To See With Eyes Unclouded by Hate

There's a line in Studio Ghibli's 1997 masterpiece Princess Mononoke--my favorite of the studio's catalog of classic animated films--which has always stuck with me since the first time I heard it. After the lead character Ashitaka is banished from his village because of the cursed mark that has begun to consume his body, he finds himself in Iron Town, speaking with the leader of the industrious city, Lady Eboshi. She thanks him for saving two of her men who were recently injured and left for dead in an earlier battle, and asks him why he was traveling to Iron Town in the first place. He shows her the cursed mark, the iron ball found in the body of the boar who gave it to him, and replies: "To see with eyes unclouded by hate."

The interpretation here is obvious: Ashitaka has come here to understand what happened to the boar, not to seek vengeance. He has come to learn about the people of Iron Town and their struggles against the guardians of the forest, as well as to understand the plight of the forest gods as they suffer injury and death from the guns made by humans. He has come here to see what the fuss is about, but he has left the resentment-- both the resentment Eboshi and the people of Iron Town feel for the forest spirits, and the forest spirits' resentment for the greedy humans destroying their land--out of the equation. When I first saw the film when I was young, however, that wasn't what I heard.

What Ashitaka meant was that his eyes were not clouded by hate, like those of Eboshi and of the forest spirits. What I had thought he meant as a child, and what had left me so confused, was that the hate of the boar god was what unclouded his eyes. It wasn't that his eyes "were not" unclouded, but that they "had been" unclouded by hate. I didn't understand. Clearly I was just a foolish kid and had misinterpreted him, obviously hate is something you should not harbor, as it serves no purpose.

I recently rewatched the film, and now I think I may have been onto something.

My father, a wise man (I think), once said to me that hatred was not the opposite of love, apathy was. On this point, I must disagree. Apathy, the absolute absence of any care at all for a particular thing, can be viewed as the opposite of love inasmuch as love is an abundance of emotion toward a particular thing. I'd like to argue, however, that it's the quality of that emotion that makes the difference. If love is an abundance of positive emotion, hatred is an abundance of negative emotion.

When we love someone, we hang on their every word, swooning even at the sound of their voice; when we hate someone, everything they say sounds like a slight, and even if they make a good point, it makes us cringe like scratching a chalkboard. When we love someone, we fantasize about spending time with them, doing things we both like, and making them smile; when we hate someone, fantasizing about "quality time" with them causes the definition to become heavily skewed toward a darker, even violent, sensibility.

Through this lens, apathy becomes a kind of antithesis to both love and hate. But why bring this up at all? Well, in order to more easily understand hatred, it's important to compare it to love, if indeed we can consider one the other's opposite.

Love and hate are both very difficult--some may say impossible--to truly, fully comprehend. The human heart is a fickle thing. Through it's varied nature, however, we become able to understand the hearts of others. Ashitaka shows this thoroughly when he becomes involved in the fight between San and Eboshi. Ashitaka is able to see both sides of the ongoing conflict between Iron Town and the forest gods. The enmity between the two is both obvious and palpable, but more importantly, Ashitaka can see that it comes from a need on both sides. Lady Eboshi, on behalf of the people of Iron Town, need the iron under the mountain to survive. Their production of iron is what allows them to buy food and supplies that keep their people alive. Likewise, San and the forest spirits need the wilderness to remain. Should the humans continue to encroach upon the forest, eventually the whole of the natural world will die away.

While Ashitaka's moral stance is to take neither side, he has used the power of the curse mark laid upon him throughout the story so far. Intentionally or not, he used it's strength to slay samurai attacking villagers and himself, and even after the encounter between Eboshi and San, he opens the gates of Iron Town singlehandedly (a feat that would otherwise require ten men, according to one of the gate guards).

One could argue that this power comes from the hatred of the demon-boar that cursed Ashitaka, but it is clear that he himself is not entirely devoid of hatred. In a scene not too much earlier, where Lady Eboshi introduces Ashitaka to the lepers she cares for, she elaborates on her desire to kill the forest god and stop the spirits from hurting the humans. In a flash, Ashitaka's right arm reacts, reaching for his sword and drawing it halfway from it's sheath before he's able to stop it. The curse mark is reacting to Ashitaka's own feelings of anger and hatred toward Eboshi because of this statement. It is harnessing his own innate feelings, rather than inflicting these emotion upon him. He even acknowledges this: when Eboshi teases him about his arm wanting to kill her, he replies "If it would lift the curse, I'd let it tear you apart. But even that wouldn't end the killing now, would it?"

Ashitaka is aware of the power of hatred, both within himself and within others. While others use it against each other, he struggles and strives to use it for good. I believe there is great wisdom to be found here.

I'd like you to think about something you love. It could be a trinket or object of sentimental value, it could be a place you've been or one wish to visit, it could even be a person or a pet. Things like these make life worth living, the make the otherwise unbearable hardships of the world, well, bearable. Like Eboshi and San, we need these things.

Now I'd like you to imagine someone--me, if you like-- taking that thing away, destroying that place, or even killing that creature. And it's not due to any negligence on my part; no, I'm doing this to you knowingly and willingly. I have removed from the world something that you love and need.

How do you feel? Perhaps you're sad, certainly you're in pain, and likely you're rather livid.

How do you feel about me? You don't know me, but even if you do, I have done this thing to you knowing that it would cause you undue harm.

Do you hate me?

Perhaps this thought experiment was needless--perhaps you have experienced some similar event in your life already, and you do know what it feels like to hate someone. Have you ever dug into that feeling? Most people would advise you to let go of your hate, and that is a very wise thing to do; hatred is destructive and corrosive. But it is not only those things. By analyzing the thoughts and feelings we experience when we hate someone, we can recognize those ideas in others when they are possessed by hate. The boar god Okkoto, after his warriors are slain in battle against the humans, begins to transform exactly like the boar god Nago did at the beginning of the film. The hate that burned in one begins to burn in the other, and Ashitaka and San recognize this, trying desperately to stop it.

Even at the very end of the film, when Lady Eboshi takes the shot that removes the Forest Spirit's head, the resulting chaos is born of hatred. The Forest Spirit's body, still living, grows and stretches into a viscous liquid that dissolves all life it touches, spreading a curse that looks identical to the mark on Ashitaka's arm. As the characters try desperately to escape it, Ashitaka and San rush to retrieve the head and return it to the Forest Spirit, knowing that only an act of compassion can quell the flame of hatred.

As the ooze from the severed head makes contact with San and Ashitaka, the two are covered in curse marks

Hate is a negative emotion. It would take a stronger argument than I can make to claim otherwise. That doesn't mean that feeling hatred is entirely negative. To understand how hatred makes someone act is to understand the heart of another--even to understand the hurt of another. Through hate, we can learn compassion. Through hate, we can learn empathy. Through hate, we can see in others the desire for destruction, and--with a little thought--quell the rage that burns within them, and bring about a greater peace throughout the world.

See with eyes unclouded by hate.