A second #sarascara fic! A lot more angst this time.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Summary:
It has been done. He has the gnosis, the final piece of the puzzle he needed to become what he was always destined to be: a god. But before he departs Inazuma for Sumeru to achieve that, he wants to leave something here—a stain on one of its most loyal servants. Kujou Sara, the ever-faithful general of the Raiden Shogun's army and a member of the Kujou clan. He will not break her, not fully anyway, but she has to be made aware of how wobbly the tower of corpses she’s standing on is. And who is better equipped to do that than him?
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Summary:
After she drank, she gave back the cup to him and, obscured by the shadows, studied his expression. A slight furrow of eyebrows, fidgeting hands, and a softened gaze filled with worry. He is scared. The Wanderer is scared.
"Are you scared?” She asked him, her voice still rough and coarse. The following silence was the only answer she needed.
-x-
Sara and the wanderer were tracking through the Sumeru forest, during which Sara got sick. What follows are some introspections and sweet talks. And Sara getting taken care of, which she deserves.
I'm going to rant with this a little bit, the poem is named "I want to disappear" by Sui Ishida for Tokyo Ghoul (shocker), yk, this poem doesn't remind me of Scaramouche, it reminds me of Sara. More under the cut.
The poem is longer, but I'm just going to focus on the first part, if you want to read the full thing you could read it here:
I think it's important to give you some context of the poem, Tokyo Ghoul spoilers ahead: the poem is meant for Kaneki, I think, I could be wrong, but it's reminded me of his story, and to an extent it is also about Eto, since she's essentially his doppelganger. Kaneki's father left him when he was a child (death), leaving him with only his abusive mother during his early childhood. The abuse was so bad that he was romanticising her when she eventually passed away from overworking herself to death. After his mother passing he moved in with the Asaoka family, his aunt's family. Where he was emotionally neglected (reminds you of someone?), making the romanticization of his abusive mother even worse, he romanticised the very words used against him.
"Rather than a person who hurt others, become the person who gets hurt"
With shironeki, the kaneki after his first torture, he tried to abandon this idea but it is so deeply ingrained in his psyche that he kept doing it, he kept trying to sacrifice himself, a thin veil for suicide. But the idea that he has kindness in his life did kept him going, until he regained all his memories as the black reaper, memories without any filter and he remembered all the abuse his mother did to him and his biggest fear, being unloved and alone, the thing he's trying to avoid in the whole series, was actually true from the very start. No one has ever loved him, not even his mother. so back to the poem, how is he supposed to love someone when in reality he has never been loved by anyone?
And now we turn to Sara.
I'm not really aware of the circumstances leading her to protect the forest alone, did her parents abandoned her? What exactly happened? Was she even loved from the very start? Let's take the worst case scenario and say yes, she was abandoned, and Yae ""gave"" her to the Kujous or bluff her into asceticism in the mountains or whatever. The important thing is, was she loved during these early days of her life? Or is she gazing at an illusion of affection because she has never been loved her entire life up until this point?
Both of them had suffered emotional neglect from their adoptive families, the Asaoka also love and care for their actual children more than Kaneki, the same thing happened with Sara with Kamaji and Masahito. Does this remind you of someone?
Geez, and the cherry on top of this terrible cake:
And for that matter, she fully embodied that she needs to be a strong warrior? I like to think that she goes along with this because she thinks that being strong is the only way she'll be loved, it's the only way she will get the parental affection she truly yearns for.
"A child who wasn't able to receive the minimal love they required at the time they needed it the most will continue to gaze at the illusion of affection and never know how to love until the day they die."
For me, Sara's chase of strength is her illusion of affection, because in the end, Takayuki only wants her strength because she's a tengu and has a vision, he doesn't actually love her nor care for her. You're not supposed to put your feelings in a tool. And if, someday, she found out that the person she was serving all this time was only a puppet, how would she react? How would she react to the realization that what she has been chasing all her life was just an illusion all along? How will she cope?
Kujou Sara, Scaramouche, The Wanderer, and the absurd
just to preface I'm not a philosopher nor a psychologist I'm just going to rant about this with the knowledge I have, if I made any mistakes please do feel free to correct me, this is just me rationalising my headcanon. More under the cut.
I. Kujou Sara, Scaramouche, The Wanderer, and the absurd.
For me, the wanderer (Scaramouche) is an interesting character from an existential stand point, although he is not human, his story tells one of the oldest features of the human condition: the search for purpose and meaning. The Wanderer, like us, did not choose to be born that way, he did not choose to experience the experiences that he had, and he did not choose the circumstances he was born into, it reminds me of the Heideggerian concept of "throwness". In throwness we were thrown into the world, born into the conditions outside of our control, you did not choose your parents, you did not choose the language you speak, you did not choose to be in your country, in your home now, we can't determine this condition but they effect how we perceive, experience, and live our lives. We have to play the part even if we don't know the lines. We come to being with these things outside of our own control, but we must deal with these things.
As such, The Wanderer did not choose to be ""born"", he did not choose to experience those three betrayals, he must simply deal with those things. Sara also had to deal with those things, as the adoption of the Kujou was not something she chose, she did not choose to be abandoned in the forest either, she did not choose to have an adopted father that doesn't really care about her making her lonely in the process, she was simply being thrown into her current circumstances and have to make do. To recognise all that, I think, it's crucial for the character development of both Sara and The Wanderer to accept that they were not in control of what happened to them, but does this mean they were not at fault or absolved of sins of whatever they do? absolutely not. But, accepting this notion, the indifference of the universe is important.
Let's explore the absurd shall we? Camus dictates that the absurd is not the universe itself, or ourselves in isolation, it is born out of their confrontation. The man's search for meaning and purpose in an indifferent universe, that whole action is absurd.
Man is born with a certain "nostalgia" for unity, for a reasonable world with meaning, but “This world in itself is not reasonable, that is all that can be said” he wrote. The Wanderer (scaramouche) faced all these head on. First, his creator, having finished her goal to make an experiment, abandoned him when she saw that doll, him, experience sentience itself (I would even daresay consciousness). So why did she create him just to abandon him after he actually could feel the experience of sadness, of fear, of a nightmare? Second, Niwa's "betrayal", why call him a human when he saw him as a monster? All of his efforts to make a new happy life, crumbled to dust, a futile attempt at happiness. Third, he came face to face with humanity's great equaliser: death. The child, powerless against his own mortality broke his promise to him, sealing yet another betrayal, yet another failed attempt at happiness.
It is after this moment, that he gained his tragic consciousness, it is tragic because, he, is conscious of his wretched condition. Indeed, where would his suffering be if he were not aware of his tragedy? "I wish I'd never been born at all" is the culmination of this, it is the realisation that life, is not worth living, that absolute nothingness is preferable to the tragedy of this life
Now, let's take a look at Sara, her entire life basically revolve around her devotion towards the Shogun, this idea, that the Shogun was responsible for her salvation, was, misguided at best. If my interpretation of Neuvi's story were correct, she was saved by a system and not a person, in which, even the archons themselves are not aware of who and what their actual ambitions are. It is akin to devoting your life to someone because of something that they didn't even do.
Ei was as helpful to her as a bystander that watched her fell from the cliff, when the vision granting system was the one who opened her parachute automatically and thus saved her life. Sara (reasonably) thinking that the parachute saved her life, devoted her life to whomever gave/produce this parachute, in this shoddy example, being Ei. While in reality, the thing that actually saved her, was the (perhaps) cold and indifferent vision granting system, only giving them to those who passed a current threshold.
II. Lucidity, suicide, and philoshopical suicide.
As I've eluded to in the previous section, the thought of death is prevalent in Scaramouche/The Wanderer's story, to live without something to live for is indeed a very arduous and difficult task but it is what he (and us) must do. To live without appeal, as Camus said. But what I'd like to explore a little bit is Sara's position. Sara, having a foreclosed identity from my observation, is the one most susceptible to existential and identity crises. It may take just one bullet of irrefutable truth to shatter her whole sense of being. Her entire identity and life, is devoted to the Shogun after all. She has no hobbies of her own, no friends to speak of, and any personal goals outside achieving eternity, in which, she doesn't actually even understand. I think it would be a mistake to say that she's committing a philosophical suicide as she is not yet lucid of the absurdity of life and the indifference of the universe. But, in her scheduled yet monotonous life, I believe that this realisation could happen and will if The Wanderer chose to tell her the whole truth what would this look like? At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face, with the example below, the feeling of absurdity arises from the monotonous life, with "why" arising as the central question.
At this moment, the fabric of reality tears itself down, and everything become strange, a tree, a shrine, a chair, life, we could find ourselves questioning the reason for this all. And I also liked to think that, at this moment, after receiving the whole truth, from the Wanderer. Sara could then gain lucidity, why does she submit herself to the shogun? to fulfill eternity. why? to preserve Inazuma. why? so that the Shogun and Inazuma will be happy. why? so that I also feel happy. why? um, because their happiness is mine as well? what does it matter that you feel happy? because it's just better than feeling sad? why is it better? at some point I hoped she would realise "what's the point?" To which she will face the three following options: suicide, philosophical suicide, and embracing the absurd, let's explore them shall we?
First, philosophical suicide, to do this one must suspend all rationality and put all your belief, and most importantly, faith in something. It is not limited to religion, it could be also be applied to a political ideology, or even philosophy, it is to run away from the absurd. To put all your hope and freedom for tomorrow, to forsake the here and now in the hopes of achieving utopia down the line, no matter the way in which one would do it. Ei's old ideology of eternity is guilty of this. She deliberately chose to forsake the now for the sake of the future, maybe it is fear of death, maybe it is a fear of change, either way, her choice costed both her and all her relationships. Only with the help of the Traveler and Miko that Ei was able to overcome this.
In the true fashion of children following their parents mistake, scaramouche was also guilty of this, in pursuing godhood, a middle finger to Ei, he deliberately chose to dirty and bloody his hands, even allowing experimentations on his own body, all to achieve an ideal which at the end, becomes futile. After some more shenanigans, Scaramouche, feeling the extreme guilt because of his actions chose to erase himself, a substitute for suicide if you will. But then, the absurd, the indifference of the universe strikes again he was not dead, merely forgotten, and in that moment of the death of consciousness he began to yearn for some sort of purpose and meaning again, the nostalgia of the condemned man. After regaining his painful memories, he is faced yet again with the fact that his life has no meaning nor purpose. Suicide, is then, is tantamount to saying that life, is not worth living, or that it is not worth the trouble. It is to surrender yourself to the absurd and be consumed by nihilist despair.
And I hope he would inform Sara about all this, as I hope that she will not take the first route, but the temptation for both literal and figurative suicide would still be high. And thus, the last option against the absurd will be explored.
III. Passion, freedom, and revolt.
So, what is this absurdism thing? It is to recognise the futility of life, the meaningless of existence itself but with a smile on our faces with an ever present passion, freedom, and revolt against one's circumstances. To have passion for living, passion for absolute uselessness, passion for the meaningless, I think Cioran said it best in this passage below
Next comes freedom, with an objective meaning (to achieve eternity) for example, it has to proscribe a certain behaviour tho those who embrace it, because the question of the meaning of life ties itself to the way we live that life. Thus, in embracing the absurd, the meaninglessness of existence, both of them could try their hand at this freedom. This also comes with indifference, which comes with the letting go of values. The protagonist of the stranger, Meursault, is fundamentally indifferent to everything that happened to him, be it her mother's death or his execution. Because he simply does not and cannot see any objective value that condemns him, the only thing he resents is the idea that he has to bow to a higher power/condemn himself. It is the letting go of value and significance. If we do not value comfort, how could discomfort cause suffering? If we do not value the judgement of others, how could they hurt us? Of course this is a hard thing to do, but Camus illustrates in his books that it is possible, lastly, to live in constant revolution, one always has to revolt against one's current circumstances, for example the goal of absolute purpose and meaning may not be achievable and defeat is ever present, yet this is how we keep the absurd alive, rebelling with the total lucidity that one would never be victorious. To rebel gives us clarity and greater ability to live in the present. Here is some quotes about the absurd hero to give you a better idea:
"An absurd human knows about his mortality and yet doesn't accept it, know the limitation of his reasoning, yet still holds it dear, feels the pleasures and pains of his experiences and yet tries to take in as much as possible."
"The absurd man will not commit suicide; he wants to live, without relinquishing any of his certainty, without a future, without hope, without illusions… and without resignation either. He stares at death with passionate attention and this fascination liberates him. He experiences the “divine irresponsibility” of the condemned man."
Camus share the dislike of hope like Nietzsche did, he thinks it robs us of much of the present, the hope of being free, of being happy one day, one must instead realise that they're free on every moment that heaven is on earth. As an example, Sara could not enjoy the beauty of Yoimiya's fireworks because she tied herself to the future, the hope of eternity, she could not live in the present.
An absurd hero, meanwhile, recognises that the fireworks are fleeting in nature that the moment could not last forever, and yet enjoying them anyway, with the total lucidity that it is fleeting and it will end as a pitch-black night sky. And we move on towards the last part:
IV. The Myth of Sisyphus
I'm sure you've heard of this by now, be it through memes or something else. Sisyphus, the King who loved life on earth, was condemned to ceaselessly roll a rock to the top of the mountain, when, the rock would inevitably roll back down. "They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor." And as such, I see this wretched fate also befalls our heroes, Scaramouche when he tried to make a life for himself and his pursuit of Godhood, only for fate, the rock, rolling back down again, his efforts futile and he himself forgotten, in the end his life, is a life without appeal, not for a God, not for a purpose. I also see this could be reflected in Sara, whence, she has fully grasped her situation, has to grapple with her now futile labor, the vision hunt decree, her efforts to be acknowledged by the Kujou all futile in the end. As I said before, if this myth is tragic it is because the hero is conscious, it is tragic at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. "I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousnes."
This consciousness and lucidity, is also what will crown their victory. When Sisyphus chose to walk down from the mountain, aware of his torture, and yet doing them anyway. When The Wanderer decided to regain all his memories, no matter how painful, they're superior to their fate. And hopefully, with The Wanderer on her side, she too would be lucid of her torture, and yet continuing anyway. As Camus said "there is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn." The Gods only condemned Sisyphus to roll the rock up the mountain, they did not condemn him to resent the process. If one loved the process for the sake of the process that is thus the ultimate rebellion. This too, could be applied to the wanderer and Sara, to enjoy and love life, even if it seems nothing they do will ever matter in the end, even if it's just futile labor. Camus talked about enjoying the little things in life, the sea, the beauty of sunset, the smiles, the feel of snow, the fireworks. To enjoy the here and now, knowing what has happened has happened and the future will and could never be guaranteed. To live without appeal to a higher power, negating both suicide and philosophical suicide, to experience the quantity of life, embracing the absurd and smiling all the while, this is what I see sarascara could become and could explore. The Wanderer now, condemned to life without meaning, without purpose, to be abandoned to freedom, with the will to happiness, his rebellion is just starting, helped by Sara along the way. Sara too, would see herself in him, and together they could do something in this absurd life. I will end the with this:
"I leave Sarascara at the foot of the mountain! They always finds their burdens again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. They too conclude that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to them neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill their hearts. One must imagine Sarascara happy."
