Incorrigible in the machine of violence
Vladilena Milizé, or Lena to her friends, is one of the main characters of the anime 86. Lena is a completely incompatible element within her society. She is good, affectionate, and her moral compass works properly. She is completely unsuited to the role of Handler in the Republic of San Magnolia. The heroine wants change, but how she wants to achieve it. This essay will explore the methods she employs, how she is crushed by the system, and why good intentions alone are not enough to move the gears of the state machine. We will consider all these issues today. Disclaimer: I am well aware of the existence of light novel and manga versions, but here I will focus solely on the anime. Warning: the video essay contains spoilers from the anime 86.
Lena the Reformator
Lena appears on screen as a reformer. She has a good heart and feels that the Juggernauts are more than just indicators on the screen. She tries to befriend them and learn their real names. She talks to them in her room via Para-RAID in the evening hours. She is definitely concerned about people she is forbidden from knowing, let alone treating as human. Still, she tries to break this taboo and be a good Handler. She sends food, packages with fireworks, and supports her soldiers.
In the world in which Lena lives, this approach is a revolution and a thing unworthy of the Alba race. In her understanding of the world and the apparatus of violence in which she functions, she does not see certain incongruities. Yes, she can send packages, say a kind word, or comfort after hours. It costs so little, after all, and the smiles on the Juggernauts’ faces are guaranteed. Lena appears as a reformer who wants to change the system from the inside out. She firmly believes that such small gestures will lead to global system change. Kind language, concern, and small packages are enough to change a system designed as a machine of destruction. What she does not yet understand is that this system cannot be reformed. The system in the Republic of San Magnolia is a multidimensional monolith that requires detailed analysis. Also, let’s examine this issue.
What is a system?
Lena Milizé is a product of the system in which she lives. But in order to move on, it is crucial to answer this basic question what the system is. We are all products of the present, our system, whether we want it or not. We are shaped by the time frame in which we live, language, philosophy, media, capitalism or the state.
The system itself can create an individual in various ways. One such example is the basic codification and shaping of the individual by the language he or she uses every day. All grammatical rules are markers of power and an adaptation of the language to the prevailing political and social situation. In the case of Lena Milizé, this problem is worth considering, since soldiers fighting on the front lines are not treated and called like human beings. Phrases such as pigs, or processors or unmanned units have caused an ingraining in the consciousness system that isn’t worthy of compassion or help.\
Juggernauts are nothing more than homo sacer according to Giorgio Agamben. A homo sacer is a character who can be killed with impunity and has no sacred meaning. This is especially the case in states of emergency, where the standard law is suspended - a description that perfectly fits any squad of Juggernauts. They are excluded from normal law, and their death is treated like the loss of a pawn, unit or equipment failure. The analogy extends to modern warfare. Soldiers at the front are just a dry number in the loss column with reports. As of the date of writing this essay, there is a war going on in Ukraine. The country has been invaded by Russia. It is worth taking a brief moment here. Most of the Russian soldiers in the most dangerous places on the front are not from the major cities or the center of the country. They come from the Caucasus, Siberia or Dagestan. They are ethnic minorities who are also being pacified in this way, dehumanized and denied the opportunity for self-determination. This is part of the naked life. These people enlist at the front because they are encouraged with high financial benefits. Such money would be impossible to earn in a standard job. The war has exposed the naked truth that certain groups are considered less valuable and destined to be expended.
The hierarchical systems in which Milizé lives, as San Magnolia is a military republic characterized by centralized control. The republic officially maintains that war is ethical and battles are fought unmanned. It is also a classic example of dehumanization and denial of life for Juggernauts. This mystification, where in reality the war is fought by the same people as in the Republic, is maintained by the state apparatus. Because of which, even the higher-ranking officers may not realize who they are actually dealing with.
This process of dehumanization and administrative management of life and death was called biopower by philosopher Michel Foucault. In line with the French philosopher’s thought, the anime 86 features a class-based application of biopower and state racism. At a time when the bourgeoisie, in the form of the Alba race, supplied itself with a body to be cared for, cultivated, and protected from many dangers and contacts, the living conditions of the Juggernauts were irrelevant. It didn’t matter whether these people lived or died for the system, as long as there was someone on the front lines. They were a life that required no sacrifice or recognition of value. Their existence is politicized in the sense that they were enlisted in the bureaucratic machine of calculation and management of the state and population.
In contrast, the citizens of the Republic of San Magnolia themselves are subject to disciplinary authority. Disciplinary authority does not work through overt force, discrimination or other coercive elements. It works through observation, normalization, and the creation of obedient individuals. The model for this power is the panopticon, or prison, where inmates do not know if they are being observed, so they behave as if they are. They internalize surveillance in this way. Another more mundane example of a panopticon is an open-space office, where employees can be monitored by their superiors all the time, without even knowing when. Buying train tickets is also another good example. We don’t know when or if we will be checked by the controller, but everyone buys a ticket anyway. Returning to Lena and the other Handlers, they are subject to the same observations. They are locked in a sterile room from which they control the troops, but their actions are strictly controlled, monitored, and, in case of insubordination, corrected.
Many might wonder and consider how such barbaric things happen in a developed civilization like the Republic of San Magnolia. It was the development, bureaucratization, and modernity of the Republic that led to the state of the Juggernauts. Technology in the form of the robots that the Juggernauts commanded and the Para-RAID connection to their Handler created distance for the Alba race. There is no way to see these soldiers, no blood, no flesh. There is only a point on the screen. Combined with lethal bureaucratization in the form of reports, procedures, disciplinary authority, and social dehumanization, such crimes are possible. The system is effective in its horrific destruction.
Good intentions in a bad system
As we have already seen, the system is ruthless and designed in its ruthlessness with a certain amount of beauty and order. If only other systems could be designed so beautifully.
Small gestures like sending packages, buying bio vegetables and fruits, or effective altruism are merely a splinter or toothpick ground into the well-oiled pathology of the modern system. Individual action, not collective action, does not solve the global problem. We live in a similar world ruled by hatred and dehumanization. Yes, you can buy bio products and recycled goods, care about all kinds of zero waste. But as a single individual and consumer, are you capable of causing the kind of tragedies perpetrated by the world’s largest corporations, such as Coca-Cola, DuPont, Nestlé, Samsung and many other companies? You can’t even come close. Over your lifetime, you probably won’t produce as much CO2 as Taylor Swift did in a few years, either.
This is not to say that small gestures are inherently bad. From a moral and ethical standpoint, they are good. This is not subject to any discussion. Sharing what you have with another person is great and provides joy and smiles. Similarly, individual efforts to care for the planet and society are ethically valuable. However, it is worth wondering at times if we are doing this out of the pure goodness of our hearts, or if we feel superiority over someone because the system has been structured that way. Because the system tells us that those are to be supported and those are to be hated, even though they are in a similar material situation. Because the plastic paper is supposed to go in the right garbage can, but an advertisement for the latest phone that uses rare earth metals obtained in dire conditions is no longer a problem.
Can the system be fixed?
Thus, we have gone through the trek and answered some key and relevant questions. Nevertheless, this is not the end of the journey through the system, because we will continue to tread in it and coexist with it. Sometimes you will resist it more or less and more or less consciously. We can be offended that it’s all wrong and should be different, that the current system has some flaws and can be fixed somehow, perhaps? No, the current system was designed to do exactly what it is designed to do. It is not flawed because it works, as it should.
Bibliography
These particular books affected the overall shape of the article
- Antonio Gramsci - Selections from the Prison Notebooks
Gramsci’s concept of cultural hegemony is crucial for understanding the system’s invisible power, which normalizes the dehumanizing language used against the 86. It explains how the state machine maintains control through ideology, making Lena’s individual acts of kindness feel insignificant in comparison. - Byung-Chul Han - Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power
Han’s theory of psychopolitics explains how modern systems control individuals not through prohibition but through seduction and the illusion of freedom. This is vital for analyzing how the Republic’s Handlers, including Lena, are managed through internalized surveillance rather than just overt force. - Byung-Chul Han - The Burnout Society
This book diagnoses the pathology of the ‘achievement society,’ where individuals are driven to self-exploitation. It provides the language to describe the Republic of San Magnolia, a society that protects its citizens (the Alba) by pushing another group (the 86) past the point of burnout and into expendability. - Giorgio Agamben - Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life
This book provides the foundational concept of ‘homo sacer,’ which the essay directly applies to the Juggernauts. It explains their status as ‘bare life’—beings who can be killed with impunity—which is the central mechanism of the Republic’s horrific, yet functional, system of violence. - Michel Foucault - The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction
Foucault’s introduction of ‘biopower’ is the theoretical backbone for the essay’s argument about how the Republic manages life and death. It allows for a precise analysis of the state’s ‘class-based racism,’ where the Alba are a population to be nurtured while the 86 are a disposable resource. - Michel Foucault - The History of Sexuality, Volume II: The Use of Pleasure
While Volume I describes the power exerted on Lena, this volume explores the ‘care of the self’ and the creation of personal ethics. It provides a framework for interpreting Lena’s small gestures not just as naive reformism, but as attempts to forge an ethical existence in defiance of the state’s biopolitical control.