Shinsekai Yori - 15

"Afterimage"

If corrupt politicians physically reflected their scheming, rotten personalities, they'd probably look a lot like Squealer.

There's a huge multi-faceted debate at the heart of this episode, and it's not a nice, clear cut one either. In their search for Mamoru and Maria, Saki and Satoru come across the Robber Fly colony once more, where Squealer (Daisuke Namikawa), now known as Yakomaru, greets them enthusiastically. Now I've never liked Squealer; he was always a bit too slimy (in the non-literal sense) and self-interested to truly count as an ally to the children, but now he's on a whole new level of manipulative and uncanny evil.

I think the word "uncanny" sums up my feelings, and Satoru's, here perfectly. I've mentioned the uncanny valley theory of robotics before, and I think that something very similar is in play here. Even without the horrible lobotomizing of every bakenezumi queen by their own children, there's something creepy and off about the way Squealer spouts out human democratic values. It's self-satisfying, self-justifying, and yet it's scariest because it's so human, and that's exactly what trips Satoru's alarm. "I feel like they're trying to replace humans," he warns Saki when she tries defending them, and it sparks a debate. Should the bakenezumi be put up to human ethical standards?

They're technically not human, Saki argues, so isn't it wrong to force them to follow our values? In real world terms, this is an ugly truth. We cannot enforce the values of one cultural group on another, but when essential human rights are violated, do we then have the right to intervene, or is that self-important of us? Satoru's side is justified as well though; it's because the bakenezumi are so human that they should be judged as such. Squealer is certainly hiding things from them, and he has plenty of ulterior motives in keeping them happy and on his side in his steady rise to power; in just two years, he's somehow gained human knowledge and guided his colony to imitate their long-lost cultural values. Concrete is the building block of civilization, and the bakenezumi have it, and they've also adopted democratic ideals. Is Satoru right? Has Squealer captured a False Minoshiro of his own? Surely he has much larger plans than the simple unification of several bakenezumi colonies. If he's willing to get rid of the queens, their own mothers, who's to say the revered Kami aren't next?

His manipulation is made even more evident when he brings an entire battalion to escort Satoru and Saki on their errand to the Goat Moth colony, where they hope to find Squonk and clues on Maria and Mamoru. Using the excuse of disrespect toward the gods, Squealer attacks the Goat Moths without any true provocation whatsoever, successfully using the children to subjugate the other colony without sustaining any damage to his troops. It's an ugly scene, and I think Satoru and Saki realize that they're being manipulated but have no choice but to follow along in order to save time. Luckily, they do find Squonk, but Maria and Mamoru are long gone, leaving behind only a letter and the premonition that they're probably half a world away and far beyond saving.