fandom context meme

[mc776]

1. Think of something that you really like that people might think you read too much into.
2. List the top 10 things that come to mind that you think someone should read or watch to "get" it the same way you do.
3. List in the order they come to mind, even if the later items seem more important now that you give it some thought.

For Gundam 00, the most poignant discourse on God, faith, and free will I have ever seen in anime:

• Any three books by C.S. Lewis
• Mark Levine, Heavy Metal Islam
• Lynda Edwards, "Myths Over Miami"
• Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman
• Philip K. Dick, Valis
• Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune
• Poul Anderson, No Truce With Kings
• Beowulf, read of course in a post-Tolkien light
• Equilibrium
• Colin Wilson, Spider World: The Delta

Unfortunately, to discuss my reasons for most of these would involve too many spoilers, but I will note that 1) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? came very close to making the list; 2) the second item is not about Setsuna, but Marina; and 3) I really wish I could find that article with the Gnostic interpretation of the third.

Comments

[lienne.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmmmm.

I've read two of those! Beowulf and Narnia.

I am very bad at seeing religious subtext in things, though. I missed it in His Dark Materials. 'nuff said.

[vaecrius.livejournal.com]

Just some random thoughts:

The very first scene in the very first episode pretty much set it up. Note how it's repeated constantly throughout the series, in-narratively to show how deeply it's burned into SFS's mind, meta-narratively to remind us of this particular interpretation.

Speaking of interpretation, note how, when, and why the various characters yell out "GUNDAM!" - as a transcendent goal, as a home to return to, as an invocation of self-affirming power, as the one true path to salvation, as the bringer of all misery and pain in the world.

The GN particles are the medium, the external influence through which fallen, isolated humanity can free itself of its world-prison and reunite with a transcendent One. Schenberg's Plan, the wars, the bloodshed, the blatant hypocrisy/paradox of Celestial Being's mandate,... that is the mystery through which we come to understand.

Schenberg is not meant to represent any actual person, nor is it supposed to be clear that anyone is even close to working out what his original plan looked like. He is merely a prophet.

The various aspects of Satan/Error are represented in several characters: Ali, the free will run amok, the distortion in the world; Aker, the obsessed warrior who can only understand the power half of the Truth but fails to trascend his own vanity; Ribbons, the greatest of the angels who transcended his role and thus fell from the grace of God; the Trinity and the poisonous GN-X particles, blatantly called "false" at least in the fandub, who provide the instantly gratifying but ultimately erroneous and self-destructive easy way out.

Revenge is repeatedly placed in an awkward position suggestive of it being a symbol of enlightenment - another distortion of the world created through the sin of Pride.

SFS is absolutely not a Christ figure - unless, of course, you believe that Christ began as a mortal man and ascended to Godhead, and think little of the sacrifice on the cross.

Tieria, however, is obviously a Christ figure - but I must note that his act of redeeming humanity did not affect us so much as reinterpret us in the eyes of God/Veda/The Plan. His androgyny and constant dual-nature motif might be an allusion to Christ's dual nature, though at this point I'm more interested in making the connection with the gender issue.

Did God create man or did man create God? Or are they ultimately the same?

[vaecrius.livejournal.com]

Also, I agree your interpretion of His Dark Materials is correct, as Pullman is merely anti-religious and so I'm sure he's taken care not to cast his supernatural bits in any religiously significant light. :D

[lienne.livejournal.com]

That was incredibly interesting to read. Thank you.

as Pullman is merely anti-religious and so I'm sure he's taken care not to cast his supernatural bits in any religiously significant light

Yes, but I mean, I read the whole trilogy and didn't realize there was an anti-religious message.

[mc776]

As I cannot edit:
Fansub, not fandub.
However much it goes with out saying: SFS is Everyman.

[mc776]

SFS is absolutely not a Christ figure - unless, of course, you believe that Christ began as a mortal man and ascended to Godhead, and think little of the sacrifice on the cross.

GN as HS, Pentecost?

[mc776]

Cannot unsee "Innovators" as deliberate reference to The Abolition of Man

[helarxe.livejournal.com]

Valis! :O

[vaecrius.livejournal.com]

hit in the head with a beam of pink light (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spTSyMvZClo)