Looking Into Deserving Happiness

This is related to that tangent I went on in Thursday's post about whether Martin "deserved" to get the happy ending or not, given his past actions. It's not a serious investigation of that, because I don't know what I could say about it. Is happiness something that's deserved, or that could be denied on the basis of what you do or don't do? I guess it is, in fiction at least, since stories often end with the antagonist not getting what they wanted, and the audience is OK with it because that character was bad, so to heck with them. Or we're sad when the protagonist meets a poor end because they deserved better, and so on. It goes on in real life as well, when people talk about how so and so doesn't deserve that, whether it's something positive or negative. I'm not sure what that's related to though. Empathy and jealousy? Belief that there might be someone out there that pulls the strings, and really they ought to know better than to {insert whatever series of events one might find fair or unfair}.

There's one fictional discussion of this that I think of frequently, and it floated up to the front of my mind on Thursday, so I figured now's a good time to get it out here. Some of you may be familiar with a manga/anime called Neon Genesis Evangelion. I watched it with Papafred (who was probably on his 20th viewing of the series or so by then) about five years ago, and that's where my mind's at today. On the surface, it's a show about some kids piloting giant monster-things (called Evas) to fight and kill other monster-things (called Angels). There's a lot more to it, but any other relevant points will come out as I go along. At one point in the series one of the supporting cast (Suzuhara) is tapped to become a pilot. In his first test run, his Eva goes berserk, with him trapped inside. The main character, Shinji, refuses to fight, because he might hurt his friend. Shinji's dad, who's the man in charge and an utter bastard, locks Shinji out of the controls, enagages a sort of autopilot for the Eva, which succeeds in killing the berserk one. In the anime, Suzuhara loses an arm and leg. In the manga, he winds up dead.

Shinji loses it and threatens to destroy the base, his dad short-circuits that plan, and Shinji is discharged from the service. There's another attack, and a recurring character by the name of Kaji grabs Shinji and gets him to a shelter. They start conversing and Shinji talks about how sick he is of the fighting and how he just wants to be happy, and Kaji's response is Shinji doesn't deserve to be happy. He is alive at the cost of Suzuhara's life. He could have fought, maybe defeated the Angel and saved Suzuhara, but wouldn't accept the responsibility, and now his friend is dead. Thus, he forfeited the right to happiness. It's harsh*, but Kaji's speaking from experience. There was a cataclysm 15 years previously, and in the aftermath Kaji ran with a group of orphans, living in the remains of an abandoned building, stealing food from a nearby military post. Except Kaji was caught one day, and presented with the "they die or you die" question, and he chose Option A. He did escape and try to warn his friends, but by the time he arrived, the soldiers were leaving, and his friends were dead. Their lives for his, and so to his mind, he's in the same boat as Shinji. Their lives are no longer there own, and they need to be spent doing things to atone, thus Shinji needs to go back to fighting and protect the world. It's very Spider-Man in that way, presented more bluntly, since I don't recall say, Matt Murdock, flat out deciding Peter can no longer be happy because Uncle Ben was killed by The Burglar Spidey didn't stop.

Well, OK, if Kaji feels that way, I guess that's his call, but he does like Misato, Shinji's commanding officer and the closest thing the kid has to an actual parent**, and she likes Kaji, so what about that? If someone could have happiness by being happy with Kaji, shouldn't he help them acheive that, and just be grateful he attains happiness by proximity?

This is where I think Kaji gets too broad with his view on things for me. See, Misato was at the origin of the cataclysm, because her father was part of the crew studying it and she was visiting. As things go awry, she's injured and knocked unconscious. Her dad puts her in the remaining escape pod (single-seater, naturally), and sends her on her way. He dies for her, and to Kaji's way of thinking, she doesn't deserve any happiness either. Which is kind of asinine really. Unlike Shinji, who chose not to fight, or Kaji, who chose to tell the soldiers where his friends were, Misato made no decision. She didn't get the chance. Now, she didn't like her father much, he was one of those "my work is too important for silly crap like my family!" scientist types, so maybe Misato would have chosen to save herself. Smacked him with a pipe, jumped in the pod, and given Daddy the finger as floated away. We don't know. I always find that to be the hole in Kaji's train of thought, that if a friend throws him/herself on a grenade for you, it counts the same as if you threw them on the grenade to save yourself.

Although, that ties back into how I perceive the characters, and the attachment (or lack thereof) I form with them. Misato's one of the few characters in the series I acutally liked. She plays at being the party girl, as a defense mechanism, but she's also one of the only adults in the series that actually seems to care about the well-being of the pilots, while I get the feeling everyone else views them as expendable weapons to save their own hides. So I root for her, and the idea that this guy, who vaguely reminds me of Gambit - with his stubble and rougish style - doesn't think they should try and be happy together because neither of them deserve it, well that annoys me. Shinji's whining and constant indecision over whether he will be a pilot or not, whether he wants his father's approval or not, well indecision over damn near everything really***, prevents me from really feeling too bad for him. I don't wish ill upon him, but he wasn't even trying to find a way to save his friend during the fight, he simply refused to do anything.

I'm not sure why that particular scene resonates with me. It's a depressing way of viewing life****, and maybe I was surprised to see a character damning themselves along with the person they were trying to give a kick in the pants to. Or it could be I just found his logic dumbfounding and I didn't like him lumping a character I root for with himself. I'm curious what the creator's intent was with that scene, because the more I think on it, the more I think Kaji hasn't thought this through enough, is probably using it as an excuse to keep his distance from others*****, and it starts to hurt his argument from my perspective. Perhaps Shinji shouldn't be listening to this guy, and should just continue on as he was. That wouldn't have worked well for the story as it wound up proceeding, though.

* Though to be fair, Shinji needs a periodic kick in the pants. He has self-esteem issues, and positive reinforcement is good, but sometimes they don't have time to build him up, and just have to push him forward.

** Shinji hadn't seen his dad in a decade when the story begins, and his mother's dead. When Shinji initially refused to pilot an Eva, Gendo sent him away, disgusted. Shinji is only useful to Gendo as an obedient weapon, and beyond that means zilch.

*** Which is something I haven't sussed out. Shinji quits and rejoins, and quits again, and I'm annoyed with him. Spider-Man periodically swears Spider-Man no more, only to start web-slinging again, and I like him. I haven't figured out what the difference is to me between the two.

**** Is it Objectivist? You lived because they died, that's wrong, regardless of circumstance, end of story.

***** That's true of practically everyone in the series. They're all emotionally-damaged goods, and none of them seem capable of sustaining close, serious friendships for any extended period of time. Supposedly (going by stuff I've read on the Internet) the creator of the series was dealing with serious depression issues while making it, which might explain a lot, if true. Not saying it is or isn't, just saying it's a possible explanation I've heard.