'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.