My Favourite Things

I thought I would like to write a little eulogy to three of my most favourite things:

THE RING OF THE NIBELUNG

LORD OF THE RINGS

FINAL FANTASY

In general terms, the reason I so like these things is their richness. That richness actually derives from the way they have been created: they have all been evolved from earlier creations. This is most evident in the relationship between Lord of the Rings, and its predecessor, The Ring of the Nibelung. These two have their roots in Norse and Germanic mythology. Final Fantasy( this is a video game) is less focused. Being Japanese, much of the source mythology is oriental, as is the 'aura', and the humour.

Watching Wagner's opera, of course, there is the visual splendour of a traditionally staged version of the work --- it is a feast for the eyes. And when I talk of richness, that is what I mean: all of these are like huge banquets, feasts for every human faculty, the senses, the intellect, the feelings, the imagination --- but, to return to Wagner: The music, of course, is to die for. That long, repetitive build up of a simple theme that introduces the underwater world of the Rhine-maidens in the first opera; the insistent, repetitve beat that accompanies the hammering of the dwarves; and Siegfried's Theme in the last opera, that magnificent, Beethoven-esque glorification.

And the mythology tickles so. Some of it is understandable, some leaves one mystified, with something to mull over --- well, endlessly, I suppose. Will I ever be able to unravell the intricacies of that story?

I love Wotan, the Grey Wanderer, who, of course, re-appears as Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. Someone who loves travelling cannot but be taken with Wotan. And I love the fixes he gets himself into, and, like someone tangled in a net, the more he struggles to get free, the more entangled he gets.

And that leads to the whole POWER STUGGLE theme. Central, of course, to both Tolkein's and Wagner's work is the 'Ring of Power' .... interpret 'ring' as the 'ring' in 'ring of a bell' ... oh,yes, POWER does have a wonderfully attractive, often mesmerising 'ring' to it, so much so that people who succumb to the allure, even if they do achieve power of some sort, in fact become slaves to the 'ring'! This is why the rings of Sauron and of the Nibelung are so tricky to handle.

Taking it a bit further, and looking at what power got Sauron: a blasted, scorched, filthy desert of a country peopled by filthy, ugly, treacherous creatures, and you have to recognise that it is not much of an advert for the joys of power! The thing is, that it is so often so tempting to think that the answer to many of one's problems is to 'take control' of a situation, to 'tell other people what to do'. Like the commander of an army: yes, at one level, the quick and easy way to get the troops into line and a force up against whatever enemy is on the horizon, is just to 'take command'. But even in our armed forces, it has been recognised that just treating the troops like they were machines, rather than human beings, just does not work well. And then consider animals: yes, you can just make them do what you want by beating them into submission, and the like, but they work a hell of a lot better for you if you treat them well. And that is the orcs that Sauron ends up surrounded by: any human or animal that is ill-used ends up becoming vicious, and, at a personal level, who wants to live surrounded by vicious people who would like nothing better than to take a bite out of one? And then, surround yourself by people like that, and after a while you end up believing that that is what people, all people, are like; that that is human nature. So you end up trapped in the world you have created. And then, if you believe that that is human nature, power, and more of it, becomes a matter of survival for you, and it gets so that life becomes all about, and only about, POWER, and then, psychologically speaking, instead of living in a garden full of sweet smelling and good-to-eat flowers and plants, one lives in a blackened and blasted desert of filth.

So, the theme of 'rings of power' and how tricky and treacherous they are is an extremely interesting one. But it carries on into another, traditionally puzzling character, that appears in the Nibelung: Loki. Loki is a mischievious creature, perhaps a spirit more than a god, and supposedly, like everyone else, under the authority of the chief god, Wotan. But, as one sees Wotan achieving his ends only through the help of the cunning ideas provided by Loki, and as one watches Loki playing with ideas, and 'teasing' Wotan, one cannot help questioning who has the REAL power? One cannot help but feel that if Loki wants to defy Wotan, he could very, very easily have done so, not by outright, in-your-face methods, but simply by outwitting him. Wotan rules Loki only if Loki lets him. All in all, one cannot escape the conclusion that the REAL power lies with Loki!

One cannot help making an association here with a character from quite another mythology: Ulysses. Ulysses, too, was a bit of a puzzle. He didn't play the part of the traditional Greek hero. Unlike Ajax, Achilles and the like, he went reluctantly to fight the Trojans, and he showed little interest in GLORY. In fact, one could say that he showed an embarassing lack of heroism and pride. Yet, like Loki, it was he that got things done, that, in the end, came up with the idea of the Trojan horse, and so was the REAL winner of the Trojan War.

The contradiction that these two characters embody, is that, the more you want it and work for it, the less power you actually end up with! It is by NOT chasing power, like Loki and Ulysses, that you actually end up being REALLY powerful. Power, it seems, goes to those who DO NOT WANT IT. It is not, in fact, such a mystery. It goes back to the diversity and complexity of the mind, and the natural world, and the LIMITATIONS OF THE SPECIALIST in such an environment. It is like that scene from 'Raiders of the Lost Arc', where Indiana Jones is confronted by an obviously expert swordsman who is so confident of his own abilities that he clearly does not doubt Jones demise is but seconds away. Jones roles his eyes, draws his pistol, and shoots the man before he even gets within sword range! Or there is the case of the martial arts expert who was floored by a crude punch from a fair-ground boxer ... simply because the experst was so highly trained IN HIS OWN ART, that he had not expected the move! This is the problem for specialists: there is always someone who has specialised in something else, or even an unpresictable non-specialist ... and there, I have just used the key-word: UNPREDICTABLE. Our world is unpredictable. It has to be or it would be hellish boring! An unpredictable world is not best approached with specialist training. So, when you make power your SPECIALITY, you leave yourself open to non-specialists, and those who can 'wing it', and thus, the pursuit of power is self-defeating, and thus, Loki and Ulysses, (and jacks-of-all-trades), who do not seek power, are the ones who end up BEING THE MOST POWERFUL. AND, they are SO powerful that they do not need to exercise power --- except when occasion demands, and then they often do so in such a way that it is not detectable.

Nor have I exhausted the theme of power as it appears in those two works yet, because they have this in common, too: GOTTERDAMERUNG, 'the Twilight of the Gods'. Wagner's ring cycle ends with the destruction of the gods ( which is, basically, what Wotan has been struggling to avoid all along), and Tolkien's novel ends with the 'dominion of man', that is, with the departure from Middle Earth of the Elves and Wizards, taking their magic and powers with them. In both works, it is the idea of entering a lesser, diminished age. Well, of course, it was the 'lesser' man, Ulysses that won the Trojan war, and, what is more, HE WAS THE ONLY ONE OF THE GREEKS THAT MADE IT HOME ... all the Greek heros went down in a storm and were drowned on the way home. So, the Trojan War was also a Gotterdamerung situation. These all speak of the triumph of the 'small man', of Loki, and the Hobbits (not to mention Tom Bombadil), and Ulysses; of the people who do not seek power, of the jack-of-all-trades, etc.

That just scratches the surface of what there is to explore in these works, but this blog is getting too long, so that will have to do, and I will move on to Final Fantasy, and make the connection with those previous two works through one of the main characters in Final Fantasy X: the character around whom the story revolves is known as a 'summoner' and is called Yuna ( the weakest and the most powerful character). Summoners are people (not generic to, or invented by, the FF people) who have the 'magic' ability to 'summon' other beings, spirits, to their aid. Yuna has the ability to summon a Yojimbo, a djinn, a Hindu deity, among others, to her aid when she wants. This ties Yuna in with Loki, and his ilk; metaphorically, a summoner is a jack-of-all-trades. If I am a jack-of-all-trades, then at one time I might take lessons from a samurai, then a kick-boxer, then from a gun fighter, and so on. Then, at need, I can call on the 'spirit' of the gun-fighter, or the samurai, or whatever suits best in the situation. Thus, I become a 'summoner'. Note that, in order for a samurai to take lessons from a gun-fighter, he has to be free of the sort of pride that says, 'I am the best, my subject is the best, and nothing else is worth knowing'. Of course, I talk here in fighting terms, because that is what these games deal with, but it can translate into all walks of life.

Well, this blog could go on forever, but I will just say one final thing about Final Fantasy: it offers the most brilliant and useful 'view' of human nature, and how the mind works, that I have ever encountered. Human beings are essentially defined by their abilities, and through every experience they hone their abilities and gain new abilities. It is a view of the human mind, not as a machine, but as a living, growing thing; something that learns as a matter if course, and is limited by nothing except lack of opportunity.

So, that scratches the surface of why I love: THE RING OF THE NIBELUNG, THE LORD OF THE RINGS, and FINAL FANTASY.