Naruto Shippunden, ep 133 (Spoiler)
Sometimes TV blows my mind.
I watch and thoroughly enjoy Naruto. There's some pretty interesting stuff going on in there, the various powers that the ninjas have are endlessly imaginative, and the story is quite deep. They killed off a major character in the most recent episode (Shippunden, ep 133), and it was extremely poignant.
He had an internal monologue going on as he died, said some stuff, and then died. All very Shakespearian. Guy mentions something about being a frog in a well.
I went to class, Foundations of Chinese Thought, we're talking about this guy Zhuangzi now. Prof mentions frog in a well.
My head explodes.
Naruto Shippunden Episode 133, time from about 18:45 (http://www.chia-anime.com/naruto-shippuden/watch-naruto-shippuden-133.html)
A repeated motif for this episode is Jiraiya as the author of his life. He has written many books, incorporating his own life into his stories, and is (in some sense) a best-selling author. At this point, he is thinking about the final chapter of his life.
Internal monologue:
"The Tale of the Gallant Jiraiya..."
Hopefully this is a more fitting ending
The final chapter will be entitled:
"The Frog at the Bottom of the Well Drifts off into the Great Ocean."
Quote from Zhuangzi:
Kung-sun Lung said to Prince Mou of Wei, "When I was young I studied the Way of the former kings, and when I grew older I came to understand the conduct of benevolence and righteousness. I reconciled difference and sameness, distinguished hardness and whiteness, and proved that not so was so, that the unacceptable was acceptable. I confounded the wisdom of the hundred schools and demolished the arguments of a host of speakers. I believed that I had attained the highest degree of accomplishment. But now I have heard the words of Chuang Tzu and I am bewildered by their strangeness. I don't know whether my arguments are not as good as his, or whether I am no match for him in understanding. I find now that I can't even open my beak. May I ask what you advise?"
Prince Mou leaned on his armrest and gave a great sigh, and then he looked up at the sky and laughed, saying, "Haven't you ever heard about the frog in the caved-in well? He said to the great turtle of the Eastern Sea, `What fun I have! I come out and hop around the railing of the well, or I go back in and take a rest in the wall where a tile has fallen out. When I dive into the water, I let it hold me up under the armpits and support my chin, and when I slip about in the mud, I bury my feet in it and let it come up over my ankles. I look around at the mosquito larvae and the crabs and polliwogs and I see that none of them can match me. To have complete command of the water of one whole valley and to monopolize all the joys of a caved-in well-this is the best there is! Why don't you come some time and see for yourself?'
"But before the great turtle of the Eastern Sea had even gotten his left foot in the well his right knee was already wedged fast. He backed out and withdrew a little, and then began to describe the sea. `A distance of a thousand li cannot indicate its greatness; a depth of a thousand fathoms cannot express how deep it is. In the time of Yu there were floods for nine years out of ten, and yet its waters never rose. In the time of T’ang there were droughts for seven years out of eight, and yet its shores never receded. Never to alter or shift, whether for an instant or an eternity; never to advance or recede, whether the quantity of water flowing in is great or small - this is the great delight of the Eastern Sea!'
"When the frog in the caved-in well heard this, he was dumfounded with surprise, crestfallen, and completely at a loss. Now your knowledge cannot even define the borders of right and wrong and still you try to use it to see through the words of Chuang Tzu - this is like trying to make a mosquito carry a mountain on its back or a pill bug race across the Yellow River. You will never be up to the task!
"He whose understanding cannot grasp these minute and subtle words, but is only fit to win some temporary gain - is he not like the frog in the caved-in well? Chuang Tzu, now - at this very moment he is treading the Yellow Springs or leaping up to the vast blue. To him there is no north or south - in utter freedom he dissolves himself in the four directions and drowns himself in the unfathomable. To him there is no east or west - he begins in the Dark Obscurity and returns to the Great Thoroughfare. Now you come niggling along and try to spy him out or fix some name to him, but this is like using a tube to scan the sky or an awl to measure the depth of the earth - the instrument is too small, is it not? You'd better be on your way! Or perhaps you've never heard about the young boy of Shou-ling who went to learn the Han-tan Walk. He hadn't mastered what the Han-tan people had to teach him when he forgot his old way of walking, so that he had to crawl all the way back home. Now if you don't get on your way, you're likely to forget what you knew before and be out of a job!"
Kung-sun Lung's mouth fell open and wouldn't stay closed. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and wouldn't come down. In the end he broke into a run and fled.
(From http://www.terebess.hu/english/chuangtzu1.html#17, near the end, or if you have access to the book: Zhuangzi, Burton Watson, Pg 108-110)
Jiraiya is a Sage, who has wandered the world looking for a student to teach. It was prophesied when he was young that he would teach a ninja who would change the world, either great harm or great good (yeah, yeah, cliché 'balance to the force' crap, moving along :P ). He was told that this great harm/good hinged upon a single decision that he would make, and it would be of critical influence in the world. At the point of his death, he is still looking for this student.
It's at the point of his death that he realises that he has already met this student (Naruto, which is kinda a given, given who the show is about), and that he has already made the appropriate decision.
I take his final comment to be a reference to this passage in the Zhuangzi, that Jiraiya realises that as much as he may be called a sage, he knows nothing about the important, world-changing things that he believes that he did. His framework for perceiving the world was based around seeking out this student, and now that he realises that he doesn't need (in fact, he *never* needed) it, he can release it and move on with his life/death. His final moment is one of peace. He can accept the world as it is, without attempting to force it into his particular conception.
There are two possibilities here:
A) I'm reading *way* too much into this; that a prime-time TV show (written for adults, not kids) is referencing a text that is over 2000 years ago, that the bulk of the Japanese population (nevermind the rest of the world) hasn't read.
B) Naruto is freaking awesome.
I'm going with B).