After reading your thoughts on Soul Eater anime, it made me think of a book I'm reading right now. The book is called The Botany of Desire, and though it's a book on well, botany, the author discusses human's desire for control over nature being expressed through the manipulation of plants. The classical idea of Apollonian order over Dionysian wildness is something civilization promotes (at least in Western tradition), but the author argues that Dionysian elements of nature are also needed to introduce novel genes into plants or the plant lack the diversity to fight diseases and pests. In a way I think courage is our control over the primitive, instinctive reaction of fear. Flight-or-fight is such a strong built-in reaction that people controlled it with courage and logic.
Maka won against Asura with courage, calm Apollonian bravery won against brash Dionysian instincts. Yet interestingly within the series Maka was able to harness the power of madness and fear to make herself without loosing herself to it. She's reached a balance between the two forces, recognizing the power of one without abandoning herself.
...I felt like I just gave a dissertation. >> But anyway, I think some of your unanswered concerns will be addressed if you read the manga. The anime had to wrap up the fight with Asura while the manga has a heck of a lot more twists and we're no where near defeating Asura.
So courage from your stance is something that stands under order, and is right alongside logic in that sense?
If so, I wonder about that...the show made a point of noting that Maka still standing up after basically being shown that it was impossible to win in all rationality, with all the odds against her, and yet she still stood up and with all the little power she had still went towards the danger. "Could it be that you're...an idiot?" was Asura's quote in response to that. And the show makes no move to counter that statement, in effect even encouraging it with its connection to all the previous times that Maka fought and did something that even Soul called "totally stupid, but wickedly cool".
In that way, courage can be said to be the *opposite* of logic, in fact flying in the face of it. Rationality can actually side with fear when things really hit the fan, and that's what the dire situation at the end seems to imply.
Thus going back to the last statement of Asura that stuck in my head, "Then it's just like insanity" (funny that I find the words of the villain so much more gripping than any of the protagonists XD;;) -- I wonder if courage is actually another form of insanity: but, instead of a mind-destructive force, it is directed in a way that supports the mind and soul, beyond what is reality and what is certain (which is what Asura set himself upon for his strength and power) to what seems unreal and unlikely by any rational standard.
I think when I have time I will indeed check out the manga. It really does seem like just like you said, that they had to wrap up the anime in that time even when the original story didn't mean to, and I hadn't even read any of the manga to suspect that.
I think it depends on the situation. If it's between panicking and lashing out wildly then courage would stand on the side of logic where it would benefit you to remain calm and clear-minded. If however, in Maka's situation where the situation was impossible, logic says to go against Asura is foolish courage then becomes the force of madness. So courage is curiously enough something that swings both in the way of madness and logic.
Maka won against Asura with courage, calm Apollonian bravery won against brash Dionysian instincts. Yet interestingly within the series Maka was able to harness the power of madness and fear to make herself without loosing herself to it. She's reached a balance between the two forces, recognizing the power of one without abandoning herself.
...I felt like I just gave a dissertation. >> But anyway, I think some of your unanswered concerns will be addressed if you read the manga. The anime had to wrap up the fight with Asura while the manga has a heck of a lot more twists and we're no where near defeating Asura.
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If so, I wonder about that...the show made a point of noting that Maka still standing up after basically being shown that it was impossible to win in all rationality, with all the odds against her, and yet she still stood up and with all the little power she had still went towards the danger. "Could it be that you're...an idiot?" was Asura's quote in response to that. And the show makes no move to counter that statement, in effect even encouraging it with its connection to all the previous times that Maka fought and did something that even Soul called "totally stupid, but wickedly cool".
In that way, courage can be said to be the *opposite* of logic, in fact flying in the face of it. Rationality can actually side with fear when things really hit the fan, and that's what the dire situation at the end seems to imply.
Thus going back to the last statement of Asura that stuck in my head, "Then it's just like insanity" (funny that I find the words of the villain so much more gripping than any of the protagonists XD;;) -- I wonder if courage is actually another form of insanity: but, instead of a mind-destructive force, it is directed in a way that supports the mind and soul, beyond what is reality and what is certain (which is what Asura set himself upon for his strength and power) to what seems unreal and unlikely by any rational standard.
I think when I have time I will indeed check out the manga. It really does seem like just like you said, that they had to wrap up the anime in that time even when the original story didn't mean to, and I hadn't even read any of the manga to suspect that.
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