Avatar vs Princess Mononoke: How to have a message

Both Avatar and Princess Mononoke have stories that revolve around their messages. But both have two very different results and it's because of the difference in moral substance between both messages and stories.

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[victoriaamat]

Wow, that was an extensive essay, thanks for your insight! I remember leaving the cinema with my friends being very disappointed. They all loved the film, I was annoyed. It's interesting how a poor ethos (character) in a work such as Avatar not only conveys a lesser (moral) message but in the end it produces defective "art". Here you can see that there is no resolution of the deeper conflict: the humans are pushed away by force to either invade other worlds or to return more heavily armed (or to face extinction as you noticed), the "natives" can't keep on living the same way so their "balance" by force has to tip (the interconnection of human action that you mentioned). Actually, now with that prelude, the sequel could give a better historical perspective, but that wouldn't make a better product by it self. An artist need deeper knowledge of the human nature to provide a better tension/conflict to the work that in time will resonate with the spectator as it resolves. Sadly, when ideology covers the roots of the conflict (as it happens in Avatar and many others) you get cheesy, bloated, nonsensical works that neither entertain nor provide a valid moral understanding.
As Pilgrim pointed The Last Air bender shares a simplistic view regarding the campaign of the fire nation. One might defend how it makes sense in the setting and from a world building standpoint (though I don't fully agree). It was pretty cheesy, as the Fire Lord as an antagonist to Aang (a cardboard dark lord archetype). But the conflict of the work (luckily) wasn't there, that's why the other Avatar worked (at least with me).
Sorry, didn't mean to post a second essay here, just wanted to add to the discussion . Thanks for your content, Pilgrim!

[seranonable]

not only does Ashitaka not take sides, but he is constantly ACCUSED of taking sides by BOTH SIDES and still manages to stay objective. A true chad.

[ssoory]

In an interview, Miyazaki pointed out something simple yet profound "Humans find things in nature that are useful for them and try to protect those things. But nature is brutal and unforgiving and has so many things that are not useful to us humans." Its one of the reasons why the animals/creatures in Mononoke are not cute or have cuddly features to them. They are savage, creepy but also majestic and dignified.

[jlhill]

I was really impressed with the maturity of the writers of Princess Mononoke to be able to make the antagonists, like Lady Eboshi, wrong but not evil.

[realsanmer]

One of the many things I love about Mononoke is the fact that, despite the ending being so open, the conflict still ongoing, so many threats still active, it is distinctively *not* a sad ending. It's a hopeful one.

[samwallaceart]

"I guess what Jake Sully needed was a hot human female on the Industrial side, that way he would have the incentive to _not lead a race war."_

So accurate it hurts

[trygveplaustrum]

When addressing the anti-colonialism narrative, I love bringing up the Tlaxcalans.
You know, the people that were systematically harvested for human sacrifices.
*They joined the Spanish almost instantly to help take down the Aztecs. There were more Tlaxcalan fighters than Spanish!*

[broEye]

I'm sick and tired of the fools who insist that humans are the "most evil creature" or something, that no other creature would do what we do and they all live in balance. Great to hear someone finally say that yeah, as countless invasive species have shown, animals naturally exploit for their own benefits; the reason they "live in balance" is because even the apex animals have sufficient opposition that they can't get the sort of upper hand humans have. It's basically a race that wasn't designed to be won. Somehow, we won, but the great power and control that we won requires an equal amount of care and caution. With great power comes great responsibility. I know it's cliche, but that doesn't mean it isn't a fundamental truth.

[Norbert_Sattler]

Just a little nitpick here:
Mononoke is not actually a name, but a word describing a vengeful monster of sorts that has no direct translation into English. So Princess Mononoke could be translated as the vengeful princess of monsters or somesuch, which is how the people from Iron Town certainly view the girl living with the wolves.
Her actual name is San... which comes with it's own baggage of potential symbolism, but let's not go into that. ^^

[immikeurnot]

What you said about civilization being more merciful than nature is completely true. I've done a bunch of back country camping and generally spent a lot of time in the wild, and the ruthlessness of nature never fails to impress.

[Ostsol]

When people speak of Native Americans living in harmony with nature, they forget how brutal nature really is. All cultures began with similar technological constraints, forcing the same "harmony." The ones in Europe, Asia and North Africa simply developed faster than those in the Americas.

[EgoEroTergum]

I've never given anyone on Youtube money before, in fact I generally block all ads with third-party programs.

The well-compiled visuals and in-depth comparison was very enjoyable, even professional. When you began going into real cited history; that's when I decided to donate.

There's good follow-through and flow in saying that historically illiterate people perpetuate bad ideas, explaining why the ideas are bad, and then proceeding to reduce the aforementioned illiteracy.

I look forward to seeing what you make next.

- Cheers, from PA.

[dh]

"To see with eyes unclouded by hate and try to slow the cycle of violence" You need a megaphone and the whole of reddit held hostage in a room or hell the whole of humanity held in a room to listen to this sermon.

[somedandy]

A thing that always bothered me about Avatar was that they never (to my recollection) showed different tribes of the Navi fighting.
You tell me that on an entire planet these intelligent creatures never disagreed? No tribe ever tried to push for their own access to the Mother Tree?

[ksztaltchmur]

In my life I try to be my own person, but if I ever actually looked up to anyone as an archetype of a positive masculine and humanitarian hero - it's gotta be Prince Ashitaka... this movie is definitely one of the best ones ever made and it's message touches my heart every time ♡

[sergio_gyg]

As a spaniard I can't believe someone out there names the jesuits and the work done by them to try and protect the natives instead of joining the hating the spanish bandwagon

[lunarshadow]

Now that was a great line, "Spain felt they were justified because they saw themselves as victims, pushed to do a 'justified' evil"
And those that don't understand that are those who only look at the most recent victim of the cycle instead of at the cycle that brought everything to today.

[CommandoRickLV]

one things i noticed about Avatard 2 is this, when Spider got captured Jake and the family didnt even consider or bother to rescue him not only that he imediatly thought spider would break and betray them and give their location up (which he never did, Spider was OG chad loyal to the end), it showed truly that Jake not only hated earth humans but didnt even trust the ones that stayed by his side, if he trusted Spider for even a lil bit, the whole running away shtick would have never been needed, actually it was Jakes fault that his family got found and the sea navi got in danger in the first place

[wolrin]

This was a great video. You are one of the few content creators, who discuss our relation to nature and who also understand, that humans aren't a separate entity from nature. People always go with an idea that place can be either natural (imagine forest, swamp and other places without humans) or it can be unnaturally changed by humans (imagine cities, villages etc.). Yet they always fail to recognize, that humans building cities is just as natural as a beavers building their dams or ants building anthills. They wouldn't consider an anthill unnatural so why is a city different?
Also thank you for pointing out that one of the reasons Europeans sailed west (to find new trade route to India) was because of the Ottoman Empire. It never occurred to me that there could be a connection.

[Exodon]

7:35 Na'vi are shown to be no strangers to war - as proven by the "kill on sight" policy established by the Chieftain, their preference for poison-tipped arrows, the fact they are depicted to have a pretty good concept of some aspects of warfare with some clans even specializing in certain roles, the fact they have a mythical hero figure who reveals themselves in times of great hardship, choosing one of the Moon's Apex Predators as their mount, and alsso one deleted scene which depicted a piece of dialogue between the protagonist and his Na'vi rival where the latter admonished the humans for "fighting over long distances like cowards"

So even though their in-movie depiction was pretty benevolent you can easily see some cracks within the facade and their "goodness" is only compared to the humans on the moon.