Allegory of an Allegory - Final Draft
I actually finished it on Friday, but was at my aunt's over the weekend. It's been printed, as have the pictures my teacher asked for to use as a reference (he shouldn't have too much trouble comprehending; I annotated the hell out of those pictures without being so in-depth that it would confuse him ^-^). Good thing, since I turn it in tomorrow.
Allegory of an Allegory
Who says cartoons rot the mind? Perhaps the guilty party just has a bland mind unwilling to seek out contemporary mediums of knowledge. I have watched many cartoons in my time and from them I have learned much and/or correlated information with that learnt elsewhere: mythology, religion, governmental conspiracy, chemistry, drugs, music; and that’s just the abridged list. Now I may add (or supplement?) philosophy to the list. I offer an allegory for an Allegory. In the anime Yu Yu Hakusho, the Chapter Black Saga is reminiscent of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. One of the Saga’s themes is disillusionment and truth, and the consequence of an improper ascent to the truth.
In the Allegory of the Cave, the cave itself represents our tangible world, in which people dwell veiled with darkness and its falsehoods. The people do not realize this, and remain content. Plato claims that some may become free of this delusion by ascending from the cave and gazing upon the light of the sun, Plato’s metaphor for truth. While describing this, our philosopher stresses that the ascent is a process with different stages, the sun being the last of them. “Not all in a moment” (from The Republic, 1112), Plato admonishes. Do not rush.
Allow me a digression to explain our more modern piece, since some will be unfamiliar with it. Yu Yu Hakusho centers on the adventures of Yusuke Urameshi, a juvenile delinquent who in the first episode dies by throwing himself in front of a car to save a child. The Prince of Death revives him, and he becomes the Spirit World’s errand boy. Said errands always entangle him in the affairs of humans and apparitions, two groups which often clash. Despite this acrimony between the species, Yusuke acquires friend and foes on both sides.
In the Chapter Black Saga, Yusuke and his allies must confront his predecessor, Shinobu Sensui. During Sensui’s career with the Spirit World he harbored a black and white view of the world. Humans are good; protect them. Apparitions are bad; destroy them. No questions asked, and he was content.
At some point Sensui discovers that he has an admirer from afar, Itsuki-an apparition. He proceeds to execute Itsuki, but first asks if the apparition has any final requests. In answer: to live one more day, in order to see the finale of a favorite television series. Coincidentally, Sensui watches the same show. Such a human request from a non-human amuses him, and he allows Itsuki to live. After this the two work together and begin a relationship. Sensui’s principles adjust slightly to accommodate the notion that a few apparitions are good, like humans.
Plato asserts in the Allegory that the ascent is a process; the one ascending “will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world [reality]” (1112). If the sun represents truth, consider Itsuki as the dawn. But Plato also warns that if a person is forced unprepared into the light, they shall become overwhelmed. Itsuki predicts that Sensui’s black and white mindset will be what breaks him.
One night the pair infiltrates the compound of the Black Black Club, a group of rich and powerful humans who fill their leisure time with outlandish activities. As Sensui bursts through the compound’s doors, he gazes upon a spectacle that scrambles his previous beliefs. Humans, his archetype for goodness and purity, are torturing apparitions and bathing in their blood, for sport. The atrocity contradicts everything that Sensui had thought so violently that he slaughters every human in sight. After this incident he becomes obsessed with an artifact in the Spirit World known as the Chapter Black tape, a document of humankind’s crimes against each other and against apparitions. His mentality does not recover; in time, Sensui, Itsuki, and the tape disappear.
After the ascent, Plato says that the person is obligated to return to the cave and minister the truth to others. But if the person did not properly ascend, their “eyes will be dazzled, and [they] will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities” (1112). What, then, if such a person returns to the world?
By the present time of the Chapter Black Saga, Sensui has gone mad from the events described previously. While trying to cope with this and the aftermath, he develops multiple personalities to adapt to different experiences, until there are seven Sensuis presently. He has also formulated a solution to the conflict spurred by the Black Black Club: humans are corrupt and evil; wipe them out. He gathers to him five human psychics, ostracized by and/or disillusioned with their fellow humans, and indoctrinates into them the truth as he has warped it. With these human tools and the ever-loyal Itsuki, Sensui founds the Seven, a cult anticipating an apocalypse in which apparitions may roam freely amongst humankind and devour it if they wish. Sensui commands this plot from the site where the apparitions will be released, the Seven’s headquarters, Demon’s Door Cave. Instead of leading others into the sun, Sensui places them in a new, literal cave. If the sun is truth, then Sensui’s retinas were scorched.
Sensui never had the opportunity to adjust to his own violent revelations. He became disoriented like a person in a dark room when suddenly the light flips on. Yusuke, on the other hand, made discoveries of the nature of humans and apparitions bit by bit, a gradual ascent as deemed proper in the Allegory. Thus, he can act against apparition and/or human for the benefit of apparition and/or human without experiencing a meltdown. He and his friends (human and apparition) even rescue a couple of the Seven’s psychics from its skewed ideologies, and they are able to lead well-adjusted lives afterward.
Near the Saga’s end it is revealed that Yusuke possesses an apparition ancestor. After he defeats Sensui, Itsuki remarks that it was “the cathartic jolt he [Sensui] needed to resolve his inner turmoil and pay off his guilt. He finally conquered those six personalities and emerged as Shinobu, his original, untainted self” (episode 93: “Sensui’s End”). Only exception being that the whole Sensui no longer holds his black and white views, and is optimistic about a future where the boundaries between humans and apparitions have collapsed. His defeat by Yusuke is fatal (though Itsuki reveals that Sensui had a terminal illness that he would have soon died from anyway). Before he dies, he calls Yusuke “the justice I could never find” and designates him as the vessel through which “[g]reat changes will come” (episode 93). Yusuke fulfills this prediction; by the time of the series’ completion, he has participated in several significant events that lead to smoother relations between the species.
So, there-an improper ascent leads to madness. A proper ascent heals. The basics of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, with some other themes such as xenophobia and redemption, portrayed using colorful, two-dimensional drawings set into motion. Not bad for the oh-so-lowly cartoon, no?
Works Cited
Plato. From The Republic. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. In Paul Davis, ed. The Bedford Anthology of World Literature: The Ancient World, Beginnings - 100 C.E. Book I. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004. 1111-1116
Yu Yu Hakusho. Fuji Television, Yomiko Advertising, and Studio Pierrot (Japan). FUNimation (North America). Chapter Black Saga: episodes 64-94
Allegory of an Allegory
Who says cartoons rot the mind? Perhaps the guilty party just has a bland mind unwilling to seek out contemporary mediums of knowledge. I have watched many cartoons in my time and from them I have learned much and/or correlated information with that learnt elsewhere: mythology, religion, governmental conspiracy, chemistry, drugs, music; and that’s just the abridged list. Now I may add (or supplement?) philosophy to the list. I offer an allegory for an Allegory. In the anime Yu Yu Hakusho, the Chapter Black Saga is reminiscent of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. One of the Saga’s themes is disillusionment and truth, and the consequence of an improper ascent to the truth.
In the Allegory of the Cave, the cave itself represents our tangible world, in which people dwell veiled with darkness and its falsehoods. The people do not realize this, and remain content. Plato claims that some may become free of this delusion by ascending from the cave and gazing upon the light of the sun, Plato’s metaphor for truth. While describing this, our philosopher stresses that the ascent is a process with different stages, the sun being the last of them. “Not all in a moment” (from The Republic, 1112), Plato admonishes. Do not rush.
Allow me a digression to explain our more modern piece, since some will be unfamiliar with it. Yu Yu Hakusho centers on the adventures of Yusuke Urameshi, a juvenile delinquent who in the first episode dies by throwing himself in front of a car to save a child. The Prince of Death revives him, and he becomes the Spirit World’s errand boy. Said errands always entangle him in the affairs of humans and apparitions, two groups which often clash. Despite this acrimony between the species, Yusuke acquires friend and foes on both sides.
In the Chapter Black Saga, Yusuke and his allies must confront his predecessor, Shinobu Sensui. During Sensui’s career with the Spirit World he harbored a black and white view of the world. Humans are good; protect them. Apparitions are bad; destroy them. No questions asked, and he was content.
At some point Sensui discovers that he has an admirer from afar, Itsuki-an apparition. He proceeds to execute Itsuki, but first asks if the apparition has any final requests. In answer: to live one more day, in order to see the finale of a favorite television series. Coincidentally, Sensui watches the same show. Such a human request from a non-human amuses him, and he allows Itsuki to live. After this the two work together and begin a relationship. Sensui’s principles adjust slightly to accommodate the notion that a few apparitions are good, like humans.
Plato asserts in the Allegory that the ascent is a process; the one ascending “will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world [reality]” (1112). If the sun represents truth, consider Itsuki as the dawn. But Plato also warns that if a person is forced unprepared into the light, they shall become overwhelmed. Itsuki predicts that Sensui’s black and white mindset will be what breaks him.
One night the pair infiltrates the compound of the Black Black Club, a group of rich and powerful humans who fill their leisure time with outlandish activities. As Sensui bursts through the compound’s doors, he gazes upon a spectacle that scrambles his previous beliefs. Humans, his archetype for goodness and purity, are torturing apparitions and bathing in their blood, for sport. The atrocity contradicts everything that Sensui had thought so violently that he slaughters every human in sight. After this incident he becomes obsessed with an artifact in the Spirit World known as the Chapter Black tape, a document of humankind’s crimes against each other and against apparitions. His mentality does not recover; in time, Sensui, Itsuki, and the tape disappear.
After the ascent, Plato says that the person is obligated to return to the cave and minister the truth to others. But if the person did not properly ascend, their “eyes will be dazzled, and [they] will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities” (1112). What, then, if such a person returns to the world?
By the present time of the Chapter Black Saga, Sensui has gone mad from the events described previously. While trying to cope with this and the aftermath, he develops multiple personalities to adapt to different experiences, until there are seven Sensuis presently. He has also formulated a solution to the conflict spurred by the Black Black Club: humans are corrupt and evil; wipe them out. He gathers to him five human psychics, ostracized by and/or disillusioned with their fellow humans, and indoctrinates into them the truth as he has warped it. With these human tools and the ever-loyal Itsuki, Sensui founds the Seven, a cult anticipating an apocalypse in which apparitions may roam freely amongst humankind and devour it if they wish. Sensui commands this plot from the site where the apparitions will be released, the Seven’s headquarters, Demon’s Door Cave. Instead of leading others into the sun, Sensui places them in a new, literal cave. If the sun is truth, then Sensui’s retinas were scorched.
Sensui never had the opportunity to adjust to his own violent revelations. He became disoriented like a person in a dark room when suddenly the light flips on. Yusuke, on the other hand, made discoveries of the nature of humans and apparitions bit by bit, a gradual ascent as deemed proper in the Allegory. Thus, he can act against apparition and/or human for the benefit of apparition and/or human without experiencing a meltdown. He and his friends (human and apparition) even rescue a couple of the Seven’s psychics from its skewed ideologies, and they are able to lead well-adjusted lives afterward.
Near the Saga’s end it is revealed that Yusuke possesses an apparition ancestor. After he defeats Sensui, Itsuki remarks that it was “the cathartic jolt he [Sensui] needed to resolve his inner turmoil and pay off his guilt. He finally conquered those six personalities and emerged as Shinobu, his original, untainted self” (episode 93: “Sensui’s End”). Only exception being that the whole Sensui no longer holds his black and white views, and is optimistic about a future where the boundaries between humans and apparitions have collapsed. His defeat by Yusuke is fatal (though Itsuki reveals that Sensui had a terminal illness that he would have soon died from anyway). Before he dies, he calls Yusuke “the justice I could never find” and designates him as the vessel through which “[g]reat changes will come” (episode 93). Yusuke fulfills this prediction; by the time of the series’ completion, he has participated in several significant events that lead to smoother relations between the species.
So, there-an improper ascent leads to madness. A proper ascent heals. The basics of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, with some other themes such as xenophobia and redemption, portrayed using colorful, two-dimensional drawings set into motion. Not bad for the oh-so-lowly cartoon, no?
Works Cited
Plato. From The Republic. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. In Paul Davis, ed. The Bedford Anthology of World Literature: The Ancient World, Beginnings - 100 C.E. Book I. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004. 1111-1116
Yu Yu Hakusho. Fuji Television, Yomiko Advertising, and Studio Pierrot (Japan). FUNimation (North America). Chapter Black Saga: episodes 64-94