Welcome to the conclusion of Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
Exiting the Hidden Garden, Nausicaä realizes that Ohma has gone on by itself to Shuwa. A group of wormhandlers tracks her down and swears fealty to their new guardian deity. Surrounded by loyal subjects willing to do her bidding, Nausicaä realizes that she is no different than the first Dorok emperor, who centuries before went off to Shuwa to “save humanity.”
~
At the capital of Shuwa, King Vai, the Torumekian Emperor, routs the remaining Dorok defenses. He demands entrance to the Crypt, but the surviving Dorok prisoners warn that he must wait for a messenger. King Vai attempts to blast open the doors of the Crypt, but the strange black structure proves impervious to weapons fire.
Ohma arrives on the scene, demanding immediate cessation of hostilities in accordance with Nausicaä’s wishes. Frightened Torumekian soldiers fire on Ohma, only to be incinerated by an explosion not seen since the Seven Days of Fire. King Vai succeeds in manipulating Ohma into turning its awesome firepower against the Crypt. There is an exchange of fire between Ohma and the crypt, which leaves Ohma fatally injured and the crypt broken. Overhead, the explosions forces the valley gunship piloted by Mito and Asbel to crash-land on top of the Crypt.
~
From a distance, Nausicaä sees multiple mushroom clouds and senses Ohma’s pain. During a rest from a thick rain of ash, she tells the wormhandlers about the Sea of Corruption, that the forest is not humanity’s punishment for polluting the world, but is actively working to clean the world. The wormhandlers rejoice at the news and the hope that it brings. Nausicaä does not reveal the secret she learned in the Garden, that there will be no place in the purified world for humans. She confides to Selm telepathically that she will go on telling this lie so people will have a reason to live.
The Crypt of Shuwa. (Hardcover Edition, Vol. 2, p. 485)
Back at Shuwa, King Vai and his fool are the only survivors from the battle between Ohma and the Crypt. People calling themselves scholars of the Crypt crawl out of the living and oozing structure, asking to parlay with the new regime. They invite the King inside to meet the Master. The fool comments that these scholars are parasites, living as intermediaries between the Master of the Crypt and the outside ruler.
On top of the Crypt, an injured Mito notices that the living walls of the crypt are slowly healing and resealing. He urges Asbel to head inside in structure to investigate while he stays behind to rig up explosives to keep the walls open. Inside, Asbel discovers colonies of human and heedras build within the interior of the Crypt.
~
Nausicaä and the wormhandlers finally arrive. Sensing her authority, the scholars take her down to see the Master of the Crypt. Nausicaä arrives in time to see King Vai pondering the bargain offered by the scholars: Immortality and other exotic technologies in exchange for protection from any outside interference.
Holograms and shadows from the Seven Days of Fire. (Hardcover Edition, Vol. 2, p. 505)
Darkened temporarily by the damage caused by Ohma, the Master of the Crypt is a giant sphere of flesh with writings inscribed on its surface. With power restored, it begins probing the minds of everyone in the crypt with a piercing light. Greeting them with a host of holographic people from the ancient world, the Master speaks of the need for purification and rejuvenation through the Sea of Corruption. It reveals that the Crypt contains technology and knowledge necessary for the construction of a purified world, a world without suffering. The Master asks Nausicaä and King Vai for their help, to ensure that the light of the crypt does not go out.
To this, Nausicaä has this response to set up the climax of the entire saga:
“Because no matter how much knowledge and technology you have, you will still need slaves to do the work for you the morning you replace the world!? Our bodies may have been artificially transformed, but our lives will always be our own! Life survives by the power of life… To live is to change… But you cannot change. You have only the plan that was built into you. Because you deny death. Speak the truth! We have no need for you.” (Hardcover Edition, Vol. 2, p. 508)
The Master responds to Nausicaä by asking her to imagine the days of despair during the Seven Days of Fire, a world where tens of billions of humans would do anything to survive in a damaged world with poisoned air, punishing sunlight, parched earth, and deadly diseases. Having no time and no hope, they entrusted everything to the future. The Master admits that the Crypt is a grave marker of the old world, but says that it also represents hope for a new and pure one.
Nausicaä rejects this hope, believing it is no longer relevant. While she does not doubt that the people of the old age began their project out of idealism and desperation, the Crypt’s inability to deviate from its original intention makes it a threat to life now. Nausicaä believes that to live is to suffer and to change, things that the static and pure Master of the Crypt knows nothing about.
The Master claims that unexpected problems can be addressed and corrected, and accuses Nausicaä of condemning the human race to extinction. It says that without the technologies within the crypt, current humans will succumb to an incurable hardening disease and will have no future. Nausicaä retorts that is for the planet to decide. The Master accuses her of nihilism, of nothingness. Nausicaä counters that the sympathy and love of the Ohmu were born from the depths of nothingness.
Life is the light in the darkness (Hardcover Edition, Vol. 2, p. 511)
Moved and delighted by Nausicaä’s words, King Vai also rejects being a slave to a dead people, choosing instead to serve no one but himself. The Master of the Crypt cuts off communication and attempts to destroy their minds.
Outside, Mito detonates a gunship shell embedded within the healing crypt walls. The explosion interrupts the Master’s attack, giving Nausicaä a window to call Ohma for one last strike. The Master, realizing its vulnerability, pleads with Nausicaä to stop, stating that history will judge her as the one who destroyed the light of hope. Nausicaä counters that if the crypt is light, then humans do not need light.
“We can know the beauty and cruelty of the world without the help of a giant tomb and its servants…Because our god inhabits even a single leaf and the smallest insects. Ohma, forget about us. Send your light to this place!” (Hardcover Edition, Vol. 2, p. 518)
With that command, Ohma destroys the crypt’s contents, including all the human embryos designed to live in a purified world. Nausicaä shudders at the depth of her sin, believing that these people could have truly been a peaceful and intelligent race. She notices that the blood of the crypt and the blood of the Ohmu are the same, and speaks once more to the dying Ohma, telling him that he has become a brave warrior, proud and pure of heart. Asbel finds her and escapes with her to safety to a waiting Kushana, Mito, Chikuku, and Charuka.
Kushana and her father. (Hardcover Edition, Vol. 2, p. 531)
King Vai is fatally injured by the Master, and although he does not like Kushana, the dying Torumekian emperor passes the throne to her. He urges her not to fall back into the cycle of bloodshed and revenge that engulfed him, and dies. As the only other person to know what she had done, Selm helps Nausicaä share the burden of her decision, asking her to entrust the future to the planet and the processes of life. The story ends.
Nausicaä’s Choice
Ordering Ohma to destroy the Crypt. (Hardcover Edition, Vol. 2, p. 518)
The ramifications of Nausicaä’s final decision are profound. By ordering the destruction of the crypt, she has permanently severed her world’s connection to the past. All the collective knowledge, technology, and achievements of the ancient world are lost forever, along with any hope of current humans being able to survive in a purified world. Furthermore, Nausicaä continues to spread the lie that one day people can live in a cleansed land, believing that the truth is too harsh to bear for those with less vision than her.
I remembered being stunned the first time I read her decision; it still remains an unsettling scene to return to today. By destroying the crypt, Nausicaä committed genocide against an entire race of people who were waiting to be reborn in a purified world. She does so in exchange for the freedom for life to live without interference, to change and grow and transcend its limitations.
In hindsight, this decision shouldn’t be surprising. Nausicaä’s ethics and actions have always been rooted in life and its process. Her thoughts on the Crypt are voiced well before the final exchange:
“I suppose that men left that black thing as a kernel of the reconstruction… And it never occurred to them that that itself was the ultimate demonstration for the contempt of life.” (Hardcover Edition, Vol. 2, p. 482)
The certainty and safety offered by the Crypt are exactly the qualities what allow, as Nausicaä calls, “sarcomata and filth” to accumulate. Parasitic power relationships, the misuse of life as weapons, and the corrosive lust for control are traps which repeatedly ensnare humans, generation after generation. Nausicaä understands that the mere existence of the crypt promotes a brittle stasis that suppresses the value of life. By destroying the crypt, she seeks to break the cycle of human folly. With no links to the past and an unknowable future, the present is allowed the chance to exist in possibility. In one sense, she doomed humanity to save it.
Nausicaa, the destroyer of hope. (Hardcover Editon, Vol. 2, p. 518)
Ultimately, I don’t know whether Nausicaä’s decision should be praised or condemned. The story leaves behind a character of extraordinary vision and conscience, and I find myself unqualified to judge her actions in light of the burdens she has to live with.
Parallels with The Farthest Shore
The influence of seminal works of science fiction can be seen throughout the Nausicaä saga, from the giant sandworms and messianic Mua’Dib of Herbert’s Dune, to the secret repositories and guardians of Asimov’s Foundation. Yet the themes and ideas I see most woven within the narrative comes from Le Guin’s Earthsea fantasy series.
It is a curious thing to discover that two of my most beloved works, met and treasured during different times of my life, could harbour such strong connections. Proving that there are few coincidences in life, I was pleased to discover that Miyazaki was indeed influenced by Le Guin’s The Farthest Shore (the third book in the series, and a story I have covered before on Ekostories).
Nausicaa confronts the Crypt. (Hardcover Edition, Vol. 2, p. 507)
The final confrontations in both stories parallel each other. Nausicaä, seeing the crypt’s projections of people from the old age, dismisses them as shadows that should have no influence over her world. In Shore, Ged banishes apparitions sent forth by Cob the necromancer, knowing that the dead can “walk upon the hills of life, though they cannot stir a blade of grass.” (Shore, p. 215). Ged also notes that the “counsel of the dead is not profitable to the living” (Shore, p. 97)
In the climax of their stories, Miyazaki and Le Guin comment that immortality – life that is certain, unchanging, and everlasting – is little different than death. Nausicaä condemns the Master of the Crypt in a fiery exchange:
“To live is to change. The Ohmu, the mold, the grass and trees, we human beings… We will all go on changing. And the Sea of Corruption will live on with us. But you cannot change. You have only the plan that was built into you. Because you deny death.” (Hardcover Edition, Vol. 2, p. 508)
Crossing into the land of the dead, Ged confronts Cob in a similar fashion:
“Here is nothing, dust and shadows. There, he is the earth and sunlight, the leaves of trees, the eagle’s flight. He is alive. All who ever died, live; they are reborn and have no end, nor will there ever be an end. All, save you. For you would not have death. You lost death, you lost life, in order to save yourself. Yourself! Your immortal self! What is it? Who are you?” (Shore, p. 237)
Both stories claim that to seek complete escape from death and tragedy is to deny opportunity for joy and happiness in life. Humans by their very nature suffer, experience pain and sorrow. We can and should ease individual cases of suffering, but to end suffering as a whole eliminates a core part of what it means to live. In her exchange with the Master of the Garden, Nausicaä claims that “the greatness of a mind is determined by the depth of its suffering”. (p. 443) She rejects the crypt’s offer of purity because it seeks to sacrifice the present world, both corrupt and beautiful, for a fixed future of inhuman bliss. This cost is too high for Nausicaä, who constantly chooses to cleave to the messiness of life. Similarly in The Farthest Shore, Ged explains to Cob that in his quest to become immortal, the necromancer has forsaken everything worth living for:
“You exist: without name, without form. You sold the green earth and the sun and stars to save yourself. But you have no self. All that which you sold, that is yourself. You have given everything for nothing.” (Shore, p.237)
In the end, both protagonists take drastic action to restore balance to their respective world. Ged, pitying his enemy, offers Cob this small comfort:
“I would give you life if I could, Cob. But I cannot. You are dead. But I can give you death.” (Shore, p.237)
Proclaiming that “all things are born from darkness and all things are returned to darkness” (p. 512), Nausicaä unleashes the light of Ohma into the heart of the Crypt, destroying it utterly. Both Nausicaä and Ged take no comfort in their deeds, but rather see them as necessary steps to entrust their world to life and living.
Coda: The Nausicaä Saga
A final reunion. (Hardcover Edition, Vol. 2, p. 530)
It’s been eight years since I had first finished the Nausicaä manga. On every subsequent rereading, I am awestruck by the complexity and scope of the narrative. Miyazaki manages to create an original and compelling epic that manages to weave in ideas of nature, culture, and self without the tale degenerating into a preachy parable or a strict condemnation of modern society. There is rarely a false note throughout the entire work. Scenes of deep meditations, unforgettable battles, and satisfying character arcs are all capped off with an incredibly gutsy and open-ended conclusion that reflects its creator’s philosophy on life: That no matter how difficult circumstances are, life must be allowed to live.
There are many more elements that must remain unexplored. I have included in the reference section links to essays and interviews that examines the manga in greater detail. They have been very helpful in fleshing out my thoughts throughout this project, and I hope you have a chance to check them out. I am planning one more little surprise to cap off this ten part series (pending permission), so stay tuned in the next month or so. As always, I welcome your comments, criticisms and feedback, and thanks for reading.
Next Up: Exploring the nature of hope.
Related Ekostories
- Nausicaä Vol. 7-1: The Garden
- Mindful Action: Le Guin’s The Farthest Shore, Part 1
- Le Guin’s The Farthest Shore, Part 2
- Before Cameron’s Avatar: Princess Mononoke
References
Anderson, Nicholas S. (2012). Nausicaa and the Noise of the Earth. Retrieved from The Anthropoeccentric: On the Margins of Humanism.
Lane, Michael. (2003). A Comic Book that Moveth to Tears. First published in Triumph of the Past magazine. Retrieved from www.nausicaa.net.
Munroe, William. (2013). The Tao of Nausicaa. Retrieved from www.nausicaa.net.
Osmond, Andrew. (1998). Nausicaa and the Fantasy of Hayao Miyazaki. Retrieved from http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/nausicaa/article_ao_foundation.txt.
Rose, Bill. (2013). Nausicaa: Eco-Warrior of Life. Retrieved from Critical Fantasies.
Saitani, Ryo. (1995). I Understand NAUSICAA a Bit More than I Did a Little While Ago – An Interview with Hayao Miyazaki. Retrieved from http://www.comicbox.co.jp/e-nau/e-nau.html.
Images of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind © 1991, 1993, 1994 Nibariki Co., Ltd. All rights reserved. New and adapted artwork and text © 2004 VIZ media, LLC.
Ekostories 
Great conclusion. I hate to see this series end. I can’t help thinking about the movie and how tirelessly, Nausicaä experimented (using whatever technology was at hand) to find a cure for the hardening illness her father and others had. But here, she totally rejects the technological means. Interesting. I hadn’t realized the parallel to The Farthest Shore until you mentioned it last time. I can definitely see the parallels to Paul Atreides in Dune, who wanted to destroy his own reputation as Messiah.
I think the Nausicaa the end of the manga will still continue to try to find a cure for the hardening disease. She just believes that to be held hostage by a past race that do not have the interests of the current world in mind is too high of a price to pay.
Yes, I was really struck by how much the two finales parallel each other. Ideas of balance and the need for both light and darkness are prevalent in both works. The essay by Andrew Osmond gives a few more examples.
As for Paul and Nausicaa, it’s interesting that both reluctantly take on the mantle of messiah and eventually use it for their own means.
Well done Isaac…such a readable synopsis of a complex narrative. I like how it ends…what ever happens to life is nature’s decision and not ours.
Thanks very much for reading! It was certainly a challenge to get the analysis all down and finished, but I feel good about doing it.
The ending is interesting, isn’t it? It’s very ecocentric – human beings are just another piece in the web of life. Whether we become extinct or not – as Nausicaa states, “that is for the planet to decide.” It doesn’t mean we should give into despair though. It just means we should treasure the lives we do have and live in the present.
I think one thing that is implied is that even in their engineered form, humans and animals are still able to evolve and change their bodies over time. Now the the crypt is no longer around to bring about an apocalypse to rid the world of its current inhabitants, the Sea of Corruption and humanity will continue to coexist. Someday, perhaps humans will be able to live without masks and in that sense reach a different kind of “purified” land in that they are in harmony with their surroundings. Alternatively, the forest may end up finally removing all the poisons from the Earth, by which time humans have slowly evolved to be able to withstand the fresh air. It is certainly not impossible, as the Keeper of the Garden has already changed Nausicaa’s body to do so. I think the future is optimistic.
For me, I see the future is uncertain, as it always is and arguably to some extent should be.
Perhaps humans will be able to live in a purified land as you say, or perhaps humans go completely extinct. There is evidence for both in the narrative. Or perhaps a few will live on in harmony with nature, or perhaps grow into another different type of human being – better, wiser, but less us. Whatever may happen, the certainty and guarantee offered by the Crypt’s plan is no more, along with the notion of what life SHOULD be, replaced only by chance and possibility and change, always change.
It’s scary, it’s hard, it’s wonderful – and I think that’s what Miyazaki’s ultimately came to for his conclusion, and I love it.
One interesting point I’v seen raised elsewhere is how the conclusion reflects Miyzaki’s own life journey. My understand is that he went from a strong devotee of the Japanese Communist Part(JCP) to someone who became disillusioned with it. A strong thread of a lot of communism does seem to be this idealism of a future (workers) paradise and the idea that purity can be achieved.
Yes, Nausicaa’s journey is definitely also Miyazaki’s, and that’s one of the reasons why the work is so fascinating for me. Time and time again, Nausicaa rejects notions of planned or engineered futures, noting that they either become rigid and brittle or so corrupt as to not work for anyone but the elite. Also, I find that In his work there is an recurring theme of resignation that may be mistaken for nihilism, if not a contrasting undercurrent that speaks to his deep love of life. I find it all very fascinating!
This was a pretty fascinating conclusion, and I like how everybody will have a different interpretation of Nausicaa’s actions. You can argue that she is arrogantly playing god and making decisions for all life on her planet, and those in the Crypt as well when she ruthlessly destroys the embryos of modern humanity, and even she is troubled by her massacre of them. You could argue that the Crypt is right, and she is a devil who has sentenced one race of humanity to extinction, and the other to a slow, gradual one, and she made no effort to try and reason with the Crypt, when it does seem to show that it is capable of being reasoned with, and there could have been some way for both races to live in harmony on different halves of the planet. That not only is she condemning both subspecies of humanity to extinction, but the bugs she loves so much: they will probably be also unable to survive in a You could argue, what right does Nausicaa have to make such huge decisions concerning all life on Earth. and that she is essentially a genocidal eco-terrorist playing with the lives of all life: it would not be difficult to present her as a villain or an antagonist in a very realistic way: Nausicaa is not motivated by malice and has a great big heart, but in another story she might be a well-intentioned villain engineering a bio-bomb to render all humanity extinct so pollution and resource consumption will end and the earth will heal its wounds from us and flora and fauna can inherit the world we have abused. And then you can say that Nausicaa is acting in self defence and the Crypt is too dangerous an ally and provider to trust, as its ultimate goal is the ruin of Nausicaa and her world.
Myself, even though I like the character, I find her actions very shocking to say the least. Whilst I can understand her actions, I defineitly would be horrified and would stand against her to speak in defence of and to protect the Crypt or at least the precious resources and lifeforms stored inside it. Both the Crypt and Nausicaa ultimately have sympathetic ultimate goals, and maybe I am too much of an idealist regarding this fictional world, but I still think there may have been a way for both to get what they want, even if it means letting the post-7 days of Fire world and its creatures peacefully and slowly die out, and then letting the denizens of the Crypt inherit the earth once more.
Isaac, thanks for taking on the mammoth task of summarising such a dense and complex story. I want to talk a bit about Nausicaa’s final decision.
I can’t help but feel that Miyazaki’s depiction of the ancients is unfair.
Yes, they brought about their own destruction by starting a foolish war and outsourcing justice to the God Warriors. There is no doubt that supreme arrogance and recklessness is to blame for the creation of wretched creatures like Ohma.
There is also no doubt that the Ohmu, the bio-engineered humans, and the other life-forms that depend on the Sea of Corruption to survive, have gone beyond their programming: they have the freedom to experience joy and suffering, and are therefore just as alive as any other ‘natural’ entities.
But this does not change the fact that the Sea of Corruption will disintegrate and the bio-engineered humans will go extinct in the future. Nausicaa believes that life, in its unpredictable way, might transcend this fate — but this is very vague notion, isn’t it? Hardly enough to rationalise destroying the ancients and their technology (which could, according to the Master of the Crypt, ensure the survival of the bio-engineered humans even in a purified world).
Here is the thing I am driving at. The Crypt was not built to escape suffering, but to ensure survival. The ancients surely did not believe that suffering would end in their purified world, despite what the Master of the Crypt says (it? he? she? is a god, and I don’t believe it speaks accurately for the ancients).
Wouldn’t reviving the ancients into the mess of humanity be an extension of Nausicaa’s logic: “we must live?”
I love all of Miyazaki’s works, including this one, but the more I think about the ending, the more I question it.
Thanks for your thoughts on this. t’s been a while since I’ve revisited the story myself, and I find my views on the conclusion also evolving over time. So here’s my current take on it.
I think Miyazaki’s condemnation of the ancients goes deeper than that they acted out of hubris and arrogance, but rather the philosophy behind their actions, that the idea life over the long term can and should be planned and regimented.
While Nausicaa acknowledged and empathized with the ancient’s desperation during the Seven Days of Fire – this ark-like project was their salvation in the darkest times, she argues that the world, centuries later, has moved on. Many people and creatures have evolved, died out, changed beyond the ancient’s contingency plans. Being both a champion for her people and the more-than-human world, Nausicaa places a higher value on ameliorating suffering of the present than a past vision of the distant future. She is willing to use the lie to make the present tribes come together to forge a lasting peace. She also accepts that humans have no more rights to exist in this world than the insects and the fungi and the slime mold.
As a regular human being, this may be very difficult to accept – we are inherently “species-ist” and it seems to go against our nature to value non-human life on the same level as others. But that ecocentric view of the world forms the foundation of Nausicaa’s character, and that’s what makes her such a compelling protagonist (I wrote about that too in another post: https://ekostories.com/2013/07/25/favourite-superhuman-protagonists/)
It’s important to note that Nausicaa rejects both the ancient’s future and Selm’s eternal paradise away from the woes of the world. Nausicaa loves both of them as dreams, but ultimately she knows both ideas see present-day beings merely as stepping stones towards a greater future. Unlike them, she accepts that death is the only certainty to living, understands that it is merely the price of entry. What matters to her is the present, of living well, of loving life manifested in all their forms. That love and compassion is the difference between her and a nihilist like Namulith, who, facing death, gives up and tries to tear the world down.
Nausicaa’s journey of course, is an extension of Miyazaki’s journey, when he shifted from an idealist to rejecting his core notions of Marxism and central planning (There’s an article somewhere, it might be linked). Having a vision of the future and striving towards it is fine, but planning every long-term detail out at the expense of organic growth is what Miyazaki’s warning against. I think you can see that in his work as an artist – even though he has a vision, he resists planning out the story and lets it take shape. Sometimes that works, sometimes not.
As a writer, I had a teacher that warned against sticking too rigidly while outlining a new story. Yes a bit of planning is good, he said, to know where you want to go, but sometimes the story surprises you, takes you on another direction. Let it. He called this point of surrender “the rupture”, and this is usually the moment where a story goes from pedestrian or cliched to great and powerful, exactly because it moves beyond one’s control.
Perhaps Miyazaki extends this style of philosophy to both art and life.
Re-read the manga over the holiday and looked for just such an analysis as yours. GREAT READ!
There is something left open in the end and possible additions to the narrative. There’s so much to explore in the stories themes, meaning and interpretations.
Excellent blog that managed to hit upon many things explored in the series. 🙂
On another note, I found another blog talking about the conclusion of Nausicaa concerning how a particular aspect of it can break the series at a certain point (and I’ve been having my mind wracked over it), and since you seem to have quite a bit of insight on it, I was wondering if you have anything else to say otherwise in favor of the series. The blog essentially proposes that the series does work with Cartesian Dualism, and claims that the conflict is presented as man vs nature. However, it would not work as “man” is a part of nature and everything it does stems from the power of nature and therefore, the two cannot be classified as separate entities. Blog is below.
http://loopingworld.com/2013/09/27/nausicaa-of-the-valley-of-the-wind/
Thanks for reading, and the link to the blog post. I’ve never seen Evangelion, but I have heard the ending is controversial, and it’s always interesting to see other works being influenced by the manga.
As for presenting the conflict as a man vs nature, I think the author of the post has a point. The synthetic “nature” of Nausicaa’s world, more so than ours, is all encompassing to the point where the distinction is meaningless. But when I reread the ending, I don’t think that Miyazaki is trying to frame the conflic as man vs. nature, but rather into two different paths: one of rigidity and control and one of organic growth and change. Viewed in this way, it’s more of a choice between life and death (which is very similar to The Farthest Shore, as I mentioned in my writeup). The rigid path can be broken down into two branches – the ancients with their 1000 year plan (what many would regard as man’s path) and the forest people (what most would regard as nature’s path or living in harmony). Nausicaa actually rejects both repeatedly, viewing the first as arrogant and the second as sterile. She opts to trust in life’s ability (whether it be “natural” or “synthetic”) to grow and change in unpredictable ways, which reflect’s Miyazaki’s worldview if you read his later interviews. She lets the chips fall where they may. If humans are meant to go extinct, then her choice means to let the world go its own way.
Thank you for taking the time to respond, even years after writing your analysis of the series. That definitely makes a bit more sense as simply being a man vs nature conflict was something that I felt did not fully encapsulate the full scope of the series.
On another note, I feel that the idea in Nausicaa of “transcending intention” as you elaborated on with the Ohmu and Ohma and the modified humans such, actually applies not only to life in its entirety, but even interpretations of storytelling as a whole. What is interesting to note is how, while Nausicaa herself isn’t especially concerned with religion, she still gets religious interpretation applied onto her in the story such as her fulfilling a prophecy or being hailed as a messiah and such. The characters in the series interpret her journey in various ways and I think that this extends to how the “reader” interprets the series themselves. Even if Miyazaki himself, did not specifically “intend” for his story to fulfill certain meaning that an interpreter may lay upon it, it does not mean that series itself cannot transcend this intention. This would apply not only to this series in particular actually, but to literature as a whole, the meaning of a work transcending what the author had intended it to be. Even for Miyazaki himself, Nausicaa seems to have transcended his intentions, sending him off on his own personal journey, changing his values and philosophies and such. At first it was intended to be just a girl and a valley and the threat of war, yet the series transcends this to become a sweeping epic and laying upon a grand thesis concerning life in its entirety. I find the potential spiritual ties to the story to be particularly interesting, whether Miyazaki consciously intended them or not. Pertaining to Christianity, the 7 Days of Fire kind of paralleling the 7 Days of Creation in bible, except in this sense, it is ironic because yes, the new world was created within these 7 days, yet the foundation is laid at the cost of the destruction of the old world. Also, the obvious potential link to the Garden of Eden with the garden in the series, except rather than committing sin and being forcefully kicked out Eden as humanity did, Nausicaa consciously chooses to live with the suffering. Also, it may be a stretch, but relating to the story of Noah’s Ark in which God sent waves to batter the lands and cleanse the world to bring upon a new world, this can kind of be seen with the Crypt, the ancients essentially acting as “God” in a sense, the Ohmu’s stampede form the Daikaishou which means “Great Tidal Wave” to assist in spreading the forest and accelerating the purification process. The Ark that Noah builds was supposed to carry over humanity and species to the next world and this can be seen in the Crypt in a sense, essentially a tomb to bring various species and technology into the New World. It is ironic in Nausicaa though because she ends up denying a second chance for the ancients however. Also, Nausicaa’s name meaning, “Burner of Ships,” taking this story into account, if by “Ship” we mean the Ark as in Noah’s Ark, then Nausicaa’s name would literally mean the Burner of the Crypt, describing the ending of the manga. While Nausicaa can obviously parallel messianic figures like Jesus Christ himself in a sense, she can also kind of go hand in hand with the Buddha’s development, essentially both of them being born into “nobility,” eventually later leaving their kingdoms and becoming more aware of the vast pain and suffering of the world, and attaining “enlightenment” or an epiphany under a tree, although in the case of Nausicaa, it’s not simply a tree, but an entire forest. Anyhow, whether Miyazaki intended all of this or not, I find it funny how part of the focus of Nausicaa is the idea of “transcending intention,” which describes how reader can look upon the series and conjure interpretations which may transcend what Miyazaki may have or have not intended. 🙂
I apologize if this comment was posted multiple times. It was not showing up after I posted it and I wasn’t sure whether it went through or not so I sent it thrice.
There is definitely an element of the work transcending authorial intent, and I would like to think that Miyazaki was fully aware of this as the story, which took him over a decade to complete and during which he changed a lot in outlook and personal philosophy, took him places he may not have intended at the outset.
I also think anyone creating something new will understand this – once you let a work go into the world, it’s no longer solely yours. Ideas get reinterpreted, rearranged, shaped and moulded according to the interpreter’s life experiences and the times they live in. It may be that Miyazaki never intended the story to have Christian connotations, but there you just articulated one plausible interpretation. I think the creator should be OK with that, in most cases.
Like you, I find the overlap in the central idea of “transcending intention” in both story and medium super fascinating, seeming to say that art, like life, will take on a life of its own, going off in surprising and unpredictable directions, and that it is good and necessary.
“the greatness of a mind is determined by the depth of its suffering”. (p. 443)
I don’t agree with this sentiment.
Going further I’m not sure if I agree with the choices Nausicaä made. Then again maybe I’d just be a parasite in that situation.
Regardless, that is what she chose and it’s good that she could make her own decision.
I have to wonder though. If Nausicaä were there a thousand years ago would she have gone against the plan to create modified versions of life that could survive in a poisoned world?
Sorry for such a late response, I know it has been months, but I have read the series for the third time by now. This time, I find it particularly interesting how the concept of “not knowing” runs through manga. Along with what I said against simply planning everything out, and how in the manga, part of Nausicaä’s decision that plays into the destruction of the Crypt is due to its attempts to dictate the future and “control.” I think in this, she is not only defending life conceptually, but also encompasses how the future should be variable with the capacity to change. This then brings me to how I think the very last few lines of the saga are tied into this underlying theme. The last few lines relating to Nausicaä are particularly vague, noting a “chronicle” that she didn’t return to the valley for a while, and then a “legend” pertaining to her joining the “man of the forest,” assuming Selm. Leaving off in this manner I think goes hand in hand with having a variable future, as these routes exist solely as stories as there is no particular confirmation regarding anything, yet open up potential for even more varying possibilities and paths. In short, I think these lines serve to tie it together. So I guess now, even though the point is that it is indeterminate, I’m kind of curious what you think. Do you think Nausicaä joined Selm in the Sea of Corruption or whatnot?
I think I’m due for a reread as well, maybe during the holidays.
I think on a practical level, Miyazaki simply wanted to end the story without putting more energy into defining Nausicaa’s fate, with an ambiguous ending being in line with the themes of the story. There is some risk in placing an authorial stamp on organically developed characters – I only have to think of the backlash behind Harry Potter’s epilogue where Rowlings admitted to penning it before she wrote the rest of the ending. I think Nausicaa would have resisted having her fate imposed upon her for sure.
Do I think she joined Selm in the Sea of Corruption? Perhaps, but it would not be out of desire but rather of guilt. There’s one scene in the garden where the Master reveals how the first Holy Emperor departed with the intention of being a gentle philosopher king but ended up being a tyrant. I think that really shook Nausicaa, knowing this history and knowing how she could end up like him. That would cause her to retreat from the world if it got to be too much, with people committing the same follies over and over again. Maybe I’m just being cynical these days.
Hm, yeah, it does sound sensible and I can certainly imagine Miyazaki being completely burnt out by the end of writing it. Nausicaä recieved a more vague ending suited to what she was defending, while Kushana received a slightly more direct one relating to how Torumekia became a country without a king. I specifically appreciate how the two not only act as foils to one another, but gradually grow to become more like one another. Nausicaä begins more naive and is able to look upon things in her own special way, while Kushana is more ruthless, described as a “wounded bird”. Then, as the story progresses, Nausicaä changes Kushana, and actually most characters for that matter, and Kushana is able to see things in a brand new light. Nausicaä, on the other hand, becomes more like the “wounded bird” Kushana is and rather than the innocence she gave off in the initial volumes, after the finale, she’s only able to present a tiny smile on a tired face. I also think that Ohma, meaning “innocence,” in his death, represents killing off the final piece of Nausicaä’s innocence never being able to see things in the same light again, and on a similar note, Nausicaä’s response to him demonstrates something that she has learned. When Ohma asks, “have I become a good person,” Nausicaä does not give a straight answer of “yes” or “no,” instead naming out specific characteristics he has transcended his intention to attain, probably because she now realizes that humanity is composed of both purity and corruption, equally capable of committing “good” and “bad” deeds and as a result of such, people cannot be defined as simply “good” or “bad.” Maybe this loss of innocence also ties into the omen regarding Tepa in which (for a while before, it almost felt to me that there was missing piece, like why include it the omen?), the advent of a new child of the wind signifies the loss of the old child, not exactly in a physical sense strictly, but in how Nausicaä can no longer be the exact same person she was in the beginning, peering into the abyss and never truly returning. I do think that along with with everything that you touched upon thematically, I think another major theme is the “inability to generalize” (I remember to Ohma, “if you divide everyone into friends and enemies, you will end up destroying everything.”) in how things are far more complex than they may seem, too much to simply throw in one pile or the other.
Yeah, I can see that, an idea that I certainly hadn’t considered. While discussing with people, of course I sometimes see people ship the two and assume that she just one day left for the forest on a purely romantic basis that I was skeptical of in how simplistic it sounded. Lines towards the last page of “Let us live entrusting everything to this world. Together” and “Yes,” almost sounded like an answer to the previous proposal, but the lines after of “Everyone. Let us depart. No matter how difficult it is, we must live,” suggest referring to the entirety of the planet than simply them two individuals. I was slightly puzzled in how I knew she already previously rejected Selm’s proposal to invite her to live in the forest as she is too involved with every little thing in the flux of life, and how Selm admits it would be a shame to simply take her away from everyone. Oh yeah, speaking of Selm, I learned something kind of cool with his name in how if you take it in Japanese as “Serumu” you essentially get “Serum” like in the series, describing his role as giving the ability to breathe easier as he is one other who knows the truth to the world. Honestly though anyhow, can’t see Nausicaä as simply being anyone’s wife or whatnot considering what happened; just can’t see that with her character as being tied down to such would be a disservice to almost damage her characterization. I had forgotten the significance of the Dorok Emperor’s attempts to do the same, so yeah, your idea sounds even more reasonable as it does sound logical for Nausicaä to avoid losing complete faith in humanity. The crypt may be destroyed and all, but essentially nothing is truly “solved,” just bringing out a clean slate that has equal capacity for cooperation and disaster. 🙂
That’s a really interesting take on Nausicaa and Kushana’s arcs I hadn’t considered. I like it. The loss of innocence has always been a threat to Nausicaa as a character – the thing I like is how Miyazaki embraces that inevitabilty in a way that doesn’t come as a shock to anyone, not to the audience, not to Nausicaa. The darkness has always been with her, so when it comes time to have her gaze into it, it doesn’t alter who she fundamentally is. The use of Miralupa as the shadow she brings into the forest of her mind – just wonderful stuff. Even Selm is left speechless by her reasoning.
Of course, the loss of innocence is an integral part to the Hero’s Journey. Usually that entails growth and maturity, the ability to move onto greater and better things. The hero grows up and becomes an adult.
But that doesn’t always happen in real life. Sometimes the hero is left forever diminished. I think of The Lord of the Rings. I think of Frodo. The Shire has been saved, but not for him. There are wounds one bears upon one’s soul that cannot be healed. Sometimes one can never go home again. These are the truer, more tragic stories, I think, and that’s the tale of Nausicaa as well.
In terms of romances, Miyazaki has never been particularly effective at developing believable ones. Princess Mononoke, Howl’s Moving Castle, Spirited Away, even the film version of Nausicaa are all pretty one-note and come across as ham-fisted and abrupt. The closest he comes to making it work is perhaps with Porco Rosso, but there it works better because the characters are middle-aged cynics who have a shared back history.
What I think he excels at portraying though, is exploring the burdens of love and all the associated negative connotations. There are so many examples throughout the manga – Nausicaa’s reading that her mother never loved her because she had spent it on her dead siblings, how Ohma is a child a mother would wish to die, how acts of love and sacrifice can drive one literally mad (Kushana’s mother), or to suicide (Nausicaa’s surrender after the extinction of the Ohmu), the perils of loving too much when love is not enough. These are almost taboo subjects to tackle in many forms of medium, so I remembered being surprised and fascinated by Miyazaki’s focus on them. Love can be a transcendent force, but it’s an unearthly and unreasoning one, not for the faint of heart.
My reading of Nausicaa’s character is that she’s incapable of the conventional romantic version of love that’s commonly depicted. It’s built into her character that she cannot help but love everything, from insects to people and everything in between, but that same egalitarian mentality is fundamentally incompatible with a standard monogamous relationship.
But that’s kind of why I find her character fascinating. Beneath this superheroine veneer built on a foundation of virtue and grace and love for all, there is always this unreachable core. By reaching and connecting with the world, she alone becomes the thing that cannot be reached. Love is her and also beyond her.
I apologize if these responses are long to read or if you don’t want to respond to them, but I certainly enjoy discussing the series with others who are also heavily invested in it.
Ah yeah, and along the line of the various character arcs, I really appreciate how imperfect Nausicaä remains as a character. Though she is sometimes even criticized as a “mary sue,” I would argue that such couldn’t be farther than the truth. To contrast her seemingly superhuman abilities, she is shown to have notable imperfections in her clear capacity for rage and potential to kill (like in volume one where she kills the Torumekian soldier with a smile on her face) in addition to what you mentioned about her suicide, lies told to the wormhandlers and deception of Ohma. She seems to be suppressing her short-temper throughout the series to some degree and by the end of the manga, she seems to be just fed up with it all, probably something that factored into her decision to destroy the Crypt as well. While rereading the series again, this time, I couldn’t help notice the sheer brilliance of the rest of the cast and how Miyazaki just implements moving moment after moving moment. This cast is just something I won’t find anywhere else. On the prior reads I was more focused on weaving together the web of events and focusing on Nausicaä’s story solely that there was much I had left to absorb. Aside from Kushana’s and Miyazaki’s development that we already touched upon, I was intrigued by the changes even Kurotowa and Charuka undergone, the latter in particular being a character I feel is almost underpraised for his development. Nausicaä and Kushana are certainly the two most regarded for their characterization I feel, but in my opinion, Charuka was an incredible character in his own right. Noting Kurotowa first though, you mentioned how he added a new, slightly more cynical perspective to the story which I can certainly agree with. I also like how he adds some degree of comedic relief to the series and even develops in his own way. He has his own little epiphanies like twice he initially runs to try and save Nausicaä, one time when he had heard she was being attacked by an insect underground and another time when she fell off her Mehve. I even enjoy how self-aware he is about this development too like in how he’s like, “wait, why am I running to save her? I should be with Kushana.” Charuka on the other hand I absolutely loved for his 180-turn growing to eventually look beyond the threat of “blue-clad one” that Nausicaä was suggested to be. He later condemns the use of the miasma as a biological weapon and has the guts to confront Namulith on his own, nearly being beaten to death. I think his development even serves as a prime example of the capacity to change through suffering. On the reread I even found appreciation for characters I didn’t specifically hold in high regard either, like the Vai Emperor. The Vai Emperor still undergoes character development even in like the final 30 pages of the saga which is really telling of the extraordinary characterization within the series. On this read, I noticed how in his final moments, contrary to the mere brute he was initially portrayed as, come to like Nausicaä and even sacrifice himself to shield her from the Crypt’s final attack. I missed how well his character arc is wrapped up and how Kushana comes to terms with her father’s wrongdoings. This is merely a small portion of the cast of course, but factoring in everyone else like Miralupa, Namulith, Ohma and etc, I just can’t help but love the entire cast for the most part. Secondly, I could not help but notice all the specific moving moments in a way Miyazaki allows them to unfold, that I just never find within other anime or manga, Nausicaä draining blood from a soldier’s mouth without any hesitation, the fact that a soldier afterwards offers his entire water ration for her to wash her face, how characters act as literal human shields for others on multiple occasions, how Yupa sacrifices his own arm to hold a grenade away from everyone and then his own life to save Kushana, Kushana herself singing during an insect invasion and letting go of her hatred, the wormhandlers feeling Nausicaä and recognizing that she is human like them, etc… Just so many powerful moments within the series that I cannot ignore.
I hadn’t considered how much love as a theme runs through the series as a whole, and now that you mention it, there are plenty of examples that illustrate such. I certainly agree with your reading of Nausicaä’s character. I believe that even if she does go to the forest, she unequivocally will remain invested in every living thing, no matter how big or small and regardless of how it came into existence. As you said, her mentality makes a monogamous relationship impossible and now I don’t think she will hook up with Selm or Asbel or anyone else. She belongs to everyone, yet at the same time belongs to no one. She truly is an extremely fascinating character, a girl, a mother, a princess, a scientist, a warrior, a pilot, an angel, a devil and a messiah. Fits into myriad different roles and serves as a great connector for nearly everyone in the story. Nausicaä has some degree of influence over essentially every character previously mentioned, which further reminds me of how she’s a messianic figure, in this way, shaping everyone around her in a near disciple-like manner. Her suicide into the wasteland reminds me of almost a trip to the underworld and gives way to the idea of not just the purity and corruption within everyone, but now I think the entire cycle of life, how the darkness in death and light in life, are connected, in how “life is the light that shines in the darkness,” the two being connected which plays into her acceptance of human extinction. Not to mention how she was in a sense, “reborn” directly after her attempted suicide (almost reminding me of how Jesus rose from the dead, in how the people celebrated after as the wormhandlers did.), actually twice if the one where she was born from the stone in the garden counts, signifying a difference in perspective. The scene where she eats with the wormhandlers reminded me of “communion” of breaking bread. She gives her sermons and preaches her ideals ideals as she does when she confronts Namulith and then passes her judgement upon the Crypt in an act that I can see kind of parallel Jesus’s Crucifiction, not literally, but to some degree in its meaning. Also, the fact that she destroyed Ohma’s container that he was being transported in along with Namulith’s lines of, “it would be you who unleashed the monster upon this world,” reminds me of Pandora’s Box in which miseries flood out into the world. Her perspective on the world is complex and even continues to evolve with time, just as life does in what she is defending. 😊
Also, regarding the forest people in how they abandoned fire and normal civilization and then how Nausicaä disregards the technologies of the Crypt and essentially all of compiled human achievement, do you think this plays into how insignificant our progress really is? If all of it can be just wiped away like that I mean. I heard someone talking about how part of the series focuses upon “being human,” is more important than sheer progression and solving every conceivable issue.
Hi Isaac. What’s your understanding of the eggs in the Crypt? Do you think they stored people ‘in hibernation mode’ (the scientists themselves, plus anyone else they might have been able to save?), babies, or ‘shells’ to be ‘uploaded’ with the memories of pre-Seven Days of Fire people? I can’t find a conclusive answer in the text.
In my mind, I’ve always envisioned them as fully-formed beings that possess the knowledge and faculties to remake the world, but I don’t see them as the actual people from the past. Maybe imprinted clones? You’re right in that there is no conclusive answer in the text though!
I’ve had it in my mind for a couple years to really dive into the story of Nausicaa after finally reading the manga. I’m really glad I found this post, because various searches came up empty on significant discussion. The other links throughout your series of other reviews, interviews, and essays are sure to keep me thinking and entertained for the coming days. As someone late to the party by 6 years, can I ask what came of your part 11 “Exploring the nature of hope”?
Thanks for reading! The link, which I should update, is a piece by Derrick Jenson called Beyond Hope: https://ekostories.com/2013/09/05/beyond-hope-by-derrick-jensen/
I appreciate you updating it! My mark has been left. Thanks for the hard work.
First of all, amazing series and analysis. I love this manga due to its complexity and your analysis shed more light on a lot of things I missed.
I do wonder whether Nausicaa was right that life is bound to change beyond its original design. That is certainly true in real life and as Jurassic Park said “Life finds a way”. However, I am not sure that’s true in this story.
The sea of corruption is a complex life form. However, it still seem to follow the original design. I see two ways it can change. 1. Defy its purpose, i.e. no longer clean the land. However, that hasn’t happened, the forest continued to do exactly what it was designed and return the world to its original state, despite knowing that it will kill everything. Even the mutated spores eventually get assimilated 2. Defy its destiny, i.e. no longer die once the world is restored. However, we also didn’t see that as the forest died and getting replaced by trees in the few places that its works had been done.
The humans also didn’t seem to change. It is not clearly to me what their purpose since they didn’t clean the environment and the Ancients had better slaves in Heedras (including intelligent ones). However, they could have developed new technologies through their endless suffering. Yet we see a society of decay where all technologies trace their root to the previous world. After a thousand years, they didn’t have computers or nuclear weapons or democracies where as in real life, we got those in about a century. Worse, Nausicaa’s philosophy seem to run contrary to progress as she wanted to live in harmony with “nature” instead of embracing technologies and create new way of life. The humans also didn’t seem to develop ways to avoid being wiped out by clean air. The forest people continued to venture into purified land, only to die.
In principle, I like Nausicaa’s choice of embracing change and uncertainty. However, I don’t see any uncertainty of their future as they as a whole seem to be incapable of change and Nausicaa didn’t seem to have a plan to change that. In fact, she seemed to be the one who is afraid of technologies which would be the engine of change.
Would love to hear your thoughts on this.
Hello, Isaac. That was an amazing write-up! Best piece on Nausicaa manga i have ever seen.
I have a few questions. I was always confudes by the exact events of Seven Days of Fire and before it. We know that civilisation fell into disarray, drowning in strife and pollution. We know that several measures were then taken:
1. Creation of God Warriors to be some kind of world police. They were sapient, telepathic, mind-reading super powerful tribe of arbitrators (don’t call them death gods! They were not weapons, as we assumed from anime and early volumes of manga.).
2. Altering of life to allow them to live in polluted world.
3. Creation of the Sea of Corruption
4. Creation of the Crypt and the Garden(s)
However, I struggle to understand the order of these events happening in relation to one another and the Seven Days of Fire. Was life altered before SDoF to deal with present pollution? Was Sea of Corruption created before SDoF fot the same reason (it is hard to imagine large-scale projects like these during or after SDoF)? When was Crypt made? Did people who built crypt expected God Warriors to turn on humanity? Did they plann on it? Or did they create Crypt as a last-ditch attempt to save something during SDoF?
Was everything (maybe with exception of altering life to suit polluted world) made and planned by the same group of scientists? Did they actually made God Warriors to eradicate old world, and prepared Crypt and Toxic Jungle to remake it into new one? But then why did they give God Warriors their minds and arbitrator duties? I always thought that God Warriors were created as judges, and they judged humanity unworthy to live. I wonder if this betrayal it was planned by Crypt creators all along.
Also, you say that Nausicaa preaches false hope to others while leaving none to herself – isn’t it untrue? Nausicaa does have hope – that humans will “fly beyound this morning, on and on, even though they spew blood”. She accepts that humanity can fail and go extinct – that doesn’t frighten her, since that is how just about everyone in the manga sees future. But she believes that humanity has a chance to live beyond the morning of purification, because “live survives by the power of life” and humanity will surely put a lot of effort to live – because they must live. She does not know exactly how this will happen, what will solution to this be, but she believes in capacity of humans (and other life forms of course) to break through predestined fate.
In this context Ohmu are very interesting. Their purpose was to guard and spread the sea of corruption, but they clearly evolved past it. Remember the usual description of tidal wave? Ohmus run, with eyes red with rage, to punish humanity. Last tidal wave was anything but that – they stopped very soon (previous tidal wave spanned 2000 leagues), and weren’t enraged. Clearly they could have overrun all remaning world if spread of Sea of Corruption was their primary goal. Also, they saved Nausicaa – something which runs against their in-built purpose, and something that directly lead to the destruction of Ohmu’s creators’ master plan. Ohmu claim to communicate with eachother through time and space – was their act of saving Nausicaa a (sub)concious effort to dismantle the Crypt? Were they directed by their prescience and desire to stop the cycle of events which will see their extinction?
Also I wonder about the Fool and the wormhandler which witnessed conversation with the Master of the Crypt. Both are clearly shown to be alive in the end. Will they stay silent? Will Nausicaa stay silent? Will the showdown in the crypt become known to others? It seems like the secret Nausicaa and Selm try to keep between them is known not only to them.
Garden and its Master is another big unknown. In his interview you linked Miyazaki confirms that Garden didn’t self destruct after collapse of Crypt. What will Master of the Garden do? Is his purpose destroyed? Or will he do his duty and welcome existing humanity in the new world if they somehow find a way to live in it? He is an interesting character. It seems like he can trick people with his appearance, but cannot lie to them or harm them due to his programming. He armed Nausicaa with knowledge that let her see right through Crypt’s false promises – and he made no effort to warn Crypt about it. Does he actually agree with Nausicaa that Crypt does not deserve to exist?
And final question – do you think Master of the Crypt has any capacity to deviate from its plan? It seems to me that it was quite rigid, and saw existing humanity as something that eventually will have to be eradicated, and in that sense Nausicaa did the right choice – Crypt was the enemy of her, her humanity and all polluted nature (including the Sea of Corruption). Without Crypt, there is at least some uncertain hope. Was there any prospect for a better solution, or was it only capable of lies and empty promises to ensure its safety?
Hi Konstantin,
Thank you for taking the time to read this. It’s been a while since I’ve revisited the manga, but I’ll try my best to remember and answer your questions.
In my head it was God Warriors > SDoF> Crypt and Garden = Sea of Corruption, with all the events interlinked (easier that way!) The Crypt and Garden were built as repositories after things became dire and the people at the time realized that they were doomed, while the Sea of Corruption was most likely a strategy implemented at the same time to cleanse the world. I assume that life contained within the Sea was engineered at that time to weather the toxins released by the cleansing.
The purposes and intentions of the God Warriors are pretty mysterious. I don’t know if they were created as judges. It makes sense thematically that they were designed to serve one function and expanded beyond that. Even Ohma in such a short span of life managed to grow in its sophistication of thought.
On having no hope for herself:
I think Nausicaa follows what Jensen is preaching in that Beyond Hope piece. It’s a specific type of hope that she doesn’t cling to, that she has no use for, that static guaranteed vision of humans with their place in the future. No, she says, nature and our actions will decide. Nausicaa preaches living fully in the present, dealing with and adapting to things as they arise. She strives for action and not mere-wishing or looking to prophecies to achieve this. Let the chips fall where they may.
On the Ohmu:
Ohmu were unintended. Nausicaa, this strange empathic and telepathic creation, was also unintended. So much of life’s complexity leads to unexpected results. And
while I don’t think the Omhu had any type of intention towards destroying the Crypt, I do love the detail about how the blood that runs through both creations are the same.
On the Fool and the Wormhandlers:
I love the Fool, speaking truth in such a slanted way that no one but the shrewd and the wise takes him seriously. Wormhandlers already worship Nausicaa and are so child-like that I don’t know if anyone will heed them. I’m sure rumours will spread, as they do.
On the Master of the Garden and the Crypt:
Like the Master of the Crypt, the Master of the Garden doesn’t grow beyond its programming. I don’t think it receives any outside information, so I it will probably just stay there forever, entertaining the odd person that stumbles in, until the whole system runs down.
As for the Crypt, I think you are right, that it was rigid and did not could not deviate from its plan to reseed a cleansed world. I think it would have succeeded in its mission had Nausicaa not destroyed it, but the people arising out of it will not only be Nausicaa’s people, but also not the people originally envisioned. The flaws and the poisons would have seeped into these pod people from another time, and the cycles of manipulating, corrupting, and exploiting nature would continue anew.
Hello Mr. Yuen! I hope you still receive updates here. May I just say this has to be the MOST in depth analysis I’ve read so far ?! I was looking for something online that went as deep into the series as your analysis was. Beautifully done. Nausicaa is one of my favorite novels ever. Thank you for putting this together for all of us super fans.