Am I silly for this or have I found something?

[KnightoftheBlackRose]

The other day I started to watch a cartoon series on a well know website called Naruto. For those who are not firmiliar with the series, it is about a young boy who is going through training to become a ninja and all of the obstacles and quests he is confronted with along the way. But my question is this, while watching a particularly good fight sequence I found a couple of the characters tugging at something inside me, one was a younger female who had more or less given control of her life in every sense of the word over to a "rouge ninja", this girl viewed herself as having no meaning in life other than as a tool/weapon for her "master". At the end of the fight she gives her life to save him. The other character that tugged at me was the "master", he had spent years around this woman and when she died was confronted with the fact that he never showed any emotional attachment to her, but in the end he gives his life in a very valiant way to destroy a true evil and his only last wish is that he be laid next to her before he passes so he may see her one last time. Now I feel like he almost found a truly selfless act in the end and attempted to reconcile his sins, but did he die a hero or still a villian? And how do you feel about the situation the woman was in with her view? Do you side with her or agianst her? Finally my true question is am I silly for finding this tugging at my heart strings and almost illiciting tears as it is only a cartoon or have I truly found a representation for how a true hero can be and am justified in my feelings?

 

For those of you who would like to see what I am talking about here is the link to the episode I was talking about. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaOLot0reGo

 

I am in no way advicating this website or the series I am discussing I just wish to provide better information about what I am discussing

[thelerner]

Naruto is no Avatar, but its still a pretty good albeit slow moving 'deeper' tune series. I saw that episode, you're being soft hearted. The guy was a murderous villain in my book. One last deed doesn't undo a lifetime of evil.

 

Course its such a manipulative set up to begin with, one must ultimately blame the writers .

 

Michael

[OpenSecret2012]

Finally my true question is am I silly for finding this tugging at my heart strings and almost illiciting tears as it is only a cartoon or have I truly found a representation for how a true hero can be and am justified in my feelings?

 

 

 

My only comment is... only in the west (and mostly America at that) are cartoons viewed as "silly, dumb, meaningless" things. In the rest of the world, and mostly in Asia, cartoons are viewed as simply another form of communication. And that is exactly what they are. Just like books, movies, on and on.

 

So it is not simply "only a cartoon". It is a story told using a type of communicative format, which touched you.

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

It is up to you, based on YOUR life experiences, your intuition, what and who you feel is a hero, or villian. Take "Superman" for example. Is he a hero or the ultimate villian? We all know about the propaganda that says he is a hero. But he never corrects the ills in Africa, the mass executions, the drug trade in S. America, the craziness related to Israel and the Middle East. He turns back time only to save 1 woman, but what about other people? What a selfish fiend!

 

Based on my life experience, a bad guy to one side is a good guy to another side. As the famous quote goes - history is written by the winners. (I amend it to Official History )

Edited February 28, 2007 by OpenSecret2012

[Wayfarer64]

I can relate to feeling deeply about fictional characters. Emotianal connections may seem vapid when they are induced by fiction, but they still touch us on deep levels of tenderness and/or antipathy. Just as our friends and relations make us both angry and happy. There are many books, paintings, music and movies, etc... that I think of as old friends, because they touched me in a way that stuck with me through time and changes.

 

There may be a deeper sense of emotion wrought by the seemingly silly modes of communication than the more serious. Intellectual depth does not make for better much less happier people. Often the more we know the sadder, and therefore more useless, we become. Sadness saps us, happiness invigorates.

 

We humans are a complex lot. I believe that we each have a deep internal connection to the One & All. In other words, our deepest being is of spirit that is connected to all of life. That we are also created with hard-wired urges to project our energies and striving to support our selves on the physical plane is often at odds with our inner realization that we are all one, and not seperated by our ever-more insulated lives. It would seem that the toon you mention was written to tug at heart-strings and show the dichotomy of our nature.

 

One recent movie- The Departed, for another instance, likewise had many conflicted characters who were both evil and well-meaning. In fact, the most evil people I have met- (neonazis), thought themselves to be agents of The Lord, clearing the earth of Jews and Blacks and Catholics et al...

 

I wrote that it is the deep inner connection to all of life that I believe is the purest good in people's nature. Anything that works to advance our own druthers-(not needs or protections), but negates other life on earth is a wrong done, in my way of thinking.

 

Basic needs and protections from the hazards of life can not be set aside easily. That a fictional character gave her life for one she loved above her own life is a deep and sacred act of selflessness. If such an act can change the nature of an evil character by awakening the knowledge of love, once shared and now gone; and the prescious nature of such a sharing. That it is a tender thing that may even be possible beyond imagination...

 

I am not sure if such a redemption of inner self will count for much against a life-time of horror; but it may be all any one of us needs to start on the new direction towards awakened consciousness. I see things as if what comes our way while we strive to live/have our goals in life, is what becomes our lives. How we go about manifesting our energies creates our Kharma.

Edited February 28, 2007 by Wayfarer64

[Spectrum]

or have I truly found a representation for how a true hero can be and am justified in my feelings?

 

Some of the things Joseph Campbell talked about the heros journey could be of interest. Universal themes of relationships found in...

 

Maybe the power of story can evoke some type of informational themes stored in that memory field... or something like that.

[soaring crane]

Finally my true question is am I silly for finding this tugging at my heart strings and almost illiciting tears as it is only a cartoon...

 

I just want to add that cartoons don't animate themselves any more than books write themselves. A person with a heart put some love into the story. So, no, I don't think you're silly.