by Josef Steiff
Although he may be fully aware of physical pain as well as the imminent possibility of his (permanent) death, MacLeod’s actions can be considered to be the product of his (literally) undying psychological pain and rage. He watched his wife die, and he then attacked Marcus as a result of that pain and fury, which nearly led to his permanent death. Having pain act as a motivator for his actions is not what Aristotle would consider to be that of a “noble” hero but is instead the behavior of a wild beast. Aristotle states that “those who in sheer rage turn like wild beasts on those who have wounded them are [oftentimes mistakenly] taken for courageous, because the courageous man is also full of rage” since “rage is above all things” an eagerness to “rush on danger.” While he agrees that rage can be beneficial to the courageous man and provide fuel for his fighting spirit, Aristotle emphasizes that a person needs to be motivated by noble causes and not solely by painful rage in order to be considered courageous.
Over the course of the film, we see Colin MacLeod engage in combat with many different enemies. When he is fighting samurai spider-robots or Marcus’s foot soldiers, MacLeod fights in a controlled and disciplined manner that is seemingly devoid of rage (or any other emotion). When confronted by his main nemesis, MacLeod’s technique changes. He no longer seems to focus on form and efficiency but is instead driven by a need to inflict as much damage as possible. MacLeod, in these instances, fights like a crazed, enraged animal instead of a skilled warrior. He seems to have little regard for his own life (or too little fear of his own death), which Aristotle would argue is the hallmark of a coward. MacLeod’s uncontrollable rage is the prime piece of evidence to support that his quest is indeed for vengeance instead of the continuation of the original war.
While killing Marcus is one possible end result in his millennia-long journey, it is debatable that MacLeod may have other intentions. Is MacLeod using this quest merely as an opportunity for him to die in combat fighting for his cause? As Aristotle says, “to seek death as a refuge from poverty, or love, or any painful thing, is not the act of a brave man, but of a coward,” and MacLeod’s actions can easily be seen as a means of escape if the end result that he seeks is his own death. Since Moya died, Colin MacLeod’s entire existence has been dedicated to this one cause. During this time he fought in what seems like every major war, choosing a side not because of his ideals but because it was against Marcus. While MacLeod fought and died in these wars, it can be argued that, in his mind, he has been fighting in the same war for the past two thousand years, with Marcus’s death his intended goal. Aristotle argues that “the happier” a person is, “the more grievous will death be” for them. Since MacLeod has not been happy since the death of his wife, the end of his own life would have very little meaning to him, and therefore his quest lacks courage since he cannot truly face death courageously.
After crashing a plane into a church8 during a confrontation with his foe during World War II, MacLeod reveals some insight into his motivations:MARCUS: Why don’t you just give up before your luck runs out?
MACLEOD: I loved Moya, and you killed her!
MARCUS: I loved Rome. Things die. It is the way of life. All we can do is try to find a reason to go on; build it again. I have found mine. Why don’t you find something?
MACLEOD: Mine is to bury you.
MARCUS: I wonder, who is the bigger fool?
If we are to take what he says in this scene at face value, MacLeod is not motivated in his quest by anything other than anguish over his wife’s death. His ultimate goal is to kill Marcus, despite the fact that the ex-Roman general has defeated MacLeod in each of their encounters. Whereas Aristotle says that a “sanguine man,” someone who “is confident in danger because he has often won and has defeated many adversaries” is not courageous: neither is someone who is foolhardy. This quest is motivated by the pain of loss, and such motivation is not, according to Aristotle, the way of a courageous person. However, Aristotle also argues that “a man is not to be called cowardly for fearing outrage to his children or his wife.”
It seems that the true test of courage, in MacLeod’s situation, is trying to find a way to live without Moya, start a new life for himself, and find honor in that life. Unfortunately, MacLeod seems incapable of doing this as he is still blinded by grief after two millennia. Amergan, who tries to act as MacLeod’s conscience, attempts to make the Highlander see the truth to his own existence:AMERGAN: Did you live with honor? No, because honor was not what you wanted. Over a thousand years there was only vengeance. . . . You died again and again with no thought to what you could have been; what you could have done.
MacLeod seems to have forgotten the words he said to his people before they were massacred by Marcus: fight for “freedom,” for “glory,” and “in the name of honor.” Although fighting for glory is not considered by Aristotle to be courageous, fighting for freedom and with honor is. However, the pain MacLeod felt over the loss of his wife solely fueled his actions. While Aristotle says that pain alone cannot serve as the motivation for courageous action, it is still not cowardly to fear the outrage of your own wife. But the question then becomes, if that “fear” becomes a reality, can that fear act as just cause to fuel a courageous act? Perhaps Colin is a coward, not for fearing death, but instead for fearing life without Moya.
Colin MacLeod’s quest can, in some ways, be interpreted as a desire to keep some part of Moya’s memory alive through physical action. However, instead of honoring her wishes and building a new life for himself, MacLeod remains trapped in his despondent past, without living in hope of a better future. These, Aristotle would argue, are not the actions of a courageous hero. Instead, MacLeod is a coward since to be courageous a person needs to have confidence, and confidence “implies hopefulness.” For thousands of years MacLeod had no hope, and therefore didn’t really have any courage.
Redemption and Hope for the Future
Highlander: The Search For Vengeance is a tragic tale that chronicles the long, yet arguably empty life of Colin MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod and his two-thousand-year quest for vengeance. With pain and loss as his motivators, MacLeod used his immortality to pursue a man who had wronged him across the centuries instead of trying to find a new life for himself. But instead of living his life, MacLeod seemed to be looking for a way to die as he had lost all hope for a better future. Aristotle would claim that this is not the way of a courageous man; it is instead the life of a coward.
While the path a person takes can keep them from altering course their entire life, sometimes the journey offers them the possibility for redemption. At the film’s end, MacLeod accomplishes what he has sought for so many years when he takes Marcus’s head. However, in the process he gains something more; he regains his courage, nobility, and, for the first time in millennia, has found hope. It is all thanks to Dahlia, a young woman who had spent her entire life as an outcast living in the shadow of Marcus’s new “Rome.” With MacLeod’s redemption, however, came the revelation of a new tragedy: since her death, Colin has encountered the reincarnated “soul” of Moya many times in the forms of women, like Dahlia, who love him unconditionally. MacLeod was so hell-bent on his quest for vengeance that he never realized the opportunities for happiness that he had missed over the centuries. In the end, Dahlia (and Moya) helped Colin break out of his endless cycle of hate and remember who he was: a Highland Chieftain who once led a small band of villagers in a fight against an invading force who wanted to destroy them all. That was Colin MacLeod’s purpose. It is also his destiny.
History has a way of repeating itself. After centuries of searching, Dahlia helped Colin realize that Marcus was once again attacking a group of “villagers” who had no hope of surviving against the superior numbers of “Rome.” His journey had come full circle, and Colin MacLeod finally understood that Marcus has caused more pain in the world than just the death of his own wife. Without MacLeod’s help, Marcus would succeed in killing these people just as he had succeeding in wiping out Colin’s vill
age two thousand years before. His old foe had to be stopped, not just because MacLeod wanted him to pay for the death of Moya, but because countless other lives depended on it. Through Dahlia, MacLeod saw how selfish his quest had been and how much time he had wasted in his quest for vengeance. While Aristotle would argue that MacLeod lived the life of a coward for the past two thousand years, Dahlia and the people of New York changed all of that. MacLeod became a general in their war, and while he does kill Marcus, it is no longer solely to avenge Moya’s death. Instead, MacLeod uses the power of Marcus’s quickening to destroy the newly released virus and foil his enemy’s plans. Unlike in their previous encounters, MacLeod no longer fights like a wild beast but instead with precision and courage, and these traits led him to victory.
According to Aristotle, courage is found in our ability to face an honorable death during times of war and, in such instances, to behave nobly. While MacLeod did not fear his own death, he did not allow himself to understand its implications, nor the hollowness of his quest for vengeance. Rage, anguish, and pain were the sole motivators for his actions, which resulted in a never ending struggle that existed outside the realm of a noble cause. While it took another war for Colin MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod to once again find courage, honor, and nobility, is it not equally honorable or courageous to find ways of preventing wars? Although MacLeod was able to regain some of what he lost during his quest, does this redemption excuse two thousand years’ worth of cowardice? That remains to be seen. Whether or not MacLeod has completely changed for the better is also a mystery, but perhaps now that MacLeod has been reminded of his potential, he will find a more noble purpose to dedicate his life to. While Dahlia is killed during his final battle against Marcus, perhaps MacLeod will one day meet the reincarnation of his beloved wife again and be given the chance to start over, finding peace with himself and with the world around him.
Colin MacLeod’s is a cautionary tale of love, loss, death, rebirth, vengeance, and redemption. By building a new life for himself, MacLeod would be able to exhibit true courage. Through that courage he would find strength, and through strength MacLeod may one day find happiness. As Highlander: The Search For Vengeance reminds us, a willingness to die is not always the same thing as courage. For Colin MacLeod, dying is easy. It is living that is hard.
12
The Possibility of Perfection
ANDREW TERJESEN
A lot of shonen anime series have plots that revolve around major tournaments, such as the DragonBall series, YuYu Hakusho, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters, Pokemon, and even some non-fighting anime like Hikaru no Go. Or the story is advanced by a series of extended fight scenes (as occurs in Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece).
The young boys and adolescents who are the target demographic for these anime find these conflicts exciting, but there’s also an interesting philosophical presupposition underlying all these anime: the assumption is that competition will bring out the best in everyone who participates. Although the hero of the anime is usually on a personal quest that requires them to win the fight or tournament, there are always a number of supporting characters who share the goal of Roronoa Zoro in One Piece, which is to simply become the best at whatever it is they do. These characters also share Zoro’s philosophy: the only way to become better is by competing with someone who is better than you—and winning.
When thinking about the relationship between competition and improvement, two philosophers’ names spring to mind immediately: Adam Smith (1723-1790) and Charles Darwin (1809-1882). You might not normally think of these thinkers as philosophers, but Smith was actually a professor of moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow and in his lifetime was more famous for his work in moral philosophy than in economic theory. And in Darwin’s time, many people still referred to the biological and physical sciences as “natural philosophy.” Today we draw too sharp a distinction between science and philosophy, forgetting that any branch of knowledge involves some reasoning and justification of one’s ideas (it’s not just looking at the data and seeing the obvious answer). Still, there are important differences between how economics, evolutionary biology, and philosophy approach things.
Smith’s theory and Darwin’s theory are in conflict with one another, as Smith (despite what you may have been told) favors competition within limits in opposition to the unbridled competition and limitless development of Darwin’s theory. Even in a world without a Dark Tournament or chunin exams, it can be important to think about what role we think competition should play in shaping who we are.
And the Winner Is . . . the Best?
Before he encounters Luffy in One Piece, Zoro is traveling the oceans looking for Mihawk—the best swordsman on the Grand Line—just so he can test his skills against him. Zoro’s quest leads him into conflict with a number of adversaries, but his goal always remains the same: to fight the best in order to become the best. Every fight is just a step on the way to that final challenge. Mihawk shares a similar desire. When the two finally meet in the series, Mihawk is able to defeat Zoro, but rather than killing him, he tells Zoro to get stronger and give him a real challenge someday.
The idea that competition improves the competitors is associated with Smith’s masterwork, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Although Smith is writing about the importance of free markets, his reasoning is just as applicable to Zoro and Mihawk. The reason that Smith thinks competition is so important is that without it, people tend to be sloppy and lazy. According to Smith, a monopoly (that is, a situation in which there is no real competitor) “is a great enemy to good management” (p. 163). Fighting someone like Mihawk forces Zoro to dig deep and summon every ounce of skill he has. And while Mihawk is somewhat challenged by Zoro, he knows he needs real competition if he wants to keep his edge.
A good example of how competition brings out the best in us can be found in Zoro’s conflict with Mr. 1, a member of Baroque Works. Mr. 1, thanks to the Dice-Dice Fruit, can turn any part of his body into a steel blade. While struggling against him, Zoro states that once he has defeated Mr. 1, he will have learned to cut steel. And that is exactly what he does to defeat Mr. 1. That conflict forces Zoro to reflect back on his sword training and come to a new realization about his technique so that he can cut something which he could not cut before. Zoro’s achievement is a form of “powering up”—taking his existing abilities and increasing their capacity.
The reason that competition leads to so much improvement in fighting anime is because the threat of death is a great motivator. Had Zoro failed to figure this out, Mr. 1 would have killed him. Despite what some people might think, not all competition is do or die. Hikaru no Go is set in the competitive world of Go. It is not the life-and-death situation of many of the fighting anime, but what is at stake is almost as important to the players, and there is not enough to go around. Hikaru’s skills improve remarkably as he plays games against various talented Go players and he improves by leaps and bounds playing with the ghost of Go master Sai. Sai remarks upon the effects of their go-playing on Hikaru and on himself, as he notices that his game has also improved. This makes sense as each challenges the other with new moves that force the opponent to look at the game in a different way. Hikaru and Sai also have to “power up” their gameplay, if they want to keep winning games.
Tsuyoku Naritai (I Want to Become Stronger)
One of the basic principles of Smith’s theory is that the extent to which we can compete (and improve) is related to how much we can specialize. People who focus their attention on learning and practicing a specific task will come up with better ways to do that task. Someone who is constantly cutting things with a sword will develop better and more efficient ways of cutting, while someone who is playing Go constantly will figure out better ways to trap their opponents and escape traps set by their opponent. We can see this philosophy evidenced in the fact that Zoro is trying to become the best swordsman, not the best fighter, and certainly not the best swordfighter who plays
Go. Effective “powering up” requires narrow attention to the capacity you’re trying to develop.
Improving on one’s skills by focusing one’s training is something that we see in abundance in fighting anime. Consider the early training of Son Goku in Dragon Ball. Although he is superior to a human in speed, strength, and so on, it is his constant training that equips him with the techniques to beat “inferior” human fighters (as well as fighters from other planets). In the beginning, he just attacked his opponents with a rapid series of blows. When that proves inadequate, he learns the Kamehameha, and later King Kai teaches him other ways to channel his chi in a fight. He eventually learns to channel not only his own chi, but also the chi of those around him into the devastating Spirit Bomb. Throughout his early training, Goku’s focus is on developing fighting techniques that best utilize his abilities. Each new move is a better way of doing what he had done before.
