Based Hayao Miyazaki

[X y b e r - S k u ll]

Right, but when you actually observe people and write characters based on those observations, you can greatly enrich the stories even if the basic premise has been done before. The specific way in which you develop an idea is at least as important as the idea itself (probably more so), and if you create interesting characters their actions will naturally lead to an interesting take on the idea.

I agree, not denying any of that. "Drawing from life" is perhaps the greatest lesson anyone who wants to get into a creative field can learn. My main point was that drawing from your own life kinda hits a dead end when pretty much everyone has the same frame of reference now.

 

[Cantarella]

I understand where Miyazaki is coming from. The pure evil vs pure good view of the world simply doesn't align with the eastern/japanese point of view of ying/yang balance between opposing factions. I've never liked how the Orcs were a subhuman race only capable of hate. It was an outdated, myopic view of races based on racial elitism. I respect Tolkien's work, but I don't find it as great as many do. Incredibly influential, for sure.

Don't think this is fair.

Tolkien's stuff is not really about race. It's not really what he concerns himself with or thought about when writing the stories. It's very much a good vs evil story, but in a spiritual sense, not any kind of reflection of our world's geopolitical reality. Orcs aren't an inferior subset of humanity. They're an evil perversion of humanity, all of humanity. Even then, that evil is not necessarily inherent to, like, their biology. It's a product of the greater forces that bind their will. It's explicitly stated that they follow Sauron/Morgoth out of fear. Orcs are essentially born under the umbrella of an evil cult from which they can't escape. They also *aren't* just capable of hate. There's a conversation between two orcs in the books that distinctly sounds like two lower-class citizens who are disgruntled and unsatisfied with the orc, wishing for it to be over. As you might expect from a guy who served through WW1 and had to watch Britain get ground up only for *another* world war to take place within his lifetime, the 'evil' he was concerned with were the forces that directed men to kill other men.

There are some unfortunate implications that can be drawn from the physical characteristics all orcs share, but if you read his works as a whole and his letters, Tolkien was pretty on-record as being anti-racist. He also more than once revised his work, esp. concerning the orcs, to avoid being associated with and used by racists.

as to miyazaki, iunno. made some good movies. some of them are even my favorite movies. Sure are a lot of stories about him that make him seem like someone you wouldn't want to have any kind of personal interactions with. Also seems to like confidently talking about stuff that's outside his wheelhouse without giving much thought.

“If someone is the enemy, it’s okay to kill endless numbers of them. Lord of the Rings is like that. If it’s the enemy, there’s killing without separation between civilians and soldiers. That falls within collateral damage.”

like... there aren't orc civilians in LOTR. If they exist, they aren't shown. It's explicitly always orc armies and smaller fighting forces. This just kind of makes it seem like he didn't watch the movies!

 

[Viviana Santos]

Don't think this is fair.

Tolkien's stuff is not really about race. It's not really what he concerns himself with or thought about when writing the stories. It's very much a good vs evil story, but in a spiritual sense, not any kind of reflection of our world's geopolitical reality. Orcs aren't an inferior subset of humanity. They're an evil perversion of humanity, all of humanity. Even then, that evil is not necessarily inherent to, like, their biology. It's a product of the greater forces that bind their will. It's explicitly stated that they follow Sauron/Morgoth out of fear. Orcs are essentially born under the umbrella of an evil cult from which they can't escape. They also *aren't* just capable of hate. There's a conversation between two orcs in the books that distinctly sounds like two lower-class citizens who are disgruntled and unsatisfied with the orc, wishing for it to be over.

There are some unfortunate implications that can be drawn from the physical characteristics all orcs share, but if you read his works as a whole and his letters, Tolkien was pretty on-record as being anti-racist. He also more than once revised his work, esp. concerning the orcs, to avoid being associated with and used by racists.

as to miyazaki, iunno. made some good movies. some of them are even my favorite movies. Sure are a lot of stories about him that make him seem like someone you wouldn't want to have any kind of personal interactions with. Also seems to like confidently talking about stuff that's outside his wheelhouse without giving much thought.

“If someone is the enemy, it’s okay to kill endless numbers of them. Lord of the Rings is like that. If it’s the enemy, there’s killing without separation between civilians and soldiers. That falls within collateral damage.”

like... there aren't orc civilians in LOTR. If they exist, they aren't shown. It's explicitly always orc armies and smaller fighting forces. This just kind of makes it seem like he didn't watch the movies!

 

[Yankee]

Orcs are a literary embodiment of the Evil of war and those who love to propagate it.
In-world there is a lot more depth to their creation, or rather as their existence as a result of corrupting Good People (Early First Age Elves) by the first Dark Lord Melkor and yadda yadda- stuff that only real Toklienheads know from reading deep. It's not surprising to find out that most everyone who points at Tolkien Orcs and says 'Bad!' don't understand them as narrative devices or diagetically as fantastical forces of Black-and-White Evil.

 

[X y b e r - S k u ll]

as to miyazaki, iunno. made some good movies. some of them are even my favorite movies. Sure are a lot of stories about him that make him seem like someone you wouldn't want to have any kind of personal interactions with. Also seems to like confidently talking about stuff that's outside his wheelhouse without giving much thought.

“If someone is the enemy, it’s okay to kill endless numbers of them. Lord of the Rings is like that. If it’s the enemy, there’s killing without separation between civilians and soldiers. That falls within collateral damage.”

like... there aren't orc civilians in LOTR. If they exist, they aren't shown. It's explicitly always orc armies and smaller fighting forces. This just kind of makes it seem like he didn't watch the movies!

Yeah, honestly, while I think the interview those quotes come from does have some little gems of wisdom with regards to Hollywood, his views regarding Tolkien really come off as misinformed and him trying to sound smarter than he actually is. It's even more confusing considering he also once said The Hobbit is one of the greatest fantasy books ever written lol.

 

[Strategist's iconStrategist]

Orcs are a literary embodiment of the Evil of war and those who love to propagate it.
In-world there is a lot more depth to their creation, or rather as their existence as a result of corrupting Good People (Early First Age Elves) by the first Dark Lord Melkor and yadda yadda- stuff that only real Toklienheads know from reading deep. It's not surprising to find out that most everyone who points at Tolkien Orcs and says 'Bad!' don't understand them as narrative devices or diagetically as fantastical forces of Black-and-White Evil.

In any case, it opposes the depiction of evil in most Japanese media. Most villains are misunderstood good guys who have misguided aims. Very few villains are corrupted beyond saving.

 

[UnDubious]

In any case, it opposes the depiction of evil in most Japanese media. Most villains are misunderstood good guys who have misguided aims. Very few villains are corrupted beyond saving.

Even in formulaic Japanese cop dramas, most of the murderers didn't really mean it. They got carried away and pushed the victim (who was blackmailing them and kind of deserved it) who unfortunately fell over the bridge or hit their head on something and died.

And he's right, in American fiction if a group is "evil" you can just kill infinite amounts of them and none of them will have names or personalities, they're completely casually dehumanized. I don't mind it in pure action movies if the scenes are good enough but in anything with more of a story I'm not a fan of the American approach.

 

[Cantarella]

And he's right, in American fiction if a group is "evil" you can just kill infinite amounts of them and none of them will have names or personalities, they're completely casually dehumanized. I don't mind it in pure action movies if the scenes are good enough but in anything with more of a story I'm not a fan of the American approach.

*after slaughtering 1000000 goons in dynasty warriors and tabbing out to my pc background which is the part of mononoke where ashitaka decapitates nameless samurai 5 with an arrow* i agree

think it makes sense to critique hollywood for glorifying violence as a perfectly acceptable means to solve conflicts and their, uh.... 'friendly' relationship with the US government. extending that to all of american fiction feels nuts. was just watching the columbo episode where he lets a criminal get away bc he sympathizes with her the other day.

 

[_oBSOLEte_]

In any case, it opposes the depiction of evil in most Japanese media. Most villains are misunderstood good guys who have misguided aims. Very few villains are corrupted beyond saving.

It's a tired trope that the first bad guy will be a redeemable character who'll end up fighting alongside the hero against an elemental pure evil or corrupted god. Which Japanese media got plenty of.

 

[UnDubious]

*after slaughtering 1000000 goons in dynasty warriors and tabbing out to my pc background which is the part of mononoke where ashitaka decapitates nameless samurai 5 with an arrow* i agree

think it makes sense to critique hollywood for glorifying violence as a perfectly acceptable means to solve conflicts and their, uh.... 'friendly' relationship with the US government. extending that to all of american fiction feels nuts. was just watching the columbo episode where he lets a criminal get away bc he sympathizes with her the other day.

Generalizing isn't the same as "extending to all", it's pointing to a trend. I've seen far, far more examples of antagonists having their own motivations that aren't complete nonsense in Japanese fiction than in American fiction, where it's the exception. This is especially true in medium where the main target audience isn't kids (ie anime). Most action video games also aren't primarily storytelling vehicles, but rather they just contain a story whose parameters are going to be dictated by the gameplay (ie they'll design the game first around what's fun, then write a story that suits it), and one of the fundamental elements of gameplay is fighting.

 

[Cantarella]

Generalizing isn't the same as "extending to all", it's pointing to a trend. I've seen far, far more examples of antagonists having their own motivations that aren't complete nonsense in Japanese fiction than in American fiction, where it's the exception. This is especially true in medium where the main target audience isn't kids (ie anime). Most action video games also aren't primarily storytelling vehicles, but rather they just contain a story whose parameters are going to be dictated by the gameplay (ie they'll design the game first around what's fun, then write a story that suits it), and one of the fundamental elements of gameplay is fighting.

Well, that is what generalizing is, definitionally. And my point was that it's a very... generous... generalization. Like I said, this makes sense if we're talking about Hollywood, and Hollywood was even specifically what Miyazaki was talking about. The complete otherization of the 'enemy' and Hollywood's really friendly relationship with the American government (The Miyazaki interview is from 2014, I think. Always good to remember when things were said) is pretty gross. The first thing you can find in a lot of works everywhere, the second not so much.

But America is a really huge country with a lot of different cultures that share more dissimilarities than similarities. The black woman from rural Arkansas is going to write a totally different short story than the white dude from NY, from the 40 year old who has only ever lived in Texas. S'why I feel american fiction as a label is pretty unhelpful.

As to musou games, I was just being catty heh. I don't really want to go down a sideroad concerning video games, but yeah they're creating elements in the service of fun, ostensibly, but that's not really a satisfying explanation, is it? Like, you could say the same thing in defense of the dumbest hollywood action movies, and people do do that.

 

[UnDubious]

W...

"Generalizing" can refer to just making a general statement, too, ie pointing out a trend. There are always exceptions to trends, it doesn't mean that there's nothing there, even though you're probably right that this Hollywood is the main culprit, and also that this is not by coincidence.
My point about Musou is that video games aren't primarily fiction. They are games first and fiction second, with fiction being subordinate to the game aspect. The same is true of most games in most genres, unless you're thinking of just VNs and maybe some RPGs (but most RPG still write stories around the game structure, the necessity for lots of random battles and dungeon-type areas, etc.).

 

[Cantarella]

Sure, just saying that generalizing is necessarily extrapolating from the specific to the general. i.e. extending to all. think we're on the same page there and definitions are boring.

Yeah I don't think I would disagree that America probably produces more violent brainrot, in like, gross value, than maybe any other country. Even pound for pound, intuitively that would feel right to me (maybe britain could give us a run for our money there, not sure.) S'just that america is too stupidly huge and contains so much that it feels that we must narrow the labels further, even if the stupid hollywood crap is what is seen fit by those with big pockets to push out onto the globe.

I was thinking a lot about rpgs with respect to this, actually. Specifically bc it's a genre where, in my eyes, the game does exist to serve the story. And it's also a genre where you get stronger from killing. In most rpgs it feels like it's not even in the service of fun but something that's been thoughtlessly included because 'rpgs must have many battles that test the player's ability to overcome the same puzzle dozens of times.' In jrpgs this is usually just handwaved away by making almost every enemy an animal/robot/slime/dust elemental/gamer, but, uhhh, 'as a vegan,' this always felt a little bit like a copout to me. last jrpg I played that really gave voice to these voiceless monsters was tales of eternia.

There's an interesting side-discussion with respect to sympathetic antagonists in jrpgs but I haven't fully formulated my thoughts on that yet.