I stumbled into this anime by accident, although this work is not as exciting as a cool movie, but after watching it, it can be deeply engraved in your heart, making you continue to reminisce.
In my opinion, this is a story of love and redemption set against the background of the killings of war. The author Makoto Yukimura said that he wanted to face the violence and show the cruelty of war without reservation. This is the reason why this work is more realistic and historical. War is chaotic and irrational, we see well-meaning old women in rural England who save Tolphine, but face annihilation; the girl who stole the ring always thought she was going to hell and escaped the slaughter . . . this is the personal powerlessness in the face of war, and it doesn't make a difference to you because of your good deeds or your bad deeds.
Many people say that they cannot accept the three views of this work. There are many stories in which good people die tragically but bad people survive, so it is difficult to accept. But I think this is the preciousness of this work. It does not obey everyone's inner expectation that good people will be rewarded with good rewards, and bad people will have bad rewards. Rather, it asks us to take a deeper look at what love is, and why redemption? The "love" I want to illustrate in this story is not just loving those you love, but also loving those you hate. This love is non-discriminatory. It is easy to love those you love, but difficult to love those you hate. Hate and anger spread easily, but love is like a seed that takes a long time to take root. The timely retribution of great revenge is indeed hearty, but the road to self-redemption is long and difficult, making people reluctant to face it. And the author chooses to tell this story of self-redemption from the perspective of Tolfen.
The depiction of love and redemption in this work cannot be simply judged by right or wrong. The author presents this story with questions of moral dilemmas. Some of the ideas expressed in it are agreed with and others are not. I can only talk about my own thoughts. Was the choice of the old woman who saved Torfin worth it? Saved Torfin and killed the whole village, and it didn't seem worth it to go into the whole village for a life. But when the problem becomes 50 people killed 49 people, do we really think that life can be measured simply as an arithmetic problem? This is the dilemma of human nature. All I can say is that the old woman didn't really think it was worth saving Torfin, she just couldn't ignore a child's life disappearing before her eyes. It is not worth it or not, it is just a simple respect for a life, that's all. Even though the world is full of cruelty and sin, there are still people who are unwilling to be changed by this world. The sad tears of the old woman were not regret for saving Torfin, but the despair that the war had turned a child into a demon. It is precisely because of this that this precious warmth and love, as well as that despair and sadness, have also become the strength on the road of Tolfin's redemption in the future.
Some people also say why Torfin did not spend two years to take revenge by all means like Asherath, but chose to duel, why did he have to be so dignified to his enemies, so he killed a lot of innocent people people. I want to say that it is precisely because of Torfin's insistence that he has the possibility of self-salvation. This is the bottom line left by his father in his heart. If he takes revenge against Asherath's unscrupulous means, he will only become another An Asherat. Asherat can get the greatest benefit in the shortest time, but he can't reach the realm of "true warrior" like Thors, that is his yearning, so he hopes that Torfin can become a real warrior, Only in so many years will he continue to accept the challenge of Torfin. Those innocent people who died at the hands of Tolphin died at the hands of Torphine, but more at the hands of war; just as Thorz died at the hands of Asherath, more so in this age. hand. Even without Torfin, there were no survivors in the war.
Some people think that Torfin's transformation in the later period is very abrupt. How can he learn to respect life when he becomes a slave, but I don't think so. That was just a result. The seeds of love were actually planted in his heart by his father when he was a child. Although the seed of love was planted in Torfin's heart, it took a long time to grow. In this process, many people left traces of love in his heart, and it is because of this that he has changed later. He is not a murderous villain by nature, but hatred has blinded his conscience and made him not think about those innocent lives. Only in this way can he numb himself with revenge so as not to feel the torment of his conscience. In the end, Asherat died, his only excuse for revenge was gone, and he had to face the innocent people he killed over the years. Only then did he start to think about how to redeem and how to respect life. This process is coherent , not out of the blue.
The hatred and anger caused by his father's death made him unable to see his conscience and love, and his obsession with killing the enemy also became a sharp blade for him to kill innocent people. This is also a question discussed in the work. Is revenge and blood hatred really just? Everyone thinks that their revenge is just, so what will the world be like? War breeds hatred, hatred breeds war, and the cycle goes on and on. Whether or not to let go of hatred is also the most difficult choice for Torfen on the road to self-redemption. Only by letting go of the hatred in his heart can he start to think about his previous evil deeds, discover his previous indifference to life, and then truly complete self-redemption and understand what a real warrior is. What he wants to defeat is not the enemy, but himself, and It is this world that sees life as a mustard. In this disordered society, no one can say that he is righteous and use this as a reason to punish others for their sins. This is also the "discrimination" and "love" proposed in the work. We just can't see the people we like and identify with suffer, and the people we hate go unpunished. Is this feeling of ours a kind of discrimination? Being able to treat those you like and hate indiscriminately, and truly respect every life equally, is indeed not something mortals can do. But people will continue to think, which is a very valuable place. Works that get people to think about these issues are what makes it so rare.
Obviously it is a cruel pirate story, but it is named the legend of Wenlan. Wenlan is the clue that runs through the whole story, the ideal land pursued by the protagonist, and the ultimate pure land that everyone pursues. This also just shows that love is what people yearn for the most in their hearts. Even in a cruel world, the seeds of inner love will still spread and germinate in someone’s heart. Although the spread of love is far less than that of hatred, but This is a more determined force, an ideal that people are willing to pursue through long hours and hardships.
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