Ok I have to talk abt this actually. Getting into kaijus is interesting because some of them are aliens, some are big mutated monsters, and so on, but there’s an origin category that I cannot stop thinking about, the kaijus that are fantasy dinosaurs from the past. And it really gets me, not because I’m really into dinos, but because I can’t stop considering how tragic it is. This is gonna be long so I’m gonna put a cut here
Imagine, you wake up one day and millions of years passed since you fell asleep. Once you knew the world, it was your home, you understood the rules of life, you recognized the living creatures surrounding you and you were content with your life but now… Continents have shifted and formed new land masses, mountains have fallen and risen, new ecosystems developed and every living thing you know is pretty much just GONE, all a forgotten memory except you. You see echoes, barely recognizable facsimiles in the new world, but it no longer recognizes you, you might as well be on an alien planet.
You’re lost and confused and it’s so much more dangerous now, and no matter what you do the world just doesn’t click back into the familiar, you can’t wrap your head around the rules of survival because you were not meant to be part of this cycle, but you can’t go back home because time went on without you, you left (against your will) and home grew up while you were gone and neither of you fits the other anymore and it’s not fair, you didn’t want to leave, you didn’t mean to be gone for so long, but there’s no one to blame, and no way to fix it. The world changed, but you didn’t. You do. not. fit this planet anymore.
You scream, you wail and gnash your teeth and batter against the change, you want it to go back to way things were, you rage against the the new life’s that’s taken over your home, but it’s pointless. They didn’t change the world, it changed on its own. Nothing is going to bring home back. Everything you loved is gone and only you remain to grieve it. You are the endling of your entire time period. You roam around, trying to find anything familiar, endlessly wandering, and yet you’re tethered to the same place because it’s where you woke up, that means no matter how unfamiliar it is, it was once where you came from, and so it has become the familiar.
And now you have become a stranger to yourself because the very act of living through this has changed you. You no longer recognize even yourself. You are a stranger living in a strange land. Is it possible to ever be content like you once were again? Do you even know what it feels like to be content anymore? Is this really life, or are you a ghost that death forgot? When does the inherent panic and fear of being in a territory you no longer recognize go away? Or has it already and you don’t realize?
Of course these are all very human thoughts for kaijus, and I haven’t seen a lot of kaiju stuff, Cannot stress this enough, I got most of my knowledge through internet osmosis, seen a few movies from different franchises MAYBE, and I definitely am doing a weird reading, but this is a thought that I keep getting caught up in, just.
The idea of the world growing up without you. You leave and when you come back it is now the alien planet. And to it, you are just as alien.
It’s tragic and probably not at ALL the point of these kaiju types, but it’s currently a fun thought toy for my brain to chew on
