Forum - View topicThe laughing Man and Cho Seung Hui
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Adam Kadmon
 Posts: 20 |
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As i sat there in dim surroundings, body rigid, muscles tense, mouth ajar, staring intrepidly yet somewhat perplexed at the troubled man who had invaded my television screen, twin guns in hand and a hint in his eye of what was to come, a sense of familiarity began to descend in and around my reasoning.
Laughing Man...Blind-Deaf mute...Phonies...Catcher in the Rye...Salinger? Isolation Vs Intergration You see, the nature of the horrific crimes commited by cho seung hui bare no physical comparison to those commited by the 'Laughing man' in stand alone complex, yet the warped reasoning behind them might just do so, as well ast he media frenzy it has created, the threat and fear of an outbreak of copycat crimes, the mass debate of the "why's" and "how's", shrinks and behavioural experts 'exclusively' revealing the "thinking behind the crime" and so on and so forth, all these thing, in my mind share characteristics with the fictional frenzy and furore of the Laughing man case in GitS: SAC. Even Cho's ramblings smacked of someone who could not handle being a deaf-mute, a person too weak to brave the truisms of the broken world in which we live. It is a shame that , like the laughing man, he didn't anticipate the irony of his actions. (Now If only chat rooms these days were like those seen in stand-alone complex we could have a PROPER discussion about this, a message to technology- "More Forewards Please! gadammit") "What i'd thought i'd do was i'd pretend i was one of those deaf-mutes..... or should i? " Did anyone else see certain similarities or should i get out more? |
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 9903 Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC |
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Yes you should. Some media already linked him with Oldboy, just because of two ridiculous reasons of 1) they are both Korean 2) they both have a hammer in hand. I don't want another Tsutomu Miyazaki to damage the image of anime or its fandom. |
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fujiwara
 Posts: 58 Location: Sydney, NSW, Australia |
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Although I haven't seen the first season of SAC for a while, I don't really think that there's any plausible connection between The Laughing Man and Cho Seung Hui. Whilst they did both commit acts of terror, The Laughing Man's act was morally justifiable.
The Laughing Man kidnapped the head of Serano Genomics due to the withholding of the Murei vaccine. This is a case of a morally induced response to injustice. Cho Seung Hui killed 31 students, a teacher and himself because of the supposed oppression and tyranny of rich people. This is a case of a mentally induced response to illusionary injustice. The Laughing Man had a point. Cho Seung Hui did not. |
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Steventheeunuch
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Holy christ dude get a life.
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Adam Kadmon
Posts: 20 |
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ah it appears you misunderstood. I am not suggesting that ghost in the shell and anime actually influenced him, i am merely pointing out similiarities between the two cases, "life imitating art" and all that jazz. He and the 'laughing man' may have indeed shared the same disillusioned plight. All speculation, All conjecture.
yay, a disagreement fuelled by actual reason and logic. You make a good point. It just appeared to me that the whole mythology of the laughing man and the philosphy behind his actions was a whole lot bigger than the murei vaccine. But yeah, i appreciate your notion about "illusionary justice". |
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Ramadahl
Posts: 325 Location: MK, UK |
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Um, nah, you should probably get out more. Sorry. Just there really doesn't seem to be any sort of parallel, no matter how much you try to read into them. Oh, and the whole Salinger thing... The Catcher in the Rye seems to be a very popular work among people who go on shooting sprees (can't find the link for this  ) , probably due to the whole pushed out of society thing, etc. So it's not too surprising if you can see some references in there, but it still doesn't indicate the source of actual inspiration.
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jetz
 Posts: 2148 Location: Manila, Philippines |
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No offense but I don't like it when people link anime to real life occurences, specially crimes. It just gives people who don't watch anime another chance to blame anime unreasonably..
Also, I can't believe you actually tried to find similarities between anime and Cho Seung Hui. You actually have that time? The catcher in the rye thing - I understand that part but everything else.. nahhhh |
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abunai
Old Regular
 Posts: 5463 Location: 露命 |
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It's something that started with Mark David Chapman (who assassinate John Lennon) and continued with John Hinckley, Jr., who failed to assassinate Ronald Reagan. They were both obsessed with it. The presence of the book as a story element in GITS:SAC is a clear reference to these events. I've always regarded it as an in-joke, because it is so strongly associated with spoiler[Togusa's decision to carry out an assassination]. In other words, more a joke than an attempt to make some particular philosophical point. - abunai |
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Tony K.
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 12080 Location: Frisco, TX |
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To spare the potential can of worms, I'm going to lock this. Please refer to this post for my explanation.
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