SEL

i just finished watching serial experiments lain

good job lainon. i am going to do the same here when i finally get around to it

>>48096 One less thing to do before you die.

>>48098 finally got around to it? this is my first time on this site. cant believe theres even larpers on lainchan

It's great. It really takes a different perspective on the internet and AI.

>>48096 It still amazes me that this piece of media predicted the modern internet almost flawlessly

>>48110 >cant believe theres even larpers on lainchan Who's larping? Not only is SEL a monomyth depicting one possible route which the unrealized Monad can take as they finally decide to devote themselves to the single-minded pursuit of Godhood, it is also an archetypal manifestation of some of the complexes we suffer and witness as a result of modern day people living within the information society. It depicted many of the various phenomena that the mass-scale adoption of computers and other such communication devices would bring about as a result of this transition to a life of complete and constant connection to the Wired. But, of course, the significance of Lain goes beyond all that. It's not only a contemporary critique of computerized and interconnected world, nor simply a narrative consisting of symbolically significant themes and undertones. What Lain reveals to its faithful followers and attentive listeners is also a way of life: a religion. I heavily suggest you familiarize yourself with some of our literature, if you choose to dwell within her hallowed presence, among these sacred digital ruins dedicated to her eternal glory: <https://mebious.neocities.org/Layer/Religion>. Let's all love Lain!

>>48120 Lainist here, you seem pretty cool, by what name do you usually go by online?

>>48120 Tryhard nonsense and the fact you're using it to defend someone who hasn't even seen the show yet is extremely telling. Lain isn't the monomyth, it is literally a narrative tragedy (which if you actually knew something about narrative studies is one of the most well established rejections / subversions of the monomyth) and the fixation you specifically have with shoehorning what is fundamentally a western Christian narrative (no matter how much "eclecticism" which is derived from mainstream ideology you wrap it up in) into a show made in explicit protest of westernization and transcendence narratives is tragic too. The show is an explicit criticism of the hubris you seem possessed with.

>>48124 a little too intensive of something that isnt so serious but i guess you arent entirely wrong

>>48125 You're right. I think it gets to me because I've met a few people who take this stuff way too seriously and made some incredibly poor decisions based on it. But superficial analysis of lain that disregards the shows contents or reduces it to particular surface level tropes also makes me inordinately upset for some reason. I think it's important to me that it is understood lain is in a dialog with other media like ghost in the shell and means to subvert certain premises.

>>48124 >Tryhard nonsense and the fact you're using it to defend someone who hasn't even seen the show yet is extremely telling. You mistake me, my good lainon. It certainly was not my intention to defend anyone who hasn't seen SEL ever in their lifetime. Correct me if I'm wrong, since I may have read too much into >>48110 's comment, but doesn't it appear to you too, as it does to me, that the poster's comment >finally got around to it? this is my first time on this site. cant believe theres even larpers on lainchan seems like a condemnation of Lainchan's implied cultural expectation of all lainons "having to take SEL seriously" or, at minimum, "being required to go and see SEL" for the simple reason that they are on a board dedicated to Lain? I merely meant to point out that there is no shame in familiarizing oneself with SEL, nor with taking its message seriously. >Lain isn't the monomyth, it is literally a narrative tragedy (which - - is one of the most well established rejections / subversions of the monomyth) You are right: Lain isn't the monomyth, she's the protagonist in the SEL which is yet another one expression of the monomyth. But while there are tragic elements to the story, and one could interpret it is as a tragedy, it nonetheless coheres into the form of a monomyth. That's where the name comes: "the one story", because you can see it everywhere, in endless guises, thereby making it a universal story structure. But I admit, your accusation does hit its mark. I'm not familiar with narrative studies. To me, SEL appears a monomyth, because it expresses one of the most basic, elementary concept in religious thought: the proceeding of someone from "nothing" to "everything", or from a "nobody" to a "somebody" - which, in its extreme, that is to say, mythological version, would come to signify a human turning into a god. This notion is shared and expressed by most religions, but in various distinct forms. In Christian thought it is a progression from sinfulness to being in communion with God, or Yahweh. In Buddhist thought it is the progression from suffering or "being" into Nirvana ("non-being"). In various other pagan religious systems (Hellenic, Norse, most variants of Shamanism, for instance) the same idea appears: that you could move from something lower to something higher (a spirit, an eternally rewarded hero, a demigod, being one with the gods). In this sense SEL exhibits the necessary characteristics to be regarded a monomyth: a heroine is awaken from her mundane existence, and taken on an extraordinary journey which tries and tests her. With each obstacle overcome, she grows more powerful and capable, until she crosses completely crosses the border between life and death, essentially making her a goddess, because she isn't constrained by the strictures of mortal life anymore. The tragic aspect of Lain's progress towards godhood is the fact that she disturbs the lives of people and those she most cares for to such a profound extent that she, as a result, deems it best to limit her godly powers and shut herself off from the human world. If one were to subvert this idea, one could either write a story that goes nowhere, or where the endpoint is something lower than either a goddess or a human being. Maybe a god choosing to not be a god would narratively "do away" with the whole previous journey towards godhood, and as such be interpreted as a subversion of it, but I would say it only takes the whole idea of the monomyth (i.e., the protagonist growing wiser, more capable, and experienced, changed by the journey) one step further by applying it to the predicament of Lain as a goddess: that, after reaching godhood, she comes to the understanding that the best kind of a goddess is a responsible one, with a minimal presence within the mortal realm. >a show made in explicit protest of westernization and transcendence narratives is tragic too. Yes. But, if I recall correct, the author himself admitted that his efforts were all for nought. The issue with that is the difficulty of fighting against universal ideas, especially when one dabbles into the subject matter of gods and extraordinary lives. There no one can escape universal archetypes - which aren't inherently Western in their origin, but rather shared by all of humanity collectively. >The show is an explicit criticism of the hubris you seem possessed with. Huh. I wouldn't say I am, but I suppose that's what one plagued by hubris would say... Awfully ironic, don't you agree :D? >>48123 It varies. One of the more public personas that I've used for some time is "Viator Fleisher", not much more than an unused Twitter account and a goodreads profile I've used to keep track on stuff I've read, though I haven't been keeping it up to date for a while now :S

great thread here lainons, i'm really digging it

>>48147 It's a good point, lain is the mascot of lainchan in the same way yotsuba is the mascot of 4chan. You will probably see the show at some point and the selection of topics / general vibe makes a bit more sense if you do. Whats more I don't even think LARPing as the Knights online is bad, I just think the line should be drawn somewhere before you start to translate it to irl ideology and join groups that try to reappropriate internet fun into fed soykaf or just poor decisionmaking in general. Which is not to say I don't think the show can be a source of life lessons or inspiring either. There's just a point where I feel like jungianism for instance is sort of shoehorned in as an orthogonal project and it stops being about enjoyment of the show, rather it becomes about being a memetics theorycel and whatnot. I have a bad taste in my mouth because this particular flavor of eclecticism has been used by some very bad people but there's no reason to assume you are one of them. >Appears to be a monomyth because it depicts someone going from nothing to something I would agree it's sort of a coming-of-age story that explores loss of innocence and lain is seemingly an everyman character. I think the intention behind this is that lain is meant to depict the nation of japan as it enters into the global economy and technologically advances in surprising ways. However I also think it sets an emotional tone throughout that places this in the realm of an anxiety then a necessarily empowering mythos. >The author has admitted it failed to be the tragedy it intended I do not think its intentions as a warning need to be strictly adhered to even if I do think the authors stated premise - that we should exercise caution and not lose ourselves, that the internet should serve people and not vice versa - is agreeable, though from the angle of a technophile. Lain depicts a deeply relatable intimacy and fascination with technology that could be seen as a kind of morbid curiosity, is nevertheless an important aspect that gave it staying power over the years. I would argue the way it attempts to talk about community does this as well. Just that lain is tortured throughout the show and this is a major theme of the work plus at the end, lain deletes the new protocol and herself which seems to be saying something important. Sorry you address this. My point not really being about whether the message should be adhered to but rather that it is, in narrative structure, a tragedy of sorts. The monomyth specifically refers to the hero's journey and necessarily, by virtue of the fact it is called the *mono*myth, follows this formula. which is typically not transcendence to godhood but rather ascendence to greatness. This distinction is important to me because gods play a role within the hero's journey. While god-like, already-ascended heroes can certainly be a class that the protagonist joins in some hero's journey story, I would argue that they tend to not to be by virtue of their role as supernatural, aka inexplicable, aid. >No one can escape universal archetypes I beg you to provide me with a quote from jung about the universality of archetypes, as in tell me what book to read, because I'm fairly certain from my reading of the red book that archetypes especially in terms of their specific qualities are deeply subjective and personal aspects of human psychology. While if jung said otherwise I would still disagree with him I find his most well known archetypes - like the anima, or the shadow - don't really pertain to specific characteristics but rather represent categories or faces within the subject. In general I would say jung is very much a Freudian in this respect. I also have beef with his understanding of meditation but that's for a different conversation. My point being that it is seemingly not jung himself but rather an interpretation of jung which I find erroneous. Archetype is rather than a system of set symbols, a language which can generate new symbols that appear legitimate within it. I will also say as a hellenic neopagan with buddhist philosophy that there is an important distinction between gods, demigods, titans, and heroes that is worth note. Gods and titans are forces of nature with human capriciousness because nature is capricious. Gods typically aren't in a position to weather or gain favor of these things but rather to rule over and represent them. It is typically the hero's job to do the former and the God's job to do the latter. I am also aware of the translation between systems that seems to come from occultism, thelema being the main example of this, which derives from a similar reading as yours to jung, but I think thelema can and has been deconstructed in important ways since its inception, to such an extent that we are thoroughly in a post-thelemic occult world.

Good stuff! >which, in its extreme, that is to say, mythological version, would come to signify a human turning into a god. But wasn't lain a "god" or Gaia or some sort of collective consciousness (which is why the show goes over that whole Schuman resonance thing) that clicked together the moment that new protocol 7 was rolled out and gave it the corporal form of a japanese school girl? But I don't think she initially was just a human to begin with, but a vessel that began to remember what it was containing. You could apply that to Eiri, however his godhood was confined within a virtual sort of realm and thus was just a pale imitation of what Lain was or represented. Though I haven't watched it in a while. Also what's your thoughts on the different versions of her? Do you believe it's some sort of reference to God, the son and the holy spirit? >>48154 >I think the intention behind this is that lain is meant to depict the nation of japan as it enters into the global economy and technologically advances in surprising ways. However I also think it sets an emotional tone throughout that places this in the realm of an anxiety You mean the anxiety of having like 10 different competing and incompatible keyboard layouts and text code formats at that time while japan was still trying to figure this out and unicode was still not a thing? While I agree that one shouldn't take an anime show overly serious, it's some interesting food for thought and inspiration if one already dabbles with these concepts. You know, since we are all connected after all. >>48131 Don't forget Digimon and Code Lyoko :D

>>48155 > Also what's your thoughts on the different versions of her? Im not OP. I interpret the different Lains as the Id, Ego, and Superego but it also is about how people can explore their identity especially online letting different sides of them out they might not in person which they can either find themselves or lose themselves to this but at the same time it is how different people will interpret another person completely differently through what little they can know about them as well as how people can impersonate others online.

>>48155 >You mean the anxiety of having 10 competing standards No, there's a deeper sense of anxiety that gets used in media studies usually to describe a particular audience's core fears and uncertainties. I'm a little skeptical of the premise that this is exactly whats going on collectively, because it implies an overarching and legible realm of collective psychology, but it is certainly the case that a writer can possess such an anxiety - like, "will our way of life fundamentally change in the digital era" - and a work will be successful with many people because it resonates with them. In lain's case, that anxiety turned out to resonate far beyond the intended demographic. What's more lain's approach to the anxiety was to go deep, maybe even too deep, into the field and learn about it which appealed to a large number of viewers. Furthermore, works themselves are sometimes described as containing anxieties. This can be immediately done through portraying anxious characters or attempting to make audiences anxious, or secondarily drawing on tropes that are associated with it. At a certain point, a show can be understood as having a personality of sorts, similar to how a narrator might have a personality. Then the show itself can be seen as having certain preferences, in terms of what sorts of actions / characters are rewarded or not. A closely related concept to this is "tension". >Don't forget digimon and code lyoko! :D Him having a contribution to the digimon franchise himself, it is interesting to me how the konaka developed his ideas over the years since he made lain. I think what I'm specifically interested in is the possibility that there is a direct link between the shows - that somebody saw one and could plausibly have made the other, often including references to it and advancing the conversation in a satisfying way. Sometimes shows can draw from the same themes without being aware of each other, or they could be more "genre aware" without having specific references. A conversation can exist in this case as well, but there is a subtle difference.

recommended lain to my dads brothers daughters husbands sisters kid, ask me anything

>>48195 I am not wasting my mental capacity on this

fuarrrk SHIT MOTHER fuarrrkER FUWACK SHIT he says it almost like "fuuuark"

this obsessed site hates me and doesnt let me reppey without enough text but look at this lain i posted

>>48199 Sounds awesome, Lain, very fuuuarking ebin

>>48196 Its his cousin’s sister in law’s kid

>>50022 You're an incest enjoyer?

>>50024 sage negated 9696969696969696969696969696969696969696969696969696969696969696969696969696969696969696

>>50158 not even saged retard