Here Be Dragons or: NUCLEAR YINYANG

August 6, 2024

I: HERE BE DRAGONS – Endless

“I wouldst call thee foolish… But thou art mortal. Thou cannot go against thy nature, no more than a fish could walketh upon the firmament.”

–Fou-Lu

Eager explorers would find all manner of beasts illustrated on ancient maps – the most common of these beasts were Dragons. “Here Be Dragons,” the cartographers of antiquity would say before they inked fire-breathers upon lands that many explored but never returned from. These Dragons served as a warning to esurient explorers who wished to make a name for themselves, and the warning was clear: be careful what you wish for because you just might wake a sleeping Dragon.

The explorers in this story were called They Who Pass.

They Who Pass were like You and I, and they toil and torment amidst their short lives. Their primeval instincts reached for something more, and they sought it out like infants drawn to forbidden doors; magic of fire, water, air, and earth – but these things brought only momentary mirth, for they coveted even more; and through their toil and torment, they found They Who Endure.

They Who Endure were Endless and Dragon and Godlike, and in their realm they took weird form and played like summer children without a care in their cosmic voids. But the mortals became proud and esurient, and in their insatiable-wanting they spun dark rituals to pluck the Endless from their places of old.

But the mortals’ profane incantations were flawed, and in their enochian attempt to summon the Yorae Dragon – the mightiest of all Endless – they sundered the Dragon God in twain and voided his halves through time and space.

The first-half was named Fou-Lu – Yin to Yang. He was incomplete, but his power was immeasurable. Fou-Lu took the form of a snowy-haired youth. He had a cold emerald gaze and he draped himself in royal colors. He was stoic and determined with a quietus in his wake that beget respect from all around him. Fou-Lu was loved and feared by all.

The second-half was named Ryu – Yang to Yin. He was incomplete and six-hundred-years late. Ryu was weak but bursting with potential; a blank slate. Ryu took the form of an ocean-haired youth. He had a gaze like the clear waters on a secret beach and he draped himself in the garb of the everyman. He was buoyant, boundless and spread hope to all those around him. Ryu was loved and revered by all.

*Fou-Lu stands before (forgotten promise)

During Fou-Lu’s time, the mortal tribes waged perpetual war through magic and steel. The sensible ones prayed to Fou-Lu to bring about a world with no suffering – a utopia. Fou-Lu heard their pleas and, through his great power and charisma, forged the violent tribes into an Empire.

Thus, Fou-Lu became the First Emperor of the Fou Empire. And he made a promise of peace to his people, and his people made the same promise back to him.

However, the unification was a strain on Fou-Lu, for he was incomplete. Drained, Fou-Lu fell into a deep slumber; if at first he dreamt of utopia, his dreams soon piped into chaos; as the mortals, without Fou-Lu’s guidance, slowly returned to their wicked ways, and this darkness crept into Fou-Lu’s hibernation, hexing the sleeping god’s slumber.

They Who Pass became proud and esurient once more – or maybe they always were.

II: INTERLUDE – Swan Song

“I see thy memories of thy journeys with the mortals as clearly as if they were mine own.”

–Fou-Lu

This is the part where we take a breather.

If you made it past all the amateur, cringe-inducing attempts at prose-poetry, then – other than deserving praise – you are giving me far too much credit as a writer and should probably stop before disappointment sets in. But if you insist on this folly, I want to take this swan song interlude to talk about my personal history with Breath of Fire IV and discuss some of its more literal aspects.

This is the part where – if you have played Breath of Fire IV – I will now be either confirming your personal biases or shattering them to the point where you leave a comment like, “well, actually, Breath of Fire combat is completely different from Dragon Quest because you get to pick who attacks first and also the song you said that uses a sitar actually uses a tanpura,” while never engaging with the real meat of the essay – and to those commenters: I thank you for keeping me on-point with my fact-checking game.

It would be easy to say that the Breath of Fire series is Capcom’s answer to Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, and in many ways that is not entirely incorrect. Each game features turn-based combat and a diverse cast of unique characters ranging from anthropomorphic animals to angst-ridden teenagers and they all take place in whimsical fantasy realms full of swords-and-sorcery and sometimes-science-fiction; and, most importantly, they are all role-playing games made by Japanese developers. The Breath of Fire series, however, showed up late to the party; it took six years to manifest after the original Final Fantasy in 1987, which itself was inspired by Dragon Quest, both of which firmly cemented the role-playing genre into the cultural milieu of Japan and, eventually, the world. But instead of pulling-a-Gary by reciting the entire history of the genre – which would be even more boring than the essay you are reading right now – you can simply look it up yourself or watch a video on the subject; in fact, you may be able to find a video created by this same publication.^#1

To be honest with all zero of our readers, I have moved beyond caring about reciting historical facts about stuff-and-things; not only does it feel encyclopedic, but also feels fraudulent. I wasn’t there so the best I can do is pretend to know things based on hand-me-downs and telephone-games. And Wikipedia is available to anyone with an internet connection.

I prefer to focus on what a psychologist may be asking me in ten years’ time, that being: “… and how does that make you feel?” And my feelings for Breath of Fire IV span over a decade and cannot be contained within a Wikipedia article or even within the words you are reading now – my feelings are immeasurable and timeless.

*spin in a ring of past – I dive through (memories) that are locked around thee^#2

When I first played Breath of Fire IV, I was in a very weird place. I lived in a rented apartment with two other people, one of whom was my ex-girlfriend, and the other was my best friend. I was addicted to prescription Adderall and worked until midnight at a call center five-days-a-week. I would get home from troubleshooting cheap coffee makers over the phone, pop some amphetamine salts, and play computer games while listening to shoegaze music until I got tired – and getting-tired was hard to do on the prescription version of very-hard-drugs. All the while I would smoke half a pack of cigarettes in the house thus staining the walls yellow with nicotine and angst.

I didn’t care and at the time: nobody cared. Best friends turned to enemies and girlfriends to ex-girlfriends and clean homes to dumpy homes and happy children to failed adults and this-rules to this-fucking-sucks and Yin to Yang and debit-cards to overdraft fees. We retreated into our rooms and listened for footsteps outside the door so that we could time our bathroom-and-kitchen-excursions perfectly as to avoid crossing paths with each other because we lived together for too long and our quirks were just too much and we were tired of talking or even seeing one another. We were also on drugs and perpetually fucked up.

It was always “why don’t you take out the trash?” and “why don’t you clean your room?” and “stop punching holes in the wall” and “your dog shit in the living room again” and “you owe me three months’ rent” and “why did you kick my door down?” and “clean the dishes after you make dinner” and “why didn’t you tell me your toilet was leaking?” and “there’s a bedsheet over the doorway because I can’t afford a new door” and “why do we suddenly owe the water company two thousand dollars?” and “stop having loud sex with your boyfriend in the living room” and smoking weed every waking hour of the day.

We moved out of our parents’ homes too quickly and the universe tried its damndest to make us responsible adults, but like fitting the big triangle-piece into the eye socket of a rigored corpse, it was not happening and we continued to decay and maggots were starting to show up.

If the experience taught me anything, it was that you should never rent an apartment with your best friend, and you should certainly neverever rent an apartment with a girl who cheated on you twice but promised that they were a “changed person and it was just a weird time in my life and I will neverever do it again and I love you so much baby.”

Neverever.

During this epoch of weirdness, on a whim, I decided to play Breath of Fire IV – which had been given to me by an old high school acquaintance. The jewel case glistened like a ray of hope amongst the grime of the apartment and I was instantly transfixed. Looking back, I wasn’t sure if it was the Adderall or the chronic or the game itself or all-of-the-above – but, all those years ago, it seemed like Breath of Fire IV was the best game I had ever played.

I needed to be sure so I booted up Breath of Fire IV in the here-and-now and quickly discovered that I had to be married to the wind and the rain and the dark^#3 to fully appreciate this beautiful heart attack of a computer game – and it just so happened that my thirty-third anniversary to the wind and the rain and the dark was just around the corner.

*2D-3D alchemical diorama and (dark below)

Breath of Fire IV is a blend of three-dimensional environments and two-dimensional sprites that should not work together yet these competing styles fit like Yin and Yang and create a diorama-effect that is both dream-like and beautiful; and, like the in-game city of Astana, this beauty belies a hidden darkness, highlighted by the three-sixty camera that lends itself to secrets-around-every-corner. The sprites within this windy diorama are hand-drawn and shaded to perfection by those whose only philosophy in life is pure pixel poetry. The music, a heroic mix of Western-influenced string and wind instruments,^#4 Eastern-tinged drum-and-bass complete with sitar and chanting,^#5 and jazz billowing with bells and breeze,^#6 places Breath of Fire IV firmly between SaGa Frontier 2 and Final Fantasy VIII in terms of Greatest-Computer-Game-Soundtracks-Ever-Made. And the animation, lo! – the animation; the characters move with such elegant wind-up and execution that every input has a hair-raising excitement baked-in that never gets stale – both in and out of battle.

The disparate elements of Breath of Fire IV combine into a computer game so spellbinding that one would be forgiven for thinking that some sort of Ancient Computer Game God crafted it from pure dreamstuff and raw thunderbolts.

But the Ancient God of Computer Games skimped on the actual gameplay, as Breath of Fire IV does little to expand on the standard turn-based combat of its contemporaries besides turning every character into a monster-magic-learning Blue Mage^#7 and incorporating a turn-management style that allows any party member to attack in any given order on any given turn. And although complete with fancy combo attacks and flashy Dragon cutscenes that are satisfying if not a bit derivative of Neo-Bahamut-Does-The-Laser-Again,^#8 Breath of Fire IV combat still feels a little too close to the simplicity of Dragon Quest to provide any significant strategic depth. Furthermore, the inclusion of constant, repetitive mini-games undermines some of the game’s more exciting moments – especially when those mini-games determine the strength of your main character’s Dragon forms; a game design decision that only seems like a good idea after consecutive head bonks and morphine treatment.

In short, Breath of Fire IV is a devastatingly beautiful nightmare game that is – like all computer games – a little bit repetitive in the best ways possible but also verily beyond words and, being released two months after the death of the PlayStation, is truly a swan song for both the console and my leaving a really bad situation whilst being over two thousand dollars in debt to the Brunswick Water and Sewer Commission.

III: HERE BE DRAGONS – Hex

“A weapon so powerful… that simply using it dost place them in jeopardy? Verily… their folly is greater than even I hadst thought.”

–Fou-Lu

The Fou Empire, without its founder, deteriorated into violent psychosis – or what might be called: the normal human condition.

Those Who Pass believed that they knew the slumbering god’s secrets and they bickered endlessly on the minutiae of things until one man took up a sword and declared himself the next Emperor of the Fou Empire. Through jingoism and jazz, the second Emperor of the Fou Empire came to power, and then the third, and the fourth, and so on; with each succession, the Fou Empire fell further from Fou-Lu’s utopian ideal.

Soniel – the 13th Emperor of the Fou Empire – was an esurient, cowardly man who cared only for his own desires. During Soniel’s era, he launched many efforts to conquer the nations of the Eastern continent: Wyndia, Ludia, and Worrent. To this end, he assembled a sinister team of sorcerers and scientists to develop the most nightmarish weapon ever devised. The Carronade, a gigantic cannon erected in the middle of the vibrant city of Astana.

Astana was second only to the capital city of Chedo in terms of beauty; built from jade, splashed with koi ponds, and fortified by Dragon-adorned walls. Astana’s beauty belied a profound ugliness underneath its foundation – the bloodstained torture chambers of the Carronade.

The Carronade – run by the wicked geneticist Yuna – was powered by people; the emotional suffering and psychic torment of real, fleshy people.

*a sacrifice – with loves and hates and passions just like mine^#9 – stamped for (death)

The Carronade fired a malefic Hex from the accumulated psychic torment of its sacrificial lambs. The Hex not only caused immediate destruction but also left a fallout of extrasensory terror radiating outward for miles from the blast zone. Like Nuclear Yinyang without the Yin and the Yang and just the godawful smell of human flesh and screaming.

The Fou Empire made liberal use of the Carronade against their enemies, and the Eastern nations – historically opposed to the Fou Empire – rallied together in a shaky union against this terrible weapon, but the Carronade was too powerful and the Eastern nations had no choice but to declare a ceasefire as they negotiated terms of surrender with their Hexers.

However, the Fou Empire had a problem; the main drawback of the Carronade was that the ammunition – the human meat – was fragile, weak, and perished easily; but what if the sacrifice was like the Endless – what if the ammunition was immortal?

Chief Geneticist Yuna had already considered this problem and had been toiling away on a secret solution; he had formulated a way to create his own Endless – his own They Who Endure. But much like the summoning of the Yorae Dragon from bygone days, the ritual was flawed and painful and required a person with great resolve, a strong heart, and an intense emotional connection to the Fou Empire’s greatest enemies.

Princess Elina of Wyndia would be the perfect specimen. Her love would be turned into a nuclear bomb.

Yuna had Princess Elina kidnapped, transported to Astana, and forced into the bowels of its bloody underworld. The Princess was taken beyond the torture chamber, through the sewers, and into Yuna’s laboratory. And she was violated.

Princess Elina writhed in pain as her body was mutilated through surgery and sorcery.

*heart of darkness (if you love me – kill me)

The ritual changed Princess Elina’s body in profound ways. Her organs grew so large that they burst from her stomach and she became a heaping pile. She possessed the guts of giants without the skin to contain them. Her bowels grew so quickly that she was placed in a bed with a hole extending into the sewers, allowing her intestinal kudzu to slop through the hole and grow unfettered. She turned the sewers into an ocean of blood and pus and intestinal juices crashing like the waves of a heinous storm.

Yuna, in his mad science, created his own Dragon, but he did not heed the cartographer’s warning; he ventured into dangerous territory and now the real Dragons were coming.

IV: INTERLUDE – Re: Swan Song

“The mortals art ignorant, prideful animals… they doth lie to one another… their folly is immeasurable.”

–Fou-Lu

Let us take another breather.

If you are still with us, you have been reading about torture and women being transformed into sperm-whale-sized-organ-farms-that-power-gigantic-death-cannons for almost two thousand words. By this point, you are likely wondering why the imagery for all the body-horror-stuff was so much more vivid than the rest of the writing, and you may be thinking to yourself, “this author needs professional help.”

And that is a risk I continue to take every time I write one of these essays. I like writing about evil-nasty-weird stuff and sometimes I like to think real hard about that stuff too.^#10 But there’s always a greater point to be made; surely, I am not just writing about bloated women to get off, right?

I suppose you will have to keep reading to find out.

During our last swan song interlude, we talked about many things – I even gave some gameplay-related opinions that veered into the lane of negativity, but worry not, dear zero-readers, for those gripes were minor, as gameplay – like life – is what you make it,^#11 and besides: Breath of Fire IV has the best fishing mini-game of any Japanese role-playing game ever; with over ten unique fishing spots, thirty different types of fish to catch, a plethora of bait and tackle options, and a very serious technique system centered around reeling in your fishing line in time with the beat of the background music.

*Ryu, fishing for (friendship)

During my time with Breath of Fire IV, I did a lot of fishing. And during this fishing, I did a lot of thinking. I took a lot of notes. I was going to write the best essay anyone ever wrote about Breath of Fire IV. It was going to be deep and interesting. I was going to make surprising connections and uncover real Dragons along the way, and I would get so much praise that I would win an award or something. Here Be Dragons or: NUCLEAR YINYANG was going to be a real page-turner.

But when I started writing, I couldn’t put my thoughts in order, and this mess came out – was it writer’s block? No – I don’t think so. I realized that – like Vegeta to Goku and Fou-Lu to Ryu and Gary to Ash and Yin to Yang and Tanuki to Kitsune – I needed a rival.

Without a rival, I rust in complacency. Without a rival, there’s nothing worth competing with. Without a rival, there’s nothing worth comparing myself to. Without a rival, I am lost – I write paragraphs in which the last word of every sentence rhymes, and it is very-very-not-good.

Without a rival, I describe things as “very-very-not-good.”

There was once another writer for this publication. This other writer published several brilliant essays. This other writer was my best friend since high school; the same best friend I shared that apartment with all those years ago; the same apartment I played Breath of Fire IV in for the first time; the same apartment I stained the walls yellow with nicotine and angst.

This other writer is gone now.

We got into an argument. We got into several arguments, but our final argument was different; it was calm and matter-of-fact, honest and hurtful, and there was a clear winner and a clear loser. There was a hex upon me; I was envious of his writing ability – always had been. He told me that he enjoyed one of my essays and I told him to stop lying to me. He would praise my writing and I would not believe him because his work was just so much better than mine; so much cleaner, the connections were more profound, and the subject matter was far more well-researched than anything I had ever written. When he told me that my writing was “good,” I felt like a young student being placated by a master.

I hated my own writing, and I hated my writing even more after reading his.

*battle with (cursed souls)

I stopped reading his work entirely because the envy became too much to bear and I became acutely aware of how pathetic I was and this awareness beget a great melancholy and I just wanted it to stop. People were dying in air raids across the oceans and I was sulking over a computer games blog with zero to two readers.

I was happier when I ignored him, but I would continue to compete with his specter, and, from that, I became an incrementally better writer, but I could never match his output – and we both knew that. I refused to believe that he would like my writing; there was no way in Hell that he thought my writing was even-remotely-decent when he was churning out beautiful prose at such a high level. My writing was childish in comparison and surely we both knew that.

This publication started as a fun hobby – how did it become so serious? Was it me? Was it my fault?

It was.

When I brought this up to him, he insisted that I was wrong. He insisted that my writing was better than his own and that I inspired him. But I never believed him; how could such a gifted writer be inspired by me – an absolute amateur? This contradiction became a mind virus that was resistant to any treatment. I believed my best friend was a liar, and the more he insisted otherwise, the more reinforced my beliefs became.

I told him that he was a liar – over and over again. I turned on the gas and struck the match but my insecurities were fireproof and it only burned our friendship to ashes.

The ouroboros raged on until our final argument, in which I told him, “I release you now – go away.” To which he responded “fucking Zarathustra type shit” and logged off. And then he was gone. He deleted all his writing and he blocked me everywhere and he vanished into the digital void and he was gone.

My psychic angst over this could power a Carronade.

If I begged you – would you come back? If you came back – would this just happen again?

I need you – not because I produce garbage without you, but because … I like you.

I don’t know if I learned my lesson. I don’t even know if I’m wrong about you. I do know, however, that if this essay is my swan song … it is worthless without you here to read it.

V: NUCLEAR YINYANG – Awakening

“Thou sayest thou wert waiting for us? Thou knowest of us and what we are then? … And knowing this, thou wouldst greet us with malice in thine heart and thine blade in hand?”

–Fou-Lu

Six-hundred years later, a Dragon descended into a dark world by way of a bright star. And when the fire died and the dust settled, there was only The Boy. In some versions of the story, The Boy was named Ryu – in others, The Boy was Yang, but in all versions: The Boy was You. He stood tabula rasa with his junk hanging out. And there was a smile on his face that said “everything is going to be alright” without saying anything at all; for he was mute and his actions spoke louder than words.

The Boy was a great favorite, and his naivety found him tagalong with a band of mortals searching for a missing friend. This was The Boy’s Bildungsroman. He witnessed the horrors of the Hex; the endless bloodshed of war; and all the suffering mortals inflicted upon each other for sport. He witnessed the tears of parents when their children perished from the Hex. He witnessed innocence and love and Yin and Yang and then he witnessed it snuffed out. Above all else, he witnessed moments of fleeting joy and these moments were made all the more precious by their very transience.

Clary-sage, daylily, and sundrop – they burst and bloom and then they’re gone. And there is beauty in this.

That is what The Boy learned.

But one thing stood out to The Boy – the greed of only a handful of powerful people was all it took to fire a Hex into a playground or turn a princess into pandemonium.

Children died in distant crossfire while those responsible turned a blind-eye and this upset The Boy.

But what should be done about those who crush the flowers underneath their heels? The Boy did not know the answer to this question, for he was incomplete – and so, he sought out his other half.

*presenting the (impressionable boy)

The Boy’s other half had just woke from a six-hundred-year slumber.

Fou-Lu intended to merge with his other half and take his place, once again, on the throne of the Fou Empire. The promise would be fulfilled – forever. To this end, Fou-Lu set his sights on the capital city of Chedo – there, he would take his place as God Emperor once more while he awaited The Boy.

Fou-Lu expected a festival in his honor but what he found was another awakening – a wizard and a legion of soldiers greeted him with malice in their hearts and blades in their hands. Mortals who propped themselves up as Gods while claiming that Gods were no longer needed had marked Fou-Lu for death. And during Fou-Lu’s slumber, these mortals devised ways to slay the Endless and make their own.

The mortals had forgotten the promise.

The wizard was strong, and Fou-Lu was forced to retreat into the skies, but this was anticipated and – summoning a great winged beast – the wizard sent Fou-Lu plummeting into the ground below.

Witnessing the crash, a peasant woman named Mami found the injured Fou-Lu and took him into her home. Mami’s beauty unfolded like the petals of a tulip and she was as gentle as the spring breeze. Fou-Lu lived with Mami for many moons and they became inseparable. Mami loved all things and, over time, she loved Fou-Lu most of all; and when they paired, she was filled with his divine energy.

During this time, Fou-Lu tended the fields; worked the hoe, shoveled dirt, and felt the transient joy of mortal life. But, like all things transient, it would not last.

A villager – jealous of Mami and Fou-Lu’s relationship – informed the Empire of Fou-Lu’s location. And soon, the wizard arrived with malice once more. Mami’s home was promptly surrounded by soldiers. Mami pleaded to the wizard that she was just a simple farmer but the wizard was not a fool and he could feel Fou-Lu’s divine presence within her.

Mami could not stand to see her love harmed, thus she barricaded the home and begged Fou-Lu to escape through the back. Thus, Fou-Lu was at a crossroads – his lover or the promise? If there were a third option, he did not consider it.

The wizard spelled his way through the flimsy barricade and the Dragon was nowhere to be seen. The wizard looked down at Mami, who was kneebound and sobbing, and – feeling the Dragon energy radiating from her – he grinned a wicked grin.

“This one will make a perfect sacrifice for the Carronade.”

Thus, her love would turn into a nuclear bomb. And the target was Fou-Lu.

*(love bombs) will sing you to sleep and you will dream of them^#12

Fou-Lu’s decision weighed heavily upon him but he was resolute to return to Chedo and fulfill the promise. They Who Pass were selfish and lazy and greedy,^#13 but he knew they could not go against their nature, no more than a fish could walketh upon the firmament. The mortals needed the guidance of a God to set them on the right course; this much was clear to Fou-Lu – until a malefic Hex fell upon him.

Nearing Chedo, a purple haze like a cloud of death descended upon Fou-Lu with the force of a small supernova and he was bound for the floor^#14 much like the bloody vomit that erupted from his mouth.

Then it hit him, from the sky; something like an acorn or a fallen star. Fou-Lu picked the fallen star from the ground and a manic fit of laughter possessed him like one of the heinous spirits floating upon the caustic winds of the Hex. It was not a fallen star or an acorn – it was Mami’s earring.

Fou-Lu realized then that the mortals used Mami’s love as a nuclear bomb and his uncontrollable laughter belied a wicked epiphany; he understood now that the mortals’ depravity knew no limits. The mortals were monstrous and the only help a God could give them was swift annihilation.

Fou-Lu survived the Hex, and filled with epiphany, arrived in Chedo like a black hole ready to devour the universe. He laid waste to the guards, who were powerless to stop him, and beheaded the traitorous Emperor Soniel without hesitation in a scene deemed too gory for North American audiences.^#15 Fou-Lu took the fallen crown from the Emperor’s severed head and placed it upon his own without a word.

In his first act as Emperor, Fou-Lu annihilated the capital city of Chedo. He did not discriminate between man, woman, or child. They were all found guilty. Fou-Lu would fulfill the promise the only way he believed possible – mortal liquidation.

VI: NUCLEAR YINYANG – Annihilation

“A dragon ’tis force of nature unto itself.”

–Fou-Lu

Chedo was once the bustling capital of the Fou Empire with a population of roughly one million. The buildings were adorned with jade, but their supports and foundation were built from wood-and-paper and thus highly combustible. Chedo was one of the Fou Empire’s largest ports, home to a massive concentration of wooden ships used for both trade and warfare. National highways and checkpoints ran through the city and merchants lined every street corner.

When the mystic fire fell upon Chedo, the galleons burned and the homes were reduced to ashes and the once carefree children who played in the streets were charred to black. Those who managed to escape the initial horror were chased by Fou-Lu’s faithful beast – A-Tur – and eaten alive. And this was only a fraction of Fou-Lu’s power – next, he would annihilate Astana, and then Pauk, then Sonne. His nuclear Yin would consume the mortal world and only silence would be left behind.

Chedo became the perfect kindling for a bonfire of human corpses.

We are finally here. I have been editing this essay for far too long, and it is still overwrought with exposition and cliché, but we have finally arrived at the good stuff.

Dear loyal zero-readers, are you ready?

When I wrote “Chedo” up there – I really meant Japan’s port town of Kobe; specifically, Kobe on March 16th and 17th of 1945: The United States firebombing of Kobe during World War II. In fact, most of that first paragraph was plagiarized from Wikipedia only with the city names swapped out.^#16

When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, it was The United States of America’s Mami moment, and their love and rage and sorrow became a fiery rain of death upon their foes.

U.S. intel suggested that Kobe’s wood-and-paper housing would make the perfect kindling for a reckoning and the immolation of civilians would cause great psychological harm to Japan’s collective psyche. Thus, the firebombing of Kobe was a deliberate attack upon Japanese civilians by The United States of America, and over 8,000 people died, and more than 650,000 homes were destroyed.^#17 There was a pretense that Kobe was a military town, but the firebombs did not discriminate between man, woman, soldier, civilian, or child.

The United States of America became The United States of Don’t Mess With Us Or We’ll Commit War Crimes On You And Face No Consequences.

*(no marigolds in the promised land) there’s a hole in the ground where they used to grow^#18

During World War II, hundreds of air raids targeting Japanese civilians were carried out by the United States. Many of these air raids were conducted by the U.S. 20th Air Force under the command of General Curtis LeMay. Targets were selected based on both military significance and psychological impact to the Japanese people, driven by LeMay’s personal war philosophy that saw no difference between a civilian and an armed soldier.

“There are no innocent civilians. It is their government, and you are fighting a people; you are not trying to fight an armed force anymore. So it doesn’t bother me so much to be killing the so-called innocent bystanders.”

–General Curtis Emerson LeMay^#19

To General Curtis LeMay, if Japan were a human body, innocent civilians were part of its nervous system – its lifeblood – and killing these civilians damaged Japan just as much as killing any soldier. Everything and everyone within the Japanese islands were military by proxy. If a child died in an air raid, that was one less future worker; one less future kamikaze pilot; one less future miner to mine the coal to power the war machine; and most importantly: one less future avenger. LeMay dehumanized his opponent; he saw Japan as a country to be defeated, not a collection of human beings with families and loves and hates and passions just like his own. One has to wonder if this outlook not only protected him cognitively from dissonance but also from a great sorrow – but this would be a generous interpretation of his barbarity.

Humans may be the most intelligent animal on Earth, but – like the city of Astana – this intelligence hides a terrible truth: the vast mental gymnasium of genocidal justifications. The Carronade is being packed every day.

Days before the Kobe firebombing, the United States carried out the most devastating air raid in human history. On March 9th and 10th, 1945, the United States Army Air Force conducted “Operation Meetinghouse,” now known by the Japanese as the “Great Tokyo Air Raid”; a fleet of over 300 B-29 bombers swooped Hitchcockian over Tokyo, dropping over 1,500 tons of incendiaries, including half a million cylinders of napalm and white phosphorus which ignited instantly upon contact with oxygen, turning idyllic Totoro countrysides into Biblical revelation; and aided by a dry spell and windy weather conditions, the hellfire turned into a massive firestorm that sucked mortals into heinous flame tornadoes like light into a black hole. The firestorm destroyed over 15 square miles of Tokyo’s busiest civilian sectors, which were – like Kobe – largely constructed with wood-and-paper. The inferno did not discriminate between man, woman, and child as it uprooted and burned ancient family trees and scattered their ashes upon the sparking winds. At least 80,000 people died.^#20

But America’s Mami moment was not over. In August, they sent their two strongest warriors to the islands of Japan: Little Boy and Fat Man.

On August 6th, 1945, The United States of America dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima – killing upwards of 120,000 people; three days later, they dropped a second nuclear bomb on Nagasaki – killing an additional 80,000 people.^#21

The lucky ones near the immediate blast zone disintegrated instantly. Those further away found their vision go dark as their forehead-skin melted into their eye sockets and their hair sizzled little holes into their skulls and when they went to scream nothing came out because the melted-skin-putty sealed over their mouths. Those miles away from the blast who looked into the bright light had the color stolen from their eyes leaving nothing but white orbs and pain. The fallout left a Hex on the land that produced boils and growths full of cancer and caused babies to be born like crippled Cerberus flailing in torment before the light was stolen from their eyes in nuclear retrograde.

The torture was enough to power an infinite amount of Carronades.

When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, it was the United States of America’s Mami moment; our love for those who died and the subsequent sorrow and outrage coalesced into a raging firestorm that engulfed Japan.

Their love became a nuclear bomb – two of them.

*(counting seconds before we turn to ash)^#22

Japan surrendered after the U.S. dropped the second bomb – but at what cost? The common argument is “more people would have died if the bombs had not been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki because Japan would not surrender otherwise,” but this was a trolley problem with uncertain variables being solved by people who could not possibly know what the future held. And even so, would more soldiers have died if the war raged on – or more civilians?

And even if it were true – what of the ethical implications?

Soldiers signed up for the job and they knew what they were getting into, but children are born tabula rasa into a country not of their choosing and they grow up in this country without much say or means to leave. What ethical framework do we have to conjure up to justify killing those who are not actively fighting against us? It seems Curtis LeMay already solved this ethical dilemma, but if my neighbor killed my wife, does that provide the justification necessary to kill them, their children, and the rest of their family? On a micro-level, this solves nothing and lands me in prison for life; on a macro-level, it’s genocide, and there are no repercussions as long as you are aligned with the world’s leading superpower.

And before you accuse this essay of being anti-American propaganda: it wasn’t just the United States; everyone was doing it during World War II. The world was at war, and innocent bystanders were caught in the middle. Japan, The United States of America, Germany, The United Kingdom, The Soviet Union; the list goes on. The entire world’s hands were drenched in innocent blood, but some nations were devastatingly more effective at killing innocent people than others.

And the worst part is – it’s still happening. We don’t seem to learn from history, instead: we come up with better excuses for repeating it. Excuses like, “well those kids live in a terrorist city so I don’t care if they get burned alive.”

There are wars going on right now that beget great cycles of violence. Innocent people are bombed for acts carried out by governments or terrorists within their borders. These innocent people are killed either for psychological or strategic effect, and there are those who applaud these killings for vengeance, claimed-necessity, or otherwise. Some even assert their respect for the lives of children in peaceful nations but withhold their respect for children in terrorist-aligned nations while defining terrorism by their own convenient terms; these terms usually include something like “if you kill innocent people, you are a terrorist” while ignoring the innocent people killed in the pursuit of defeating these terrorists. And when these double standards are called out, they resort to playing the adult-baby version of “well they attacked us first” which devolves into a game of historical one-upmanship that could be argued into pre-homosapien missing-link levels of retroactive blame games, also known as: incredibly fucking stupid.

And again, do we choose where we are born? Do we choose our borders? If I am born within the borders of a government that you have deemed “evil” or “terrorist” – is my life forfeit? And if the answer is yes, then why? Is it because we believe that this is the unfortunate reality of war – bystanders will be caught in the crossfire and it sucks but this is necessary to eliminate “the bad guys?” Or rather, are we killing potential avengers? And if so – isn’t the act of killing anyone creating more potential avengers? And if so, when does it stop? Is the logic such that we kill everyone regardless of association because six-degrees-of-separation leads to six-degrees-of-avenger? If we channel our inner Fou-Lu, will the silence bring eternal peace – or will it just happen again?

Holy wars rage on to this day without a resolution in sight. Some say the solution is bombing the opponent into oblivion – mother and child be damned. But the holy war still rages on decade after decade. What has the slaughter of innocent people achieved other than fueling the hatred of the opposing side? Have we met our goals? Why do the back and forth bombings continue? What even is the goal? Do we even know who cast the first stone and does it even matter?

Meanwhile, angry people in powerful positions pretend to solve trolley problems with very uncertain variables, and individuals like General Curtis LeMay use semantics to deflect criticism and deem those making the criticism as leftist hippie scum, sometimes even claiming that those who disagree are just as bad as the enemy themselves.

Killing children is not a partisan issue. Killing children is evil. It doesn’t matter if you’re killing them in your basement or if you’re bombing them from thousands of miles away. The child could have just been birthed from the womb of a full-blown terrorist; it doesn’t matter who the child’s parents are, where they were born, what they look like, or anything else you might be able to come up with. Killing children is and will always be: EVIL.

Let this be a warning, if you find yourself on the side of dead babies – reach deep inside yourself and feel around for the heart; you might notice it missing, but there may still be time to find it.

VII: NUCLEAR YINYANG – Conclusion

“Maybe so…”

–Ryu

In Chinese philosophy, Yin and Yang represent the dualistic nature of existence. These two forces are interconnected and complementary, and one cannot exist on its own without the presence of the other. Within Yin, there should always be Yang; and within Yang, there should always be Yin; thus representing the interconnectedness and interdependence of all things. The Yinyang symbol itself is of rotational and inverted symmetry; it can be flipped and still look the same without consideration to its contrasting colors.

When Ryu reached the ruins of Chedo and confronted Fou-Lu in his castle, they were Yin and Yang completely. And both had come to different conclusions about the nature of the world and the mortals who existed within it.

It was as simple and as complicated as darkness and light.

Fou-Lu embodied Yin: darkness, cold, quiet, and passivity. When Fou-Lu awoke from his slumber, he found that his people had forgotten the promise; they warred and killed each other for sport. And just when Fou-Lu started to understand the mortals, they stole Fou-Lu’s love and turned her into a nuclear bomb against him. Fou-Lu was driven mad by the realization that mortals were ignorant, prideful, esurient animals that caused untold suffering on each other; he had wasted so much time trying to tame them. Allowing mortals to exist would only facilitate the perpetuation of suffering. The solution was simple: kill them all.

Ryu embodied Yang: lightness, warmth, noise, and activity. When Ryu awoke naked and cold he was greeted by smiling mortals and, although they were capable of extreme cruelty, he saw the goodness in their hearts. Even when he came across an orphanage filled with children who were victims of the Hex, or witnessed Princess Elina transformed into a tortured immortal to power the Carronade; he saw these incidents as the actions of a small group of corrupt people, which did not reflect all mortals. Ryu observed misguided mortals exploiting powers they should never have possessed in the first place.

However, Ryu remained tabula rasa – he did not know how to solve the problem.

*(yin and yang) collide

Fou-Lu held out his hand and told Ryu what he had seen. He told Ryu about the men who forged philosophies of war that turned children into soldiers. He told Ryu of the Princess turned pandemonium. He told Ryu of the sycophantic babblings of those who justified the murder of civilians based on border alone. He told Ryu of the Hex that was dropped upon the mortals’ own. He told Ryu of Mami.

Fou-Lu reached into Ryu’s mind and begged him for understanding; he told Ryu that the mortals were unfit for their favor and must perish.

And for the first time, Ryu is no longer mute. Tabula rasa no more; he is ready to make a decision. Ryu – you – can respond with Yin or Yang.

Selecting “Maybe so…” turns your love into a nuclear bomb. Yin and Yang merge, with Yin becoming the dominant force. Fou-Lu, now complete, turns to the party of mortals who had accompanied you on your journey and obliterates them in a flash. He then unleashes his atomic fury upon the rest of the world.

The cartographers who told us “Here Be Dragons” are obliterated by those very same Dragons, and there is finally silence – maybe some would even call this “peace.”

You may ask, “what about the other option? What if I choose Yang instead of Yin?”

Well, you have to play Breath of Fire IV to find out for yourself.