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  • Severance IB Analysis

    By John Ferrandino

    Characters: Mark Scout, Helly R, Irving, Dylan, Casey, Burt, Milchick, and Harmony Cobel

    Plot: Lumen is a multinational biotech corporation that puts their employees into a surgical procedure known as severance. A chip is planted that splits the brain’s consciousness into an outie, non-work mind, and an innie, work mind. Same person, but the two minds have no memory of each other. Mark, Irving, Dylan, and newcomer Helly are severed workers of the macro data refinement. Organizing numbers to go into the trash. They have lives outside of the severed floor, but work is the only life they know.

    Inspirations: Plato’s The Cave, Mormonism, technocracy, Ford’s assembly line, cult of corporation; Amazon, Disney, Apple, and Ford Motors, 60’s sci-fi aesthetic, Junji Ito levels of surreal horror, occultism, and fascism

    Plato’s The Cave is a allegorical passage in Plato’s Republic about a group of prisoners chained to the inner wall of a cave. On the other side of the wall are their captor’s cooking fire, casting shadows on the outer cave wall in front of the prisoners, which they never see the source of, so they think its real. The severed workers know they are shadows, imitations of a real thing.

    Plato’s cave

    The Lumen corporation is owned by the Egan family, who portray themselves as prophets, leaving behind volumes of rules that are treated as sacred texts by the innies. It gives methodical work instructions and encourage Egan reverance.

    This organization and its proselytizing doctrine is most similar to Mormonism, which is prevalent in the Pacific Northwest, where the show most likely takes place. The Egans are of Scandinavian descent, which possibly gives them a connection to 19th century esoteric occultism popular in Germany and spread to Scandinavia along with fascism. Lumen practices animal sacrifice similar to Nordic rituals that esoteric occultists from Scandinavia revived for nationalist ideology. Another similarity between Lumen and Germanic esoteric occultism is eugenics. As of season two, Casey, Mark’s wife is the subject of some sort of breeding program by Lumen to create multiple innie personas in one outie body.

    A cult of corporation is where the head of a company is seen with reverence and dissent of opinion is put down. Real life examples include Amazon, Disney, Apple, and Ford Motor.

    Junji Ito is a horror mangaka, who brings out the horror in the surreal and uses labyrinth jump scares, similar to the labyrinth architecture of the severed floor and the opening titles are similar to Junji Ito imagery, specifically the balloon heads.

    Severance is not horror, because its tone is a cooky, psychological thriller. Some scenes feel right of Monty Python, while others look like The Office if directed by Stanley Kubrick or Ridley Scott.

    Severance costume designer Sarah Edwards interview on the goats

    Motifs: Labyrinth architecture like a maze, socialist realism propaganda, melons, numbers, the color white, black paint, office, goats, doors, and sterility.

    The severed floor are built underground, no windows, and connected by only elevator, which is where the severance transfer happens. The outie and innie transfer in the elevator is filmed like waking up. The innie and outie are made to be two different people. When its the innie’s pov, their exit from the severed floor is a blackout, their next conscious moment is them waking up and stepping out of the elevator to begin work.

    MDR refines numbers, which turn out to be out consciousness bleeding into the innie’s consciousness. Lumen’s goal is to reduce the post-op freak out of a innie beginning life in a waiting room. The severance is activated by remote signal at Lumen, which switches the consciousness in the elevator.

    There are very few amenities on the severed floor, only company provided food is consumed and rewards are the same for everyone, a melon party, waffle party, or office supplies. This keeps the severed floor in control, because if the rewards are known and small scale, this prevents ambition that can challenge management. The only decorations are provided by the optics and design department, which are oil paintings which serve to revere Kier Egan and keep the departments divided by creating false history of violence between them.

    Irving sees black paint floods, which is his outie’s consciousness. Black is free because it is all of the colors combined, diverse memories and free choice, covers up the white of Lumen office space, which is sterile and controlled. The floor manager, Cobel, has white hair, the halls are white, and the outside is always snowy, so the audience, like the severed, associate white with Lumen. Irving’s outie is always painting a black hallway with a red light over a door. This is revealed to be the exports hall, which leads to the lab where the innie consciousness is manufactured. The snow makes the location vague, so that the story can apply anywhere. Unofficially, Cobel keeps surveillance on Mark by disguising herself as his neighbor.

    The goats are used as sacrifices to Kier Egan when a new innie persona is created.

    If the MDR department’s purpose is to refine data that represents the outie’s consciousness, then the numbers that they dispose of are memories. The orientation of new innies explains that MDR filters out numbers that appear ‘disturbing’, makes the innie worker feel negative. These filtered numbers could be the parts of the brain that deal with memory. It would explain how these numbers create a new innie persona. These numbers are neurological data of neural cells in the brain, or a copy of the outie’s brain, edited through MDR to create the innie’s brain.

    Macro data refinement

    Conflicts: challenges to individualism, control culture, nurture vs nature, nurture vs nurture, cultish dogma, identity, surveillance, behaviorism, abnormal psychology, isolation, and depression

    The innie’s first moments are of no control. They don’t know who they are and their outie leaves a recording that they are there voluntarily. The innie can request resignation, but its up to the outie to accept resignation. The innies have no consent on their life, never have seen a sun, never took a nap, never been outside, only are conscious for less than 12 hours, and have no contact besides their co-workers in their department. Being fired is equal to suicide. Effectively slaves.

    Its confirmed that most volunteer severed workers separate their consciousness in order to avoid trauma. Mark chooses severance in order to work without thinking about his dead wife. Helly on the other hand is the most ironic, being a propaganda piece for Lumen in order to make severance more widespread. Her outie is Helena Egan, a top Lumen executive. Both have free will, same body, but Helly is against her existence and Lumen, while Helena wants to further its goals.

    Resistance to Lumen comes from Irving’s outie, who is a solo investigator into Lumen, Burt, who helps Irving escape from Lumen, and an organization that surgically integrates the innie and outie consciousness. When Mark is integrated, he uses phone recordings to communicate with his innie and the two of them have different goals, outie Mark wants to rescue his wife Casey, while innie Mark wants to rescue Helly.

    Dylan’s innie has an affair with his outie’s wife, if that can make sense.

    The innie and outie are effectively a case of doppelgänger syndrome. A new soul free of sin after a baptism. An entirely separate person. The shadows in Plato’s cave that know they are shadows.

    While the innie’s show reverence to Kier Egan, non-severed employees such as Milchick and Cobel behave like they’re in a cult. When Cobel is fired, her meltdown is that in vein with a conflict of faith, destroying her Egan alter and deciding to help Mark rescue his wife.

    This cult mentality is seen at Amazon, Apple, and Disney, where different opinions are shut down and the ceos are the absolute authority.

    “They give us half a life and think we won’t fight for it.”

    “If you want a hug, go to hell and find your mother.”

    “The best way to tame a prisoner is to let him believe he is free.”

    “Quitting would effectively end your life.”

    Themes: Marxism, cult’s preservation of power, authoritarianism, the desire for freedom, exploitation, treating human consciousness like its a computer program, identity is determined by memory, running from grief, repressed memories and emotions, and illusion of choice.

    First scene: Helly wakes up as an innie

    Two season out so far, expect more.

  • Jujistu Kaisen IB Analysis

    By John Ferrandino

    Characters: Yuji Itadori, Satoru Gojo, Ryomen Sukuna, Megumi Fushiguro, Yuta Okokstu, Nobara Kugisaki, Maki Zenin, Suguru Geto, Mahito, Toji Fushiguro, Kento Nanami, Choso, Yuki Tsukumo, Naoya Zenin, and Kenjaku

    Plot: Cursed energy is the negative emotions of humans. They accumulate to form cursed spirits that feed on humans. Jujistu sorcerers defend Japan from these cursed spirits, manipulating cursed energy into cursed techniques. A boy named Yuji Itadori comes into possession of a cursed object, a mummified finger of the King of Curses, Ryomen Sukuna. He eats it in order to defend his friends, and becomes a vessel for Sukuna. He becomes a student for the most powerful sorcerer, Satoru Gojo. Itadori will eat all twenty finger in order to be executed and destroy Sukuna’s soul. Meanwhile, a cursed spirit possessing the corpse of Suguru Geto, named Kenjaku, prepares for the sealing of Gojo, in order to commence the culling games, a cleansing of humanity for a golden age of cursed spirits.

    Inspirations: Nihon Shoki, Buddhist mudras, western cinema, rationalism, Japanese urban legends, Shintoism, Hinduism, Bleach and other supernatural manga classics, nihilism, altruism, statistics, calculus, probability, and game theory

    Makin killing the Zenin clan is a remake of the final fight in Kill Bill

    Ryomen Sukuna was a real historical mythological figure from the modern day Gifu prefecture, dating back to the Nara period and previous eras. Japans early historical records mixed history and mythology in order for divine legitimacy to be applied to the emperor. The emperor was of the lineage of Amaturastu, the queen of heaven and the sun, so any rebellious lord would be casted as a demon. Thus the lord of Gifu (then known as Hida), Ryomen Sukuna, was recorded as a demonic tyrant in the Nihon Shoki, but in local texts is a robin hood figure, fighting against court corruption. This figure is described as having two faces and four arms. A more recent source of Sukuna is an urban legend of a cursed mummified baby with multiple limbs. It was mummified because it was a conjoined twin, and became the object of worship for a cult. This is the basis for Sukuna’s fingers and his main body being mistaken for a mummified Buddha.

    Nihon Shoki
    Heian era form in JJK

    This society of the Jujistu world is a continuation of feudal Japan; patriarchal, rural, and power centered around hereditary clans and the warriors that served them. Yuta Okokstu, one of Gojo’s students, is a descenant of the real life Fujiwara clan which ruled both Japan and the jujistu world during the Heian period.

    Shintoism and Buddhism are the biggest faiths in Japan and in JJK, are the basis behind Itadori’s siblings, the Death Womb Paintings, Fushiguro’s shadow shikigami, various cursed spirits, and the hand signs for domain expansions, based on Buddhist mudras.

    A common motif in most manga and anime os the power system, and the way cursed energy combat works is game theory. The success of your move is based on the move of your opponent. Cursed energy in a fight finite, so measuring cursed energy in a fight can be measured with algebra. Gojo’s infinity technique is a real life application of infinite division. On a graph, a non-linear equation was an asymptote of zero has the line never approach zero. Whatever the value is for ‘x’, will never touch zero.. This is how Gojo’s technique works by constantly dividing the space around him. An attack cannot touch him. There is a peer-reviewd Oxford paper explaining Gojo’s infinity.

    Sabiq, Achmad. Mathematics Behind Jujutsu Kaisen: Gojo Satoru’s Infinity. https://tomrocksmaths.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/achmad-roykhan-sabiq_essay_competition_2026-achmad-roykhan-sabiq.pdf. Accessed 1 Aug. 2026.

    The fights in JJK are some of the most rational, analytical, and empirical of the medium. Gege Akutami citesBleach and Hunter X Hunter as the basis for the power system of JJK.

    Motifs: Dualism, biological and spiritual horror, “cog ” identity, outcasts, souls, game theory, Buddhist mudras, mathematics, Buddhist symbolism, shrines, and scars

    The pacing og the manga and anime is fast paced and plot driven. There is no fan service or plot armor and the narration is in third person, post mission report and feels like a history book. This is a tribute to the origins of the main villain, Ryomen Sukuna, from the Nihon Shoki, a historical text. This allows for battle analysis narration, multiple pov’s, game theory comparisons, and character expositions. The wide narrative and national and global stakes can put this in the genre of historical epic. It can also be classified as horror; with eerie atmospheric music, muted color, gore, supernatural creatures, nilhism, depression, and frightening imagery.

    In the anime opening for the Hidden Inventory arc, a white and black fish represent Gojo and Geto respectively, showing their drifting apart in morality. The species of the fish are known for their bitter fighting.

    Lineage is a major factor in the power system. Cursed techniques are inherited and Yuji is a product of Kenjaku’s eugenics project lasting for a millennia. Twins share a soul, so the cursed energy is split. The twins Maki and Mai Zenin have their abilities hindered by sharing a soul. Maki’s heavenly restriction is not fully evolved and Mai’s cursed energy output is reduced to obsolete during a fight. Its only when Mai is killed that Maki reaches her full potential.

    Sukuna is another twin example. His mother was under extreme malnutrition, so while in the womb, he absorbed his twin, resulting in him having vast amounts of cursed energy. He was born with four arms, bone fragments poking out his head, two eyes on the right side of his face, and a massive mouth on his stomach, giving him a advantage in casting cursed techniques, but his demonic appearance resulted in fear and hatred from everyone, turning him into a cursed spirit. Sukuna’s birth has precedent in conjoined twin cases, and his signature full torso tattoos are marks given to criminals in feudal Japan.

    The Sukuna from the Nihon Shoki and urban legends might have been based on a real life figure who was a conjoined twin and his tale was embellished with demonic origin by the time of the Nara period. He is a Frankenstein’s Monster of a man who could not find love, so he inspired fear. He sees humans as cattle to amuse him, shown with his innate domain containing piles of human skulls mixed with ox skulls. Itadori’s grandfather is a reincarnation of Sukuna’s twin, making Yuji his grand nephew. Sukuna only rose after his twin’s passing.

    As Yuji continues to fight, his scars start to resemble Sukuna’s facial tattoos, and he becomes more powerful than him and Gojo, making him the replacement cog for Sukuna’s and Gojo’s niche. Markings like a tiger.

    Conflicts: Cynicism vs altruism, hedonis, sexism, ideological shock, loss of individualism, game theory, burnout, natural selection and homeostasis, sonservatism vs progressivism, trauma, survivors guilt, and soul vs matter

    The conflict starts with Kenjaku’s scientific curiosity with the limits of humans and cursed spirits. He makes binding vows with ancient sorcereres to participate in the culling games, including Sukuna, in order to weed for the most powerful cursed energy users for a curse filled world.

    Satoru ojo and Suguru Geto were the strongest and the ideological light of the jujistu world. Then on the star plasma mission to protect Riko Amanai, she is killed by Toji Fushiguro, hired by regular humans Gojo and Geto had sworn to protect. After a classmate, Yu Haibara, was killed, and Geto rescued two girls being abused for being sorcerers, Geto adopted a new ideology of killing all sources of currsed spirits, humans, who would never know of them and their regular lives are no better, being directed by the elders and major clans, who are misogynistic, greedy, arrogant, and uncaring for the weak. This environment produced Sukuna and Toji Fushiguro. Toji was a exiled Zenin, one of the three major clans, a misogynistic and abusive family for non-curse users, the Heavenly Restricted. Toji saw himself as disposable and became a mercenary.

    Kento Nanami, another friend of Gojo and Geto, leaves jujistu society due to Haibara’s death, and doesn’t blame Geto for his change. Mentoring Yuji reminds him of why he became a sorcerer. Yuji shares the altruism of Gojo and Geto, but his manifests as self-sacrificing for others.

    The higher ups purposely send him on a mission to kill him, just for Sukuna to resurrect him. Yuji’s goal is to save people in orderr for them to die a natural death and to be surronded by friends on his deathbed. But he is Kenjaku’s son, and Sukuna’s vessel, so his fate was determined before he was born. While Sukuna was in control, he destroyed most of Shibuya, killing thousands. His mentor Gojo is sealed and Nanami killed. Sukuna eventually takes control of Yuji’s best friend, Megumi Fushiguro, and kills Gojo. Yuji consumes his half siblins in order to defeat Sukuna.

    “I’m you.”

    By the end, he stilll offers Sukuna mercey, but SUkuna has only ever known the life of a curse, so he chooses to die as a curse. Yuji surpasses Sukuna and Gojo, becoming ageless, containing the power of Sukuna, blood manipulation, blach flash, and reverse curse technique. He forsakes normal mortality in order to save others.

    Yuki Tsukumo has the same goal as Geto, to eliminate curses, but chooses to focus on studying cursed spirits and refuses to take missions. She becomes an ally to Yuji and grows close to Yuji’s half curse half brother Choso. She wills her notes to Yuji who continues hers, Geto’s, and Choso’s mission after their deaths.

    Megumi Fushiguro is the most cynical of Gojo’s students, fighting to only protect his sister, who he ends up killing as Sukuna.

    Yuta Okokstu is the one who defeated Geto and posseses the cursed spirit of his sociopathic childhood friend, Rika. He is willing to becoem the monster like Gojo, but grows old with his wife Maki and their family.

    Sukuna just kills people for fun or getting in his way, but Yuji is the one he hates to his core, because his beliefs are counter to his. He respects strength, such as Gojo, who he kills, but acknowledges as a human, not a weapon.

    Even though Gojo kills Geto to proect Japan, Gojo kills all of the higher ups after being unsealed after they order the deaths of some of his students. He is treated as a weapon by jujistu society, which distances him from his surviving friends, Shoko, Utahime, and Nanami.

    Yuji’s nemesis is Mahito, because he is the manifestation of humanity’s fear and hatred of itself. Its in his fight with Mahito in the ruins of Shibuya that Yuji accepts that he is just a cog. 86 years later, Yuji defeats him for good and absorbs his ability, soul manipulation, in order to alter the souls of humans to no longer secrete cursed energy, ending the struggle against curses for good.

    Sukuna allies with Kenjaku only out of boredom, killing the most people, and breaking Yuji.

    Kenjaku’s endgame is to merge the cursed energy of the jujistu god, Tengen, with all of the Japanese people, turning them into cursed spirits. He discovers how a jujistu sorcerer’s brain in different from a regular human, using Mahito’s idle transfiguration to change regular people into sorcerers.

    Binding vows are a literal a literal game code, since thet are used to create the culling games. Cursed energy is a random and chaotic force, making rules to create more advanced techniques, like a writing system for a lanuage. Cursed energy is the language of human psychology.

    The fights are won through cunning and strength, not determination like most manga and anime. Most of the cast ends up with permanent scars throughout the story, Tokyo becomes a permanent cursed spirit nest, swarths of the population are killed or kidnapped during Shibuya and the culling games, Sugura Geto’s body is desecrated, and Yuji is never able to fulfill his promise to his grandfather.

    Victory is not justice, but survival.

    “I’m you”-Mahito to Yuji, mocking his cause as he has the same goal, but for cursed spirits

    “At the end of this marathon is our comrades’ corpses”-Suguru Geto’s breaking point

    “Stand proud, you are stong.”-Sukuna to his opponents, respecting their strength

    “Are you the strongest because you’re Satoru Gojo, or are you Satoru Gojo because you’re the strongest?”-Geto questioning Gojo’s responsibilities, since everyone else sees him as a weapon, not a human.

    Unlike other shonen, endurance and determination don’t win a fight, but strength and intelligence. Mathematically understanding the opponent’s technique makes for increased survival.

    Themes: survival of the fittest vs survival of the friendliest, power of rationalism, absolute power is lonely, creating fate, fulfilling the philosophy of Nietze’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, stoicism and nihilism in the face of tragedy, balance in nature, challenges of altruism, fear of the monster, triumph of sacrifice, destruction of defunct institutions and culture benefits the next generation, and ignoring emotions in favor of institutional functionalism creates disillusionment.

    Japan has a admiration, syncretism, and compatibility with German culture. Mangakas have German motifs and influences in their manga. Their is even a a Swedish model who inpired the character design of numerous manga characters of Aryan design. Gege Akutami’s German motif in JJK is the most famous German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche’ superman as Ryomen Sukuna and Yuji Itadori, men who become gods throught their own efforts in the absence of a higher order.

  • Blood Meridian IB Analysis

    By John Ferrandino

    Characters: Judge Holden, The Kid, and John Joel Glanton

    Plot: A youth from Tennessee travels to Texas and meets a seven foot, bald albino named Judge Holden, a polyglot and polymath, who reveals that a evangelical preacher is a beast fucker and pedophile. The Kid joins a group of filibusters into raid across the border in Mexico, who disband when the captain’s head is freed from his neck. The Kid meets the Judge again when he joins Glanton’s Gang, Native American scalp-hunters. They receive praise and fear in Mexico and the Southwest United States. The Judge is Glanton’s right hand man, but also the gang’s diplomat and Renaissance man, but grooms and kills a child, encourages cruelty, convinces the gang to attack and kill Mexican and American settlers, and convinces the Kid to rape a little girl.

    Inspirations: Biblical texts, My Confession: Recollections of A Rogue by Samuel Chamberlain, The Hangman by Maurice Ogden, Manifest Destiny, Lost Generation writers style; Hemingway, Steinbeck, and Faulkner, American Realism, prose style; The Divine Comedy, The Iliad and Odyssey, and the Bible, Heraclitus, Goethe’s Faust, Moby Dick by Herman Melville, and nihlism

    Cormac McCarthy minimizes punctuation in his writings, such as no quotation marks for dialogue, like poetry. McCarthy does this to make reading his novels feel like natural speech, with the pace determined by his reader. His archaic language makes the reader feel like the characters, feels absolute as sacred texts, and is used by other American Realist writers, such as the Lost Generation. He also does not translate the Spanish from Spanish speakers.

    John Joel Glanton
    Illustration from Samuel Chamberlain, with Holden second on the left

    The Glanton Gang and the Judge are real people. John Joel Glanton was a Arkansas settler, Texas Ranger, and leader of a group of scalp-hunters from 1849 to 1850, hired by the Mexican government to eliminate the Apache in Northern Mexico. A member of the gang, Samuel Chamberlain, wrote a memoir detailing the gang’s actions and Glanton’s second in command, a highly educated, ruthless, and tall man, Judge Holden.

    This judge is a more Faustian interpretation, with an appearance similar to another Faustian, the Hangman from the Maurice Ogden poem. His paleness also brings to mind the whale Moby Dick whose white skin represents the void.

    The Hangman

    Manifest Destiny is the 19th century ideology behind American imperialism, placed in practice by the filibusters and Glanton Gang. The goal of from sea to shining sea, goes across many meridians on the North American Continent, each involving spilt blood, hence the title.

    The Texas Revolution and Mexican-American War had just concluded with the annexation of Texas and other northwest territories of Mexico above the Rio Grande River.

    Motifs: Violence, horses, Holden’s appearance, geography, geology, botany, archeology, chemistry, paleontology, history, creation, scalps, archaic language, and lack of quotation marks

    The violence that occurs is written in a matter of fact manner, its part of the natural history as much as the change in geography; murder, mutilation, insanity, sadism, rape, pedophilia, animal attacks, disease, exposure, arson, and theft. Holden is a scalper, and his appearance matches his victims, hairless and wasting away till all that is left is bleached bones. He is a polymath and polyglot, recording cave paintings, flora and fauna, and fossils, creating gunpowder from natural elements, playing the violin, lecturing on natural history, etc….

    The lack of quotation marks make it feel real, absolute like a New Testament text, and visceral as the desert. Each chapter begins with a list of events to happen like individual fables.

    The gang doesn’t just take the scalps for sadistic pleasure, but as a commodity to trade for money. Holden sees it as taking the Natives’ knowledge, the same way he collects and sketches artifacts, flora, and fauna.

    It is not illogical to suspect that Holden is a supernatural immortal, a dark lord from high fantasy fitting in the norm of a modern human; The Devil as a frontiersman, Mephisto as a cowboy, Sauron as an explorer, Beelzebub as a renaissance man, Loki as a entrepreneur, or Shiva as a conman. He is the stranger that brings war and temptation.

    Horses are a constant throughout the Kid’s journey, being speed, beauty, and power. They have always been a tool of conquest. Even if there is no direct cultural link, the gang feels like the Mongols under Genghis Khan, conquering the Eurasian Steppes. The Apaches they are scalping might just be the descendants of the Steppe nomads that predated the Mongols who lived in Central Asia, then traveled across the land bridge between Russia and Alaska during the Ice Age.

    Holden’s knowledge is like a colonizer, he takes what he wants and burns the original, holding the power of its diffusion. He is thrilled by the condition he leaves his victims in.

    Conflicts: Aftermath of Manifest Destiny, pursuit of knowledge and wealth, man vs nature, the nature of war, conquest, man vs the devil, American exceptionalism vs reality, hedonism, and sadism.

    During the 19th century, the United States had expanded across the continent, going to war with Mexico to claim their northern territories past the Rio Grande River. The Mexican-American War and Texas Revolution saw Native Americans and Tejanos now negotiating with the US Army for control of their lands. The Texas Revolution was started by a armed squatters called filibusters creating insurgencies and taking away lands from the First Nations and descendants of Spanish settlers, till the US officially declared war on Mexico for protection of US expats. Even after the war resulted in the loss of Mexican lands north of the Rio Grande, filibusters still made incursions into Mexico. the Kid joins one of these groups in Forth Worth under Captain White. Once they depart, they are ambushed by the Apaches and captured by the Mexican who decapitate Captain White. His reasons for invading Mexico are to claim land for settlers to get annexed by the US and kill Mexicans who he views as barbarians and inferior. The Kid runs into the Judge and Glanton and joins his scalp-hunter gang, hired by the Mexicans to quell the Apaches.

    The Judge says that he joined for a intellectual curiosity of the Mojave Desert. He finds cave paintings and copies them down, then incinerates them, becoming the suzerain of that knowledge. When the gang is cornered by Apache warriors, Holden uses bat guano, sulphur and urine to create gunpowder, which wipes out the Apaches.

    The US was successful in their colonization because they had superior weapons and numbers. Holden’s battle with the Apaches shows that they can be defeated by the resources of their own land. The war didn’t start when the white man came, it waited for them. Consider now beyond the petty prejudices that exist only as long as a man can pump blood to his brain. The Spanish Conquistadors made was with the Apaches and their fellow natives. These natives who have been so decimated that they are collectively known as Redskins or Indians and to differentiate each one is considered trivial, because they are all treated the same, savages or a minority to fight for, they warred with each other. All civilizations were once tribes that battled bears and other hominids. So as Holden says, the war waited for humans.

    Holden has command over the Delawares in Glanton’s Gang, given to the same pleasures as the Anglo men. The East Coast tribe assimilated as lackeys for the Americans. The gang’s demographics include Blacks, Whites, Latinos, and Native Americans. They have no reason to be harmonious with each other, just a conglomerate of raiders in the desert, like the Mongols and Turks of the Eurasian Steppes. After battles with the Apaches, the gang is celebrated by the Mexican towns, awake to drink, gamble, eat, and fuck, and sleeping in the mayor’s palace. They enter heroic guest, then leave feared as demons. The Faustian Holden encourages Glanton to expand their assets, by scalping Whites and Mexicans for coin, and commandeer a ferry in Yumas territory. Holden disappears, The Kid and a few others escape, and Glanton is killed by the Yumas. The Kid grows into a man thirty years later and meets Holden again after the death of a dancing bear. The Judge dances and plays the violin naked on top of the inn while the Man fucks a little girl.

    “Whatever exists in creation without my knowledge, exists without my consent.”

    ” War is god”

    He never sleeps. the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.”

    Themes: Evil does not need an ideology to be committed, its just done by humans with opportunity

    knowledge is a tool and a weapon

    history doesn’t repeat, it just rhymes

    culture doesn’t have to be related, it just happens when no one is looking

    nature is brutal

    There is no film adaptation of this, but the closest film that matches the violence, desolation, and setting is The Revenant.

  • Lord of The Flies IB Analysis

    By John Ferrandino

    Characters: Ralph, Jack, Piggy, and Simon

    Plot: During an unnamed war, a plane of British schoolboys crash lands on a deserted tropical island in the Pacific. A boy named Ralph and “Piggy” find a conch shell and use it to call all of the boys for a meeting. They are given jobs for monitering a signal fire, hunt for pigs, and build shelters. The head choir boy, Jack, becomes the head hunter. When a boy with a wine-stain birthmark disappears, rumors of a beast spreads among the littluns, causing fear and disorder.

    Inspirations: William Golding was a philosophy teacher and royal navy lieutenant during WW2 who saw D-Day. He was cynical and pessimistic about the morality of humanity, so he wrote a satire of the popular adventure novel Coral Island, based on the behavior of his students and a realistic view of what they would do without adult supervision, unlike the British exceptionalism portrayed on popular novels such as Coral Island, Swallows And Amazons, and Treasure Island. As a teacher of philosophy, he explored the works of Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan, Friedrich Nietzsche’s nihilism, as well as meritocracy, anarchy, darwinism, humanism, which explored in the Lord of The Flies. His contemporaries, George Orwell and Ray Bradbury, explored the dark nature of humans in a dystopia or contemporary Cold War era.

    The Lord of the Flies is the english translation of Beelzebub, a deity of the decay in humans, with flies attracted to rot.

    Humanity as a subject of criticism, particulary Western morality, has been explored in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Franz Kafka and Fyodor Dostoevsky. But Golding’s novel put theat darkness onto children, who beforehand had been seen as biblically pure based on humanist values during the Renaissance. His novel’s purpose is to show that human nature is fearful and violent, no matter the age of the ones facing selection preasures. This started the decay of humanity genre in fiction, such Battle Royale, The Hunger Games, Squid Games, 28 Days Later, Alice In Borderland, and Deadman Wonderland.

    Motifs: Conch, glasses, the Beast, fire, war, savagery, and face paint

    The boys represent aspects of human nature.

    Ralph is leadership, responsibility, optimism, inspiration, and arrogance

    Piggy is etiquette, order, intelligence, reason, laziness, and impracticality.

    Jack is charisma, courage, strength, realism, and cruelty

    Simon is innocence, curiosity, and fagility.

    The conch is order and civilization, used to unite the boys and confirm leadership. The glasses are reason and technology, used to start the fire. The fire is set up by Ralph to signal ships, but it caused a wildfire and divides the boys over the importance of rescue or food.

    Pigs are intelligent and sinister, a fitting form fo the Lord of the Flies to speak to Simon.

    Face painting is practical for camouflage and sun protection, but also individuality and anonymity. As Jack’s tribe grows, Golding stops using the boys’ names, but just labels them as savages, when in Ralph’s point of view. This transition is marked by Piggy’s death and the bleaching and shattering of the conch. The conch is a piece of symbolic ritualism, like the king’s scepter. As arbitrary as the divine right of monarchs, which Piggy tries to treat the conch as, absolute authority.

    Jack’s tribe is more realistic of early proto-humans, relying of strength, courage, and charisma as a basis for leadership.

    When Simon meets the Lord of the Flies, he shows signs of heat stroke, causing him to see visions. His right temple is thumping, tongue swelling, and fainting.

    Conflict: meritocracy vs liberalism, Hobbes vs Locke, anarchy vs authority, descent into savagery, loss of paradise, decay of civilization, nihilism, and fear.

    Ralph’s tribe loses appeal because of the lack of reward for their effort, lack of enforcement of the rules, and the impracticality of Piggy, who does no physical labor. Ralph and Piggy have no experience, while Jack is head choir boy and more pragmatic. His tribe successfully hunts pigs and establishes a culture of fun for those who contribute and punishment for those who disobey, while Ralph and Piggy cause a wildfire and don’t do a headcount, which results in the wine-stain birthmark kid to disappear.

    Both Jack and Piggy seek gratification, leading to their rivalry. Jack is alienated by Piggy’s and the little kids’ laziness and Ralph’s under appreciation of his efforts to catch a pig. Jack uses fear to rule his Tribe.

    The fire is the common goal of the boys and their hope, but they can’t maintain it without abandoning other jobs, such as hunting, collecting fruit and water, waste management, and building shelters.

    The Beast is first described as a sea serpent, then after the twins, Sam and Eric, come across the corpse of a parachuted pilot in a tree, they panic and the Beast assumes the form of a land monster swinging from the trees and hiding in a cave. The fire is dropped as a priority and Jack’s tribe focuses on training to hunt the Beast. Simon tries to clear up this misunderstanding, but is mistaken for the Beast and killed, with the tide taking away his corpse and the wind blowing the pilot’s body out to sea.

    Ralph becomes prey to Jack’s tribe, who set fire to the island to weed him out. Eventually a naval officer lands on the beach, attracted by the fires, right before Ralph is cornered on the beach. The kids break down weeping at their lost innocence. The officer is not a saint either, only in that area to catch up to an enemy pilot and kill him. He rescued the kids, but who will rescue the adults?

    “The beast is in all of you.”-Beelzabub

    “Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood.”

    “We did everything adults would do. What went wrong?”

    Themes:

    The core of human behavior is fear and violence

    Rule by liberalism creates resentment, creating a meritocracy

    fear establishes order and culture

    survival of the fittest

    anonymity of violence

    human darkness

    impracticality of christianity and colonialism

    intelligence is just fluff without actions

    decay of civilizations

  • Hellraiser or The Hellbound Heart IB Analysis

    By John Ferrandino

    Characters: Pin head, Frank Cotton, Julia, Larry, and Kirsty

    Plot: Frank Cotton solves a puzzle box, the Lament Configuration, that opens a doorway to a dimension of pleasure, hosted by the cenobites. He discovers that they see no difference between pleasure and pain. Frank’s brother, Larry, spills his blood where Frank was transported, partially resurrecting him. Larry’s wife Julia had an affair with Frank, so she helps procure bodies to rebuild Frank. Larry’s daughter, Kirsty, becomes suspicious. The cenobites will come to collect their charge.

    Inspirations: Hunters in The Snow; a direct thematic precursor to Hellraiser, using the same actor as the undead torturer and inquisitor, Doug Bradley, catholicism, BDSM, Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan, humanism meets bloody surrealism, sadomasochism, brutalism, erotica, and Lovecraftian horror

    Clive Barker is a master of human sensuality in art, making novels, poems, films, and artwork exploring the void of humanity. As an artist he knows the history of art. Humanism emerged during the Renaissance, a reemergence of the primal nature of the Classical era, best represented by the Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci. Surrealism is a style were matter is perceived beyond human’s perception of reality. . Pleasure is a link were humanism and surrealism can meet, the act of sex is human beauty and extreme mental capabilities and physical exertion. BDSM leans towards the extreme, forcing both participants to unleash new experiences onto each other. Barker has this philosophy etched into the ethics of the cenobites with their black leather stitched into their skin. Their hierarchy and appearance are reminiscent of the Catholic Church. Their hell and equipment are beyond human reason, but complex and minimal in design and purpose do appear like brutalist architecture, geometrical, euclidian, symmetrical, and stylized coldness. It’s cliche and ignorant to call anything dark in literature gothic, but Hellraiser is cold experience, meant to drive a person insane and despair at the horrors beyond human comprehension not romantic and awed.

    Motifs: Pins, Leviathan, S&M, human senses, sexuality, puzzle box, flesh, blood, gore, and lust

    The cenobites, led by Pinhead, are an orderly group that treat their purpose as a surgeon would a patient. They see no difference between pain and pleasure. Their mutilations are always in order, not dirty, but geometric and symmetrical.

    The Labyrinth, cenobites’ realm

    Leviathan is the ruler of hell. It takes the form of an elongated rhombus, while biblically its a sea serpent and a prince of hell, representing greed and gluttony. Thomas Hobbes used the beast to show the power of central authority to control lesser beings.

    Leviathan
    From the Bible

    The entry way to this meticulously controlled hell is a cube puzzle box. Despite being demonic torture, the Cenobites follow a strict code.

    When Frank first opens the puzzle box, he feels the stimuli of every cell in his body, heightened senses, expanded consciousness, he can feel the cells’ mitosis. This is perfect for extreme pleasure, but also pain.

    The genders and age of the cenobites are hard to determine, showing how they are beyond humanity. The novella is vague on what gender pinhead is, giving him a girlish voice and genital mutilations. He doesn’t even have a name, Pinhead being given during the production of the second film.

    Conflict: Trauma, the effects of greed and lust, the dangers of curiosity, hedonism, disillusionment with humanity

    The dangers of meddling with the cenobites is losing your humanity is either pain or pleasure, where you become a cenobite or have your soul torn apart. Pinhead was once a human named Elliot Spencer, who lost his faith in humanity after serving in WWI, and like Frank, discovered and opened the puzzle box. He has no memory of his human life.

    The cenobites consider pain to be a religion, so they make their purpose and appearance revolve around pain. They make it sacred by having a moral code, only torturing the lustful and curious, not those forced to open the puzzle box, and can be negotiated with for fair treatment, making them somewhat honorable. Frank is willing to kill his own brother to be fully resurrected, taking his skin. Julia values the sexual pleasure with Frank over a vow with Larry. Kirsty is flesh to be pleasured to Frank.

    There is a vagueness to Leviathan and the cenobites. They are not demons or angels. What they are is order in response to the chaos of human sin. There is no cultural basis for the cenobites, just an ideology for control and hedonism shared among humanity.

    “Explorers, in the farther reaches of experience. Angels to some, demons to others.”-Pinhead’s statement of the cenobites primordial purpose.

    “We can’t return, not empty handed.”-Statement showing the cenobites’ transactional treatment of their victims

    “We’ll tear your soul apart.”-Their accuracy and precision of their torture.

    “It is not hands that summon us, it is desire.”-Makes their actions not random, but orderly and rational, somewhat honorable.

    Themes: The evils of lust and greed, order through Hobbes’ Leviathan, expansion of reality through the senses, dangers of curiosity, trauma, the similarities between pain and pleasure, sexual satisfaction, ambiguity can be interpreted as good or evil, excess

    “Jesus wept.”

  • Over The Garden Wall IB Analysis

    By John Ferrandino

    Characters: Wirt, Greg, Beatrice, The Woodsman, and The Beast

    Plot: Wirt and Greg are lost in the woods. They encounter a woodsman who warns them of The Beast. The Woodsman collects wood to make oil to keep a lantern lit for The Beast, since it contains the soul of his lost daughter. The two of them then meet Beatrice, a bluebird who was originally a human, who agrees to be their guide. The people they encounter always have a curse or are the curse.

    Inspirations: The show runners based the story off of 18th Century New England. The character designs are based off of early 20th century American cartoons, predating Disney and the Hayes Code. The Grimm Brothers published a collection of folktales from around their country of birth, Germany, which provides the anthology plot style for the show. Their works are celebrations of German folklore and are still recognized today. They were major figures in the Romantic Movement, a celebration of folk culture, the natural world, and the unknown. This show with its vintage New England setting inspires the same philosophy. Many Germans moved to New England and brought their folklore with them. The stories that inspired this show come from these Germanic immigrants. The art style comes from New England artworks from the early 20th century, specifically of the fall season, including halloween. The show utilizes the vintage art of 20th century New England; Beatrix Potter, Gustave Dore, John Potter, and the McLoughin Brothers, just like the Grimm Brothers utilized medieval German folklore.

    The Beast is modeled off of the Celtic forest god, Cernunnos. Most character designs come from pre Hayes Code animations, such as Betty Boop.

    Previous explorations of the New England supernatural come from Washington Irving, Stephen King, Edgar Allen Poe, and other Romantic and Transcendentalist writers whose settings and motifs involved the New England autumn and nature, which the show runners took inspiration from.

    Motifs: Frog playing the piano, Americana, darkness, vintage music, black turtles, the lantern, ghosts, autumn, and animals.

    Opening intro, a tribute to the opening to a vaudeville show, or to modern audiences the, tinker bell animation, a common motif in fable storytelling

    The voice actor of Wirt, Elijah Wood, said that the music of Over The Garden Wall can be played on a phonograph, a vintage sound recorder from the 19th century. The music from the show includes opera, folk melodies, orchestral pieces, blues, and vaudeville, the music a phonograph of that era was used for. These genres are simple in their atmosphere, inspiring warmth and good feelings, but also holds darkness. The Beast sings opera while he turns children into trees, the tavern folk sing melodies warning of The Beast, and Greg sings an uplifting song at the school house to lighten the mood.

    The autumn season is the end of the harvest, the days get shorter, and the border between the living and the dead starts to get weak. That’s what makes the season ideal for the spooky tone of Over The Garden Wall.

    The black turtles are mysterious creatures that transform the animals into savage creatures. Turtles are not a threatening or suspicious animal in the Anglo-Protestant culture of New England, but have a powerful role in Native American mythology, since the North American continent is believed to be the shell of a sea turtle. This inclusion of the turtle is a respectful nod to the original culture of New England, and the American continent as a whole.

    Conflict: Man vs nature, fear over courage, despair, who to trust, and social anxiety

    Wirt is cautious, dweebish, and pessimistic, so he is easy to give up. Greg is chaotic, optimistic, and overly friendly, so he gets the group in trouble. Beatrice is cynical, guarded, sarcastic, and is leading the boys to the witch, Adelaide, who turned her family into bluebirds. Each one handles being lost in the forest differently, whether or not its compatible with the others survival. Wirt is easy to give up, so he is easily caught by The Beast. Greg trades himself for his brother’s freedom. The Woodsman’s daughter’s soul is stuck in the lantern the Woodsman took from The Beast, so he cuts down trees to make oil to keep it lit. He does The Beast’s bidding, or else it will take the lantern for safekeeping. The Woodsman discovers Greg being turned into a tree. The confrontation between The Beast and The Woodsman reveal that the oil is made of lost children turned into trees. Wirt also deduces that the lantern is The Beast’s soul. Wirt’s caution and trusting his own reasoning lets him leave with hos brother. The next thing they know, they are waking up in an ambulance, having dreamed the experience at the bottom of a creek. The epilogue still shows how the brothers positively affected the inhabitants of the woods, such as Beatrice and her family turning back into humans. The Woodsman reunites with his daughter alive after blowing out The Beast’s soul. Wirt and Greg encounter the living and the dead, but it doesn’t feel like purgatory. A source of comedy is that the duo are always fish out of water, not being having the same norms, manners, or bearing as the vintage people they meet. They’re from contemporary American suburbia and they went down a rabbit hole to wonderland, but death is more present because they are near death by drowning. Perhaps they were following the light, but the tunnel is Celtic, Slavic, and Amerindian mythology.

    “There is only my way. There is only the forest, and there is only surrender.”

    “We’re still not any closer to getting home. I don’t know if we’ll ever get back home.”

    Themes: Frailty of life, social anxiety, self-acceptance, what is the unknown, what is terror, appreciation of folk culture, the innocence of curiosity, the destruction of innocence due to frightening experiences

    Like the fables cartoons that this show takes inspiration from, it closes as it opened, with a frog playing a piano.

  • Casino Royale (book and film) IB Analysis

    By John Ferrandino

    Characters: James Bond, Vesper Lynd, Le Chiffre, and M

    Plot: Commander James Bond is the new 007 of MI6, a British secret agent with a license to kill. He has been assigned to bankrupt communist/terrorist banker, Le Chiffre, by beating him in a high stakes poker game. Assigned as a partner is Vesper Lynd, who will contribute to his cover by being his social companion and handle finances and technology. Le Chiffre is trying to win funds for his debts due to bad investments before his bosses find out. He is a trapped beast, Vesper is a bystander, and Bond is a blunt instrument. Who is in the crosshairs? What will it cost Bond?

    Daniel Craig as James Bond

    Inspirations: Bond is an avatar of Ian Fleming and his hobbies. Fleming was a naval intelligence officer in Gibraltar during WW2. His “M” was Rear Admiral John Godfrey. Fleming was demobilized in 1945 and he bought a plot of land in Jamaica. He wrote 2,000 words in one morning while waiting to meet his fiancee, which is now Casino Royale. Bond is an amalgamation of spies and commandoes Fleming knew during his war service. He is in Fleming’s words, a blunt instrument that looks like him and Hoagy Carmichael. Fleming also imagined him similar to his step-cousin, Christopher Lee, who had a similar wartime service to him. The name came from a ornithologist who had a normal Anglo masculine name.

    Christopher Lee
    Ian Fleming

    Fleming’s knowledge of the main setting of the novel came from his activities at the Estoril Casino in Portugal. Le Chiffre’s appearance and sadomasochism are based off of occultist Alastair Crowley. Fleming knew a lot of women, his least favorite were the inexperienced, the basis for Vesper Lynd. After WWII, the United Kingdom was in debt, exhausted, and losing its empire. It was losing its super power statues achieved after the Napoleonic Wars to the United States and the USSR. Espionage brought it great embarrassment when the Cambridge Five was discovered. There was great cynicism and insecurity by the government over the nation’s role in the world. In the 2006 film adaptation transferred to post 9/11 and Le chiffre is a terrorist investor instead of a communist paymaster.

    Motifs: Vesper Lynd, baccarat, probability, memos. alcohol, travelogue exposition, stereotypes, sexism, pleasure, and pain

    Bond sees Vesper as someone to sleep with, but not on a job, same way with food and drink, a vital need but not to excess. This connection is shown when he names his iconic drink after her. He doesn’t dull himself on the job. Like alcohol, they are pleasurable at first, but bitter afterwards. Vesper is a darling when introduced and to Bond’s relief, a professional, but after the mission, a previous deal catches up to her, which results in her death and Bond losing his heart.

    Vesper Lynd portrayed by Eva Green

    Fleming worked in intelligence and afterwards the newspapers, so his novel is styled similar to an intelligence dossier and a newspaper travelogue. Bond’s consciousness is the usual hero’s good vs evil, but also a documentary commentator on cooking, culture, businesses, people, history, and espionage. What is missing is a comment on geopolitics, he doesn’t debate or even defend the two ideologies of the Cold War, just follows orders and intuition. His demeanor and cognition reveal him to be a blunt weapon. He’s not a hero with a sword, but an assassin handy with lead balls propelled with gunpowder. He lives on the edge, always in the crosshairs. The font of the dossiers for Bond’s mission are the same as the text. His mind is one with his mission. The game of baccarat is one of luck and bluffing, which Bond enjoys the ritual of.

    Le Chiffre’s appearance and intelligence is based off of Alastair Crowley, unattractive, imposing, and a sadomasochist. He requires an inhaler and in the film bleeds from his eyes when stressed. This is based off of autohemmoragifng of horned lizards, which use it as a defense mechanism, matching with Le Chiffre’s reptilian appearance, such as his chilling stare. Unlike other Bond villains, he his not out for domination or revenge, but saving his own skin. He is also a mathematician, an expert in probability, games, and gambling. This certainty of knowledge doesn’t save him when he is executed by SMERSH in the book and Spectre in the film.

    book
    film, portrayed by Mads Mikkelsen

    Bond’s assignment and other missions are like baccarat or poker, as seen with the cover art of the book and the title sequence of the film; hearts represent blood and emotions as they bleed out of veins, clubs are blunt like bullets, which is why they are the ammo to his Walter PPK, diamonds are statistics and material wealth, as people are when they are killed and their value to the mission, and spades are luck.

    Fleming and Bond both view the mission and pleasure as part of the job.

    Conflicts: good vs evil, the realization of the lack of one’s importance in the greater world, psychological warfare, gender inequality, terrorism, ignorance of the other side, professionalism vs pleasure, fall of an empire, stoicism vs hedonism

    After WW2, the UK’s losses on the world stage made it feel like the biggest loser of the war. The generation that fought in the war were left cynical, pessimistic, and bitter. Bond is a personification of the post war insecurities. This translates to the 21st century setting of the film, because of 9/11. Although 9/11 didn’t affect Britain directly, Bond’s mission is part of the US War on Terror, with Britain as a junior partner of the US, because of their situation after WW2. This hierarchy is shown when CIA agent Felix Leiter loans Bond money to beat Le Chiffre in exchange for CIA custody of him.

    After Bond and Vesper are rescued from Le Chiffre’s torture, he questions the entire idea of civilization’s good vs evil, because even though Le Chiffre was killed by his superiors, he still wants to kill him, not out of justice or orders, but revenge for bashing in his balls. There is also no definition for evil, like there is for God, no testament for the Devil like there are for God. There is ignorance of the nature of evil. It’s only evil because it doesn’t fit with the definition for good. This philosophical pondering could be Fleming’s confession to why he sucks at writing women. He doesn’t understand them. Like good vs evil, Fleming sees women only on how they are compatible for men based on societal norms. When the novel was published, women were new to voting and men’s jobs. A change in norms is seen as a threat. Bond sees Vesper as a distraction and a liability, proven by when she is captured by Le Chiffre’s henchmen in order to access the winnings, due to her inexperience in the field. The 2006 film adds depth, wit, and confidence to Vesper to reflect the changing views of women in the workforce, also seen with “M” being a woman. But Vesper still has the feminine mystery that Fleming’s generation feared.

    Bond desires her not just for her looks, but because she represents a peaceful life, but that is incapatable with his job, so he resigns after Le Chiffre’s death. They are happy at first, but when a black patch man begins to follow them, she becomes eratic anf depressed. Its revealed that she is a double agent after her suicide. Bond’s burgening heart freezes stone cold and welcomes being a blunt instrument for monarch and country.

    “The bitch is dead now.”

    “Vodka martini, shaken, not stirred.”

    “You don’t trust anyone do you

    No

    Then you’ve learned your lesson” M to Bond after Vesper’s death.

    Themes: Patriotism, stoicism, modernism, globalism, a peaceful life cannot be guaranteed, how being a cog in the system takes away from individuality, ignorance leads to animosity, emotional freedom, sadomasochism, and realism vs fantasy.

    Fleming’s dedication to realism over fantasy distinguishes Casino Royale as a thriller genre bedrock.

  • The Boy and The Heron IB Analysis

    John Ferrandino

    Characters: Mahito. The Heron, Himi, and the Granduncle

    Plot: During WW2, Mahito’s mother is killed in a fire caused by an American bombing raid. He and his father move to the country estate of the mother’s family, where he marries his wife’s sister, Natsuko. Mahito encounters a Grey Heron who claims to know where Mahito’s mother is, alive. When his stepmother disappears into this mysterious world, Mahito must journey into this land of the dead with the assistance of the duplicitous Heron and a strangely familiar girl named Himi. This world’s creator is a wizard who is Mahito’s great grand-uncle.

    Inspirations: This film is based off of Hayao Miyazaki’s childhood, where he like Mahito, grew up during WW2, watched his mother die in a bombing raid, and fathers who were involved in war productions. Miyazaki grew into a pacifist and skeptic of nationalism and industrialization, which are common themes in his filmography. Mahito, the Heron, and the Granduncle are representative of the real life relationship between Miyazaki, Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki, and Ghibli co-founder Isao Takahata, respectively. The film is semi-autobiographical to Miyazaki and memoriam to the late Isao Takahata. It is also as of now, Miyazaki’s swan song, so he includes artistic references to his previous films, before he retires.

    The story’s themes are derived from the novel How Do You Live, by Genzaburo Yushino, but not stroy. The story shares similarities to the Greek myth of Orpheus and the novel Alice in Wonderland. The world the Granduncle creates blends elements of Hades, the reincarnation of Buddhism, Dante’s Inferno, and Shinto traditions, such as the Heron being a guide for the dead. Dream logic is how the Granduncle’s world is run, surreal, emotional, and nonsensical.

    Motifs: Shintoism, physical copy of How Do You Live, geometric blocks, fire, time, birds, boats, death, stages of grief, asteroids, astronomy, and Buddhism.

    Mahito’s grief manifests as cool aloofness, rashness, and malice. The Heron attacks Mahito, but loses some of his feathers, which Mahito uses to makes arrows. The arrow pierces the Heron’s beak, forcing him to into his human form, it’s pride in it aerial form being used against it.

    The Granduncle’s world is underneath the living world, centered around a mystical asteroid that holds reality altering powers, existing beyond time and space. Birds that he brought with him from the real world become human like and malicious, such as the deceitful herons, the greedy pelicans, and the man-eating parakeets. Also present in this world are the wara wara, the spirits of the dead, who morph into childlike spirits that reenter the world through childbirth. The pelicans prey on the wara wara. The defender of the wara wara is the wizard’s grand-niece, Lady Himi, a child with pyrotechnic powers. She turns out to be Mahito’s mother from the past, who ended up dying in a fire. It’s both her weapon and her death.

    The asteroid’s power is controlled by the careful stacking of blocks just using balance to hold it up. The Wizard maintains the stack, adding to the world, showing age, wisdom, and experience. The purpose of this world is to escape death by controlling the cycle. The Wizard freezes time for the visitoos from the real world, where Mahito can meet his mother from the past. Its an island an island in an ocean made up of the dead, who inhabit boats.

    (Dante and Virgil crossing the River Styx, The Divine Comedy)

    Conflicts: Moving on from grief, self-harm, cycle of life, destiny vs experience, pacifism vs militarism, imperfection in creation, coming of age, deception, refugee of war, and balance.

    Mahito is distant and moody after the death of his mother. Since he is the son of a plane manufactuer, he of higher class than his peers at his new school, so he is ganged up on, then afterwards he bangs a rock on his head in order to skip school. He is apathetic towards his step-mother and seeks out the Heron to find his mother. This is just a lie from the Heron, who chides Mahito on his arrogance and malice. Mahito tames the Heron by shooting an arrow into his beak, which is guided by one of his feathers. The pelicans prey on the wara wara because its the only food source in the world. An oversight in the blocks. Mahito takes pity on them. Lady Himi turns out to be Hisako as a child, Mahito’s mother. In the real world during her childhood, Hisako disappeared for a long period of time, but this time is the present Mahito is in right now in his Granduncle’s world, where Hisako serves as a defender for souls. She is aware of her relation to Mahito and her fate. When he finally finds his ancestor, the Wizard, he finds him trying to fix the world by removing malice filled blocks. He begs Mahito to take his place, since he has his imagination and morals, but Mahito declines, revealing to him that he suffers from malice as well. He implores him to let this world go. As the world falls apart, Himi and Mahito return to there own times and the Heron implores Mahito to forget everything.

    “I gave myself this scar on my head. It’s a sign of my malice.”

    “I’m not afraid of fire.” Himi’s final words to Mahito.

    “Mahito, will you continue my work?”

    Themes: Accepting reality of death, caring about those who love you, evil is a part of life, humility creates peace over selfishness, looking back on achievements

    Mahito’s goals at the beginning are selfish, looking for his mother who might be alive and refusing to to acknowledge his stepmother, but still looks for her out of familial duty. By the end he calls her mother. Unlike most Ghibli films where the outcome os positive, Mahito will still have a dead mother and forget about his memories of her in the wWizard’s world. He still has to go through the messy life that is the Pacific war and post-war Japan, but now he accepts the death of his mother. Miyazaki is private about his past, pessimistic, moody, and cold, which reflects Mahito’s aloofness, but now knows how to find joy in the world and how the darkness fits in. Miyazaki shows this to others with his filmmaking.

    The final scene where Mahito goes back to Tokyo after the war, he finishes reading a book given to him by his mother, How Do You Live, by Genzaburo Yoshino. The book’s message is what Miyazaki adapts into his childhood. Having Mahito read it shows that he his accepting of the psychological change on his journey through the Wizard’s world, and accepts the physics of the real world over the imagination of his ancestor’s world, which has ceased to exist.

  • Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus IB Analysis

    John Ferrandino

    Characters: Victor Frankenstein, The Creature, and Robert Walton

    Plot: In a series of letters, explorer Robert Walton recounts the story of a traveler he rescues on the ice, Victor Frankenstein, and the creature he is chasing in the Arctic. Victor created this creature in his quest to raise his loved ones from the grave. The creature is horrific in appearance and when the reality of this act cause Victor to flee in terror when the Creature awakens. When he returns to Geneva, the Creature follows him back and reveals his intelligence, cruelty, and desire for companionship. He demands Victor to create a bride. When Victor refuses, the creature vows to destroy everyone he loves.

    Inspirations: Mary Shelly was a major proponent of Romanticism, the intellectual and artistic reaction to the Enlightenment and scientific rationalism, where logic and reason were valued above all else. The Romantic Movement brought emotions and a love of the natural world back to European and American intellectual groups, such as Lord George Byron, Percy Shelly, John Polidori, Claire Clairmont, and Mary Shelly on a rainy summer in Geneva, where Shelly wrote the manuscript for Frankenstein. Romanticism would would go on to develop into gothic, nationalism, transcendentalism, and conservation. Shelly was also inspired by the scientific developments of the 18th century, in electricity and chemistry. The story has influence from the Greek myth of Prometheus and John Milton’s Paradise Lost. The Creature finds similarities with Lucifer, who is also a fallen hero archetype. An archetype both Victor and the Creature can be classified as Byronic heroes, termed after Shelly’s friend, Lord Byron. The Age of Expedition was still going on in Shelly’s era, and this is shown with Robert Walton’s storyline, which shares a similar sense of curiosity with the Romantic Movement and scientific discovery of the Enlightenment, which are goals of Victor. Although Shelly does have criticisms on the hubris and ambition of scientific development, she respects it enough to not satirize it by attempting to give a detailed method on how the Creature was created, since science is not her field.

    Motifs: Nature, science, duality, melancholy, geography, creative nature, beauty, cruelty, Paradise Lost, Greek mythology, and exchange of letters.

    The entire story is a series of letters from Robert Walton in the Arctic Ocean to his sister in England. This increases the mystery and makes Walton a fellow audience member. Nature and geography is a huge part of the book’s diction. Shelly’s romanticism is shown with Victor and his family’s love of travel, nature, and education. Nature is seen as pure and beautiful. Science is valued because its a study of the natural world. Victor’s research tries to assume control of the natural world, so Shelly critiques it by the chaos caused by the Creature. Victor’s creative nature is a conflict between his emotional curiosity and scientific logic. He’s fascinated, empathetic, terrified, and disgusted by his creation.

    Duality is explored by the juxtaposing of Victor’s nobility but emotional and the Monster’s barbarity but intelligence. They are two sides of the same coin, they are not what they seem. Both of them are driven by melancholy; Victor’s guilt for the murders committed by his creation and the Creature’s self-awareness of his own monstrosity and loneliness.

    Paradise Lost is one of the books the Creature uses to educate himself with and relates to Lucifer and Adam as both are shunned and lash out at their paternal figures.

    Conflicts:

    Science vs nature

    Nature vs nurture

    Risks of exploration and knowledge

    Enlightenment vs Romanticism

    Beaty vs horror

    Reactionary instinct

    The Creature is guilty of arson, murder, and obstruction of justice. He’s only about five years old by the end of the story, but is cunning, calculating, calm, and murderous, which would’ve gotten worse as he got older without guidance. Victor rejected any responsibility for that.

    Shelly’s view of Enlightenment philosophy and science based on the novel is respectful, but cautious. She doesn’t criticize the scientific method or make any statements, as shown by the lack of scientific explanation on how the Creature was created, or apply scientific logic to the characters’ decision making, such as when Victor fears of the affects of a female creature to be the mate of the Creature. He fears what would happen if the Creature and his bride would have progeny, which can be solved by removing the reproductive system from the bride. Instead Victor destroys the bride in front of the Creature. The characters are at their best in nature.

    Robert Walton is trying to reach the North Pole, at the risk of himself and his crew, but after hearing Victor’s story, he decides that his life is worth more than the risks. He turns back as soon as the ship is out of the ice.

    “I will be with you on your wedding day.”

    “I, not in deed, but in effect, was the true murderer.”

    Victor dies from exhaustion on Walton’s ship. The Creature reveals himself, and loses all purpose and hopes of love, and commits himself to the arctic darkness.

    Themes: The dangers of knowledge, responsibility, fall from grace, desire for am identity, abandonment, playing god, and reactionary behavior.

    The animosity between Victor and the Creature is a blow black conflict. Their actions cause the other to darker behaviors, causing more suffering.

  • Scott Pilgrim Vs The World (Comic, movie, and anime) IB Analysis

    By John Ferrandino

    Characters: Scott Pilgrim, Ramona Flowers, Wallace Wells, Knives Chau, Kim Pine, Young Neil, Stephen Stills, Julie Powers, Envy Adams, Gideon Graves, Lucas Lee, Todd Ingram, Mathew Patel, and Moxxie Richter

    Plot: (Vs The World) Scott Pilgrim is a normal 22 year old living in Toronto, Canada. He lives with his cool gay roommate, Wallace Wells, is the lead guitarist in the indie band, Sex Bob-Omb, and dates a 17 year old named Knives Chau. Otherwise he is an unemployed slacker. He meets Ramona Flowers, a delivery girl who can roller skate in his dreams by a neural highway. He finds her interesting so he takes her out on a date, but to get to the next base, he must defeat her seven evil exes

    (Takes Off): A sequel to Vs The World, Scott and Ramona have a bad breakup after their honeymoon. Scott becomes Old Scott and uses a robot using a vegan portal to stop his younger self from getting together with Ramona. During Scott’s fight with Mathew Patel, the robot takes him through a vegan time portal, with everyone assuming that he is dead.

    Inspirations: Bryan Lee O’Malley’s love of indie rock and shonen style manga, Plumtree’s song, “Scott Pilgrim, various characters named after musicians, Nintendo games based styles for the setting, 2000’s indie culture: garage bands, geek culture, and 80’s nostalgia; and love models: Gottman’s Four Horsemen, Knapp’s relationship development model, attachment theory, and Sternberg’s Triangle; and Peter Pan Syndrome.

    Motifs: Health bars, game points, relationships, exes, changing hair colors of Ramona, and veganism

    The world of Scott Pilgrim is unserious. The main character is a slacker and a pedophile, the physics is a mix of Shonen and retro gaming, and Scott doesn’t have a complex view of relationships, treating everyone like acquaintances, even ex girlfriends, like Kim, Knives, and Envy. His current residence with Wallace is only because he dropped by and never left. He’s carefree, but aloof and insensitive.

    The physics of this world are a mix of of Shonen fights and retro gaming logic.

    (Scott Pilgrim vs Mathew Patel)
    (Naruto vs Sasuke, Naruto)
    (Street Fighter)

    Characters have insane powers, like Ramona’s subspace travel, Todd’s vaganism based powers, Mathew Patel’s Indian mystical powers, and Scott’s super-strength. The rest of the characters treat this like its normal, and the only time law enforcement shows up is when Todd Ingram breaks the vegan code. The fights in the graphic novel are Shonen style, like Bleach and Naruto, and the defeated side turns into Canadian coins, like in MarioBros., and K.O. appears overhead. The movie and anime expand on this by adding health bars and a street fighter style narrator and font.

    Ramona has an issue with commitment, and this is illustrated by the existence of the Evil Exes Organization and her constantly changing her hair dyes.

    “I run away from the thing that I love.” “I never want to feel stuck.”

    She doesn’t want too commit herself, because she fears she will be stuck in monotony, so she breaks off her previous relationships. These are the Seven Evil Exes. In the anime, each episode begins with her changing hair dyes in the morning.

    Conflicts: Scott vs himself (Nega-Scott)

    Scott vs his future (Older Scott)

    Ramona’s fear of commitment

    Scott breaking up with Knives

    Scott vs the Evil Exes

    Ramona’s past haunting her

    Running from the past or being obsessed with it, which is the goal of the Evil Exes, to get back with Ramona.

    The world of Scott Pilgrim is the real world, but with the physics of beloved pop culture mixed in, like a distraction. Scott and other characters try to live like its their favorite video game or comic, but no matter how much they try, real world issues like unemployment, toxic relationships, taking advantage of minors, obsession, relationship experimentation, and break ups, are still relevant, and are more highlighted in a fantastical world like Scott Pilgrim. People don’t get killed, they just turn into currency. All of the characters are attempting to live a life of escapism, similar to the readers and watchers of this IP.

    Themes: Escapism, forming of relationships. fear of commitment, adulthood’s consequences, self-respect, self-esteem, Peter Pan syndrome, obsession, aloofness, and hero worship.