The Hypernatural and Supernatural in Madlax -- Episode 25

Episode 25: Protoplasm and Polarization Generation
Sacred Blood ~saint~: 聖血 (Seiketsu)


Coming to herself, Margaret starts to lament the death of her faithful servant and most intimate friend, Elenore. “Why… why did Elenore have to die? They are not here. Not Vanessa, and Elenore. I’m alone.” It is not explained what sort of psychic effect has caused Margaret’s sudden change of mind, who had not been even able to acknowledge the identity of her closest friend just before. This is the typical part that reveals the fictional peculiarity of the anime, implemented in the practice of partial description of the limited phase of events, cleverly concealing background information. Friday talks to Madlax, as if he expected her appearance, “Welcome, Madlax. Did you bring the page from Secondary for me?” Madlax says, “You cause sorrow. Because of you, more and more precious things are stolen.” Madlax is accusing Friday, acknowledging him as the cause of Elenore’s death, even though he did not kill her directly by his own hand. This is a very interesting attitude assumed by this girl, compared with her generous manner toward Limelda, who had killed Vanessa by her own hand. Friday answers, “Interesting. I didn’t expect to hear something like that from you, a killer. You are contradictory. That’s because this world is warped. It’s enshrouded in an invisible veil.” It seems Friday has full understanding of the nature and identity of Madlax. Moreover, he seems to have sound conviction in the profound truth of the world. But Madlax also has her own belief in the meaning of her existence. “I know.” “It can’t see the essence.” “What’s wrong with that?” “Do you mean to live in a world of lies?” “There’s truth even there. The truth of Margaret Burton: that’s Madlax.” These lines uttered by Madlax are expected to construct the final perspective, which accomplishes the function to converge many meaning axes that have composed this fictional work. But that is rather a flaccid judgment, which allows the existence of contradictions in the basic condition of meaning construction, denying settling any unified norm, which should confirm unwavering meaning.


Just then, Margaret takes hold of the gun, and knocks the gun off Madlax’s hand. “Don’t kill him. Don’t kill Father! Are you going to kill Father again? I won’t allow that.” Margaret recognizes Friday as her father. But no detail is offered concerning the reason for her mysterious judgment as before. As for the ambiguous identity of Friday, who has been playing the typical role of a villain in the course of the story, it seems to reflect the peculiar directing tactics of this anime through which a special schematic presentation is accomplished that will leave some important background information undisclosed.


Margaret shoots Madlax. “Die!” Madlax collapses receiving several bullets in her body, and Friday Monday gets hold of the leaf Madlax had held in her hand. “Now everything has been brought together.” Friday mutters satisfied. “Come, Margaret, let’s go.” Friday and Margaret go away leaving Madlax and Elenore lying on the ground. Limelda is watching the scene from a spot far away. Just before she tries to step forward, Nakhl calls her back. “Don’t get involved. That place is holy now. Only those with the gift are allowed to enter it. All we can do is watch it to the end.” Limelda cries. “Is this… Is this what you wanted, Madlax?” But Nakhl says answering her question, “This is not the end. It’s just beginning now. So we’ll watch it to the end.” Red and blue moons are hanging in the sky. Soldiers are agitated and run into confusion looking up the strange moons over the buildings. The screen is displaying a mythic scenery that reflects the ambiguous structure of the mindscape filled with inconsistencies.


Qwanzitta says, “I will watch this through to the end. The changing of the eras.” Laetitia asks hearing her utterance, “You will watch my moment to the end?” “Yes.” Qwanzitta and Laetitia intone alternately. “The truth is pain.” “Pain is sorrow.” “Sorrow is a spiral.” “The spiral is the human fate.” They seem to identify human fate and the essence of qualia, in the spiral form that is gained out of oscillating movement on the axis of symmetry, adding other two vertical axes. Laetitia ends the dialogue with this last line, “Margaret Burton’s fate. Madlax’s fate. And my fate. That door will be opened.”


Friday Monday now tries to open the door with the three books he has gathered. “The door of truth! We’ll return to 12 years ago. We’re returning. Time is rewinding. The era was supposed to change then. You thwarted my desires, Madlax. When I was shot then, I lost the eye to open the door. There certainly is such thing as ‘fate.’ Our lives are connected like a spiral. Isn’t that right, Madlax? After all, your daughter is going to give me what I desire. Now, show me, Margaret. Your past so true it approaches the human Essence. Your crime. That melody.” Friday is also attesting the cosmological principle of psyche in the spiral structure. It seems that he has an unwavering conviction unrestricted by mankind’s ethical standards, through which he aspires for the realization of his purpose beyond the boundary of worldly interests. But the details of the quality he said his eye was endowed with, that enabled him to open the door, and the process he had learned to possess it, are still out of reach of the audience’s understanding.


Margaret witnesses the scene that had been enacted in the airplane 12 years ago, evoked by Friday’s words. There is a girl who dropped her doll on the floor, and has it handed by a boy who picked it up. “That’s me?” The small girl who was Margaret is asking her mother. “Mother, when will we get to see father?” She is also talking to her doll in her arms. “We’ll get to see Father soon. Isn’t that great, Laetitia?” After that, there are ruins of the airplane on the ground shown. Margaret mutters. “Mother died here, without saying anything. And I…” Small Margaret finds her father facing Friday Monday under the red moon. Friday is talking to her father. “You should understand, Colonel Burton. Or should I say ‘Madlax’. You should understand that this, THIS is what humanity really is.” Colonel Burton replies, “Friday Monday, You’re in the grip of madness. The people are not seeking your ideal.” Friday does not waver. “That thought itself is something made in this false world.” Colonel Burton answers saying, “I’ll protect my daughter!” Friday says provokingly, “Does your essence desire that, I wonder.” In answer for his words, Colonel Burton shoots Friday Monday in the face. Friday cries bending back, “Madlax!” Reacting to this word, small Margaret dashes towards her father. This has been the scene several times repeated in this anime, showing Friday Monday and Colonel Burton standing face to face, from various different angles such as Madlax’s visions and Margaret’s dreams. Now, Margaret is witnessing the actual figure of herself she assumed 12 years ago, on the other side of the door. The director Mashimo has effectively introduced the image sequence like refrain in musical pieces, presenting similar scenes repeatedly a little shifting their phases.


Poupee runs after Margaret trying to hold her back, gets shot, and collapses on the ground. The pages on the Secondary are stained with blood. A red shoe comes off Margaret’s foot, and tumbles over the ground. Colonel Burton catches his daughter and lifts her in his arms. Just then, Friday Monday takes hold of the book, reciting the words of awakening. “Elda taluta! Sarks sark. Ark arks.” Affected by the soul of language, Colonel Burton’s attitude changes. He points his daughter with his gun. Margaret cries out, “Father, what’s wrong?” Margaret is watching the details of what she experienced 12 years ago.


“Father?” Small Margaret grasps the gun on the ground. “Stop. Why are you doing this?” Colonel Burton approaches towards Margaret still in affected state. The soul of language must have caused the liberation of unconsciousness in Colonel Burton’s mind. Every emotion lurching in archetypal mode, out of which everything generates, is allowed to exude in its original nature. Margaret cries, “Don’t come any closer. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die! If I don’t shoot Dad, I’ll die. But I can’t shoot Father.” The mysterious lines muttered by the girl named Laetitia holding a doll in her arms in the ruins in episode 3, are now echoed by the words uttered by small Margaret 12 years ago.


Margaret and Colonel Burton are facing each other with guns in their hands. Then, the screen shows something like an image of primordial psyche splitting apart. That reminds of the illustration drawn on the pages of the picture book written in Elies letters. It seems to be a symbolical figure of protoplasm dividing itself into opposite halves, in contrast of blue and red colors. The gun is fired, and there appears the figure of a small girl who is Madlax surrounded in red color. At the same time, small Margaret’s figure is shown surrounded in blue. Madlax, who has always been looking up the blue moon, is encircled by the contrasting color, red; and Margaret, who has always been looking up the red moon, is encircled by the contrasting color, blue.


It seems to suggest the principle of polarization generation, always appearing in contrasted forms centered by an axis of symmetry, which has been grasped by the word “enantiodromia” in the system of alchemical science, that may correspond with the idea of Entropy Increasing Law advocated by physics, which rules the change of the universe as a psychical law in its unity. The influence of the idea is discoverable in various phases of speculation adopted by science, philosophy and religion. Edgar Allan Poe, who introduced German Romanticism in 19th century America, in his speculative experiment in Eureka, which attempted to expand the meditation on “the Physical, Metaphysical and Mathematical -- of the Material and Spiritual Universe; of its Essence, its Origin, its Creation, its Present Condition, and its Destiny”, planned to establish a metaphysical core principle, which may rule both spiritual and material phenomena, through the mechanism of antagonistic forces of attraction and repulsion. Poe presupposed the ability of intuition, which is able to grasp the eternal truth transcending the limits of logical procedures of induction and reduction. The fundamental principle has been almost universally acknowledged through various cultural spheres by the power of intuition.


One red shoe is worn in Madlax’s right foot, and the other is worn in Margaret’s left foot. It was the pair of red shoes that Vanessa presented Margaret, which triggered the recovery of Margaret’s lost memory and lead to the discovery of the picture book out of the shed.


Laetitia emerges out of the fallen doll. There is the identification tag of Colonel Burton on the ground, with a hole on it. It was small Madlax who shot Colonel Burton from behind. Small Margaret and small Madlax are facing each other across the corpse of Colonel Burton. Quanzitta and Laetitia are watching all the procedure. Laetitia says, “I’m Laetitia. Your beloved doll. Margaret Burton, this is the truth.” “The truth?” “I’, a doll. The urge of a moment. The point where you two parted ways. And the truth that will never disappear.” Friday Monday talks to Margaret by her side, “So your reason, the part of you that didn’t want to kill your father, and the urge that was your desire to survive received power from this place and physically separated? ... You killed your own father, but you sealed off those memories and you’ve been living life wanting for nothing. You’ve believed you were normal. Normal, eh? There’s no such thing anywhere in this world. People seek fame and fortune, and protect their own meager self-esteem by ridiculing others. They’ve lived twelve full years of false time, believing that half-assed state was normal. You’ve seen what kind of situation that’s brought about. Haven’t you?” Friday Monday seeks for the attainment of a mind that overcomes the petty restraints of humanity, which has been buried in the fraudulency of society looking away from truth. It is Friday Monday’s desired creed to deny fundamentally the “normal” that Laetitia and Margaret were talking. His aim for the construction of detached ego based on the man principle seems to indicate the phase of psyche, as the appearance of the archetype of animus.


Margaret collapses on the ground recalling of the tragic ends of Vanessa and Elenore. Friday speaks to her bending closely, “You mustn’t run from the truth. And you mustn’t deny your own actions, either. That’s because you aren’t special. Everyman is the same as you. They’re aware of the contradiction that is their existence, but they can’t find its essence, that’s all. Now, let’s show it to them, Margaret Burton. We’ll show all living creatures the Essence. Living within the Essence… That’s the normal world that I seek. I can hear it. I can hear the melody. Margaret Burton is seeking the Essence of human nature. This… She’s been seeking this!” The meaning of the word “essence”, which has been told several times by the man, is now being clarified. In the English version of the disk, “essence” is adopted for the translation of the word, but the original Japanese “本性” (honsei) might be translated as “true nature” or “original quality” as well. “Ordinary place”, the words Laetitia used, may signify the same psychical phase. But the ultimate truth Friday seeks for must be attained somewhere beyond the border of Good and Evil, where reason will not maintain its function anymore. His ultimate ideal must be found in the state of self-realization where every potential vitality is released in its intact status, without being restricted by any false dogma impelled by outer authority. This man aspires for the attainment of aloof noble purpose, following the manner Nietzsche tried to exercise in his Philosophy of Super Man, in order to transcend the vulnerable limits of human beings.


Intuition suggests that the purpose of existence and the meaning of generation of everything in the cosmos should be discovered in the mode of self-expansion where all properties psyche shrouds are liberated. Instances of this self-realization model may be posited as the achievement of Super Man freed from the fetters of resentment or as the realization of “self” through reorganization of one’s own hidden shadows. The theological cosmology that the Renaissance philosopher Marsilio Ficino conceived may be considered as another example, with which he tried to comprehend every generation and development in the universe as the process of self-contemplation undertaken by the fundamental awareness. Each of these can be understood as an example of reflective phase of the same archetypal insight grasped through the ability of intuition. Oscar Wilde’s hedonism that he found in John Ruskin’s pious aestheticism and embodied in his own life as a pleasure seeker may be understood as one of the sincerest applications of these serious attempts, in its aim for the ultimate raison d’etre, where subject of consciousness should perceive and experience every sensation in its myriad phases.


Friday’s idea of transcendence surpassing the limits of self was embraced by various thinkers in modern European culture, as the lofty target of free will, that should be embraced by an individual. Typical example is the radical existentialistic conception harbored in Marquis de Sade, who lived the revolutionary period of 18th century France, and vehemently tried to transcend the restrictions of ethics in his two sensational novels The History of Juliette, or the Prosperity of Vice and Justine, or the Misfortunes of Virtue. Another example is Dostoevsky, who also lived the revolutionary period of 19th century Russia, and depicted a noble-minded hero who tried to surmount the notion of “crime” as the obstacle a genius should transcend, in Crime and Punishment (1866). R. L. Stevenson, the Victorian period novelist of Great Britain, took up a scientist as a protagonist who pursued the scientific aim of objective assessment of each Good and Evil in his “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (1886). These were the peculiarly important subjects directly concerned with the possibility and limit of individual being, who faced the disintegration of traditional values and courageously decided to choose the freedom as an independent person who is not confined in the fetters of sterile standard existing community imposes. But even the daring existentialist precursor who proclaimed that “God has died”, seems to have been under the restriction of traditional creed as a preacher’s son, that would not free him from the patrimonial influence of Christianity. According to the ideas of Alchemy, which stands aloof out of the man principle of the religion, this kind of excessively self-conscious mode of psyche may be regarded as one assuming the typical persona of rigid animus.


Under the red and blue moons, everything falls into confusion. At the sight of the catastrophe, Limelda collapses on the ground. “This is… This feeling is…” Nakhl says, “So the change has begun?” Friday laughs. “Time is beginning to move. My time, which has been frozen for twelve years, has finally begun to move.” Kneeling in front of the door, Margaret utters, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Because I was running away from the truth, I…” Just then, a bullet shoots down the mask of Friday. It is Madlax that appeared there. Friday says, “That’s right… Someone using that name would get in my way. Just like it happened twelve years ago. Madlax!” Margaret mutters, “Madlax. The other me…” Madlax answers. “Yes. I am Margaret Burton’s crime. An existence born at the far reaches of sorrow.” Margaret and Laetitia say alternately. “You’re…” “Pandora’s jewels.” “You’re…” “A kind killer.” Madlax joins their exchange of recitations. “Yes. That’s Madlax. …I am the pain of when we touched truth.”


In the next week notice, Margaret’s voice is heard muttering. “I am the victim within consciousness.” Madlax’s voice follows, “I am the perpetrator within the unconscious.” This is the truth of the existence of Madlax, revealed in this episode at last. Several possible phases which either consciousness or unconscious may materialize, construct the main subject of this anime. Plural axes structure that is not possibly contained in a linear story line, and expressible only through repetitive reciprocation, has been presented by ambiguous visual presentations that will not allow any fixed conceptualization. It will make another perspective of the work; how far one might be able to accept this method of expression as the condition to construct a possible world, or whether one might be able to advocate the principle to generate a phenomenon and produce different phases of a personality.

note:
The metaphysical notion “psyche”, which Jung presupposed as the protoplasmic phase where the distinction of mind and matter is not yet made, was deemed as a dangerous thought that would overthrow the basic premise of science, by the strict advocates of the dogma who would admit no other process than local dynamic effects caused on matter units in the event generation. As vehement oppressions have been detected in the movement against the anti-scientific tradition such as magic and alchemy, remarkably in the attitudes of Vienna school that lead the hard positivism doctrine, Jung’s ex-mentor Freud also directed the organization of Anti-Jung alignment. Ruri Freire Lucas has made quite appropriate a summary on the ideological problem that lies in the basis of the mind of these refuters of Jungian psychology, in his discussion in “The Quantum Unconscious and the Observant Consciousness” (Psychology, 2016, 7, 836-863). It seems we have to reassess the characteristics of our age’s interim logic by which everything is being judged. Because unconscious bias towards the perspectives that compose a fictional work often affects the judgment on their value. Both audience and readers are affected by them in the course of interactive creation of their own possible worlds, as they generate quale through the act of determining wave packets.


In order to reexamine the proposition, it seems we have to reaffirm the basic premises of existence, phenomenon and personality, which are supposed to have affected our thought. Friday recognized the persona of the girl, which means “madness” and “lax”, as the opposing principle to his idea, which drives him to seek for the “essence”.

note:
“Psyche,” postulated by Jung as an archetypal phase that has no distinction between spirit and matter, was a dangerous idea that fundamentally overturned the premise of the standpoint of strict scientific thought, which recognizes the formation of phenomena only by local effects of material existence units. The suppression on anti-scientific ideas, such as magic and alchemy, is evident in the movement of the Wiener Schule, which led the doctrine of hardline “positivism,” and in the formation of the “Anti-Jungian League” directed by Jung’s former teacher Freud. The ideological issues underlying these fierce opposition to Jungian psychology are aptly summarized by Ruri Freire Lucas in “The Quantum Unconscious and the Observant Consciousness” (Psychology, 2016, 7, 836-863). It will be necessary to re-examine the nature of the provisional logic that forms the basis of our judgments. This is because the evaluation of a fictional work is largely influenced by the unconscious bias of the perspective of the conscious subject, who, as a spectator or reader, contributes to its interactive embodiment.
As a concrete example obtained for re-examination of this issue, one is able to cite the fact that the mention on James Beichler’s Neurocosmology and related metaphysical arguments on the premise of the fundamental awareness assumed by several researchers, was deemed inappropriate and was refused to be published, when submitted for a 2017 Bulletin of Wayo Women’s University, based on the judgment of the reviewers.