Saga: What Exactly is the Opposite of War?

This week, I wanted to discuss Saga, an American comic book series by author Brian K. Vaughn and artist Fiona Staples. The series follows two planets whose conflict has grown to envelop the entire galaxy by recruiting proxy planets and fiefdoms. I want to start this entry with a quote from Oscar Wilde, “Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.” Now, with that in mind, let us continue.

Our story follows two protagonists, Marko and Alanna. Both were fighters for their planets in the war—Marko for his planet of Wreath and Alanna for Landfall. Both planets were the critical instigators in this intergalactic conflict.

Marko and Alanna are also defectors from their home planets. They have shunned the war and found one another. Vaughn uses their relationship to accurately portray real-life couple dynamics, such as lovers, fighters, and occasional combatants. They are doing everything for the sake of their infant daughter, Hazel.

Hazel is an abomination to the world of Saga. Her mother is Landfallian, and her father is from Wreath. Her existence insults the war and those who benefit significantly from the conflict to let her live. Hazel is the literal embodiment of harmony between the two factions. If word ever got out of her heritage, she would be hunted and killed.

This leads Alanna and Marko to dangerous encounters with strangers, bounty hunters, and a Robot Prince (maybe for another blog post). The reader experiences an epiphany during this journey about war and its relationship to peace. Peace is not the opposite of war. Peace is simply the absence of conflict. This means another war can start and end the peace all over again; peace is too fragile to go against war.

Instead, the true opposite of war is sex. If war is division, then sex is unification. Sex is the melding of two individuals, despite backgrounds, religions, or affiliations, coming together to engage in a sacred and beautiful act. The product of sex, AKA offspring, can be looked at entirely as a complete unification between these two people engaging in the act.

To know someone intimately is never to know them as foreign again. They are and forever will be known to you—the most intimate things about them, from how they like their coffee to the jokes they like, are all a part of you now. Now, any mindless zombie can have sex. But I am referring specifically to making love.

“But aren’t they the same thing?” Nope. One requires intimacy and familiarity. Two things that can never happen between warring factions. To know someone is to humanize them. For intimacy to thrive, you must view your partner as an independent person outside of yourself. You have to listen to them. You have to be honest with them and nurture the relationship.

All these things and more are just some of the fantastic points touched on in Saga. Tying back to the core understanding that “Sex is power.” The power to rise above any conflicts raging outside in the world. Power to take control of your fate. Importantly, it’s the power to create something new and never seen before—a child.