Desires, Lies, and the Messiah - Delusional Gods

Dean 2022-03-23 09:03:32

Unlike many who interpret this animation as youthful, it seems to me that the animation runs a messianic and lies structure beneath the surface of youth - a structure that not only sneaks into the animation , lurking in the delusions of our youth. Just at the beginning of the first chapter, it is mentioned that "nothing great will happen, only what should be happening", it is this sentence that constitutes the starting point of the Messiah.

The first episode begins with the interaction between Naota and Mami. In this interaction, the close relationship between the two is shown, and two metaphors are provided throughout the whole article - brother and baseball. The older brother appears repeatedly throughout the novel (especially in the first four episodes), but there is no direct account of the older brother, he only exists in Naota's reverent words. As a wonderful character, the elder brother participated in the operation of the animation. He not only showed his position in the animation, but also often appeared as a lack. In other words, the elder brother was a "vacancy". This means carrying Naota's desire to use his brother as a substitute for his self-image, and to enjoy Mami's confusion of the Naota-older image. The image of baseball is mainly concentrated in the fourth episode. This image is not only the appearance of the presence of my brother (the brother is an excellent baseball player, and the first scene of Mami Mei's debut in the first episode is waving a baseball bat), and it has become one of Naota's desires. Appearance, that is, wanting to swing a baseball bat like an older brother. The meaning of this image is actually a metonymy for my idea of ​​becoming like my brother.

Back to the first episode, I pointed out the message "I don't like sour drinks" in my interaction with Mami. This message has not yet played a role here, so let's leave it alone. Immediately after that, Haruko hit me on the forehead, and it was this blow that made Naota's head appear with horns.

The image of this horn is a metonymy of "Phallus", that is, sexual impulse, and Naota's hold down means repression. The line of the first episode "that obscene ambition, hide it under this band-aid" can be used as an example

This metonymy gradually gets rid of the initial image in the later narrative and becomes a broader meaning—desire. At the end of the first episode, this desire got rid of the repression of the Band-Aid and presented it with the picture of the robot war.

But it is strange that this signifier of desire always appears at the end of the credits in a gesture of salvation, a gesture that culminates at the end of the second episode. With Mami blurting out "かみ", it seems that this desire is no longer the pursuit of the object, but a different kind of thing, which is most appropriately called the Messiah in Christianity. Messiah is not a "capitalized thing" of desire, but a state that appears and disappears at the same time. In this state, we get an emotion similar to "saved", and this state is actually the core of Zhitai's pursuit. signifier.

It seems that we can find the desire relationship of the characters in the relationship between the characters in the film (Mamimei-Naota, Naota-Haruko, Mamimei-older brother, Haruko-atomusk), and then say that these actual desires for people are not a kind of mia saiah. However, what we must find is that the desires of each character in the film are not directed to a certain person, or that there is a constant impossibility between them and the intended object. They often take that which is actually there as their desire, but rather than saying that it is an object of desire, it is a residual object (none of them has an object of desire that exists, on the contrary a The objectified spiritual body, which is a kind of "elegant love"), the real desire is always beyond it, and points to an illusion, which can only be referred to by the Messiah.

Going back to the text itself, the one most obviously associated with the Messiah is Mami, whose story is focused on in the second chapter. In the second chapter, we can clearly see that Mami has been looking forward to the coming of "God" due to her past trauma and salvation (God is obviously also a signifier), and the image of this "God" is derived from her brother's signifier. filling. In the fifth episode, Naota thinks that he has saved the town (the plot of the fourth episode) and has become an "adult", and Mami's expectation of God should also come to him. However, he found that no matter what he was, even if he could become the "god" that Mami once thought, he could not become the object of Mami's desire. This structure is presented in the film as the relationship between the elder brother and the elder brother's substitute, but as we mentioned earlier, the elder brother is an empty signifier, so this is actually a desire for the void. The reason why this empty desire cannot be replaced is not because of the elder brother, but because the object of desire itself does not exist, because the object of desire itself does not exist (this emptiness is particularly evident in Chapter 6), so no matter which can be The fingers are filled into the emptiness, and they cannot become him. In other words, Mami's desire is beyond anything else. What she yearns for is a moment when nothingness will have a real signifier, and this yearning is actually a kind of "salvation", a kind of Saiyan structure.

Looking at Haruko again, Haruko is the character who occupies the most space in the whole book, and is also the most important character. She connects a lot of images. Naota's desire has been in a repressed state from the very first episode, and his emotions are always manifested through the concealment of lies and the flow of eager desires - which benefits from the overall style of the whole article. His feelings for Haruko are similar to love in many places, but we can also see that the relationship between me and the object is always flowing. In other words, Haruko is also a fantasy in Naota. The image of Haruko is not only Naota's fantasy, but also the reader's fantasy. She connects many images (bass, motorcycles, aliens, robots), and becomes a connection work with a fascinated and detached attitude. And the character of the reader—the reader constructs a fantasy through the erratic image of Haruko. And what the reader does is actually the same as what Naota did, or the reader gives Naota what he has done, which is also the assumption that reading can be carried out. As an imaginary thing, Haruko undoubtedly has a non-Haruko connotation in Naota, and Haruko is a "saved" metonymy in Naota.

As early as the first episode, Haruko's debut already hinted at the connection between the two images of Haruko and her brother.

Haruko and "older brother" have some similar characteristics

In the fourth episode, Haruko has the same superb baseball skills as her brother, and guides Naota in baseball training

The end of the fourth chapter is full of metaphors in the form of "the boy's first home run", and the baseball that was all too common in the first chapter was given the fantasy structure in the fourth chapter. A wonderful meaning - "I" became "brother".

But it must be clear that Naota's belief that he has become a "brother" is just to eliminate the repression of that fantasy, but Naota's desire has not disappeared because of this. The image of the older brother makes Naota have a sense of loss, so that he always suppresses himself with a kind of me that is not me. But the image of the elder brother did not disappear after the fourth episode, but was present as usual. In this way, the real repression is not the imagination of the elder brother. On the contrary, the image of the elder brother exists as an illusion of escaping from repression - when this fantasy does not The desire to be "saved" becomes more urgent when it exists.

Naota's desire for Mami and his near-paranoid yearning for Haruko are both metonyms for the situation, the fantasy structure being replaced by a larger fantasy structure, the hope that once incarnated as a brother and the call of the Messiah merge. Whether it's "brother" or that dream of "wanting to walk with you", it's the product of this calling that keeps us searching for an uncertain day, constantly feeling its presence and absence in the present moment. The Messiah continually manifests itself in the present without ever coming, and it dominates our time as a contiguous calling structure.

The "nothing big will happen, only the things that are supposed to happen" mentioned in the first chapter have been re-read more comprehensively in the sixth chapter. In fact, what is hidden is not an identification with the present, but dissatisfaction with the present. As also in the sixth episode, Naota expressed his gratitude to Haruko for letting him see a wider world. This larger structure is not comparable to "big brother", and the line of escape from this structure is given to Haruko by Naota. In other words, Haruko is not an objectified object of desire at this moment, but a fantasy, a hope for "salvation", a messianic call. Nauta's refusal in the end was a renunciation of the Messiah, an extremely sad "growth".

As many have said, "The Special She" is a teenage fantasy. But operating within this fantasy is a messiah constantly displaced under the veneer of lies. As the origin and object of fantasy, the Messiah is in a realm of presence and absence, not only in this animation, but also under the sea of ​​delusion. That's why I call it a "delusional god".

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Extended Reading
  • Deonte 2022-03-27 09:01:22

    All kinds of original lenses save money. It's too OTAKU personally not very acceptable. However, it seems that the OST of this kind of manga is very good!

  • Kamille 2022-03-28 09:01:13

    OST is good = = Besides, I actually like mamimi, and I like the name of this one. . . I cried later, it hurts

FLCL quotes

  • Haruko: It's Manhattan style, see? Little Prince Curry goes to New York. Mild, for kids.

    Naota: Uaaahhh, it's spicy, I don't care if it goes to New York!

  • Amarao: That high school girl looked kinda sad. Seems like a little kindness might help, but you'd need some maturity to treat her that way.