From: Chris Campbell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [gundam] (OT) Letters from Iwo Jima
Date: Mon, 05 Feb 2007 14:39:02 -0600
At 02:24 PM 2/5/2007, Matthew Robinson wrote:
But remember, he wasn't born; he was *created.* He wasn't a legitimate
human being, because he didn't have parents, friends and family, and all
that. He is a being created in the image of a human being who isn't
really human at all, and that's why his perspective has some moral weight
-- he's judging humanity from the outside, as someone who never was and
never can be a part of the human race, and not as a member of said race
who fared poorly.
In some ways Kreuze is like a living AI, and subject to the same genre
"rules."
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on whether Kreuze's method of
coming into the world made him something other than human. To me, his
being deliberately created isn't all that different from the old
monarchical practice of having children just for the sake of having an
heir to the throne. Henry VIII went through half a dozen wives just for
the sake of having a male heir; do you really think anyone resulting from
that sort of situation would be treated as an individual human person for
their own sake and not just as an instrument of someone else's will? IMHO
Kreuze's estrangement from humanity is his own doing, the result of his
bitterness about his origins, upbringing, and degenerative disease --
biological parents he might lack, but friends and family are available to
anyone willing to reach out. And you don't get "victim" sympathy points
for victimizing yourself.
The difference there is that, even in the extreme cases you mention, the
child in question still had parents. They still came into the world through
recognizable human processes, even if the circumstances surrounding their
birth weren't ideal. Kreuze, by contrast, had no parents, no family, none
of the touchstones that make human beings human. His situation is unique,
and that puts a unique spin on his actions.
Would it matter, from the point of view of one orphaned from birth or
abandoned at birth, whether one originally had parents or not? Does the act
of being conceived and born naturally really have significance beyond what
we give it in terms of being a link to previous generations of humans, and
if so, does this link overshadow the links we make day in and day out by
interacting with the other human beings around us?
For another perspective, consider the Invid (aka Inbit) human-mimicking
characters from Mospeada/Robotech -- particularly Marlene (can't recall
her name in Mospeada). Not biologically human (although probably close),
no true parents unless you count the Regis, no memories. Nonetheless I'd
consider her effectively human by the end of the series, because of her
choices and because she's _found_ friends and family in Scott's resistance
group. Corg (Batra? in Mospeada), OTOH, I'd call alien -- in this case
someone who COULD be human but chooses not to be. At best, IMHO, this
latter is the category Kreuze falls into.
No way. None of those are human, not in the least. They're very much
Invids, even if they chose to ultimately reject their heritage. In fact, a
good chunk of what makes Marlene/Ariel compelling is the fact that she
chose to make her home among humanity even though she is most certainly not
a human. But what's important there is the element of choice -- the Invids
have to actively reject their culture in order to live among humans. But
Kreuze has no culture to reject -- he is very much a culture of one, and
that's why he's an interesting villain.
But does one have to have a culture to reject in order to embrace a culture?
Remember, Marlene originally had no clue she was an alien -- she only
found out when she saw herself bleeding green. She originally came to see
herself as human without being able to reject any previous heritage, since
she first came to consciousness as a total blank slate. She turned BACK to
the humans, in the end, of her own volition, but she had originally
considered herself "one of them" (one of us?) without ever realizing she
might have a totally different origin.
Here's another question: was Kreuze always aware he wasn't born naturally,
or did he originally grow up assuming he was natural-born? If Kreuze had
been created as a clone but, say, raised as Al da Flaga's natural-born son
(with or without the expulsion of Mu la Flaga from the family), would his
situation vis-a-vis humanity be different? In the latter situation Kreuze
would presumably have assumed the culture he was brought up in, with Al da
Flaga as his family, and whatever friends one normally picks up in childhood
(albeit the isolated childhood of the upper-class "son" of a spectacular
snob like Al da Flaga).
Another interesting subject would be Prayer Reverie from the Astray X manga
-- apparently another failed Al da Flaga clone (or possibly a clone of Mu?),
but utterly different from Kreuze in personality and motivations. Even if
he was raised the same as Kreuze, from what we've seen so far he seems to
have picked up family and friends in the form of Reverend Malchio and the
Junk Guild. Arguably the same with Rey za Burrell, even if he went in a
different direction from Reverie.
Again, he's more of an organic AI than anything else. He has no culture, no
heritage, no family to embrace or reject, and that makes his descent into
villainy all but inevitable. How could he not pass judgment on a race that
had acted so carelessly?
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