Howl's Moving Castle: Destructive Kindness

Don't get me wrong, "Howl's Moving Castle" is my #2 favorite Ghibli film that I watched multiple times. It has so many deep meanings and awesome characters. It has so many deep meanings and awesome characters.  

However, there's one single thing in this movie that I dislike: Ghibli tries to preach “always be nice to people even at the expense of yourself”, which I find extremely unrealistic, naive and self-damaging. 

For instance: When the Witch of the Waste caught fire because she grabbed Calcifer, Sophie poured water on her to save her.  Calcifer had explicitly told her multiple times that his life and Howl’s life were connected in a way that if one of them died, the other would die, too.  Are you telling me you're sacrificing both Howl's and Calcifer's lives to save hers??! It's not like dumping water on her is the only way; you could hit her hands with a stick and she'd drop Calcifer. She's a 120-year-old woman at this point, are you saying you can't overpower her?! ALSO, when the Witch grabbed Calcifer, her hands weren't getting burned at all (Sophie got burned when she touched the fire, but the Witch didn't)...  After all, Howl and Calcifer were so kind to Sophie. On the other hand, the Witch had never done a single nice thing for them; instead, she repeatedly sabotaged them despite their kindness to her.

Sure, Ghibli preaches "forgiveness". But I think they went overboard with it here, because they inadvertently send a message that no matter what horrible things you (the Witch) did, there's no consequence or repercussion and you even get your previous victims taking care of you in your old age. 

Second, Sophie took the Witch into Howl's house and cares for her. The Witch at this point is too old to eat a meal by herself. Are you telling me that you'd take in some random elderly woman and spoonfeed her every meal, bathe her and change her diapers??!  I'm sorry, this is too farfetched to me and it makes Sophie's character unreal. 

I also got an impression that the Witch is taking advantage of Sophie's kindness, eg, the Witch is able to smoke a cigarette by herself and grab Calcifer by herself but she isn't willing to eat a meal by herself. It's as if she's waiting for Sophie to "serve" her.

Yes, I understand how movies always try to preach “always be nice to people no matter what”; however, "always helping others at great costs to yourself" is not a motto I would advocate.

Remember when Sophie refused to help the Witch walk up the stairs? She was nice, but NOT the kind of “angelic niceness” that helps everyone at the expense of herself.  She's a human, not an angel.  Thus, she feels ‘real’ in this scene. As the movie goes, she feels less real because her niceness has progressed to a kind of self-destruction that negatively impacted innocent people.

"Helping others within your means" would be a better message for kids and adults.

The Charm of New York City

I interned and lived in NYC for 5 months and it was the best 5 months of my life. I'd go wandering the streets every evening after work and seeing where it would take me. It felt like adventures were waiting around every corner.

I stumbled upon all kinds of fascinating places, from obscure bookshops to thrift stores to tiny art galleries to amazing hole-in-the-wall restaurants I never managed to find again. I didn't have to plan ahead for weekends - I'd just walk, and experiences opened up. I got to see a huge cross-section of society that felt like all humanity represented in one place. I loved the disorganized coziness of Greenwich Village and how every building felt rich with history. I'd trek west through open avenues and hang by the piers, listening to the waves rush against the concrete; I'd watch the sunset over the Hudson River and feel at peace with the universe. I'd walk through the streets near midnight and see the city alive with lights and sound and life and distant skyscrapers with glowing windows hinting at the thousands of lives going on all around me. I'd get lost in Central Park as the evening darkened into night and left me wandering through fields of fireflies towards the far-off glimmer of civilization, and I never felt more alive.

I rode a train to Coney Island, gazing out the window as whole neighborhoods whizzed past. I felt the wild sea breeze against my skin and walked the beach beneath an overcast sky. I rode the ferry to Staten Island and got lost among streets of silent houses, braving the light rain until I found a bus shelter and got on a bus of people quietly chatting or dozing away in the afternoon lull.

I loved the subways with all their weird smells and assortments of people; the way that peak hour subways were packed tighter than I thought was physically possible and it almost felt like a daily hug. Off-peak, I watched empty stations zoom past like mysterious places from some fascinating dystopia, portals to yet more streets waiting to be explored. It felt like the whole world was out there, calling to me. All I had to do was go.

Fate series: The View on Immortality

This is a combined post written by me and Ashe_Black.  I agree 100% with Ashe_Black.

The general theme in the Fate Universe has always been that the antagonist or the "perceived villain" are the ones who seek immortality or believes immortality to be a benefit to humanity. While the protagonists have always been those who oppose it or believe it to be a detriment to humanity. 

Fate generally argues that using Magic to grant humans immortality would be akin to cheating, or halting their growth, or is just bad. For reasons as trite as because it is not natural.

I completely disagree with Fate's view on immortality.

In The Epic of Gilgamesh, the only reason that Gilgamesh (and mankind) didn't become immortal was that the Herb of Immortality that he had obtained was eaten by a snake. But in Fate, it was said that Gilgamesh "went back and obtained the Herb of Immortality again just for the sake of collection" but didn't use it because blah blah. Total BS and out of character for Gilgamesh! To Gilgamesh, he did not only fear death because he loved living, it was also because he wanted to observe humanity's path until its very end, so he saw death as an end to his duty as humanity's guardian. In Fate/Zero, he agreed to participate in the HGW because, in his words, Tokiomi had summoned and given him a body/a second life ("I treat him as my vassal and he supplies me with mana"), and that he later let Tokiomi be killed when Tokiomi planned to kill him. In UBW ending, we see that Gilgamesh stubbornly clings to life. It's because he hasn't fulfilled his goal or it's because he wants to see Kirei's path, etc. For whatever reason, for whatever purposes you see him cling to life, it shows that he still sees purposes in life and never wants to die. So, if Gilgamesh successfully obtained a method for immortality, he would no doubt use it!  "Oh I'm over death" is an excuse to insert the "immortality isn't good" notion into the work - this is the authors' view - and not a representation of how the character should be. Gilgamesh in The Epic became more human because he had failed to achieve what he wanted, failed to overcome his human limitations. His brief sense of accomplishment and joy vanished just as quickly as he obtained it - that made him realize the full extent of his humanity, which was the final crucial step that completed him as a man and connected him with his people. The grief of Gilgamesh, the questions that death evoked and his quest for immortality resonate with every human being who has wrestled with the meaning of life in the face of death. Also in The Epic, Gilgamesh could not achieve the kind of immortality that was available to gods.  Fate - by having him able to obtain immortality but turn it down by his own will - negates the whole meaning of his journey. Fictional authors have been using characters to speak their own minds, and anti-immortality is the message that Fate wants the audience to believe.

Gilgamesh, Alucard, Sun Wukong, etc. - all these characters who strive for immortality have an interesting thing in common:  They all share a great fear of death. That fear alone motivated them to master great deeds.   Their desire for immortality and power was also motivated by the fear of losing what they had.  This is a very HUMAN desire, considering that immortality has always been humanity's greatest dream!

There's nothing "unnatural" about immortality - just as there's nothing unnatural about the advancement of Medicine and technology.

Given that life has been struggling to evolve and survive as long as possible through any means possible, reproduction is just a very poor form of immortality. If we could pass on our consciousness through our offspring akin to instinct then it would be by definition immortality.

Not only in Fate but in a lot of other fictions (like Hellsing), the anti-immortality perception is widespread.  I believe that it is some authors' way of giving solace to themselves and to the human audience watching their fictions. Ultimately it's all a form of convincing oneself that one's own state is okay because there is no better alternative realistically.  IF the immortality option is actually available to us, how many of us will honestly turn it down?!

As I wrote about this for Hellsing, I completely disagree with the "reject immortality for any reason" notion. Because it is anti-progress for attempting to put a stop on humans  dreaming about and striving for the possibility to begin with. More of my view on Immortality

Immortality is fantastic!

I believe immortality is a wonderful thing and that all of the reasons for it being bad are just not strong enough to convince me otherwise.

I get that living forever can seem scary; the unknown is. But that is just individual perceptions of immortality. This is not what humanity as a whole agrees upon. People who don't want to live forever or only want to live to a certain age can just kill themselves when they are tired of living.

Earth's overpopulation would be the only problem to worry about on a large scale. But with more time to tackle this issue, we can keep working on them. I don't know the solutions yet - maybe we'll live on Mars - but that's the whole excitement of living to see the ever-changing future: We can keep trying things and learning and pushing for improvement. Imagine what great achievements would come about if humanity's greatest minds (eg, Newton, Einstein, Tesla, etc) were given immortality?

I don't agree with the argument that "without death, humans can't grow". Where did people get the idea that the longer life is, the less meaningful it becomes? Why do some people seem so adamant that continuing on and foregoing the mental and physical degradation we currently deem acceptable is such a bad thing? Remember that humans nowadays can and have the conditions to achieve far more than we ever did because the we don't have to struggle for most basic necessities like ancient humans did. Being freed from bothering about those kinds of inconveniences, we have been able to concentrate on enriching our minds.

In 1900, the average human lifespan was 47 year​s. By 2000, they live​d to 76. Are middle-aged people today wishing they could speed through the next few decades and get them over with? Do those pushing 100 feel like they've been dealt a bad hand?

Not-dying is what we strive for with medical advances, after all. And if you don't think we should continue striving to live as long as possible, where's your cut-off line? Reaching a point where we can live for as long as we want seems like a pretty natural conclusion. Immortality doesn't seem like such a big dream.

The "no progress" argument assumes that death is the only struggle humans do/will ever face in life. This is immortality, not invincibility. There will always be new challenges, new horizons to reach, eg, will we be able to become an interstellar species?