thank you 🙏✨

the scenes in which it does** oopsie

to say fantasy is about having fun doing violence is to say that violence DOMINATES the framework of how you see the world. it is a puny mindset of fear and contempt. you also must have read a completely different version of Lord of The Rings than the rest of us (10/10).

fantasy CAN provide us the tools to explore tragedy, violence, character, morality, and philosophy, and it can do so in a way that draws us into another world, another space with new laws. it allows the story to sweep us away. it's playful and fun (9/10).

Miyazaki, and MANY other storytellers past and present, don't see fantasy as a way of moral escapism. it is play, and it is an escalation of drama. you could write a story about someone deciding whether or not to use pesticides in their house or you could write motherfuckin NAUSICAÄ (8/10).

this, too, is fantasy escapism, and this is what many Action-oriented stories draw upon. escapism in this case being our desire to escape into a world where the infinitely complex concept of justice is as easy to attain as pulling the trigger of a colt .45 (7/10).

but those stories often imply a sort of moralist framework to the role of violence in society; the bad guys WILL use violence on innocents, and then the good guys WILL come in and use violence on the bad guys (6/10).

when the enacting of violence is the KEY conceit of a character and their story--that is Western storytelling, as in the genre. where a cowboy wins an argument by shooting people, and it's satisfying for the audience because it's badass (5/10).

but the heroes WORK toward harmony, toward CHANGING the facts in these worlds. violence is a tragedy in these stories, and heroism is characterized by one's desire to create a less violent world, even if the tools one has to use to do so--again, tragically--include violence (4/10).

both of these stories grapple with the concept of harmony, and the difficulties achieving it in a world where ambition, fear, and rage are present within EVERYONE, even our heroes (Nausicaä and Ashitaka). these two protagonists kill other human beings stone cold DEAD sometimes (3/10).

violence just...happens in stories like Nausicaä and Mononoke. it is a fact of life of these fantastical worlds, and the scenes in which they do are presented to be thrilling and dangerous, but the characters involved aren't condemned nor lauded when they have to get blood on their hands (2/10).

honestly extremely badass of you to go straight for the omnibus

SO TRUE

youtu.be/SSKp94wMEu0?...

it's soooo gruesome that being able to hurt things without remorse DEFINES fantasy for these people. this illustrates how a key pillar of the colonialist psyche is abject cowardice

like a noir detective who ran out of cigarettes

i heart you