As an excellent manga adaptation, the animation "Parasitic Beast" has been broadcast for nearly 7 years since it was broadcast in October 2014, so this article is to some extent a repetition of old words and a new product of old tea, please include more readers and dissenters. In the process of drafting this article, I tried to restrain my own views and instead expounded the views and positions expressed by the author, hoping to explain his central idea. Without further ado, let's cut to the point.
What are the principles of life?
(This is a question that sounds very empty)
The fundamental problem of life is the problem of survival, which includes two aspects: how to "live" and "exist": birth, which is generally summarized as the food and safety needed for life; existence, that is, reproduction and childbearing.
In the work "Parasitic Beasts", we will find that these beings have the need to eat, but they do not have the ability to reproduce, they do not even have gender, a life, it does not reproduce, what does it mean? This life form, if it cannot expand its population by itself, will inevitably die out within the visible time limit, and there will be no overloaded demand for resources, which is like a vaccine for the earth and the ecological environment. But they have a high degree of rationality and learning ability, so they are very similar to humans, they are imitated as human beings but not human beings, they are like "you in the mirror".
"Parasitic beast". "Parasitism": the relationship between two organisms living together, one benefiting and the other suffering, the latter providing nutrients and a place to live for the former, is called parasitism. "Beast" represents the beast and, by extension, the meaning of barbarism.
Parasitic beasts are beasts that inhabit human society
"Ryoko Tamiya" is an outlier among these parasites, and she is the most important main character in the anime. As a parasitic beast, she has little interest in destroying humans from the beginning, but she has a great interest in the meaning of parasitic beasts, she studies parasitic beasts and humans, and even uses the human body to produce human heirs and understand maternal love, she proposes the possibility of coexistence between humans and parasitic beasts and proves with her own death that parasitic beasts can empathize with humans. "Goto", as an experimental product of Tamiya, is the representative of bestiality, and he regards the multi-beast fusion as the strongest, and regards the parasitic beast and man as the relationship between predator and food, after the collapse of the parasitic beast group in the city hall, the beast-like he follows his instincts, hunting the protagonist and being killed by the protagonist.
The protagonist doesn't think Goto is guilty, do you agree?
Curiously, as the "Terminators" sent by Heaven to punish humanity, these parasitic beasts are not invincible. As beings born from the earth and ecology, they have tough and flexible muscles that can be transformed into sharp blades, long life, and a high degree of intelligence and rationality, and they are not the strongest in the biological sense. But they are extremely fragile, they will be wiped out by high-tech weapons, they are also afraid of viruses and bacteria, they can not get out of the defects and constraints of the creatures themselves. At the end of the film, the parasitic beasts either actively or passively choose to integrate into human society and restrain cannibalism, which is the choice they make for "survival".
Why didn't the parasitic beast effectively wipe out humans?
They have not even been able to unleash a general sense of panic and crisis in human society
Let's listen to an interesting character: a confession by Urakami, a serial killer who is obviously a human being, but has killed more than a dozen people "more monsters than monsters" for no reason: "Monsters kill people simply, just to eat." So, what do you think I killed? You (the protagonist) know very well that I am human. Humans are creatures that want to kill each other! I could tell the difference between monsters and humans at a glance, and I knew that the world was very unnatural. In fact, there is no need for any monsters, because human beings are originally capable of killing each other, and they have been like this for thousands of years. But suddenly it was impossible to do this, so the population swelled to seven or eight billion, and the earth was going to explode! Finally, he asked the protagonist: "Since you stand in the middle of the position between humans and monsters, please answer me, I am a normal person, right, I just follow my instincts, but human society pretends not to know me." ”
Parasitic beasts and murderers, who is more like a monster in the end?
Human society itself is a machine that is consuming a huge amount of life force, and dozens and hundreds of parasitic beasts are not enough to shake this civilized society that has been running for thousands of years. Tigers, leopards, jackals, and many of the lives that have threatened the survival of mankind in history have either been wiped out or trained or weakened. Humans dominate many lives, whether it is pigs, cows, chickens and sheep as food, or cats, dogs, birds and mice as pets, these lives can survive not because of human love, but because of human selfishness. The so-called sympathy for other creatures is only because human beings themselves are too lonely, and protecting the environment is only because human beings are afraid of their own demise. Proceeding from the interests of human beings themselves, life is characterized as good or bad, which is the benchmark for human beings to measure life.
Humans are like parasitic beasts of the earth
In the battle with the big boss Goto at the end of the film, each human actually stands in front of the dying Goto with a knife in hand and does a single choice question: Protect the earth or protect the human race?
If you choose to support parasitic beasts to maintain the ecological balance like the mayor, it is to use the standard of human existence to despise humans, which will create contradictions. While telling the audience the story of how an immature boy grows into a man who dares to take responsibility through tribulations, loss of love and gaining love, the author also repeatedly asks the audience this question: Is life and love selfish?
Parasite affirms this view.
The starting point of life and love must be selfish
Episode 14 teaches the elaboration of the relationship between genes and love and egoism
Every life born on Earth, as small as a microbial giant knife elephant, is a link in the ecology and must rely on each other to survive. Humans and parasitic beasts, but to a certain extent, they jump out of the ecological closed loop, out of the fatigue of survival, have inner leisure, so humans can empathize with any creature, parasitic beasts can empathize with humans, humans can think and stand on the position beyond human beings themselves, and the same is true for parasitic beasts.
Did the parasitic beast really understand human emotions?
As a mirror of human beings, parasitic beasts have become the yardstick for measuring human life. Human beings cannot be the yardstick by which all life is measured.
Maybe one day, if human beings can leave the earth, then everything that human beings have to the earth is worthless. Life is born together on the earth, competing with each other and more interdependent, giving each other a measure of value, no matter who leaves this ecology, will lose the original standard of measurement.
What is the principle of life?
The answer given by "Parasitic Beast" is very general, he is just the author's admonition to humans through the mouth of the parasitic beast, asking questions to humans, hoping that the audience will think: In the short life cycle, how do we, who have a leisure mind, measure ourselves? After satisfying your own selfish life and selfish love, how to measure the value of other lives? What definition can we define life? Did we do the right thing in the past? What do we do in the future?
Ask questions, think, answer.
This is the ultimate question posed by Parasite: the principle of life.
The earth doesn't laugh or cry