Lord Indra, the natural hero who never was
or why Sasuke and Madara always shine despite the whole plot in their disadvantages.
Hero : a mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability. b : an illustrious warrior. c : a person admired for achievements and noble qualities. d : one who shows great courage.
Going out of my MGA writing retreat cave for a sec and share with you some of my researches...I don't have great knowledges of vedic texts and Indian culture but to what I read so far (correct me if I'm wrong) Indra is the King of the devas and Heaven. In similar fashion, Zeus king of other gods in Greek mythology. Indra controls storm, rain, and uses thunderbolt as one of his most deadly weapon. He is both the archetype of the mighty warrior, the slayer of great evil (asuras) and also the life-giver. Because you know, rain fertilises earth (if you get the metaphor 💦... 👀). One of his most famous story is how he destroys Vritra the monstrous snake/dragon, also called an asura, who was responsible for holding back waters and created drought. And by doing this, Indra slain the archaic forces blocking the creation of new lives.
As a Naruto fan, I get now the inspiration for Otsutsuki Indra. Sasuke's preference for raiton and kirin, Madara as a god of war and user of storm release, the symbol behind Sasuke killing Oroshimaru in his white snake shape, susanoo although a japanese god is still god of storm killing an other massive snake...
It's kind of funny because Indra is, based on the Vedas tradition, the allegory of the perfect hero. He comes alone, strong-willed, powerful, and slays any obstacles to the natural cycle of life, and by doing so he saves humanity from chaos. And it's precisely what is despise in the Narutoverse about the characters assimilated to him, namely Uchiha clan and Indra Otsutsuki. Indra opposing his unfair father is bad. The Uchiha clan defending themselves against oppression is devilish, Sasuke seeking revenge is detestable, Madara looking for a world purged of evil is absolutely hideous.
There is as well many shinto inspirations but I'm mostly reading here the story in a Vedic perceptive and you'll notice something else about the asura's. It's not a single god but a group of demons always confronting the devas. They are seen in a negative light, the anti-gods, the power-seekers ect... And it kind of makes sense with Naruto who can't progress on his own. He needs to be constantly help and surrounded by people. He is also notoriously possessed by a powerful demon who manifest himself in the beginning of the story when Naruto is corned to anger. Notice also that the only way to control this demonic force is either the sharingan assimilated to shinto spiritual strength or Mokuton from the Senju being assimilated with Buddhism spiritual strength.
So now you get where I'm going... isn't weird that mostly Narutoverse is respecting mythologies and adapt them to its own storyline. For instance the sannin legend, Kaguyahime story. But for Indra and Asura it's a total reverse of values. Intentionally, the good is bad and the bad is good.
Yeah but the plot Al Hekima, don't forget the plot ! I know, I know... If your main character is a boy possessed by a demon, befriends with 9 others demons and it's apparently normal, it will end up this way.
Maybe I'm not objective after all but even before going deeper into analysing the Narutoverse, Indra and the Uchiha clan being seen as cursed and evil by nature, the people who went astray and needed to be beaten into submission, always left me unsettled. Literally, I couldn't comprehend what was wrong with them which justify so much hate. And in opposite Naruto being possessed by a demon is blatantly black magic. His father is never questioned about doing it to his son, neither Hiruzen to the young Kushina, or Hashirama to his wife (in this case they may have both agree). I know it's just fiction, but art doesn't come out of the blue. It's ingrained in the artist's set of value, cultures, emotion ect... And the author stressed in interviews that he wanted to bring positive value to his younger audience. I'm just questioning sometimes what are actually those values? For the Uchihas the idea was to forgive, to not fall into hate, and move on. But forgive without justice? Putting the pressure of moving on solely on the victim and never put the perpetuator in a difficult position? Never ask any apology or reform from the aggressor? The victim needs to forgive with no assurance that it won't happened again. Believe it, right? and eventually the victim needs to help the system who harmed him to keep going... Anyway I'm rambling at this point but that's always my major philosophical disagreement with Kishimoto.
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I genuinely cannot vibe with people who are like "but the messages of the persona games are to accept yourself and other people and be kind to one another and care about things etc etc, bigoted people who like them are stupid and incorrect" because while the first part is true and they have a lot of good messages! everything that bigots are looking for are there. none of the modern era games are particularly revolutionary and none of them really challenge reactionary thinking at all and despite them talking about things like self acceptance and justice, it's very clear that they believe those things should still adhere to the status quo. I love them and the good parts of the games are very good, and they are otherwise fun and well made, but it is very very clear to me why conservatives also get satisfaction from them
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hi snap !! ^_^
in your opinion as the minedai guy, are mine's feelings for daigo reciprocated? or do you think it's more one sided
Its inarguable that daigo genuinely cherished mine as a confidant and a reliable ally. he valued mine not just for his stalwart loyalty, but how despite (or perhaps because of) that loyalty mine was prepared to disagree with daigo and not just be a self-serving yesman only after money or a semblance of power like other members of the tojo; because of mine’s readiness to risk going against daigo despite his position, daigo saw mine as someone who genuinely cared not just for him, but for the tojo clan that meant so much to him
When it comes to romantic feelings though, its never going to be as cut-and-dry as we’d like (unless you’re mine. Unless you’re a raging homosexual like mine.), so i can never- with confidence- say a character has romantic feelings for another (AGAIN. Unless You’re Mine). At the very least, it’s safe to say mine was more explicit about demonstrating that love, or at the very least he was given more chances to show how much he loved daigo, so it’ll always look one-sided going off of what we have so far <- delusional
If we want tho, we can have some fun with the franchise and implications and all. after the events of Y3 via an RGGO story, daigo visits the bar he and mine would frequent. Inside, the bartender brings up a special bottle of alcohol daigo was meant to share with mine, though because mine’s, daigo declines drinking it. Ultimately, he decided the bottle should only be opened if mine was there to share it with him, otherwise it would be pointless
I bring up this moment For Giggles because in Y7, kashiwagi the bartender weaves a similar story during nanba’s drink link. The story goes that he keeps an expensive brand of alcohol on his shelf because he wanted to give the bottle to his lover, though she died before they got the chance to share it and keeps it in honor of her
Obviously, the story’s just a silly front to trick people into coming in- but it is Dually funny considering the parallel to the mine/daigo situation..
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SO! Doctor Who! The Star Beast! It was... Very Disney. Some parts, and especially the new TARDIS and the reactions to it at the end... Felt very Disney and not enough Doctor Who. It also looked like the insides of the giant centre parks flumes lmao.
I loved the first section, the comedy was on point, but then everything did get very ott, like too much all at once, it felt chaotic in a way that didn't feel cohesive, it was like they shoved in too much for it to handle. And exposition wise, idk if there actually was much exposition but it really felt like there was a ton. And the ending, sweet ig, but it felt...
yk when there's a big ending and it's all saved by "THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP TM" OR "TRUE LOVES KISS" and wrapped up with a little now that makes you grown and feels like a cop out, the easy way that doesn't make much sense and feels like they didn't put much effort in. Yeah, felt like that but it was "the power of gender TM." And ik tumblr is gonna eat that up, but I think other parts of the episode to do with gender and stuff were far more meaningful, and this felt like it was cheapening it.
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wld love to hear ur thoughts abt ur last post on true selves - @milkstore
It's really simple tbh? Basically people have this assumption that if they've never opened up to you, you can't ever know their "true face." They assume that the face that they show to the world is heavily divorced from their true self. Sure doesn't help when they act differently around different people, blah blah blah. To them, their masks are lies and their heart is truth. To be honest, I'm not sure I understand why these people think this way. Are not the different faces a person wears just different facets of their personality?
Regardless, I think because people operate under the assumption that the masks they show to the world aren't their true self, they assume they can't ever be known without their consent. It's a really ridiculous assumption tbh. It'd take a lot of conscious planning and decisions to truly create a persona that is completely unlike yourself. Like you'd literally have to be insane to do that.
In reality, people do not think much before making majority of their day to day decisions. Must you play a mental chess match to decide whether or not to greet your coworkers? Do you make conscious decisions to purchase food you dislike so nobody will know what you actually like? Do you have to physically and consciously move the muscles in your face to form a smile or a frown for every interaction? If these things do not take much conscious thought, then are you not acting true to your "true self?"
Then think about the things you consciously do or don't do. If someone disagrees with you but you don't argue back, does that not say something? If you tell jokes at work to get people to laugh, does that not reveal things? Even if these actions are not a part of your "true self," does not the fact you simply did them tell something about you?
This is just talking about actions. This doesn't even go into reactions. People assume that they are the best actors and can fool the world, but they are just fooling themselves. Initial reactions are hard to hide. True happiness and excitement is hard to fake. Feigned interest is quite easy to see. Stress, anger, and hurt are hard to gloss over. Are not emotions and the reasons for them very revealing for true selves?
And kinda going into my other post, you work from there. [Observation + observation] = intuitive observation. [Intuitive observation + intuitive observation] = mid-tier observation. Etc.
In my personal opinion, while intuitive observations are where the meat of everything is, that doesn't make simple observations less... intimate. For example, you observe a person doesn't eat many vegetables. You can rightfully assume they don't like vegetables. The very fact you noticed this means that you were paying attention to them. You know something about their true self.
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