the ultimate price of anaxa's achievements is to be forgotten. in this essay late-night ramble i will
every one of anaxa's character stories ends with an indication that said story will be forgotten. for his first story, he snaps out of a flashback. his second (an experiment log) mentions that the original has already been destroyed. the third is an improvised speech -- never recorded, never practiced -- and the fourth story literally states that it is "One of the echoes in Anaxa's memories after the Grove had fallen, which vanished because nobody discovered it".
over and over again they tell us that there will be no record of his achievements, nobody to remember him when he's dead. and the heartbreaking part is that anaxa can come to terms with sacrificing his body, but he can't come to terms with sacrificing his memories. because anaxa desperately wants to be remembered. in as i've written, it's mentioned that he's able to laugh off his failures because his achievements will grant him a legacy that lasts for generations. and look at his experiment logs -- how organized they are, how diligently he must keep them, all so that his efforts are preserved. and, of course, why else would he insist on being called anaxagoras? to shorten a name is to forget something, and he can never risk that. because memories are all he has; having lost his family and sacrificed his physical form, what else is there?
but the thing is, anaxa has to be forgotten to succeed. in his last character story, he says this:
Yet, I have not lost enough… In comparison to what I pursue, I have not lost enough to fulfill the law of equivalent exchange.
so he knows he still has to lose something else. and later in the same story:
My future students, if you see these words, it proves that my endeavor has failed at the final step.
"if you see these words, I have failed." and in the context of his destroyed experimental logs, his interrupted flashback, his improvised speeches, we understand that the final price anaxa must pay is his legacy. the law of equivalent exchange is claiming the one thing he has worked towards all this time.
anaxa knows he's arrogant. but i'd like to think it's a desperate, tragic sort of arrogance, like the flare of a fire as it finds its last piece of kindling. please look at me. please remember me before it's too late.
An Anaxa analysis in relation to Nietzsche (cross posted from tiktok ; @aeternior)
(More of a summarized version of as much of a summary I can make out of somewhat surface level research and 1k+ wordcount ; I am not a Nietzsche Scholar, so apologies to any out there for any amateur misinterpretations or understanding.)
Anaxa & Nietzsche
Although Anaxa obviously implies to have inspiration and references to the Pre-Socratic Greek astronomer Anaxagorous, at the same time he has more glaring parallels to Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher of the late 19th century. Anaxa not only shares important philosophical aspects and characteristics with Nietzsche, but also quotes and references him numerous times, particularly in his CN ASMR where he reads aloud Dionysus Dithyrambs: a poem written by Nietzsche. He also takes inspiration from Nietzsche in his "Thus Spoke Anaxagoras", a reference to Nietzsche's own famous work, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra".
Even if Anaxa shares a majority of his philosophy with Nietzsche, that does not take away from philosophers such as Anaxagorous from playing a part- In fact, Nietzsche's own philosophical ideas which Anaxa shares are inspired by Anaxagorous in particular, more so through Nietzsche's unfinished work, "The Tragic Age of the Greeks", from which I believe Anaxa’s own philosophical foundation and character takes inspiration from.
"The Tragic Age of the Greeks" features five Pre-Socratic Greek philosophers Nietzsche discusses, ones that he admires. Among these include Anaxagoras, the last philosopher he left off in his piece. What's most intriguing of Anaxagoras though, is the rhetorics he features to Nietzsche-What is the substance of existence? Where do our existence and experiences originate?- What are we?
This very question is the one Anaxa himself builds his own hypothesis around.
For Anaxa, it is the Nousporists that provide this answer, that the soul holds the solution to his thesis in search of the truth of creation. "Nousporism"-Nous. Nous, to Nietzsche is where he abruptly left off in his work discussing Anaxagoras, in which Nous is the 'start' of the universe, the origin or motion which tapped on the cycle of existence so the universe can become and develop on its own.
Nous which represents the will of mind, is what goes against the mechanical fate of it's creation, the universe. This is what Anaxa seeks to prove against the fate of Amphoreus. That despite the prophecy, despite the fate of the Chryso Heirs, the existence of humanity itself opposes it, the creative power of Nous he uses to prove Titans are no better than mortals- That the will of self (the soul) transcends the divine.
Life as an Experiment
"Life could be an experiment of the seeker for knowledge - and not a duty, not a calamity, not trickery... Life as a means to knowledge - with this principle in one's heart can live not only boldly but even gaily, and laugh gaily too"
Nietzsche, [On the Genealogy of Morals]
"A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions--as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all." Nietzsche, [The Gay Science]
To Nietzsche, the experimental life is the experience of life itself: Life as a means to knowledge, not just as a resultive, scientific approach but as an active experience, a constant string of hypotheticals we observe in the discovery of how we live and what we live for. Does a scientist only test the same medium and hypothesis for the same if not similar results, or does the data lead to another hypothesis, another experiment to gather results as they gain another step in finding truth? A scientist adapts through the results and data they gather and share. Science is a community.
If we experience life as an experience made by our own perspectives, are the results and data we gather not also the various perspectives we gather in our environment as results, but also our experiences as a whole which lead us to adapt and change our hypothesis? The hypothesis of our beliefs, values, principles, and identity. A scientist gathers data and results not through the constraints of traditional morality, but because the results are simply results to another step closer to truth. Anaxa demonstrates this approach fully in his character by the determination of his own hypothesis he seeks to prove. Like Nietzsche, he is called a heretic, a fool, a blasphemer-And yet that does not stop his experiment, not just in what he proves as truth but also in his beliefs where he does not allow constraints such as morality to limit. Truth is beyond morality and tradition, beyond the societal and human constructs it outlies.
The Death of God-
"Only disciples of truth can continue on this path, and the authorities who proclaim themselves to be sages fear the fall of god."
Anaxa, [Character Story III]
"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?"
Nietzsche, [Gay Science]
The criticism of nihilism and the fall of God is a subject most often associated with Nietzsche, first introduced in 'The Gay Science, and is the subject Anaxa conveys the most in his character. Now, the death, if not murder of God is not meant to be portrayed as the first step to nihilism as it is often misunderstood, but instead an approach against the very philosophy of nihilism as what Nietzsche means to offer. He critiques nihilism as a result of the fall of God and the lead to the collapse of Western society, the void of an inherently meaningless universe now clear due to the fall of faith. Anaxa claims the sages as fearing the fall of God, unable to bear the validation of their own authority and faith as a weak means to make up the weight of an inherently meaningless world. When in reality, the purpose and value God has left in his death is already there: Humanity.
The will and innovation of humanity, the creative human will and creations of the very men who murdered their own faith already creates and applies purpose in a world that deems meaningless, humanity the driving force of meaning itself. Humanity is what finds truth through the purpose they create in the void left by God, discovers truth in a universe left without any answers but their own. Anaxa, whose faith in the Titans has long already been buried in the black tide and the death of his sister— What better truth is there to find but himself?
What better faith is there than the faith in humanity itself, what stranger faith is there but the will and experiences of man? He loves, he creates, he suffers. Anaxa fully embraces and embodies humanity as a whole. He endures it.
He wills it, and he proves it. He does not transcend it, he uses it as a means of transcendence, a thesis in his own truth of Nousporism, and ultimately his own proof of the will of humanity itself. Anaxa's demonstration of Netzsche's experimental life further ties into this as well.
"I am incredibly happy now. I once smiled like this, when I first created a mechanical bird that could fly in the sky. My hands once trembled like this, when I developed a new life through incubation."
Anaxa, [Character Story IV]
Alternate Matyrdom
“I believe that he who has divined something of the most basic conditions for his growth in love will understand what Dante meant when he wrote over the gate of his inferno: I, too, was created by eternal love.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, [The Will to Power]
When living as a means to knowledge, he does not just mean academic knowledge, but the knowledge of our experiences. Every experience we have in life is an experimental discovery, each one an inquirement and discovery of the knowledge all around us. For Nietzsche, we are beings of knowledge, and through our knowledge we discover truth. But to be challenged, to suffer and love for our truth? To gather the failures first, before finding the results? What truth is more true than one you suffer for, what love is more powerful than one you fight for? How much greater is a scientist's theory the more failures it's tested, the more results its met with a single solution more towards the truth?
Irony & Sarcasm
Other than the main philosophies Anaxa shares with Nietzsche, he also possibly happens to share Nietzsche's known irony and sarcasm identified in his writing style too. Nietzsche himself commonly uses irony and sarcasm as a way to engage and expand on his own philosophical critiques, more so on tradtional structures of morality and religion. Anaxa also commonly uses both ironic and sarcastic language, and this style is also an engaging way to point out contradictions provocations in an argument, as well as critiques.
(-It is argued that Nietzsche uses this style of ironic language the most in one of his most famous works, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra")
Thank you for reading, this is all for now. Might look into Nietzsche more since I somewhat do admire the man and his works, although Anaxa also has noticable references to the Magnum Opus and Heraclitus too, which I might dig into.
When fans talk about Anaxa but they don't talk about how he much he believes. They don't mention how much faith he has in humanity, how much passion and love he suffers for that very faith he puts into his truth.
For a man that personifies Nietzsche— What truth is more true to him than one he suffers for? What love is more powerful than one he fights for?
As a heretic with no faith in the Titans, he holds the most faith out any of their believers
anaxa makes me tear up sometimes. he loves. he loves SO MUCH to the point of creation. to commit so many sacrifices and maximize his entire utility up until the end, it's as ruthless as it was priceless like love is.
maybe that's why cerces kept reminding him of "how wonderful it is to be alive." what must it look like to cerces to see this foolish child of humanity with ambitions that threatened to smother the already dying embers of life, who reminded her so much of mnestia? the titan that offered her rawest beating heart suffused with the memories and imprints of love born from humans upon cerces' tree, in hopes that she can see the depths of just how much mnestia loves her in all her entirety?
he's so full love. if not. the reason why creation ever existed at all. maybe cerces brought him back to life not just for his ideals, but because mnestia would have also done the same, to snatch him back from the jaws of death. an act of defiance, born from the purest of love.
for someone that claimed to have lost everything, he had so much love left to give
I have never been on the same page as fandom’s clear communication fetishists and I never will be. I love miscommunication, concealment, pigheadedness, and lies. I think characters should talk around what they have to say and ignore each other and impute needs and beliefs onto others that have nothing to do with those other people and everything to do with maintenance of the ego. A little clear communication is fine but it should come at the end and be earned by repeated instances of snobbery, tomfoolery, self righteousness, or blockheadedness. If you decide you hate a character just because that character isn’t communicating in the way a therapist might coach them to, well consider that people don’t actually talk like that at all and that most of us get things wrong many times before we inch our way out of the labyrinthine darkness of our own heads.
I just started grad school this fall after a few years away from school and man I did not realize how dire the AI/LLM situation is in universities now. In the past few weeks:
I chatted with a classmate about how it was going to be a tight timeline on a project for a programming class. He responded "Yeah, at least if we run short on time, we can just ask chatGPT to finish it for us"
One of my professors pulled up chatGPT on the screen to show us how it can sometimes do our homework problems for us and showed how she thanks it after asking it questions "in case it takes over some day."
I asked one of my TAs in a math class to explain how a piece of code he had written worked in an assignment. He looked at it for about 15 seconds then went "I don't know, ask chatGPT"
A student in my math group insisted he was right on an answer to a problem. When I asked where he got that info, he sent me a screenshot of Google gemini giving just blatantly wrong info. He still insisted he was right when I pointed this out and refused to click into any of the actual web pages.
A different student in my math class told me he pays $20 per month for the "computational" version of chatGPT, which he uses for all of his classes and PhD research. The computational version is worth it, he says, because it is wrong "less often". He uses chatGPT for all his homework and can't figure out why he's struggling on exams.
There's a lot more, but it's really making me feel crazy. Even if it was right 100% of the time, why are you paying thousands of dollars to go to school and learn if you're just going to plug everything into a computer whenever you're asked to think??
That last question is what drives me insane. You are paying that money to learn. Using ChatGPT prevents you from learning. By using it you are essentially setting your tuition money on fire.
You might not grasp that because you think that the important thing about going to college is to get the credential so you can get hired and make more money. OK. You have a credential but you don't have the skills it's supposed to stand for. At some point, you will need the actual skills; and you will not have them. Then what?
Also: the tech industry is not benevolent. If you become dependent on AI to do your thinking for you then whoever designs the AI gets to determine what you can and can't think. You really trust big tech to do that? You want to be in a position where you can only write what AI will enable you to write, and only think what AI will enable you to think? You think that's going to be good for your career or your life or your fucking...soul?
HSR Amphoreus Analysis/Theory — Possible Historical Parallels/References?
First post ig but I've literally been geeking out sm abt this, but keep in mind I've only done about surface-level research and digging so don't expect much, and this is mostly a rant so feel free to point things out.
Okay so for starters the name of the myriad celestia trailer is 'Golden Epic' and 'The saga of heroes' right? im gonna connect that fact later on to why it’s relevant but for now I'll just say it has something to do with Hesoid, which is also very relevant. But also for context and im pretty sure this is the most obvious one in the trailer: Basically the whole beginning is just a flat out retelling of the creation myth in greek mythology — Which historically, is tied to the Dark Ages of Greece (and is very much relevant to the points I'm trying to make, as well the events that go on in the trailer.)
So I'm gonna split the trailer into like a few separate pieces: The opening = Historical dark ages of Greece, then the Archaic Age which eventually leads on to the Golden age, and the Peloponnessian war. Basically the trailer starts us off with the chaos and basically fall of civilization through the retelling of the greek creation myth (which as said before, is historically tied to the dark ages of greece/the decline of the Mycenaean civilization), before eventually following into what is historically considered the archaic age of greece, where civilization then rises back up (and by the eye in the trailer, we could assume perhaps Ena has something to do with it), and then eventually the city starts to flourish, which is possibly a reference to the peak of that time period being a reference to Greece's Golden Age (As mentioned by the 'Golden Age' in the trailer).
But then after the city falls back into destruction and chaos in the trailer and eventually we can assume Nanook played a role in that somewhere, as by the description of 'golden blood'. But also that event in the trailer almost perfectly parallels with the historical timeline of the Peloponnessian war (which btw was also considered highly destructive/a very dramatic end) which happens afterwards the Golden Age of Greece, basically bringing a downfall to the Athens right after an age of flourish.
But also the events aren't only just possibly referenced from the Greeces ancient historical events long before 100 AD, but also possibly from Hesoid, specifically his piece, the 'Works and Days of Hesiod', and specifically the timeline of the "Ages" that occur in his work. That being:
Golden Age: The first age, when humans lived like gods, free from pain, sorrow, and toil. They lived in peace and harmony, and did not have to work to feed themselves. They lived to very old age, but with a youthful appearance, and eventually died peacefully. (There is also the mention of the titans such as Kronos in this age in greek mythology, and basically humanity living among the gods)
Silver Age: The Silver Age and every age that follows fall within the rule of Cronus's successor and son, Zeus. Men in the Silver Age lived for one hundred years under the dominion of their mothers. They lived only a short time as grown adults, and spent that time in strife with one another. (also its said zeus started causing destruction due to lack of respect to gods, etc)
Bronze Age: Self destruction through the making of weapons mostly, war
Heroic Age: as telling by the name, basically the age of heroes such as odysseus and such
Iron Age: What we may assume the current timeline for amphoreus may possibly be at the moment, and is basically described as the worst and most miserable of all the ages
Now another interesting thing is Hesoid was basically the one to create the term 'Golden Age', and the title, 'Golden Epic' as well as the 'Saga of Heroes' (aka heroic age ref?) can possibly be a reference to that in the trailer, altho it can be a stretch. Whats also interesting and something to note is the fact that Hesoid was alive during the archaic era of ancient greece, and if we start looking at historical timelines the scholar that Anaxa is possibly based off from in the trailer (Anaxagoras) had lived during the Golden Age of ancient greece.
btw i still have not figured nor done much research on the characters introduced but if im able to find the ref on them i may be able to somewhat connect it or find another connection but thats all i've been able to speculate for now💔💔
theartofmadeline
origamiaround
kianamaiart
turnnoffyourmind
