we can no more master the past than we can undo it

from 16400: nts make post on reiji forcing shun to become complicit in the destruction of his homeland by setting the action field to neo heartland city for his duel against sora + the awful catharsis of seeing heartland aflame and in ruins from his own monsters' attacks + what arendt said in on humanity in dark times re: trauma and art and understanding by reliving <-- tldr

Der Schmerz wird neu, es wiederholt die Klage
Des Lebens labyrinthisch irren Lauf. 

//

Pain arises anew, lament repeats

life’s labyrinthine, erring course.

 

YES im giving a meta post an epigraph. why? deserve 

<SORRY ABOUT HOW INCOHERENT AND EMOTIONAL THIS IS LMAO>
 

eps 33-34 are the first time shun duels after he makes a deal with reiji to join lds and do as reiji says in return for... the promise of a future duel...? which shun never gets btw but what did he expect from a guy whose duelling technique literally revolves around creating and then terminating/repudiating contracts before he has to provide consideration. im gonna screammm @ this bad bdsm etiquette. ANYWAY shun is now duelling for reiji in the maiami championships bc fuck saving your war torn homeland you have to participate in my duel competition (the way this is a repeated occurrence in a5...... no words). and his opponent just happens to be sora who is an undercover academia soldier ie the very enemy shun is trying to destroy so like... luck of the draw huh. a bunch of plot reveal happens in this duel re: the interdimensional war, academia's invasion + mass killing in xyz, sora's true villainous nature etc etc but im gonna talk about MY SHIP

reiji, who is watching the duel from the control centre / surveillance room in lds tower, decides to set the action field to neo heartland city AKA the war torn homeland shun is trying to save. so shun's first duel for reiji is against an academia duellist in the hollowed-out shell of his home in a fucked up reenactment of the violence he's experienced but this time for entertainment to an audience that knows nothing of what xyz has gone through. WHY DID REIJI DO THIS this is legit so fucked uppp. reiji says it's 'a tiny present' to 'ignite his fighting spirit' as if shun isn't about to have a fucking breakdown right there on the field

but of course shun doesn't have a breakdown bc he would never show that much vulnerability in front of anybody. and reiji's right, it really did Ignite His Fighting Spirit. he wouldn't have duelled quite so viciously and emotionally if he hadn't been in the ghost of heartland city. there's just something sooo awful about the way shun talks about academia's destruction of the city while facing off against an academia soldier knowing the damage the duel will cause to the action field even if it is just a Hologram With Mass or w/e the justification for solid vision is... reiji forcibly positioning shun as an active participant in directly destroying his homeland rather than a victim what the fuckkk the power dynamics

the further along into the duel they go the angrier shun becomes and the more brutal he becomes with his attacks... the first damage the action field suffers is from SHUN'S attack with rise falcon on sora's frightfur bear + fluffal sheep and it only escalates from there. sora's frightfur leo crushes up a building or two but then blaze falcon's burn effects manifest like missiles launched and it's shun who sets the city on fire. yuya says it himself: this is just like a battlefield. once shun summons revolution falcon he starts dropping fucking bombs on the place and even heartland tower is toppled. like this is beyond collateral damage or carelessness, this is deliberate in a way that's like, inflicting the damage is the only way shun can wrest back some form of control over everything he's lost, because all of it was done to him and if regaining agency means redefining the past so the destruction was done by him then at least he wasn't powerless to stop everything from happening. and this must be such a familiar scene, heartland burning, only this time at his own hands, not running anymore but turning the city to rubble himself. if heartland falls because of shun, then it's like that line from blue rotunda - I want it/to be my fault/she said/so I can fix it. almost as if shun can't bear to see this illusion of a whole and untouched heartland when the reality is that the city's in ruins, so he HAS to tear it apart. the emotional masochism of it all... 
 

anyway it reminded me of a part in hannah arendt's on humanity in dark times: thoughts about lessing, which i recently wrote an essay on for class... arendt talks a bit about the past only becoming true once relived and how the only way to understand suffering is to experience it yourself, through the conduit of art. and it IS shun's history but he probably wasn't on the front lines at the start just on account of his age, so reenacting that initial destruction in the first wave of the invasion is what drags that history out into the light and makes it real to him. now he's seen it firsthand, made it happen firsthand. what could be more of an art than the act of duelling as a spectacle for entertainment in the maiami championships, a hilariously mundane purpose, watched by civilian audiences looking for a good show, emcee'd by a bombastic announcer... it must feel like such a farce to shun, who's been duelling for survival ever since the invasion. but he's recreated that trauma now, bridging the past and the present, and the truth of it is undeniable and has its place in the world and he'll never be able to shake it. arendt said we can no more master the past than we can undo it but she also said but we can reconcile ourselves to it. and it really takes shun 150 episodes to get there, and only by virtue of bad writing T___T but the thing is that shun WON against sora... even with the quagmire of complicated emotions and motivations he at least got that much of a personal victory. it might have been pyrrhic but that's pretty much the only kind of victory shun (as arc v's designated loser and punching bag) will ever get to experience in his life. laughing emoji crying emoji