THE AESTHETICS OF THE ISOLATED CASTLE

RAHM JETHANI - Writer, 2nd Year, English & Japanese

SPOILERS FOR LAPUTA: CASTLE IN THE SKY, NIER:AUTOMATA, AND ICO!

Ever since my first viewing of Laputa: Castle in the Sky many long years ago, I have been fixated with its titular location. The lives of the castle’s long-gone people were such a mystery to me, and paired with its warm, comforting colors and the abundance of its nature (both fostered and unfostered), it became a place I wanted to live in as a child. However, its environment of ever-present loneliness was always one aspect that would continually unsettle me, despite how peaceful the environment of Laputa was. And even though all of those qualities stand as reasons to adore this movie, as I’ve continued my journey through various media, I came to the conclusion that Laputa’s loneliness and allure could be better explained through a simultaneously more concrete yet more abstract basis: Laputa’s aesthetic in relation to time and humanity.

To understand what I mean by this statement, let’s take a look at a different isolated castle: NieR:Automata’s Forest Castle. I bring this setting up for two reasons: firstly to show how common and popular these types of environments are apart from anime, and secondly because the Forest Castle is much more obvious in the way it portrays its aesthetic in relation to time and humanity. Much like Laputa, this castle is cut off from the rest of the world, only being accessible through unconventional exploration. And, once in the boundaries of the Forest Castle, viewers might draw comparisons between it and Laputa, due to its overgrown nature and crumbling architecture.

The castle is inhabited by machines who defend their king with their lives. And, after slaughtering all the machines, the main android characters reach the throne, which is revealed to be a crib. And, just as they realize the Forest King is only a machine child, it is killed by another android. As the last semblance of that lonely kingdom’s life is snuffed out, the old castle conveys an aesthetic state other than age, that being a haunted and forbidden one.

The androids were never allowed by the machines to roam the castle, and yet they did. The reason for the castle’s occupation was rendered completely obsolete. And, whenever the androids decide to come back during the story, they are crossing an undrawn line, where their entrance is considered a perversion of the location’s original intent. Likewise in Laputa: Castle in the Sky, its castle was off-limits to the surface dwellers, and yet it was entered anyway. And, the castle’s reason for existence (that being the preservation of its nature and animals) was perverted by the humans trying to use it for its weapons and treasures. This inversion of the setting’s purpose is also a part of the aesthetic I had been obsessed with: the state of existing in these locations being considered a taboo.

While I’ve talked about Ico before, I haven’t really talked about its remote castle setting, which fits into this specific niche while also emphasizing the final aspect of the best types of fictional castles: their eventual destruction. Ico’s Castle in the Mist is destroyed at the end of the story, with it crumbling into the ocean in a way very reminiscent of Laputa’s destruction in the sky. This characteristic is quite poetic, almost as if the violation of entering the castle was being remedied by some force making sure it could never happen again. Plus, the transformation of these locations turning into some unattainable idea mirrors the unknown history of the castles and their societies. This full-circle method of constructing isolated castle settings has made their implementation (if done well) one of my favorite aspects in the media they are presented in, and this is one of the central philosophies influencing my love of Laputa: Castle in the Sky