I mentioned in my last post that I basically see shonen series as a new set of action movies for my inner child to revel in. In particular I mentioned Die Hard. That series has always struck me as relying a great deal on ol’Bruce getting a beating (stepping on shattered glass and all that), which was made explicitly clear in the self-referential(and surprisingly classic) 4th film. Well its never a Pyrrhic victory, more like masochism – pain, but not long term consequences.
Losing at great cost is a different thing from the kind of defiant, “Beat me to shit all you want!” attitude action series rely on. That bravado is childish, and frankly less noble than true sacrifice. Action series, tending for the imagined immortal youth within us, often rely on that bravado at the same time as denying it. Contradiction much?
What I mean is that Rock Lee was always going to recover from his supposedly permanent beating in Naruto, but the show relied on the drama created by suggesting a consequence to his actions (see also, Ishida losing his powers in Bleach). Whilst he was getting smacked around the (then semi-villainous) Neji declared that all he could achieve was a Pyrrhic victory. Actual result = no victory, no consequence.
Not winning was a pretty simple issue of shonen power mechanics – higher tier fighters win. what you have is two levels of psychologically satisfying fantasy. One: that dudes (and, occasionally, girls) can be so hardcore (GAR, even) that they are a whole level above regular mortals. Two: that you don’t get one fight then spend the rest of your life on crutches.
Part of this is a function of the self-centred approach inherent in stories about the super-strong. Fighters throw themselves in there to get a beating, even to die – the worst that can happen is noble death. It has to be remembered that victory at a cost shouldn’t just be about one life. What about losing your own allies, for instance? Action hero team members each make a sort of personal contract – “I will put my life on the line”. Its a contract that invites personal pain, a masochistic exchange as self fulfilment. It doesn’t accept that you might lose something else, that there are other ways to hurt a person. Its our heroes claiming a world in which they offer their bodies to gain something (rescue, revenge etc.) – its reducing the world to their flesh (and thus elevating their selves).
Basically the Pyrrhic win is reduced to a sort of masochism. At the same time as all too often gleefully denying consequences, it asserts the sort of consequences to be suffered.
That denial of consequences reveals the core of the Pyrrhic victory in these stories – that we the viewer don’t want to lose well-loved characters. To do so breaks the action hero contract, it offers a pain which goes beyond one body – its a more social, emotional cost.
Our characters make sacrifices, put things on the line for the cause in festivals of masochistic achievement. Pyrrhic victory would be all about dire costs, what we get is illusory costs. Its a rare move for the viewer to suffer real loss. But at the same time the spectre of death is there, emotional loss has to be constantly threatened in order to bring the pain of the masochism to bear. The illusion of real costs is necessary to the ritual, it lends emotional gravity to the actions otherwise stupidly self-absorbed characters.
