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Raymond H on F91 and the Problem with Gundam Pacifism
at 10:50 on 10-07-2018 - link
Okay, thank you. I've been thinking of watching it for a while now for all the good things you just listed (except the dolphins, I didn't know about that), but never had the chance.
Oh god, Iron Blooded Orphans. I was there! I was there IN JAPAN for its premiere! And my host father, who was a teenager when the very first MSG came out, and who is the single biggest Gundam fan I've ever met, we were both glued to the television when it first premiered, and after it was over, we both just sort of exchanged awkward glances and went "Nnneh? Maybe...it'll get better in the next episode?" By Episode 3 we were cursing all the time we'd lost watching it. Also for his birthday I got Otou-san a DVD set of G-Reco, and he accepted it in that awkward way you do when you hate the gift but love the giver, and I was so surprised by this reaction that I went online to read the series' reviews, and then smacked myself upside the head for not having done that before the gift-buying. Ah, good times. :) -
https://arilou-skiff.livejournal.com/ on F91 and the Problem with Gundam Pacifism
at 09:47 on 10-07-2018 - link
@Raymond H
I have indeed seen Gundam X. (the ones I haven't seen, and that's "started but never finished" is Iron Blooded Orphans, AGE, Turn A and Wing, and I started all of those at some point before dropping them for various reasons)
Gundam X is good. It's not the best of Gundam, and in some ways it feels a lot less gritty war drama and a lot more somewhat less ostentatious super robot show, there is a MacGuffin Princess whose relationship with the main character is actually pretty sweet. There's psychic space dolphins. The "early villains inevitably getting hit by character development" is pretty decent. Etc.
It's not my favourite Gundam (though I know some people who love it to bits) but it's pretty good. -
Raymond H on F91 and the Problem with Gundam Pacifism
at 10:15 on 09-07-2018 - link
@Arthur
You went to Oxford? Somehow I can see that...The person introducing that discussed how they considered Evangelion to be pioneering because of the way it adopted this questioning approach to whether it's even moral to expect teenagers to pilot giant mecha, or whether that's nothing more than a SFnal update of the old kamikaze idea and unworthy of a nation and a world which has made such errors in the past.
Yeeeah, I...Evangelion is about a lot of things, but I never thought it was about kamikaze ideas or anything like that. I always thought it was more an examination of depression and the human desire for control and happiness in the vast and uncaring void that is our universe. So, y'know, if Lovecraft did a mecha series. But yeah, when Gundam is great, it's AMAZING.
@arilou-skiff
That's an interesting way of looking at it. Not to sound like a reactionary old fart, but that attitude you described is probably one of the reasons the wave finally died. Sure, it's fine to say something is wrong, but again, what alternative do you propose? As you say, sometimes the Gundam protagonists find such alternatives, but other times they simply come across as immature and childish.
As for Victory Gundam, I honestly think that's the only UC thing I haven't seen yet (except for...you know...). Might I ask if you've seen After War X and if so, if it's any good? -
Raymond H on Disciplined Anthologies
at 09:55 on 09-07-2018 - link
Man, I really love Clark Ashton Smith. During my brief bout of homelessness I devoured Zothique until I realized that the stories probably weren't the best for my then-current mental state. I read Boku Girl after that. I think though, the moment I realized that Smith was something special was when I read Checkmate. It wasn't simply that it was entirely different from the Lovecraftian horror that I had come to expect, but rather that it somehow managed to retain the exact brand of morbid humor I had found in those horror tales, just in a completely different context. Also, it's a wonderfully written and tightly edited story. It's a shame that Smith isn't more famous.
Also Arthur you should totally team up with H. Bomberguy. You're both English, how hard could it be to meet up (I say this as someone who must repeatedly explain to friends and family how just because something happens in Japan, that doesn't mean I'm anywhere near it)? - Arthur B on Disciplined Anthologies at 21:09 on 08-07-2018 - link I'd say they were more established as specifically Mythos authors; Leiber, you're correct, had enjoyed a much longer career, but he hadn't actually done that much Mythos writing, whereas both Lumley and Campbell put out entire Mythos-focused anthologies by 1976. I'll update accordingly, though, because you're right that that's an oversight.
- Bill on Disciplined Anthologies at 18:45 on 08-07-2018 - link I take it the implication that Lumley and Campbell were more established authors than Fritz Leiber is a slip of the pen? Or do you mean they were the most established of the newer authors?
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https://arilou-skiff.livejournal.com/ on F91 and the Problem with Gundam Pacifism
at 16:50 on 08-07-2018 - link
I haven't actually seen F91, but I *have* seen other Gundam stuff, and I can already tell that F91 seems to be not only very Gundam but very, very Tomino.
Now, I think, to be fair, the "Adults are corrupt" is a position that makes much more sense in Tomino's position: He was born in 1941. He grew up in the aftermath of a world seemingly destroyed by the senseless actions of adults, just like there was a reaction in Germany against the parental generation for the atrocities they committed and the refusal to take responsibility, there was something similar (though less comperehensive) happening in Japan at the time. (combine this with Cold War apathy and the general political culture in the 70's and you can easily see where Tomino is coming from) And it's not just him either, there are other stuff of the same generation that reads kind of similar, there being a real tension between the new generation, who grew up in peace and prosperity trying to figure out why the hell their parental generation seemingly went bananas, and then tried to convince them everything was normal.
"What did you do in the war?" has a very different tone when asking it to your german or japanese grandparent than your american one.
The "Run headfirst into things and seemingly not explain stuff" is actually another of Tomino's signature moves: He tends to show rather than tell (or tell you in oblique terms) like in Zeta trying to figure out what the heck is going on (especially without any previous guide sor having only watched the origianl series) is a huge challenge. Plenty his series don't even get basic stuff (like "Who the heck are the guys fighting?") until halfway into the show. I think the most interesting case of this is probably his last series: G-reco. Which very clearly and deliberately explains basically nothing. (I'm not sure it's a *good* show but it is an interesting one, and has some great bits of incidental animation)
So it's not just about pacifism, although that's a part of it, but it is also a rejection of the last generation enmeshing their children in the web of loyalties, conflicts, etc, that they were a part of. I honestly think the "War is bad" part isn't *that* central (as mentioned, it's a war show, and the kids do eventually fight) so much as it is the kids eventually engaging with the war on their terms, and not on that of the adults. (successfully or not)
But Tomino at his most Tomino is still probably Victory Gundam. That show manages to mix everything (an even more kid pilot than usual, a frantic, bizzarre setting with little explanation, lots of weird imagery (robots that are basically giant wheels! Space guillotines!) psychics! Weird gender politics! Character developments that are kind of hinted at but never explored! Etc. etc. It's in many ways bad, but I can't hate it because it's such a distillation of the Tomino-ness of Gundam. (and it has some pretty good visuals at times) -
Arthur B on F91 and the Problem with Gundam Pacifism
at 12:26 on 08-07-2018 - link
So first off, for those of you who have never heard of Gundam or who know the name but don't know the details, the original 1979 Mobile Suit Gundam is basically what happens when your producers want to make a super duper robot action show while your writers want to make a serious, gripping war drama.
Once upon a time the Picturehouse Cinema in Oxford did a sci-fi all-nighter. This was built around a special preview showing of 28 Days Later, which managed to be extra-scary when nobody in the cinema was expecting zombies, and included (among other things) a screening of Evangelion: Death and Rebirth - which was exactly as hilarious as you'd expect it to be when you're just plunged into it with no prior context.
The person introducing that discussed how they considered Evangelion to be pioneering because of the way it adopted this questioning approach to whether it's even moral to expect teenagers to pilot giant mecha, or whether that's nothing more than a SFnal update of the old kamikaze idea and unworthy of a nation and a world which has made such errors in the past.
The reason I tell this anecdote is that, after watching the movie condensation of the original Mobile Suit Gundam series, I realised that this was bunk. Evangelion is fun because it's trippy bullshit; as far as the pacifism goes, Gundam did it decades earlier, and better. - Raymond H on Jim Jarmusch Via Germany, Part 2 at 06:52 on 08-07-2018 - link Ooh, thank you. I hadn't heard of Mohism before, but I've looked it up and it seems quite interesting. Thank you for pointing it out to me. :)
- Ashimbabbar on We Need to Talk About Conan at 20:25 on 04-07-2018 - link re the Dark Horse attempts to make Conan less of a rapist racist, that's as old as comics about him. I bitterly regret getting rid of some stuff by John Buscema where he had a black pal called Jullah, a former slave who was not quite as good a swordsman but who knew some magic ( the wizard who bought him had been too much of racist to think blacks could understand magic so he picked up quite a lot by watching him while pretending to be a scared savage ), along with a Conan adaptation of the 'Black Canaan' short story that gave arrogant grandeur to the evil witch-doctor ( it takes guts to say, "All men are dust to me, white, brown or black dust under my heel" when you have Conan's sword at your throat ).
- https://arilou-skiff.livejournal.com/ on Jim Jarmusch Via Germany, Part 2 at 13:54 on 04-07-2018 - link Should be noted that the tradition closer to pacifism in chinese thinking is probably Mohism rather than taoism. (though the Mohists weren't exactly absolute pacifists either, and somewhat ironically they were famed as siege engineers)
- Raymond H on Why Perfect Blue is Terrifying: An Addendum at 12:08 on 30-06-2018 - link Thank you. I never really liked the idea of the two switching places though, as it seemed to defeat the whole purpose of the plot.
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Raymond H on Jim Jarmusch Via Germany, Part 2
at 12:06 on 30-06-2018 - link
By violence I mean conflict, which can come in a variety of shapes and on a variety of scales, ranging from a full-blown war to simply a shitty boss or co-worker giving you grief. Either way, the important thing is to find balance, to understand the flow of energy and to ride it without adding or attempting to block it. I have never been in a war, and I would presume you to have never been in one either, but at the time of the Tao Te Ching's writing, and the writing of other famous, similar works, such as Meditations or The Life-Giving Sword, war, total, all-consuming war, literally was a daily part of many people's lives. So you have to take into account that difference in time period as well. I don't think anyone working an office job these days has to worry about their house being plundered by bandits or their crops destroyed by soldiers, but we do have co-workers that irritate us, or rude and mean service workers, or countless other sources of stress and worry in our lives. All of this is comprised of energy, the energy of the Tao. And to find a balance requires us to pick and choose our "battles" and how we fight them. Ultimately, these things are beyond our control. However, we should not attempt to fully surrender (complete pacifism) or fully fight (complete violence) them.
Your mention of Pollyanaish figures is what I mean by pure pacifism. Again, going back in time, this difference was much more pronounced. Even as we sit behind our computer screens in our comfy apartments or houses, we have a constant news feed letting us know that war and violence is out there, even if we are not in the thick of it. Back in the day, as it were, if a rich, sheltered noble wished to ignore the troubles of the world, they could do it much more easily, even if it might end like the Masque of Red Death for them. And indeed, as the story goes, it was his frustration with these people and this willfully ignorant mindset that drove Laozi to write the TTC.
Let me put it to you this way. Remember that episode of Star Trek, when Kirk got split in two? At first it seemed like one was good Kirk and the other was bad Kirk, but actually it was more complicated than that. One was peaceful, passive Kirk, while the other was violent, aggressive Kirk. Both showcase the flaws and the strengths of passiveness and aggression, and both are ultimately needed to make a whole Kirk, a whole person.
I must apologize for bringing up the cliche thought experiment. My intent was not, as it usually is with these things, to demonstrate how you're weak and I'm, like, so cool because I know how to make the tough decisions maaan, but rather to show that your seemingly idealistic answer is actually the right mindset. And you're right, most people wouldn't know how to be the "good guy with a gun" in that situation. But that is precisely why we study martial arts, so that we may possess complete awareness and control of our bodies and minds, and be able to retain that control and calmness during instances of violence. As I already mentioned, I myself have never known war. But I have known fear over my body, and of accidentally hurting someone, due to my always being much larger and stronger than my peers. And the ranks of most of these monks and philosophers were comprised of former soldiers. Ancient China didn't exactly have a Bureau for Veteran Affairs, so the only way you could really deal with your PTSD in those days was to become a monk, and spend your time in meditation and counseling with other, similarly-scarred people. Through these practices though, we may obtain control, and let go of our fear and the ghosts that haunt our minds.
As for swords, of course you can use them for other things. Chopping wood, cleaving meat, with the little blades you can also cut hair, pick teeth, carve wood, etc. Also, even if its main purpose is to kill, what can it do if it sits idly on a table? It's not going to kill you then, unless
a) You happen to fall on it by accident
or
b) Someone picks it up to kill you
So yes, I stand by my assertion of swords being ultimately neutral. -
Robinson L on Why Perfect Blue is Terrifying: An Addendum
at 18:06 on 28-06-2018 - link
I would've read the spoilers anyway, but strangely enough (considering my limited repertoire) I actually did watch this movie several years ago. It's been long enough that while I remembered all the main beats, many of the details were pretty fuzzy. I believe I liked it at the time, as I'm a sucker for psychological thrillers and stories which play around with 2what is real and what isn't. However, I'm often frustrated when the ending is either a cop-out ("*all* of it was a dream!"), or so ambiguous as to be totally incoherent. I guess I like mysteries in fiction, but I like them to have a satisfying answer. So I was pleased that the ending of Perfect Blue delivered a satisfying, unexpected but plausible solution - with, of course, a small reality-challenging bit thrown in at the very end because I guess that's obligatory.
However, I've never wanted to revisit the film, and even after seeing Super Eyepatch Wolf's video essay and reading this article, I still don't feel any great desire to check it out again. Maybe someday.
Anyway, I enjoyed both the essay and the article, they raise interesting points, which I guess I don't have anything to add to. -
Robinson L on 2 Samuel 6:14
at 18:00 on 28-06-2018 - link
Seriously, there's so much amazing history and stories that came before the Western empires, but I feel like people either don't know it or bastardize it to suit their own ends.
I know, right? With very, very rare exceptions, Western media, and even a lot of scholarship, when they bother to acknowledge the rest of the world at all, feel like looking at human history, and the present for that matter, through a keyhole.He just let the scene speak for itself, and somehow that made me feel even more uncomfortable than if he'd told me to do so.
Yeah, in the context of what he's already showed us by that point, playing that scene out on its own terms is more eloquent than any commentary he can provide.
I do have the intention to check out Atanarjuat sometime, but that could easily wind up being several years down the line. -
Robinson L on Jim Jarmusch Via Germany, Part 2
at 15:30 on 28-06-2018 - link
Since I know so little about the Tao te Ching, I'll take you're sihing's word for it. However, since some of these arguments sound like your own, reasoning, rather just reports of what the Tao says, I have some feedback on those.
In order to have a coherent discussion of pacifism, you first need to establish a definition of the word, and of related words, like "violence." So when you say, "Violence is inevitable, it's a part of human nature, it's a part of the cycle of human history," a pacifist might entirely agree with you, depending on what definition of "violence" you're operating under.
A large part of pacifism is a rejection of organized warfare - lots of people have argued that warfare is inevitable, part of human nature, and of the cycle of human history, but plenty of scholars have shown compelling evidence that this may, in fact, not be true. And heaven knows, all manner of societies have upheld some odious practice of their own culture or another as inevitable and eternal, and cited plenty of historical evidence - but it turns out to be contingent and context-specific.
Pacifists also generally reject interpersonal violence that has a high likelihood of resulting in death or serious injury (sometimes psychological, emotional, and spiritual as well as physical). They wouldn't necessarily rule out causing someone minor temporary hurt to prevent greater violence, as in the case you cite of someone holding a loved one at gunpoint.
On which point, I really, really dislike thought experiments of that sort, because as you say, it isn't always as simple as that. I would amend "always" to "never." And really, that example - as most of its type - is already begging the question. I presupposes a really bad situation where a) a resolution that doesn't employ violence is impossible and b) a resolution that does employ violence is possible.
At first blush, it may seem obvious to us that such situations do in fact exist, often, even - but I suspect most of the actual examples we can cite are from movies and TV. Maybe someone has a personal anecdote or two, but people's analyses of their own experiences tend to be highly subjective. I'm not aware of any empirical studies which have seriously looked at this topic, and such studies would be difficult anyway, given the problem of proving or disproving counter-factuals.
I can be pretty confident, though, that if you stuck someone like me in this hypothetical scenario, and I tried to disarm the gunner by force, I'd be more likely to get my loved one shot by accident, and it would take a truly miraculous occurrence for me to succeed. Hell, if I had a gun and the attacker was unarmed, the highest probability by a factor of several hundred is that they take the gun away and use it on me or my loved one, rather than me being able to disable or kill them. Whereas if I try talking them down, or distracting them, or literally anything other than brute force, my chances are probably still lousy, but still better than if I tried to disable them physically.
(It's also true that I've encountered a significant number of pacifists - most of them highly privileged - who seem either willfully oblivious to questions of self-defense, or to have a Pollyannaish faith in the power of nonviolence to sort out potential such situations without giving serious thought to what real defense actually means in practice. These are not thinkers I cite in my argument.)
As for swords, yeah, a sword is just a tool - but a tool designed for a specific purpose. It doesn't have much functionality other than maiming or killing something. So I think it would be a stretch to claim a sword as an entirely neutral object, if that was your argument. -
Raymond H on The Fouling of the Howling
at 11:57 on 28-06-2018 - link
<:(
...
I am reminded of when I told a friend about Dan Simmons, and he responded with a saddened sigh and a "Just fucking people man." -
Arthur B on The Fouling of the Howling
at 11:25 on 28-06-2018 - link
Yeah, we're not talking just one appearance on a video either - quick search suggest they're making videos together on the regular.
RationalWiki has a good writeup (with ample sources, so the fact that RationalWiki is not a neutral forum doesn't undermine the article any). They are generous enough to point out that he seems to keep his personal politics out of his show; evidently JonTron, the person he is in real life, is just a shittier individual than JonTron, the character he plays to review videogames and movies and stuff. - Raymond H on The Fouling of the Howling at 08:32 on 28-06-2018 - link I just...damn it! I first found Jontron when I was going through a rough patch in life and his videos always cheered me up and like, at least when he said that ethno-nationalist crap I was able to go "Okay, fine. I can walk away from this. This doesn't change what the thing that he made did for me at that stage in my life." but fucking Sargon of Akkad? Fuck!
- Raymond H on A Row of Condemned Houses at 08:28 on 28-06-2018 - link ...I must find this documentary at once. It sounds fascinating. Damn it, I can't think of a way to express my interest without sounding sarcastic. Maybe that's why so many fights start on chat forums. With only text hostility and sarcasm can be more easily inferred. Can Ferretbrain do emojis?
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Ichneumon on A Row of Condemned Houses
at 04:28 on 28-06-2018 - link
There's actually a whole short documentary on the subject and I find it strange the Criterion release doesn't cover the subject. It's not the sole point of the film but the mirror scene in particular, was directly inspired by the atomic bomb's effects both literally and metaphorically on the body and on Japan's culture.
I am not making this up. There are interviews with Obayashi and other people who worked on the film about this. It doesn't make the film any less surreal or campy but it gives it even more of a sinister, disorienting edge. - Raymond H on A Row of Condemned Houses at 23:19 on 27-06-2018 - link Really? They never mentioned that in the Criterion Collection interviews. They all said it was just their attempt at breaking away from the stagnation in whatever-the-Japanese-equivalent-of-Hollywood-is and making something fresh and unique. Y'know, fer da kids.
- Raymond H on The Fouling of the Howling at 23:16 on 27-06-2018 - link Ah, shit, really? I only knew about the famous debate thing.
- Ichneumon on A Row of Condemned Houses at 21:08 on 27-06-2018 - link @Raymond H: Great, incredibly bizarre movie. It's worth noting that it's actually a really oblique metaphor for the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, however; so, in spite of its campiness, there is a core of harrowing seriousness.
