Arrrrr, Sensei! Pirates vs. Ninjas II

I'm back.

In the last post I was discussing the various possibilities of manly make-believe. To recap: young boys like to pretend to be grown-ups. Grown men like to pretend to be some other kind of grown-up than the one they are. To do so they choose among several different possibilities, depending on their own temperament and experiences. The ones that hold the most appeal can generally be broken into two categories: valorous and otherwise.

Of the "otherwise", pirates and ninjas are the two most common types. The difficulty is in deciding which one is the best choice.

And yes, before you ask, a decision does need to be made. One can't be both a pirate and a ninja; there are too many incompatible concepts that are central to each. These usually revolve around what is allowable vs. what is essential. For example, pirates can be sneaky, but ninjas must be sneaky. A pirate that had no choice but to sneak around all the time isn't really a pirate, now is he?

Now I suppose at this point it's important to more strictly define the terms in play, and that means a more serious discussion. This is, after all, serious business.

A pirate is not necessarily a seafaring outlaw from the colonial period. Any boy who wanted to be Han instead of Luke (most of us) was choosing the pirate life. Likewise, a ninja is not necessarily an assassin from feudal Japan. James Bond is essentially a ninja that doesn't bother to hide his face. Or his methods. Or his name.

I never said he was a good ninja.

At this point, perhaps a list is in order.

What a Pirate Is:

• A guy with a ship that is used to smuggle stuff
  
• A criminal to some government somewhere
• A member, or leader, of a group of such criminals
• A "free man", at least in principle
  
• Usually for hire

What a Ninja Is:

• Sneaky
• Tricky
• A good fighter, especially unarmed or with a sword
  
• A master of many skills
  
• Usually for hire

Almost as important as what a thing is, is what it isn't. Important to note here is that many things people associate with pirates or ninjas don't necessarily have to apply. A ninja doesn't have to dress in black, fight samurai, or carry smoke bombs. In the same way, a pirate doesn't have to say 'Arrr!', bury treasure, or own a parrot. Those things are associated with ninjas or pirates because they either flow from one of the essentials (ninjas wear black because it helps them sneak around at night; pirates bury treasure because hiding the goods is a part of smuggling) or are related to the generic setting we're used to seeing, or to the common historical or literary model (samurai were the bodyguards of feudal Japan, so of course historical ninjas fought them; parrots were common in the Caribbean, so some idiot writing pulp pirate novels in the 1800's had to draw every freaking pirate captain with a parrot on his shoulder).

Of course if all we had to go on was the common popular conceptions then there wouldn't be as much debate: historical pirates and ninjas are much farther removed from one another than the culture-infused versions, and it would be easier to choose. But, movies, comics, and video games have made it an entirely different situation. Ninja and pirate characters have been removed from their historical settings and distilled to their essential characteristics so often that it is now entirely possible to define them in terms outside of their origins.

And in fact, young boys have been doing that ever since ninjas became important enough (in the late 1970's) to contrast with pirates. Film makers picked up on this right away; that's why our first ninja movies were things like "American Ninja", which for the most part disregards the whole Japanese thing in favor of American attitude. The movie sucked, but the point is the people behind it knew that guys were already prepared to take the general concept of a ninja and leave off all the extraneous stuff.

And the pirate thing, well, there have been sci-fi space pirates for basically ever, so the idea of non-seafaring pirates has been around. And of course there was that movie a few years ago. You know, the one about the pirates. That brought the whole thing to the fore. Not necessarily for the better, either, since before the pirate/ninja decision was more or less a private thing between friends. Now, good luck with that.

Next time: it's one or the other.

Or is it?

Yes it is.

Sort of.