Ding Dang Dong~! Ding Dang Dong~!

Define Love. Define Desire. Define Beauty. Define Consciousness. Define Rationality.

1. Population x seems to employ [love/desire/beauty/consciousness/rationality] with functional definition y; definition y is useful when we’re talking about population x.

2. Let’s define [love/desire/beauty/consciousness/rationality] as z, and test z for its usefulness.

This is what I’m suggesting we do with moe. Without this kind of inquiry, there’d be no philosophy, humanities, or social science.

@coburn

Well, at the end of the day, I’m really with Cuchlann in that moe is “located” in the fandom, rather than the art — but at the same time, it’s possible to point out signifiers that will probably trigger moe in some people, and a major commonality seems to be helplessness/the need to be protected. Not that helplessness and moe are so inseparable that other factors can’t intervene and preclude the moe response, though.

So the ’structural moe’ argument comes down to an identification of helplessness as a root cause rather than a direct urge. i.e. the helplessness of the character is potentially occurring on a separate psychological level to the conscious moment where we feel moe. Protectiveness toward the capable person becomes possible.

On a separate psychological level — yeah, I think that’s it. Fans bring moe; a signifier becomes a moe indicator when enough fans use it to signify moe. So probably structural moe and fan-response moe are the same thing insofar as structural elements become moe through accumulated fan activity. It may be more useful to define moe in terms of external (fan feels moe for character) and internal (character feels moe for character) — but in the latter case we need a functional definition of moe, and that always seems so hard to come up with.

@ubiquitial again

I believe it’s more of a collective unconscious that governs what we see to be “moe”

It’d be difficult (to say the least) to identify where moe comes from ultimately. But I imagine it has to do with the set of psychological and social factors that lead people to the fandom in the first place. Personally I bet it’s related to the otaku fascination with “pure” women/virgins — but I’m not ready to get into that yet.

And I agree with you in that there is some level of conditioning involved, but that seems altogether unlikely, since that would require the same characteristics to be repeated over and over throughout cultural media of all forms, by coincidence. I believe it’s more of a collective unconscious that governs what we see to be “moe”

If it is buried thoroughly enough then we can potentially find moe in something without feeling it properly – presuming, as ghostlightning was suggesting, that it is possible for the signifiers to be delivered sufficiently badly.

I mean, glasses wearers aren’t really helpless (I hope)? If glasses cause moe then either they are subliminally moe or we have all just learnt to be experts in wrong. So the ‘structural moe’ argument comes down to an identification of helplessness as a root cause rather than a direct urge. i.e. the helplessness of the character is potentially occurring on a separate psychological level to the conscious moment where we feel moe. Protectiveness toward the capable person becomes possible. So maybe ‘structural moe’ = hidden protection fetish, and ‘fan response’ = customary anime fetish. I’m not sure which of those is worse, although I don’t think that such a deeply rooted protectiveness is necessarily misogynistic.

As I see it, “moe” is more of an emotional response, and therefore cannot be put into words. Since emotion and rationality belong to irreconcilable sectors. Put simply, it’s that feeling we have when we see a “moe” character, and nothing else.

Sure, moe and attraction can coexist, but I maintain that they’re often in conflict with one another when they do.

You’re absolutely right in that moe is as ill-defined as pretty much any abstract fictional concept, and that we’re all going to have different definitions at the end of the day. With so many people using the term, there’s really no avoiding that. I suppose I wouldn’t simplify moe into “the urge to protect,” which is too broad — but I would simplify it by saying that moe is brought about by a degree of helplessness in a character (hence that crowd that denounces moe as irreconcilably sexist), so protectiveness is certainly a possible factor, and, as far as I know, a pretty common one.

And I disagree with you in that I believe “moe” and attraction can coexist.

In the end, it’s how you define “moe” that determines it’s nature. But “moe” is just such a hazy concept. Lets go back to the beginning, shall we. Forget everything we’ve come up with about “moe”.

Name a characteristic of something that is “moe”.

As far as eroges go, I tend to think that moe is not operative during sex scenes. Moe is definitely a significant factor at play in ren-ai games, but it isn’t the be-all, end-all driving force behind characters.