The Price of Peace Reflection
Author’s Notes/Reflection: Well, if you’re reading this, then you’ve likely finished the story. As a result, I would think you are probably a bit depressed. I understand. Actually, I wanted all readers of this story to get a bit depressed after reading it (After all, I am arguing against the structure of this society, which contains dystopian elements of our own). Before I explain what went into creating “The Price of Peace”, I want to discuss my motives for writing the story (Other than the fact, that Mr. Vergien assigned my class this project). For a while now, I’ve wanted to sort of illustrate a dystopian society that, for at least some portion of time, was truly, unarguably, without a doubt, a perfect society. However, I knew that the society had to have dystopian elements so that it would actually be a dystopia. Plus, I wanted to put dystopian elements into the story that were present in the contemporary world. It was then I thought, “What if I do create a legitimately perfect society? What if, instead of there being a dystopian element that directly characterizes the society, the society was instead, dystopian in it’s creation, ultimate fate, and maintenance?” From there I started building upon these ideas, and decided on what exactly were the things I wanted to convey to the reader through my story (I’ll elaborate on this later).
“The Price of Peace” started out as a personal desire to illustrate my personal perceptions and philosophies of the world, and was set in motion when I found some inspiration from reading Japanese Manga (Naruto, if you’re really that curious). In the manga, a villain (Pain/Pein/Nagato) claims to be trying to create a weapon that will instill fear in the hearts of all people. As a result, the villain thinks that he will be able to bring about some semblance of peace to the world through the fear that the weapon would instill. After reading this, I thought that it would make for an awesome dystopian society, if there actually was some sort of great weapon that would bring about some sort of peace. The name “Etherion” actually came from another manga that I’ve been reading called, Fairy Tail. I just thought that the weapon in the manga represented such a frightening power, which would make a perfect name for the weapon in “The Price of Peace”.
At this point, I had almost everything set up. I knew what the dystopia would be like, and how, at the end of the book, I wanted my protagonist to act as his own antagonist, and fire Etherion. The problem was, after I described Chishiki waking up in the morning (Part 1), I couldn’t figure out for the life of me how he would go from being this sweet innocent kid, to a mentally traumatized person who fires Etherion. Eventually, I realized that I couldn’t get a kid to realistically make such a dramatic decision, regardless of the circumstances. Similarly, I wanted to describe the peaceful stage of society a bit more, and work on developing some characters.
It was then that I decided to stop writing out the actual story, and created a full storyboard to roughly outline the plot. It was in creating the storyboard, that I thought, “How cool would it be if I developed a love interest for Chishiki. Then, at the end, when he fires Etherion, the moment will be all the more impactful since he will have abandoned even love to guide humanity into a false peace.” Thus, I created the leading female character, Sydney. When making her character, I felt like she had to be involved with Chishiki before the timeskip. I had to show that these two had a history together, and that their love for each other was serious and mature.
I wanted to make sure that Chishiki was exposed to the concept of pain and fear while he was young. That way, I could strategically place a time skip, that would allow the seeds planted in Chishiki as a kid, to have grown into his mentality as an adult. Back to the planting of my metaphorical seeds: I knew that the event which exposed Chishiki had to be something laughable to the readers. This was simply because I wanted something insignificant to readers, to seem like a huge deal to this completely peaceful society. The purpose was to provide contrast, and show that A. this society must be peaceful if this is the greatest of their problems. And B. Regardless of the time it takes, eventually man will be provoked to falter (which is part of the bigger theme in “The Price of Peace”, which shows that the dystopian society, much like our own, is not simply the village of the Agnoia, but the cycle that man creates with the weapon). I finally came to the conclusion that I would dress up a simple issue with a raccoon, as a huge deal, concerning a terrifying beast.
Another thing I knew that I would do with this story, is use symbolism. In honor of Japanese (pop) culture providing such heavy inspiration for my story to begin with, I gave my protagonist a Japanese name. “Chishiki” is Japanese for “knowledge”. Why? I wanted to show that even as the symbol/embodiment for/of knowledge, people still will falter, inevitably. I wanted to show that even the best of Humanity would fail. Just as well, every other weird name in my story is taken from a different language to show that regardless of culture, ALL humans are naturally imperfect, and incapable of obtaining real, perfect, and pure peace. Some of the other languages include, Telugu, Russian, Swahili, Hebrew, and Finnish. I’ll leave it up to you to figure out which names belong to which language, and what the respective translation is.
Now, while I tried to make this story incompatible with feminist criticisms however, I'm not too sure I really achieved that. My reasoning behind this, is (A) Sydney is so heavily attached to Chishiki, making her seem dependent on him, and (B) Sydney also represents my argument against this type of society where humanity ultimately fall into taking the easy way out with Etherion (war). In contrast , I made sure that Marxist and Psychoanalytical criticisms could be applied to the story, namely with the motives and thought processes of the various characters.
Finally, I primarily wrote this story to argue against and show the hypocracy in using war as a means to achieve peace. Etherion itself is symbolic of war. Like war, the weapon is always an option for humanity, and can be so tempting of an option since it is so easy and enticing. Yet, I had to show that Etherion, while sounding good in theory, could only lead to further pain. To emphasize this, I incorporated many elements into the story such as the journey of the sun to show that while Etherion (war), would only continue a society where pain was inevitable, and humanity would forever be confined to a cycle of pain. I also used the cyclical elements in my story to show that ultimately humanity is far from perfect, and will, without fail, continue to doom itself to an endless cycle of pain.
“The Price of Peace” started out as a personal desire to illustrate my personal perceptions and philosophies of the world, and was set in motion when I found some inspiration from reading Japanese Manga (Naruto, if you’re really that curious). In the manga, a villain (Pain/Pein/Nagato) claims to be trying to create a weapon that will instill fear in the hearts of all people. As a result, the villain thinks that he will be able to bring about some semblance of peace to the world through the fear that the weapon would instill. After reading this, I thought that it would make for an awesome dystopian society, if there actually was some sort of great weapon that would bring about some sort of peace. The name “Etherion” actually came from another manga that I’ve been reading called, Fairy Tail. I just thought that the weapon in the manga represented such a frightening power, which would make a perfect name for the weapon in “The Price of Peace”.
At this point, I had almost everything set up. I knew what the dystopia would be like, and how, at the end of the book, I wanted my protagonist to act as his own antagonist, and fire Etherion. The problem was, after I described Chishiki waking up in the morning (Part 1), I couldn’t figure out for the life of me how he would go from being this sweet innocent kid, to a mentally traumatized person who fires Etherion. Eventually, I realized that I couldn’t get a kid to realistically make such a dramatic decision, regardless of the circumstances. Similarly, I wanted to describe the peaceful stage of society a bit more, and work on developing some characters.
It was then that I decided to stop writing out the actual story, and created a full storyboard to roughly outline the plot. It was in creating the storyboard, that I thought, “How cool would it be if I developed a love interest for Chishiki. Then, at the end, when he fires Etherion, the moment will be all the more impactful since he will have abandoned even love to guide humanity into a false peace.” Thus, I created the leading female character, Sydney. When making her character, I felt like she had to be involved with Chishiki before the timeskip. I had to show that these two had a history together, and that their love for each other was serious and mature.
I wanted to make sure that Chishiki was exposed to the concept of pain and fear while he was young. That way, I could strategically place a time skip, that would allow the seeds planted in Chishiki as a kid, to have grown into his mentality as an adult. Back to the planting of my metaphorical seeds: I knew that the event which exposed Chishiki had to be something laughable to the readers. This was simply because I wanted something insignificant to readers, to seem like a huge deal to this completely peaceful society. The purpose was to provide contrast, and show that A. this society must be peaceful if this is the greatest of their problems. And B. Regardless of the time it takes, eventually man will be provoked to falter (which is part of the bigger theme in “The Price of Peace”, which shows that the dystopian society, much like our own, is not simply the village of the Agnoia, but the cycle that man creates with the weapon). I finally came to the conclusion that I would dress up a simple issue with a raccoon, as a huge deal, concerning a terrifying beast.
Another thing I knew that I would do with this story, is use symbolism. In honor of Japanese (pop) culture providing such heavy inspiration for my story to begin with, I gave my protagonist a Japanese name. “Chishiki” is Japanese for “knowledge”. Why? I wanted to show that even as the symbol/embodiment for/of knowledge, people still will falter, inevitably. I wanted to show that even the best of Humanity would fail. Just as well, every other weird name in my story is taken from a different language to show that regardless of culture, ALL humans are naturally imperfect, and incapable of obtaining real, perfect, and pure peace. Some of the other languages include, Telugu, Russian, Swahili, Hebrew, and Finnish. I’ll leave it up to you to figure out which names belong to which language, and what the respective translation is.
Now, while I tried to make this story incompatible with feminist criticisms however, I'm not too sure I really achieved that. My reasoning behind this, is (A) Sydney is so heavily attached to Chishiki, making her seem dependent on him, and (B) Sydney also represents my argument against this type of society where humanity ultimately fall into taking the easy way out with Etherion (war). In contrast , I made sure that Marxist and Psychoanalytical criticisms could be applied to the story, namely with the motives and thought processes of the various characters.
Finally, I primarily wrote this story to argue against and show the hypocracy in using war as a means to achieve peace. Etherion itself is symbolic of war. Like war, the weapon is always an option for humanity, and can be so tempting of an option since it is so easy and enticing. Yet, I had to show that Etherion, while sounding good in theory, could only lead to further pain. To emphasize this, I incorporated many elements into the story such as the journey of the sun to show that while Etherion (war), would only continue a society where pain was inevitable, and humanity would forever be confined to a cycle of pain. I also used the cyclical elements in my story to show that ultimately humanity is far from perfect, and will, without fail, continue to doom itself to an endless cycle of pain.