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My overall impressions.
This is a difficult story to read. And at the same time is a masterpiece of literature. I would like to discuss very much what is this story about and what could be its interpretations. So here I'm posting my view of it, in the first of some post I will be making about it
This two pages show us the scenario in which the story takes place. In a time when humanity was deeply despaired because of “the world had become polluted irrevocably…” some people had developed knowledge and technology powerful enough to try to recreate the creation. In desperation, they recreated an ecosystem, the sea of corruption, which crystallizes contaminated matter as a step in order to revive the barren earth. With some thousands of years, the barren earth would be revive. This originally secret plan is the background and an essential element of the story.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is the story of a woman who was supposed to play her role in this plan, but instead of that, she ended destroying the plan and the crypt. If the crypt of Shuwa is a god able to create life, Nausicaä would be the deicide, the Prometheus who stole the true about the plan and ended killing the crypt. Just for that the story has the element of an epopee. But the people who created the crypt and the technology used by it have many common features with our civilization, and, because of that, the story can also be seen as a tragedy, as the tragedy of the people who tried to manipulate life.
In my opinion, this is the key of the whole story, in the sense that the story tells us what happen when some humans capable of creating life, try to predict, to control the curse of the life created by them. I see three different narrations of this very same idea. One is the main story, the story of the people who created the crypt of Shuwa, of their knowledge and technology. The second, it’s the narrations of what happen with religion in the story. And the last one, it’s the story of Ohma, the God warrior, about which Miyasaki explicitly pronounced.
I like to see the story of Nausicaä as the story of a deicide. After all, she is a human whose body has been altered for the sake of the plan. Miyasaki conviction is that is not possible to predict what will happen with the Fukai. I like to describe this point saying that it’s because the Fukay is an ecosystem made of living-forms that it becomes unpredictable/uncontrollable. In short: live is unpredictable change. The Fukai born as the disposable tool of a plan but became something different, it became, if you let me, live at the service of more live. The naïve of the creators of the crypt consists in think that they could give live a purpose or an objective. In Nausicaä’s words: “an ecosystem with a goal. Its very existence runs contrary to the laws of nature”. (http://www.mangareader.net/nausicaa-of-the-valley-of-the-wind/7/136). Contrary to it, the only objective/purpose of live is life itself.
Now, what can be said about the way the story portraits this naïve view? Just with the lines and colors of a master piece: the fact that humans become modified or transformed humans in order to let the engineering ecosystems reach its goal, is a golden paradox. Here the creators (the crypt and the pure humans) got assassinated by the creation (the Fukai, Ohma, the modified or corrupted humans). And in that way, the transformation, the modification of human DNA, is just the concrete, tragic and beautiful sign the seal the fate of the naïve creators.
I have to say that I would have done exactly the same things that those people did. Nausicaä rationale seems to be that those people do have a choice: “why didn’t those men and women realize that both purity and corruption are the very stuff of live?” (http://www.mangareader.net/nausicaa-of-the-valley-of-the-wind/7/204). But that believe would be of little help if I can see the children of my children will die because of the pollution. I mean, I couldn’t cross my arms and just accept it. I have to agree that I also wouldn’t have the same attitude of the crypt in slavering modified humans and managing living beings like the crypt and the heedras as it did. But what I say is that I their initial choice understandable and that Nausicaä’s certainty about what to do wouldn’t help me at all, namely to accept that the corruption, and the death of our children are part of the life we should have to live. Possibly some middle term would be my option.
That’s why I don’t like to interpret the story as if it would be as a blind defence of nature, about not altering the natural process we have in the ecosystems we live in. Instead of that I prefer to see the story as a tragedy: even if you choose to do something to save your children in a polluted environment, once this enterprise imply the creation of another life-forms, then you can’t control anymore the results. The tragedy express this believe in a master way in the fact that the people who try to safe their children with the technology and stuff, ended being exterminated by their own creations. Such a master parable without moral messages to consider.
I will update this post with three more comments, one about religion, another one about Ohma the God Warrior, and a final one about Kushana. I agree with k-dom. Kushana is just superb.
This is a difficult story to read. And at the same time is a masterpiece of literature. I would like to discuss very much what is this story about and what could be its interpretations. So here I'm posting my view of it, in the first of some post I will be making about it
General plot
This two pages show us the scenario in which the story takes place. In a time when humanity was deeply despaired because of “the world had become polluted irrevocably…” some people had developed knowledge and technology powerful enough to try to recreate the creation. In desperation, they recreated an ecosystem, the sea of corruption, which crystallizes contaminated matter as a step in order to revive the barren earth. With some thousands of years, the barren earth would be revive. This originally secret plan is the background and an essential element of the story.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is the story of a woman who was supposed to play her role in this plan, but instead of that, she ended destroying the plan and the crypt. If the crypt of Shuwa is a god able to create life, Nausicaä would be the deicide, the Prometheus who stole the true about the plan and ended killing the crypt. Just for that the story has the element of an epopee. But the people who created the crypt and the technology used by it have many common features with our civilization, and, because of that, the story can also be seen as a tragedy, as the tragedy of the people who tried to manipulate life.
Core of the story
In this interview Miyasaki explains a key of the story: in regards to the life that has been created with knowledge and technology, “the things intended and the things that come about are different”. In short, it’s impossible to predict what is going to happen with a living being created by humans; no matter how advanced the knowledge or how powerful the technology used in its creation are, the live created with them is not controllable, and not predictable.
In my opinion, this is the key of the whole story, in the sense that the story tells us what happen when some humans capable of creating life, try to predict, to control the curse of the life created by them. I see three different narrations of this very same idea. One is the main story, the story of the people who created the crypt of Shuwa, of their knowledge and technology. The second, it’s the narrations of what happen with religion in the story. And the last one, it’s the story of Ohma, the God warrior, about which Miyasaki explicitly pronounced.
Nausicaä, the deicide creature.
I like to see the story of Nausicaä as the story of a deicide. After all, she is a human whose body has been altered for the sake of the plan. Miyasaki conviction is that is not possible to predict what will happen with the Fukai. I like to describe this point saying that it’s because the Fukay is an ecosystem made of living-forms that it becomes unpredictable/uncontrollable. In short: live is unpredictable change. The Fukai born as the disposable tool of a plan but became something different, it became, if you let me, live at the service of more live. The naïve of the creators of the crypt consists in think that they could give live a purpose or an objective. In Nausicaä’s words: “an ecosystem with a goal. Its very existence runs contrary to the laws of nature”. (http://www.mangareader.net/nausicaa-of-the-valley-of-the-wind/7/136). Contrary to it, the only objective/purpose of live is life itself.
Now, what can be said about the way the story portraits this naïve view? Just with the lines and colors of a master piece: the fact that humans become modified or transformed humans in order to let the engineering ecosystems reach its goal, is a golden paradox. Here the creators (the crypt and the pure humans) got assassinated by the creation (the Fukai, Ohma, the modified or corrupted humans). And in that way, the transformation, the modification of human DNA, is just the concrete, tragic and beautiful sign the seal the fate of the naïve creators.
A tragic fate
Now, I have to point that I don’t like to see the story as if it would have some kind of moral about that human arrogance shown in the intent to provide the fukay an objective. I don’t like the reading: “see what happens when you try to control mother nature?”, and I don’t like the nature religion. Eve more, let me ask this: suppose you and your people (children, fathers, etc.) live in the middle of a Earth massive polluted, in which “poisoned air, punishing sunlight parched earth, new illnesses coming into being every day” (http://www.mangareader.net/nausicaa-of-the-valley-of-the-wind/7/203). And suppose you have the tech and knowledge to create an ecosystem that can clean the environment in a long period of time. I mean, suppose you are exactly in the same position, those people who created the crypt were, now, what would you do? I have to say that I would have done exactly the same things that those people did. Nausicaä rationale seems to be that those people do have a choice: “why didn’t those men and women realize that both purity and corruption are the very stuff of live?” (http://www.mangareader.net/nausicaa-of-the-valley-of-the-wind/7/204). But that believe would be of little help if I can see the children of my children will die because of the pollution. I mean, I couldn’t cross my arms and just accept it. I have to agree that I also wouldn’t have the same attitude of the crypt in slavering modified humans and managing living beings like the crypt and the heedras as it did. But what I say is that I their initial choice understandable and that Nausicaä’s certainty about what to do wouldn’t help me at all, namely to accept that the corruption, and the death of our children are part of the life we should have to live. Possibly some middle term would be my option.
That’s why I don’t like to interpret the story as if it would be as a blind defence of nature, about not altering the natural process we have in the ecosystems we live in. Instead of that I prefer to see the story as a tragedy: even if you choose to do something to save your children in a polluted environment, once this enterprise imply the creation of another life-forms, then you can’t control anymore the results. The tragedy express this believe in a master way in the fact that the people who try to safe their children with the technology and stuff, ended being exterminated by their own creations. Such a master parable without moral messages to consider.
I will update this post with three more comments, one about religion, another one about Ohma the God Warrior, and a final one about Kushana. I agree with k-dom. Kushana is just superb.
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Thank you
