Reflections on Sinon: a Personal Account.

[There are Major Spoilers for *Sword Art Online* herein. Enjoy.]

No sooner had my parents taken leave for Israel than I rushed home, exhilarated to be free two weeks of their intrusion in my entertainment, yet excited also for the joy of genuine responsibility, determined to be balanced in consumption and production. These past years had set me back in my attempts to make a decent living for myself, though they'd afforded me the opportunity to meditate upon the most important matters: those of moral clarity and certainty. The life of thought may lack the passion of a Kierkegaard, yet if his writing serves to prove one thing it is that passion *is* a possibility for thought, if handled fearlessly and with abandon.

 

All too often, this abandon is a problem when one has to deal with snide and condescending intellectuals; I've learned from life experience to put on the veneer of cold detachment in their midst. It followed that, therefore, though I was brimming with a passion to express my views and to explore ideas, I would also have to temper this with tact, allowing it to run its course in private prior to delivering decisive arguments. It would have been naïve to think that telling off my interlocutors online would settle matters; they were always small potatoes by contrast with the Great Questions which I posed to them, Great Questions which they answered poorly.

So it followed that these interlocutors persisted like that ever-present "evil genius" which haunted the Cartesian meditations, planting seeds of doubt in solitude and comfort, deconstructing every moment with a scalpel. I did not resist this deconstruction actively, but rather passively, allowing it some brief advantage prior to employing mental judo, as would Alan Watts, that it might fall under the force of its own weight.

 

This was the method I employed when, having reached the final episode of Sinon's arc, (within the second season of *Sword Art Online*) I found myself identifying with the heroine to an extent I'd not anticipated that I would. In truth, I did intend to find within this "kuudere" a sort of Anima to root for and identify within myself, yet also I was moved by the peculiarities of her ordeal, peculiarities I did not share, though I was sympathetic to her plight, regardless. When her arc concluded, though I did not cry, I felt immense elation, confirmation, and an edifying pride, experienced vicariously through her struggle and its consummation.

Yet this was the problem, for I found that, feeling joy for her, I brought joys of my own *to* her, as if I'd been invited to a potluck. This is natural; we wish to share experiences with the people whom we care for, factual or fictional, to show that we relate. Yet it was in that very moment that the Evil Genius, assuming the imagined voice of my most recent critic, said, as if to whisper in my left-side eardrum: "So, it was about *you*, all along, indeed."

 

"No," I would answer, "It was not. It is not *selfish* to relate with a *protagonist*."

 

"Yet why," he would reply, with cunning tact, "won't you relate with her oppressor just as well? Were there not moments in your life when you were just as vile, just as frightening, delusional, and dark in your intent and methods?"

 

"No," I would repeat, "for I would never go that far. Though clearly neither can I say that I have ever *had* to go as far as did our heroine, that is the point: she *had* to do that which she did, and she'll forgive herself in knowing it, as I forgive her, too."

That is the point: that her *intent* was pure. It is not selfish to relate with selfless people, for a selfless reason, over selfless memories of gratitude, themselves resulting from a largely selfless (though disputed and berated by the Public) act. A selfish person will relate with selfish characters for selfish reasons; selfless people will relate with selfless characters for selfless reasons. Though I might have acted, superficially, at times, as did her stalker, I was never doing this for his repugnant reasons, and that was the reason that I never went to his extreme. Although I did not feel much sympathy for him, it was not from a lack of sympathy in general; I simply did not share in his experience, but only in his condemnation by a shallow Public, and the Art went far, far deeper into human motivations and the *meanings* of behaviours that transgressed. (If anything, I sympathize with BoJack Horseman and with Tim from *Braid* because I can identify *those* motives in myself.)

The power of that moment lay in that I *did* identify with her, the heroine, and *not* with him, the villain. Both were guilty, but for rival reasons. One did what she had to, and the other did what he desired. One was selfless in the act, an act which made her wise beyond her years; the other was a selfish child. I struggled to forgive myself, but for the reasons that *she* struggled to forgive *herself*. The Self was not the cause of my behaviour; it was all *after the fact* that any self-reflection would occur, for it was *passion* -- largely selfless passion, though it had its perks and meager income -- that had moved me to begin with.

 

So, I knew I could forgive myself for any hardship I'd encountered on this path, for on this road where I had met Sinon in spirit none of her oppressors had a chance of finding us; they did not walk it. They would never know the gratitude we knew, for, even if by chance they might receive it, they would not reciprocate it. Selflessness remains the root of love, not self-acceptance, so I cannot be persuaded to accept a charge of guilt that is reserved for selfish people. It was for a selfless reason that I chose to balance work and play during this two-week period, and so I can forgive myself as well for letting all these doubts intrude upon my entertainment in a manner that more selfish people I had known would not allow (and even would condemn me for, to such extremes that I would go to even greater lengths to clear my name, resulting in that aforementioned Public Image I'd accrued in doing so).

Of course, I knew it was not easy. I can settle conversations with that Evil Genius in just a couple, unintrusive lines:

 

"It is not selfish to identify with a protagonist."

 

"I don't identify with villains, since I have not *done* that."

 

"No, I have not done as she did, either, but I know the feeling of another's gratitude, and villains will not feel that gratitude."

 

"It is not selfish to identify with selfless people for a selfless reason, by remembering a selfless memory of gratitude."

 

"I can forgive myself as I would want her to forgive herself.

Yet there's the rub: she won't forgive herself so easily. Neither will I. I'm glad that I did finish watching all the rest of Season Two before I watched her summary. I'd had some time to really sit with this, and so had she, so, when she added that it would be long before she could forgive herself entirely, I felt that confirmation once again. It would be long before I could, as well. Yet if I ever wake up feeling terrible, I'll have my mantra now to get me out of bed:

"It is not selfish to relate with selfless people for a selfless reason. That is born of action, not projection: passion, not reflection, though reflection is a part of it, after the fact. I have not done exactly as these characters have done, but I still recognize intent and consequence. I know what path I'm on."

I know what path I'm on.

 

**[({R.G.)}]**

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