🍑 EROS & THANATOS 🔪
Or
On libido and death impulses in that one soccer shounen manga that you heard of
Abstract : We’re discussing how Bllk expresses the archetypal themes of libido and death through a seemingly dumb soccer plot, and how these concepts are embodied in character development.
I’m focusing on Nagi, Shidou, Kaiser and Rin.
I’m rather loose with my conceptualization since it’s just for fun purposes. Bear with it.
May contain spoilers.
1) SEX DRIVE 🍑
Sex drive, or libido, is not just about sex. It’s about sexuality in a much larger sense.
Well, sexuality is about sex, duh. NO. Not only. Yeah, when you j*rk off, it’s sexuality, when you f*ck, it is sexuality, but these activities are just expressions of a much deeper drive that can’t be reduced to them.
Libido is a fundamental impulse that make living beings alive. A living being is inherently incomplete : it has to seek for nutrients in the environment in order to survive as an individual, and has to seek a partner in order to reproduce and survive as a species.
Unfortunately, that means that all living sentient things are bound to experience lack, and therefore, to feel desire to alleviate this lack (of food, physical and emotional comfort etc).
And to feel shitty about it.
That instinctive drive to live one more day, to reach and grab the things that will permit that, is what we call « libido ».
But it has other names. For example, Spinoza (XVIIe s) called this drive conatus : this is an essential effort to exist and to continue to exist. This is the unconscious force that keeps you going.
And indeed, a living creature who would lack this drive will simply die.
Did you hear, depressed suicidal individuals at the back ? I’m watching you.
⚽ What about Blue Lock then ? ⚽
A lot of shounen mangas manifest this will to live theme by various ways in plot structure, character development, characters dynamic. This is absolutely not unique to this media, but this is what we’re talking about right now.
Sport manga genre embodies particularly well this topic : in sport you want to improve your skills, you look up at people you admire and that you want to reach, you experience challenges and struggles to « survive » in a competitive environment, you feel euphoria when you win, frustration when you lose.
And above all, this search for improvement can never be fulfilled. Never 😢
We go back to conatus/libido : a living being is, by essence, lacking something, and a living being has to live outside of itself to reach for means to survive. You can’t just eat 100 000 calories in a row and expect to be self-sufficient for now on. You’ll be hungry again. And again.
Being the « best striker » isn’t something that can be fulfilled once for all. It’s a momentary sense of satisfaction, but no one can stay in that state forever. You have to continue to prove that you’re the best striker, or someone else will steal your piece of meat (and your teammate, your bro, your lover, whatever these guys are for each other in this gay manga).
That’s why Bllk’s plot is so thrilling : it ties up 🥒desire and frustration⛓️.
(Oh. And I’m not talking about this whole chain/collar/shibari artistic direction now, but it MUST be addressed. Please do if you’re in the mood) UPDATE: Why the heck are they wearing shibari suits?
Indeed, complete satisfaction is not stimulating : once you ate up that cookie, you don’t want that cookie anymore ; once you saw what was going on in his/her pants, well… You get the point.
Rousseau (XVIIIe s.) wrote about this necessity of incompleteness for leading a fulfilling life : « Malheur à celui qui n’a plus rien à désirer, il perd alors tout ce qu’il possède. » / « Woe to the one who has nothing left to desire, life sucks now. » (Nouvelle Héloïse).
Depressed people in the back, I see you.
🤍 SO ! There’s this guy I like very very much, and he’s name is Nagi Seishirou :3
Nagi's character development reflects what Rousseau had spoken of. Why is he kicked off Bllk ? Because he satisfied his desire (to beat Isagi on the field) and doesn’t feel the urge, the drive to go on and surpass himself, to go out of his comfort zone.
That’s a recurring theme in Nagi’character : he lacks libido (Reo has enough for two, I guess) and he always needs to be lit up by someone else ; he needs desire proxy. First, his proxy is Reo, then it’s Isagi, then back to Reo, then… he got limp again. And died, in a sense.
However, when, AT LAST, Nagi’s conatus grows bigger (around chap. 300-310), THEN he can make his come back (I’m so excited for this you have no idea). He doesn’t need a proxy anymore, he has discovered his own desire to live, to seek something in life other than this petty stagnation and this boring routine within his comfort zone. Finally, his mind shifts to a striker mindset 🙌 *boss music in the background*
The striker is indeed the guy whose sole purpose is to go outside of himself, to move away from his team's zone to take over the opponent's zone (the environment that is not you, the partner that is not you, the Other in general).
🩷And we have… Shidou 🧨
Of course, he is the character who embodies that libido stuff in an obvious and glittery manner (so he’s perfect for my point).
💥Remember the dopamine rant in U20 game, impregnation metaphor, sperm and egg, explosions and so on ? I know you remember.
THIS is the best, or at least the more explicit expression of libido in Bllk. A living being has to fight for survival and it can be expressed in various ways : reproduction and nutrition, obviously, but also in numerous activities that we humans had invented to aim at our fundamental purpose : to go on, one more day. We don’t know why, but it’s just what we are 🤷♀️
Shidou’s character manifest what Freud (XXe s.) calls « sublimation ».
Sublimation is a mental process in which your impulses (sexual and violent impulses) are converted into something else in order for your mind and body to cope with frustration and desire.
We are like pressure cookers : impulses, which are uncounscious forces that drive the individual forward, are building up pressure in ourselves, mentally and physically. You know, when you feel you’re gonna implode with feelings too big for your little heart or you want to wank at work but you can’t.
To release the pressure from the pressure cooker, we have to open the little thingy on the lid : yes, you can wank or f*ck or kill people obviously, but this is not sublimation.
Sublimation is when the pressure is released, but not in a straightforward way. It is sent elsewhere where it can give a satisfaction that is much more sustainable than a sexual climax or the pleasure of eating 50 M&M’s in a row. When you do art, when you build something with your hands, when you have a project that uses your brain to the fullest; when you practice a sport. You need challenge and an active mindset (Flow, you know) for sublimation to happen.
So in order to release the steam, you can do soccer !
But not soccer just to have fun on sunny sundays.
🪦Soccer with YOUR LIFE PUT ON THE LINE 🪦
We are approaching dark realms here, because sex drive, also known as « Eros » in Freud’s work, has its doppelgänger : Thanatos 💀🖤
2) DEATH DRIVE 🔪
🌹Michaël Kaiser is a little sh*t, as you know very well.🔷
This guy is the embodiment of the ambivalence of unconscious impulses in our psyche. He teases like a sl*t, he shoots death threats like a psycho.
He’s an interesting character in that regard. He has Eros-ish traits : he’s seductive, assertive, has a god-complex (an issue widely spread in Bllk chara), BUT he also has Thanatos-ish traits : he’s aggressive, displays sadistic and masochistic behaviors, has a wrecked self esteem.
🔪Thanatos is our violent impulses : violence toward others, violence toward ourselves. This is not only something that comes from a need to protect ourselves from aggression of others ; that’s a positive thing, meaning it’s not only passive, reactive, it’s an active impulse, which can ignite our thoughts, desires and actions.
In Kaiser, the death drive comes from a tragic past of abuse, and indeed, some of us that had traumatic experiences can relate to that. However, it’s important to note that in psychoanalysis and in numerous other philosophical works (see Hobbes, Girard for ex), violence is not something only wrecked people display.
EVERYBODY is inherently violent. In some people, it shows in obvious ways (aggressiveness, risky or self harm behaviors), and in other people, it shows in a more discreet way (when you write fanfics with « non-con » tag on for ex).
As a side note :
All the « devouring » recurring stuff is clearly expressing that Eros/Thanatos ambivalence : you want to possess the Other, you want to make it your own, absorb it, f*ck it, kill it. You built your sand castle on the beach, and now, you crush it with your feet, and that feels so goood ~
🥀Do you remember, when Rin breaks his toys ?🥀
Rin is Thanatos at its fullest. It shows in his flow aura and psycho face, and it shows in his motives as a character (to destroy his opponents in general, and his brother in particular).
In the last chapters of the U20 game, when he ignites his berserk mode, he does have a destructive play-style ; not elegant, not subtle, just pure force of demolition.
As Isagi puts it in chapter 351, Rin’s ego fuels on destruction impulses. When Rin meditate and recites his mantra « crush kill crush kill… », it’s funny of course, but it also shows that the fundamental drive that defines Rin is death impulse.
Well, at least, it’s his main trait for now, and I trust Kaneshiro for pushing things into a more complex realm. We already had a glimpse of that in his backstory and in that moment in the U20 match, when he acknowledges the presence of his teammates by his side. When he sees that he could accept their support, we see a possible solution. But Rin rejects the cure all together to embrace his destructive drive, because this is what defines him (for now).
And I think Kaneshiro surprised us all with that pretty dope move.
Seriously, when I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, I though « oh yes this is the ‘I’m at peace now’ moment when the protagonist miraculously enhances their abilities by diving into self-acceptance ». But oh I was very wrong. And that deception of my expectations was so gooood (like crushing a sand castle with bare feet).
Rin became my Thanatos god at that moment.
CONCLUSION : I don’t have one, I’m tired. And it’s not even finished ! I could have talked about how certain matches (perhaps all of them?) are structured like foreplay and the sexual act itself, with moments of edging and ruined orgasms, and final release (Kaneshiro and Nomura know exactly what they're doing). I could go on forever and explore even further this topic. If you want to do so, please write down your analysis and we might built a Bllk philosophy thesis together, hand in hand.
My brain is on fire. That’s the kind of sublimation I roll with.
***
If you have read this, WOW thank you so much. If you want to discuss this topic, I’m available. As you might tell, I have some free time these days. I could have talked about Barou, Isagi of course, Reo… And it would be interesting to analyze characters who stand out like Hugo and Noa maybe (intellectual guys, seemingly not invested in their libido but rather in rationality or abstract ideas) …maybe Sae ? Nobody knows what that freak thinks. And I stand by my point because I think even these characters highlight the fundamental battle between impulses in Bllk, in their own way. If you want more philosophical rants: Why the heck are they wearing shibari suits? Sae is the trigger Shidou is the bullet