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Study > 83: the Lost Chapter and God Theory |
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Chapter 83 did never come out
from Japan, and it was originally published on
Young Animal (the famous magazine where Berserk
chapters are published before becoming tankobon).
It is definitely a very particular chapter and
it is indeed enlightening about the idea of God
expressed in Berserk. Also, it can be used to
explain why Miura used terms like Apostles or
God Hand to refer to something demonic or anyways
belonging to evil forces.
The original chapter 83 is made up of 17 pages,
where Grifis has a direct contact with God itself,
a God extremely different from what the religion
( any religion ) expresses, and very different
from the idea any man of faith has about it. Miura
immediately points out one important element:
God can exist, but why such an immense, powerful
creature has to be necessary good too? Why the
compassion? Why does our conception of perfection
include things like being good? The God Miura
introduces is not something like what we think
God should be: it is a God created by the constant
seek for knowledge that lies within every man.
Because men are fragile, insecure, we use to ask
ourselves questions and we need to believe in
something strong, something that cannot collapse,
something solid, to keep living without sinking
into the fear. God is created from this necessity
of stability, it exists because men wanted it
to exist, and because we actually needed it to
exist. The fact that this God is in the end an
evil God is kind of logic: it has been created
by men and by our weaknesses, so this Being has
to be made by the deepest and the most true elements
that form men, our natural impulses, our true
form, which isn’t of course something close
to “being good” and stuff like that,
but it is mostly focused on the “being better
than the others”, on a continuous attempt
to prevail on other people, on our will to be
superior, to be the best, to beat, to win, to
possess. We are exactly the denial of all the
elements and the characteristics that form our
moral. God is Evil because man is evil, his nature
is evil. Morality has been created later on, it
doesn’t belong to human’s nature.
For these reasons, words like “Apostles”
or “God Hand” do have sense. It’s
like thinking about the christian meaning of these
words and turning it around to discover its dark
side.
The God Miura talks about in this chapter has
an extremely old origin, and it rules on the flow
of times, drawing the destiny of every single
man, leading the events in the way he desires
them to go. It is obviously a fatalistic vision,
we are talking about a destiny led by some supernatural
force that goes beyond the human will.
Actually, this can be considered the main theme
of the whole manga: Gatsu himself is a perfect
example of human opposition against a law written
by the destiny, he represents the force that can
change everything.
It is Skullknight the one who
tells Gatsu that, even if it swims, a fish will
always remain into the flow of a river. Anyways
that fish, swimming, will still be able to move
its surface.
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