#or how all the antagonists (kushana is not a real antagonist in my book btw) go against the natural flow of life nausicaa values so much

[kushanna]

i am very sorry for the wall of text you're about to see

ahhh yes i agree with how nausicaä's changing view of kushana felt rushed. but at the same time i think a lot about how miyazaki's process in writing the story was not necessarily smooth, it took so many years, he had to take a lot of breaks from the manga and his ideas changed so much over time, so i think it might have been a situation where you have/want to do something but then you realize you don't have enough time/pages to do it anymore, so some things end up having to be compromised (i feel this not only with the nausicaä/kushana situation, but with other things as well, especially towards the end of the story). i kind of blame how rushed it felt mostly on that, so it doesn't really bother me. but looking at it from the perspective within the story, i agree!! i feel like a lot is said about how other people learn from nausicaä, which they do! but not enough is said about how much nausicaä has to learn from other people as well? the way i see it, nausicaä lived a very sheltered life inside the valley, so as righteous and enlightened as she was, she did have a limited view of the world and of other people (just think of her disgusted reaction at seeing the wormhandlers arriving along with the torumekians in volume 1. very different from the nausicaä from volume 7 who had the wormhandlers fighting alongside her):

so yeah i do think it's the same with kushana. just the consequence of having seen so much and met so many different people that come from different places, with different backgrounds and lifestyles and understanding that, as you said, nothing is black and white, and also something from a princess mononoke interview i won't be able to find now where miyazaki talks about how just because a person does something bad doesn't mean they're a bad person, they might just be a good person who did a bad thing, and vice versa. and in any case, separating people into "good" and "bad" is not productive anyway.

i DO love the effect nausicaä has on kushana, it's possibly one of my favorite things in the story ughh. because you can see it happening so clearly, the process. you can see she has thought and still thinks so much about nausicaä, which led her to think so much about her own life and now she's coming to a bunch of (wrong) conclusions about herself. kushana is so interesting because the world doesn't surprise her like it does nausicaä, she's seen things and she's tired of them. she knows war, she knows politics, she knows violent death, she knows cruelty, so she's very aware of the world and everything happening around her and also very aware of her own actions. but at the same time she has fully convinced herself that she is just bad and bad and bad and there is no future for her because she can never be good. so she's very self-aware, but also... not. i have no idea where i was going with this (lol) but i am once again going to bring that one quote everyone knows just because i love it very much and think about it OFTEN

i love this so much because it implies that the main difference between these two very similar people is the fact that one has been very hurt, in a way that the other hasn't. and!! this is what i've been saying!! if you take two blank slates and put them in different environments, they will have to adapt themselves to those environments and they will obviously develop to be very different, while still maintaining their similarities. disclaimer: i do, generally speaking, think everyone in the nausicaä universe is a bit fucked, considering it's a post apocalyptical setting, with toxins all around and the threat of extinction hanging above them, plus the bunch of wars and conflicts these people manage to get into, all that political madness, so it's not an easy life. considering that, nausicaä DID manage to live very sheltered, growing up in a place that feels more like a large community than an actual full-blown monarchy, the periphery people are the chillest ones around, and she has known nothing but kindness from others in all her 16/17 years of life. which good for her! and kushana technically is ALSO very sheltered (not everyone is born a princess of the biggest empire in the continent. lmao), but she has been placed in the middle of so much hostility, where she has been exposed to so many bad things from such an early age, and from people who were the closest to her, that there is this huge gap between her and nausicaä now.

what i'm TRYING TO say with this is that saving babies and taking them with you to a warship or signing the papers to free some slaves you weren't even remembering existed are not things kushana would have thought of doing by herself. but just as a bad environment can "encourage", or "prompt", or maybe "dispose" you to become a worst version of yourself, a version you're not proud of, a good environment can also do the opposite. kushana has in her the same potential for goodness nausicaä does, she just needs a little push to get back on track. and i feel like nausicaä, along with a few others, is that extra push.

these above are from a very nice analysis of the manga i found some time ago and this was their conclusion to kushana's arc, which i found very cute?? haha very correct too, and i always think about other people (her mother, her soldiers, master yupa) are always so willing to sacrifice themselves for her. but i should shut up now. will do that. bye bye.

@kushanahime your tags are such a delight to read! ☺ I often think about how their relationship develops in the manga and the more I think about it the clearer it becomes that Kushana has a lot to learn from Nausicaa and this is why she is so interested in getting to know her. With Nausicaa on the other hand it's very unclear how she went from "tell that woman that she can fight her own people as much as she pleases!!🤬 " to "aww Kushana is a gentle bird with broad wings and a big heart😇". They barely interacted after volume 3 and Nausicaa didn't witness anything which redeems Kushana to the point she can be called almost a "perfect angel". The way Nausicaa's view of Kushana changes is the most interesting part of their relationship for me. I believe that it happens because of Nausicaa being exposed to war and the literal end of the world for the rest of the manga. This is when she slowly starts to realize how gray the world around her is and also begins to sympathize with other people more, even if they don't share her views and beliefs and can't be called fully good or fully bad. However Nausicaa most likely doesn't know anything about Kushana's actions in volume 4, especially the bug swarm scene, unless Kurotowa (as the only character who has been there and has time to talk) tells her, which also makes the transition harder to understand. Nausicaa is known for being able to easily understand other people but it feels like she simply didn't have enough time to understand Kushana enough to call her a gentle bird later.

Also the way Kushana was so submissive and did everything she could to prove Nausicaa that she wasn't the person Nausicaa thought she was when they first met too shows that Kushana cares about what Nausicaa thinks of her. This once again proves that Nausicaa is really important to Kushana. She doesn't want Nausicaa to think bad of her and she also doesn't want to hurt her, knowing that it'd break Nausicaa's heart if she's unable to help others in need, therefore Kushana reluctantly agrees to do something crazy for her every time she asks for it