Though if I remember correctly, Togusa said "scandal", not "blackmail". That is, Locus Solus didn't need to actively avoid lawsuits, since the families already wanted to keep the things as quiet as possible.
I think it's basically the same situation.
Quid pro quo. "You don't sue us, this won't come out." (Couldn't court records be sealed? Couldn't the courtroom be closed to the public? All the victims had clout. Of course, a smart attorney would leak the information to the press... and that's where the scandal would enter into it.)
Remember when Batou and Togusa enter Haraway's office and she doesn't look over her shoulder to see who they are? She says pretty much what any public servant would say to a member of the press- or anyone whose presence is undesired or unauthorized, including people from other departments- in a situation like that. "I don't have anything for you. If you keep coming back, I'll have you removed or detained..."
The police, Public Security, and Locus Solus all seemed to be keeping a lid on the matter. I imagine the legal system would do the same. Closed courtroom, etc. But sometimes lawyers and corporations have ways of getting around that.
I can think of similar scandals, although they usually involve mistresses or prostitutes of either sex. The victim's family and friends don't know what is happening in the person's private life... until the victim is killed. And sometimes, families don't want to pursue the matter legally, as it provokes scandal.
I didn't mean to suggest actual blackmail. I should've used italics instead of quotation marks. I meant something like
leverage.
There's direct blackmail... then there are more subtle forms of blackmail.
As I said,
quid pro quo.
I believe, that there is a difference between perfection of a doll and perfection of a god, in Kim's analogy. A doll without consiousness requires an external being of observe it's physical perfectness devoid of mind, that would break it's serenity, whereas a god would be it's own observer.
I agree. I don't think I suggested otherwise...
That doesn't prevent Kim, or from what I deduced from your explanation, Edison from making valid points, as well, although they seem to miss certain critical steps, mistaking a map for territory, as it were. I imagine that they speak the doubts of their respective writers have, but deliberately miss some steps to lay the writers at ease. I don't mean to say, that Kim's nihilistic viewpoint is inheritly the right one, but it contains elements, that cannot be ignored, even though he mostly speaks in idealized metaphors.
Yep. That's what makes Villiers' satire- and Oshii's irony- so devastating...
And why some of Kim's comments make the film's ending so problematic and troubling.
They aren't neccesarily completely at odds - Kim speaks of idealizations, he doesn't claim to have found a perfect doll, any more than he claims to have met a god. He immediately disproves his definition from the Hadalys, since they clearly possess consiousness, that breaks down the very concept of what a doll, in his opinion, should be.
Again, I think you and I are in agreement. I said they
seem at odds. The apparent disagreement arises from Kim and Hadaly's different presuppositions. At least, that's what I was trying to suggest. Both characters raise similar questions, but because of the different presuppositions, the thinking runs along different (though related) lines of inquiry.
To me his words rather seem to question this quest, than to pursue it - not the cybernetic revolution, that he embraces, but the presumption, that this would release the humanity from the natural selection and "beat the evolutionary odds". It appears to me, that he questions whether it is actually a transcendation, after all. As for the skylarks, to me he seems to emphasize the difference between their consiousness and that of humans, rather than to raise them into an ideal of this transcendation. This interpretation doesn't neccesarily make your theory invalid, but it changes it's content, somewhat.
I hope I implied something like this in my post. He
is being ironic about the quest. But his physical condition- his existence in a doll's body- is both product and representation of the sort of quest he's describing. Remember the inscription beneath the sculpture that's in front of Kim's mansion. HOMO EX MACHINA. Of course, that
should read
deus ex machina- "god from machine"- but it instead reads as both "man from machine" (a reference to La Mettrie's chief philosophical work) and "same from machine". (The name for our species' genus-
homo- is etymologically descended from the Latin
hominis/
homo, but the term ultimately traces back to the Greek for "same". The motto
homo ex machina is a kind of multivalent pun.)
I think the allusion to Shelley works in a similar way. For Shelley, the skylark
is something transcendental. Kim is playing with that idea for ironic effect. You're right; he's saying that people confuse maps for territories. But Kim's indicating that the skylark is something different from a human relates directly to the matter I was raising about dogs and about gynoids.
Kim seems to find the quest amusing. I was suggesting that, for a skylark- and for a gynoid- the final result of humanity's quest might be terrifying, as it might well involve something like fusion. A human becoming one with the thing that's experiencing the desired state.
Unless something offers to fuse- something like Project 2501- and the other party accepts the offer, I'd take the fusion as a violation of one party's essence, Selfhood, identity.
Kim doesn't mention this... but it's there, in the film's subtext. I think that's why the Major says, "Blessed are those who have voice."
Kim has, in many ways,
become the sort of thing he's ironizing about... a human in a doll-like body, residing in a giant dollhouse. A mockery of his humanity. And he finds that ironic. His body, his words, his behavior- recursive irony, level upon level...
He's not someone I'd like to have tea with.
But is it a symbol of perfection, or an example of state, which cannot be achieved with any kind of technological advancement? Because of this, I believe, Kim called it's being "more elusive than godhood", that he percieves as something that can be achieved, or at least glimpsed.
Notice Kim's logic. Gods and dolls. And then... animals. Kim's suggestion that such an experience
can be achieved or glimpsed is related to the film's suggestion that human "ghosts" can be imprinted on dolls.
Kim asks, in essence: "Imprinting dolls with human souls? Who'd want to do something like that and ruin a doll?" Now, that's an ironic question.
Again, Kim's words: "Perfection is possible only for those without consciousness, or perhaps endowed with infinite consciousness. In other words, for gods and for dolls...Actually there's more than one mode of existence commensurate with dolls and gods..."
While discussing animals as the third mode of existence, Kim continues: "Shelley's skylarks are suffused with a profound, instinctive joy. Joy we humans, driven by self-consciousness, can never know. For those of us who lust after knowledge, it is a condition more elusive than godhead..."
The solution Kim's implying would involve
not being human, or giving up some, if not all, of one's humanity- or what we think of as those things. And he's suggesting that it's a nightmare for those who, like Togusa, cling to their meatware-based notions of humanity. (Notice the way he messes with Togusa's head- including suggesting that since humans are machines, Togusa is, on some level, mechanical.) It doesn't seem to pose much of a problem for- or to be a nightmare to- Kim.
Within the film's context- and remember that Kim suggests that to imprint a human soul or "ghost" onto a doll would be to ruin the doll's "perfection"- we have to wonder
how someone could experience that kind of knowledge... how a person would
achieve that sort of state.
After all, Kim's body is doll-like.
Did it really happen quite this way? There were two gynoids assaulting the security personell, not one, but Major only used one, without any attempt to take control of others, despite of how much that would have helped their work. While my interpretation isn't entirely perfect, either, I believe that it was Major's hacking, that set all the gynoids free and the changes done on their programming before allowed them to attack all living things in the facility - the combat robot software that she downloaded didn't help matters. Only when she got the control of the whole ship's systems, she could effect everything inside it and shut the gynoids down. This is, ofcourse, primarily based only on the number of gynoids assaulting the security forces, as well as Major's words about her temporary body's capacity, as well as how the faceless security cheifs made no mention of utilizing the gynoids. .
Looking back, my wording was pretty sloppy in that part of the post. Sorry.
I meant that the gynoids
had been used, i.e. marketed and sold as sexaroids, by Locus Solus, and that the Major was using them now- pretty much as cannon fodder- to take out the company's security. That's why the dissolve is used- she used them indirectly (by "freeing" them- although I'd hardly call that freedom, since she's using them) to kill the Locus Solus security forces, then used the body she directly controlled to access and control the ship's system- and to disable the company's cyborgs. In both instances, they're used as "tools".
I was thinking about editing the post or posting a clarification... then you raised the issue.
Thanks, Lightice. You're my hero!