Have enjoyed your site since first seeing Avalon. I don’t have anything to contribute to the ‘which real is real’ debate, but here are a few other thoughts which might prove entertaining:
The Japanese angle: Warrior ethics have been mentioned, but I also feel as with so many anime, the belief system of Shinto is driving the plot here at a deep level. So imagine you are Japanese (maybe you are!) and playing Wizardry. You may not be a Shinto believer, but as with Christianity in the west it still has a role as the basis of many of your assumptions about the way the world works. I am no expert, but it seems in Shinto, anything remarkable or worthy of attention can be a ‘kami’. (Without a direct western equivalent translation things get ambiguous. Kami is translated in different contexts as ‘god’ or ‘spirit’ or ‘ghost’ . . . ). So surely a computer game character, with a seeming life of its own, is a ‘kami’. Now consider also: In Japanese folktale and in modern-day faith, the ‘angry ghost’ is an important figure, to be respected, placated or otherwise dealt with. So what is happening to all the angry ghosts/kami of the Wizardry characters you are happily murdering or allowing to be killed in this unreal but disturbingly intense otherworld? To my mind Avalon is a queasy meditation on the ethics of vicarious killing from a Shinto cultural perspective. For a start, is the problem that the real world is beginning to fill up with the ghosts (Murphy’s Ghosts?) of all the characters killed in computer games?? . . . over to Japanese friends . . .
King Arthur and co. What the hell is he doing here? Western religion and folktale are often drawn upon in the anime tradition simply for exotic effect. (Think Neon Genesis Evangelion and the Bible.) Here however there is an interesting link. The books Ash buys and which so mysteriously prove to be blank, appear to be actual books on Arthurian legend. One of them at least (working from memory here) refers to a theory which has emerged in recent years for the origins of the Arthur myths, which appear to have a wide distribution in world cultures. This theory holds that they originated in the Caucasus region and spread to the west via the Roman empire, mingling with local celtic motifs in Gaul and Britain. The spread also apparently went the other way, one author even hinting that parallels to the story of the return of Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake can be found in Japanese legend . . .
Anyway, although a serious historical hypothesis the theory has achieved something of a cult status, and seems likely to be something that would be current in Oshii’s otaku-world. Incidentally, one of the tribes identified as carriers of the Arthurian material to the west are the Alans -is Mr Glover part of the conspiracy? (^_^)
Finally, am I alone in finding the way the film borrows from recent Polish and central European history highly disturbing? The imagery of the ‘Prague Spring’ and the Hungarian uprising is very uncomfortable for me to watch, especially also having visited Warsaw where the film is shot and seen the monuments on nearly every street corner to the terrible events of the WW2 siege of Warsaw and its Ghetto. The ‘making of’ video ‘Days of Avalon’ includes scenes of the residents watching the filming of the street tank battle. Many of the older ones may well have seen the same thing for real. I get the feeling that Oshii either doesn’t understand the moral resonances of these scenes in a European context, or . . . well. Anyway, this is not an attempt to start a political debate, but just to remind myself that once again japanese cultural perspectives are probably important for understanding a film that superficially looks like something familiar -a European art-house movie of the late cold-war period- but is actually something quite else . . .
And finally, finally. Check the scene of the first cast-meeting in ‘Days of Avalon’ where the actor who plays ‘Bishop’ points out that his own surname is . . . ‘Biskop’ -Polish for Bishop . . .