[He looks a little nervous, probably because of that piercing stare he's getting from Erika. It may not be aggressive, but it is a little overwhelming, at least for a meek personality like Shuichi. So he focuses his gaze on Kaede instead as he explains.]
The Butterfly Dream was a parable by the Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi. One night, he had a dream so realistic that he truly believed he was a butterfly, flying on the wind. Then he woke up, and remembered that he was a man. But it left him with the question of whether he was a man dreaming he was a butterfly or if he was now a butterfly dreaming he was a man. "Between a man and a butterfly, there is necessarily a distinction. The transition is called the transformation of material things."
[Sorry if you already knew this, Kaede. But he's assuming you must not know the story if you can't see how it relates to familiars.]
I don't know a lot about this kind of...fantasy stuff. But familiars were mentioned in one of the novels I've been reading. [You know, when he's not studying. Does this boy do anything other than read in his free time??] And the way I understand it, they're different than just a normal summon. They're kind of like...an extension of the summoner themselves, instead of an independent being that any mage could call upon, hence the term "familiar".
[He gestures to Erika's butterfly, giving the girl herself a look that seems to be asking for confirmation on some of his facts. His only knowledge of familiars comes from a work of fiction, after all. Fiction and a few comments from a friend of his who thinks she's a mage and once mentioned her own "familiar" to him.]
Mishima-san is the only one who can summon this butterfly because it's a part of her. So, in a way, familiars themselves can be seen as a parallel to the ultimate question of Zhuangzi's dream. Is Mishima-san a human summoning a butterfly or a butterfly summoned by a human?
no subject
[He looks a little nervous, probably because of that piercing stare he's getting from Erika. It may not be aggressive, but it is a little overwhelming, at least for a meek personality like Shuichi. So he focuses his gaze on Kaede instead as he explains.]
The Butterfly Dream was a parable by the Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi. One night, he had a dream so realistic that he truly believed he was a butterfly, flying on the wind. Then he woke up, and remembered that he was a man. But it left him with the question of whether he was a man dreaming he was a butterfly or if he was now a butterfly dreaming he was a man. "Between a man and a butterfly, there is necessarily a distinction. The transition is called the transformation of material things."
[Sorry if you already knew this, Kaede. But he's assuming you must not know the story if you can't see how it relates to familiars.]
I don't know a lot about this kind of...fantasy stuff. But familiars were mentioned in one of the novels I've been reading. [You know, when he's not studying. Does this boy do anything other than read in his free time??] And the way I understand it, they're different than just a normal summon. They're kind of like...an extension of the summoner themselves, instead of an independent being that any mage could call upon, hence the term "familiar".
[He gestures to Erika's butterfly, giving the girl herself a look that seems to be asking for confirmation on some of his facts. His only knowledge of familiars comes from a work of fiction, after all. Fiction and a few comments from a friend of his who thinks she's a mage and once mentioned her own "familiar" to him.]
Mishima-san is the only one who can summon this butterfly because it's a part of her. So, in a way, familiars themselves can be seen as a parallel to the ultimate question of Zhuangzi's dream. Is Mishima-san a human summoning a butterfly or a butterfly summoned by a human?
[Make sense?]