I've read about the influences from Space Runaway Ideon and Cordwainer Smith on Anno, but what other anime/movies/stories are out there that deal with this sort of transcendence/evolution as well as eschewing 'reality'?
Off the top of my head:
2001
Serial Experiments Lain
Code Geass
Solaris
-did a search on this and haven't found anything, hope this isn't a noob repost.
Instrumentality in Other Anime/Media
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- Chris Congratulations
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Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End is the first thing I always think of and likely the basis of instrumentality. Xenogears, a PSOne game, is also full of similar themes as much was based on Clarke's novel. This thread might be worth looking at too.
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The fantastic game 'Vagrant Story' for Playstation1 by Squaresoft has similar things going on with souls, reality and the personal mindspace of the main character. The ending is probably the most 'Instrumentality-like' sequence in the game.
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Sachi wrote:FLCL as well.FLCL SPOILER: ShowIt had that whole Medical Mechanica trying to "flatten the wrinkles of everybody's brain" therefore causing them to no longer think individually.
not rly
they intended to create world full of idiots
especially post-eva "instrumentality" styled plots, themes etc. have been damn common in anime, Japanese video games etc. While the whole "overmind ghee" can be tracked back to Childhood's End there's something in NGE's treatise of subject that makes it kind of ur-example: hiveminds are nothing new (there's one in proto-eva Ideon too), NGE's musings/take on it...yeah
This all said I hesitate to name certain shows because asking this kind of question is HUGE spoiler. I think Sachi's first post is pretty fucking spoiling simply by mentioning TTGL
SPOILER: Show
because there's absolutely no reason to think anything remotely instrumentalitylike is going on in that show before very end of final story arc.
Xard wrote:they intended to create world full of idiots
Yes, but they intended to take an alternative form of evolution by taking away people's consciousness'. Instrumentality in Evangelion is basically the death of the conscious and there's no reason to believe that the same principle isn't being applied in this case.
This all said I hesitate to name certain shows because asking this kind of question is HUGE spoiler. I think Sachi's first post is pretty fucking spoiling simply by mentioning TTGLSPOILER: Showbecause there's absolutely no reason to think anything remotely instrumentalitylike is going on in that show before very end of final story arc.
Durr hurr, that's why I have a spoiler tag. If it was something apparent at the beginning I wouldn't have tagged it.
EDIT: If you recall, Instrumentality wasn't initially apparent in Evangelion much except for Seele constantly mentioning the name. Detail into what it was wasn't revealed until very late in the show.
Sachi wrote:Xard wrote:they intended to create world full of idiots
Yes, but they intended to take an alternative form of evolution by taking away people's consciousness'.
what is this I don't even
Sachi wrote:This all said I hesitate to name certain shows because asking this kind of question is HUGE spoiler. I think Sachi's first post is pretty fucking spoiling simply by mentioning TTGLSPOILER: Showbecause there's absolutely no reason to think anything remotely instrumentalitylike is going on in that show before very end of final story arc.
Durr hurr, that's why I have a spoiler tag. If it was something apparent at the beginning I wouldn't have tagged it.
Yes but simply answering "Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann" alerts viewer to existence of this element. How and when is ??, but it being in show is already there as "free" spoiler.
this is why e.g reading tvtropes can be very spoiling even if they've spoiler tagged the specific way some trope is used. You know this element X (in this case Instrumentality) is in it which certainly affects your viewing experience.
I've been alerted/spoiled to some "plot tweests" this way personally
Xard wrote:
what is this I don't even
By making everybody on the planet idiots, they essentially take away their ability to think on their own. If they cannot think on their own they have no conscience and therefore will no longer evolve as it normally would. If a population as a whole has no conscience whatsoever then they are practically a collective mind of nothing.
Yes but simply answering "Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann" alerts viewer to existence of this element. How and when is ??, but it being in show is already there as "free" spoiler.
this is why e.g reading tvtropes can be very spoiling even if they've spoiled the specific way some trope is used. You know this element X (in this case Instrumentality) is in it which certainly affects your viewing experience.
I see your point. However, the point of this thread is to let people know of any shows that contain themes of Instrumentality, or something similar. For most shows, just mentioning that fact that it has Instrumentality at all is a spoiler and will effect that way people view it. Heck, by telling anybody in this thread at all that there's Instrumentality within a media it is going to change the way they view. So really, the point of this thread is to spread the word of shows that have the same elements. Spoilers are to be expected.
Sachi wrote:Xard wrote:
what is this I don't even
By making everybody on the planet idiots, they essentially take away their ability to think on their own. If they cannot think on their own they have no conscience and therefore will no longer evolve as it normally would. If a population as a whole has no conscience whatsoever then they are practically a collective mind of nothing.
Well, I never thought it that far... though in all honesty I think they were just going to turn people into childish idiots. It fits the show's themes about growing up, maturity etc. better
but I see where you're coming from and even if it is just fanwank it's good fanwank
Sachi wrote:Yes but simply answering "Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann" alerts viewer to existence of this element. How and when is ??, but it being in show is already there as "free" spoiler.
this is why e.g reading tvtropes can be very spoiling even if they've spoiled the specific way some trope is used. You know this element X (in this case Instrumentality) is in it which certainly affects your viewing experience.
I see your point. However, the point of this thread is to let people know of any shows that contain themes of Instrumentality, or something similar. For most shows, just mentioning that fact that it has Instrumentality at all is a spoiler and will effect that way people view it. Heck, by telling anybody in this thread at all that there's Instrumentality within a media it is going to change the way they view. So really, the point of this thread is to spread the word of shows that have the same elements. Spoilers are to be expected.
I see where you're coming from. Maybe "spoilers" in thread title would be warranted?
Anyway, one of most bloody obviously NGE-influenced examples:
SPOILER: Show
Macross Frontier
Ghost in the Shell: SAC 2nd Gig
RahXephon (can’t believe this hasn’t been mentioned yet) had to do with eschewing reality, but RahXephon’s ending blows and it didn’t really even try to make sense of itself. No hive-mind here, though.
SPOILER: Show
dealt with a dude who was going to attempt to grab a shit-ton of refugees & “migrate” their ‘ghosts’/consciousnesses out of their cyberbrains and permanently onto the net. This was in part conceived as a last-ditch effort to save as many lives as possible from an impending nuclear strike, though the guy alludes to having this exact goal at the onset of his little crusade. The nuke never came, though, so nobody had to transmigrate outta their bodies.
The characters were unsure as to how thoroughly this kind of integration would work, and they weren’t aware if identity would be lost on the net or if a hive-mind would be formed or even if it were actually possible in the first place. And since it never happened, it’s never revealed how such an event would even transpire. It’s a lose example I’ll admit, but it’s one worth noting regardless.
The characters were unsure as to how thoroughly this kind of integration would work, and they weren’t aware if identity would be lost on the net or if a hive-mind would be formed or even if it were actually possible in the first place. And since it never happened, it’s never revealed how such an event would even transpire. It’s a lose example I’ll admit, but it’s one worth noting regardless.
RahXephon (can’t believe this hasn’t been mentioned yet) had to do with eschewing reality, but RahXephon’s ending blows and it didn’t really even try to make sense of itself. No hive-mind here, though.
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EGF has already gone through instrumentality, and now, thanks to Reichu, all members share a hive-mind. Individuality is dead.
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-On EMF, as a thread becomes longer, the likelihood that fem-Kaworu will be mentioned increases exponentially.
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I seem to have been remiss and not recommended Vinge's Marooned in Real Time; which is pretty much the tale of the people who were in effect sufficiently absent to avoid being Tang'd (or whatever happened on that day somewhere soon after 2200).
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The term Instrumentality comes from "The Instrumentality" from Cordwainer Smith's short stories which.... far from being a lake of tang... where actually an omniscient council of vagueness that ruled over all of humanity in the far future, making sure that everyone behaved themselves and all that.
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Carl Jung's early theories of the collective unconscious shares some similarities with Instrumentality.
I'll see if I can get some I'll search the interweb on it for some sauce because most of his theories on it I have circled in an old copy of Man and His Symbols.
I'll see if I can get some I'll search the interweb on it for some sauce because most of his theories on it I have circled in an old copy of Man and His Symbols.
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Vanity of Vanities
Every post in Evageeks automaticaly becomes masturbatory material. It's nothing new. ~Justcrazyguy
Ran's persistent irony is a coping mechanism he uses to try and create some understanding of his paradoxical attraction to and disgust of the elitist bourgeois slaughterhouse in which he's forever trapped. --Muggy
Also intrumentality showed up in naruto of all places, I was laughing so hard when that happened.
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