'Silat' comics linked to Star Wars?
'Silat' comics linked to Star Wars?
By Laila Faisal
JAKARTA (JP): In his book Komik Indonesia, the French
researcher Marcel Bonneff writes that every comic within the
silat (a form of martial arts) genre shares a common thread.
The hero travels through four stages during the story.
The first is the "scorned" stage, at the beginning of the tale,
which provides the reason why the hero embarks on a search for
wisdom and skill.
Here, the hero might experience a tragic episode -- i.e. the
hero's family is murdered or kidnapped -- so the character is
virtually disenfranchised. Or a friend might betray the hero so
he becomes an outcast of society. The hero might also be a
coward, afraid of danger.
Next comes the "maturing" stage where the hero seeks wisdom
and skill as a way of preparing for revenge or to overcome his
fear. This stage is followed by the "responsibility" stage. Here,
the hero would feel responsible to assist the society, where the
weak are oppressed by the strong, the good by the evil. Finally,
in the last stage, good wins over evil.
Even though Bonneff applied this common thread only to martial
arts comics, it could be used for much more.
It is evident in martial art movies, such as the Drunken
Master and American Ninja series. We can see it in TV series,
such as Renegade and the A-Team.
It is even there in fantasy fictions like in the Belgariad and
Mallorean series by Davis Eddings. To cite a far out example, we
have no other than George Lucas' masterpiece Star Wars, The
Trilogy.
Star Wars is an unlikely example to compare to Indonesian
silat comics. Who would think that a science fiction story could
have something in common with silat? However, the thread Bonneff
delineated for silat comics also applies to Star Wars. All four
stages occur in the trilogy.
Star Wars starts out with the hero, Luke Skywalker,
discovering that his father was a Jedi knight and that he was
killed by Darth Vader.
Later on he comes home only to find that his uncle and aunt
were murdered by the Empire. This is the "scorned" stage. Luke
finds that he no longer has a reason to stay on Tatooine, the
planet where he grew up, so that he agrees to go with Obi-Wan
Kenobi to answer to a distress call sent by Princess Leia
(although he also wants to rescue the princess because he
actually had fallen in love with her).
During his journey to rescue Princess Leia, Obi-Wan instructs
him on the arts of the Jedi, on how to use the Force. This can be
seen as the maturing stage.
After they managed to rescue the Princess, Luke feels the
responsibility to help the Rebel Alliance to fight the Empire, so
he joins the fleet on a mission to destroy the Death Star. This
is the responsibility stage.
At the end of Star Wars, Luke managed to blow up the generator
which then destroyed the Death Star. The Light force wins over
the Dark force; good wins over evil.
The thread continues in the next two parts of the trilogy.
In Star Wars, Luke was in the scorned stage. In the next
episode, The Empire Strikes Back, Luke was in the maturing stage,
where he learned the art of the Jedi from Master Yoda.
In the Return of the Jedi, he moved on to the responsibility
stage, where he once again helped the Rebel Alliance on a mission
to destroy the second, even bigger Death Star.
He also felt responsible to convert Darth Vader, whom he
discovered was actually his father, from the dark side back to
the light.
In the end, he faced the dark side by confronting Darth Vader
himself, the ultimate meeting between light and dark. Luke
succeeded in getting his father back to the light side and,
ultimately, light wins over dark.
Apparently, perhaps without being fully aware of it, Bonneff
described the guidelines of the classical heroic story. This is
not to say that Bonneff invented the guidelines, but he
formulated the ingredients which makes a heroic tale heroic.