More Philosophy from Pain : PEACE
(Some philosophy from Pain I wrote few weeks ago : Instinct Saturation)
Pain after single-handedly destroyed Konoha village and defeated Naruto said …
PAIN : My goal is something not even master Jiraiya could achieve. I told you before …Through justice, I will bring peace to the world!
NARUTO : Peace? Justice? You’ve gotta be kidding me .. You’ve gotta be freaking kidding me!
PAIN : Then what do you think?
NARUTO : I want to defeat you and that’s the true meaning of bringing peace to the Ninja world!
PAIN : I see .. that’s wonderful … that’s justice. But my family, my friends … my village.. were all destroyed too. Do you really think the Ninja of the Konoha are the only ones who allowed to talk about peace and justice?
NARUTO : … What do you mean?
PAIN : The land of Konoha have grown too big.
You see, countries have war either to protect their own interest or to gain something over other countries. But the war battleground always took place on small village and small land. And each time, our small country was laid waste and the people left impoverished. After many wars, country with big land stabilized. And our small country was left to bear the wounds and damage of the war.
NARUTO : …
PAIN : We both want the same thing. We both want the peace master Jiraiya spoke of. You and I are no different. We’re both working on our own justice. The justice I meted out against Konoha , is exactly the same justice you are trying to mete out against me. Everyone feels the pain of loss. We know both the feeling of pain.
You are working for your own justice, and I for my own. We are just ordinary people driven to revenge in the name of justice. But if revenge is called justice, then justice breed even more revenge. And eventually this became a chain of hatred.
Living in the present, aware of the past, predicting the future, this is what it means to know history. Through history, we cannot help but to know that people can never understand and care for each other. The world of Ninjas is ruled by hatred. So, how would you build peace in the face of this hatred? Let me hear your answer ..
Naruto : I … don’t know …
PAIN : I created Akatsuki in order to break this chain of hatred. I will build a powerful weapon that is able to to destroy an entire land in an instant. The world will know the true pain, and the fear of pain will put an end to war. It will lead the world to stability and peace.
NARUTO : That’s not real peace. It is nothing but a lie!
PAIN : Human are stupid. If I don’t do this, there will be no peace at all. Eventually, time will pass and the pain will heal. The dictator’s power will weaken and people will begin fighting again. This time, they will use the weapon themselves and once more know the true pain.
And for a short time, peace will come again. It will give birth to short periods of peace within this endless chain of hatred.
That Is My Wish…… Now, I Can See Peace …
NARUTO
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In Japanese manga/anime, it is pretty common that a villain is philosophical and the line between Good and Evil is often blurred (just like Death Note and Monster anime). Sort of a paradox of morality. I’ve written something similar about the paradox of morality here more than a year ago – Pessimism : Dark Side (I reread the post and realized the English is kinda bad, lol).
To summarize the conversation above, Pain knew that the world operates by ‘the chain of hatred’ where people will keep on fighting each other in the name of justice. And he knew that justice is something very subjective – everybody thinks they are at the good side fighting for a cause. By looking at the history, Pain understood that there was a never a period of peace in the Ninja world because people never bother to care and understand for each other. People always want to fight for their own self-interest or group-interest. By creating a huge weapon which has strong destruction ability, only then it would stop people from fighting and bring peace to the world.
And why did he destructed Konoha village? For 2 reasons:
1. Konoho is one of the biggest village in the world and he believed there always the tendency for big and powerful land to ‘bully’ or assault the smaller and weaker country. He believes the balance is essential to prevent this ‘bullying’ to take place.
2. Instilling fear and pain. With fear and pain, people will be reluctant to war because they know warring and fighting each other only will bring more misery.
Pain believes the chain of hatred will never be broken because people will eventually forget about the history after several generations. People can’t feel the fear and pain their grandparents experienced and will become oblivious of the feelings. Hence, Pain wants to create something which will periodically bring a period of peace in every cycle of this endless chain of hatred. And that was his wish.
Oh well , in some ways, Pain kinda reminds me of Qin Shi Huangdi …
