Sacrifice and Satisfice

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

One day, when I was a kid, I got into one of the why?-loops with my dad that all kids get into. I don't even remember what it was about, but it must have gotten to the point of asking why some systemic issue, because this George Bernard Shaw quote is what my dad dug up to shut me up.

It made, well, quite a deep impression on me.

I grew up chasing that ideal. I've never wanted to be the kind of human who would shut out all thoughts of progress while trying to be reasonable; I've learnt to be completely happy in the role of the unreasonable idiot raging against the heavens, always, forevermore, if that's what's necessary. I am not one who is happy with satisficing, not on the big questions, anyway. Not on death, not on society, not on, well, us.

And Mawaru Penguindrum — and quite possibly Ikuhara in general — is all about satisficing.

If you begin by sacrificing yourself to those you love, you will end by hating those to whom you have sacrificed yourself.

The key word is, of course, fate. The concept of your life being stuck on one set of tracks, with a known, unchangeable destination. We humans set up survival strategies in the face of it, the things we have to do so that this knowledge does not burn us away.

Ringo sees fate as a friend, and so her strategy is to follow. She lives her life according to pre-planned plans, and grows as a result of the truly entropic nature of fate waylaying her. Her narrative closure is in "defying fate" via self-sacrifice.

Himari sees fate as an inevitability, and so her strategy is to eke out as much happiness as she can in between. She lives her life deliberately trying to never want anything, and grows by acknowledging that even given fate, she's allowed to want. Her narrative closure is in "defying fate" via self-sacrifice.

Shoma sees fate as a capricious god, and so his strategy is to never anger it. He lives his life in constant fear of loss of what minor happinesses he has managed to find for himself, and he grows by clawing himself right back up after everything is his fault, again. His narrative closure is in "defying fate" via self-sacrifice.

Kanba sees fate as an enemy, and so his strategy is to fight. He lives his life as a constant, delusional, rage against the heavens, and grows by realising he's lost sight of what he's fighting for. His narrative closure is in "defying fate" via self-sacrifice.

...wait, what?

Individually, these character arcs all work. Put alongside the lost children, the child broiler, and Sanetoshi, they sketch out the idea that we can still recover beauty and meaning from our lives even though they're on fixed tracks. And yet...

...when taken together, they feel unfair, to me.

Those who admire modern civilization usually identify it with the steam engine and the electric telegraph.

Those who understand the steam engine and the electric telegraph spend their lives in trying to replace them with something better.

Any one who actively tries to change fate is portrayed as at least moderately villainous, as necessarily skewing towards villainous goals and methods. The parents are terrorists, Kanba becomes one, and Ringo is a creepy stalker. Tabuki and Yuri are villainous in as much as they try to pursue any goals in the world Momoka left them in, and it is when they accept their lot that they are redeemed. And the business of saving Himari, that thread of Kanba's and Shoma's that runs throughout the show, is portrayed as a tragic loss of the boys' agency.

There only way of trying to change fate that Penguindrum thinks is worthwhile, is in unplanned spontaneity, in feeling so strongly about something that you don't stop to plan or think about the consequences. This is Kanba's sharing of the apple, or Shoma's rescuing of Himari from the child broiler, or Momoka's breaking down of preconceptions, or Ringo's willingness to burn for Himari and the other three self-sacrificial stories at the finale. Penguindrum tells us that as soon as you start planning, you lose sight of what you planned for in the first place. As soon as you try to manage consequences, you'll be lost in them.

And because Penguindrum is exceedingly well told, and uses its symbols and elements to maximal fruition, this can't help but have consequences along its thematic lines. Technology (bombs, expensive new medicines, the fire of the gods) is to be feared, for they are tools by which the sin of planning rears itself. The beauty of saving one person is all we can hope for, and the extant societal problems must go unchecked. Even death—cessation, entropic loss—is now welcomed, called a beginning rather than an ending.

The concept of the fate transfer is an elegant little metaphor for the show's final opinion on the topic, I think. Your fate is still fixed; there's still some train tracks you're barrelling down - it's just that occasionally, if you're very strong and courageous and etc, you can switch tracks.

At a cost.

And come to love your new fate as much as you hated your old one.

The love of fair play is a spectator’s virtue, not a principal’s.

Don't get me wrong; I know exactly why it's done, and I absolutely respect the authorial intent behind it. The Lost Decade, the story of those who have given up and become completely disillusioned with the world - I fully defer to Ikuhara in his understanding of them. And I find the intent - of reconstructing hope in a world that's lost it - beautiful in its own way. It's just that...

...well...

...in order to do this, Ikuahara ends up caricaturing something that's dear to my heart, and so I cannot help but notice. And I'm inclined to think Murukami and Superfrog said it better, anyway.

In some real, strong, sense, Penguindrum is not for me. And this is definitely only and solely in message, for it fits my usual checkboxes extremely well (character focus ✓, thematic competence ✓, penguins ✓). I try hard to not judge media based on how much I agree with them, and I still think Penguindrum is a great show.

But it makes me, selfishly, sad, and if there's any place I can let that out it's here.

(Header quotes from George Bernard Shaw's John Tanner's Maxims for Revolutionaries.)