La educación como proceso de flexibilidad religiosa

The original Needle is the story of an average teenage boy named Robert “Bob” Kinnaird, whose body is inhabited by an intergalactic police officer known as the Hunter. Coming from an alien species of small, amorphous symbionts,273

creatures that inhabit hosts in mutually beneficial relationships, the Hunter also confers upon Bob rapid regeneration from even fatal wounds, among other abilities. Bob agrees to aid in its mission, to find a criminal symbiont known as the Killer, and together the two engage in a mutual relationship of learning and discovery about their respective species. Through investigation and logical

273. Referred to as “symbiotes” in Needle, Clement would correct this error in the sequel, Through the Eyeof a Needle and change it to “symbionts.” For the sake of consistency, this essay also uses “symbionts” to refer to not only the alien beings of Clement’s novels but also the unnamed aliens of 7 Billion Needles. Hal Clement, Through the Eye of a Needle, Kindle Edition (London: The Orion Publishing Group, 2011), accessed May 8, 2013, http://www.amazon.com/ dp/B005OAHE7I.

deduction, the two ultimately find the Killer, driving it out and eliminating it. The story concludes with the Hunter deciding to remain in Bob’s body and the two continuing their partnership.

The use of the term “average” to describe Bob in the summary above spe- cifically refers to his design as a naturally inquisitive boy who is fairly athletic, reasonably intelligent, well-liked, and has a core group of friends. Average not only in character traits but also disposition in that he lacks any sort of signifi- cant emotional duress by default, he is “neutral” in value to a post-World War II American audience of science fiction readers as a means to primarily emphasize the novum. This novum, shared by both Needle and 7BN, asks what would hap- pen if symbiotic aliens lived within us and influenced their hosts both physically (through changes in biology) and mentally (the act of learning), but while the first volume of 7BN follows a roughly similar narrative progression as Needle, the mangaalso discards the “neutral protagonist.” Even though the manga follows the same basic premise (with the Japanese teenage girl Takabe Hikaru replac- ing Bob, and the equivalents of the Hunter and the Killer being referred to as “Horizon” and “Maelstrom” respectively), the differences between Hikaru and Bob alone create a markedly different context for the novum. In contrast to Bob, Hikaru mentally and emotionally shuts out the world around her, has trouble ini- tiating conversations, is at odds with her teachers and classmates, and must deal with the traumatic loss of both of her parents, especially her father’s. Hikaru, though she is in some respects also an average existence, is not a blank slate for the novum to show its effects. Rather, she acts as someone whose specific problems greatly alter her perspective before she ever encounters any extrater- restrial life.

The psychological differences between Hikaru and Bob are evident in the ways they are presented to the reader. Figure 5.1274 _{comes from Hikaru’s}

first appearance in 7BN and immediately presents her as an individual who approaches the world and her own trauma primarily through her emotions. Hikaru’s physical body repeats throughout, contrasting with the background due to the fact that everything else is comprised primarily of “gray” screentones while Hikaru’s figure consists mainly of solid blacks and whites. Every other panel features her facing in the same direction, towards the left edge of the page. The panels themselves bleed to that edge, so her stare appears to go fur-

ther out. On the page, one panel is clearly the largest, but it is matched in overall size and position by the column of panels to its left, rendering both columns as equally significant on the page and generating a sense of importance of Hikaru’s internal world over the environment around her. The repetition of her figure con- trasting against the background, the subtle range of facial expressions, and her words, which suggest a sort of nostalgia or reminiscence, all work to create the sense of an individual who is actually quite emotional but tries hard to appear otherwise. For the last panel in figure 5.1, the use of white in contrast to the dark sky in the other panels lends more significance to Hikaru’s thoughts about an island, which she is referencing as a part of her past.

Figure 5.1. The page composition draws attention to Hikaru’s emotions, and how they define her character. Source: Tadano Nobuaki, 7 Billion Needles, vol. 1 (New York: Vertical, Inc., 2010), 5.

7BN establishes Hikaru as someone who lives by her emotions first, reacting very personally and many times even selfishly to her environment and circumstances. Before she even becomes aware of the symbiotic aliens, Hikaru is shown to deliberately distance her- self both mentally and physically from the people around her, notably through the use of three key visual motifs as seen in figure 5.2: a distant gaze, a tendency to look sideways to avoid eye contact, and a pair of headphones. These traits become not only the focus of many of the panels in which she is present, but also act as a way of dictating the flow of the page through the direction of her gaze (a common technique in manga), for example by having the gaze lead directly into the next panel, which also has the effect of emphasizing Hikaru’s inner feelings, unstated or otherwise.

Figure 5.2. A variety of visual motifs indicate Hikaru’s willful isolation. Source: Tadano Nobuaki,

7 Billion Needles vol. 1 (New York: Vertical, Inc., 2010), 14-15.

In comparison, Needle describes Bob so as to emphasize his well-adjusted disposition and the relative ease of his everyday life:

To the boy the return to school, assignment to a room, and meeting with old acquaintances were by now familiar, but to the Hunter every activity and every- thing he saw and heard were of absorbing interest…. He looked and listened almost feverishly as Bob went to his room, unpacked, and then wandered about the dormitory meeting friends from former terms.275

275. Hal Clement, “Needle,” The Essential Hal Clement Volume 1: Trio for Slide Rule and Typewriter

. . .

Robert Kinnaird had been a member of the school foot- ball team during the fall…. Bob, reconstructing one of the more exciting moments of the game to prove his point in an argument, slipped and twisted an ankle severely enough to put him to bed for several days.276

7BN consistently juxtaposes science fictional extrapolation of its novum with a protagonist whose rejection of the world gives her a specific perspective that runs counter to the ideal SF protagonist for whom curiosity is central to their function as the everyman. Bob, as an “average” teenage boy, is assumed to be a neutral subject for the thought exercise that is the alien cohabitation of the human. Hikaru, however, presents a different case, where her traumas make her interpretations of and responses to the presence of an alien in her body a product of her particular circumstances, which are then also altered by the process of symbiosis in specific ways.

In both Needle and 7BN, there is a point at which the symbiont successfully establishes verbal contact. The exact mechanisms by which this is accomplished in each story differ,277 _{but the important distinction between the two narratives}

in regards to the interaction of psychology and emotion with the novum comes from how they react to this knowledge. Although Bob is initially shocked by the presence of the Hunter, their first meeting establishes the inquisitiveness and tendency towards investigation of both the characters and the narrative of Needle as described above. After proving its existence, Bob asks the Hunter, “Wh-who are you? And where are you? And how-?” The story proceeds to point out that “questions flooded into his mind faster than he could utter them,”278

suggesting that curiosity is his first response. In figures 5.3 and 5.4,279 _however,

Hikaru’s reaction is significantly different: after Horizon explains its existence and why it inhabits her body,280 _{Hikaru says, “What’s with this voice? Get out of}

276. Clement, “Needle,” 45.

277. The Hunter modifies Bob’s sense of sight to perceive specific words and images, while Horizon vibrates Hikaru’s eardrums to simulate speech.

278. Clement, “Needle,” 59. 279. Also appearing as figure 4.15.

my ears! Leave me alone!”281 _{Hikaru’s default response is rejection and retreat,}

showing how her personal difficulties overwhelm her everyday life even when confronted with such a highly unusual situation, altering the meaning of the close encounter with a symbiont. The manga presents Hikaru’s rejection of Horizon as a moment of interaction between her psychology and the novum, building up to that exclamation through a heavy visual emphasis on Hikaru’s perception of their first meeting. This perception derives not so much from fear over an alien being in her body, but fear with respect to the idea of letting others get close to her.

Figure 5.3. Hikaru reacts to the alien’s presence primarily in terms of her desire to maintain her isolation (part 1). Source: Tadano Nobuaki, 7 Billion Needles, vol. 1 (New York: Vertical, Inc., 2010), 26-27.

resides in Hikaru to repair her body in compensation.

Figure 5.4. Hikaru reacts to the alien’s presence primarily in terms of her desire to maintain her isolation (part 2). Source: Tadano Nobuaki, 7 Billion Needles vol. 1 (New York: Vertical, Inc., 2010), 28-29.

In figures 5.3 and 5.4, Hikaru is initially shown with headphones on and a surprised look on her face, standing against a black background. This sole black panel on the right side of figure 5.3 creates a visual contrast between it and the pre- dominantly white panels on the rest of the page, while also acting as one of many panels strewn throughout the manga which in context highlight Hikaru’s isolation and emotional distance. The panels become increasingly less rectangular while also containing close-ups of Hikaru, a combination which extends into figure 5.4, depicting a growing sense of tension and unease in Hikaru, as well as an inability to return to her normal, closed-off mental state. In this context, Hikaru’s removal of her headphones in figure 5.3 is the beginning of a change in Hikaru that forces her to confront her continued resistance against opening up to others because the act inadvertently exposes her to the cacophony of conversation happening around her, the very outside world that she tries to avoid. On the very next page Horizon manages

to speak to Hikaru anyway, showing how Horizon is a part of Hikaru, thus rendering her self-imposed isolation physically and literally impossible. As Horizon bypasses Hikaru’s headphones, one of the symbols of her rejection of others, the visualization of their encounter also shows how her subsequent shock and dismay is not so much the result of an alien entity living inside her, but more from a being trespassing upon the closed-off mental and emotional world that Hikaru has delineated for herself.

Through these pages, 7BN firmly establishes that Hikaru is not the naturally inquisitive type that Bob is, and resists the science fictional world in a way that is in fact rather uncommon in traditional SF and utopian fiction. As stated in Chapter 3.2, although there is often a moment of shock for an observational character in utopian and science fiction, such resistance is generally a means of showing how different the world is (in other words, the means towards cognitive estrangement), and gives the protagonist an opportunity to learn about and adapt to it, as is the case with Bob in Needle. With Hikaru in 7BN, however, the idea of the human-alien symbiotic rela- tionship is not presented in a desired neutral or objective fashion open to the science fictional concepts contained within, but is rather continuously processed and filtered through Hikaru’s individual psychology. When presented with something new and unreal, Hikaru is shown defining that experience largely in terms of her personal values derived from those seemingly irrational emotions (as opposed to Bob’s more overtly scientific and logical mindset), which in turn affects her interactions with the alien symbionts by factoring her psychology into them. Hikaru’s self-centered nature is thus evocative of sekai-kei,282 _{as well as its young adult SF counterpart, the self-cen-}

tered, “you-me” story type as described by Farah Mendlesohn.283 _{In fact, Hikaru as a}

character is based on a previous work from Tadano, Hikikomori Headphone Girl, about a girl who also isolates herself from the world and her life-changing encounter with a mysterious boy.284 _{At the same time, 7BN also results in an exploration more complex}

than Mendlesohn’s “you-me” label is meant to imply. Rather than simply presenting Hikaru as the center of the world or encouraging a non-scientific or ignorant approach to that world, 7BN uses Hikaru as a different type of protagonist to process the com- plexities of its concept and setting in terms of her subjective point of view.

282. Azuma Hiroki, Game-teki Realism no tanjō: Dōbutsuka suru Postmodern 2 [The birth of game- like realism: the animalizing postmodern 2] (Tokyo: Kodansha, 2007), 96.

283. Farah Mendlesohn, The Inter-Galactic Playground: A Critical Study of Children’s and Teens’ Science Fiction (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009), 15.

284. Tadano Nobuaki, “Hikikomori Headphone Girl,” in 7 Billion Needles, vol. 4 (New York: Vertical, Inc., 2011), 152-182.