Secret Identities Revisited
Mar. 9th, 2008 06:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sennetariI'm currently watching Ultraman Cosmos TV series (I'm up to episode 44 at the moment. What can I say? It's very addictive, though I think it's probably an acquired taste), and it occurs to me that Musashi doesn't seem to be able to conceal his secret identity very well. I wonder why he bothers to hide it at all. His personality seems the type, if not to boast, to mention what he does. He constantly says things like he would not run away, he needs power, strength, etc., both to himself and to other people.
Anyway, since the issue did come up at one point in Cosmos, when a hero hides his/her secret identity, I'm curious how much of that is him/her not volunteering unnecessary information and how much of that is him/her outright deceiving others. Can it be just one thing, either a lie by omission or a deceit, or has the line between them become too blurred? On a related note, how much he/she should feel guilty if the secret identity is discovered? People are not the same, thus should have different reactions, and yet I find it strange that these shows never really deal with the aftermath of their heroes' feelings. I'm mostly talking about the (Heisei) Ultra series, since I'm not very familiar with other genres. And, in addition to responses from a previous post of the same title (thanks to those who answered that post, by the way), why does a hero chooses to hide his secret identity? As I said, people are supposed to be different in how they approach things, in how they feel, so is it an instinct, coded into his secret identity, not to reveal it under any circumstance? The Ultra human host always seems to know not to talk about his ability and usually tries to transform out of sight. (Though not always. Sometimes, I wonder if the other people in the show don't have eyes, when the hero disappears and Ultraman appears in his place.)
Off tangent a bit, I'm thinking of an old magical girl show that, when the main character's secret identity is revealed, she gets stuck in her transformed state, so I can understand why she would take great care to conceal her secret. Anyway, her problem is ultimately resolved by erasing the memory of the person who has found her out. I think the only Ultra series which employs a memory erasing device is Nexus and I don't remember if they try to use it on the main characters at all. That would be interesting actually.
Anyway, since the issue did come up at one point in Cosmos, when a hero hides his/her secret identity, I'm curious how much of that is him/her not volunteering unnecessary information and how much of that is him/her outright deceiving others. Can it be just one thing, either a lie by omission or a deceit, or has the line between them become too blurred? On a related note, how much he/she should feel guilty if the secret identity is discovered? People are not the same, thus should have different reactions, and yet I find it strange that these shows never really deal with the aftermath of their heroes' feelings. I'm mostly talking about the (Heisei) Ultra series, since I'm not very familiar with other genres. And, in addition to responses from a previous post of the same title (thanks to those who answered that post, by the way), why does a hero chooses to hide his secret identity? As I said, people are supposed to be different in how they approach things, in how they feel, so is it an instinct, coded into his secret identity, not to reveal it under any circumstance? The Ultra human host always seems to know not to talk about his ability and usually tries to transform out of sight. (Though not always. Sometimes, I wonder if the other people in the show don't have eyes, when the hero disappears and Ultraman appears in his place.)
Off tangent a bit, I'm thinking of an old magical girl show that, when the main character's secret identity is revealed, she gets stuck in her transformed state, so I can understand why she would take great care to conceal her secret. Anyway, her problem is ultimately resolved by erasing the memory of the person who has found her out. I think the only Ultra series which employs a memory erasing device is Nexus and I don't remember if they try to use it on the main characters at all. That would be interesting actually.
