Horror-Tober Part I: Vampires

Written by Alexander Greco

October 7, 2020

“And if they get me and the sun goes down into the ground

“And if they get me take this spike to my heart and

“And if they get me and the sun goes down

“And if they get me take this spike and

“You put the spike in my heart”

My Chemical Romance, “Vampires Will Never Hurt You”

As a quick forewarning, some of this analysis and the things I talk about are pretty rapid-fire and probably should be elaborated or explained more, but I wanted to shorten many of the points here. If you want to learn more about some of these things, you can check it out for yourself, or reach out to me with any questions and whatnot.

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Introduction

Vampires need very little introduction, but here we go.

Vampires have become something that borders on memey at this point, but vampires as a Dawkinsian meme (the immaterial, “idea-gene” or evolving idea) have a long evolutionary history—starting with folklore, developing into the classic Dracula-vampire, and then finally committing a slow suicide with a glittery stake in the 2000’s and 2010’s.

Concepts of vampires or of things similar to vampires have appeared across cultures throughout history, beginning with ancient stories such as the Indian Vetalas and Pisaca; the Babylonian/Assyrian and Hebrew Lilitu and Lilith, respectively; and a slew of Greek monsters: the Empusae, Lamia, Stirges and Gello.

Many of these creatures, as well as other similar tales throughout the world, are not strictly “vampires”, but they bear similarities to the modern concept of the vampire (nocturnal, blood-sucking/flesh-eating, demonic, undead/undying, odd rules around their behaviors). These ancient creatures in particular may have given rise to the modern “Draculian” (yes, I just made up a new word) or Gothic Vampire.

Accounts of this more modern concept of a vampire arose from the Medieval Period to the 18^th Century (the century where a widespread fear of vampires began to crystallize and bloom across Europe). There were Hebrew, Norse and British accounts of undead or vampiric entities, such as revenants and draugrs, and then in the 18^th century, when European populations began using the term “vampire”, vampires became the object of hysteria.

Similar in many ways to the witch-hunts that spread across Europe and North America, the notion of vampires became an object of fear, paranoia, hate and morbid scholarship. The “18th-Century Vampire Controversy” was a generation-long marathon of grave-desecration, hysteric accusations, and the tail-end of pre-modern superstitious-hysteria (though, I’d say the underlying psychological/psychic structure persists to this day).

One interesting note here is that this Vampire scare flared parallel to the Age of Enlightenment, a tangent that I probably won’t bring up much beyond this, or will simply forget to bring up, but an interesting corollary to the analysis.

Why was it that both witch-hunts and vampire-scares coincided with progressive philosophic movements?

Why is it that such ancient, superstitious cleansing-hysterias emerged in tandem to socio-cultural and cognitive leaps forward?

Why have we, at such dramatic cultural turning points such as the 60’s, 80’s and 00’s, faced similar witch-hunts and vampire-hysterias?

And why do we now, in such a strange and tumultuous politico-cultural shift of contemporary history, do we seem to be face similar superstitious hysterias?

This 18^th century vampire evolved into the Bram Stoker Dracula of 1897—another curious example of society/culture/media that roughly coincided with Nietzsche’s famous proclamation, “God is Dead”.

From out of the dying light of Romanticism, Dracula—named after Vlad III, Vlad the Impaler or Vlad Dracula (I may talk about him more, I haven’t decided yet)—evolved through the 19^th century into suave villains and anti-heroes (excluding Nosferatu, who was less-than-suave). After Bella Lugosi and pulp fiction, there came waves of comic book and genre-fiction renditions of vampires who all played as variations of the Gothic/Dracula vampire, peaking with thee ’92 Bram Stoker’s Dracula film before its new, contemporary variations (one might say the Post-Modern vampire).

And with this relatively brief but relatively whole history of vampires, I will examine the core psycho-symbolic meaningfulness of vampires.

I want to use this to analyze the modern depictions of vampires in an almost historic study of its evolution and bring this all in to a contemporary analysis of culture and society using this initial analysis, but I don’t think I’ll be able to do that without a hyper-extended article.

So, I may do this in the future.

For this analysis, there are three crucial “modes” of the ancient, classical and post-classical/early modern vampire narrative I wish to examine:

1. Vampire as Feminine Demon
2. Vampire as Indifferent Entity
3. Vampire as Masculine Aristocrat

And, for those already jumping on this “controversial analysis”, this has nothing to do with value claims about actual gender/sex, rather the mytho-narrative symbolism of these fragmented archetypes. This is all aimed at a symbolic mythological analysis, not a material, cultural or philosophical analysis of sex or gender.

Analysis of Vampires

I’ll first roughly define each of these sub-archetypes and give a mythological/historic relation/foundation to each of them, then delve into each. As a fun little note here, these three archetypes I think may still be present, at least partially, in modern culture, arts and narrative, but it’s safe to say they’ve both splintered and evolved into more sub-archetypes.

However.

The actual “psychological archetypes” (since we’ve already entered the realm of Jung here) are most certainly still alive and well in our culture, sleeping in tombs or ruling from dark castles.

First, we have to examine vampirism at its foundation. Vampirism, roughly speaking, relates to an undead, undying or demonic/infernal force that parasitizes “normal” humanity. Vampirism relates to death, but it also relates to undeath (either something dead returning to life, or something immortal) which preys upon life.

Vampirism more particular relates to either consuming flesh or blood, and so can be seen as siphoning a life force or siphoning “what makes us ‘us’” as a source of sustenance. Vampirism also relates to the nocturnal, which is what we cannot see, what lurks in “the dark”, or what comes out in times or places of “dark”.

Vampirism is often treated in a disease-like manner. It can either kill others, or it can be spread to others who then become new nodes of Vampirism.

Vampirism also relates to immortality, but usually is more specific to the ability to consume the “life force” of others in order to maintain or continue its own life.

This can be seen in a number of ways:

– Something which we suppress, either in our own selves or in our conception of reality / Something parasitic or destructive in ourselves which we actively decide not to acknowledge, or something external to us that we do not acknowledge.

– Something we regress to, or something that the state of society, state of nature or state of being regresses to in moments or periods of weakness or “death” / Some state of behavior or being that emerges as we as individuals or we as a collective revert into a less humane state of being.

– Some eternal and recurrent force, or some “undying” force—or an aging force that maintains itself beyond death—which preys upon, parasitizes or infects the contemporary culture or youthful population.

Now, for the promised controversial analysis.

Vampire as Feminine Demon refers to the “Lilithian” vampire—the darker elements of Hecatean feminine-mythology. Really, this archetype goes down to one of the deepest roots of mythology: the feminine archetype of Mother Nature. More particularly, this relates the negative aspect of the Mother Nature archetype: Nature as cruel consumer and destroyer, as opposed to Nature as loving creator and nurturer.

Examples in Modern Culture: Antichrist (I would argue); Blair Witch Project (also arguable); Jennifer’s Body (there aren’t many great examples, guys); A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (but not really); Let the Right One In (kinda)

Vampire as Indifferent Entity is sort of an off-shoot of the Lilithian vampire. Where the Lilithian vampire may be seen as the more divine (divine meaning “of-higher-being”, not necessarily in a positive or negative sense) conscious progenitor, source or monarch of vampirism, the Indifferent Entity is more like an amoral child or creation of the source-being. This Indifferent Entity is like an animal, a more unconscious being driven by instinct, and closer to an unthinking, mechanical object than a conscious, moral agent.

Examples in Modern Culture: Stakeland, 30 Days of Night, I Am Legend

Vampire as Masculine Aristocrat is closer to the more traditional conception of vampire. This is the Draculian vampire, ranging from Nosferatu to Dracula to Edward Cullen (brace yourselves, Twilight fans, it’s only just begun). The Masculine Aristocrat vampire relates to the patriarchal sense of masculine—the twin brother of Mother Nature—as the archetype of “Father Society”. Just as the Lilithian vampire represents the negative aspect of Mother Nature, the Draculian vampire represents a negative aspect of society—the manipulative, bureaucratic, parasitic aspect of society.

Examples in Modern Culture: Bram Stokers Dracula, the Underworld series, the Twilight series (Edward’s a pedophile, accept this fact)

The first analysis will be of the “Vampire as Feminine Demon”. And here, with feminine, I will repeat:

I do not mean the modern contextual meaning of “feminine as effeminate” or “feminine as female biological sex”, or even “feminine as cultural gender”. I mean “feminine as mythological ‘Mother-archetype’” and it has nothing to do with actual sex/gender. Thank you for your time.

With this, we look at the concept of a vampire as the Hebrew Lilith, which arose from the Babylonian Lilitu. Lilith has often been associated with Satan, and in some traditions, Lilith couples with Samael, who, in some ways, can be considered as an initial conception of Satan (Samael being “Ha-Satan”, the accuser, seducer and destroyer).

However, focusing more on Lilitu, Lilitu was a Babylonian “female night demon” who consumed the blood of infants for sustenance. A similar Hebrew demon, the estries, were nocturnal predators who consumed the blood of their victims for sustenance. And then we have the Greek Lamia and Stirges, which feasted on the blood of children and adults (Lamia more particularly on children).

This historic “Lilitu” meme generalizes to a nocturnal, blood-feasting predator, which often preys on children or infants. Here, I think one concept becomes blindingly clear: the negative Mother archetype.

The Mother archetype, as previously stated, is the archetype of Mother Nature, which is both protective, nurturant and procreative, but also cruel, preying and destructive. Mother Nature is that which creates life, and mother nature is that which consumes life. These Lilitu and Lilitu-esque demons are female entities which consume the life-force of individuals, and often the life-force of children (one could say that all individuals, youthful or mature, are children).

So, this ancient proto-vampire, the Lilithian vampire, is an aspect of Mother Nature. The Lilithian vampire might have been a personification of the fear of child mortality/morbidity—the fear of predators, the fear of disease, the fear of fatal injury, the fear of one’s child suddenly going missing when they’re out of sight (in the dark).

This fear could also be seen as a Mother’s fear of her own part to play in the potential destruction of their child. This might be reflective or symbolic of two things. The first, the mother’s own incompetence or the mother’s own malevolence. Perhaps the fear manifested here is that it is the Mother’s fault through their inadequacies that their child either dies or matures into an unsuccessful or even malignant individual.

The second might be an aspect of another negative aspect of the Mother archetype: the Oedipal Mother. This is the archetypal maternal force which is overbearing, overprotective, smothering, and even manipulative and parasitic.

The Oedipal Mother (archetypically speaking, though perhaps literally speaking) keeps their children, particularly their sons, from going out into the world and exploring. They keep their sons at home, where they fulfill the role of their father (sometimes only superficially, sometimes behaviorally, sometimes to a Freudian/Oedipal extreme). This relationship is manipulative, as the mother must coerce, or at the very least be an enabler, the child/son into remaining at home and fulfilling the role of the father, in exchange for continued protection and “nurturing”. The relationship is parasitic, as the mother essentially ruins the child’s life by smothering them, keeping them from maturing and keeping them from living a fulfilled, satisfying life in order to satisfy her own needs.

These are a bit of a stretch. They fit the “vampiric mold”, though it may be difficult to prove that Lilith/Lilitu and their corollary mythological monsters are in fact symbolic of this (but it’s still fun to think about).

The next part of the analysis is the “Vampire as Indifferent Entity”. This one, I will be honest, interests me the least, so I will be quick with this one. However, these happen to be the types of vampires in three of the only good vampire flics in the last couple decades (30 Days of Night, I Am Legend, Stakeland).

These are the animalistic, zombie-like vampires—the mindless, raving, depraved animals. Now, these might be represented at times as semi-autonomous people, or at the very least may outwardly appear as being normal humans, but are far more animalistically autonomous than they are moral agents.

And I think that’s the key here: these are parasitic entities without moral agency.

But, at the same time, it could be argued that a vampire, especially the traditional Draculian concept of a vampire, is without moral agency, since they have a sort of addictive “ball-and-chain”. They cannot escape their necessity to consume blood.

And so, we might look at this Indifferent Entity as being the baseline for vampirism, or the core mode of vampirism—a revelatory vision of vampirism beneath the faux aesthetic put on vampires. At the core of both feminine and masculine modes of vampirism, there is this mindless hunger—this animal instinct to feed.

Perhaps this vision of the Indifferent Entity is the masculine/feminine modes stripped of all external pretense and power—the animal without the divine/demonic powers or omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence of nature; and the animal without the structures and powers afforded by culture and society.

It is a parasitic animal, and perhaps all animals, humans included, are these indifferent, parasitic entities, stripped of all aesthetic and power and pretense.

Finally, there is the “Vampire as Masculine Aristocrat”. This relates to, as previously mentioned, the Patriarchal Father archetype, and the negative Patriarchal archetype: the Tyrannical King. With the Father archetype, there are the positive elements or aspects: protection, order, meaningfulness, a place in society, tradition and so forth. But, there are also the negative aspects: tyranny, conformity, stagnation, immobile and unfair hierarchies, inability to adapt.

However, one aspect of the negative Patriarchal archetype I think is often overlooked is it’s parasitic and manipulative nature. Now, this might be because the elements of tyranny are often regarded in terms of brute force and reigns of fear. However, this is not a nuanced perspective on Tyranny. Some of the most disturbing aspects of tyranny are the manipulative and parasitic aspects of it.

Take for example bureaucracy. Bureaucracies are monolithic hyper-complexes of rules and regulations, filled with a five-dimensional labyrinth of legalities, jargon, hierarchies, departments, divisions, forms, contracts, signatures, waiting lists and so forth. Bureaucracies are unquestionable and impenetrable. Unless you know the infinite in’s and out’s of a bureaucracy, you are at their mercy, and you cannot battle them except on their own terms.

In order to overcome the labyrinth, you must first enter the labyrinth, and we have all committed and signed ourselves over to a bureaucracy from the moment we enter a society. From the moment we enroll in school, from the moment we become an active agent in the legal system, a rational agent in the economy, or a consumer, employee, car-owner, etc., we have entered the labyrinth of a pre-constructed bureaucracy. And at that point, you are subject to a multitude of fines, legal requirements, insurances, non-disclosures, liability forms and so on.

Perhaps this is Dracula’s castle.

And then, you are subject to the sway of society (I would recommend Camus’ The Stranger, Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, and the dystopian diad, 1984 and Brave New World in order to get a fuller scope of this).

You are under the sway of conformity, and the lure of advertisements, and the pull of envy and resentment and ego and uncertainty and the schizophrenia of modernity.

You are gaslit by everyone around you, your conceptions of reality are constantly questioned and attacked (which may be good in some circumstances), and you’re either with us or against us—with a multiplicity of reasons why (with a multitude of sub-labyrinths and Kafka-traps that trigger your determined “otherness-hood”)—and you’re an enemy because you’re not a patriot, or you’re an enemy because you are, or an enemy because you’re neutral, or you’re an enemy because you’re not, or you’re an enemy because you’re as independent and individualistic as possible, or you’re an enemy because you’re part of the herd—and then, on top of it, everyone finds every way they can to make you all of these things at once, and then in the end, who are you anyway? so just follow the herd, but be your own person, but be the person we want you to be, until we’re done with you.

And this is the psychosis of modernity, and this this is the charm and trap of Dracula.

You need a job. Go get one, and now you’re trapped.

You need an education. Go get one, and now you’re trapped.

You need to buy a thing. Go get one, and now you’re trapped.

Okay, let’s sound it out together.
Pe-do-phi-le

And powers on all sides are trying to convince you of five things at once, and you succumb, and now you’re a warm, comatose body they can siphon blood off of.

And then—THEN—there is Dracula as the aging noble who seduces, entraps and parasitizes the youth (Dracula seducing the virgin into being his bride and prey). This is the key element of understanding the Draculian vampire.

The Dracula-vampire is an entity which is immortal, but it can only continue its immortality by drinking the blood of the youth.

It is a parasite which exists only to manipulate new generations in order to siphon their life-force from them. These are the decade and even centuries-old institutions which have been created by prior generations for their benefit. While these in some ways may offer some benefit for those entrapped (just as Dracula offers a home, a purpose and pleasure for his brides), the vast majority of the benefits go to the Draculian institutions.

These are colleges and student loans. These are Big Pharma and Big Oil. These are monolithic retail stores. These will soon be the monolithic social media and online retail stores. These are all the institutions created with benefits for the many and the small, but with tremendous and corrupted benefits for the few and the big.

And, no, I’m not a Marxist or a Socialist. No, no, no. But, fuck man. Some days.

Some days.

A Sudden Stop and Conclusion

There’s so much more I wanted to discuss with this analysis, but the analysis is already long, and there’s so much more I have to say—so much more that I’m not sure I can comfortably articulate in a sane manner.

There may be a part 2 to this at some point, or another standalone article to discuss more of this article, but I do think that this is a good place to stop for now.

I want to say here that I think the analysis I’ve started has opened up a sort of psycho-symbolic-social-critique can of worms. These are complicated topics, and the three symbols I’ve dredged up from the concept of vampires are incredibly deep and complex symbols/ideas and parts of our society and widespread, cultural mythos.

Unfortunately, I think there’s a lot of “begging the question” in this analysis, where I’ve mentioned a lot of things that want to be brought into a sort of practical moral conversation, but would be compounding cans of worms if I did right now.

So, I will say this here as well:

This isn’t intended necessarily to make any social or moral value claims, even though it kind of did make a few. It’s intended to analyze vampires as a symbol (and this was written somewhat manically over the course of a couple days, so cut me some slack). And it’s meant to be fun.

I think this is a strong though in parts somewhat shaky analysis of the core aspects of the vampire symbol:

• The relationship of vampires or proto-vampiric-entities and the negative aspects of Nature
• The animalistic vampirism present in life and nature as a mechanical, unconscious agent
• The now-traditional aristocratic vampirism of social institutions

But these are each complex topics, and the implications to a broader moral and social conversation become even more complex [Xander is currently still realizing the deep end of the pool he dove into was actually the Ocean].

Do I think anything bad of Nature? No! Do I think anything bad of the occult? No! Do I think anything bad of women? Only a few.

Do I think anything bad about animals? No! Do I think anything bad about the masses? That’s a loaded question. Do I think anything bad about being an unconscious, mechanical agent in a moral system? Well, yes, I do, actually.

Do I think anything bad about older people/generations? Next question. Do I think anything bad about social institutions? That’s a complicated question. Do I want to burn down all institutions? No, but I do want change.

Do I think the world governments are secretly run by Alex-Jonesian psychic-pedophile-vampires? Maybe. The jury’s out.

But, this is all beside the point.

Here’s what vampires are. Here’s what I believe them to represent. Here’s a foundation for how we can begin discussing the symbolism of said vampires.

I didn’t get to drive a stake through Twilight’s heart, but goddamn, I wanted to.

Hopefully in the future I can work out these ideas a bit more, maybe give myself more time to organize my thoughts, but for now, I’ll have to put this bad boy back in its coffin. Next up, I will analyze Eraserhead, and I think this will be a much more sober analysis. Thank you for reading, and have a spooky October.

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Forgotten Relics and a Schizophrenic Present: An Analysis of Big O

Written by Alexander Greco

August 9, 2020

Ah, yes.

Big O.

It’s been a long time coming.

Big O could’ve gone down in anime history alongside Neon Genesis Evangelion as one of the best giant mech anime of all time, and even as one of the best anime in general of all time.

However, Big O suffered not only similar flaws as Neon Genesis, but enough other of its own flaws that it is hardly even remembered (ironically). It’s a forgotten relic of the late 90’s and early 00’s: a giant robot anime that tried to fuse neo-noir Gotham-City-style action and mystery with the Modernist techno-dystopia style of movies like Metropolis, Bladerunner and Dark City.

Underlying this neo-noir, Modernist dystopia are questions of existentialism: free will, purpose, meaning, the relationship of the individual to society and the universe, the nature of being. And here, we can begin to see how Big O inevitably failed where an anime like Neon Genesis succeeded. Big O spread itself out across too many themes.

Both shows ran for 26 episodes, both were unique takes on the giant mech genre, and both were incredibly ambitious—delving into depths many “deep” anime only scratched at. The problem with Big O was that it was too scattered, too schizophrenic and too self-aware. Where Neon Genesis never felt like it was trying to be anything other than Neon Genesis, Big O felt like it was trying to be Kafka, Huxley, Orwell, Joyce, Bradbury and Asimov all at once.

Where Neon Genesis had a solid structure, a solid core to it (albeit a structure/core that was difficult to articulate at times, but was at all times clearly felt), Big O feels unstable, loose and uncertain. It’s difficult to even know how one should feel about it.

And, as one final critique, Hideaki Anno is simply a better story writer. Neon Genesis was able to wedge its characters and the central plot into our minds almost immediately, then develop the characters, plot and themes at a perfect pace (until, of course, the very end). Big O just has too much going on: too many sub-plots, too many mysteries, too many revolving-door-characters and standalone story-arcs.

The plot of NGE builds and stacks itself, like the stories of a tower, where Big O schizophrenically assembles the disparate and thinly-associated pieces of a broad puzzle. 90% of the characters appear in only one or two episodes; most individual or standalone story-arcs support the broader plot and themes, but are much more self-contained; and the philosophical themes of the story can never agree with each other on what questions they ought to be asking.

While this style of storytelling—the neo-noir, mystery/detective style of a succession of standalone plots supporting a larger plot—can work incredibly well if executed properly (such as in Cowboy Bebop), Big O was too cluttered to execute it as well as it should have been.

However, I did in fact start this analysis saying, “Big O could’ve gone down in history…” and I mean it. I want there to be no confusion here, despite my criticism, how I feel about this anime.

I love this anime.

Big O has such fucking style, such unique blends of themes and aesthetics, and such memorable, if not at times flawed, characters, plot points, scenes, settings and tone.

God, I fucking love this anime.

Big O was ambitious. In many ways, it was an homage to the science fiction, noir and modernism of the 20^th century, and borrowed quite a lot from series like NGE and Batman (yes, there’s a lot of Batman in this show), but in many was its own, wholly unique show, tempered by the style and storytelling of anime.

This show is incredibly fun and unique—the robot fights, by the way, are sweet and plentiful—and the show contains quite a lot of depth to it, as well as good complexity beneath all the not-so-good complexity. And so, with the rest of this article, I will delve into the depths and attempt to come to terms with Big O.

There is a lot I won’t be able to cover. There is a lot you will simply have to experience for yourself and try to understand in your own fashion. But this analysis will hopefully provide a solid framework to understanding Big O.

If you don’t want spoilers: stop reading, go watch the short 2 seasons of Big O, and come back and read this when you’re done.

I will try to keep the initial explanation of Big O as short as I can, but, if you know Big O well enough, feel free to skip to the Literary and Structural analysis. Or, feel free to skip the next part and come back to it as a reference (or just do whatever).

Setting, History and Plot of Big O

Big O is set in Paradigm City, “a city of Amnesia”. There are a number of domes throughout the city: giant, spherical, glass-and-steel enclosures that separate the rich from the poor. The city within the domes is affluent, clean and often beautiful—the parts of cities you see on post-cards or Google-image searches—and the massive domes provide artificial skies and sunlight. The city outside the domes are run-down, dirty and bleak—the parts of cities you see when you actually drive through the cities in post-card—and are fully exposed to the “real sky”, a perpetually overcast sky where the Sun, stars and Moon are never visible.

On one side of the city is an ocean, where hundreds of drowned skyscrapers peak out from the water’s surface. On the other side of the city is a vast, desolate wasteland—a desert where even more of the city’s past is buried beneath the sand (evidenced by images of buried buildings, abandoned military outposts and even a sand-covered amusement park).

It is suggested that there is no civilization outside of Paradigm City­—no countries or other cities beyond the ocean and the desert—but there is a mysterious group known as “The Union”, led by Vera Rondstadt, who are comprised of “foreigners”. However, even the legitimacy of these people being “foreigners” is called into question.

There are a number of other factions in Paradigm City in addition to The Union, but the two most important ones are the Military Police, led by Dan Datsun, and the Paradigm Corporation, led by Alex Rosewater. The Military Police act, as the name would imply, as both the domestic police force and the military army of Paradigm City, though they are also work under Paradigm Corp as the corporation’s “watchdogs”. Paradigm Corp essentially controls or rules over Paradigm City and all the organizations and business within the city.

It is remarked at one point that a business Roger is asked to work for is controlled by a parent company, and Roger states that anytime “parent company” is mentioned, it inevitably refers to Paradigm Corp.

The nature, design and isolation of Paradigm City, the perpetually gray skies and the drowned and buried cityscape surrounding Paradigm City are all a result of the City’s past.

No one in Paradigm City can remember anything prior to 40 years ago, though there are many relics of the past—such as the titular mecha, Big O—and many citizens of Paradigm City have scattered or partial memories of the past. While these memories play a large part in the show, they are also a great mystery in the show, even after its conclusion

What we can surmise from these memories, and from revelations throughout the show, is that there was some great and likely worldwide catastrophe 40 years ago. We are shown visions of Paradigm City engulfed in flame. Giant mechas known as Megadeus, or the plural Megadei, are rampaging through the streets or flying through the skies. While there are only three individual Megadei in the show’s present time—Big O, Big Duo and Big Fau, with a number of other “Bigs” that don’ qualify as Megadei—in the memories of 40 years ago, we see vast armies of Megadei.

Hundreds of Big O mechas march through the streets, with hundreds of Big Duos flying through the sky, and at least one Big Fau. On top of this, we see a number of other “Bigs” battling the Megadei, many of which are also present throughout the contemporary story of Big O.

In addition to the Megadei, there are also human-esque androids that have survived from the past. While most of these androids are quite obviously robotic, a few of them, such as R Dorothy Wayneright (one of the main characters of the show). The existence of androids like Dorothy also calls into question who is and who isn’t an android. These androids were constructed in the past, and only a few survivors of the past apocalypse remember how to construct androids. The same goes for the Megadei—only a few people know how to construct or repair the Megadei, and even fewer know what the nature or purpose of the Megadei are.

With the past ever-looming over the present events of Big O, the plot revolves around Roger Smith, Paradigm City’s “top negotiator” (or just, “The Negotiator”) and the pilot of the Megadeus, Big O. While working for a plethora of clients throughout the City as “The Negotiator”, Roger Smith secretly pilots Big O and protects the residents of the City from various attacks and catastrophes, and slowly works to unravel the history and the secrets of Paradigm City.

Characters

Roger Smith

The protagonist of Big O is, of course, Roger Smith and his Megadeus, Big O.

Roger Smith is characterized as a sort of Bruce Wayne/Batman character: a wealthy individual who possesses an array of technology and resources, and secretly protects the city as the pilot of Big O (which could be argued is Roger Smith’s alter ego). Roger Smith as The Negotiator works outside of the various political and social forces of Paradigm City, and, as the pilot of Big O, works outside the law.

At one point in the rememberable past, Roger Smith worked as a Military Police, but left, presumably, because of the police’s connection to Paradigm Corp and the resulting corruption of the police. Nonetheless, Roger is still friends with and frequently works in tandem with one of the primary officers/commanders of the MP, Dan Datsun.

However, as the history of Paradigm City unfolds, Roger Smith’s character likewise unfolds. It is suggested that Roger Smith is a creation of the Paradigm Corporation. It is also suggested that Roger Smith was one of many “creations” of the Paradigm Corporation from the City’s past, and even, possibly, a member or associate of Paradigm City.

If one reads between the lines a bit, it may even be that Roger Smith himself is an android (and once you see it, it’s hard to unsee it). For me, this is evidenced in Roger Smith’s mannerisms and behavior throughout the show, particularly in Roger’s dialogues with Dorothy. Roger’s speech patterns, logical processes and behavior seems to mirror Dorothy’s own, much more pronounced mechanical behavior and logic.

Dorothy

Dorothy is probably the second-most primary character in the show, though her place in the show is often rivaled with Angel (who plays arguably the largest role in the show’s conclusion).

R Dorothy Wayneright is an android created by Miguel Soldano, who was commissioned to create her by the affluent Timothy Wayneright. Timothy Wayneright presumably had a now-deceased human daughter named Dorothy, whom the android Dorothy was modeled after.

The show begins with Roger saving Dorothy as a part of his contract with Soldano, learning after this that Dorothy has a “sister” who is in fact a giant mech, or Big, who Roger defeats in robot-combat. Dorothy eventually decides to stay with Roger in his mansion and work for him out of gratitude. While initially she mostly does housework alongside Roger’s butler, Norman, she begins assisting Norman with the repair and maintenance of Big O and aids Roger in his negotiation contracts and his giant robot side hustle.

You can just barely see it… but it’s there…

Dorothy is a unique android in several ways. While most androids in the city follow Asimov’s three rules of robotics, Dorothy frequently does not, particularly in her relationship with Roger (though this may be evidence of Roger’s own robotic nature). In addition to her passive aggression and, at times, blatant insults towards Roger, she begins developing a romantic attraction towards Roger, which, to the despair of Dorothy, Roger denies. This also shows that Dorothy is capable of human emotion, particularly jealousy, but she also is shown to possess other human capacities, such as fear, sadness, contempt, self-awareness, and (in one short but glorious shot) smugness.

Dorothy is also one of a few androids who appears on the surface level to be entirely human, and Dorothy has some sort of unexplained connection to Big O. On top of this, she has some sort of empathic connection to other “Bigs” and other androids or machines.  

Angel

Angel appears early on in the show, going by the alias Casseey Jones, and then later as Patricia Lovejoy. After calling herself “Angel”, Roger remarks that she is a “Fallen Angel”. Angel works for Paradigm Corp, though she seems to have her own agenda. Later, it is revealed that Angel is a part of the Union, which is a group of foreigners living outside of Paradigm City (though it is mentioned by their leader, Vera, that they were actually “cast out” of Paradigm City 40 years ago) who rebel against Paradigm Corp/City.

Angel often works either alongside Roger Smith, or at odds with Roger Smith—their motivations and agendas oscillating between allyship and conflict. However, as the show progresses, Angel and Roger seem to develop a romantic relationship, which is at odds with Dorothy’s romantic attachment to Roger (which at one point results in Dorothy’s aforementioned smugness).

It is later revealed that Angel has two scars going down her back, which is even later suggested to be where “wings” have been “cut off”. There are frequent allusions to Angel being Lucifer, or something equivalent in the story’s narrative. In the show’s conclusion, she becomes the pilot of Big Venus, the fourth Megadeus. Big Venus—Venus being an allusion to the Morningstar, being a name for Lucifer—essentially “resets” the show and returns Paradigm City to the amnesic state it was at the beginning of Big O.

Schwarzwald

Schwarzwald (“Black Forest” in German) is only an active character in a handful of episodes, but he is a major character in these episodes, and his presence is felt throughout the show—particularly in philosophical narrations permeating the show, even after his death.

Schwarzwald, born Michael Seebach, is the pilot of the Megadeus, Big Duo, and is motivated towards exposing the truth of Paradigm City’s corruption, its many secrets and its forgotten past. In addition towards this motivation, which he frequently gives manic monologues about, he seems to revere the Megadei as godly creations, or perhaps even as gods themselves (the Megadei and other Bigs as gods being a semi-frequent theme throughout the show).

Schwarzwald uses his Megadeus, Big Duo, to combat Roger Smith and Big O, but, while initially having the upper hand, is finally defeated by Roger and “dies” in the event. However, it is implied that Schwarzwald’s “ghost” may still be lingering in the City, still searching for the Truth.

Alex and Gordon Rosewater

Alex Rosewater is the leader of Paradigm Corp, the corporation in control of Paradigm City, and eventually becomes the pilot of Big Fau, the “Third Big” or third Megadeus. Alex Rosewater looks down on the poor population of Paradigm City, who reside outside the domes, and uses the Military Police to pursue his own goals, rather than for the protection of the City. Alex possesses something like a God Complex, and believes himself to be a superior Dominus to Roger Smith (“Dominus” being a term referring to the pilot of a Megadeus).

However, while Big Fau seems to be technologically superior to Big O, Alex does not seem to be as capable of a pilot as Roger and cannot maintain control over Big Fau as Roger maintains control over Big O.

Gordon Rosewater is the father of Alex Rosewater, and in some ways seems to be the ultimate “king” or patriarch of Paradigm City. He was in charge of Paradigm Corp before Alex was, and it is revealed that the construction of the contemporary Paradigm City (the domes, in particular) and the construction of androids was done under Gordon’s rule.

In the present times of Paradigm City/Corp, Gordon resides in his own personal dome where he lives on a large and beautiful farm and raises tomato crops. The tomato crops are implied to be something of a metaphor for Gordon’s creations—including the androids, “humans” such as Roger and Alex, and possibly even the Megadei themselves. After Roger Smith’s first encounter with Gordon Rosewater, Roger begins questioning if he himself “is a tomato”—a creation, crop and commodity of Gordon and Paradigm Corp.

The Megadei

While Big O and the other Megadei aren’t necessarily characters in the same sense that Roger Smith, Dorothy, Angel and so on are, they do play an integral role to the plot and history of the show, and it is frequently implied that they possess some level of sentience. The Megadei and other Bigs are also semi-frequently referred to or revered as gods.

The three primary Megadei are Big O, Big Duo and Big Fau. With frequent allusions throughout the show to Behemoth and Leviathan from Judeo-Christian myth and lore, it has been speculated that the three Megadei are partially symbolic of Behemoth, Leviathan and Ziz, Big O is entirely land-based, which would align with Behemoth, a giant land monstere; Big Duo is capable of flight, with the Ziz being a flying creature in Jewish mythology; and Big Fau is capable of maneuvering through water, with the Leviathan being a sea creature.

While typically not included in the roster of primary Megadei, there is the fourth Megadeus, Big Venus, which, as stated before, could be symbolic of Lucifer. This may also complete the metaphor of land, air and water, with Lucifer often being associated to fire (the “fourth element” of classical philosophy and alchemic writings). In the conclusion of Big O, Big Venus seems to be the force that brings an end to the current iteration of Paradigm City, resulting in the new era of Paradigm City where everyone has lost their memory once again.

In addition to the three/four primary Bigs, there are a number of other Bigs, as well as giant monsters, including (but not limited to):

– Dorothy-1, Dorothy’s Big sister

– The Archetype, a proto-Megadeus that appeared in one of the Schwarzwald

– Bonaparte, a Big controlled by the Union

– The Bigs created by Beck, various Bigs created and controlled by the recurring side character, a criminal known as Beck

– Eel and Hydra Eel, organic Bigs that utilized electricity (which appear both in the contemporary story and in memories of the past)

– Leviathan, a serpent-like mechanical Big that came from the desert

Structural and Literary Analysis

As you may have surmised from my “brief” summary of Big O, there are a lot of details and moving parts to this anime, as well as many things I didn’t mention.

I’ve only “briefly” discussed the main components of the anime, and there are single episodes that could have their own, individual analyses written over them. Just like Big O’s Big Brother, Neon Genesis, there’s too much to comprehensively discuss in one analysis, so—like I did with NGE—this analysis will be a broader exploration of the show, attempting to provide something more like a foundation or framework to understand the many individual components of the show.

Hopefully, however, this will be a shorter analysis.

First, we have to examine the setting of Big O, Paradigm City.

Paradigm City has as handful of major components: its history, its design and the ocean and desert surrounding it.

However, while the design of Paradigm City and the geography it is embedded within are meaningful, the history of the City is most important to understanding Big O.

Paradigm City is a city with amnesia. No one can remember anything about its history prior to 40 years ago, with the exception of a small number of people who can recall fragments of its past in brief glimpses.

At the conclusion of Big O, Paradigm City is essentially reset to its initial state at the beginning of Big O. The City is being rebuilt, and, presumably, none of the characters remember the events that took place throughout the anime. There are implications that Paradigm City has changed after its latest “apocalypse”, with the City still partially destroyed and Angel and Dorothy being shown together, possibly as friends or companions rather than beginning the show not knowing each other.

However, we can also presume that the state of Paradigm City at the beginning of the show was different than the state of Paradigm City prior to 40 years ago, and we can presume that history will repeat itself again.

This, in many ways, is the state of society and civilization as it is now—as it ever is, was and will be in “the now”.

While our history looms over us as an ever-present ghost, or maybe more accurately as a revenant, so much of our history is lost to us. Even the history that we can remember, the brief glimpses of the past that is recorded in our history books, is lost to most of us. We are so caught up in the tides of the present that we forget the lessons of the past.

And with this forgetting of the past, we forget our place in history. Nietzsche described Modern Humanity as begin disassociated from the rest of history, as being unmoored from its past, and so having no clear understanding of who or what they are, what their place, purpose or meaning in existence is, and no understanding of where to move on from here.

With Paradigm City’s past being so shrouded, it’s nearly impossible to understand the ongoing, historical narrative that one is a part of.

It is implied that the Megadei were created, and even mass produced, by Paradigm Corp under the rule of Gordon Rosewater, but what was their function or purpose? Why were they created and what was their function?

We don’t even necessarily know that Gordon and his intentions were evil, as his character is highly ambivalent to the plot and meaning of the show. If we don’t know what happened 40 years ago and why it happened, then how can we understand what is currently happening.

In addition, it is implied that androids, even Roger Smith androids, were created and mass produced by Gordon/Paradigm Corp. What were their purposes? Roger Smith is shown in a flashback as wearing a military uniform while piloting one of the mass produced Big O’s during the great event that resulted in the end of the previous historical era. It is also revealed that Roger Smith as The Negotiator had a contract with Gordon Rosewater prior to 40 years ago, which is contrasted to Roger’s current distrust and contempt towards Paradigm Corp. What was Roger Smith’s purpose?

And what does Roger Smith’s shrouded history say about his current purpose in the present era?

Why does Robert Smith pilot Big O? Why is he The Negotiator? Why does he disdain Paradigm Corp, and why is he constantly seeking the Truth of Paradigm City’s history?

While Schwarzwald in many ways is a foil to Roger Smith, he is also a mirrored image to Roger Smith. Just like Roger Smith, Schwarzwald seeks the Truth, battles against the perceived corruption of the City, and pilots the Megadeus, Big Duo.

Schwarzwald might in fact be the underlying or unconscious manifestation of Roger’s obsession with uncovering the secrets of the past and present, and his motivation to do good for the world. Schwarzwald is like a ghost throughout the show—a spirit that refuses to die, even after physical destruction. Schwarzwald is the manic, unconscious motivations we shroud and repress, but that still emerge from beneath our surfaces in all our beliefs, motivations and actions.

This repression, however, may be healthy. The irony of Schwarzwald’s search for the Truth is how blind he is to his own actions and decisions. Where Roger is tempered by his self-awareness and his awareness of the ethics of his actions, Schwarzwald is reckless and blind to the destruction his own pursuit of Truth and righteous vindication engender upon the innocent and down-trodden.

Here, we can find something I’ve personally been thinking quite a lot about lately: the relationship of moral values and the resulting actions and motivations.

Schwarzwald is obsessed with uncovering the Truth and executing vengeance upon Paradigm Corp/City. These are his highest values.

However, while these values are important to Roger, they are subordinated under his desire to protect the citizens of Paradigm City. Whatever Roger’s past is, whatever his purpose and role in Paradigm City was and is, he is driven by his current moral obligation to protect the City.

Roger even mentions on several occasions that he is not defined by the past—something Gordon Rosewater also mentions. Gordon at one point says that he hopes one of his creations can break free of its pre-ordained purpose or role, and decide its own fate.

Still, it is ambivalent whether this is accomplished or even possible.

Not exactly a flattering picture of ol’ Rogey

If Roger was a soldier and Megadeus pilot prior to 40 years ago, as well as a Negotiator working under Gordon Rosewater, and if Roger became a Military Police member before once again becoming The Negotiator and pilot of Big O, then has Roger simply returned to his prior role? And will he return to this role with the resetting of society?

Has and will Roger always be a soldier, Negotiator and Megadeus pilot whose role in the grand narrative of Paradigm City always been to protect the citizens of the civilization?

And one final, and quite obvious note, on Paradigm City and Paradigm Corp is the name itself, “Paradigm”.

The original and primary definition of a paradigm is as a pattern, a reoccurring set of events or circumstances, or an underlying structure.

Plato used the idea of a paradigm in his metaphysical notion of the Demiurge creating reality from a model or pattern.

Merriam-Webster defines a paradigm as “a philosophical and theoretical framework of a scientific school or discipline within which theories, laws, and generalizations and the experiments performed in support of them are formulated; broadly: a philosophical or theoretical framework of any kind.”

When speaking more cynically about a paradigm in the context of society, government, law, etc., the paradigm of a society is essentially the ruling ideology, the ruling narrative or the ruling way of thinking and being. While the definition of paradigm is a complicated one, the use of paradigm in Big O in all its complexity may be intentional.

In this way, Paradigm City may be a City of Patterns, a City of Eternal Reoccurrence. But, Paradigm City may also be referring to the ruling ideology that permeates a society or culture.

The Paradigm, on the surface, may be the oppressive and dominant paradigm of the City’s rulers and elite—the paradigm created by Alex and Gordon Rosewater. But underlying this, the Paradigm of Big O may be the cyclical pattern of history, and the cyclical pattern of roles that individuals play in that history.

Roger’s paradigm is that of protector and Negotiator—mediating between the citizens and the higher powers of Paradigm City.

In concordance with a paradigm is a paradigm shift, a revolution in the ways of thinking. While this idea of a paradigm shift originated and is used more in the sciences—with Einstein and Darwin being two of the biggest examples of people who caused a paradigm shift—the idea can be applied to nearly anything with an ideological, legal, social or philosophical framework.

In Big O, the paradigm shift is the shift in society Alex Rosewater and Vera Ronstadt both seek.

Alex Rosewater as the figurehead of Paradigm Corp seeks to cleanse the city of “undesirables” (poor people, essentially, but also foreigners and others) and create a better, more perfect world. Vera Ronstadt as the figurehead of the Union seeks to destroy Paradigm Corp and create a world that accepts the “undesirables”, and possibly even where the “undesirables” are in power.

It could be argued (though it would be a pretty reductionist argument) that these two forces and their desired paradigm shift are equivalent to the two primary political forces, particularly in Western society: Liberalism and Conservatism. However, the term “Liberal” has been somewhat bastardized as of late, so a better comparison would probably be: Progressivism and Conservatism.

At their ultimate examples, Communism and Fascism (in many ways similar, but still the hyper-products of far-left-wing and far-right-wing politics), we see direct parallels to Paradigm Corp and The Union. The Union seeks a grand levelling of a society, essentially calling for a destruction of culture where the disempowered rule, and Paradigm Corp seeks a grand cleansing of a society, essentially calling for a Holocaust of those outside the ruling culture where the empowered rule.

Shit gets very confusing in the end

Angel, who works both for Paradigm Corp and the Union, and is frequently allied with Roger Smith, sits squarely in the middle of this Paradigm Shift, and inevitably is the driver of the final Paradigm Shift resulting in a New World, or new iteration of Paradigm City. She is the pilot of the Big Venus, the Morningstar—the Lucifer or Light-Bearer of the apocalypse who brings about and oversees the final battle of the revolutionary moment.

Not only this, it is (confusingly) revealed that Angel is the daughter of Vera Ronstadt and/or Gordon Rosewater—the Matriarch of the Union and Patriarch of Paradigm Corp/City. Angel worked throughout the show on both sides, working both for Alex Rosewater and for the Union.

Very confusing

And Roger Smith is the Negotiator, the person mediating between these two political forces. Roger is both a wealthy, powerful elite himself and is the protector of the average citizen, and he ultimately stands as the savior of Paradigm City. Roger Smith mediates between the various conflicting forces of society, and, in the end, confronts Angel as the revived pilot of the Morningstar.

The destruction of society and culture is stopped, the average citizen and the down-trodden are saved, and the cycle of history begins once again.

Now, there is still more to get into here, and this is in part where Big O starts to fray.

There is still the matter of the androids—of Roger as an android/tomato—and the Megadei. While these do fit within the underlying theme of the reoccurring conflicts and the revolutions of society, they can distract from this underlying theme, both philosophically and narratively or as events/plot points in the show.

So, the androids. The androids are creations of the state, creations of Paradigm Corp. In the end of the show, there are a few moments that imply everyone might be an android, or at least that it’s impossibly to really know who is and who isn’t an android. This could mean that everyone is a product of the state—everyone is a tomato, or a crop that is grown and harvested by the ruling class of society.

Roger, for example, often goes into existential spirals wondering if he is in fact a tomato, and this, connecting back with the cyclical paradigm shifts of history, gets into a question of free will.

Free will has always been a topic that comes up with Artificial Intelligence or Robotics of any kind, and one of our biggest fears is that sentient machines will rise up against us. Maybe this is the same fear that those in the ruling class have of those they rule: they will gain a higher sentience and self-awareness, causing them to rise up against those in power.

However, free will in Big O is more nuanced and much more personal than this. It isn’t necessarily about political movements, it’s also about us as individuals. Do we have free will? Or are we pawns in the machinations of culture at large?

For Roger, are his actions free? Or is his role in society pre-ordained by history and by contemporary culture?

There’s some ambivalence here though, because perhaps having this role in society is necessary. While Roger’s actions both reset the cycles of history and return him and everyone else to a more blissfully ignorant state, he does in fact save Paradigm City—moreover, the innocent people of Paradigm City.

And, there’s even more ambivalence here. Who is actually in charge of these roles? Who is in control of the narrative? Alex Rosewater certainly isn’t in control of the narrative, or in control of the roles people play in the narrative. If he was, Angel and Roger wouldn’t have “won” (or whatever you’d call what happened).

Gordon Rosewater certainly doesn’t seem to be in control of anything by the end of the show. Vera isn’t in control. Angel isn’t in control. Roger isn’t in control.

So what is in control? What is the paradigm or source of the paradigm that pre-ordains the narratives and roles of society? Is this simply “how things are”? Is this simply how things always were and always will be?

And of course, to follow Roger’s personal desire and Gordon’s desire for his creations, will it ever be possible to break out of this paradigm?

And would we want to break out of this paradigm? What would happen if we did? What would that reality be like?

And how could we break out of this paradigm without actually being an unknowing participant in the paradigm?

Is the act of trying to break free of these pre-ordained structures, narratives and roles in fact a part of the paradigm itself? Is the act of trying to obtain free will a part of what creates, drives or perpetuates the paradigm?

And finally, the Megadei.

Borrowing a bit from my Neon Genesis analysis, the Megadei and the other Bigs can likely be seen as a number of things, but, most relevantly, the Megadei are like transcendent manifestations of various aspects or forces within the paradigm.

The Megadei and the Bigs are manifestations of the various conflicting forces, ideologies, motivations within the grand narrative of Big O.

Big O is the manifestation of Roger and Roger’s motivations:

– Big O being the “Behemoth” or land creature is “grounded” or terrestrial, rooted in the reality of everyday people and everyday existence

– Roger seeks to protect the people of Paradigm City; Big O is the ultimate protector of Paradigm City

– Roger seeks to mediate between the various forces of Paradigm City; Big O is the vehicle that meets Big Venus in the end to “compromise” on a new society or reality

– Roger seeks free will and the ability to act as his own individual; Big O is that power, or at least what gives Roger the ability to act as his own individual

Big Duo is the manifestation of Schwarzwald and Schwarzwald’s desire to seek the truth and strike vengeance on Paradigm Corp/City. Big Duo is literally “above it all”, Big Duo is capable of flight, and is capable of reaching heights that are impossible to reach for the other Megadei. Schwarzwald is also blind to his own actions, blind to what his manic ambitions to him and others. The final destruction of Big Duo flying into one of the lights at the top of the dome alludes to Icarus, and mirrors Schwarzwald’s desire to see the truth of the artificiality of Paradigm City. Schwarzwald as a ghost or spirit might be manifested in the “resurrection” of Big Duo later in the show.

Big Fau is the manifestation of Alex and Alex’s motivation. It is gaudy, it is technologically superior, and it is used to bring about the destruction of the undesirable aspects of Paradigm City. In addition, Alex throughout the show believes he is in control of everything, including Big Fau, but in the end is just a pawn himself. Big Fau acts on its own accord, and seems to control Alex more than Alex controls Big Fau.

The list goes on.

Beck’s Bigs are gaudy, useless, lack the capabilities the other Bigs have.

Bonaparte, the Big controlled by the Union, is an amalgamation of various other Bigs, just as the Union is an amalgamation of various foreigners of different backgrounds, lower class individuals from different walks of life, and even androids and human-android hybrids such as Alan Gabriel.

Big Venus is a manifestation of Angel as “the fallen angel”, as the central figure in the paradigm shift, and as the child of two conflicting political forces (the creation of God that eventually opposes God and brings about Armageddon), but also more literally as the Morningstar, as the light heralding the new day (the new day being the new cycle of history).

The Archetype is the manifestation of the unconscious and unconscious forces, but also of the past and the underlying influence the past has on the present.

The Eel, Electric City as a blue collar residence eventually used by the Union; the Construction Robot, working class hijacked by the Union; Chimera, the horrors of science; Osrail, the revenant of revenge; Eumenides, a Big used for assassination/vengeance.

The Megadei and the Bigs are all the manifestations of some grand, underlying force of society. They are a collective of individuals who share an ideology or common motivations, or they are an inevitable force of culture and society, which emerges as a grander force or active agent.

The only exception might be Big O, as Big O might be more of a manifestation of individuality itself. However, even if Big O is this manifestation of individuality (Roger the “Negotiator” being the Ego of the psyche), Big O might be a manifestation of the collective desire for individuality present in society.

And while I could go on for several thousand more words on giant robots, this is a good place to stop.

Conclusion

Big O, like its Big Brother, NGE, is a dense, complicated and opaque anime.

There’s a lot to digest, and it doesn’t give its secrets away readily.

I remember watching this show as a wee lad and being both incredibly excited by the giant robot fights and incredibly confused by everything else. But, even as a young lad, I knew there was something to this anime.

As an older lad, I still love the robot fights and am still incredibly confused by everything else, but I think less confused.

The show is definitely underrated, and I don’t think it or many other giant robot anime have been given the proper acknowledgement or understanding they deserve. The metaphors I’ve discussed, both in this analysis and the NGE analysis, of robots being manifestations of socio-cultural, individual and potentially metaphysical forces and realities are grossly under-analyzed and under-appreciated.

Still, Big O doesn’t do itself any favors.

I’ve simplified the show quite a bit, and so it might sound like I’ve got Big O pinned down, but I really don’t.

Big O feels like it contradicts itself, or that it’s confused as to what it’s trying to portray, but the show is such an elusive tangle of exposition and events at times that many of these internal contradictions and confusions are nearly impossible to even pin down.

It might simply be the execution in parts of the show, and the show did have a somewhat rocky production at times, but so did Neon Genesis—so do most shows and movies.

It could be that Big O was trying to do too much—to be too much—and that the show became too cluttered with its own aesthetics and its own ambitions.

It could also be that I’m a dull, incompetent, uncultured swine who doesn’t understand the nuances of modernist neo-noir/giant-robot/vintage-sci-fi fusion anime, and I’ve certainly taken this into consideration.

Still, I do think the best way to see where Big O went wrong is to look at where Neon Genesis went right.

Both shows are incredibly complicated, dense and opaque, rife with tangled philosophy and psychology, and both possess a large cast of complex characters.

However, Neon Genesis had a solid focal point or central plot-mover that moored the complexity of the show: the battles between Eva and Angel.

Big O doesn’t have this focal point to the same degree.

The show is about Roger Smith working as The Negotiator, and all the shenanigans he gets into. It’s also about Roger Smith protecting Paradigm City with Big O. It’s also about Roger Smith uncovering the truth of Paradigm City and its past. It’s also about Roger Smith’s conflict with Paradigm Corp and Alex Rosewater. It’s also about a lot of other things.

While Neon Genesis had many sub-plots, tangential exposition, and labyrinthian character development, the entire show, from start to finish, was focused on the Eva-Angel conflict, which, ultimately, was about the Third Impact.

The events of the past were the result of previous Impacts, the present events were the inevitable steps leading to the Third Impact, and the finale of the series was the Third Impact.

While, yes, the various focuses of Big O were all centered on the apocalypse of the previous era, and the finale of Big O was the new apocalypse that brought about the next era, these were all too disassociated from many of the events of Big O. It didn’t feel centered, and Neon Genesis was very powerfully centered on the Eva-Angel and Third Impact plot.

Maybe Big O was too opaque. Maybe it didn’t give us enough information, and the information it did give us was hand-fed and little was left to the imagination. The pieces of the puzzle were always present in Neon Genesis, and we were given the freedom to put a few of the pieces in ourselves; whereas the pieces of Big O’s puzzle were like disparate islands that eventually (kinda) came together in the end, but only by the hands of its creators.

Big O is nonetheless a terrific anime. It’s flawed, but everything is flawed.

The confusion and schizophrenic plot development of Big O might just be the confusion and schizophrenic state of modernity as it is. Big O is cluttered: life is cluttered. Big O is confusing: life is confusing. Big O is scattered, the pieces don’t all fit perfectly, and a few are missing: have you figured out life yet?

And flaws aside, when the pieces of Big O are put together, they’re absolutely brilliant. What the creators of Big O tried to do—and the things they did do—were incredible and impressive.

Flaws aside, Big O is a fun fucking anime. The setting of Paradigm City is wicked cool; the constant mystery mixed with the action mixed with the retro-modern aesthetic is A+; the characters can be a lil’ flat at times, but they’re still great and very memorable; and the giant robots and monsters are sick, bruh.

Fuck the philosophy.

Fuck the psychology.

Fuck the mythology.

Fuck the “But, what does it mean?”

Giant. Fucking. Robots.

Watch this anime.

Xander out.

“I Kicked That Fucker into the Creek!”: An Analysis of The Blair Witch Project; OR How The Blair Witch Project is Secretly Genius

Written by Alexander Greco

August 31, 2020

The Blair Witch Project, one of a number of the 90’s death throes, has become something of a meme. It’s a low-budget horror flic written by film students in the 90’s: it was filmed in 8 days, the entire script was improvised with almost no retakes, 80% of the movie is three people walking through the woods, and we never actually see the “villain” of the film (the mysterious Blair Witch). The Blair Witch Project has often been epitomized as the quintessential cheap, shitty, b-horror film. However, a less cynical and more appreciative mind might find this film to be quite enjoyable, and possibly even far more intelligent and intelligently created than it’s ever been given credit.

While I could spend this article exploring why The Blair Witch Project is an example of impressive cinematographic ingenuity on the part of its amateur cast and crew, and how it influenced countless films after its release, this has been discussed at length in the 21 years since Blair Witch’s release. What I’d rather talk about is the overlooked genius of the film that I doubt anyone has ever realized—possibly not even by the creators. The horror of The Blair Witch Project is being lost in the wilderness, stalked by unknown, unseen forces, with no map to help you return home—the genius of The Blair Witch Project is that this horror reflects one of the underlying horrors of modernity.

–

I was conceived and born smack-dab in the middle of the 90’s (~June 1995 – March 1996). The first birthday I remember was my third birthday, which would have been in 1999 (which would have been 3 months before The Blair Witch Project was released). I also remember my fourth birthday in March 2000, my fifth birthday in March 2001, and the collapse of the World Trade Center in September 2001.

It would be over a decade before I realized the 9-11 attacks were precipitated in part by the military actions of the US during the decade I had been born. It would be almost another decade later before I would really appreciate that the events that had precipitated 9-11 were precipitated by a vast number of prior events, which had been precipitated by an even vaster number of prior events, which had been precipitated by a nearly infinite gulf of prior history, which all create a continuum of history that resulted in our current state of society and reality, along which 9-11 happened.

The 90’s were something like a pivot point, both culturally and historically. Long-held traditions were, for many, little more than a joke at this point. A sense of Nationalism had in large part been disintegrated in America and across the world—a phenomenon that seemed to have begun post-WW2 and, in America, after the death of JFK and the rise of Hippie, Punk and other underground movements.

By the time of the 90’s, so little was genuine anymore—if it ever had been. Everything was cartoons and sitcoms, everything was commercial breaks and advertisements, everything was playing pretend, ignoring foreign wars, ignoring drug epidemics, ignoring government and economic corruption. Or, conversely, everything was Rage Against the Machine, but there was only Rage and the Machine, and no Against: no action. Now, even Zach de la Rocha has sold out, with “the Machine” providing him a net worth of 30 million dollars, despite still “Raging” about the broken system to sold-out shows.

So few things by the 90’s were genuine—no genuine wars, no genuine political movements, no genuine arts—and the things that were “genuine”, like the Grunge movement, were, with some exception, hopelessly cynical. This was because the only things that could be genuine, other than, perhaps, science, were the cynical things that shed light on the disingenuous nature of contemporary humanity.

No one really knew who they were anymore. As individuals, and as a society—possibly even as a species. Then, in 2001, 9-11 happened. The world watched in quiet shock as the World Trade Center collapsed in the middle of New York City—the crown jewel of America—and we still don’t know what this event even means for us.

We’re still living in the post 9-11 era, still stumbling from the aftershocks of that massive quake. We can’t agree on whether or not the resulting war was justified or even worth the effort. We can’t agree on the motivations of the aggressors and their allies. We can’t even agree on whether or not our own government was involved in the attacks of 9-11.

And now, we live in a world that seems entirely disingenuous, beyond what it was before. With social media, with ideological tribalism, with all facets of information and sense-making from all angles coming into question and under attack, with the inability to agree on the facts and “facts” of reality, we can’t even agree on what reality is. Who among us even can tell what reality is anymore?

We can’t agree on a common narrative. We can’t agree on what our various narratives even mean or signify. We can’t agree on what is meaningful, what is moral, what is true—or even what it means for something to be true, or if it is even possible for something to be “true” (whatever “true” might mean).

We are living in a chaotic time, with existential threats standing all around us like specters at a deathbed, and we’ve lost all ability to even understand what is happening. We don’t know what is going on around us, we don’t know who we are, and we don’t know where we are.

And this brings us back to The Blair Witch Project.

–

Blair Witch was developed throughout the 90’s and released right at the end of the decade, in ’99.

The entire movie was filmed as if it was an amateur documentary—a mockumentary, or a pretend documentary. It depicts three individuals—Heather Donahue (Heather), Michael C. Williams (Mike), and Joshua Leonard (Josh)—going to the small town of Burkittsville, Maryland to investigate the legend of the Blair Witch. After interviewing a variety of townsfolk, the trio embarks into the woods north of the town, where the Blair Witch is said to live.

As a quick aside, the names of the three characters are actually the names of the real-life (“real-life”) actors who play these characters.

Intending to stay in the woods overnight and return to civilization the next day, the trio ends up getting lost in the woods. While lost in the woods, they find strange things, such as piles of stones in a small clearing and sculptures or perhaps totems made from branches and vines that are hanging in trees. At night, they hear strange sounds coming from the woods and are even attacked at one point while trying to sleep in their tent.

In the end, Josh goes missing, and then Heather and Mike find an abandoned house, where they presumably meet their demise (though their demise is not seen).

Ironically, the best shot of the map in the entire movie is when Mike is holding it.

Throughout the movie, Heather relies on a map to guide them through the forest, though Mike does not trust Heather’s navigation skills, and Mike does not trust the map itself. However, Heather wakes up one morning to find that the map is missing. Josh blames Heather for losing the map, and Heather questions whether or not Josh or Mike took the map as a joke. We later find out that Mike actually took the map and essentially destroyed it, laughing as he tells Josh and Heather:

“…I kicked that fucking map into the creek yesterday. It was useless! I kicked that fucker into the creek!”

Heather and Josh are rightfully indignant, and the movie from this point on takes on a markedly nihilistic and dread-filled tone. At this point, they are lost in the forest, they are being stalked by unknown forces in an uncivilized pocket of nature, and they have no map to return home.

And this is both the central horror and the central theme of the story.

Blindly wandering through the wilderness, stalked by unknown, unknowable forces beyond our control, without any useful form of navigation.

Now, there is one more important aspect of the movie that must be brought to light here: the filming of the movie itself.

The entire film, as I mentioned earlier, is supposed to be shot as if it were a documentary, giving it a Gonzo style of film (meaning the one filming the movie is also an actor, and the fact that the film is being shot is an element of the film itself). The entire film is shot from cameras the characters/actors are holding, which is constantly made obvious or relevant by the character referencing or interacting with their film equipment.

While this is important, obviously, to the horror of the movie—giving the movie it’s “real” quality, where the horror is that the movie is supposed to a depiction of reality—it is even more important to the underlying themes of the movie.

The film we watch is not in fact reality, it is a representation of reality, and it is a filtered representation of reality. This is made explicit in the film when Josh tells Heather:

“I see why you like this video camera so much. […] It’s not quite reality. […] No, but it’s totally like a filtered reality, man. It’s like you can pretend everything’s not quite the way it is.”

Now, we can begin breaking down some of the major components of the film: the map, the wilderness, the camera and the witch.

The map that Heather uses is their symbolic representation of reality. The map is not reality, but it is a symbolic depiction of reality, signifying the geography of reality, that is used to navigate that reality.

That reality is the wilderness, and the wilderness is symbolic of the true nature of the world we exist in: the world in-and-of-itself, as it is outside of our representation. If you look at a cellphone, you see the cellphone as what your brain decides it is. The cellphone is an object—an incredibly complex object—designed, primarily (or at least initially) to communicate with other people who have an object that can communicate with your object. That is our “map” of the cellphone. However, a cellphone is also an object made out of plastic, metal, glass and other materials, arranged by humans in a specific pattern to achieve its desired outcome.

However, these components of a cellphone are things that are only signified by our words, which have an agreed upon definition. These material components are only known to us as they are (these materials as such) in an incomplete way through science, or through Empiricism. We can never completely understand, know, perceive, etc. these material components because we can only experience them as external stimuli that have been filtered through our knowledge structures and our personal, subjective experience (more complexly, through our neurological structures, but we won’t get into that).

The wilderness is this primary reality—the true, actual reality that we exist within, but that we can only partially experience and imperfectly represent.

And this brings us to the cameras used in the film. These cameras are our knowledge structures and our subjective experience. They are the lens, the filter, and the mechanism by which we perceive reality. The camera is both our neurological mechanism representing reality—our imperfect capabilities of perceiving the wilderness we live in—and it is the knowledge structure of our society—the camera literally being an invention of modern humans.

Finally, the Blair Witch her/itself. The Blair Witch is a bit more complicated. Mythologically, we can connect the Witch to the Occult, most commonly thought of as Pagan or Satanic practices (though “Satanic” is usually a reactionary description of witchcraft). More deeply, the Witch can be connected to Nature—a priestess of the wilderness. She is the invoker of Nature, of the Wild, of the ambivalence of reality—both one who can heal and one who can curse, one who invokes the growth and life of nature and the destruction and cruelty of nature, and one who lives outside the scope and structure of civilization.

If we combine these two—Nature, or the wilderness and the occult—we get a “clearer” picture of the Blair Witch. “Occult” actually means “hidden” or “secretive”—that which is esoteric, unknown or unknowable. “Occult” practices were not “Satanic” practices, as they are often represented, but in fact practices meant to invoke “hidden” forces or discover “secret” knowledge. But the Blair Witch is also an entity which lives in the depths of the wilderness, far removed from society, who exists within and as a part of the forces of the unknown that we fear and cannot understand.

She might in fact be a symbol of this wilderness—a personified representation or manifestation of the wilderness.

We never see the Blair Witch: she is in fact the Occult—the unseen, the elusive, the hidden, the unknown and unknowable. She cannot be represented by our cameras—our subjective experience and our cultural knowledge structures.

To summarize these:

The map is the representation of reality.

The wilderness is that reality (reality in and of itself).

The camera is the lens of knowledge structures and subjective experience we view reality through.

The Blair Witch is the personified embodiment of the wilderness, or the personified embodiment of that which cannot be truly seen or understood.

Now, to bring these together.

On the surface, The Blair Witch Project is about three film students attempting to investigate the Blair Witch, and end up getting lost in the wilderness after their map is destroyed. They are stalked and eventually killed (presumably, we don’t know actually know) by the very thing they are investigating, the Blair Witch.

However, if we take the deeper analysis of the various aspects of the film, The Blair Witch Project is about individuals attempting to understand and represent the wilderness of reality in and of itself. While exploring the depths of reality, they find that their representation of reality does not adequately describe the world they live in. Their representation of reality is destroyed, and the three try to escape the reality they no longer understand and return to a reality they do understand. However, they ultimately meet their demise by the forces of the unknown and unknowable.

This demise could represent a few things. The death of these three individuals might be the death of their knowledge structures. They perceived reality with their pre-created representation of it (their map), and this representation was destroyed. As they attempted to flee the wilderness of reality and the overwhelming horrors of existing in a reality they don’t understand, they inevitably were lost inside this wilderness and could not return to the society they once existed in. They themselves might not have died physically, but the framework they represented the world with collapsed, and so it was impossible now to escape the wilderness of reality.

Now, to bring this back to the actual state of society as it is now and as it was when this film was created, I’m going to tie in the postmodern philosopher, Jean Baudrillard, and his book, Simulacra and Simulation.

–

Now, postmodernism is a somewhat controversial collection of philosophies, and I myself have a few issues with some of the tenants of these philosophies, but they raise a number or important issues about humanity and the knowledge structures of humanity that are certainly worth discussing. These issues may even be at the core, or at least a portion of the core, of the current predicaments of society.

The central tensions of Postmodernism could be characterized as a criticism of our representation of reality—though there is admittedly quite a lot of nuance in the Postmodernist philosophies and one ought to simplify Postmodernism with caution. Since our beliefs and how we act within reality and society is determined by our representation of reality, Postmodernism is also a criticism of our beliefs and our actions.

Jean Baudrillard’s primary contention in Simulacra and Simulation follows this core concept of criticizing how we represent reality.

The first two paragraphs of Simulacra and Simulation go as follows:

“If once we were able to view the Borges fable in which the cartographers of the Empire draw up a map so detailed that it ends up covering the territory exactly (the decline of the Empire witnesses the fraying of this map, little by little, and its fall into ruins, though some shreds are still discernible in the deserts – the metaphysical beauty of this ruined abstraction testifying to a pride equal to the Empire and rotting like a carcass, returning to the substance of the soil, a bit as the double ends by being confused with the real through aging) – as the most beautiful allegory of simulation, this fable has now come full circle for us, and possesses nothing but the discrete charm of second-order simulacra.

“Today abstraction is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror, or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being, or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal. The territory no longer precedes the map, nor does it survive it. It is nevertheless the map that precedes the territory – precession of simulacra – that engenders the territory, and if one must return to the fable, today it is the territory whose shreds slowly rot across the extent of the map. It is the real, and not the map, whose vestiges persist here and there in the deserts that are no longer those of the Empire, but ours. The desert of the real itself.”

Now, in the text following this, Baudrillard immediately contradicts everything he just says, adding to the opacity of Baudrillard’s writing, and means that quoting Baudrillard and referencing his work can be a bit perilous, but this quote will do.

To simplify what Baudrillard is saying here, we have a socially/culturally “agreed-upon” representation of reality (the map), and the map represents what we believe to be reality (the territory). Now, as what we believe to be reality erodes (the territory), so too does our representation of reality (the map). What we are left with is the “The desert of the real itself”, which parallels the wilderness of Blair Witch.

Baudrillard goes on throughout his book to use his metaphor of the desert-territory-map to analyze and critique a number of things, including (put simply) the disingenuous state of “reality” as the map and territory—leaving the desert as a blank, ungraspable truth beneath the map and territory.

However, here I would say that the Blair Witch’s forest—the wilderness—is a better representation of “the real itself”. The “real” is not an empty, desolate void, but an incredibly complex and dense tangle of existence. The problem of contending with “the real” is not that it is an empty wasteland, but, quite the opposite, that it is an infinitely complex landscape of objects, information, perceptions, interpretations, morals and decisions.

While Baudrillard simplifies the reality that exists beneath, or perhaps outside, our representation of reality, Blair Witch shows us this reality for all of its infinite complexity.

Nonetheless, the parallel metaphors paired together give us, ironically, an accurate representation of our current state of being.

This is the state of reality we find ourselves in today—the state, you could say, that was in the process of either being created or destroyed by the time the 90’s rolled around.

Currently, we are all blindly stumbling through a wilderness. The territory we reside within is crumbling, and, with it, so too crumbles our map. We do not understand and cannot adequately represent reality, and so our actions are all either ignorant fumblings or self-destructive collapsings.

Blair Witch can be seen as a commentary on this state of reality.

–

There is a major ambiguity in Blair Witch that is important to explore here.

The trio seemed to be lost in the woods even before Mike “kicked that fucker into the creek”. Despite Heather reassuring Mike and Josh that she could read the map, and that she knew exactly where they were and where they were going, the three of them couldn’t find their way out of the woods, even while Heather possessed the map.

The three different characters each had their own beliefs as to why they were lost. Heather thought they were lost because they lost the map. Josh thought they were lost because he didn’t think Heather knew how to read the map. Mike thought they were lost because the map itself was inherently useless or flawed.

So, following the three different beliefs of the three different characters, we as a society might be in our current state of confusion for three different reasons:

– We’ve lost the map / Our representation of reality is accurate and decipherable, but it was destroyed

– We are incapable of deciphering the map / Our representation of reality is accurate, but it cannot be deciphered

– We never had an accurate map to begin with / Our representation of reality was never accurate to begin with, so, rather than attempt deciphering it, the map ought to be destroyed

Whose interpretation of the situation is correct?

These interpretations and the question of which one is correct can be transferred to our current state of society and our current relationship with reality.

Do we / Did we have an accurate map of reality, but our map is being destroyed, and this is how we arrived at where we now are?

This would be a nihilism aimed at the actions of fellow humans.

Is our map of reality accurate, but the map is impossible to decipher by us, and so we cannot agree on what the map depicts?

This would be a nihilism aimed at the ignorance of fellow humans.

Is our map actually inaccurate, and so any attempt at contending with reality using our representation is inevitably worthless?

This would be a nihilism aimed at the nature of humanity and the state of reality itself.

And lets look at how the characters of Blair Witch were “picked off” throughout the end of the movie, in the order that these events happened.

First, Josh went missing. His voice could still be heard in the wilderness, and Heather and Mike still tried to save him, but he couldn’t be found, and the search for Josh inevitably led to the demise of both Heather and Mike.

We didn’t lose faith in humanity’s ability to contend with reality, but we lost faith in our ability to comprehend reality.

Second, Heather finds Mike staring into the corner of the room. Mike went to the basement of reality, to the darkest pit of the witch’s lair (to the darkest pit of the unknown and unknowable), hoping that salvation was still possible even without a map, and succumbed to a motionless apathy.

We stopped believing that it was in fact possible to contend with reality.

Finally, Heather drops the camera she is holding (her entire subjective experience/knowledge structure falls) and the movie ends. Heather finds that she has lost both Josh and Mike to the Blair Witch, and, in her presumed demise, lets go of all attempts to perceive or even experience reality (self-destruction, possibly to the point of suicide).

We stopped believing in humanity itself.

–

2 years, 7 months and 20 days after The Blair Witch Project was released at the ’99 Sundance Film Festival, the whole world, my 5-year-old self included, watched the Twin Towers fall.

Almost 10 years after 9-11, we still can’t agree on why it happened, we still can’t agree what happened that day, we still can’t agree how we should have reacted to what happened, and we still can’t agree on the state of reality as it was and as it is now.

Who are our enemies? Who are our allies? Where are we? What is our civilization? Why are we where we are right now? What do we do? How do we do it? Why do we do it?

With our map destroyed, how do we move on?

With our faith in our knowledge, our perception, our structures and even our fellow humans crumbling in our hands, what do we do next?

The only thing I can say we do is salvage what we still have—which I would say is quite a lot more than what many people suspect—reinvigorate and reconstruct our knowledge structures and our social systems, and regain faith in humanity.

Perhaps it is good for portions of our structures and systems to be torn down, but, with them, there is much that ought not to be torn down, and in the wake of these structures’ collapse, there must be better, stronger, truer, more genuine structures that are erected.

We have to create better maps—maps that do accurately represent the reality we live in; we have to grow as people, as individuals—so that we can create these better maps, interpret these maps and act appropriately by these maps; and we have to maintain our faith in fellow humans—maintain faith that we can understand reality, that we can trust other people, and that there is a way out of the wilderness.

There is nothing else we can do, except stumble into our own self-destruction and be devoured by the wilderness manifested by our actions and our disintegrating humanity.

We can emerge from this wilderness alive.

–

The Blair Witch Project may go down as a b-movie horror flic that grossed an impressively large amount of money and inspired two decades of b-movie horror flics in its wake.

However, I think Blair Witch represents a deep aspect of the society it emerged from, and ought to be remembered as such.

Not only should it be remembered as a film that quite profoundly represents one of the many horrors of modernity, how it represents this ought to be remembered.

Someone who excels at their given craft can engineer beautiful, thought-provoking creations with that craft.

Someone who can take their craft to the next level can use the aspects of their creations, in-and-of-themselves, to communicate meaning.

With a writer like James Joyce, meaning is not only conveyed with the plot and characters, but meaning is also conveyed with sentence structure, paragraph placement and with language itself (rather than the meanings of specific words used in that language). With the abstract movements of modern art, the elements of art are broken down to their constituent elements (color, tone, form, shape, line, etc.), and these elements are the focus or the subject of the art, rather than the elements that create the focus or subject.

With film, David Lynch might be the most well-known example of someone who can make the elements of cinematography themselves to communicate meaning. It isn’t only that the camera angle helps the subject of the film communicate meaning, or that the words of the dialogue are all that is communicating meaning, or even that the events of the movie contribute only to the meaning derived from plot and character arc. All of these elements in a David Lynch film not only help the subjects of the film communicate meaning, but the elements themselves are meaningful and communicate meaning.

With The Blair Witch Project, while much of the meaning is communicated in what is being communicated through the subject of the film—three students lost in the woods, stalked by an unknown and unknowable force—meaning is also communicated in how the subject is depicted to us. It isn’t just the tribulations of three people trying to survive in and escape from the woods, it’s that we see these tribulations through the lenses of their perceptions and knowledge structures.

The documentary intended to investigate and depict the legend—the narrative or modern representation—of the Blair Witch devolves into the last record of three people’s lives. The representation of the film begins as an attempt at objectivity—investigative journalism or documentarianism—with this lens of modern society and civilization, but the documentary falls apart and gives way to fear, dread and hopelessness.

The lens of modernity gives way to the survival of humanity amidst the wilderness of reality.

Remember this movie not as a strange novelty that emerged at the tail end of the 20^th century, but as a misunderstood representation of the historic pivoting we currently find ourselves stumbling through.

Autonsitor

Written by Alexander Greco

May 3, 2019

My travels have taken me to the Maelulos Forest, in search of the Autonsitor. How do I describe either of these? How do I describe what drew me here? How do I describe what I actually believe I am doing here?

I had been drinking with wily company in Sairn, the City by the Sea, and listening to weathered travelers tell half-remembered tales. Something was in the air, you could smell it above the hops and the pipe-smoke—you could feel it like a static in the air. Yet, it was approached with caution. The Maelulos would be mentioned, and there was a quiet, knowing look in everyone’s eyes. Then the conversations would be diverted—consciously or unconsciously—to something else.

After a story about whaling and battling leviathans off the Garvreil Peninsula, I asked, “What’s the Maelulos? I keep hearing you all mention it, I’m curious. What is it? What’s there?”

Everyone looked at me. I had been quiet for most of the night—laughing yes, jabbing a tease and asking a few questions, sure, but I hadn’t directed the conversation at all until now. A woman who had been a traveler and a woods-woman for the first half of her life, and then a farmer’s wife until three years ago. “You’ve never heard of the Maelulos?” she asked, “The Maelulos Forest?”

“No,” I said, “I’m not from around here.”

“You don’t have to be from around here to ‘ave heard o’ the Maelulos,” a thick-bearded man piped in.

“I’m from far away,” I told him. “Worlds away.”

The bearded man gave me a long look, then the woman spoke up and I turned back to her. “The Maelulos is a forest in Sha’Haro where the Aether spills over into the land. It’s—“

“Aether?” I interrupted.

“What?” the woman asked.

“Did you jus’ ask what Aether is?” the bearded man asked. “How foreign are you? How do you not—”

“Just get on with the story, Freirdei,” a second man—a tall, wiry man with rough stubble—interjected. “We can’t give ‘im physicka lessons tonight, give ‘im directions to the Uni’ if he doesn’t know.”

The woman sighed. “The Maelulos is a forest in Sha’Haro—its own forest, isolated from all the others by miles of plains on all sides—where the Aether… Think of… It’s magic, it’s part of magic, but smarter people than I—or anyone else here—say its more. It’s a part of the fabric of everything, we just can’t see it. They’ve been trying to measure it like electricity or like brain-waves for years, but they haven’t yet. It doesn’t work the-“

“Freirdei,” the thin man interrupted.

“Right,” she said, “the Maelulos. It’s… It’s like walking into a dream. Things aren’t real there the same way they are here.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“The fabric of things is torn there, or perhaps it’s that it blends together there. What separates the physical dimensions from the Aetheric dimension, it’s not there—the borders begin to blur. It glows with colored lights, but there’s no source of the light. There’s things there—there’s things that happen there that can’t be explained. It’s like a dream and an ocean and a storm all at once.”

“But… it’s a forest?”

“Aye,” said Freirdei, “in the easiest of words, it’s a forest.”

“Home of the Autonsitors,” said the thin man, “the only place in the world they live.”

“Autonsitors?” I asked.

“The Lords of the Maelulos,” said the bearded man.

“Not the Druids nor even the Veritasians dispute it. No one owns those woods but the Autonsitors.”

“Who are they?” I asked.

“They are not a ‘who’,” said Freirdi, “they’re beasts.”

“Beasts’ doesn’t do them justice, Freirdi,” said the thin man, “they’re equals with the Dragons.”

“Well, what are they?” I asked, “What are these beasts, or whatever they are?”

There was a small silence. I could see in all three of my companions’ eyes that they were searching for words. The bearded man spoke first. “They make bears look like puppies.”

“They’ve got these tusks,” Freirdi began, “they move like a tiger, and-“

“You’ve never seen a tiger,” said the bearded man.

“Fine, it moves like a mountain lion, you can’t tell me I ‘ahven’t seen those. And it’s got a wolf’s maw, ‘cept its teeth are as long as your forearm.”

“They’re ferocious,” said the bearded man, “they’ll let you into their forest, but you ‘ad better not disturb a single leaf.”

“It sees things,” said the thin man, “that’s what’s important. Something can be big, something can have teeth, and something be fierce, but the Autonsitor sees things. It knows things—like the Dragons, an’ the Elves know things. They spend their entire lives in the Maelulos; their entire lives with those eyes of theirs.”

“That’s enough,” said the bearded man, “let’s-“

“’Ave you ever seen its eyes?” asked the thin man, turning to his bearded compatriot. “Have you ever seen it open its-“

“That’s enough, Pater,” the bearded man said to the thin one.

“Aye, enough,” said Freirdei, “tell us about Korsik,”

The bearded man stared at Pater for a long moment, then smiled slightly. Any tension slowly dissolved as he spoke. “Mah favorite story,” he said, “don’t know why I’ve never been back.”

More stories were told for another hour or so. All the while, the static in the air still hung. I would listen to it ringing, and I would begin to imagine the Maelulos. My mind’s eye would wonder to the Autonsitor. And every time, I would catch Pater looking at me. I’d catch his stare for a moment, and he’d seem to smile with the crease of his eyes. Then he’d look away, back to whoever was telling the story.

Eventually, we all grew tired enough to call it a night. As I was walking up the stairs of the inn, going to my bed, Pater stopped me.

“Are you interested in the Autonsitor?” he asked.

“Interested?” I asked.

“In finding it,” he said, “in going to the Maelulos.”

I stared at Pater for a moment, silently rolling the thought over in my head. “Yes,” I said. I was.

Pater smiled.

In the morning, just as this world’s star—the Sozl, I believe they called it in this country—rose above the horizon, I boarded a train—engine #64, just as Pater had told me to. It wasn’t a long journey to Sha’Haro from the southern hill country of Veritas. Pater had given me a map to the Maelulos, along with some directions and words of advice:

“Stay on the roads. Don’t journey into the forests—it’s the Druids’ land. Once you enter the Mael—the plains surrounding the Maelulos—keep your eye to the Rais [their word for East]. You’ll eventually see the Maelulos from the road.”

Once my train arrived in Sha’Haro, I began walking down the Vahn’Ozl road to the South. For a long time, there was nothing but forest. The first night on the road, I slept just off the side of the road, though I didn’t go any farther than the nearest tree. On the second day, around noon, a merchant came by with a horse-led wagon and offered to let me ride with him. By the end of the second day, we had made it to the Mael.

Night was falling, so we camped out in the grass a few yards from the edge of the road. When I woke up the next day, the Sozl was just beginning to rise on the Mael. It stretched on for miles and miles—a seemingly infinite stretch of grasslands. The merchant and I took to the road again, and by the afternoon, I could see the Maelulos to the East. It looked like a normal forest, though we were still miles away.

An hour or so later, when we were parallel to the Maelulos, I told the merchant to stop so I could get off and go on to the forest. He looked at me for a moment as though I was insane, then nodded and slowed to a stop. He didn’t say anything while I got off and collected my belongings, but as I was about to thank him, he interrupted me and asked, “Are you sure?”

I didn’t understand the question at first, it seemed taken out of context, but then it clicked, “Yes, I’m sure,” I said, “thank you for the ride.”

The merchant nodded and grunted something, then went on his way.

I began walking across the plains toward the Maelulos.

As I near the Maelulos, it seems stranger than when I had first seen it, and with each step it seems to grow wilder—less constrained by any words an individual might craft for such an occasion. Within a mile of its edge, the Maelulos has become a storm of green arms reaching up into the sky. It is comprised of trees, yes, but not like trees I’d ever seen. Not trees of our world, nor trees I’ve seen in other parts of this world.

Maelulos, the Glowing Wood, Pater called it. I am closer now; the Sozl is falling onto the horizon behind me. The forest begins to emanate soft, blue light. The Sozl is now beyond the horizon. All that’s left of it are deep reds and violets exploding into the night’s deep indigo.

I am approaching the edge of the forest now, despite the fall of night. Pater told me the Autonsitor is an animal that never sleeps, but it only walks through the Maelulos at night. By day, it exists invisibly and universally in the leaves and vines and branches of the forest, and in the flowers, seeds and fruits of the forest.

The light blue of the forest is now becoming infused with every color imaginable. Yellow lights like wil-o-wisps dance between shifting boughs of the sprawling, monolithic trees. Indigos of the night sky seem to drift and swirl about with the green of glowing leaves, and echoes the sky blue glimmer permeating the air. Currents of orange, wild violet and burnt red swim between trees like autumnal whales swimming through the forest’s depths.

At the threshold of the forest, I see red fireflies dancing in the air with white moths. In the distance is a great bird—it looks like a giant shoebill, or some monstrous crane. Its feathers are grey shadows painted across snowy fields, and its eyes are yellow gems with piercing abysses cut across them. Fish as large as my head are swimming through the air—possibly propelling through the invisible “Aether”.

The static from the night I first heard of the Maelulos seems to return. Something hums through the air. A ringing brushes across my body like a cool breeze. Why am I here? I wonder. The question is like ice running across my nerves. I couldn’t answer it. My same words that fail to describe the Maelulos begin failing to describe me, or my motivations. I couldn’t tell you why I was here. Could the Maelulos tell me why it was here?

The static and the hum and the ringing grow, drowning out my thoughts until all I hear are the shapes of the trees. All I can think are the colors of the air.

I’ve entered the forest now. My grip on reality begins to fade here, or perhaps there’s simply less reality to hold onto. Less than fifteen minutes of walking—as far as I can tell—and a mouth formed from tree roots and loamy earth opens up, and from its lips fly flocks of birds. They all chirp with distinct melodies in a unified rhythm, and their small, ringing noises form a chaotic yet beautiful and haunting song—a composition that was easily far more complex than even the Elvish symphonies could produce.

Further into the forest. I don’t know how far I’ve walked. I watch a deer bite the air—nothing in the air, it bit the air itself—and tear a hole open. From that hole, a rabbit, a crow and a moth, each the size of my chest, emerge. They all walk together through the forest.

I want to follow, but I realize I’m watching them from above. I realize I’m standing in a canopy of branches and leaves. I thought I was standing in grass and earthen debris, but I realize I must climb back down.

A giant earthworm emerges from the ground. It rises up into the air, then splits into seven. These all become the boughs of a tree, while the part of the tree that remains unified becomes the trunk. A black beak the size of sailing vessel crashes through the forest and plucks at the tree, but pulls a worm from the ground.

I look up to see the crow again. I realize the worm was not giant, and the beak was not the size of a ship. I realize I had been staring at the ground, watching the earthworm, and my eyes had only been inches from the ground. I am sprawled out across the ground, covered in dried leaves and dirt.

The deer, the moth and the rabbit are here as well. I stand up and follow the four animals. As I walk, I seem to be traversing through a tunnel of leaves, boughs and museum exhibits, though I couldn’t tell you which displays I saw. All that stayed constant, all that I can really remember, were the four animals.

So, I come back to my first question, how to describe the Maelulos.

I couldn’t say the Maelulos is a forest anymore. That wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t begin to describe what I see.

As I step into a clearing with the four animals, I watch a small star—one of the wil-o-wisps—burst into a spiraling flower stock that hangs in the air. The bud of this flower opens into an endless pit of sunlight and fire. What I thought were seven golden petals begin to move, and I realize they are seven yellow bees standing on the edge of this fiery pit. They lean in and pluck seven strings from the inferno of sunlight, then fly off into the forest—weaving the seven strings throughout the trees and bushes and limbs and creatures and colors and lights.

But even that doesn’t describe what I see. How do I describe this? How doI describe an object I hear with my body? How do I describe a thought I see with my hands? How do I describe a sound that I feel in my thoughts? Because that’s what I saw, a storm of perception wrapped inside of a single event.

From this clearing, we follow one of the bees as it weaves through the trees. Flower to flower, wrapping a curving vector about the forest. We step inside the hollow of a tree. The tree was no more than three feet thick from the outside, but suddenly we’re walking through a dark hallway carved into the tree, following this bee. We come to a small, circular room, with a hole in the floor. From the floor comes a golden light.

The bee flies into the hole. I look down and see three naked women—one with white hair, one with blonde and one with copper hair. I couldn’t say if they were beautiful or ugly, I couldn’t say if they seemed clean or unkempt, and I couldn’t say if they were happy or furious at the arrival of the bee. They were like oil paintings in the air, their features were crisp yet distant, and I wanted to climb into the golden light to be with them.

From yards away, they might seem perfect. Examining them inches from my face, I might see the Truth. But, from right here, I only saw confusion. I only saw the ideal and the material meeting in the middle, and blurring like rivers of opposing thoughts crashing into each other.

The animals kept walking, and I followed.

We move past the golden light, and onward across this hall through the dark. For a moment, I wonder if the darkness will swallow me, if there will never be an end to it, if I will ever return. Then I see a light at the end of the hall. Now we’re walking out of the hallway, into the forest once more. The descends from the air above us, still carrying its string, and we follow it once more.

How do I describe this?

The Maelulos is like an estuary of what is and what could be. It is where the briny depths of life’s oceans mix with the meltwater of snowcapped epiphanies. It’s where reality doesn’t have to be real anymore, and the thoughts of ours that can never be step foot on solid ground.

I tell you this, I tell you what I’ve seen here, and now I have just as much difficulty telling you what has drawn me here. How do I tell you what pulls me? How do I tell you what strings tug at my joints? How do I tell you what thoughts I followed to find this forest?

Like the search for something you’ve seen once and forgotten. Like the investigation of a dream lost to time. Like you’ve been following a map you didn’t know was in your hands, hunting for something you never knew you needed. How else could I describe it?

It is unknowable, ungraspable and undefinable, yet it is so real. When it brushes up against you in your dreams, it feels far more real than anything you’ve held in your waking hands. When you dance along the edge of reason and the irrational, it embraces you like a star embracing the empty vacuum surrounding it.

This—whatever it is; whatever unknowable angels dance through my head—has drawn me to the Maelulos.

And so I tell you that I search for the Autonsitor, but I tell you also that I search for more. I tell you I hunt for the Autonsitor, but, if you knew the Autonsitor, you would understand what I truly hope to find.

The four animals and I follow the bee on through the Glowing Wood.

We are walking in a space where reality seems to have calmed down once again. I can think again, I can look around, and I can see myself as an individual nested in reality again. Then I hear it. A roar, a howl, a cry—something I’ve never heard in my life, yet it couldn’t be mistaken. The Autonsitor. I hear it from deep in the forest ahead of us, but then I watch as the bee flies into a river, still carrying the string. The four animals follow. I hear the cry once more and hesitate, but I know—for whatever reason; the same reason for why I must search for the Autonsitor—I must follow the four animals into the river.

All of the animals and the bee immediately submerge beneath the water, unafraid of its current, and unafraid of having no air to breathe. I step into the water, and it’s freezing. I walk in as quickly as I can, though I don’t have the same disinhibition as the animals and the bee. The water is up to my waist, then my chest, then my chin. I take a long breath, then submerge my head into the cold water.

On the other side of the river’s surface, I open my eyes and see normally, as if there were no water. Everything around me—the plants, my clothes, the rabbit’s fur—all move as if they were underwater, but I don’t feel the water itself, and I find that I can move normally, as if there was no water. I sip the river into my mouth, and find that I’ve sipped in air. Cautiously, I exhale my breath, then inhale normally. I can breathe underwater, or under-whatever-this-river-is.

The animals and I walk across the silt of the riverbed, following the bee. I glance down the river to either side of me and see fish, but not normal fish. They’ve all got heads of various animals—elephants, tigers, monkeys, goats and snakes—and their dorsal fins were made out of arms, while their tailfins were like long trailing flowers.

As we walked across the riverbed, I watched each fish pick up a stone with its mouth, then carry it to another fish. Two fish would meet with each other, and pick the rocks from each other’s mouths with one of the hands on their dorsal fins, then go to pick up another rock and meet another fish. Eventually, a fish would have every hand of its dorsal arms full of different rocks of different shapes, sizes, colors and origins, and they would find some safe place along the riverbed—either a sunken log, the roots of a tree, or a bush of reeds—and lay down to set every rock in a pile around it.

I watched this for as long as I could, but then I saw from the corner of my eye that we were approaching something. I turned forward, toward the animals and the bee, and I saw we were nearing the bank of the river’s other side, except the bank was opening up like a dark mouth—the same mouth I’d seen the birds fly out of earlier.

Together, the animals and I follow the golden bee into this earthen mouth underwater. The riverbed swallows us into its dark silt. We are walking, though I begin to lose feeling of my body. I know I move my legs, though I don’t feel them move. Maybe it’s too cold to feel anything. A part of me wonders if I’m dead. It seems foolish, I acknowledge that, but it seems to make sense as well.

Warm light shines from ahead. Soon, we are stepping through a tunnel of soil and clay. Ahead, I think I can see buildings where the tunnel opens up. They’re buildings made of metal, I think. They’re buildings made of tree roots, car frames and engine blocks, and a mismatching of many different bricks—red bricks, cobblestones, fired clay, cement blocks, and so forth—I think.

Eventually we come to the end of this tunnel. There is a city, I can see it fully now. There are people here, I see them now. They are like geometric shapes painted into the riverwater-that-isn’t-water. Their faces are squares and triangles, and circles inside of circles, and their bodies are gaunt rectangles, hobbling trapezoids and tall, thin triangles.

We pass the first two blocks on our left and right. Then the bee flies into an open doorway. We follow it, take a staircase to the basement floor. Except the staircase keeps going. And going. And going. It enters my mind, how long has the bee been pulling its string from the flower? How many paths has it woven through? How many paths have the six other bees woven? It enters my mind that—

But we’ve come to the end of the staircase. It empties out into a vast underground—a cavern. A cavern, with doors everywhere. The animals and I follow the bee through one of the doors. There’s sunlight down here, though I don’t know from where. We walk into a hallway, and it leads to endless hallways streaming with sunlight. Hallway after hallway—how many places has the bee’s string woven through by now?

We step out to a dark, midnight beach—the sunlight stays in the halls behind us—and we behold an ocean ahead of us. I wonder how there can be an ocean when we’re already in a river. I don’t know. I couldn’t tell you. But I know there’s a ship waiting for us just offshore. We’re swimming in black water now. My legs are treading air, and my head is underwater, but we’re moving. Now we’re climbing the sides of the ship.

The animals and I stand on the sides of the deck. The bee wraps its string around the masts, and ties a knot around the bowsprit. The bee is pulling now on the ship, pulling the ship through the ocean. We sail for hours, it seems like, across charcoal black waters. Above us, the sky begins to crack and shimmer with color. The sky becomes a wine bottle green, cracks of light barely escaping the underground sky.

In the distance, I see a massive black shape converging to a point above the horizon. Eventually, I realize that this is our destination. We crawl across the water. As time passes, I see phantom shapes find life in the air. I see mice run across the water. I see the ghost-forms of foxes dance in the dark. I see tresses of pale vines climb through the air and disappear.

Then I see the moon come out. It means something. I don’t know what it means. It’s telling me something. The still image of the moon opens an invisible mouth and speaks. What is it saying?

A sudden jolt, a crash. The ship has hit land. The animals begin walking toward the bowsprit. I follow. I end up walking faster than them and make it to the bowsprit first. I climb down from the side of the ship, and my feet touch solid ground. The ship begins to move. I turn around and see the bee pulling the ship away from the coast, the animals still on it.

For a moment, I wonder if I should try climbing back aboard the ship, but I know it’s too late. The ship has left land. It’s gone. I watch to see if the animals turn to look at me, a part of me wants to wave at them, but they don’t.

I turn back.

I am standing at the summit of a black mountain, I realize. I am standing at the summit of a mountain made from the darkest substance I could imagine—something beyond charcoal, something beyond simple shadow, something wholly un-seeable—ore of a black-hole, perhaps, mined from the cosmos.

I know I must begin climbing.

There are rocks beneath my feet, and stones against my hand, but there is no seeing them. Far above me, at what I assume to be the peak, I see a faint light. Hand over hand, I climb this un-seeable mountain. As I do, I feel the pressure of the water I’m in grow stronger and stronger. It grows until I think I feel a hand gripping my entire body, and I wonder how much more I can take. Above me I see the light still, so I go on. Hand over hand, I go on, until the pressure is so great, and the light is so near that I am nothing but a war with myself. The pressure grows, and the light comes closer until I am nothing but collisions of thoughts.

Then my hand finds nothing but water—thick water, which squeezes my hand in a crushing grip. I reach down, and I feel a rounded, pyramidal point where the mountain must end. Above me, there is a small point of light. Then, above me, there is a call.

Above me, I hear a long, trailing keen. If a single saxophone could howl like a wolf, roar like a lion, screech like an eagle, and still croon sweet, blue lullabies in the quiet of the night, it might sound like this keen. It might sound like the call of the Autonsitor.

From the top of the mountain I have climbed, I breach the earthen ceiling with my hands and pull myself through the dirt, back into the forest. The abyssal pressure is gone. I crawl into the hollow of a tree, and turn the bark’s door handle. I crack the door of the tree open just enough to peek outside, into the woods.

There, it stands. The Autonsitor.

It has the body of an ashen-furred lion, except it stands as tall as an elephant at its shoulders. Its head has an elongated snout, like a wolf’s. Thick tusks emerge from its mouth, bent backwards beyond its shoulder blades. Its back is covered in twigs, branches and thick tree boughs all laden with deep, green leaves. It looks just as Pater had described it to me.

I step out of the hollow in the tree and step into the forest. I watch it, and wonder what the Autonsitor is doing. It seems agitated. It seems confused. This wasn’t what I had expected. Sure, it looked like a creature of beauty and elegance, but not in the way it moved.

Lumbering about as though it were in pain or scared, the Autonsitor walked further into the woods—it’s head moving side to side as it did, searching. I follow after it. The woods have seemed to congeal into a less frantic reality here. It is no longer shifting between reality and dream, but rather seems to be one or the other. Whichever one it is—whichever of the two that the forest has chosen—it seems to be holding true.

The Autonsitor stops in a clearing. I come to a stop several yards outside of the clearing. The beast looks around, then its eyes become fixated on something to its left. A song is playing somewhere in the forest, and it gets closer and closer. The Autonsitor begins to open its mouth. A flock of birds—the source of the music in the woods—comes flying directly at the Autonsitor. It opens its mouth, and they all fly into the beast’s mouth.

I step forward to get a better look. The Autonsitor tenses up suddenly. The odd panic in the creature’s body seem to peak. Each movement of its body is quick—its head jerks to one side, it’s legs move to reposition its body, its back arches, ready to lash out. What’s making it so agitated?

It turns, and I see its face from the front now. It has two light blue eyes—the same color as the light permeating this forest—then a single, closed eye at the crown of its skull. It is sniffing the air and turning its head slowly to scan the forest. Its eyes stop on me—it sees me now, I know it does.

For a moment, all the Autonsitor does is stare at me. All I can do is stare back. Then, step by step, it begins to move toward me. There is no running away, so I don’t even try. I just stand there and stare back into the beast’s eyes. It comes to a stop only a few yards away. My fate seems indeterminate for a moment. Then the Autonsitor rumbles and closes its eyes.

The eye at its crown opens. It is white, with a black center.

From this black center, I see seven bees holding seven strings crawl out and fly into the forest. The Autonsitor stands motionless now as the bees fly all around me, wrapping me with their string. Is it looking through its white eye now? Through the black pit at its center? Through the eyes of the seven bees? Is it searching for something? And what does it search for?

The bees wrap me entirely with strings, and I let them. They form something like a chrysalis around my body. The strings cover my face until I can see no more, and then they all melt into my skin, melting me with them. I open my eyes again, and I am floating in an endless, white space, with spirals of color spinning all around me.

Then, the spirals coalesce into a single circle. The circle shimmers. It becomes a mirror. I look into it and see photographs of myself. They are photographs of me from the day I was born until the day I die. They are all layered on top of each other, yet transparent, so I can see them all at once, and so they form one face. In the reflection of the mirror, I see a mirror behind me.

I seem to have no body here, so all I see are two mirrors reflecting each other infinitely, and all the photographs in between. I am just an ethereal body here, watching these two. I move toward the first mirror, and try to push myself through the glass.

The mirror is like a liquid, and my body—whatever my body is—moves into the mirror as though I am emerging from water. My body breaks through the liquid surface of the mirror. I stumble out of it onto grass. It is nighttime. No. I see light on the horizon, it must be morning time. All around me is grasslands, plains—the Mael.

I turn around, and I see Maelulos just behind me—the edge of the woods calling for me to return. But, I know I must leave, though I don’t know why (I assume I must leave for the same reasons I came here, whatever they were). I turn to the horizon, and watch as the Sozl rises above the edge of the horizon. A new morning is here, and I must travel on. I turn to look once more at the Maelulos.

At the heart of this forest is a great animal, searching for something. It turns itself into an instrument. It turns itself into a telescope that scours the surface of pebbles. It turns itself into a tool that navigates from flower to flower, color to color, life to life—a tool prying at the night, prying at the forest, prying at its reflection.

Perhaps one day I will return to the Maelulos.

Perhaps one day I will lose myself in the Maelulos.

Perhaps one day I will find myself still wandering through the Maelulos.

The Art of Dusko Rokvic

Article Written by Alexander Greco

April 16, 2019

I had the opportunity to chat online with Dusko Rokvic, a self-taught artist from Novi Sad, Serbia, after seeing his work online. Despite never talking to Dusko before this, we quickly became engaged in a brief but meaningful conversation about his artwork and his thoughts on art.

Asymmetry of Life

“Painting is not a car and owner park[ed] in front of his big house and many people can see his money [and] power,” he told me. “Art is something individual… for free people.”

Dusko talked with me about materialism, and the effect that living in a consumerist culture has on a person. Often, it seems like we live in a restrictive culture, where stepping out of the social norm, or not achieving a high enough socio-economic status can be looked down upon. Are people in a consumer-based society truly living free lives, or are they participants in blind materialism?

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Theatre

In this painting, I see the gray and rust-orange of abandoned steel girders in a city, with a pale, polluted sunset behind it, and an angry pit of hunger at the center of it all. Is this Dusko’s vision of materialism? Some industrial pit of greedy wallets and blank checks?

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“This world deformed us in[to] material people… life without idealism will just be material form.”

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Ivana Guidry

Dusko’s art shows us an eerie twist on identity, with images of distorted faces, mask-like appearances, and split personas. Are these the true identities of people? Are these the identities that have been deformed by the society around them? And what are these internal identities made of?

Are they principled people? With their own morals and ideals? Do they have admirable goals in life?

The Way to a Better Life

Or are these people animals from the shopping-mall zoos? Are these people penned up in cages of status and belongings? Are these the people who never bite the master’s hand, so long as the hand keeps feeding?

Dusko summed this sentiment up with one question, “How much are we free today?”

Dusko freely allowed me to use his art in this article, and made a point to tell me he didn’t want any money involved in this collaboration at all. Dusko told me that art “is for real rebels,” and disregarded the notion of expensive, high-society art.

Cat’s World

Dusko’s goal is not to create art for easy-consumption, but to challenge others to think for themselves.

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“My style is abstract expressionism… I want to push people to thinking… to wake up feelings… to thinking behind the reality.”

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To Be

There is a depth that Dusko creates by layering different colors and patterns of paint onto the canvas. These layers of colors, patterns and textures parallel Dusko’s ideas about reality. There is a tension between the external, physical reality we’re surrounded by, and our own internal reality—a reality of emotions, thoughts, and perceptions.

Portrait of my Mother

In Dusko’s paintings, he shows the stacking of different realities on top of each other—such as the stacking of materialism and idealism, or the stacking of different identities. As I went through Dusko’s art, I began to wonder how many layers there were in our psyche, how these layers might affect our personality and our identity.

Freedom is Idealism

How deep does our psyche go? And how much of our psyche do we ignore?

At the core of Dusko’s work is an exploration of the phenomenological world, the layer of reality our conscious experience resides in, which often feels like a lonely or isolated world in our society.

Material World…Where are We Going?

Despite the vast improvements in global standards of living, and despite vast increases in global wealth, something still seems to be missing in the lives of modern humans. We still can’t satisfy our desires, and we can’t stop ourselves from sliding back into violent conflicts.

Frida

Beyond the intentions of his pieces, it was clear in our conversation, and from what I saw of the artist online, that Dusko loves making art—the process, the creation, and the techniques he’s adopted from his influences (Pollock, Mark Rothko, Gerard Richter, Amadeo Modigliani, and Ilija Basicevic Bosilija). Despite exploring the darker sides of consumerism in his work, I sensed a genuine enthusiasm from Dusko as he talked about his pieces.

It takes a certain kind of drive to self-teach yourself any kind of skill, and Dusko’s intuition for abstract uses of color and form come from long hours of practice and care. To really appreciate Dusko’s work, you have to appreciate Dusko’s love and dedication to his craft.

Zoe and Violonchello