Green Apples?
Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2010 3:16 pm
Theres something that I've kind of been wondering about for a while. In the last episode of Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd GIG, after the Major asks Kuze if he can fold paper cranes with his left arm and he pretty much avoids answering the question, they start talking about loneliness and destitution. Then, Major hands him an apple while he simontaneously hands her an apple and they embrace each other. So what exactly did the apple symbolize? And what did biting into the apple symbolize? It obviously had some form of symptomatic significance but I don't know what. And the meaning behind the apple and biting into the apple seemed to gain importance while everyone was in the helicopter, because just as Major realized Kuze was the kid that got into the plane crash with her as a child, Kuze is shown with the apple still clutched in his hand with a bite taken out of it, whereas Motoko never bit her apple because thats when Batou found her and Kuze.
Someone posted somewhere that they may have been eating the apples because it was the last thing they'd be able to "taste" before they uploaded their ghosts onto the internet, but I thought that the tongues made for cyborgs were made so that they could only pick up tastes from food that was made specially for cyborgs(?) Apples have been said to represent love and temptation, so that might be something to consider. They can also show immortality as well as the cycle of life, death and rebirth, which would definately make sense in context of the episode. Or maybe it was a reference to a painting called "Two Young Men". (In the painting, there's a man handing a green apple to another man. A lot of people who viewed the painting proposed the idea that the apple was a representation of an old Latin phrase that translates into "Remember, you must die.")
Personally, I thought the most probable explanation was that the apple came from the old tales where apples were "the World Tree" and had the ability to open doors to the Faery Realms. After all, they wanted to peregrinate into the net-or "Faery Realm". Perhaps Kuze biting into the apple showed that he still intended to upload himself into the net? He probably would have if he wasn't killed. Then again that wouldn't really match up with the rest of the scene when you think about it. A symbol for the desire to live in another world and the Major realizing that Kuze was the person from the plane crash don't connect somehow. So maybe the apple was a representation of emotions in some way, shape or form. What do you guys think? Is it a reference? Or does the meaning go deeper than that, in the sense that the apples were symbols created specifically for this show, this episode, this scene, and these characters and their emotions?
(P.S: Haha this is my first post, so I hope I didn't make myself look like too much of an idiot. )
Someone posted somewhere that they may have been eating the apples because it was the last thing they'd be able to "taste" before they uploaded their ghosts onto the internet, but I thought that the tongues made for cyborgs were made so that they could only pick up tastes from food that was made specially for cyborgs(?) Apples have been said to represent love and temptation, so that might be something to consider. They can also show immortality as well as the cycle of life, death and rebirth, which would definately make sense in context of the episode. Or maybe it was a reference to a painting called "Two Young Men". (In the painting, there's a man handing a green apple to another man. A lot of people who viewed the painting proposed the idea that the apple was a representation of an old Latin phrase that translates into "Remember, you must die.")
Personally, I thought the most probable explanation was that the apple came from the old tales where apples were "the World Tree" and had the ability to open doors to the Faery Realms. After all, they wanted to peregrinate into the net-or "Faery Realm". Perhaps Kuze biting into the apple showed that he still intended to upload himself into the net? He probably would have if he wasn't killed. Then again that wouldn't really match up with the rest of the scene when you think about it. A symbol for the desire to live in another world and the Major realizing that Kuze was the person from the plane crash don't connect somehow. So maybe the apple was a representation of emotions in some way, shape or form. What do you guys think? Is it a reference? Or does the meaning go deeper than that, in the sense that the apples were symbols created specifically for this show, this episode, this scene, and these characters and their emotions?
(P.S: Haha this is my first post, so I hope I didn't make myself look like too much of an idiot. )