Spain has been weird about him forever. But Romano needed someone like that once upon a time, so he didn't mind too much. He still doesn't mind. Romano revels in Antonio's attention. Basks in the knowledge that he's the one Antonio adores. He doesn't know what he'll do if he ever stops being Antonio's favorite person.
I'm not trying to shame people who don't read The Classics because god knows most of that stuff never saw an editor, but before you post/reblog quotes from the old book classics, framed as something the author personally said, you should be aware that the quote was probably said or thought by a character who wasn't supposed to be objectively correct. As a matter of fact a lot of those fictional little guys were written to be completely wrong on purpose.
You have heard of the sci-fi genre of Don't Create The Torment Nexus. Now consider the 1800s book style Don't Become The Dipshit Protagonist.
If my friend's ocs have 100 fans I'm one of them if my friend's ocs have 10 fans I'm one of them if my friend's oc have 1 fan that's me if my friend's ocs have no fans that means I'm no longer in this world
i do desperately need everyone on this website especially people who arent american but want to rag on america to familiarize themselves with the basic romanized spelling conventions of native american languages because every day i come on here and i see people making fun of massachusetts or connecticut or mississippi or passamaquoddy or mashpee or nipissing and its like PLEASE. PLEASE THEY ARENT ENGLISH WORDS. PLEAAAAASEEEEEUUUHHH. USE YOUR MINDS TO IDENTIFY WHEN A WORD LOOKS LIKE IT MAY NOT BE ENGLISH. I DONT CARE IF YOU MAKE FUN OF AMERICA JUST PLEASE STOP BEING RACIST WHILE YOU DO IT
I think it's a shame that The Boy and The Heron was released under that name rather than the original Japanese title "How do you live?" because that's literally the theme and the core message of the film.
Like, I spent a good few hours after I finished watching it puzzling over the film's themes because at first glance it looked like it had a million different themes and most of them either didn't resolve by the end, happened only briefly, or appeared out of thin air in the last half of the film.
(Heavy spoilers under cut)
So the first part of the film discussed the effects of war, loss, and acceptance in typical ghibli fashion as Mahito lost his mother and struggled to move on past it. There's also a dash of classism, self-harm, and masculinity when Mahito went to the new school looking obviously like a rich kid, gets beat up for it, then hit himself with a rock in, what i assume, is either an attempt to not go school to avoid the other kids or to look to his father like he actually put up a fight and didnt just got away with light bruises in a misguided attempt to look tough/masculine.
In the second part he went into the tower world and there's the topic of death/life (with the warawara and the noble pelican), taboos, leaving a legacy behind (as the great granduncle wants to leave the world behind to Mahito and let him decide how to build it forward), self-worth (Mahito denying the offer and choosing to go back to the world because the scar was a sign of his "malice" which he thought could affect this new world), and plot thread of loss/acceptance is tied together as Mahito accepts Natsuko as his new mother and choose to return to the world.
And for the life of me I couldn't figure out how the whole thing ties together. It felt like there's a divide in the middle, around when Mahito found Natsuko then blacked out and met his great granduncle, where the films kind of shifts from one set of themes to another.
*mini aside*
(I also felt like the worldbuilding/settings kind of changed around here. Initially the world was an afterlife of sorts with dead people and warawara as reincarnated souls. Human visitors gets attacked by the pelicans unless guarded by the blue heron, a stand in for the reaper/boatman/charon who guides and guards souls to the underworld. Then at the end it turned into a world created by the great granduncle using the power of the stone, with the whole afterlife dealio just being discarded. Like, when the parakeets were first introduced they were at the blacksmith and it was implied they weren't meant to be there - so who occupied the blacksmith in the first place? The dead people? Were there other people there? I assume not since you need to get to the tower and there's the whole bit about the blue heron bringing you in so why would there be other people there? So who was in that house???)
(Also the parakeets were going to use himi to bargain for more power and stuff but the king just brought her up to the great granduncle, told him "yo, mahito did a taboo", then kinda left without asking anything before immediately sneaking back and destroying all the stones??? What was up with that???)
*end of aside*
Anyway, so I couldn't figure out how it all tied together until I remembered the original japanese name for the film.
"How do you live?"
And it clicked.
Mahito was struggling with that very question in the first part. His mother died. There's war. Life sucks. School sucks. How do you live?
And through all his adventures he kind of accepted all that and made peace with it. He made friends. He appreciated the people around them for who they are. He rejected his great granduncle's offer of a perfect world he can control in favour of the real world with all the people he loved, despite the war, the suffering, the evil, and everything. Himi rejected Mahito's offer of going to his time with him despite knowing her fate because she know that, regardless, she will have lived a happy life.
They answered the question - "How do you live?"
And it's a bloody shame that core context, that crux of the story, got changed in the English release.
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