This world is a dream that you are seeing: Eichi versus Empathy, and Souriau’s dramatic functions
What you are about to read is my fourth attempt to write a concise and meaningful summary of all the thoughts I have on the narrative of Enstars as a hopeful literature student. The first version, posted in summer 2021, was full of clumsy but poorly supported ramblings, though it resonated with some of my dear friends here. The second, written in response to an ask, I was slightly more satisfied with. The third was written for a class assignment, and earned me the highest final grade and praise from my professor, a published literary theorist. Her support along with that of my friends prompted me to put together this fourth and (hopefully) final version, different and more complete than all the others. I will use version number two, which you might be familiar with, as a base (so do not chide me if you remember certain points or sentence structures) but I will be adding new parts inspired by my recent efforts in studying literary theory and dramaturgy - most prominently Étienne Souriau’s dramatic functions, which I feel offered a convenient way for me to elaborate on some of my points and conclusions about Enstars.
The first disclaimer I need to make is that I was not able to find Souriau’s writing about dramatic functions translated to English online, so I will offer brief explanations of each function within this essay based on the Serbian translation which I read for class. I am not a professional dramaturg - I merely took one class on it - so if you are a person with more knowledge on these functions than I, and you notice errors or discrepancies in my explanations, I implore you to correct me.
The second disclaimer is that I am well-read only in the ! portion of Enstars stories, and as such I will be focusing only on those. I hold the opinion that everything Akira had meant to say with Enstars, he said before or during EP:link anyway, so I do not think that the fact that I’m not up to date with Enstars stories will significantly hinder my analysis.
Thank Yous where they are due to my dear friends Emery and Dove for spending hours upon hours brainstorming about Enstars with me in the past years.
