Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Active Nonviolence

Handling nonviolence in a work of fiction is tricky.  In settings where characters are confronted with violence, how do you integrate the idea of nonviolence in a way that is compelling?  More often than not, the subject is approached in one of two ways.  Either a character engages in a passive nonviolence, where they become passive actors who refuse to engage in confrontation, or they extol the virtues of nonviolence while still engaging in violence.  Either of these can be interesting when handled well, but it's a shame there is such a limited scope in ways that most entertainment deals with violence.

There is another way, however.  The Hayao Miyazaki film Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind features a protagonist, Nausicaa, who has her own approach to nonviolence.  She engages in nonviolence throughout the entire movie, save for one scene.  Rather than her nonviolence being a passive act, however, her brand of nonviolence is an active one.  This post will discuss and analyze what I mean by active nonviolence, and how this challenges us to think about the subject in ways that other films that advocate "nonviolence" are not able to do.

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD.

Who needs violence when you have an awesome air glider?

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind does not take place in a happy world.  A thousand years before the start of the film, the Earth was devastated thanks to humanity's constant need to go to war with itself.  The land is now covered in a toxic jungle that continues to spread over the land, destroying all human settlements it comes into contact with.  It is in this setting that we see different groups of people engage in a desperate, often violent quest for survival that doesn't have clearly defined "bad" guys, a common theme in Miyazaki's works.

Our protagonist here is Nausicaa, the princess of the Valley of the Wind (gotta love straight to the point movie titles).  Despite the human ugliness going on around her, Nausicaa refuses to act violently.  Unlike most characters who choose nonviolence, however, her brand of nonviolence isn't to passively sit around and refuse to engage in what is going on around her.  Rather, she bravely puts herself in the middle of the turmoil anyway.  She takes as many risks and is just as much a part of the action as anyone else.  This is what I will call "active nonviolence", where the character is ready to actively engage in what's going on and continue pushing forward nonviolently.  Even in the face of danger.

The movie does a great job of establishing Nausicaa as a character based in active nonviolence right away.  When she sees a smoke signal in the distance and goes to find out someone is being chased by a giant insect, she decides neither to avoid the confrontation nor try to harm the insect until it runs away out of fear.  Rather, she runs straight in and uses her ability to sooth the insects to deescalate the conflict.  She is very much in danger the whole time, but that doesn't stop her.  She displays the same amount of bravery and determination as any other action hero you can think of- if not more- and she does it without resorting to violence.

What's good, other action blockbusters?

The rest of the movie shows her continually pushing forward on a path of active nonviolence.  She guides the bugs from the crashed Tolmekian airship back to the jungle instead of fighting them, she stands on top of an airship to stop Prince Asbel of Pejite from firing on the Tolmekian airships (which she has every reason to want to see destroyed), she goes to save the very same Asbel when he crashes in the jungle and is being swarmed by the insects that he has upset, she rushes the (armed) Pejite's metal air balloon holding the baby ohmu as it fires upon her, she stops that same baby ohmu from stepping into the acid lake water by physically holding it back even at the expense of her own well-being, and she soothes the rage of the ohmu herd by calmly standing in from of them.  These are just some of the major examples.

So, we have active versus passive nonviolence, but what does it matter?  Well, in terms of both entertainment and philosophy, it actually means quite a bit.  The problem with more passive nonviolent characters is that it is hard to put them in chaotic situations where their nonviolence is engaging for an audience, and it can also be difficult to make it feel like there is truly something at stake because of the lack of urgency from that character.  If they're calmly standing around and avoiding confrontation, why should we care?  With Nausicaa, however, we are rarely left with a dull moment or without an idea of what exactly is at stake.  She charges forward at the same pace as any other character in an action movie, she is always proactively standing up for what she believes in, and her urgency in doing all of this subtly reminds us how much is on the line.

Beyond just entertainment, however, this movie allows us to think critically about exactly what nonviolence can achieve.  Even if it's an unfair sentiment, it's easy to call passively nonviolent people cowards and be done with it.  But what about those who participate in active nonviolence, those who put themselves in the middle of chaos while still refusing violence?  Revolutions for democracy and human rights have been won by nonviolence, like in Guatemala in 1944.

Guatemala's first democratically elected president,

Juan Jose Arevalo, basically the Lord Yupa of Guatemalan politics.

Having such a powerful, proactive representation of what nonviolence is capable of in characters like Nausicaa doesn't just make for compelling entertainment.  It challenges us to think what nonviolent action is able to achieve.  It challenges us to question when violence really is or isn't necessary.  If Nausicaa found a way to save her people from annihilation and stop all the different human factions from warring without harming anyone, and if 1944 Guatemala could overthrow dictator Jorge Ubico to install a democracy, what else can nonviolence do?

That's a question that's important to reflect on.  Most of us won't ever be involved in direct violence in our lives after high school, but violence is everywhere.  Our views on violence affect how we vote, how we relate to other people, how we understand the media we consume, how we raise our children.  There are ripple effects that are too significant for us to simply ignore violence, and our understanding of and relationship to it.  With characters like Nausicaa, we're challenged to think in a way that few other nonviolent protagonists can.

So thanks, Hayao Miyazaki, for creating a character that helps us think about our relationship with violence.  Hopefully more characters like Nausicaa continue to pop up in popular entertainment.  The stakes are too important for us to not have characters like her around.

Fantasy Worlds and Believability

As I've mentioned before on this blog, I write fiction in addition to blog posts.  Some of the settings I write are "realistic" in the sense that everything operates in the same way that everyday life does in the real world.  There are no mystical elements involved in these stories.  Others involve crafting new worlds, worlds with their own internal logic and creatures that inhabit it.

When discussing works of fiction that take place in worlds more fantastic than our own, criticism of certain plot points someone finds nonsensical is often met with the response "of course it doesn't make sense, it's a movie/video game/TV show/etc."  This post will be about unpacking that statement; I think it is mostly a cop out, but there is also some truth to it.

As I alluded to in the first paragraph, creating worlds different from our own involve creating a new set of rules.  No matter what type of world you're creating- a fantasy land of magic and mythic creatures, a science fiction space adventure, an alternative universe where United States foreign policy actually gives a shit about democracy- a fictional universe needs its own set of governing rules that dictate how everything operates.  Let's take Fullmetal Alchemist, an easy example.

A universe where perfectly coiffed hair curls can withstand anything.

In Fullmetal Alchemist, the show emphasizes the principle of "equivalent exchange"- the idea that in order to obtain anything, something of equal value must be given in turn.  In other words, alchemists can transform and modify objects in that world, but they can't simply make something out of nothing.  When you see Edward make his staff, he's transforming the materials in the ground into his signature weapon.

If someone in that show were suddenly able to make objects materialize out of nothing, then you'd want an explanation for how that happened.  Yes, alchemy is basically magic and defies our laws of physics, but the world of Fullmetal Alchemist still has its own set of rules that it is expected to follow.  Hell, if someone were to suddenly bust out an iPad when the technology of that world is about equivalent to the technology of the early 20th Century, you'd want an explanation.

And that is where the "it's a _____, of course it's not realistic!" idea falls apart.  Yes, we shouldn't hold our entertainment to our own laws of reality.  But fictional works need to hold up to their laws of reality, otherwise that is inconsistent writing, even if other elements of the story are awesome.

A big example of this sort of inconsistency from a work I like (I prefer to pick apart works I like so that it's more analysis than complaint) is from The Walking Dead.  As this article tells us, one of the main rules about zombies is that their eyesight is poor and their sense of smell is strong.  We see that confirmed when Rick decides to cover himself and his pals in zombie remains to walk through the streets... but then we see it broken later when they avoid zombies by hiding under cars.

Then Daryl does something badass and all is forgiven.

A common response to this criticism is that the walkers spot the humans first, and then they use the ol' sniffers to track out whether they are human or not.  But that goes against the rule mentioned above, which specifically says their eyesight is "poor" but they have a "strong" sense of smell.  That would mean that their smelling ability is stronger than their sight (unless the meaning of those words have changed recently), and therefore the hiding trick they used shouldn't have worked.  It's a vague, inconsistent trait that helps kill the believability of their world- again, not because it is "unrealistic" by our terms, but by the terms the show sets up for itself.

These inconsistencies can make us feel less like we're watching something unfold in a different world and more like we're watching something unfold in a clearly fictional one.  Now, different inconsistencies bother people to different degrees, and what some people consider plot holes others don't.  For instance, I find a lot of the so-called plot inconsistencies everyone usually brings up about The Dark Knight Rises to be unfounded, and a lot of the actual inconsistencies didn't bother me much.

"No one noticed Bruce Wayne in the European cafe!"  Oh, right, because a billionaire who is well known in his own town will definitely be globally recognized.  Just like how you would totally recognize the CEO of Walmart or Target if they walked by you right now!

So, yes, some things take some people out of the movies, while those same things don't take others out.  Some aren't taken out of the experience because they don't think the inconsistency is a big deal, while others don't think it's an inconsistency at all.  That's fine, because we all interact with fictional worlds in our own ways.

The main problem with saying "it's a [comic book/fantasy/sci fi/etc] [movie/game/TV show/etc], don't think about it" is that it's dismissing the fact that these types of works have the ability to be immersive and take people to a different world.  A well crafted world with consistency is a fantastic thing.  When you say "don't think about it" you're encouraging people to not immerse themselves, to not critically engage with what they enjoy.

Now, that all being said, not everything needs an explicit explanation.  A movie that comes to mind is the movie Midnight in Paris from a few years back.

They never once explain how Owen Wilson keeps finding work!

In the movie, Owen Wilson is a writer who is visiting Paris with his fiance.  He loves it there, particularly because it was the home of many ex-patriot US writers during the modernist era of the 1920s.  One night, while on a walk, he ends up transported to 1920s-era Paris and gets to meet Ernest Hemingway, F Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Salvador Dali, and others from that time period.  There is never an explanation given as to why Wilson (and, later, someone sent to track him) are able to travel back in time.

The thing is, the movie is still establishing a set of rules.  The movie shows us early on that time travel is possible in that universe, but everything else about it is realistic.  No one shows up with a light saber, or mind reading abilities, or a positive opinion of any M Night Shyamalan movies.  That is a universe that permits time travel in certain vehicles to the past, and the movie never adds extra fastballs into the mix.

So an explanation isn't always necessary.  In the original Star Wars trilogy, they established how the force functioned as a power, but not what it actually was "scientifically" speaking.  Everyone loved the movies, and then the prequels came up with a sci-fi explanation as to what the force was.  It wasn't a bad explanation, but it wasn't an answer people were clamoring for to make further sense of the universe.

So, in the end, what is arguably most important is establishing a clear set of rules that the works within that universe follow consistently.  Analyzing and picking apart fiction can be fun, and certainly helpful to anyone trying to create their own.  Critiquing and contemplating entertainment can help give us a deeper understanding of it- or at least that's what I tell myself to justify all the time I spend over-analyzing pop culture.