[HN Gopher] Peter Pan, Existentialist Fairy Tale? (2017)
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Peter Pan, Existentialist Fairy Tale? (2017)
Author : fnwk
Score : 17 points
Date : 2021-09-07 06:51 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (erraticus.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (erraticus.co)
| ninetenfour wrote:
| Peter Pan figures big in Jordan Petersons lectures. Here is one
| sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-ckxQSutO4
| cassepipe wrote:
| Well if you're posting about videos of Jordan Peterson I might
| as well post an informative, charitable, opinionated and
| entertaining (to me) video from Contrapoints about who he is
| and what he's doing. Enjoy : https://youtu.be/4LqZdkkBDas
| ninetenfour wrote:
| The video I linked to in my original post was directly
| relevant to this other take on Peter Pan and philosophy.
|
| I'd like to understand why my comment is being downvoted by
| you and others?
|
| Did you think the comment wasn't relevant to this overall
| post?
|
| It feels like it is simply because I mentioned Jordan
| Peterson and anything that mentions him must be downvoted
| because he has been declared bad. Okay then.
|
| Given I mentioned Jordan Peterson again, you should probably
| downvote this comment as well as a thoughtcrime.
| cassepipe wrote:
| I did not downvote your comment :)
| imbnwa wrote:
| What I find interesting about this clip is that the 1991 movie
| 'Hook' is literally the opposite. There, Peter _does_ make the
| sacrifice of maturity but the screenplay demands he re-discover
| the innocence /freedom of his life as Peter Pan in order to
| ostensibly _enjoy_ his life. At the end of the movie he tosses
| his phone out the window after telling his boss whatever he 's
| calling about isn't important as a decision to value the
| innocent immediacy of his family life. What the screenplay
| doesn't tell us is whether he had a job the next day and the
| consequences of that!
|
| I think Peterson is speaking to _another tier_ of freedom that
| comes with responsibility and concern for one 's future and
| security: it tends to (non-exploitatively) benefit others
| around you, your community, etc.
| cstross wrote:
| Existentialism aside, it's impossible for a modern viewpoint to
| make sense of "Peter and Wendy" without knowing that at the turn
| of the 19th/20th century in the UK, infant mortality before age 5
| was around 20%, and this was down considerably from infant
| mortality in previous centuries, as the germ theory of disease
| and safety consciousness made in-roads against a number of
| scourges, from whooping cough and mumps (there's a _reason_ we
| have childhood vaccines!) to formaldehyde-contaminated butter and
| arsenical clothing dyes.
|
| Hence the need for a childrens tale to explain to the little ones
| why their infant brothers or sisters weren't coming home from the
| hospital: it was something most families grappled with, and
| "they've gone off with Peter Pan to have adventures beyond the
| rainbow" is easier on a toddler than confronting them with the
| enormity of death.
| [deleted]
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > infant mortality before age 5 was around 20%, and this was
| down considerably from infant mortality in previous centuries
|
| > Hence the need for a childrens tale to explain to the little
| ones why their infant brothers or sisters weren't coming home
| from the hospital
|
| This makes no sense; if the problem was worse before, why would
| you suddenly need a new story for it? If the need was real, the
| relevant stories would have originated long before the 20th
| century.
|
| The approaches that worked for the past 100,000 years also
| worked in 1904 and still work now.
|
| (Also, the book is explicit that the children of Neverland
| found their way there by falling out of their perambulators
| (strollers); they did not fail to come home from a hospital.)
| [deleted]
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| this is because it is not a cause and effect thing like
| you're trying to read it as here; the author simply wrote the
| book when those were contemporary circumstances, even if they
| had been worse before
|
| meanwhile the book's words about what happened to those
| children are a fiction hinting at the truth of the loss of a
| child and are more symbolic than literal documentary words
| smorgusofborg wrote:
| The fertility rate in the UK cut in half from 1880 to 1920.
| During this time the general approach to children rearing
| began to correspond to a much higher level of parental
| investment in individual children.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| So what? How is that connected to what you tell your
| surviving children when one of their siblings dies?
| dragontamer wrote:
| Children getting whisked away by a handsome protagonist and his
| magical sidekick to fight against "cool things" like pirates and
| mermaids in a world unlike our own?
|
| Its an Isekai.
|
| ---------
|
| Isekai is this modern trend in anime (and US movies sometimes!!
| Like Ready Player One), where characters are sent to another
| world. Sometimes due to death explicitly ("Reincarnated in a New
| World" plotline: like "I'm a Spider So What"), sometimes just
| "temporarily" transported (Sword Art Online / Ready Player One,
| they are "just" playing a video game).
|
| From an "Isekai" perspective: people want two things.
|
| 1. A world very different from our own. Completely different
| "physics" or rules. So magic systems, history, culture, etc. etc.
| that's nothing like our world. Neverland easily qualifies.
|
| 2. A character who explores the new world from our perspective.
| The main character is always someone "like the audience", who can
| be ignorant about the new world. (The various characters the
| protagonist meets are therefore given an opportunity to explain
| the world to the newcomer, allowing the audience to learn about
| the world in a natural manner). In Peter Pan, Wendy is the Isekai
| protagonist.
|
| ------
|
| Alice in Wonderland, Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court,
| Wizard of Oz, A Lion, A Witch, and the Wardrobe. The concept
| happens again and again as a pattern, because its a good framing
| device. I'm not sure if Peter Pan can be seen as an allegory of
| death necessarily, any more than "I'm a Spider, so What?" (2021
| Anime) could be.
|
| The children are... children... because the main character often
| should match the profile of the target audience. Not always, but
| its a good rule of thumb to keep. Children stories will therefore
| have child-protagonists more often than not (Polar Express, Lion
| Witch Wardrobe, Harry Potter). There are exceptions (Peanuts has
| child protagonists but is largely written for an adult audience),
| but its just the rule of thumb authors seem to use.
| smbv wrote:
| Some analysis is lacking (some that things that I'd consider to
| be important to expand upon are left as is at one sentence, such
| as the crocodile and the clock), but enjoyable nonetheless. Kudos
| to you!
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