Aryanism in "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind" II

One of the more interesting ideas in the Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind is that the film is actually about a return of Zion. The 7 Days of Fire were Zion's first, but ultimately vain, attempt to seize power - it was the unrestrained viciousness and wanton destruction that led the would-be conquerors to destroy themselves too. It wasn't even a Pyrrhic victory, but an entire reset of planet Earth - once before, life emerged from the seas onto cooled volcanic rock, but now the rock was cooling from a nuclear fire storm. There were survivors here and there and after a 1000 years of civilization in this limbo, society has once again grown into a complex phenomenon with both noble and evil elements.

Society in the Valley
The small city state in the Valley of the Wind has many Aryan aspects. Due to this being but one episode from this fictional universe, many of these are just implied.

First, the Valley is a limited space and we know that in this world resources too are very limited. Thus, to be able to survive, the inhabitants must have a defined codex of frugality and growth optimization. They can be seen living their lives with relative ease, not pre-occupied with these calculations and so the codex must have been around for quite sometime, perhaps a few generations.

Frugality
Ensuring no more resources are used than required to fulfill the purpose.

If in effect, this concept also affects the processes of creation, since if the optimal amount of resources are used, then that precise amount was initially created. Nausicaa's Mehve, with its propulsion and gliding capabilities, is this very idea as seen in one perticular device. However, to keep their population going, the inhabitants in the Valley have harnessed and applied this process all around, as can be seen in the windmills that provide much of their needed energy in the "Valley of the Wind."

Aryan Settlement

For the relatively small space that the Valley spans, there is a balance between nature and polis. Due to its size, it was probably not very hard to find and this balance and keep it up. The settlement in the Valley is what the mythical hero in the prophecy will bring to all of human civilization once he or she arrives. As we saw in the film, it was Nausicaa and it is no surprise that the one prophesized hailed from this Aryan Settlement.

Secondly, “growth” does not just mean crops and manufactured goods, but also population, which also must be optimized in this society. With limited resources and space, there is no way that the settlement would be able to survive with no regulations on procreation. This is a tricky aspect in that human procreation usually creates one child, sometimes twins, but there are instances of triplets and even larger nurseries from one woman. These get rarer as they increase in number, however, they cause notable differences. In theory, a twin nursery means an increase of 100% in resource consumption from that of a single child. Resources here would be food, space, and labor of care. In a tight situation as the Valley inhabitants are in, it would absolute disaster if population growth was without oversight. This is also a key aspect of authentic National Socialism. 

Other Societies
There are two other human settlements in the film: the Kingdom of Pejite and the Torumekian Empire.

Each has managed to raise a substantial armed forces with heavy ground vehicles and large aerial transports, in addition to smaller military aircraft. Their soldiers also have armor and sophisticated armaments. Basically, the arms industry in those city states is in full swing and they clearly use it for expansionist purposes.

Now, why would they want to expand? Well, with unregulated growth and production for the sake of keeping up with that growth, wanton expansion is inevitable to keep the city state sustainable. Regulation is also inevitable, but with the route that the Pejites and Torumekians are taking, they employ “sustainability,” which is defined in Aryanism as such:

Sustainability
Ensuring resources are not exploited so quickly that they will run out.

Sustainability is, in effect, violent compensation for too much violence. In Aryanism, “violence” is lack of consent, which may or may not be physical damage. Introducing new members into society for the sake of one’s own ego is violence against the rest of the population for they now have to give up resources. It is also violence against the newly born child since it has just been forcibly injected into a finite ecosystem. Thus, by employing sustainability, the Pejites and Torumekians expand into new territories to steal others’ resources that their own children stole from them when they were born. It is a ludicrous cycle of out of control violence that will inevitable result in blowback.

Pejite is a Gentile settlement that saw

the inevitable end of Gentile activity.

The Torumekian Empire is a slightly different case. The viciousness of Zion is reborn in Kushana, Princess of Torumekia, who seeks to rule over all and exterminate those defiant of her. After the 7 Days of Fire, the ideas of Zionism were able to hide and continue developing until Aryanism took hold in the form of Nausicaa. Kushana is probably not a Jew by blood due to this being 1000 years after the end of the previous human civilization, however she certainly is packed with the same ideas and approves the same methods. She is the ultimate example in in-group altruism in the film, and it is in her that we see a profound truth: Evil is not the Jews themselves, but their ideas and methods. That is the energy of Zion and some Jews throughout history have realized just how repulsive the cult that indoctrinated them is: Benjamin Freedman, Bobby Fischer and also Jack Bernstein are examples.

Interesting fact: Kushana’s name seems to be an allusion to the real Kushan Empire that eventually saw its decline due to many things, but its last traces were eliminated with the spread of Islam. In the film, Kushana’s further exploitations are prevented by the resurgence of Aryanism and the arrival of the mythical heroine.

The Toxic Jungle
The Toxic Jungle is what Kushana condemns with so much hate and no surprise that the Fukai (as it is called in the original manga text) is actually symbolic of what she despises in civilization. First, the Jungle can be seen as representing true freedom as it grows independently of external domination. Also, it is a representation of Aryanism as it selflessly seeks to purify the pollution that the humans' own decadence and hate had smeared all over the planet. It only appears as ugly, because people refuse to see it as anything else, yet it is the ohmu who take the final step and bring in the Golden Age. Kushana can’t see past simple racist barriers and would rather settle for this again:

The Golems of Zion

Today's World
While the film shows a post-apocalyptic world, it is also applicable to today's World, as it shows that in that distant future we are liable to repeat the same disastrous mistakes that led us there in the first place. However then, with such a fragile and small civilization, it will be our final bane. A key to overcoming this is to hit the Jew where it damages his forces most: his ideas and words, which involves countering the Jewish Business Model: “they just hate us for us.” They play the victim and the World believes them, yet they are the perpetrators of crime and decadence, something that the World does not see due to the distractions the decadence provides.

We also see disasters that are really just disasters of excess. A tsunami is not really a disaster, it’s a natural process. So are earthquakes. A parking lot of cars destroyed by a tsunami, now that’s a disaster. It would have been just a natural process if that excess of cars had not been there to begin with. However, in committing violence against nature, its natural processes turn into violence against us. This is perverse and needs to stop. Our own excess is our enemy and we don’t need 7 Days of Fire as proof.

One final sidenote: Nausicaa is also the name of a character in Homer's Odyssey. After Odysseus's ship is wrecked she helps nurse him back into well-being as he recounts the events leading up to the wreck. In this film, Nausicaa helps aid civilization back to nobility. In both instances, it allows for a key journey to continue.

See Also:
Equilibrium - another post-apocalyptic tale
My Neighbor Totoro - another work by Hayao Miyazaki

Part I

Aryanism in "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind" I

Some four years before he made My Neighbor Totoro, Hayao Miyazaki created another Aryan-themed work called, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. He put a tremendous amount of energy into this piece, as it was a completely original story with no pop-culture tie-in, and Miyazaki even crafted a manga series with the characters first. This film is an adaptation of the first two volumes. While it sacrifices much of the written works' intricacies and scope, the film version is still a great piece of storytelling. 


Sometime in the Future...
...the World's is forever changed by an event that now, 1000 years after the fact, is remembered as "The 7 Days of Fire." During the opening credits sequence we get glimpses of what when on during those days, these are quick images in a montage that seem to be resemble the memory jog of someone pondering the event. We see huge golem like figures march and unleash wanton destruction upon everything in sight. Eventually, after the chaos settles down, Earth is forever transformed with human settlements few and far apart from one another with a "Toxic Jungle" inhabited by giant insects covering the rest of the planet. Those regions are lethal for humans and can only be entered with special masks. Contact with the insects is almost completely avoided as any sort of combat results in unstoppable swarms.

The opening credits may have very well been the thoughts of one Lord Yupa, a figure similar to Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, who sees a village that has succumbed to toxicity in the very first scene. He picks up a doll whose head crumbles to dust; the doll was a child's toy and this suggests the death of Original Nobility. Has life been so violently beaten and transformed that it has lost all of its previous Nobility? The World's forest before the apocalyptic events provided Earth with oxygen, but now the jungles are toxic. This is a strong indicator of such major aberrations that they might as well be considered absolute and fundamental change. However, as we soon find out, it is a lack of hope that is the most demoralizing of illusions.

Enter a Heroine
Nausicaa is a princess in one of the few human settlements, each of these is more of a city state with government and economy, however, the Valley of the Wind is an exceptionally humble place  when compared with the others. We first see Nausicaa exploring the Toxic Jungle and finding an ohmu's (one of the huge species of insect) shell that has been shed. Knowing that this will be a valuable resource she decides to take a piece of the shell back, when she senses someone's distress. Off in the distance, someone is being chased by an ohmu and Nausicaa immediately goes to their rescue and non-violently stops the ohmu from chasing the person who is actually Lord Yupa from the opening scene.

The angry ohmu

This is a great introductory scene for the film's main heroine; she is not the stereotypical lazy aristocrat, but one committed to Aryan struggle - exploring the World and not hesitating to help someone. Note that the ohmu in this scene is blind with rage as it's home must have been disturbed accidentally by the passing Lord Yupa, but Nausicaa stuns the beast briefly with flashbangs and then soothes its anger and the bug's eyes go from bright red to a calmer blue and it makes its way back into the jungle. This scene is a total inversion from macho Lone Wolf heroics in which a muscled brute of a male takes one some beast or wrestles it away in a show of strength - here we not only have a woman but also non-violence resolving the issue; all suggesting quality of tactics and persona as opposed to quantity of strength and pure physical endurance. These themes will carry on for the rest of the film.

Also is worth noting that Lord Yupa, who has traveled far and wide in this world, still doesn't know just how Nausicaa was able to calm the ohmu. Lord Yupa unleashed the rage of the ohmu when he fired upon an insect in effort to rescue a small mammalian critter, a fox-squirrel. Yupa gives the animal to Nausicaa who is also able to calm it with some unseen force, it seems to be just her gentleness. Apparently, Nausicaa has a connection with all living things.

Enter Hope
Lord Yupa says that he is on his way to the Valley of the Wind and Nausicaa rides ahead on her glider. Interesting that her glider looks like a white wingspan and is called "Mehve" which immediately made me think of the Polish word for seagull, "mewa." As it turns out, the German word here would be "Möwe" and in the original manga written by Miyazaki, it is that word which is used for name of Nausicaa's glider. The glider is a symbol of a harmonious existence of nature and technology, of humans and animals, as well as being a fine piece of engineering - it can propel itself if need be, but usually glides so as not to waste energy.

Nausicaa flying over the Valley

Soon after Nausicaa's return, Lord Yupa rides into a valley with many windmills and green fields. Children happily rush out to greet Lord Yupa and the whole scene bears a strong resemblance to Gandalf's entrance into the Shire at the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring, both the scene and the scenery are parallels with similar themes being communicated, albeit transposed from the rolling hills that are typical of the English countryside to mountainous landscapes of Japan. This is the Valley of the Wind.

The Valley is one of few places not yet consumed by the ever spreading Toxic Jungle, which is also degenerating human civilization as its pores cause, among others, premature aging. It seems that the Jungle's take over is inevitable.

Here we are introduced to Obaba, a wise woman who recounts a prophecy of a mythical hero's arrival; "Clad in blue and surrounded by fields of gold to restore mankind's connection with the Earth that was destroyed. He will guide the people at last to a land of purity." The Aryan symbolism here is unmistakable. A more subtle, but also effective, way that the film communicates Aryanism, and even alludes to the Aryan race, is the fact that the characters have a rather general and undefined complexion overall. Some look Asian, but many have beards that make appear like Old Germans or Slavs. Added is that there are no mentions of real world geography, we can only assume that the film takes place on Earth, but it may as well be in the same sort of realm as Lord of the Rings - a realm of universalist applicability that has been intentionally created separate from our current world so as not to be burdened by any of its constraints.

The Struggle
That night, Nausicaa, with her heightened sense of the world, detects that something is not right. Sure enough, she's right, a large crippled ship is on a crash course with the Valley. Jumping in the Mehve, she approaches the ailing vessels and attempts to warn them not to crash into the people below. We see that the ship is being attacked by insects and is soon brought down resulting in a fireball and the toxic pores of the Jungle and insect life now threaten the Valley's agriculture. Nausicaa finds a survivor amidst the wreckage, this is a princess from another settlement, Pejite, who soon dies. This will lead to complications later. This scene also shows Nausicaa's Aryan qualities as the masses are highly impulsive and in panic about the insects, and even more so when a bigger one emerges from the downed vessel's hull. The people panic and aim to tear it up with gunfire, but Nausicaa intervenes and encourages it to leave with her unique communicability. The insect flies away with Nausicaa escorting it to the edge of the Jungle where and ohmu waits for its kin. The ohmu seems baffled as to why a human, an enemy species, did not unleash the usual rage and violence, but proceeds peacefully back into its home domain.

The next day, more ships arrive at the Valley. They land and unload soldiers who begin to secure the area, including the ailing King's quarters. Nausicaa returns from a flight when the apparent invasion is underway and rushes to her father's room only to find him surrounded by the soldiers and dead. This scene is Nausicaa's only fit of rage as she engages the soldiers with a fury, but is soon stopped by Lord Yupa. This stopped what would have been a spiral of cataclysmic violence.

The newly arrived army is from yet another state, Torumekia, and the Torumekian Princess Kushana explains that they are here to help reclaim Earth for humanity for the transport that crashed last night was carrying a developing "god-soldier" - one of the golem-like beings seen in the intro, one of the beings that caused the 7 Days of Fire 1000 years ago. However, Kushana is convinced that the golem may be used to destroy the Toxic Jungle so that the remaining humans on Earth can live without constant alarm of the pores or of the insects. Kushana decides that the best place for the golem to finish developing will be right in the Valley. She decides to take Nausicaa and some of her confidantes hostage so as to ensure the good behavior of the Valley's inhabitants.

Before they leave, Nausicaa reveals to Yupa that she had been secretly growing a garden in the basement of her building, but one with non-toxic soil. The resulting plants did not give off the lethal spores and she hoped to find a cure for the ailments humans inevitably face due to the pervading toxicity. The reverting of the garden to natural states also suggest a reversion to Original Nobility.

To the Brink of Annihilation
When they leave the Valley to head towards Torumekia, a single fighter craft attacks the Torumekian ships destroying several. Nausicaa climbs out onto roof of her own ship and her presence seems to dissuade the pilot from attacking the ship, but in his moment of hesitation his own craft is hit and goes down. Nausicaa then gets everyone off of the ship, including Kushana, and they glide down to the surface, but wind up in a swamp. Kushana does not value any act of kindness and is only driven by selfishness (she was even baffled, like the ohmu from before, when Nausicaa allowed her to escape with them from the crashing ship) draws a gun and states "I give the orders around here!" She lets her impulses get the best of her. The insects in the jungle sense anger and immediately rise up from the swamp, but Nausicaa with her communicability manages to calm them.

The insects seem to communicate with Nausicaa by some sort of glowing yellow tentacles and Nausicaa has a vision of golden field for a few moments. It's a peaceful vision. Another contrast, slightly more subtle than violent outbursts, is that Kushana regularly insults her subordinates and they her behind her back. It's another aspect of their volatility.

The previous scene also demonstrated that the air above the clouds of the jungle is clean and breathable. This is a first major indicator that there are certain things yet to be explained about the dynamics of the Toxic Jungle. Not surprisingly, it is closest to the source of the Swastika symbol that the pollution is not present.

After the ohmu leave Nausicaa goes to see if the pilot from the down fighter is still alive. Sure enough, he is and fighting with the insects, which in turn causes them to rage. This is the gentile way that inevitably leads to a spiral of violence. It is not unreasonable to believe that it was such thinking and such a course of action that lead to the 7 Days of Fire. The golems were created to wipe out all the enemies of a nation or of an alliance, but unleashed a worldwide inferno.

Nausicaa saves the pilot with her glider, but they are then pulled down into quicksand and Nausicaa has another vision. Back in her childhood, in a golden field, she had come across a baby ohmu, which was soon killed by adults. The young Nausicaa saw no reason for the violence and this is yet another suggestion that the ohmu are not what people think they are. In fact, as it turns out, peoples entire perception of the Toxic Jungle is wrong. Nausicaa and Asbel, the fighter pilot and Prince of Pejite, have been pulled down under the jungle, but are now in a clean environment. The jungle is toxic, because it is cleaning all the pollution that people had caused during the 7 Day of Fire. The insects are so protective of the jungle, because they are guarding this secret and keeping a violent species, humans, away from it. In effect, the jungle is reverting the Earth back to Original Nobility - it's a natural process if allowed to go uninterrpted - and thus, Nausicaa's attempt to control this process back home wasn't necessary. Though, she was doing it with good intention. However, Nobility cannot be "created."

In this scene, Nausicaa tells Asbel that his people are just like the Torumekians and he reacts in rage, which is a typical gentile reaction that prevents the transcending of tribal boundries. Back in the Valley, Lord Yupa discovers the Torumekian plans to unleash the golem and leaves to find Nausicaa. The villagers start an uprising then - the spiral of violence is beginning to spin. Nausicaa and Asbel reach Pejite, but it has been destroyed by the ohmu, but because they soon find out from some surviving Pejites that it was the Torumekians who lured the insects there. A deviously clever exploitation. The ohmu, when their eyes glow red, are said to be able to fight until they starve, they literally wear themselves out with their own treachery. People, it seems, are on the same track for the Pejites get the brilliant idea of now luring the insects to the Valley to conveniently wipe out all the Valley people and the rest of the Torumekians, then they will take the golem and destroy the Toxic Jungle, which they refuse to see as anything other than wretched despite Nausicaa's and Asbel's pleas. Asbel is knocked unconscious by his fellow soldiers, while Nausicaa in imprisoned on their transport. People are really on the same track as they were one millennium ago, it seems. They just want to make treachery work for them and only for them.

The leaders man be corrupt and blind with hate like the ohmu, but some of the people are not. A few noble Pejite civilians help Nausicaa sneak out so that she can find the lure being used on the ohmu swarm. While everyone prepares for some of the biggest combat to come yet, Nausicaa finds the lure, with her keeness that allowed her to spot Lord Yupa in the very beginning when he was running from the ohmu. She ends up wounded, like the baby ohmu being used for the lure as it had hooks in its body so that it could be transported. She uses her communicability to talk to it and the prisoner ohmu sees that Nausicaa is not an enemy. It heals her using its tentacle-like antennae. Then, in her last attempt to stop the ohmu horde from killing the rest of the Earth's human's Nausicaa orders the stunned Pejite soldiers to transport her in front of the charging ohmu.

The way of the Aryan

The way of the Jew

Meanwhile, Kushana unleashes the unfinished golem and it manages to fire off some terrifying laser blasts before completely falling apart. Her dreams of cataclysmic victory instantly shatter and crumble to hopelessness. The charging ohmu cannot be stopped by anything at her disposal now.

Nausicaa is set down right before the ohmu charge and it plows right into her, sending her high up into the air and back down into the midst of charging insect feet and kicked up dust.

For a few terrifying moments everyone prepares for mutually assured destruction, but then, inexplicably, the ohmu then stop... from high up in the air we see the raging red glowing of the swarm's eyes starts to turn into a calm blue from one spot that soon spreads throughout the entire giant multitude of ohmu. They lift Nausicaa on their glowing yellow antennae, whose clothes are now blue (from the blood of the wounded ohmu) and she appears to be walking in a golden field - Nausicaa is the mythical hero that found the link between humanity and nature so as to herald in a new Golden Age. She is the embodiment of the symbolism of the Swastika.

Arya Returns

Part II