyline then shifts to a battle of wits between the fully uploaded version of Stephen Holstrom (along with his entourage) and the fugitive protagonist team. What could have been written against the backdrop of worldwide upheaval—where the protagonists rely on their intelligence and courage to forge alliances, gradually build consensus, end the chaos, and in the process shape a new era—suddenly shrinks to a much smaller scale. Stephen himself is hastily killed off in Episode 6 (of 8 total), leaving him far from a qualified main antagonist in terms of presence and menace. After Stephen is eliminated, the plot in Episode 7 abruptly jumps forward twenty years, straight into a new era where uploaded intelligences have already become fully ubiquitous; but this new age is presented merely as a more lavish version of the digital world, with the ethical, social, and philosophical issues involved in the transition largely glossed over.

当然，如果仅仅是这些问题，那《万神殿》依然顶多是结尾稍微落了俗套，最终也不失为一部佳作。但真正的、也是最重大的问题，便出在整部剧的最后两集（尤其是最后一集）。剧集的最后才揭开其终极宏大叙事的谜底：原来整个世界线全都是业已成为创世神的女主角利用戴森球进行的模拟，并且女主角还同时模拟了无数个平行世界。她最终的目的，不过也只是在体会到了“作为神的无聊”后，选择抹去所有未来的记忆，和男主角一起回到一个正常的世界线，体验青春少男少女之间那种怦然心动的平凡人生。

Of course, if these were the only issues, Pantheon would still, at most, just suffer from a somewhat clichéd ending, but would ultimately remain a fine work. However, the real and most critical problem lies in the final two episodes (especially the very last one). It is only in the finale that the show unveils the ultimate secret behind its grand narrative: the entire worldline was nothing more than a simulation created by the heroine, who had already become a creator-god, using a Dyson sphere. What’s more, she had simultaneously simulated countless parallel worlds. Her ultimate goal, however, was simply that—after experiencing the “boredom of being a god”—she chose to erase all memory of the future and return, together with the male protagonist, to a normal worldline, in order to experience the ordinary, heart-fluttering life of a teenage romance.

这个结局对应的跨度极大的“设定框架升维”一下子让整个故事的前90%都如同儿戏。女主都已经是创世神了，整个世界都只是她的无数个模拟中的一个，那所有的那些和意识上传相关的矛盾和冲突就瞬间变成了过家家，对于故事最终的结局可以说是毫无影响。从整个故事的设定框架来看，第一季的八集可以说是围绕着意识上传这个概念、以及一个致命的技术缺陷所展开的；第二季的前七集是围绕着意识上传公开化、技术缺陷被修复后，上传的人格之间为了未来而展开的正邪之争；到了第二季的最后一集，设定框架竟然直接就变成了宇宙级模拟论？并且，自从《黑客帝国》之后，模拟论本身也就是科幻作品中的一个寻常设定，丝毫没有独具一格的感觉。这个结局实在是用一种缺乏想象力的方式强行地抹平了前面故事里几乎所有的精雕细琢。

This ending, with its massive “framework escalation,” instantly rendered the first 90% of the story almost child’s play. Since the heroine had already become a creator-god and the entire world was merely one among her countless simulations, all of the conflicts and tensions related to mind uploading suddenly became no more than make-believe, having virtually no impact on the story’s ultimate conclusion. From the perspective of the overall narrative structure, the first eight episodes of Season 1 revolved around the concept of mind uploading and a fatal technical flaw; the first seven episodes of Season 2 centered on the conflict between uploaded personalities over the future, after mind uploading had gone public and the technical flaw had been resolved. Yet, in the very last episode of Season 2, the framework abruptly shifted to a universe-scale simulation theory. And what’s more, ever since The Matrix, the simulation hypothesis has already been a rather commonplace trope in science fiction, lacking any sense of originality. This ending, in effect, flattened nearly all the carefully crafted buildup of the story in a forceful and unimaginative way.

同样令人遗憾的是，故事的最后用了一个极大尺度的设定，讲述了一个极为俗套的人性故事：回归平凡最重要。这里我并不是反对科幻作品讨论人性；恰恰相反，在巧妙的技术设定下讨论人性的复杂和光辉本就是科幻杰作所必备的要素。但是，不是只有平凡生活中情爱与感动才叫人性。既然是科幻作品，那么它所应当具有的高度便是：当科技改变了生活中的一些相应的侧面后，人性在新环境中会以什么样的方式体现出来？人会怎样去和这样的新科技共存？新技术之下人和人之间又会有怎样的新关系？这大概就是最能考验科幻作者的功力之处。可惜的是，《万神殿》却选择了最保守、同时也是最无趣的一种方式：不要这些新科技了，所有人都回到最平凡的生活中来体验最“正常”的人性。与“设定框架的夸张升维”一样，这个结局让故事前面大半部分的情感力量近乎归零。

Equally regrettable is that, in the end, the story employed an enormous, large-scale setup only to tell an extremely clichéd human tale: that returning to the ordinary is what matters most. Now, I am not opposed to science fiction exploring humanity; quite the opposite—examining the complexity and brilliance of human nature under ingenious technological premises is exactly what defines a masterpiece of the genre. But humanity is not limited to the emotions of love and sentiment in a mundane life. Since this is science fiction, it ought to aspire to a higher level: when technology reshapes certain aspects of life, how does human nature manifest in this new environment? How do people coexist with such technology? What new relationships emerge between people in the presence of these new tools? These are the questions that truly test the skill of a science fiction writer. Unfortunately, Pantheon chose the most conservative—and at the same time, the most uninteresting—approach: discarding all of this new technology, and having everyone return to the most ordinary life to experience the most “normal” form of humanity. Just like the exaggerated “framework escalation,” this ending reduced nearly all of the emotional power built up in the earlier parts of the story to almost nothing.

因此，《万神殿》可以说是我看过的科幻作品里，极少数的“前90%都可以打85分以上，后10%直接把全作拉低到70分”的案例。不过令我惊讶的是，在IMDB上，本作评分最高的竟然就是最后两集。这实在是让我感到不解，难道我的科幻审美已经和大众完全脱节了吗？还是说，强行上宇宙级格局就足以让大部分观众满意？对于这些问题的答案我就无法妄下论断了。只可惜的是，带与着《黑客帝国》、《西部世界》同等级的期待来欣赏这部作品，却体验了一把“嗑瓜子嗑到最后一颗是苦的”的感受，因此不得不一吐为快了。

Therefore, Pantheon can be said to be one of the rare cases in science fiction where “the first 90% easily deserves a score of 85 or above, but the last 10% drags the entire work down to a 70.” What surprises me, however, is that on IMDb, the highest-rated episodes of the series are actually the last two. This truly leaves me puzzled—has my sense of what makes great science fiction completely diverged from that of the general audience? Or is it that simply inflating the narrative to a “cosmic scale” is enough to satisfy most viewers? I can’t make any definitive judgment about these questions. What I do know is that I came into the series with the same level of expectation as for The Matrix or Westworld, only to end up with the bitter aftertaste of “the last sunflower seed being sour.” And so, I felt compelled to speak out.