Harlock as Archetype
Just call me Phantom F. Archetype...
Writers have long used symbols and symbolism to enrich their stories, to expand the reader’s consciousness and to impart
collective truths and personal messages. Symbols are mythic and archetypal, universal some would say, but they are also
significant products of our culture. As such, not all symbols inherent in Space Pirate Captain Harlock may be easily discernable by the western public, but as Matsumoto
Leiji is a child of post-war, Americanised Japan, and has had some exposure to that culture and its myths, it may be that he has been tapping in to some archetypes that pass across
East/West cultural boundaries. Whether by happy accident or conscious design, he has also tapped into universal archetypes that speak directly to our hearts.
Art is generally symbolic in content, and manga, defined as art, should be presenting its readers with a rich array of meaning. As both literature and art combined, manga is far from a trivial entertainment. As art, as an intensely private art for both creator and audience, it must use symbolism to reach the reader. Consciously and unconsciously on the part of the writer, manga
will express archetypal themes and images; it may present archetypes traditional
to the culture that produced it, or present new ones that may permanently enter
popular culture. Archetypes are not immutable, and there is not a finite number
of them. They enter and leave our culture and our psyches every day.
Manga may also present private messages from the author, and Matsumoto has admitted that some of his recurrent themes stem from his own life events, or from thoughts that he has had about the life events of others. Spiritual and moral messages are conveyed through themes, and in the absence of obvious symbols, the human mind is quick to make them up. We, as humans, invest objects and situations with symbols and meaning all the time. It is our nature.
Artists may also take old archetypes and alter their meaning, and Matsumoto has woven such an intricate universe over the span of
40-odd years that he has not only altered the meanings of some symbols, but also created new ones.
Here, then, are some archetypes that appear throughout the Matsumoto/Harlock universe:
Mushrooms
Phallic in shape, mushrooms in oriental tradition are associated with male fecundity; they are also a symbol of happiness. What are we to make then, of Matsumoto’s regular use of the mushroom in his manga, and their appearance in the Harlock-Tochirō mythos? Is it any wonder that some of the happiest times of Harlock and
Tochirō’s lives were spent on a giant mushroom? (And what might be the phallic significance of the
abundant mushroom crop in Oidon’s underpants?)
Skeletons
Skeletons most obviously represent death. It seems only natural to associate pirates with skeletons and death, but consider
the skeletons that still talk (Endless Odyssey), and those that still
dream (Queen Emeraldas). The Death card of the Tarot features a skeleton, but in
the Tarot it symbolises rebirth, the shedding of the old skin for the new. The archetype of the skeleton
represents the renunciation of the material world and the comforts that come with it. Matsumoto has taught us that skeletons are not to be feared, death is not to be feared, and change is not to be feared.
They are inevitable components of the endless cycles of life.
Masks
The mask as an archetype suggests transformation as well as concealment and deceit,
yet in ancient religious ritual masks were a pivotal connection with the spirit world and the relinquishing of ego. That Harlock’s eyepatch is his mask is apparent, and the difference in personality between Harlock-with-eyepatch and Harlock-without is marked. Harlock-without-eyepatch is open, carefree and
garrulous, while Harlock-with-eyepatch is introverted, moody and contemplative. That the loss of Harlock’s eye, and the donning of the eyepatch, was transformative to his personality is without doubt. What it hides, what internal and external scarring mars his psyche, however,
has never been revealed.
Shadows
Shadows are traditional symbols of our materialist nature and represent the
obscuration of light. Similar to mask symbolism they also represent concealment. The interior of the
Arcadia is bathed in black shadow, space is all shadow, in many situations Harlock will linger in shadow. Harlock is not a fearful or weak man, but darkness is his domain. Does his liking for the cool dark represent the darkness in his soul, or is he hiding from something more tangible than sorrow?
Dokuro | Skull and Crossbones
Modern skull symbolism was first used by the Knights Templar who, interestingly,
themselves turned to piracy in the 12th century AD, although their cause was ostensibly a ‘holy’ one and not for the mere sake of pillage and plunder
(though, that does sound familiar...). They had adopted the symbol in homage to the place where Jesus died, Golgotha
(the 'Place of the Skull' so I'm told), and in the years since the skull has become a powerful symbol.
In more familiar piratical territory, the skull and crossbones appeared in the Caribbean in the 1700s, and was
probably adopted by pirates in that region as a bastardisation of the traditional skull symbolism that was extant within the cultures of Central America. Though maritime pirates used it, and derivatives, to instill fear in their targets, ancient Americans
viewed the skull as
a potent symbol of knowledge. It was a good thing, not to be feared.
In Harlock’s case, the Dokuro has apparently been passed down though the Harlock family lineage, and was never meant to have negative connotations nor represent piracy. It was a symbol of freedom only, and Harlock remains true to its
original meaning. [As an aside the Knights Templar, like Harlock, also lived true to their values and beliefs, preferring to die than to reject them. Could Phantom F. Harlock and his forefathers be descendents of the original Templars,
those that escaped persecution under Phillip IV and were scattered across Europe?
Could this be the origin of the mysterious Dokuro and the famed book ‘Arcadia’?
Am I seeing connections where there aren't any? Highly likely!]
Matsumoto took the skull and crossbones and used Captain Harlock to reinvent the symbol once more. In the Harlock mythos, the
Dokuro symbolises freedom and freedom of choice. And though Harlock himself doesn’t help matters
by raising his pirate flag to signal his intent to plunder, for Harlock (and
Matsumoto) the flag is a means to reaching the hearts of men.
Black
Traditionally the colour of death and grief in western cultures, ancient Egyptians held that black signified rebirth, in which case Harlock’s rebirth might not have been quite what he expected. (please see
Trousers for more information on the colours in Harlock’s life.)
Wheel of Life
The Wheel of Life is an Eastern concept whereby a person’s life entails different stages on the Wheel, and one is helpless in life, only able to go where the wheel
directs. Yama, Lord of Death, controls this wheel and Harlock had better hope he isn’t permanently strapped to it. While the
Wheel of Life concept is not overtly obvious in Harlock, it is embedded within Matsumoto’s theory of spherical universes and overlapping timelines
— the notion that people are defined by events and circumstance, and that some events simply cannot be escaped or avoided. (See
Universal Predestiny.)
Arcadia
From the Greek ‘Arkadios,’ Virgil (the poet, not the pilot of Thunderbird 2) idealised the concept of Arcadia as paradise. The birthplace of Pan and ruled by the king Lycaon, Arcadia never changed through the ages, remaining green and idyllic and resisting all incursions. A pastoral paradise where the inhabitants lived eternally, Harlock in all his incarnations has longed for such a place to live, as opposed to the cold hard vacuum of space
where a meaningless death is the only certainty. Harlock spends much time dreaming of green rolling hills, blue skies and the flowers of Earth. He most eloquently expresses these dreams in
My Youth in Arcadia, and Tochirō expresses them for him in Cosmowarrior Zero in a very touching moment.
In Matsumoto-world, the Arcadia archetype has been extended to mean what was once simple and innocent, and more concretely, by naming Harlock and
Tochirō’s great ship Arcadia, he is expressing their great desire to follow their dreams and find paradise
— if not on Earth then at least inside the hull of the vessel itself. Matsumoto’s most eloquent expression of
his Arcadian concept appears in the opening of My Youth in Arcadia:
Tabishi no owari ni, hito wa minna omou, seishun koso Arukadia datta to…
'At the end of the journey, all men believe that their youth was Arcadia… '
Location as Archetype
When we sit down to read a
book or watch a movie, we are unconsciously absorbing signals and
messages, making meaningful associations between what we see and
what is already contained within our subconscious. All places are
imbued with archetypal meaning, meanings that have developed over
the ages and been compounded by modern usage. One has to wonder
what assumptions Matsumoto was hoping his audience would make when
presented with the locales that his stories take place in.
although it seems that these locations hold far more meaning for
Matsumoto himself, since he returns to them over and over again. Here
are some of his more favoured locales, and insights into their
possible symbolism:
The Sea of Space
Like the depths of the oceans, until the end of the 1960s the darkness of space was a
place of unknowns and foreboding. A great void from where monsters
might emerge to destroy us. Once the abode of the gods, the
technological age has changed how we perceive space. It has become de-mythologicised,
had its heavenly mystery stripped away and replaced with another
mystery, a potentially dangerous one. It has therefore been the
self-appointed task of modern culture to change the mythos of space into something
benign and good, something grand and sweeping, and this has been
done in the majority by science fiction.
Space is the great unknown, a
new environment that invites new mythos and destroys old ones. It
embodies concepts unable to be conceived by our pathetic intellects, thereby
transforming (through our ignorance) into a place of dreams and
wishes. It has become an important focus for humanity yet remains
elusive, both disturbing and inspiring. It invites imagination and
makes all things possible, but it also contains an impartial
neutrality, a bland dismissiveness. Science may attempt to
quantize it, but it can never truly be quantized and
will ever remain an unknown — a place of speculation, imagination,
dream and fantasy. It is not the last great frontier for us (we
still have a lot of planet Earth and almost all of the oceans to
explore still), but for Harlock, so far in the future, it does
represent that last great frontier.
The last place humanity has yet to swallow up with stupidity and
petty bureaucracy, no matter how hard it tries to do so.
The end point of painful reality and the place where dreams
can begin.
Planet Earth
The source of all that we are, the Earth holds both our beginnings and our endings. While we
spring forth from its soil, the struggle for survival is ever
shadowed by the knowledge that the Earth will once more pull us
back into darkness. This finds its greatest expression in the fact that
our society is attempting to move further away from the Earth,
albeit in miniscule technological leaps. But the question remains
— can we ever truly be free? Apart from its gravitational pull,
the Earth pulls us in so many ways. Yet despite those pulls, we
actively allow technology to separate us from our planet, creating
an invisible but powerful barrier that may, in the end, be
insurmountable.
Matsumoto often addresses this issue of technology
versus nature. Society’s complacency in the opening of Space
Pirate Captain Harlock is surely indicative of mankind’s
separation from planet Earth, a separation created by the curse of
technology and the manipulation of government factions. Harlock,
of course, is so far removed from his home world it likely
staggers even his own mind. Harlock’s greatest wish is to return
to Earth, though he is seemingly doomed to
forever be isolated within a technological fortress. The cool and
shadowy walls of the Arcadia have replaced the warm breezes and
sunshine of his home world and he is cursed to endlessly hover
above her. Matsumoto successfully conveys the myriad of feelings Harlock has for the Earth (love,
despair, sadness, loss), and his artwork accurately portrays the
cool silence of space, the beauty and the frightening and fragile
insignificance of the Earth amongst that black expanse. Comments from
astronauts, perhaps unsurprisingly, present an idea of what
Harlock may be feeling from his isolated perch:
Before I flew I was already
aware of how small and vulnerable our planet is; but only when I
saw it from space, in all its ineffable beauty and fragility, did
I realize that human kind's most urgent task is to cherish and
preserve it for future generations. — Sigmund Jähn, Germany
The Earth was small, light
blue, and so touchingly alone, our home that must be defended like
a holy relic. — Aleksei Leonov, USSR
While it took a journey into
space (and a metaphorical slap over the head) for these men to
comprehend the fragility of planet Earth clearly,
how interesting that Matsumoto was able to convey these feelings
while his own feet were firmly attached to terra firma.
Deserts
Many of Captain Harlock’s
incarnations encounter a desert (or other wasteland) at some stage in the story [Space
Pirate Captain Harlock, Ginga Tetsudō, Endless Odyssey,
Cosmowarrior Zero] and one wonders precisely why a man (who
is not well dressed for the climate) must needs cross a desert or do
battle in one. While you might think a desert’s symbolism is
fairly clear — exposure, waste, death, heat, light — you might be wrong. Deserts also represent — much like space
— the concept of no boundaries. And if we think back to the Bible we remember that
the desert is a place of revelation, an expanse that must be
crossed in order to arrive at a promised land. The curious part
of this is that Harlock is relatively at home in the desert. He’s
not above being physically affected (or almost killed) by it, but
he’s comfortable in it. It holds no surprises — even death is no surprise to him.
It’s a harsh environment that he feels safe in.
That said, not much good happens to Harlock in these environments. Crossing the desert in
Space Pirate, he loses his horse and succumbs to heat exhaustion
before saving Mayu from Kirita’s clutches. Crossing the desert in
Ginga Tetsudō he arrives too late to prevent Tochirō’s death and
can only lament at his grave. Crossing the desert with Dr Zero in
Endless Odyssey they lose their camel and must proceed the rest of
the way on foot. Crossing the frontier in Cosmowarrior Harlock saves
Tochirō but he then must confront Zero and his crew. One wonders
at the trepidation he must feel, each time he prepares to cross a
desert.
The desert is the hardest
Earthly environment for a human to brave. It strips away the
psyche as easily as it strips away the flesh. For Harlock to
knowingly and willingly endure the desert represents a surrender
on his behalf. He’s prepared for whatever that environment can
throw at him, and he’s also prepared to die there if need be. This
is a man so honest with himself that he can step into the sand
knowing that if the wasteland claims him and strips his mind and his
bones bare, he will have died clean.
The Wild West |
The Gun Frontier
The American Wild West was not a nice place, holding far more
meaning for the testosterone-fuelled element of our society than
the testosterone-challenged (which means boys like it more than
girls). It was a place of hardship and sacrifice, a clash between
cultures, the lawless edge of the western world as it set out to
conquer new lands and new people. The Wild West contains many negative
aspects and is not always perceived as romantically as Matsumoto would
have us believe. However it does hold the promise of hope for
mankind, insofar as it doesn’t matter what barren shit-hole we end
up in, we will endure.
The planet Heavy Melder
— which Harlock, Tochiro and Emeraldas return to time and time
again
—
satisfies most
of these criteria: man is pushing out into space, conquering and
usurping as he goes. Heavy Melder represents that lawless edge of
humanity as the first independent encroachers into space put down
their roots. What better place for Harlock and Tochirō to be drawn
towards (as they so frequently are), given their nature and circumstance?
Even more concretely, the original Space Pirate Captain Harlock
manga states unequivocally that Harlock and Tochiro once lived on Heavy Melder, and in the forward to the Gun Frontier manga,
Matsumoto implies that the Gun Frontier is Harlock's true origin.
Closely connected with the
Wild West in Matsumoto-world is the culture of the gun (seen most
obviously in Gun Frontier), which draws upon the accompaniment of
the gun in all of man’s great migrations. The gun has its own
significance in Harlock’s universe, but there’s no denying its
significance as the ‘great equaliser,’ no matter which milieu it
is found in. Historically carried for protection (uh-huh), an
entire set of unwritten laws evolved upon the western frontier,
and along with them an archetype was born. In Matsumoto-world the
gun signifies manhood and tradition, with the Cosmo Dragoon
becoming an object to be passed down through families, or bequeathed to
someone who has been deemed worthy. The Cosmo Dragoon is imbued
with rarity (Tochirō has only made a small number of them,
four or five depending on what you're watching), and a
sense of nobility and heritage. And if you search the dim recesses
of your mind you may realise that your own attitudes towards the
six-shooter of the Wild West compared to the weapons of choice of today’s
modern brigand are vastly different. That’s the power of archetype.
The Cowboy
Yeah yeah, I know. Harlock as
cowboy really hurts the head, but the frightening truth is the possibility that Harlock was always meant to
be a cowboy. He has incarnated as a cowboy (Frank Harlock in the
Gun Frontier manga and anime), played the cowboy in his own series, hangs around in
saloons on Heavy Melder, ties his sabre to his leg with an
unpiratical piece of leather, rides a horse exceedingly well, and sometimes he clinks when he
walks, sounding for all the world as though he is wearing spurs.
Could it be that Harlock is a cowboy in corsair clothing?
The cowboy as archetype
represents an ideal vision of manhood and masculinity. Intimately
tied to the symbolism of the Wild West, the cowboy is the last
free man, independent, held by no laws and responsible to no-one,
working to his own agenda and imbued with a ‘never back down’
attitude. Sound familiar? Not yet? How about this then:
Bushido | The Code of the Samurai
Dovetailing neatly into the cowboy mythos is the ethos of the Samurai. While Tochirō more
clearly embodies the samurai element (and carries and uses a
samurai sword), the nobility and honour of Bushido is ingrained
throughout the entire Matsumoto universe (as indeed it is
ingrained within every manga/anime/novel/motion picture to come
out of Japan). Nobility resides at the core of each and every
character, even the naughty ones.
At the heart of Bushido lies honour, noble conduct and unwavering loyalty. Coupled with these
are austerity, self-sacrifice, personal honour, extraordinary
heroism, indifference to pain and the scorning of commerce and
profit. Hmm. Are you sure none of this is sounding familiar? |
