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mistbow · 1 year

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The Snake, the Frog, and the Centipede

“I don’t know. Do frogs try to eliminate snakes?”

In Japan, there is an entire genre of hand games known as sansukumi-ken (三すくみ拳) or “fists (拳) of three that fear one another.” One of the most widely known version of this genre of games is rock-paper-scissors: rock wins against scissors; paper wins against rocks; scissors wins against paper.

The oldest of this game in Japan is mushi-ken (虫拳), in which the snake (蛇) represented by the index finger wins against the frog (蛙), the frog (蛙) represented by the thumb wins against the slug (蛞蝓), the slug (蛞蝓) represented by the pinky finger wins against the snake (蛇).

Why a snake eats a frog is intuitive enough, and I guess we can make a bit of sense why a slug would lose out to a frog, but why would a snake lose out to slug? Apparently, there are deeper meanings to this.

The relationship described here is often more about the fear one has towards the other rather than of eating and being eaten, so it’s explained that the frog is afraid of the snake, the slug is afraid of the frog, and the snake is afraid of the slug, so the three of them restrain themselves and cannot move freely because each of them watches the moves of the other two. It was said that what snakes are afraid of aren’t really slugs, called ナメクジ or namekuji in Japanese, but a kind of giant slugs that are called ナメクジラ read as namekujira. There were ninjutsu (忍術) that could make animals bigger as well.

However, even this explanation is misguided, because the truth is, the origin of why these three animals are used is from a Chinese Daoist philosophy treatise, Guan Yinzi (關尹子), that said:

蝍蛆食蛇。蛇食蛙。蛙食蝍蛆。互相食也。

Centipedes swallow snakes, snakes swallow frogs, frogs swallow centipedes: one preying on the next.

Notice how it says centipedes instead of slugs, like in mushi-ken. This is because the characters for centipede (蚰蜒) were confused as slugs (蛞蝓) in Japan. The Chinese believes that the centipede was capable of killing a snake by climbing and entering its head.

Interestingly, Zestiria follows the original Chinese saying instead of the Japanese proverb:

These are the monsters and bosses found in Vivia Aqueduct and Galahad Ruins, respectively, and they are correctly called “Centipedes” and “Giant Centipedes” in the English localization as well. In Japanese, they are called “ムカデ” and “オオムカデ”, and while ムカデ is usually written as 百足, they can also be written as 蚰蜒 like in the Chinese language.

With all that in mind, let’s go back to Guan Yinzi.

This is the complete version of the saying above:

蝍蛆食蛇。蛇食蛙。蛙食蝍蛆。互相食也。聖人之言亦然。言有無之弊。又言非有非無之弊。又言去非有非無之弊。言之如引鋸然。唯善聖者。不留一言。

Centipedes swallow snakes, snakes swallow frogs, frogs swallow centipedes: one preying on the next. So do the words of the sages: they speak of the imperfection of being and nonbeing, then they speak of the imperfection of the negation of being and nonbeing, and then they speak of the imperfection of the negation of the negation of being and nonbeing. They are, so to speak, sawing up words; only the wisest will leave no word behind.

Circular negation of words is compared to the precarious balance kept among three creatures: the centipede, the snake, and the frog. Early philosophers knew full well that words may do violence to ideas. That is why some of them used words to break the grip of words. Each time they made a statement, they would so easily, so immediately contradict it to invalidate it. To undercut each other.

That’s why, only the wisest will leave no word behind.

応えしものもう言葉はいらない。友の決意を心で受け止めた親友に捧げる称号。

One who Answers No more words needed. A title granted to the best friend who has taken his friend’s decision to heart.

This idea of Guan Yinzi is written in the volume of “San Ji” (“三極”), literally meaning “three poles,” underlying the idea is that “極者尊聖人也” or “the poles are to honor the sages.” 極 is the utmost point, the climax, the zenith, the nadir. The conclusion.

天無不覆。有生有殺。而天無愛悪。日無不照。有妍有醜。而日無厚薄。

There is nothing the heavens conceal; there is to live or to kill, but there is nothing to love or to hate. There is nothing that the sun does not shine upon; it may be beautiful or ugly, but the sun is neither thick nor thin.

When the common people feel themselves fool, they rely on the sage or, if the sage is not available, each other for help. However, when the sage feels himself a fool, he only has himself to solve his own problem. Yet people don’t know that even sages are sometimes stupid, sometimes clever, sometimes clumsy and sometimes ingenious.

賢人趨上而不見下。衆人趨下而不見上。聖人通乎上下。惟其宜之。豈曰離賢人衆人。別有聖人也哉。

The sages go upward but do not look downward; the commoners go down but do not look upward; the wise go up and down, it is only appropriate for them to do so. How, then, can we say that there are the wise apart from the sages and the commoners?

Sorey, the Shepherd, is not different from Sorey, the human: just because he decided than from that point onward, he would become the Shepherd, it doesn’t mean he had truly changed as a person. He had always been the same as before, with the power to purify or not, he was still inexperienced.

利害心愈明。則親不睦。賢愚心愈明。則友不交。是非心愈明。則事不成。好醜心愈明。則物不契。是以聖人渾之。

The clearer the heart of distinguishing benefits from harms, the less harmonious the relationship between family will be; the clearer the heart of distinguishing the wise from the fool, the more difficult the relationship between friends is to get along with; the clearer the heart of distinguishing right from wrong, the more difficult it is to do things; the clearer the separation of beautiful and ugly hearts, the less things will come to fruition. Therefore, the wise make no distinction between these.

The line between what is right or wrong is never clear-cut, that has always been the central idea of Zestiria. There are two sides to everything. In Daoism, there is the idea of zhenren (真人), or “authentic person”; one who does not oppose the human and the natural, who knows how to accept both defeat and victory, joy and sorrow, life and death without being affected by them. The “authentic person” knows neither to love life nor to hate death. This is what it means not to throw away the Dao with the heart. Another idea that more people might be familiar with is the yin and yang (陰陽), that there are opposite yet interconnected forces. Distinctions between good and bad, along with other dichotomous moral judgments, are perceptual, not real; so, the duality of yin and yang is an indivisible whole.

(Also, I want to reiterate this: In a family, you don’t calculate the profits and loss. In friendship, you don’t discriminate between the virtuous and the ignorant. Only the wisest know of this.)

聖人不以一己治天下。而以天下治天下。天下帰功於聖人。聖人任功於天下。所以尭舜禹湯之治天下。天下皆曰自然。

The wise does not rule the world by himself. He rules the world with the world. The wise has the merit of the world. The wise gives credit to the world. That is why the world is ruled by the wise. All the world was said to be natural.

ムカデの憑魔ですが、一般的なそれとは大きさも属性耐性も違います。ああ、水の天響術を使える方はいないかしら！

僕とスレイの神依化でなんとか撃破できたようだね。といっても僕だけが水の天響術を使えるわけじゃないけどね。

It’s a centipede hellion, but it far surpasses the others in both size and elemental resistance. Dear me, if only we knew someone who could cast water seraphic artes!

Sorey and I were able to beat this one together by armatizing. Though I’m not the only water seraph in the world, I’ll have you know.

Here, I want to focus on Mikleo’s words. “Though I’m not the only water seraph in the world, I’ll have you know.” Not the only one able to use water seraphic artes. The Giant Centipedes are weak only to Water, Mikleo’s element, and he acknowledges that with his Armatus, they were able to beat it together.

However, he reminds, Sorey has the entire world, that could help him. There are many other people out there, outside of Mikleo himself, all with their own ways to help him out. Mikleo is even the one to invite Rose to join the party, later down the line. He will also always remind Sorey that he’s there, and he’ll never let Sorey carry his burden alone. The Shepherd’s journey is a lonely battle to fight, but Sorey is never alone.

以聖師聖者賢人。以賢師聖者聖人。蓋以聖師聖者。徇跡而忘道。以賢師聖者。反跡而合道。

If you regard sages as sages to follow them, you can only become a sage at most. If you regard sages as wise men to follow them, you may become a wise man instead. Because if you regard sages as sages, you will follow their acts everywhere and forget the Dao; if you regard sages as wise men, you will not imitate each other’s ways of doing things everywhere, instead, this will be in line with the Dao.

Sorey is not alone, he has other people, but he has to learn later too, that everyone (him, and these other people in the world) has their own duty, each has to follow their own path that is not anyone else’s. This is true for Sorey, Alisha, Rose, everyone else. It is a fact of life that needs to be accepted. There are things he must and can do, things that others must and can do. They’re all different, yet they don’t have to oppose each other just because they walk down different paths.

Thus, Sorey learns to embrace all of this, starting from this point on. He might have begun with likening Mikleo to a frog and hellions to snakes, and then encountering the Centipede hellions, he could do nothing to quell them without Mikleo. He was too caught up with this parable of snakes, frogs, and centipedes: each is fearful of one of the others, and like a circular relationship, each is too frozen in fear to make the next move freely. However, the situation will not change if he doesn’t make a move; he is on this journey to change the world for the better, for his dream.

The world has and will move on, since then.

#tales of #tales of zestiria #mino talks zesty #mino rambles #'what do you mean you have something to say about this random line too' yes i do #i've talked about shinto and buddhist ideas in zesty #time to talk about some daoist ideas too!

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