Latest / The Autistic Mile / The Ideal-ist: Episode 15 (Aelita)
Transcript
- Shane: Hello everyone. Welcome to the Autistic Mile. My name is Shane Gaffney and this is episode 15 of The Ideal-ist. Today, we'll be talking about the character of Aelita from the anime/TV show slash TV show, Code Lyoko. And Code Lyoko is a very special show to me in that it was the show that defined my middle school years. And if I remember correctly, into my high school years. The story of how I came across it is actually pretty amusing in that there was one show that used CGI that I had been trying to find despite not knowing the name of it. So when I came across Code Lioko, which had the same general look, I figured that that was the show that I was looking for. And though it didn't end up being what I thought it was, it turned out to be a pretty great show. And unsurprisingly, it has a lot of fans to this day. As for what the show is about, it's about a group of teenagers that come across an abandoned factory in town and after snooping around in it they end up activating a supercomputer that contains a whole digital world in it called Lyoko. And in this digital world there is a girl by the name of Aelita. And at the start of the series, Aelita has amnesia and doesn't remember anything about how she got there or where she came from, initially believing that she's an artificial intelligence of some kind. However, it's not all gumdrops drops and rainbows, because there is something else in this digital world by the name of X.A.N.A which is an evil AI that is bent on taking over the world. I know, super original. Now what does X.A.N.A stand for as an acronym? Your guess is as good as mine. Not even the creators know. But what's important is that it's dangerous and it could utilize the power of these things inside Lyoko known as "towers" to cause all kinds of disasters in the real world to try and get what it wants. Everything from causing a zombie outbreak, to hijacking space lasers, and even things like stirring up deadly blizzards. And that's one of the things that I really liked about the show. It wasn't afraid to really show this villain meant business. Though there was a huge sci-fi element to it, some of the methods it used to try and take out the heroes were actually very realistic to a somewhat frightening degree. X.A.N.A itself is very interesting in that it is about as AI as you can get. And that in the sense of traditional AI villains like say Skynet from Terminator. Taking on X.A.N.A is less like fighting a person because he has no real voice per se, and he doesn't have a physical form of sorts outside of being this weird purple smoke blob thing. X.A.N.A is by all accounts just pure efficiency and ruthless drive to accomplish its goals. Now as for how Aelita fits into all this, the heroes of the show are all about trying to safely help Aelita escape from Lyoko back into the real world and finding a way to stop X.A.N.A from its endeavors of taking over the world and enslaving mankind. And all this because one of the main characters by the name of Jeremy happens to have a crush on Aelita. Not exactly a very good reason to put all the world at stake, but hey, it was a pretty good show. And Aelita is a character with a heart of gold. She walks this fine line of being a very idealistic person, very full of compassion and humility and generally being nice to just about everyone while also still having emotions of her own and showing that there is a person underneath it all and she's not just some robotic Disney style princess waiting to be saved. And on that topic she does get saved a lot because she does fill the role of the damsel in distress for a great deal of the 5 seasons. That is one part of the show I don't like in retrospect, but I get that it's a product of the times. And as the seasons play out, Aelita does end up developing her own agency and her own abilities to fight back. So that's definitely very nice of the creators. And Aelita is not really the sort of person you would think I would be talking about on this show because while she does have a tragic backstory in the form of her mother was taken away at a young age by government agents who were afraid of her father's creation, her father having created Lyoko and X.A.N.A, and having been accidentally trapped inside of Lyoko itself by said father, resulting in her losing her memories when the supercomputer was shut down. And her father is not a bad person. It's more he created something technologically brilliant, but unintentionally created something that could be a threat to the whole world. And sorta just had to try and think on his feet on how to dethorn this threat. Aelita really has to untangle all these complex thoughts about her past and her family as she starts to remember more of both. At first she is understandably conflicted because objectively speaking, it is all her father's fault that they ended up in this mess, but Obviously she doesn't stay mad in that she knows everything he did, he did with the best of intentions, and understood that he genuinely loved her. But back to what I was saying, even though she's not like Nine or Kieran who have major psychological pitfalls to fight their way out of, sometimes all you really need is just a wholesome character that is very sweet and sorta restores your faith in humanity, to put it one way. All the other main heroes are definitely very interesting in their own ways, all having their own different personalities and powers and their own differing story threads. A lot of people who come across the show for the first time, they may not be able to get over the fact that everyone's foreheads are ginormous for some reason, because of the art style the creators decided on. But if you can get past that, then a lot of people really find a show that exemplifies that perfect balance of a show of teenagers trying to juggle school life and interpersonal drama with a side job of trying to save the world from a blatantly evil AI that is out to just completely destroy them. There are some story threads that I feel were a bit of a mess, like the romantic arc between the two main characters of Ulrich and Yumi, which I would say taps a lot into that teenage awkwardness of not really knowing how they feel, but I do feel that they retread that "will they, won't they?" storyline a bit too often for my taste. You really wish they'd just make up their mind on what they want their relationship to be. But that's beside the point. Out of all the characters, Aelita is the character that I gravitated most towards because as I said before on the show, I had no friends back then, or at least friends that I felt really appreciated me. And so in that situation you're really willing to try and find kindness wherever you'll be able to get it. And in the case of me, that happened to be in the form of a fictional character. And sometimes even though those things aren't real and might be concerning from an outside perspective. Sometimes the illusion that someone cares about you is all you really need to keep moving forward in your darkest moments. But that's just me. I doubt I'll ever meet anyone like Aelita in real life because we're all human. We all have our own flaws and imperfections. But I do believe if anyone on the spectrum has someone like that in their life then it really is a blessing and really helps them out a lot psychologically compared to other people who may not have such sources of unconditional friendship from those around them. And though it's true that sometimes bonds like that may end because of one reason or another, maybe someone moves out, maybe they go to a different school, maybe circumstances just change and that inevitably causes things to slowly drift away, It still is something to at least have had those experiences because even if they end, good memories can do a lot. Having the knowledge that things can be better it's really powerful, more than people give it credit for. And I for one would hope that everyone who watches this either has or someday will have a source like that in their life. And that's about all I have to say about Aelita. Be sure to leave a comment if you want to, like and subscribe, and I will see you next time. Thank you.