Chapter 34 brings us back to the main, more boring group.
Everyone’s been sitting quietly, Shogo smoking as he does so. I wonder if that would be considered a security issue? The smell is pretty distinctive, so you’d know someone else was around.
In the thicket little birds chirped away, and the branches above them rustled in the breeze, letting in a web of light that moved back and forth like a pendulum. You could hear the sound of ocean waves if you listened hard enough. Now that they were settled in the woods, it almost felt as if they were leading a peaceful life.
Sure, Shuya. Sure.
Shuya says that really, they shouldn’t need to do any more fighting. They’ll just stay quiet and keep watch and wait until they can escape.
The memory of the earlier gunshots keeps intruding on this fantasy, though.
He thinks it could have been Shinji or Hiroki.
Even if it was neither of them, it could have been another innocent classmate. Shuya and Noriko might be saved thanks to Shogo, but the others were living in terror of being killed at any moment.
And being a halfway decent person, this makes Shuya feel awful. He knows Shogo’s right that their best bet is to stay still, especially with Noriko hurt, but that doesn’t mean it’s the morally right thing to do.
Yumiko Kusaka and Yukiko Kitano kept their faith in the others even though they knew they didn’t have a chance of escaping. On the other hand, with Shogo’s help, he and Noriko had a good chance. But did that mean they shouldn’t be risking their lives?
It really is hard to say. The better a situation you’re in, the less you should risk it, but you can also argue that the better your own situation the more you owe it to help other people in worse circumstances.
He knows at least one person’s intentionally killing people, and he knows the three other people he’s met so far have tried to kill him.
He doubted anyone like that would voluntarily join them. No, someone like that would only join them just to betray and kill them when the time was right.
I don’t think that conclusion follows. The three people who tried to kill him so far wouldn’t join them, yes, but they wouldn’t pretend to join and backstab either, because they were motivated by short-term fear. Granted, they’re not the most mentally balanced, so if you talked them down and got them to join, they probably would be the first to crack and turn on you, but I don’t think any would join intending to do that. That takes a very different sort of mindset.
He considers looking for trustworthy people, but decides you can never be sure.
If we tried to help everyone, an “enemy” would eventually sneak into our group, and that would mean certain death. Noriko and Shogo would get killed too.
No, Shuya! If a single enemy was in a large group, it wouldn’t mean certain death because they’d be outnumbered! The more people you have in the “let’s not be crazed murderers” camp, the less incentive there is for the crazed murdering. Now, okay, Kazuo doesn’t give a fuck, but let’s consider Mitsuko, who is also a psychopath and very nearly as unrealistically supercompetent. If you let her into your group, she’s not going to start stabbing left and right. Now, she might decide to divide and conquer and try to get you all to kill each other, but even to do that she’d have to be spending time alone with people, and you’d want to prevent that in general because you’re only safe from others due to numbers. Plus, if you actually do have an escape plan, there’s a decent change Mitsuko wouldn’t want to rock the theoretical boat you’ll be sailing off on. She’s obviously aware that this whole thing is extremely risky, as seen by her desire for a meat shield, she just figures that it’s less risky to go murdering than it is to sit tight. So you’ve got the combination of increasing the risk of playing and providing a safer alternative – it is entirely possible to get people on your side who are fine playing the game just due to a utilitarian analysis.
But no, Shuya’s given in to fear. He’ll accept Shinji or Hiroki, but not try to recruit people in general.
Shogo says to stop thinking so much, but then asks if it’s true about Shuya having dangerous ideas. Not so much, Shogo, it’s really Shinji. But in terms of dangerous ideas they know about, Shuya apparently quit the baseball team with a bang.
he was turned off by the baseball team’s military-style discipline and win-at-all-costs attitude. (It wasn’t surprising. Baseball was the national pastime. It was the sport the nation endorsed for international tournaments. Unfortunately, baseball was also popular with the American imperialists, so if the national team lost to them in the Olympics, the Baseball Federation directors would all have to commit harakiri.) On top of that, the team’s coach, Mr. Minato, would get on the case of players who weren’t very good, even if they loved the game. So by the second week, Shuya was completely fed up and announced he was quitting in a four-letter diatribe against Mr. Minato and the Baseball Federation.
Which he seems to have gotten away with safely, even if it did go on his record. It’s starting to seem like the government is kind of inconsistent about which minor offenses it comes down on like a ton of bricks and which it ignores. Or maybe the murder only starts when you get older.
Shuya figures it’s really just the rock music.
Shuya recalled the middle-aged handyman who worked at the Charity House. He was upbeat and his thinning hair was slicked back, sticking up at the nape of his neck. (“It’s called a duck’s tail.”) Now he was in a forced labor camp on Sakhalin Island. None of the kids at the orphanage, including Shuya and Yoshitoki, knew the details. When he said goodbye to them, he didn’t offer an explanation and only said, “I’ll be back, Shuya, Yoshitoki. For a while though, I’ll be swinging a pickaxe and belting out ‘Jailhouse Rock.'” Then he gave his old auto-winding wristwatch to Yoshitoki and Gibson electric guitar to Shuya.
Shuya hasn’t seen the guy again, but knows people die all the time in those camps. It’s interesting that he gets a chance to say goodbye at all. He wasn’t sent there over the rock music either – although the government suppresses the music pretty vigorously because rock music is the voice of rebellion, at school he knows other kids who are into rock music and have electric guitars.
Shogo impresses Shuya by asking who he likes. Shuya claims over ninety percent of kids at his school don’t know anything about rock, which I find really hard to believe when we consider that this is a group of teenagers who know the government thinks rock is rebellious and badass.
But then, I guess Shogo somewhat supports that idea when he says that of course he knows about rock, he’s from the city unlike the hicks here.
Then they try to bring Noriko into the conversation, as she’s one of that ninety-some percent that haven’t heard it.
Shuya smiled. “The lyrics are really something. I don’t know how to describe it well, but it’s music that really expresses people’s problems. Of course, songs can be about love, but at times they can be about politics or society, or the way we live our lives, and life itself. Along with the words, the melody and beat help get the message across. Like Springsteen singing, ‘Born to Run’…”
And he sings it. You may recall but tramps like us, baby we were born to run.” popped up in the opening as well.
Then he promises that they’ll listen to it sometime. And tells Shogo that rock music would make the country collapse if only people listened to it.
Shogo stared at Shuya and looked away. “I don’t know. It might just serve as an outlet for our frustrations, a convenient way to let off steam. It might be banned, but if you really want to listen to rock, you can. So it also serves as an outlet. That’s what I mean. This country is very clever.
Which does seem to fit pretty well with the idea a guy going away to a labor camp could still pass on his guitar and tapes rather than those being confiscated.
Shuya felt as if he’d been dealt a blow. Rock was his religion, music sheets were the pages of his bible, Springsteen, Van Morrison, and his other heroes were the equivalent of the twelve disciples. Of course he was getting used to being shocked, what with his classmates dying around him, so relatively speaking, it wasn’t that shocking.
I just find this funny.
Shuya says he doesn’t know. Shogo says it doesn’t matter, the real point is that people should be able to listen to what they want. Shuya says he does think rock is good, though, and Shogo agrees.
“It’s ironic that we’re really in that situation though,” Shogo observed.
Shuya was puzzled, “What do you mean?”
“The only thing we can do now is run,” Shogo replied. “We were born to run
That’s not really ironic, but otherwise okay reference drop.
But can we get back to the childmurder games? These chapters are basically the philosophy sidestory.