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Dumb People who make Good Things

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Posted

I feel like my opinion on your concerns needs a really long post, but for some reason I can't think of a longer way to tell you my opinion than this:

 

People are really complex and have good and bad sides to them. Liking or disliking a creative work has such a miniscule effect on what the author will ultimately think about any given thing that you can't hold yourself responsible for their opinions or actions just because you read a lot of Berserk and the author expresses his thing for little girls in said manga.

 

Basically, I think it's fallacious to say reading Berserk or anything that glorifies evil behavior will support that behavior; at the end of the day you're just looking at an endorsement for that person's deviant thoughts, and whether you react positively or negatively I suspect the author will just continue to like little girls all the same.

PrimaGaga and Teto like this

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Posted

That's rich coming from an Eridan sympathiser.

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Posted

;)

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Posted

Well, I thought I covered in my original post that I wasn't trying to get miura to stop doing it, rather I wondering whether or not I should stop liking it.

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Posted

You should only will yourself to stop liking it in the event that you believe that it will unearth your latent desires.

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Posted

No? Assuming its even actually a thing and not subconscious or a series of coincidences, what percentage of the story of Berserk is centered around young naked girls? 5%? Probably less.

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Posted

I didn't notice anything weird

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Posted

As an avid anime fan, a lot of themes like this show up in a lot of anime I watch. I think it's both a combination of what Chase said, being their low age of consent, as well as just their general acceptance of things and not bothering to question much until it actually becomes harmful. Thus, you see a lot of little girls being promiscuous or incestuous relationships between characters. Although, incest used to be a cultural thing there as well. So, maybe it's more so just a cultural thing and they are a pretty different culture to us anyway.

 

That doesn't make it right though, obviously. I hate when loli are being intentionally sexualized in an anime. Usually, I'll let it slide, but a slight dislike for the anime will still be in my head. Although, there are moments where they're not intentionally doing it, I feel, but someone looking to hate on anime for doing it would count it as an example. Ghibli films are a good example of this. In My Neighbor Totoro and Only Yesterday, they both have a bath scene. Totoro has the father and his two daughters in a bath and Only Yesterday is in an open bathhouse. I felt these were more of just a regular scene with no harm intended, especially when in Totoro, they start yelling to scare the "dust bunnies" away.

 

 

Back to the point of the thread though, I don't see why you should stop liking Berserk just because Miura """might""" be a lolicon. Whenever you have opinions like these, I feel like you get them from reading some post on Tumblr. If I wrote a sexual novel about a little girl and her brother, does that mean I both enjoy little girls and incest? What if I were to write a whole series about this? I might, but I might not. I might just like money and know my fanbase well. Just because Miura includes little girls a lot (I don't know how true this is) doesn't mean he's a lolicon. You say you have an open mind, but you don't see the possibility of him not liking little girls? I feel like promiscuous little girls are also a big thing in fantasy a lot as well as in medieval times. Both of which Berserk is completely based on. Is Gigantomachia... also... medieval fantasy? I can't defend the loli peeing on him though, that's just stupid shit. But maybe I'm being ignorant and he's basing it on something I don't have knowledge of. Who knows?

 

I usually just let whatever pass when I'm watching anime unless it's actually bad story-telling. Little girls running around naked? Whatever. Incestuous couple? Sure. Characters acting out of character for no reason and the story is a mess? No.

 

 

A reply to the topic: I think it happens more with the artists I listen to. A more widespread example of this is something like Justin Bieber or Kanye West. A lot of people boycott their music because of their actions and beliefs while others will ignore it, whether out of blind devotion or love for their work, and continue to listen to their songs. Similarly, when I saw how the lead member of Queens of the Stone Age was a dick at several points to people, my opinion of the band lowered. I can still enjoy his music though. Another example would be Activision or EA. They blatantly make the same games every single year. Some people boycott it, others love it.

 

Just because you enjoy Berserk does not mean you're condoning the sexualization of little girls, Pheonix, just like watching Game of Thrones doesn't condone rape, murder, incest, etc. Even if Miura has an immense love for little girls. Even if George R. R. Martin masturbates to real snuff/rape films. Keep on reading Berserk and enjoying it, Pheonix. It has all the things you love, don't stop liking it over some post on Tumblr.

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Posted

There's also the possibility that he just genuinely finds a little girl peeing on people to assert her authority kind of hilarious.

 

Despite her youth and small stature, they can't escape... it's unavoidable and nobody wants it.

 

And I mean, there's a lot of rape going on in Berserk.

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Posted

Well, I thought I covered in my original post that I wasn't trying to get miura to stop doing it, rather I wondering whether or not I should stop liking it.

I sort of hope you're not seriously wondering this.

There's also the possibility that he just genuinely finds a little girl peeing on people to assert her authority kind of hilarious.

It was hilarious.

 

Also something about her bodily fluids having healing properties or something.

 

Some of these things are also more likely to convey certain thoughts or emotions. Deep Sea Prisoner AKA mogeko tends to have scenes that imply very gruesome scenarios and even scenes that use rape. There was a whole shit storm in the fandom, apparently, about a comic that mogeko released and they were basically chased off tumblr. It was definitely a comic that made a lot of people uncomfortable but I think that that was the intention considering that one of the characters depicted is basically psycho bad guy yandere mind breaking garbage. In the game, it was implied that this character raped the main character in one of the bad endings, in which case, I think this was more to exhibit the terribleness of said character rather than some kind of rape fantasy.

 

tl;dr maybe there was a point to it that isn't just trying to get into the author's psyche

 

(P.S. Sal is trash but bullying is also trash)

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Posted

I think we've gotten away from what I was actually talking about. Rather than go into and reply to every post that's been made since my last post, I think instead I'll pose a hypothetical scenario. I think that's probably what I should have done to begin with.

Say there's a book that comes out that you've read, and you love. A lot. It's a really great, fantastic book, and it's everything you've ever wanted in any work of fiction (its a fictional fiction book). So do a lot of people! In fact, it's a world famous book that everyone loves. Like, Harry Potter famous, but not harry potter. Generally you're glad that there's a fantastic, exceptional work of fiction that's approachable by such a wide audience.

 

But there's a problem with the book's fame. See, the book has some kind of theme in it that sort of maybe glorifies genocide. You just glaze over that part, because you're almost certain no living author who was smart enough to write such a great, famous book, would ever condone something so horrible. But then one day the author announces that he totally was all about genocide and the halocaust and loves the idea of killing lots of people for one horrible reason or another because he or she is a horrible person. And that part of the book was definitely put there intentionally by the author because the author wanted to point out why genocide was actually a great idea.

You, you savvy reader you, are smart enough to know better. Of course genocide is wrong, and this author is wrong! Everybody knows that! Except, not everybody actually knows that. There are a lot of people who read this book and start using it to justify genocide, because I dunno, it's eugenics or something. And there are people who normally might think mass murder was a bad idea, but now think it's a not so bad of an idea. So what do you do? Anything at all?

I want to reiterate that we are definitely positive that the work of fiction in this particular instance, along with the public statements of the author, is undeniably pro genocide in this situation. And some people who read it, who never stopped and thought critically of what they were reading while they read it, took on the beliefs of the author. And then some of those people went on to do hate crimes or something I don't know.

I'm hesitant to make this post because frankly I'm worried that I'm probably leaving out some details to this hypothetical scenario that are going to lead everyone to answer different questions than the one I'm trying to ask, but I'm gonna make it anyways because I'm an idiot.

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Posted

Ehhh, maybe not the best example

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Posted

Yeah probably. Maybe I'll just lock this thread.

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Posted

no wait I'll come up with something :o


Actually you did remind me of something. I was recently talking about taking Harry Potter too seriously (ie saying Dumbledore supports Harry's living in an abusive household with his foster parents or saying that loving Snape as a character is tantamount to excusing creepy stalker people) and I think it kind of relates to what you're talking about?

 

Especially with that second example I used. Rowling seems pretty okay with writing these crummy characters and making them strangely charming in a way that glorifies their terribleness, especially in the case of Snape. I know that creepy stalkers who would implicate the murder of a woman's family for selfish reasons are bad people, but hey, there's probably a lot of guys that look to Snape and say "Oh, he's just like me! Maybe my desire to go full yandere on that one girl I like is okay because Snape was a likeable guy in the end."

 

As far as I know Rowling hasn't said anything against these people. Maybe I'm wrong, but for the point of trying to understand how you feel let's just say she hasn't. My response in this case is basically this; what's the alternative? Repressing any discussion or mention of creepy stalkers/bad people that might be sympathetic to their cause? That's a hysterical and extreme response that only fosters narrow thinking about things. Yeah there's a fine line between decent people and bad people, and maybe talking sympathetically about these actions in a way that could inspire a decent person to go bad is asking for trouble. But I think people are predisposed to pick up one nasty habit or another, whether it's being creepy to women or advocating racism or lesser things.

 

Long story short I feel like it's too much of a jump in logic to say the world is 100% worse off because someone with cultural influence expresses sympathy to some bad thing or lifestyle. The world and people are just too complicated to worry about it like that. This guy you like is maybe inspiring normal people to do something bad but how do you know it isn't also inspiring other to do good?

SilverAlchemic likes this

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Posted

Well, like, I don't think someone that has an unhealthy attachement to young girls is going to inspire people to have the same feeling. That's not something you can catch.

 

Maybe a closer example would be Orson Scott Card and Ender's Game. I haven't read it, but I know a lot of people really love it, but Card himself is really scummy. Do his beliefs come through in Ender's Game? Maybe. As far as I know they don't but maybe if you go digging deep enough you'll find something. Aat the same time its such a big piece of the Science fiction canon, so I can't imagine it being shunned.

 

But all of this is outside of the quandary I guess. All I'm saying is you don't have to feel bad about something you enjoy this much because of something that may be true.

 

That series is pretty short, I think I'll go read it to see what you mean.

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