Anime Updates Gaiden returns

 Well since my last seasonal Anime update things have changed.

I dropped Love After World Domination during episode 2 and Shikimori during episode 3, their main joke tired quickly and were not quite what I was wanting either to be.

I finished both Land of Leadale and Genius Prince, the latter of which unexpectedly released all of the final four episodes at once.  Both were fun shows I gave high scores to on MAL.

Estab Life episode 2 blew me away with its amazing premise, and then episode 3 was neat as well.

Legend of The Galactic Heroes: New Thesis is still holding up pretty well.

I then added 3 additional shows for Thursday to my pile, Skeleton Knight, Tsukimichi and Fruit of Evolution, both have interesting starts so far, but I can’t be sure I’ll keep following.

Spy x Family and Takt op-Destiny are both holding up.  I also discovered Lupin III Part 6 is airing on Toonami so I don’t necessarily need to wait till Monday.

Trapped In A Dating Sim is also still holding strong at 4 episodes.

Star Wars was never Left Wing

Not by any Political Compass other then America's and even then not really.

I am still a Prequel Fan, I don't have to agree with a movie's politics to enjoy it.  But in the past I'd often tried to tie my Prequel fandom into arguing it's the most Anti-Capitalist part of Star Wars, but that doesn't mean much when none of it really is at all.  

You see so many Leftists living in online echo chambers really do have no idea how people who disagree with them actually think, as someone who was once an Anti-Communist, I can assure you most Conservatives and even Libertarians do believe most rich people are evil greedy mustache twirling villains, they simply disagree on what policies serve their interests.

If you watch those deleted scenes from A New Hope, there is one were Luke and Biggs talk about how the Farmers are having their farming needlessly complicated by the Imperial bureaucracy's regulations.  That sounds like Libertarianism, this movie was made when Reagonomics was on the rise.

Peter Coffin really loved insisting that Canto Bait was some huge critique of Capitalism beyond anything Star Wars had done before.  It isn't, again it's mainly right-wingers who have their fantasies about the élite decadent ruling class flying off to remote locations to be decadent together while funding both sides of every war.

In The Prequels the stuff about evil rich people is at least more then just one segment of the film's C plot.  But still I see so many people going all "this corporation has representation in the Senate, and they're doing all this over having their Taxes raised", and yeah that seems more like a Progressive commentary then that OT deleted scene did.  But if this were really a Leftist Critique of Capitalism then they would be the final boss, instead they are being manipulated and controlled by the real evil as much as the government is.

I am also retracting the title of my old post titled "Star Wars was always about Fascism", the "Fascism" Star Wars was about was always cosmetic, The Empire is just a generic totalitarian dictatorship, calling "Stormtroopers" what would really be more accurately the Wehrmacht.  Fascists and Nazis aren't the only people who use those colors or wear fancy military uniforms.  There is no Populism or Xenophobia ever brought up in any of the mainline films anyway.  If you listen to George Lucas's audio commentaries the historical inspiration he most prefers to talk about is actually Napoleon III.

The Empire doesn't quiet fit the actual definition of Fascism, nor does it fit the Palingenetic Ultra Nationalism theory or Eco's thesis, nor does it fit Caleb Maupin's pet definition, or any of the Marxist definitions being discussed in the 1930s.  The only theory about what Fascism is and how it works that could possibly match the way Palpatine seizes power is the way Fascism was talked about by old Paleo-Conservative Conspiracy Theorists like Alex Jones during the Clinton and Bush years.

The Sith are basically the Satanists of the Star Wars Universe with the Sith Code popularized by KOTOR being modeled after the ethics of Anton Levy's Satanism.  Meaning them controlling both sides behind the scenes is just like the Evangelical right wing conspiracist perception of the Illuminati.

I feel the same way about John Carpenter's They Live, he gets so offended at the Nazis trying to claim it but no it's your own fault, when your "allegory" for Capitalism is demonic looking Aliens disguised as humans, it does become the exact same thing Far Right Conspiracy theorists believe in, for a small but notable subset it's not even an allegory.

So it likewise probably wasn't Lucas's intent to endorse Conspiracism, but that's what happens when you half hazardly mix a watered down superficial critique of Capitalism with Gothic Horror inspired Space Wizard Supervillians.

When we get to the Disney Trilogy, there was constantly a perception of Kylo Ren being representative of like a GamerGate style neo-reactionary.  But the truth is, given just how obsessed the entire Disney Trilogy was with being Meta about everything, Kylo Ren was I think written in part to be someone you could read as an allegory for Entitled Star Wars fans who hated the Prequels and Special Editions, even though Abrams and others involved weren't Prequel fans themselves, they did try hard not to 100% alienate those fans.  It simply turned out there was a decent amount of overlap between Entitled Star Wars fans and GamerGaters.

Update December 2022: I'm glad I wrote this before Andor came out because it would have tripled the size if I felt compelled to break down everything people are overhyping about that show.

Andor's "Anti-Fascism" is the same Star Wars always had, it's different in how it's putting that more in the foreground.  But the Empire still has no actual ideology besides being authoritarian, and in fact have been made more Demographically Diverse then they've ever been before.  And all the Rebel Manifestos's we've been given are just Liberalism, no actual calls for Communist Collectivism.  It's still a fundamentally Centrist ideology.

In my Memory the Late 00s and Early 2010s tend to blend together.

And I have a feeling I'm not alone in that.  As much as we love to by default correlate eras of modern history to Gregorian calendar Decades, including plenty of how I've talked on this blog, how quickly or slowly things change doesn't always line up that way.

For American political history the Gregorian decade changes work better for the 20th years which are also election years, and coincidentally usually not reelections, they have usually been the ascendency of a new President.  But for the period I'm talking about 2010 was merely mid-terms, Obama was elected in 2008 and reelected in 2012.  Of course for me personally that era of American politics was my Ron Paul phase.

The Dark Knight came out in 2008 and The Dark Knight Rises in 2012, then 2013 was the start of Man of Steel being the center of DC film discourse, and in the Comics this was also the era of Grant Morrison's Batman run.  The MCU started in 2008 and Phase 1 culminated in 2012 with The Avengers.  Star Wars: The Clone Wars started in 2008 and it's 6th and final season ended in 2013 after the Disney purchase of Star Wars in late 2012.  The first Twilight film came out in 2008 and then the last one came out in 2012, with The Host in 2013 serving as a coda of sorts to that era of YA Novel based films.  Nintendo released the Wii in 2006 and didn't replace it with the WiiU till 2012.  Also iCarly started in 2007 and ended in 2012.

Twitter started in 2007, or at least that's when I first recall hearing about it.  But what Twitter and Social Media in general was like changed drastically because of events around 2012, that's when MySpace fully died and when Video Essays began to replace Channel Awesome style angry reviews.

During this time period I wasn't yet into Anime nearly as much as I am now, yet in my observations about Anime history a similar pattern can be seen.  I think it can be said that there was an era of Anime that begins with some of the 2006 shows I talked about in my last posts on 2000s Anime and was capped off by Robotics;Notes and Accel World while the contemporary Sword Art Online gave birth to a lot of how Anime has looked since.  This era I would call the Golden Age of Visual Novel adaptations and the Silver Age of Light Novel adaptations, but it was by no means without interesting Manga adaptations and Original Anime.  

For Pokémon this was the era of the DS Games and their corresponding seasons of the Anime.

And for Detective Conan, the Clash of Red and Black saga from 2008 I do happen to consider the end of Classic Detective Conan, yet 2012 when Sera and Amuro are introduced is arguably the real beginning of modern Detective Conan.

The Phantom Menace is a Stand Alone movie

There is this commonly restated belief that of course A New Hope is the ONLY Star Wars movie that can truly entirely work as a stand alone film, because everything else is derivative of that.  But Lucas always intended that film to feel like jumping into a series in the middle, while the film he called Episode I should, like any good first episode of a film series, be the one that most stands on its own.  And it does.

When you look back at how the film was marketed, yes the teaser focused on Anakin and Obi-Won and the fact that it was a prequel, but the main full trailer doesn’t mention Anakin and barely gives Obi-Won any attention, because the main plot isn’t actually about Anakin at all.  As a stand alone film it’s about Queen Amidala’s dilemma but also told chiefly from the point of view of the Jedi Knights sent to help her.  And in terms of how things are resolved it’s also about reconciling the relationship between the Naboo and the Gungans which is why Jar Jar Binks is important.

Now you may respond “okay it has a stand alone main plot, but isn’t the time devoted to Anakin a waste when viewed through that lens?”  Well no and here’s why.

First of all, think about the part of the first act where they’ve finally escaped Naboo with the Queen.  No good fantasy adventure story would actually allow them to be able to go right to Coruscant, cinematic tension and drama demand something delay them and force them to stop somewhere else along the way.  If the medium of this story were a video game or something serialized then multiple stops would probably be made, 3-7 most likely, but a film with only 2 hours to work with only has time for one.  And the conventions of this genre would also demand each stop add a new member to the party, and it’s even normal for that new character to become the focus during this section, and then that party member should also contribute something at the climax/resolution so that everything feels like it mattered.

Those are the Genre convention reasons for the role Anakin and Tatooine plays in the story, but what about Themes?  What about how it helps tell the stories of the main characters?

Padme encountering the existence of Slavery on Tatooine and the fact that the Republic is doing nothing about it is her first reality check that the Republic isn’t all she thought it was, and it prepares her for the more directly relevant to her situation reality check she shall receive when they reach Coruscant.

And the new party member added being a Force Sensitive potential Jedi allows us to learn more about the Force and the Jedi and how their order works, thus providing context to help us better understand our POV protagonists.

Now the film does have some blatant sequel hooks at the end, but so what, The Godfather in its last act has a few moments that at least in retrospect feel like set up for Part II, they don't make that film not a stand alone film.  Any good Fantasy Adventure story should leave potential for more stories, even if lack of success means they don’t get made, that just allows the viewer to use their imagination.  

A New Hope comparatively leaves far more unresolved with The Empire still standing, Vader most likely still alive, Luke having even less of a start to his Jedi training, and the bounty on Han still being a Sword of Damocles over his head.  None of those kill the ability of that film to stand on its own and the same is true of anything you can say about The Phantom Menace.

Now maybe someone will turn around and say “well that just makes it a bad first episode of the Saga if the ultimate main character is of little importance”, but no it doesn’t.  It’s like The Ring being a small side plot in The Hobbit.  And in MrSundayMovies recent Symbiants video he observes how the main plot of the movie which Anakin is mostly watching from the sidelines is essentially his first lesson in how The Force works.  So it does all tie together.

Stoicism vs Gnosticism in Star Wars

Every time I see someone complain about how the Midichlorians “Demystify” The Force, all I can think about is how limited the modern West’s conception of Mysticism has become thanks to the influence of Pythagorean Dualism and Platonist Idealism.

These same people will mention how The Force as a concept drew on ideas from Eastern Mysticism, the Yin-Yang of Taoism and hints of Shintoism Lucas may have picked up on in all those Japanese Samurai films he watched, for example how he defines The Dark Side as being an infection or virus fits Kegare better then it does Taoism.  But they failed to do their homework on all of that, if they did they’d know this idea that factoring anything biological into explaining how The Force works somehow makes it less Spiritual couldn’t be any more alien to Taoist or Shinto ways of thinking, to them Biology is Spiritual and Spirituality is Biological.

I myself have often been one of those who keeps saying Star Wars is Fantasy not Sci-Fi.  But I’ve come to realize that the Anti-Midichlorians mentality that has always annoyed me is a product of the exact same limited western mindset that lies behind making a hard distinction between Sci-Fi and Fantasy.  Now it is still useful to point out how core aspects of Star Wars’ narrative and thematic intentions are more similar to LOTR than Star Trek.  However sometimes even Star Trek Metaphysics are rather Spiritual and even Tolkien can be more scientific than you might expect.

So ScreenRant has an article called 15 quotes about The Force that when quoting Obi-Wan's main Force exposition in A New Hope and Yoda’s in Empire actually has the gall to claim The Midichlorian reveal “retconned” them, but fortunately it quotes them directly allowing me to refresh my memory.  Both quotes talk about The Force being generated by Living Things, not only is that compatible with the Midichlorian reveal but it pretty much proves something like that was how it worked all along.

Rick Worley has a video called What are The Whills that goes in depth into this aspect of Star Wars lore, but if you want a shorter cliff notes version on just one aspect of it watch MrSundayMovies video on Symbiants.  However I myself am a White American Christian whose understanding of Japanese spirituality comes mostly from all the Anime I watch.  So I have no desire to claim to be some great expert on Eastern Mysticism.  Instead this post shall focus on the implication in what I said at the start that the West didn’t always have this problem, at least not so nearly universally. [Update: I really regret recommending this video now that Worley has gone full Terf.]

Star Wars fans getting so offended by the Midichlorians, insisting The Force is no longer something spiritual if you’ve also made it Biological or Physical or “Carnal”, wreaks of Gnosticism to me.  It reminds me of when I watched this YouTube video from a Full Preterist responding to the accusation that their de Physicalizing of The Resurrection makes them Gnostic, he said he’s not Gnostic because he doesn’t believe the Physical world is fundamentally totally evil, thing is not all ancient Gnostics necessarily exactly believed that either, this video went on to talk about his distinguishing between the Spiritual and the Carnal.  And then in the comments section I saw someone express how they found it so disturbing that Futurists (and by implication also Partial Preterists) want the Resurrection to be Carnal, they saw it as a rejection of Spirituality that so many Christians have an attachment their fleshy carnal bodies, they think Christians should want to "Let Go" of them.

Now Star Wars has been accused of being Gnostic.  Ryan Reeves in one of his videos (I don’t remember which one) references a quote from Yoda in Empire Strikes Back where he says “Luminous being we are, not this crude matter” and yeah that sounds pretty Gnostic out of context, like how some quotes from Paul and the Fourth Gospel are taken out of context to make them sound Gnostic.  But even the immediate context of Yoda’s fuller quote undermines that Gnostic interpretation, much less how utterly Anti-Gnostic the Midichlroian reveal is.  Perhaps this quote wouldn’t have been so easy to misconstrue if only a “just” had been added, I do consider the OT not as precisely and carefully well written as the PT.

In April I made a post about Gnosticism in Anime where I also brought up Stoicism in the context of Final Fantasy VII.  I talk about this stuff more on my main Theology Blog, in posts about the Pagan Greek Origins of Puritan Sexuality and Stoicism in Early Christianity.  It is my view that Gnosticism is Pythagoreanism and Platonism taken to their logical extreme, and that New Testament Theology, if you want to compare it to any pre-existing School of Greek Philosophy, was closest to Stoicism.  Many are surprised to learn this, but during the first century proper Platonism was a minority position, Plato’s influence was felt in all schools to an extent, but among Greek Philosophers who believed in mysticism at all, Stoicism was the dominant perspective.  Though it was a form of Stoicism in some ways detached from the founding principles of Zeno.

But one of the core differences between Christianity and Stoicism is that Stoicism has no Resurrection, instead the Stoic view of the afterlife was the individual Soul eventually fading back into the World Soul, as well as a belief in endless cycles of destruction and rebirth. This is basically the After Life view of Star Wars as expressed by Yoda to Anakin in Episode III and further delved into in those season 6 Clone Wars episodes, the Personal Force equating to the Individual Soul and the Cosmic Force equating to the World Soul.

It is the cyclical aspect that is key to what makes Stoicism similar to Eastern Mysticism.  When I was watching the Netflix Anime film Bubble on April 28th with this post both above and below this paragraph mostly already written, I was reminded of all of it.  It uses the modern Big Bang Theory based scientific understanding of the Universe to evangelize this cyclical mysticism

In Stoicism the word Pneuma (which is the Greek word translated Spirit) was NOT a word for something intangible like Plato’s world of forms, Pneuma is Hyper Corporeal rather than non Corporeal.  And their sense of the word is what was dominant in the first century.  And when you really dig into it, I feel it can very much be compared to both the Lifestream in Final Fantasy VII and The Force in Star Wars.

There is a YouTube channel whose avatar is a low quality picture of Rika Furude from Higurashi and whose username is simply a Period.  This mysterious YouTube channel has a video called The Foundations of Star Wars, this video digs into the moral philosophy of Star Wars and what the channel finds horribly wrong with it.  This Moral Philosophy is basically the same as that later Roman Stoicism I spoke of, Stoicism after allowing itself to draw too much influence from Plato especially The Laws.  And I think the fact that neither this YouTuber or George Lucas himself can find a way to make the existence of the Force compatible with a more pro pleasure pro attachment morality is tied to just how lost and forgotten the original Stoic Morality has become.  Zeno was a Free Love Hippie who even defended Incest, he did not intend to create a Philosophy that would become synonymous with being an unemotional Vulcan.  Likewise Diogenes and the original Cynics would hate the connotations that word now has.

Zeldom has a series of videos on The Legend of Zelda’s Force which are interesting.  But perhaps the Sci-Fi/Fantasy media that truly is Zeno’s Stoicism in contrast to Star Wars’ Roman Stoicism would be the Magical Girl genre of Anime.

I'm following 10 current Simuldubs.

Kind of exciting after following very little for the last few months.

Now in the past when I've excited about finding a good number of current shows to follow, I've never actually watched all of them to completions.  And this could be the same, never underestimate the ablity of a show that had me impressed at the to eventually lose me.  

As the title says they're all Simuldubs, and there are a couple other recent shows I might try binging when their Dubs are finished, I also intend to try Bubble when it drops on Netflix.  If I decide to try watching a current or recent season show Subbed it'll be either The Executioner and Her way of Life and/or World's End Harem.  But that shall not be the focus for this post.

I'm not promising a return to regularly posting updates on my current seasonal viewings, only when I feel I have something to say will this Gaiden tag be revived.

For Monday I'll be watching Lupin III Part 6 which I actually haven't properly started yet, but Lupin is a franchise I consider reliable.

For Tuesday I'm watching The Genius Prince's Guide to Raising The Nation out of Debt which has actually already reached it's second half.  What intrigues me most is learning the Anti Flahm Racism and how that effects this world's geopolitics, it could wind up being the subject of it's own post, or an important example for a broader subject.

I have 2 shows of Wednesday.

In The Land of Leadale which I learned has the same director as Isekai Smartphone, which to my pleasant surprise had a season 2 announced recently.  It's a fun show but don't' expect any think pieces about it.  It also only has two episodes left, so little chance I'll be dropping it.

Estab Life: Great Escape is my first time watching a show with this particular commonly hated on CG Animation style.  As I watched the pilot episode I got used to it quite quickly actually.  It's also got hella Yuri so I'm optimistic it could be the show to finally earn this style some respect.

For Thursday it's season 3 of Legend of The Galactic Heroes: The New Thesis, it's high quality as the show always was, I'm glad I haven't seen the original and thus can discus this new remake without a comparison filter.  Three episodes are out already and they cover some good stuff.

The Friday docket is Love After World Domination, it's a very fun and cute premise that should be appealing to fans of Power Rangers.

Saturday has three shows, not only that but all three drop deep into the afternoon, I'm sometimes asleep by then.

Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie is an adorable Romantic Comedy with some Milo Murphy's Law going on and some subtle Femdom vibes.

SPY x FAMILY seems to be the designated top Meme Generator for the season, so I'm glad to be following one only a week behind for a change.  Trixie The Golden Witch has a good video on the show but ti keeps getting taken down by copyright BS so I hope it's still up when people get to read this.  Trixie isn't a Dub person though, and as a Dub person I can comment on how "Act Normally" is inherently funny to me because of PLL.  The show might also appeal to people who liked Mr & Mrs Smith.

takt op.Destiny is a show from last year but the Simuldub just started.  I found all three central characters entertaining, and I also got a kick out of the Pilot featuring a setting common to fiction but not necessarily Anime, a midwestern Truck Stop road side Dinner that still has a mildly 50s Aesthetic.  A very specific slice of Americana.

But it's the Sunday show that I really wasn't expecting to be as fascinating as it's first two episodes wound up being, Trapped In A Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs.

The reincarnated as an Otome game Villainess genre really should be and is compelling for the premise of rethinking the Villainess's perspective.  but the only entry in that genre to actually get an Anime so far, Hamefura, as fun as it was did none of that, so far as it appears the real Katerina was destined to be a rotten person before a random Japanese School Girl just stole her life.

This show is NOT that specific sub genre, but actually is putting some thought into the villainess's perspective.  It's drawing attention to how the universe is basically Reverse NTRing her.

That's all my thoughts from episode 2 however, Episode 1 was vert fun but I maybe would have forgotten about it if I hadn't watched it when Episode 2 had already dropped.

Gnosticism in Anime and Video Games

TVTropes has a page called UsefulNotes/Gnosticism where it talks about Gnosticism and then lists examples of fictional stories that were or are thought to be influenced by Gnosticism.

As an Amateur Christian Theologian, I think it's a problem how often Gnosticism is defined based on it's mythological archetypes rather then the actual Philosophical/Metaphysical point.  If your view of the After Life is an intangible spirit realm where we are free of the confines of the Carnal Material World, you're a Gnostic no matter how Orthodox, Nicene and Trinitarian your Theology and Christology is.

One question that is particularly relevant to the accuracy of calling some of these fictional cosmologies Gnostic is, can you be Gnostic but not even nominally Christian?  According to Religion for Breakfast no one called themselves Gnostics in antiquity, and all the known specific groups we call Gnostics were Christian sects who identified each of these Gnostic Mythological archetypes with at least one person or concept in The Bible or some other Judeo-Christian source.  

However they are also the result of these Christians being influenced by older gentile ideas that in my opinion Christians shouldn't have allowed to influence them, Neopythagoreanism, Middle Platonism, Hermeticism, Hellenistic Mystery Religions and since they mostly started in Alexandria aspects of native Egyptian Mythology and Mysticism (thing is the "Proto-Orthodox" were also being influenced by at least the first two of those during this time period, simply to different degrees or in different ways.  The difference between whether you were called a Heretic or not was chiefly rejecting a Bodily Resurrection).  So you take the mythological archetypes that comes from those influences but subtract the explicitly Christian stuff, and you get a framework that can be compared to a number of fictional Fantasy/Sci-Fi cosmologies.

But going back to my distinction between Gnostic Mythology and the actual point of Gnosticism.  I don't think any currently existing "developed" culture is less inclined to sympathize with the point of Gnosticism then Japan.  Shinto Mysticism I actually view as fairly compatible with Stoic Metaphysics, and Stoicism was I'd say antithetical to all of the Non-Christian antecedents of Gnosticism, even if by the second century they were using a lot of the exact same Greek key words and phrases.

And so when I look at a lot of the Anime or other Otaku Media that has been or can be argued to resemble Gnostic mythology, I kind of feel like they're using the Gnostic Mythological framework to convey the exact opposite attitude.  

This is most explicit in SSSS.Gridman where the Sophia figure is trapped in an Idealized Platonic World of Forms and the Carnal Physical Real World is what she needs to return to.  But I think on some level the same is true of the use of Gnostic or Gnostic adjacent ideas in classics like Serial Experiments Lain or Revolutionary Girl Utena.  

I would not apply a Gnostic reading of any kind to most Isekai however, in modern Isekai the other world is just as much of a carnal/material world as ours, it's the culture being different that makes it often a world the Otaku/Neet protagonist feels more at home in then Modern Japan.  Sword Art Online does sometimes feel like it's making Gnostic Mythological references, but that isn't proper Isekai.

But in the case of Final Fantasy VII (and perhaps then every FF that's been argued to be Gnostic) I go back to what I said before about the Stoics and Gnostics being antithetical even in their use of a lot of the same terms.  I think every argument for Final Fantasy VII having a Gnostic cosmology is actually better explained by a Stoic reading, The Lifestream is the Pneumatic World Soul and Mako (like Mana in other JRPGs and Manga/Anime inspired by them) is a Pneumatic Substance.  The Physical world being Evil and Dirty couldn't be more the opposite of what a story like Final Fantasy VII is trying to say about Nature.  These are stories where the Spiritual and Carnal are in a symbiotic relationship with each other, it is Man's Sins (especially Capitalism) that create the problems.

The western world however has been very influenced by Gnosticism, for all the talk about the Gnostics as some minority the Roman Church persecuted into extinction, I'd argue they kind of indirectly won, all of Mainstream Christianity has become at least mildly Gnostic.  Gnosticism is essentially Platonism taken to it's logical extreme, and so that's why a lot of the Japanese media I just talked about and others get interpreted by westerners more Gnostically then I feel the Japanese could have possibly intended.

Update September 26th: It's occurred to me that I should explain the Final Fantasy VII part a bit more.

The Gnostic Reading of Final Fantasy VII in large part revolves around equating the Lifestream with the Gnostic Pleroma.  The Lifestream and Pleroma have in common being both the source and destiny of each individual Soul  However the Gnostic Pleroma is distinctly outside the physical world, the physical world is basically a prison to the pieces of it stuck here.  The Lifesream however is the World, it and the physical Earth are intimately connected, they form a Symbiant Circle what happens to one will effect the other.  It is quite literally the Soul and Spirit of The Earth.

The World Soul is a concept in a few schools of Greek Philosophy, but it is the Stoic Version that has all the same similarities to the Lifestream the Pleroma has but also is part of the world rather then separate.

Basically Gnosticism has more in common with Scientology then it does the Lore of FFVII.

Further Update October 14 2022: I just obtained Platonist Philosophy 80 BC to AD 250 by George Boys-Stones and chapter 8 talks about the World Soul and Nature.

Much of the thesis of the chapter is that while Middle Platonists and Stoics agreed on the World having a Soul, for the Stoics it was a pretty natural product of their Metaphysics as it's virtually synonymous with their God, while for the Platonists it kind of didn't fit so well and proved awkward.

So to Middle Platonists the World Soul was a lesser god at best, and to Plutarch it was actually Evil, but in-between it was also presented as a sort of force without much will or agency of it's own.  

But reading this has only strengthened my Stoic interpretation of The Lifestream and Final Fantasy VII.

I also view the Original Pre-Romanization Stoics as having been the Communists of the Hellenistic World.  And so here's a good Marxist Analysis of Final Fantasy VII.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9EWCLHkqRQNkPHiCAYcIUrJ3twpAmD2o