Feudalism Chic

The 2003 Tom Cruise film The Last Samurai shares a title with a Japanese film from 1977 directed by Kenji Misumi. The titular coincidence is due to the similar subject matter: both films deal with the end of the samurai era following the Meiji Restoration.

In the 2003 film, directed by Edward Zwick, the American protagonist (Nathan Algren) travels to Japan and is enlisted as an advisor to the Imperial government. They require his help to destroy the last hold outs of the old ways, who do not wish to surrender their traditional lifestyles. They "no longer dishonor themselves with the use of firearms," he is told.

The main character ends up joining the samurai and fighting alongside them. We are to believe their cause is noble and pure. In fact, the samurai were noblemen in a strict feudal system who lived off of a stipend from the rulers. The overwhelming majority of the population did the labor required for society to function and enjoyed little privileges in return. The samurai heroes apparently want to hold onto this system, to keep their government stipend and all expenses paid living arrangements. Given solely the context of the film, the samurai are unequivocally the bad guys.

The Japanese film of the same name, although dealing with the same time period, is much more nuanced. The films's title character, Sugi, starts out seemingly as the standard samurai hero, a stoic, lone wolf killing machine. Throughout the film he is humanized more and more, for example we learn of a childhood suicide attempt, his father/son like relationship with his sensei and so on. This happens with the Meiji Restoration as it's backdrop. When the Shogun's forces are defeated, Sugi's sensei, killed in the struggle, makes him promise to not avenge his death.

The film's other characters, all connected to Sugi with one night of drinking in which they bonded, remain attached to one faction or another and refuse to quit fighting.

Misumi's Last Samurai shows the samurai for what they were, a violent pre-modern culture. It also clearly illustrates that the conflicts of the time period, in contrast to the impression the 2003 films gives, owed just as much to the struggle between the Tokugawa Shogunate (as well as it's holdouts) and the Imperial Government, than modernism versus tradition.

So, why are modern people fascinated with pre-modern warrior cultures? From the Spartans in 300, the samurai in The Last Samurai to the Vikings of Scandinavia, warrior cultures make for great fiction. But there is more to it than that. Hitler claimed that Sparta was the ideal state. In Sparta, after all, a pampered warrior class went about conquering and warring on it's neighbors while the labor to make society function was done by a massive slave population. Sparta had a slave to free citizen ration of 10 to 1. Nazi Germany infamously used millions of slaves to support it's war machine, which they sent out in self defense of Western Civilization from Jewish Bolshevism.

Taking the movie 300 as an example, the Spartans ask their fellow Greeks what their professions are. They list mundane jobs in Ancient Greece. The Spartans reply that they are soldiers. The reason so many Spartans are free to devote themselves fully to studying war is because all the labor in their city-state is done by slaves. The Persian Empire is arguably more free than Sparta, so ultimately the war comes down to Western Civilization versus Eastern Civilization, not free versus oppressive societies. Seeing themselves as defenders of Western Civilization is common verbiage among far right groups and fascists in Europe and America.

It's not a coincidence that Norwegian fascists and the Imperial Japanese steeped themselves in Viking and Samurai verbiage. Nationalist groups, including the far right and fascists, subscribe to a pre-modern world view where doing good is helping the nation and doing bad is helping the nation's enemies. And of course adoration of soldiers and war is common among nationalist, far right and fascist groups as well. Taken together, these pre-modern warrior cultures are tailor made to provide these deplorable groups with inspiration.

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with enjoying fiction from these time periods. In fact, many samurai movies are actually anti-samurai, where the characters are social outcasts challenging the strict hierarchy of the era. Compare the samurai, fighting for tradition over modernism, from Zwick's Last Samurai to Zatoichi, the star of the longest running film series of all time. Zatoichi, although a sword wielding warrior, is not even a samurai. As a blind peasant he falls near the bottom of the established order. His opponents are often corrupt samurai and yakuza preying on the lower classes. "There is nothing worse than a samurai," Zatoichi remarks in one of his many films.

What a person should ponder when seeing celebrations of these violent cultures is who is creating this? What are they trying to say? What is invested in seeing these people as heroes? Again I'm not subscribing ulterior motives to Zwick's Last Samurai or 300, only attempting to point out where the lines of thought they bring can lead people. The truth is, in history there are few heroes, and often those attempting to make heroes out of villains reveal themselves as modern day villains.

Autistic History

People on the autistic spectrum often have trouble distinguishing people's intentions. Apparently, John Stossel, Fox News' libertarian on retainer, has an autistic view of history. On Fox and Friends he made the rather dubious claim that no one has been helped more by the government than the American Indian. His point was that government aid damages people and communities and that Indian reservations today are not well off.

Stossel seems to believe that these programs and efforts aimed at Indian reservations are designed to help the Indians, a fundamental misunderstanding. Stossel also claims that this unprecedented help has been continuing for the last "200 years". 200 years ago from this year would be 1811, and a cursory understanding of American History would place the Plains Wars, at the very least, in the post-Civil War era. The infamous Wounded Knee massacre happened in 1890 and the government only legalized Indian religious practices in the 1960's. As recently as a few years ago an Indian reservation was taken by the government for unpaid taxes.

Stossel's misunderstanding is due to the Randian view of welfare programs as the actions of do gooder liberals who just don't know any better. In truth, welfare, in the case of the Indians, was created specifically to foster a dependent relationship with the federal government. Stossel's strange viewpoint actually excuses the federal government. It's not that the government was trying to impoverish and destroy Indian communities, he apparently believes the government honestly wanted to help but couldn't figure out how to do so.

Anarchists for Imperalism

I am a staunch anti-imperalist. And yet I find myself a little torn at the American/French/English intervention in Libya. Speaking from an American perspective, the intervention was a violation of the War Powers Act, which in and of itself is probably unconstitutional. So legally, it was wrong.

The US has a tremendous deficit, and it will probably end up costing hundreds of millions of dollars to fight a third war. Financially, it was wrong. Morally, the US has ignored human rights violations in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen and various other nations. Granted, the fighting in Libya right now is worse than those other countries, but to completely ignore the other situations shows a lack of concern for human rights (the supposed motive).

So what is the US's interest in Libya? After initially criticizing Kaddafi, the Libyan leader (who looks like an alien) vowed to never sell oil to the west again. Bad move on his part. The US must figure if the rebels win, their support will buy them access to the Libyan oil fields again.

Still, with all of that said, I find myself glad that the Libyan rebels weren't crushed and slaughtered by Kaddafi, who was even hiring mercenaries from other countries. And it would certainly be a good thing if Kaddafi was sent to the ash bin of history, or held trial for his crimes.

But will this turn out good? Will the intervention inflame the situation and lead to more loss of life? It's hard to say. I am cautiously optimistic.

Adapation Anxiety

If there is a medium reknowned for it's failures in adaptation it would have to be videogames. Both adaptation of movies and comics into videogames and videogames turned into movies and comics tend to be low quality. Recently a six issue series started fromDC adapting the Deus Ex franchise into a comic.

Deus Ex is usually listed among the best PC games of all time, and justifiably so. The gamecombined a deep conspiracy laden plot inspired by the X-Files with an astonishing amount of first person interaction. There was a sequel, Deus Ex Invisible War, that felt more like a lackluster expansion pack and then the franchise went into hibernation. A new sequel, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, is due out in August. The new game has a completely different design team, but so far impressions have been good.

It was with great trepidation, driven by fond memories of the original game, that I picked up Deus Ex Human Revolution #2. What I found was surprisingly good. The art was passable without being notable. The plot concerned Bio-Med companies competing with each other and trying to avoid regulation, while being targeted by a terrorst group. Meanwhile, a group called The Humanity Front is trying to rally public opinion against the human modifications industry. The main character is a cyborg, rebuilt after being mortally wounded, who works for the security department of Seriff Industries.
Who is behind the terrorist attack? The Humanity Front? A business competitor? I, to great surprise, was interested enough to try another issue or two.

Is the Deus Ex franchise being revived? Here's hoping.

Unicorn Doomseeker

(Advanced School for Legend of the Five Rings pen and paper roleplaying game)

Doomseeker (Shugenja) (Unicorn Clan)

The Doomseeker is a strange and powerful tradition known only to certain members of the Unicorn clan. The origins of the Doomseeker are twisted and macabre: the school is founded on techniques created by Asahina Yajinden, imparted to the Ki-Rin when they wandered through the Burning Sands, as part of a long term plot to have his master Iuchiban killed. Only two people are known to ever mastered these powers: Iuchi Karasu, who used them to hunt down his former friend Kuni Yori when Yori became a powerful maho-tsuaki, and Iuchi Katamari, who learned them to fight Iuchiban.

Doomseekers specialize in achieving a contradictory goal: killing those who have made themselves unkillable. Whether through maho, the rituals of the khadi or other unknown arts and powers, there are those who haunt Ningen-do who defy all normal attempts to be destroyed. It is these powerful and insidious threats the Doomseekers make their enemies.

Learning these techniques requires one to become an apprentice to an existing Doomseeker, or alternatively, any Unicorn shugenja who meets the requirements and engages in extensive research into the forbidden lore of his clan may master these powers.

Requirements

Rings/Traits: Void 5, One Ring at 4 (must be Ring of Elemental Affinity)

Skills: Lore: Burning Sands 5, Lore: Shadowlands 5, Spellcraft 5, Lore: Spirit Realms 3

Other: Death Trance, either Great Destiny or Dark Fate

Techniques

Rank 1: Embracing Destruction

A Doomseeker must designate an enemy whose destruction he is dedicated to bringing about. The shugenja thinks of killing his foe with every thought he has, and contemplates his enemy's death with every breath he exhales. You gain Sworn Enemy for your chosen opponent, as well as the Driven disadvantage. Eligible opponents could be a Shapeshifter Spirit, an Oni Lord, a powerful Bloodspeaker, a khadi or any extremely high powered opponent (GM’s discretion). Generally a bushi, no matter how strong, would not be an eligible opponent unless he possessed Shadowlands powers or other supernatural abilities.

Whenever facing this enemy in battle, or an opponent who works for the enemy, you may use the benefits of this school's Techniques. If your enemy is defeated and you still live, you must choose a new enemy and begin your crusade anew. There is no retirement for a Doomseeker.

The Doomseeker knows that when facing such an opponent of awesome and horrible power, the longer the fight lasts the more likely he is to lose. Thus, he must strike as hard and as brutally as possible. When attacking an eligible opponent either with a melee/ranged attack or a spell, you may sacrifice spell slots to gain a bonus to damage. Each spell slot sacrificed adds +5 to the total of the applicable damage roll. If this is used to increase the damage of a spell, the spell slots must come from the element being used to cast the spell (Void spell slots can be sacrificed to grant +5 to damage of a spell of any element).

Alternatively, if you receive damage from an attack by an eligible enemy, you may sacrifice spell slots to reduce the amount of damage received by five per slot sacrificed. If the damage is from a spell, you must sacrifice spell slots from the Element of that spell (again, Void spell slots can be sacrificed regardless of the spell’s element).

Either way, you may not sacrifice more spell slots than you have Void Points remaining.

This Technique counts as a rank in your current shugenja school. You retain all previous Affinities and Deficiencies.

Rank 2: Chasing Death

The Doomseeker must be willing to sacrifice his life, his honor and his very self to defeat his opponent. Whenever facing your enemy in battle you may sacrifice parts of your soul to deal additional damage.

When striking an appropriate enemy, either with a melee/ranged attack or a spell, you may permanently lower one of your School skills by 1 rank (you cannot lower a skill below rank 2 in this manner), lower your honor by 5 points or remove one of your innate abilities to gain a 3k3 bonus to your attack/spellcasting roll. If this strike kills the opponent, your sacrificed rank/innate ability/honor returns to you after a full night's rest. This ability may be used simultaneously with your Rank 1 power.

This Technique counts as a rank in your current shugenja school. You retain all previous Affinities and Deficiencies.

Rank 3: Seeking Doom

The Doomseeker knows no victory unless his foe is dead, and knows no contentment until he is victorious. If successfully striking an eligible opponent, either with a melee/ranged attack or a spell, you may spend five void points to nullify the target's powers and abilities. For a number of minutes equal to your Insight rank, the target loses all benefits of, and ability to use, Carapace, Invulnerability, Shadowlands Powers, Spirit Powers, Shadow Points or Shadow powers, any Unique Abilities or supernatural School Techniques (GM's Discretion), Khadi abilities, Maho or Kiho. The target may still use School Techniques that do not require the Shadowlands Taint or Shadow Points and are not supernatural in nature, and may still cast Elemental Magic (or Name or Pearl magic if used against a Nezumi or Naga).

Alternatively, if you give your life to cast a damage dealing spell, as per the rules for Sacrificial Magic on page 127 of The Vacant Throne, you may choose to have anyone reduced to 0 wounds by your spell be permanently trapped inside a gem, diamond, pearl or similar object (GM’s discretion) you have on your person. Your soul is similarly trapped, and the two of you will continue to fight for all eternity. The Kharma spell cannot be cast in regards to a character who sacrifices himself in this way. If someone finds and breaks the object, both you and your enemy are released into the afterlife.

This Technique counts as a rank in your current shugenja school. You retain all previous Affinities and Deficiencies.

The Great Regression

If there's one thing that all authoritarian movements seem to have in common, it could very well be a hostile stand against unions. The Soviet Union outlawed all independent labor unions and then created government managed unions to take their place. Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany took similar tacts, mandating membership in government created unions headed by political appointees and banning all others. In fact, the brownshirts and blackshirts, before seizing power, had fought in the streets with striking workers.

Labor history in America is one of opposition and then co-opting. Until the New Deal, unions were illegal and presidents would send in the National Guard to shoot at striking workers. Following after the New Deal was the Taft-Hartely act, which outlawed sympathetic strikes, political strikes, general strikes and closed shops among other things. By this point the IWW, the most radical union arguably, had been decimated by the Palmer raids and Woodrow Wilson seizing control of the lumber industry when there was a labor dispute.

Most of the unions that remained were large conservative organizations, and combined with the anti union legislation (right to work laws for example) union membership dwindled steadily over time. Now, a new wave of Republican legislators is intent on attacking a weakened foe, perhaps hoping to finish unions once and for all. In Wisconsin, public employees would be forbidden to collectively bargain for anything other than wages, and in Michigan a proposed law that seems set to pass would allow a governor appointed "emergency manager" to void union contracts at will.

There seems to be a perception that unions are strangling the economy or exerting a corrupt influence on society. These are just the rantings of extremely authoritarian figures who are afraid of voluntary associations. When legislation was proposed to legalize card check commercials were aired comparing card check legalization (an increase in economic freedom) with mandatory unionization or outlawing secret elections. What we're talking about is voluntary groups, heavily restricted by the government already, getting targeted by legislators claiming an interest in freedom.

I can't imagine anything more beneficial for freedom in the United States than repealing the Taft-Hartely act, right to work laws and an increase in the membership in radical class oriented unions (like the IWW).

Dune Cast wish list

Paul- ??

Leto- Liam Neeson

Gurney- Edward James Olmos

Thufir- Lance Henriksen

Jessica- January Jones, Noomi Rapace, Charlize Theron

Duncan Idaho- Dominic West

Yueh- James Callis

Stilgar- ??

Baron- Willem Dafoe in a fat suit

Chani- ??

Dr. Kynes- ??

Rabban- ??

Feyd-Reutha- Doesn't have many lines, could have a hot shot UFC fighter type play him

Irulan-??

Shaddam- Christopher Lee

Dune

Dune blog

http://iareduneblog.blogspot.com/

Blog I started devoted to the science fiction series Dune. I am officially at a total lack of material and am just linking to it from here. I will just use this blog for any of my interests, which includes comics, sci fi, politics and gaming.