Lucia and the Problem of Pain

Last month, I wrote about Lucia Konohana, a character with “cursed hands,” as I called it. As a character she first seems cold, distant, ruthless and order-loving. Simply see below to get what I mean. The idea that she has any friends – though she is friends with the benevolent Shizuru Nakatsu – seems initially ridiculous. How can someone so frosty make friends, one could ask. But what if it was all an act? A façade intended to aid others – her self-perception is negative, as evidenced by her persistent veiling of her hands. At least she can conceal her hands but hiding her existence would be better; Lucia thus is doomed to never feel a part of this world.

Figure 1. Kotarou Tennouji being punched by Lucia Konohana for heinous acts against all girls and women.

By now, I hope those concerned about not learning particular plot details have now turned back. The tale becomes quite morose as more is learned. Lucia, along with everyone else in Rewrite, has a tragic past that makes her truly a tragic hero. But here the tragedy transgresses the results of hubris and is thus both instructive and disarming. Lucia used to be Asahi Haruka the vampire, a being entrenched in urban legend as one who kills all she touches as shown below. Cursed is the oft-used word to explain her being. Then self-uptake of these negative “explanations.” Being cursed itself could be seen in a gendered light as the feminine form become something heinous. Lucia is then transformed into the monster encased in the body of a teenaged girl by urban legends, though her appearance betrays no evil; the monstrous Asahi is markedly defined by her femininity according to what Kotarou is told about the legend.

Figure 2. Asahi Haruka in the rain using Lucia's image.

Her cursed touch is reflected by a dark mark that reflects corruption that eats a person from the inside and results in utter destruction. Even when Lucia claims to no longer be Asahi, she did revive her persona and in the process marked Kotarou. She becomes dismayed upon seeing that symbol on Kotaru as depicted below. Through this scene and the preceding chain of events,  Kotarou’s affection for Lucia is displayed; despite her condition and her status as cursed, he decides to be fully supportive.

Figure 3. Lucia crying after realizing that she had cursed Kotarou. The leaf she was holding crumbled in her hand as a result of her power.

Lucia is a being engineered by the Next Generation Humanity Project for a virulent future where the environment becomes toxic and harsh to most life (depiction shown below). As a denizen of the years to come, Lucia’s body reacts to the present world as if it is toxic; thus, she produces poison in order to emulate the conditions her physiology expects. Such an endeavor seems academically plausible – indeed, some people view some form of this strategy as the most viable approach to dealing with changing environmental conditions. Humanity fit to the expected state of the world. It is fundamentally reactive and assumes that humanity cannot change itself or the environment. Others think that humanity should facilitate the regeneration of nature. Bioremediation of crude oil to save wildlife from oil spills is but one of many examples where humans use research towards the benefit of the planet.

Figure 4. Depiction of the toxic future world predicted by the Next Generation Humanity Project. According to NGHP’s research, the Earth will resemble this state in a thousand years.

Environmentalism need not fit cleanly into either general paradigm. Another possible solution is genetically modifying organisms. For example, yeast can be engineered to produce high quantities of ethanol for biofuel production so that fossil fuels can be replaced in the future. Perhaps removing the cause of damage may cause a reversal to a healthier state (with the right conditions). Removing human contaminants such as antibiotics or TCE from the environment, which removes humanity’s toxic imprint, could then potentially spur regeneration if the Earth is allowed to recuperate. Clearly there is not one or even just a couple strong ideas for dealing with environmental waste.

Is it okay to engineer a human, though? Ethically? How about, academically? Technically? Could you engineer someone well enough to create a super human? Academically, as I’ve said, is clearly possible. A technical answer would have to rely upon specifications and answering the question “what meets the standards,”  not simply create a mutant. The ethical question is rather difficult and requires knowing about Lucia’s morose backstory.

Lucia was forced to participate in experiments that transformed her into a superhuman ready for the poisonous future barren of life.  One of the lead researchers in the NGHP, Brenda McFarden, chose orphans for this project, many of whom died in the process. Having been given this “destiny” at the young age of 3, Lucia becomes entrenched in the ultimate goals of the program. NGHP feels religiously motivated to adapt humanity for the future by creating engineered beings, rather than bother worrying about the environment. As a result, Brenda plays the role of abuser by coercing orphans into this project for the purpose of creating future humans. One issue with this nefarious plan is that no evidence is provided by the researchers that this toxic future could come into existence; it relies upon an assumption that the Earth cannot be changed. Thus, the orphans are sacrificed towards an inhumane and scientifically unsound end. Furthermore, her experiments had small sample sizes (n<10 easily) and low yield (Lucia being the only success).  

Lucia, the sole survivor, becomes ensnared in the particular views of Brenda and her cohorts and is deprived of a chance for self-definition. Though Lucia was later rescued by Guardian, she carried her scars into her new life as an agent. The success of the project with respect to Lucia, despite making her more capable than present humanity, manages to force her to be independent of everyone around her. This difference takes a physiological form, as I already said: she secretes molecules toxic to all forms of (macroscopic) life on Earth as a result of being engineered for the future. Lucia is emotionally scarred as a result of this procedure, though she was able to remove any sense of physical harm. Nishikujou, Lucia’s superior officer, describes the research as an unforgivable violation of human rights. Given the difference between the project’s lofty goals and its actual results, she does have a point.

Then the question comes up: can this project’s work be morally justified? Utilitarianism and Kantian ethics can both be applied to evaluate the morality of engineering Lucia to deal with climate change due to their relative simplicity. Clearly, at least according to Nishikujou, this research is abysmally out-of-step with international human rights as described by the United Nations. Not everyone views the UN as an authority worth following, however.

Before that, a few words on the technical aspects of this project. As stated earlier, there are many ways to deal with humanity’s link to the environment in which it lives. Tissue engineering can be quite powerful; as someone aspiring to research in this field, I know that manipulating cells, genes, and tissues has greater potential to fundamentally change humans. For example, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) can be engineered to encourage angiogenesis in human patients, which can lead to many valuable therapies. Then tetracycline (if a tet-on or tet-off system is used) could be injected (or degraded) to end the therapy. This approach to tissue engineering has parallels with Lucia’s own physiological dilemma.

Here, Lucia was engineered similarly to achieve a change in physiological state, which raises many interesting implications of modifying human beings at molecular and higher levels.  Controlling her condition is achieved with a suppressant, so that innocent people do not die. Brenda decides to, after  convincing Lucia to leave Guardian and rejoin her research program, make use of her superhuman for her own purposes. So, Brenda injects Lucia with a drug that greatly enhances her ability to produce poison – which again is reminiscent of many therapies that make use of gene expression systems – and then Kazamatsuri City is wiped out by a poisonous fog that coats the entire city, killing hundreds of thousands of people. Such an act can be unambiguously called bioterrorism. In light of her long-term goals of saving humanity in accordance with her religious beliefs and destroying the Key, Brenda’s massacre seems quite small in scope. Lucia was given a “choice” but only a superficial one for Brenda could have simply taken advantage of the automatic nature of Lucia’s powers anyways.

Utilitarianism relies on the greatest good for the greatest number; this framework relies on the sum of “utiles,” which are basically the vote of every person affected by any given moral situation. Strictly speaking, only those who are completely involved are given a utile. Lucia killed many people but ultimately she saved the human population as a whole from utter destruction; clearly because all of humanity gets a vote except for the relatively small group that died, utilitarianism is overwhelmingly upheld. Brenda’s NGHP engineering Lucia is in the grand scheme an act to carry civilization forward to a dismal future, which constitutes helping mankind as a whole. (I should add that “mankind” only refers to those who willingly reap the benefits, not people like Kotarou and Shizuru who oppose Brenda.) Viewing the situation in an anthropocentric interpretation of utilitarianism clearly suggests the absolute morality of this endeavor. 

This attitude entirely assumes a singular approach to environmental change – that humans cannot change the Earth so they must simply change themselves. A utile, however, can be extended to the Earth as a whole including the many varieties of non-human life. Ecofeminism, animal rights advocates, and ecological criticism as a whole suggest that humanity is not the only form life that can be allotted a voice in ethics. Clearly a book like Silent Spring suggests the immorality of using toxic compounds because of the inherent existence of animal rights. Only mankind reaps benefits in Brenda’s plan, meaning that her actions are immoral to the planet as a whole. Thus, this act of engineering Lucia is immoral under utilitarianism. 

Let’s analyze the situation again but with Kant’s views on morality. Kantian ethics stipulate that one must only act in a way that can be universally applied; any action that becomes contradictory or self-defeating when universally applied is thus immoral. In particular, any act that treats humanity was a means instead of an end is morally unsound under this ethical scheme. Lucia’s reaction to being seen as cursed or monstrous, revealed by Figures 2 and 3, leads her to feel unworthy of being alive. Thus, emotionally Lucia has locked herself into the role of being a “tool,” not a human being deserving of acceptance and understanding. Specifically, she has been forged into Brenda’s conduit for the vile goals of the Next Generation Humanity Project. Lucia almost allows her life to end because she stopped feeling human. Clearly engineering Lucia transforms her from a person (end) to simply a tool (means), which strongly reflects the immorality of the action. If this action were universalized, then many persons would become superhumans without perceptions of pain but would likely feel isolated as a result of the ability to produce poison at will; then many beings would be transformed against their will for a purpose that then becomes their destiny. Clearly, universalization would be self-defeating for this action. This act is then clearly immoral under Kantian ethics.

Kotarou saves Lucia from abandoning her life by reminding her of her intrinsic value in his life. Instead of simply saying that a better suppressant could be made, he dowses her with affection to encourage her to not give up. Reminding Lucia that better approaches at handling her poison could be developed is objectifying because it frames her in terms of her “destiny,” rather than a true sense of self that extends beyond being superhuman.

The reader expects that I use the phrase “problem of pain” at some point. Or at least mention pain in a more elaborate manner. Fret not, for here I will connect pain to Lucia’s existential crisis. As a superhuman, Lucia has been trained not to sense physical pain. After all, pain is simply conveyed electrically to the brain via the peripheral nervous system, so ignoring pain is completely possible for someone with such training. Pain is considered quite horrific. Physical pain tends to be considered worse than emotional pain – which coincides with stigmas against mental illness – because the latter is “all in one’s head.” Though Lucia need not suffer from physical pain any more, she is not protected against the burning emotional injury that she suffers from isolation.

As the reader learns more about Lucia’s past, her needing-a-hugness increases tremendously as suggested by the below image. She is a superbeing who cannot be harmed but that realization only makes being alive worse. At the same time, her story indicates that pain plays an important role. This inability to feel physical injury also dulls Lucia’s senses until everything becomes bland. She can eat tremendously spicy food without difficulty but she cannot taste food when she wants to enjoy in the presence of someone important to her (such as on her first date with Kotarou).This lack of sense is linked to her lack of pain, which ironically makes her suffer. The problem of pain is that it serves to let someone know that something is wrong but also is an extension of the ability to feel in all of the sense available to a human. Yet her inability to use pain as an indication of environment ultimately makes her feel worse.

Figure 5. Kotarou hugging Lucia after she reveals her identity as Asahi Haruka. Her normalized needing-a-hug value is 1.

This theme of pain, whether physical or emotional, meshes well with Lucia’s feelings of isolation. Earlier I said that Lucia is doomed, but that was inaccurate to say. Clearly she is stuck in an unfortunate situation brought by on by both inhumane and scientifically terrible research. But Lucia creates a life of her own  through the events of her route, rather than being given that meaning. With the help of Kotarou and others, Lucia is able to symbolically reclaim her body and dismantle Brenda’s objectification, despite hardships faced.  This story unites the regeneration of damage done to the environment to Lucia’s empowerment and healing into an overall message of cautious yet powerful hope that the environment and humanity will both improve.