Innocence Ending happy ending or not? !//!Spoilers Ahoy!//!

Discussions about the first film (Ghost in the Shell) and the second (Innocence)

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Elmo
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Innocence Ending happy ending or not? !//!Spoilers Ahoy!//!

Post by Elmo »

The film pretty much ends at the falling down of the gynoid kusanagi was using. But the scene afterwards when batou says his goodbyes to togusa and collects his dog is a strange one to me, i'm not sure i understand it as a way of wrapping up the story and prehaps that's why I view it as being a pessimistic ending to the film.

Others I have talked to saw it as a happy end to the film in that each of the characters present has a doll to connect to as a mirror to their psyche and can now enjoy that connection that batou throughout the film missed having with motoko and even he has his dog.

I can understand this as a reason for it being an optimistic end to the film and my reasons for thinking it is a pessimistic one are slightly less rational. As the three characters are using their puppet versions of humans to try to mirror a human mind Batou with his dog, Togusa with his daughter and his daughter with her doll; Locus Solus did the same with the ghost dubbed gynoids and that lead to misery all round. This ending seems to me like the whole cycle of creating something which is human-but-not-human which was undeniably a bad thing last time is starting again.

What do you guys think happy ending or sinister?



..also that doll just creeps me out. :wink:
Last edited by Elmo on Tue Mar 28, 2006 2:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
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AlphonseVanWorden
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Post by AlphonseVanWorden »

What do you guys think happy ending or sinister?
That's a really interesting question. Perhaps Oshii intends the film's ending to be ambiguous.

As you raise a number of issues, it might be worth looking at the film's narrative, its structure or "cinematic grammar", and how the film's ideas bounce off and interrogate each other.

"IN THE BEGINNING..."

After a description of the backstory, Innocence quotes Edison from Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's L'Eve Future: "If our gods and our hopes are nothing but scientific phenomena, then it must be said that our love is scientific as well." This epigraph foreshadows some of the ironies we find in the film- the tensions between the "real" and the artificial, the relationship between ideas and actualities, notions of power and physicality. As an epigraph, these words frame the discussion or narrative follows. They provide us with a context for Innocence. But they also refer to another text, so it might be worth considering L'Eve Future for a moment.

Villiers was a critic of materialist assumptions. In L'Eve Future, the novelist and playwright offers a direct response to the philosophies of Descartes and La Mettrie, to the manifestations of these philosophies in late 19th Century bourgeois materialism, to notions of scientific and technological progress.

In the novel, the scientist Edison (named, of course, for Thomas Edison), offers to create an artificial and "perfect" woman for Lord Ewald. (In the novel, anything that comes out of Edison's mouth represents a point-of-view that Villers detests and fears and is mocking.) This artificial woman is named Hadaly, and the gynoids in Oshii's film are Hadaly-model protypes. When she's with Lord Ewald, Hadaly- the Future Eve of the book's title- tells him, "...[P]lacating yourself with a few fuzzy words, you mindlessly diminish in yourself the sense of your own supernatural being...As you get up the next morning and lean out the open window to the fresh breezes of morning, your heart is full of joy, you're at peace with yourself; in the distance you hear the sound of living beings (beings just like you!) who are also getting up and going about their business, drunk with Reason, wildly excited by the box of toys possessed by a Humanity grown ripe already, and now turning sere and yellow." For Hadaly, humankind is dying as a result of its materialistic pursuits- pursuits that she explicitly states are based upon a misunderstanding of the Absolute.

While the Hadaly of the novel functions as a kind of female Frankenstein's Monster- a creation whose intelligence and sense of self threaten the perceptions and perhaps the well-being of the creators- she also articulates a position quite similar to the author's own feelings.

Oshii states in the "Making of" documentary: "I feel that the histories, cultures, and civilizations of humans are symbollically represented in the making of dolls. In other words, humans have been creating themselves. Their have been reproducing their own images. As a result, this world has become worthless..."

We can easily locate similarities between these positions. Does Innocence manifest a similar, pessimistic reading of humanity's fate?

THE SPLENDOR AND MISERY OF BODIES, OF CITIES.

In the film, physical bodies- human, mechanical, organizational- are represented not simply by, but as collections of data. Bodies and selves are composed of parts and images. For the viewer, the relationship between the physical and the representational is unstable.

This becomes apparent when we consider the murder of Jack Volkerson. Volkerson's killers eviscerated his body, i.e. removed the organs from his abdomen, with kitchen utensils. The killers then placed the parts in his refrigerator. (We can compare Volkerson's being "taken apart" with Batou's replacement arm and with the scenes in Haraway's office. Bodies are composed of parts; some parts are easier to replace, and some damage is easier to correct. Batou asks about his damaged arm and is told that it's beyond repair. Haraway tells Batou that it would've been easier to reconstruct the gynoid if he'd used a .50 caliber hollowpoint instead of double-ought buckshot.)

But physical removal of organs isn't the only way in which Volkerson's body is "taken apart." When Section 9 members hold a holographic virtual meeting to consider the crime scene, the body is represented as data. We then see the weapon used for the actual murder (the Crab Claw), the perpetrators' vehicle, the hierarchy of the Yakuza organization, and the criminal records of individual members as data. (Notice that when the Yakuza gang is discussed, the conversation shifts from group to members, from "whole" to "parts.") When the meeting concludes, we realize that it has been in fact a virtual meeting, i.e. the participants have been seen as images, as representations. Many of the people we've seen aren't physically "in" the room, as we had previously thought.

The sequence's structure is interesting. We move from representations of crime scene and victim to weapon to vehicle to organization to individuals (from corpse to technology related to the crime to a criminal group to individual members of that group), and these things are not there, physically; they're being represented by data. Then we see that the people discussing these things are "not there", i.e. most of them aren't together in the same room in a physical sense.

The sequence highlights the ambiguous relationship between the physical and representational. Crime scenes, corpses, and criminals can be represented as data. Even "presence" need not be physical in the film's fictional world; it can be representational. But the physical world itself is an embodiment or function of data. The body is an archive, just as cities are archives. Individual brains can be hacked, memories can be rewritten or overwritten. And the collections of data represented by- or embodied within- these archives can be controlled, co-opted, manipulated. Batou comments about the city where he and Togusa will locate Lin: "The towers survive as a shadow of the city's former glory. Its dubious sovereignty has made it the ideal haven for multi-nationals and the criminal elements that feed off their spoils." We might remember Batou's status as an agent (servant) of Section 9 and recall what Haraway says about problems with androids and gynoids: "When owners trade up to newer models, some of those abandoned become vagrants, and degenerate. Perhaps it's a protest against their own obsolescence." We might think of the conversation between Batou and the Major in the first film, when she states that she can't even be sure whether or not her memories are real, are hers; when she discusses the idea that her body and experiences are Section Nine's property. In any organization, the idea of becoming obsolete- and a person's ambivalence about "belonging" to the organization- are concerns.

So what is the relationship between representation, the body, and the self? And why are dolls so unsettling?

SPLENDEURS ET MISÈRES DES COURTISANES.

When Batou and Togusa are in Haraway's office, she tells Togusa that "nlike industrial robots, the androids and gynoids designed as 'pets' weren't designed along utlitarian or practical models. Instead, we model them on a human image, an idealized one, at that."

Haraway's questions about the dynamics of definition call to mind the work of Donna Haraway. While best known for her essay "A Cyborg Manifesto," Haraway's work questions traditional assumptions about the relationship between science and power. (The aforementioned essay is included in a collection called Simians, Cyborgs, and Women, in which Haraway considers the ways in which evolutionary biology and the study of primates shape the construction of concepts such as human identity, gender, and "nature".)

The Hadaly models- as sexaroids, as projections of male desire, as "pets"- are based on an ideal form or image of womanhood. They're modelled on an abstraction. As Batou says of the city, "'What the bodies creates is as much an expression of DNA as the body itself.' If the essence of life is information carried in DNA, then society and civilization are just colossal memory systems, and a metropolis like this one, simply a sprawling external memory."

The other examples given by Togusa and Batou- beaver dams, spiderwebs, coral reefs- remind us of comments by neo-Darwinist Richard Dawkins, who argues that the shapes and functions of these structures are most likely due to the influences of gene selection on the building process. The Extended Phenotype, a recent work by Dawkins, states that such structures aren't simply creations of a species; in evolutionary terms, they're part of- an extension of- the species. What a species does should be taken into account when creating an evolutionary definition of a species. To be a beaver is to make a dam; to be a spider is to make a web (if the spider is the sort that weaves); to be human is to build things. As Batou says, a city is an external memory device.

In this context, we might think of the gynoids as a further extension of this metaphor, an extension involving memes. Memes, as postulated by Dawkins in The Selfish Gene, are the ideational equivalent of genes; they are, as Marvin Minsky puts it, "structured units of knowledge that are able, more or less, to reproduce themselves by making copies of themselves from one mind to another."

There's no question that keeping a gynoid as a sexual "pet" is socially dubious in the film's world. Haraway says, "Nothing to brag about to your neighbors, but hardly illegal." Togusa looks in the Hadaly unit's direction and says he realizes why victims' families are settling out of court. "Blackmail."

But the gynoids are more than simply glorified sex toys; they're objects based upon an idea. In the gynoids, a meme- in this instance, an ideal form- has found physical expression, embodiment.

Might a meme given physical form have its own subjectivity? And what might that imply about the relationship between a cyborg (another kind of idealized body) such as Batou and the gynoids?

Note that during the scene in Haraway's office, Togusa talks with Haraway while Batou wanders around, looking at the various gynoid and android bodies in the place. The bodies are broken. In a shot reminiscent of Blade Runner, we see artificial eyes floating in a container. Some of the gynoid and android bodies have eyes missing, perhaps reminding us of Batou's implants, perhaps calling attention to the act of seeing.

When Haraway says the following, we see Batou's point-of-view as he looks at a broken gynoid: "When owners trade up to newer models, some of those abandoned become vagrants and degenerate." The next image is a reverse-shot of Batou's face; the voice-over continues: "Perhaps it's a protest against their own obsolescence."

(We might think of something Alvin Toffler wrote about Barbie dolls and Mattel's late 1960s announcement of "new, improved models" in his 1970 book Future Shock: "What Mattel did not announce was that by trading in her old doll for a technologically improved model, the little girl of today, citizen of tomorrow's super-industrial world, would learn a fundamental lesson about the new society: that man's relationships with things are increasingly temporary." Toffler argued that because a culture's psychology is shaped by childhood relationships with things, i.e. objects, the notion of upgrading one's toys has larger social implications. In this context, we might recall Hadaly's speech in L'Eve Future again: "...in the distance you hear the sound of living beings (beings just like you!) who are also getting up and going about their business, drunk with Reason, wildly excited by the box of toys possessed by a Humanity grown ripe already...")

Suddenly, we cut back to Togusa and Haraway. Togusa says, "Absurd." He then looks towards the camera- just to the side of the frame- and seems disturbed. Another reverse shot- approximating Haraway's point-of-view- and we realize that Togusa is looking at a cluster of android shells. Broken bodies, remarkably human-looking. Haraway continues: "Humans are different from robots. That's an article of faith...It's no more helpful than the basic fact that humans aren't machines."

If we reduce the definition of humanity to a genetic level, we are machines, genetic replicators. That's a pretty basic function. If we extend the metaphor, our ideas are memes, self-replicating. Even the domain of ideas becomes a site of machine-like production and replication. "If our gods and our hopes are nothing but scientific phenomena, then it must be said that our love is scientific as well."

Haraway points out that our notions about human identity don't work this way, but our thinking does create its own complications: "Children have been excluded from the customary standards of human behavior, if you define humans as beings that possess a conventional identity and act out of free will. They differ profoundly from 'humans,' but they obviously have human form...The dolls that little girls mother, are not surrogates for real babies. Little girls aren't so much imitating child rearing, as they are experiencing something deeply akin to child rearing...Raising children is the simplest way to achieve the ancient dream of artificial life." In other words, when we define humans as having identity and agency, children become something like dolls. Notions of interiority, subjectivity, etc. don't enter into our thinking about children. Instead, we think about making them into adults, turning them into human beings. Kids aren't human in the way that adults are, and technically and strictly speaking, they aren't human- at least in terms of how we think about humans.

Or are they?

(I'm not saying that kids aren't human and don't have subjectivity, can't experience pain, etc. I think Oshii is suggesting, through Haraway's dialogue, that a loose definition of humanity based on free will and conventional notions of identity wouldn't quite include children. And that's where Gabriel comes in. A specific dog has a specific version or kind of dog-ness. Of course, it's a different kind of subjectivity or "self" than that of a human child or adult, but dogs do have something like "personalities." And we object to people abandoning or mistreating children or pets. If gynoids come into being, will we object to their mistreatment? Would we even know if they had a different kind of subjectivity, if we use our loose terminology- "fuzzy words" as L'Eve Future puts it- as a basis for our thinking? Of course, this sort of problem relates directly to the burning of the dolls at the festival, which is referred to on the film's commentary track as "spiritual appeasement of the objects..." The city's inhabitants view the dolls as having some spirit or essence of their own, and feel it must be honored.)

Notice that Haraway is being ironic. She's proving a point about gynoids by raising the issue of children. She's making a case, not claiming that the position is true. But her argument, if taken seriously, would provide an excuse for those who use children to ghost-dub gynoids. After all, children aren't human... Even laws which protect children regard them as different from "real", grown-up humans with free will.

Is the customary definition of humanity inadequate? Does it raise questions about the subjectivity and consciousness of things such as the gynoids? And what does this say about human subjectivity and about "real" people?

We should consider Haraway's questions in contrast to Kim's answers.

THE EMPIRE OF THE SIGNS.

Kim states, "The doubt is whether a creature that certainly appears to be alive really is. Alternatively, the doubt that a lifeless object might actually be alive. That's why dolls haunt us. They're modeled on humans. They are, in fact, nothing but human. They make us face the terror of being reduced to simple mechanisms and matter. In other words, the fear that, fundamentally, all humans belong to the void..."

This is why dolls are, for Kim, perfect: "The definition of a truly beautiful doll is a living, breathing body devoid of a soul... The human is no match for a doll, in its form, its elegance in motion, its very being...Perfection is possible only for those without consciousness, or perhaps endowed with infinite consciousness. In other words, for gods and for dolls." [Emphasis added.]

We might think of Edison's comments about Hadaly's skin in L'Eve Future: "Our colored projectors, then, imprint on this mock skin (once it has been securely fashioned to the fully formed flesh) the exact tints of the nudity being reproduced. At that point it is the satiny quality of this yielding substance, elastic and subtle as it is, which serves to give vitality, after a manner of speaking, to the results already obtained. The result is to confuse completely the senses of human beings, to render the copy and the original indistinguishable. What we have is Nature and nothing else; neither more nor less, better nor worse, but Identity." [Emphasis in the original.] And we might remember that Edison tells Lord Ewald that women are artificial, anyway; the inventor lists various beauty products to prove that what a 19th Century bourgeois finds physically attractive in a woman is simply artifice, and he says that what a man finds charming is simply manners- another kind of artifice...

Remember that Edison's point of view is not that Villiers' point-of-view. And Kim's point of view isn't Oshii's point-of-view, either.

Note Kim's claim that "perfection" involves either the extension of consciousness to an infinite degree or the absence of consciousness. Haraway's statements about gynoids and androids presupposed that mechanical beings might have a consciousness and object to being disposed of. Why do these statements seem so at odds?

Kim continues: "Actually there's more than one mode of existence commensurate with dolls and gods... 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..." [Emphasis added]

Shelley was, of course, a Romantic poet, and many Romantic poets saw themselves in or projected their ideals onto the things they perceived. But Kim's thinking is grounded in the arguments of some of the more mechanistic and materialistic Englightenment philosophers: "In this age, the twin technologies of robotics and electronic neurology resurrected the 18th Century theory of man as machine."

So how do these disparate schools of thought relate to each other in Kim's thought?

"And now that computers have externalized memory, humans have pursued self-mechanization aggessively, to expand the limits of their own functions. Determined to leave behind Darwinian natural selection, this human determination to beat evolutionary odds also reveals the desire to transcend. The very quest for perfection that gave it birth. The mirage of life equipped with perfect hardware engendered this nightmare." [Emphasis added.]

In other words, viewing the body as machine allows Kim to seek transcendence, to break free from the merely biological and the simply human. For Kim, Shelley's skylark- that "blithe spirit", "Sprite or bird"- symbolizes something beyond conscious, human thought.

But there's a problem with this view, a problem as profound as Kim's pure, nutty nihilism.

The skylark's subjectivity- the kind of subjectivity or consciousness that any animal has, the bird's identity as a skylark and as itself- is lost. The bird ceases to be a bird, and becomes someone's symbolic representation of transcendence.

It's one thing for a poet to use a bird as metaphor. The implications of that metaphor in terms of technology, in an age in which identity is malleable and permeable, in which dolls might have consciousness, is quite another thing.

Which is why we see a basset hound in that rotating globe. To remind us that, for Batou, a certain dog is more than the sum of its parts, and more than a symbol of perfection. It's something to be loved, something that reminds him- and us- of his mere humanity.

Remember the scene in Locus Solus. The little girl says, "But... but... I didn't want to become a doll!" The Major comments: "'We weep for the bird's cry, but not for the blood of a fish. Blessed are those who have voice.' If the dolls could speak, no doubt they'd scream, 'I didn't want to become human.'" The little girl has a voice. The gynoids, however, don't.

Perhaps a skylark wouldn't want to become a symbol of perfection, if that involved a radical change in its essence and being.

THE SHORT ANSWER.

Is the film's ending happy, or sinister? I'd say it's ambiguous, but it has a certain sinister (ambivalent?) aspect to it.

When he and Togusa are with Kim, Batou shoots the mechanical servant and says, "It's just a doll."

When Batou and the Major are with the little girl, he asks about the victims- not the human victims, but the gynoids themselves.

Notice the film's structure: In one scene, Batou and Togusa- a human- are talking to Kim, who's become something less than human. In the other scene, Batou and the Major- who's possessing a gynoid- are conversing with a human child. And we've seen the Major in gynoid form, killing Locus Solus's human security teams; that was cross-cut with Batou shooting the gynoids. (Those gynoids were being used by Locus Solus. Poor gynoids; everyone uses them, few people consider their feelings.) We've seen the Major plugging into Locus Solus and taking over the ship, rendering its cyborg controllers inoperable; a shot of the gynoid body she used to kill the security forces, stained with human blood, dissolved into a shot of the later body standing at the ship's computer, head tilted at the same angle.

Aramaki asks Togusa, "Are you happy?" He then states, "Most of us are neither as happy or as miserable as we think. The key is to stay engaged with your life and your hopes." Batou asks the Major, "Are you happy?" She responds, "A nostalgic value, perhaps. At least I am free of qualms."

Certain neuroscientists and neurophilosophers- Patricia Churchland, for example- believe in something called eliminative materialism, the belief that concepts such as happiness, fear, hope, pain can and should be reduced to strictly scientific terminology and description. ("... it must be said that our love is scientific as well.")

In the closing scene, we see Togusa holding his daughter, who's holding her doll. Batou is holding Gabriel. But the film's central questions- those about identity, sentience, emotion, and subjectivity- remain unanswered, because they are unanswerable. The questions are suspended.

We won't know what we've lost till it's gone. And neither will the characters.
Such is the soul in the body: this world is like her little turf of grass, and the heaven o'er our heads, like her looking-glass, only gives us a miserable knowledge of the small compass of our prison. - Bosola, in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi
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Tonks_kittygoth
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Happy?

Post by Tonks_kittygoth »

Well, it is hard to say anything after the last reply, which was very very interesting, but I'll take a shot.

I agree that Oshii was not looking to give us as simple an ending as "Happy" or "sad".

Oshii seems to be exploring the sentients experiance of life. I don't use the word Human because Oshii is clearly making a statement for the value of not only the human experiance but that of the machine, and the "animal".

I use quotes because of ambigous terms, as animal is not really a distinguishment from human, as we are also animals, just as human does not denote any superiority of worth to Oshii.

(as a digression, I believe that someday, animals will be seen as equal to humans in rights and worth, and if AI evolves perhaps that as well.)

From what I have read in interviews by Oshii he does not distinguish any differnce in value between sentients, and in fact I believe he mentions in "After the Long Goodbye"'s interview section that he believes that sentients are able to invest souls, or something similar into inanimate objects by love, or great attention.

I believe the ending is meant to illustrate the range of souls and the connections between them. "human" Togasa, "child creature" his daughter, cyborg Batou, and "animal" Gabriel, and "doll" the doll.

I think that Oshii is exploring what it is to be alive, and that is beyond happyness or sadness, it ...is.

In the story itself, the charecters, especially Batou, are met with very hard situations, and as you say, when the Major leaves it is very sad for him, however, it seems that perhaps he is heartened just a little, by her assertion that she will always be with him. In that way, he will never loose her, though he can not have her physical companionship. Perhaps this knowlege will be enough for him to have closure.

You should read "After the Long Goodbye". It gives you some more insight into Batou's charecter, Oshii's views, and Gabriel's views.
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Post by AlphonseVanWorden »

From what I have read in interviews by Oshii he does not distinguish any differnce in value between sentients, and in fact I believe he mentions in "After the Long Goodbye"'s interview section that he believes that sentients are able to invest souls, or something similar into inanimate objects by love, or great attention.
I think you and I are in basic agreement on this. Which was why I mentioned gynoids, dogs, and children having sentience...
I believe the ending is meant to illustrate the range of souls and the connections between them. "human" Togasa, "child creature" his daughter, cyborg Batou, and "animal" Gabriel, and "doll" the doll.
Again, I agree. My point was simply that the conditions allowing those connections to exist are radically challenged by the fictional world's science and technology. So the final "meaning" or outcome is suspended.

It's a "happy" ending on one level, but that doll that Togusa's daughter is holding reminds us that the ambiguity persists. So, on another level, it's a little sinister, too.

I'm a pretty big fan of Oshii's work, and I think that he- wisely- left a good bit of the ending open, in terms of its being "good" or "bad", "hopeful" or "despairing." He said something in an interview to the effect that Batou represents his point-of-view, while Togusa represents the audience's point-of-view (family-oriented, "human" without questioning it, etc.). But we're aware that technological and scientific changes will continue in the world, and we're posed a question by that final scene: What will happen next?

Togusa loves his child, and Batou loves his dog. But what will happen to their world in, say, six or ten years? What will happen to these sorts of relationships after the events in the film? Which viewpoint will become prevalent? In other words, what kind of world will Togusa's daughter grow up in? Will people see dolls as objects, or as things with essences/sentience? How will people view themselves, for that matter? Oshii doesn't say, even in interviews. Could get worse, could get better... and both worse and better are kind of dependent upon how you'd answer or confront the questions posed by Haraway and Kim.

I think you're right about the Major "always being with him"- and about the dog. After all, it's the two things (sentient beings) that Batou cares most for that appear to Batou in Kim's mansion to guide him. Gabriel and the Major...
I think that Oshii is exploring what it is to be alive, and that is beyond happyness or sadness, it ...is.
Once more, we're in agreement. The catch being that an eliminative materialist view implies that "being alive" can be described. I think Oshii- and Batou, and even Togusa- would take issue with that. And I think that's a good chunk of what the film's about, really- the tension between a reductive or eliminative description of life, and the way it feels to be alive. And it's in this context that the notion of dolls, children, and dogs having sentience/"ghosts" comes into it. As Batou says to Kim, if you don't have or believe in a ghost/self, you'll never know madness...

And madness is one aspect of being human.

Welcome to the forum, by the way.
Such is the soul in the body: this world is like her little turf of grass, and the heaven o'er our heads, like her looking-glass, only gives us a miserable knowledge of the small compass of our prison. - Bosola, in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi
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Lightice
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Post by Lightice »

Since I have no objections or things to add to a great deal of the last post's informative essay, I don't try to comment every part, either. Just those I wish to add to, or disagree with.
AlphonseVanWorden wrote: There's no question that keeping a gynoid as a sexual "pet" is socially dubious in the film's world. Haraway says, "Nothing to brag about to your neighbors, but hardly illegal." Togusa looks in the Hadaly unit's direction and says he realizes why victims' families are settling out of court. "Blackmail."


I imagine that from the social standpoint, the sexual fascination to gynoids would be considered not unlike the use of "Dutch wives" (I'd love to know the ethymology of that term), sex-dolls today - not really something that people would brag about, especially if they are in an influential position. 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.
But the gynoids are more than simply glorified sex toys; they're objects based upon an idea. In the gynoids, a meme- in this instance, an ideal form- has found physical expression, embodiment.


One could argue, that that's exactly what the most elaborate sex-toys are. Ofcourse we must remember, that meme is only a metaphor, although extremely fitting one - while ideas do possess gene-like traits, they cannot possess actual activity, only its likeness.
This is why dolls are, for Kim, perfect: "The definition of a truly beautiful doll is a living, breathing body devoid of a soul... The human is no match for a doll, in its form, its elegance in motion, its very being...Perfection is possible only for those without consciousness, or perhaps endowed with infinite consciousness. In other words, for gods and for dolls." [Emphasis added.]


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.
Remember that Edison's point of view is not that Villiers' point-of-view. And Kim's point of view isn't Oshii's point-of-view, either.


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.
Note Kim's claim that "perfection" involves either the extension of consciousness to an infinite degree or the absence of consciousness. Haraway's statements about gynoids and androids presupposed that mechanical beings might have a consciousness and object to being disposed of. Why do these statements seem so at odds?


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.
In other words, viewing the body as machine allows Kim to seek transcendence, to break free from the merely biological and the simply human. For Kim, Shelley's skylark- that "blithe spirit", "Sprite or bird"- symbolizes something beyond conscious, human thought.


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.
Perhaps a skylark wouldn't want to become a symbol of perfection, if that involved a radical change in its essence and being.


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.
And we've seen the Major in gynoid form, killing Locus Solus's human security teams; that was cross-cut with Batou shooting the gynoids. (Those gynoids were being used by Locus Solus. Poor gynoids; everyone uses them, few people consider their feelings.)


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. .

We won't know what we've lost till it's gone. And neither will the characters.


Indeed. Like it was said in the previous movie, science still hasn't learned to define life.
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AlphonseVanWorden
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Post by AlphonseVanWorden »

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.

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Such is the soul in the body: this world is like her little turf of grass, and the heaven o'er our heads, like her looking-glass, only gives us a miserable knowledge of the small compass of our prison. - Bosola, in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi
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Post by Lightice »

AlphonseVanWorden wrote: I didn't mean to suggest actual blackmail. I should've used italics instead of quotation marks. I meant something like leverage.


I assumed that you were quoting Togusa out of memory. Italics, or other choice of words would have propably been understood better.
I agree. I don't think I suggested otherwise...


Once again, it wasn't easy to understand that you wanted to keep the two concepts separate, since you chose to emphasize on them both, without making difference of them. I didn't think that you'd object what I said, but I taught it was best to say it directly, to remove the chance of misunderstanding.
But his physical condition- his existence in a doll's body- is both product and representation of the sort of quest he's describing.


To me he appears more like a parody of the quest and aware of it, himself. He at least claims to lust for knowledge and understanding and implies, that he chose to inhabit a doll in order to gain a new perspective to life. He certainly doesn't seem to be trying to achieve the image of perfection, but to set himself separate from the human existance, perhaps to study it from outside. This sounds like the quest of perfection he refers to, but really isn't - it's more like a joke of his doing, at the quest's expense. I assume that this is at least part of what you referred, when you speak of the irony in his speech.
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.


But skylark is something different from human - not an image of person, but a being that views the existance from a quite different angle - one, that isn't either limited or expanded by human-style self-consiousness. A state quite different from humans, dolls or gods.
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.


But the common human quest against the evolutionary odds typically doesn't aim towards non-self-consious existance, nor certainly to lack of any kind of consious existance, whatsoever, that the skylarks and the dolls symbolize. Humans have always sought to expand their self-consiousness and aim for what Kim calls godhood. A nihilistic philosopher like Kim is interested in the alternate forms of existance, unlike the bulk of humanity, but not even he is trying to be any of them - he uses the body of a doll, but not to be a doll, himself, but to observe the existance from a supposedly objective non-living point of view, that is inheritly different from what he considers doll-hood to be, either - he still has consiousness, after all and no desire to give it up, despite of considering the concept of Ghost as unimportant.
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.


That I don't doubt. But such a fusion wouldn't be desirable for ordinary humans, either.
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...


This I very much agree with - he lives in a place of illusions, that aren't even meant to pass for real things. I imagine that he is seeking a some sort of absolute objectivity, which is why the lack of self-consiousness fascinates him. His personal quest is separate from the humanity's, but it isn't entirely different in nature.
He's not someone I'd like to have tea with.


I would - but I have a slightly morbid fascination with the bizzare and abnormal. Besides, he seems to be an excellent conversationalist and those aren't exactly common, at any time.
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.


But the dolls with human Ghosts are no longer real dolls, at all, at least under Kim's definition. I don't think that his quest is related directly in becoming any of those states of being - he wants to be outside all of the definitions he makes of others, not dead or alive, neither doll nor human - there to observe everything from his "objective state" and mock those, who seek to transcend what he percieves as all of existance, "a rift in the uniform weave of the matrix", I think were his words. This is my interpretation, at least.
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.


Well, a doll with soul is no longer a doll and Kim seems to be bent on keeping things within definitions - excluding himself, ofcourse.
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.


With this I mostly agree with. It seems that Kim has both accepted and embraced this mechanistic worldview in full and with his appearance reflects it upon others, as well. Another layer of his doll-likeness would appear to be to reflect it to be the true state of humans, as well...
(by "freeing" them- although I'd hardly call that freedom, since she's using them)


I used the term to make a point, that Major did not make them attack or do anything else - she took one to act as a medium for her actions and that was it - the others followed Volkerson's moral code change and the frustration embedded in their Ghosts, once activated and attacked on all living beings on their own accord - or so I interpreted the scene. The gynoids were obviously used and abused, like their "originals" and this propably played it's part in their violent behaviour, but I don't think that Major really made them to do anything.

I feel like there are some contradictions in my points, but at the same time I can't really say anything is really different from what I'm trying to say...I'm expecting to get some good criticism, so I can clear all this up in my head.
Thanks, Lightice. You're my hero! :D


Well, I'm flattered. I don't think I've ever been a hero, before. Just aiming to please. 8)
Last edited by Lightice on Wed Mar 29, 2006 2:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
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AlphonseVanWorden
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Post by AlphonseVanWorden »

I used the term to make a point, that Major did not make them attack or do anything else - she took one to act as a medium for her actions and that was it - the others followed Volkerson's moral code change and the frustration embedded in their Ghosts, once activated and attacked on all living beings on their own accord - or so I interpreted the scene. The gynoids were obviously used and abused, like their "originals" and this propably played it's part in their violent behaviour, but I don't think that Major really made them to do anything.
Do you always have to make someone do something in order to use him or her? That was the point I was trying to convey when I wrote the clarification. The Major doesn't have to directly control them; she just has to unleash them. But given what happens to the gynoids, that's pretty sad.
But skylark is something different from human - not an image of person, but a being that views the existance from a quite different angle - one, that isn't either limited or expanded by human-style self-consiousness. A state quite different from humans, dolls or gods.
I think we're agreeing on the point about humans, gods, and dolls. I think we might want to look at that darned bird...

See, that's the trick of it. The skylark we're discussing isn't a "real" bird. It's something from a poem. And to the extent that most British Romantic poems are about the poet, the poem Kim's alluding to is really about Shelley's beliefs. I think that's actually a part of the irony of Kim's mentioning it. Kim talks about real animals... then uses Shelley's skylark, the skylark described in a poem, the skylark that is- to Shelley- an embodiment of transcendental bliss and joy, to expand upon his point.

(For me, the Shelley allusion was the oddest and funniest part of Kim's argument. I could bore folks to tears with long posts about why this is funny to me... I suppose the short answer is that he's using a metaphoric bird from a Neo-Platonic Romantic poet to prove a point that's essentially materialist, and he's speaking as if the poem argued in favor of his point. He's being hyperironic. He's using a map- the poem- to discuss and describe another map- the quest, our ideals, "transcendence"- of the territory in order to prove that the territory either doesn't exist or is something vastly different from either map. And that he exists in or has knowledge of the real territory. If that makes sense.)

[EDIT: If my point still isn't clear, I'll elaborate, and I'll try to keep the elaboration brief.]
But the common human quest against the evolutionary odds typically doesn't aim towards non-self-consious existance, nor certainly to lack of any kind of consious existance, whatsoever, that the skylarks and the dolls symbolize. Humans have always sought to expand their self-consiousness and aim for what Kim calls godhood. A nihilistic philosopher like Kim is interested in the alternate forms of existance, unlike the bulk of humanity, but not even he is trying to be any of them - he uses the body of a doll, but not to be a doll, himself, but to observe the existance from a supposedly objective non-living point of view, that is inheritly different from what he considers doll-hood to be, either - he still has consiousness, after all and no desire to give it up, despite of considering the concept of Ghost as unimportant.
...
This I very much agree with - he lives in a place of illusions, that aren't even meant to pass for real things. I imagine that he is seeking a some sort of absolute objectivity, which is why the lack of self-consiousness fascinates him. His personal quest is separate from the humanity's, but it isn't entirely different in nature.
...
But the dolls with human Ghosts are no longer real dolls, at all, at least under Kim's definition. I don't think that his quest is related directly in becoming any of those states of being - he wants to be outside all of the definitions he makes of others, not dead or alive, neither doll nor human - there to observe everything from his "objective state" and mock those, who seek to transcend what he percieves as all of existance, "a rift in the uniform weave of the matrix", I think were his words. This is my interpretation, at least.
Sorry, Lightice. I can't disagree with you on any of things. I think we're basically saying the same thing; we're just wording it differently.

:)
Such is the soul in the body: this world is like her little turf of grass, and the heaven o'er our heads, like her looking-glass, only gives us a miserable knowledge of the small compass of our prison. - Bosola, in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi
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Post by GhostLine »

holy posts!
and this isn't even the philosophy section!

i think the ending was supposed to be unsettling,
neither happy nor sad. one would expect a happy ending,
but motoko leaves again, the rescued girl rubs batou the wrong way,
and we end with the dilemma of dolls and dogs--the real mystery
was never solved.[/i]
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Post by Tonks_kittygoth »

Al,

I wasnt disagreeing with your points, just putting in my own 2 cents in my own wording.
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Just as one wants happiness and fears pain, just as
one wants to live and not die, so do other
creatures." - His Holiness The Dalai Lama
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Post by AlphonseVanWorden »

Tonks_kittygoth: I realized that, and I was glad to see you bring Oshii's comments into the discussion. I enjoyed your post a lot, and I thought it was constructive. :)

GhostLine: I liked your post, too. I agree with you that the film's ending is supposed to be unsettling, but I think it's worth considering how that unsettling ending comes into being. Hence the discussion of the Haraway and Kim scenes, and the conversation with the Major.

1.) The film's conclusion has the elements of a happy ending. Batou and the Major bring the Locus Solus operation down- and that's a good thing for the gynoids and the kids. The Major says that she'll always be there for Batou- which is a good thing. Togusa is reunited with his family, and Batou is back with his dog. After the storyline proper ends, the heroes come home. But:
2.) The status-questions- as to what dolls mean in relation to/signify about humans, whether some essential sort of humanity is being lost, etc.- remain unanswered- or the implied answers are none too comforting. After all, the Major says that, from her (post-fusion with Project 2501) position, "happiness" is "a nostalgic value." So:
3.) When we see Togusa's daughter holding the doll- as Togusa holds her, and as Batou holds his dog- we're taken "out of the frame", so to speak, and we recall those earlier scenes, the discussions with Haraway, Kim, and the Major. Therefore:
4.) The scene has certain structural elements one associates with happy endings, but those elements are destabilized by that shot of the doll and by the parallel structure of the Togusa-holding-his-daughter-who's-holding-the-doll and Batou-holding-the dog shots, rendering the scene ambiguous.

I'd also propose that there is something sad about the ending, precisely because of what Haraway's and Kim's comments imply about human behavior, and because Batou and Togusa return to the beings they love- but we don't know how long anything like that will last in the film's universe. "Happiness" is, from a post- or transhuman perspective, a "nostalgic value." (Nostalgia: literally, pain at remembering one's absent homeland; a desire to return home. Commonly, looking backward or to the past; a longing for old-fashioned things. The Major's comment is interesting, given that the film ends with a homecoming, and given the emphasis placed on the earlier scene in which Batou comes home to Gabriel.) "Humanity" and "identity" (note the quotation marks) seem to be moving closer to or along the event horizon, the edge of technological singularity. And the fact that we have to use those quotation marks is pretty troubling, for Batou and Togusa, for Oshii and for a lot of viewers.

But still. The dog is cute, and Togusa's kid is happy. And we're glad Batou and Togusa have returned safely to their loved ones.

In other words, the final scene is happy, sad, and unsettling at the same time. To use a single word, it's ambiguous (in the sense of being open to multiple readings). And those meanings are simultaneously valid.

And it's worthwhile to notice why the rescued girl "rubs Batou the wrong way"... As the Major says, "Blessed are those who have voice." But the gynoids don't have a voice.

EDIT: Man, I'm starting to sound all lit-crit. Time to call it a day. :lol:
Such is the soul in the body: this world is like her little turf of grass, and the heaven o'er our heads, like her looking-glass, only gives us a miserable knowledge of the small compass of our prison. - Bosola, in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi
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Post by GhostLine »

speaking of dolls...
aren't geishas then women
who undergo a tranformation
of becoming a doll?
which came first,
the doll or the desire to make
one when the original copied
failed to meet the need?

i believe the need is control

speaking of dogs...
since gabriel was
a representation of
a man's false memory (in first gits),
who's to say which of
batou's experiences are real?

togusa suffered a brain hacking by kim,
reliving unreal moments as
the poor garbage guy did under
the strings of the puppet master.
kim's living effigy of togusa--
a puppeted creation--a mirror to look in....

we are controlled

controlled by our own DNA?
are we puppeted by our desires
to build up out extensions?
are these extensions biological output?
or are they extensions of our ghost,
like the sword of a samurai?
what does this say about our tools?
tools represent desires. goals.
fashioning something for a purpose.

(perhaps then, our ghosts and biological impulse
vie for control...spiritual vs. fleshly perhaps....)

dolls can perhaps be seen as tools.
to serve a purpose of mastery over ourselves?
a way to look at ourselves in a veil of fantasy?
or maybe the serve as effigies of our frustrations and struggle....
the holocaust of the androids in the northern frontier seemed coupled
with the fire on the hologram dinner party at locus solus.
i always wondered why the flame was unrecognized by the
diners, so they must exist in separate realities or different planes.

just some shots in the dark.
more questions than firm opinions really.
i don't do well with inductive logic--
i just go by intuitive impressions sometimes.
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Post by ])R@G()N »

AlphonseVanWorden wrote:
Suddenly, we cut back to Togusa and Haraway. Togusa says, "Absurd." He then looks towards the camera- just to the side of the frame- and seems disturbed. Another reverse shot- approximating Haraway's point-of-view- and we realize that Togusa is looking at a cluster of android shells. Broken bodies, remarkably human-looking. Haraway continues: "Humans are different from robots. That's an article of faith...It's no more helpful than the basic fact that humans aren't machines."
Just half way through reading your post, i though id make a quick note here while it was on my mind. I have 3 versions of innocence, one with dub and 2 with subtitles, and all 3 have different dialog for this situation. presumeably japanese isnt always directly translateable into english, so they change sentences to make the whole scene make sense, and diff versions have diff translations. But in this scene in particular there are huge differences in the 3 versions, here is the dialog surounding this moment from a subtitled version...

Lab woman: 'there has been a m odel change and we are just adjusting to the new model'

Togusa: 'Is that so..'

Lab Woman: 'down here we forget about whats human and whats machine, when the new model came out it was like bringing new life into the world, have u ever though of using robots?'

(at this point togusa turns away)

Togusa: 'Never'

Lab woman: 'humans and robots are different, although they can distinguish between black and white, they do not know their significance, that is the level of humans..'

Now she makes no mention of robots being abandoned etc in this version, almost all of her dialog is different. when togusa is about to leave, in the english dub he asks her if she is a mother etc, she tells him she isnt. In this subtitled version Togusa appologises for being rude at the begining, she also apologises, she says her comments about childeren were speculative, and she may have gone too far. I do not know which set of events are real, which is a truer respresentation of the scene. In the dub i think she is a forenzic examiner for the police, in the subtitled version she acutally works for the company that make the dolls, so who she is in the plot, who the man downstairs who kicks the bin and infact the whole building are totally different in the dub to the subtitled versions of the film. Makes u wonder how much of gitS u can really understand fully without speaking japanese. some of the english dialog doesnt make sense, she seems to imply Batou shot the robot with a shotgun, when that was not what we saw at the begining, the subtitled version doesnt do this, instead she just says the robot 'was' shot with it, she doesnt imply it was Batou.
])R@G()N
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Post by ])R@G()N »

Ok in answer to the first post, I think it was mainly a happy ending, but the doll reminded us that the questions and theories braught up by the film continue to effect the world, even if Batou has found some level of peace. An interview with Oshii he said he likes being around his dog because it reminds him he is just a human being, and that is a very relaxing feeling to him. i think most of the issues in this film are to do with our perspective on the world, what values we give to things we concive in our lives, like people, places, ourselves etc. It looks at the way we percieve things and they way it is all relative, part of our definition of ourselves is in how we differ from other things, we partly define things by notcing how they are distincly 'other' from something else. so in absence of other life forms, it is easy to lose perspective of yourself as a human being. I think what Oshii was trying to say is his dog gives him a sense of himself in the bigger picture, and in realising what a small part he plays it alows him to gain perspective on his lifes problems and how trivial the idea of 'society' and the preasure it puts on us is. I think this was what was shown, Batou with his dog, Togusa with his daughter, they both find the place in life and hence their grip on 'reality' with their relationships with them, they give purpose and meaning to their lives, they are part of the home in their hearts. So to me the ending is a mostly happy one, or at least one of contentment with the state of things, it feels relaxed to me at any rate, like the buddist elephant.

also by actually seeing Batou with togusa and his daughter I supose to some extent expels the idea that maybe Togusa actually lives alone and is just a ghosthacked nobody, a theory Batou threw up after they escaped from kims maze. Although maybe both the daughter and togusa are both figments of a false reality Batou is in, like Batou said in the first film, when u start doubting there's no end to it :D .
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Lightice
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Post by Lightice »

])R@G()N wrote: Now she makes no mention of robots being abandoned etc in this version, almost all of her dialog is different. when togusa is about to leave, in the english dub he asks her if she is a mother etc, she tells him she isnt. In this subtitled version Togusa appologises for being rude at the begining, she also apologises, she says her comments about childeren were speculative, and she may have gone too far. I do not know which set of events are real, which is a truer respresentation of the scene.


That is downright bizzare. Almost always the subtitles are more accurate representation of the dialogue, but if the British version's subs are indeed like you've described, they've messed up the dialogue very badly. My understanding of Japanese is rudimentary, but I still understand well enough to know that Ms. Haraway was talking about robots being abandoned and the presumption that humans are not machines. The British subs, if they indeed have this kind of dialogue, make tremendously little sense. Then again, I've noted some hideous errors in British subs, before, so it unfortunately isn't entirely unbelievable. A real pity, since I taught about replacing my versions of GitS and Innocence with the British double pack that contains both of them...So much for that, I guess...
Hei! Aa-Shanta 'Nygh!
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