Bloody Needle
I'm a llama!
Berserk is filled with the language of determinism: it is a continual current in the speech and thinking of the characters that events are foreordained, from prophecies to throwaway insults. It is in this medium that Gatts is the "jumping fish" -- regardless of the sense of overwhelmingness, he struggles against what others succumb to. His brand itself is the simplest symbol of this conflict of poles: it is literally the mark of the unavoidable, the inevitable, yet it's concrete declaration is made lie ever day that Gatts survives.
The discussions of Idea and the God Hand touch upon the idea that certain events are foreordained because of the manipulation of causality. The Skull Knight reinforces this the concept in his extended speech to Gatts about the moon's reflection upon water (In "Evil Road 2"). As does the entire mythos surrounding Griffith's life and "rise" to Femto...the continued implication that his charisma and success are foregone conclusions, irresistable, etc.; the declaration by Idea (or was it Void?) that Griffith's circumstances and nature were the product of careful tailoring and tending of lines of blood and events.
So...
Idea is Divinity conceptualized by men, a sort of gestalt that exhibits a meta-consciousness. It's existence is explicitly defined by human conceptions of what they want from a Supreme Being...which apparently, sum toto, turns out to be pretty Lowest Common Denominator, hence nasty. On one level, Idea as "God" is the scapegoat explanation for true randomness. But Idea's core (on self-report) is the provision of structure and logic to the chaotic, negative events that comprise human experience. In a horribly literal fulfilment of its designated function, it is also the active provider of pain, horror, death, etc., thus bringing a perverse structure to humanity's sense of Life and Its Purpose. It's like the difference between letting a chunk of metal rust on it's own and pouring an oxidizing agent on it to make it rust on the spot...cutting the Gordian Knot rather than waiting for it to rot. Idea has solved the issue of random horror in human experience by creating a supernatural infrastructure to implement well-organized horror in human existence. This goal is not merely a program running, but a form of self-preservation: Idea is assembled from faith, unconscious and conscious, and it is in its interest to encourage belief in itself...which is mostly easily maintained by obtaining, if not a monopoly over causality, then a sense in the collective consciosness of mankind that it pervades and regulates the whole.
Idea is powerful, but neither omnipotent nor omniscient...it is both imbued and constrained by it assembly from human thought. Idea's perspective and mission is constrained to human concerns. Nature thrives on stochasticity's interaction with slow-developing, adaptable structure, and Idea devotes no energy to the interruption of that process. Yet Idea ruthlessly guards the intersection of Man and Nature, stamping out the interconnection of the two implicit in animistic, shamanic/"witch-y" modes of thought (i.e. Flora, and the more general worship of natural and elemental spirits).
Idea's purpose necessitates the removal of randomness and the substitution of structure: hence Idea devotes time and energy to the creation of agents suited to the task of monopolizing causality. It's an admittedly circular way of looking, but if Idea really were all-powerful, there'd be no need for it to delegate, nor any contestation of the path of events by pesky interlopers such as Gatts. On its own, Idea works by the nudging threads of events here and there. The establishment of a causal monopoly, though, requires more immediate and blatant methods of control.
The God Hand are named quite literally: they are the fingers manipulating the elements of the world to enforce Idea's programme: extrusions of Idea's meta-self designed explicitly to act as a lens for perceiving and controlling the totality of causality, and thus the totality of Idea. Their function is to trim the branches of causality with greater efficiency than Idea can; limiting random events such that the extrapolations of possible outcomes are narrowed to a trickle of probable outcomes. Their powers and command of fundamental forces that influence humans means that causality narrows down to the trickle: plagues and disasters are not products of meteorology and bacteriology, but of individual whims.
In the same vein, one can look at the way the Apostles end up being epicenters of causality in moment-to-moment human events. Their supernatural strength and longevity means that they become de facto societal forces, influencing culture, war, or just body counts. Furthermore, their shared behavioral traits ensure a continuous level of active disruption of "normal" life process: between the violence, sadism, lust, etc., Apostles are neither likely to take down time, nor to simply languish unnoticed. The proliferation and circulation of Apostles means that the lives that they "touch" -- and the ones they end -- are spokes about their causal hub, rather than agents of possibility in their own right.
The discussions of Idea and the God Hand touch upon the idea that certain events are foreordained because of the manipulation of causality. The Skull Knight reinforces this the concept in his extended speech to Gatts about the moon's reflection upon water (In "Evil Road 2"). As does the entire mythos surrounding Griffith's life and "rise" to Femto...the continued implication that his charisma and success are foregone conclusions, irresistable, etc.; the declaration by Idea (or was it Void?) that Griffith's circumstances and nature were the product of careful tailoring and tending of lines of blood and events.
So...
Idea is Divinity conceptualized by men, a sort of gestalt that exhibits a meta-consciousness. It's existence is explicitly defined by human conceptions of what they want from a Supreme Being...which apparently, sum toto, turns out to be pretty Lowest Common Denominator, hence nasty. On one level, Idea as "God" is the scapegoat explanation for true randomness. But Idea's core (on self-report) is the provision of structure and logic to the chaotic, negative events that comprise human experience. In a horribly literal fulfilment of its designated function, it is also the active provider of pain, horror, death, etc., thus bringing a perverse structure to humanity's sense of Life and Its Purpose. It's like the difference between letting a chunk of metal rust on it's own and pouring an oxidizing agent on it to make it rust on the spot...cutting the Gordian Knot rather than waiting for it to rot. Idea has solved the issue of random horror in human experience by creating a supernatural infrastructure to implement well-organized horror in human existence. This goal is not merely a program running, but a form of self-preservation: Idea is assembled from faith, unconscious and conscious, and it is in its interest to encourage belief in itself...which is mostly easily maintained by obtaining, if not a monopoly over causality, then a sense in the collective consciosness of mankind that it pervades and regulates the whole.
Idea is powerful, but neither omnipotent nor omniscient...it is both imbued and constrained by it assembly from human thought. Idea's perspective and mission is constrained to human concerns. Nature thrives on stochasticity's interaction with slow-developing, adaptable structure, and Idea devotes no energy to the interruption of that process. Yet Idea ruthlessly guards the intersection of Man and Nature, stamping out the interconnection of the two implicit in animistic, shamanic/"witch-y" modes of thought (i.e. Flora, and the more general worship of natural and elemental spirits).
Idea's purpose necessitates the removal of randomness and the substitution of structure: hence Idea devotes time and energy to the creation of agents suited to the task of monopolizing causality. It's an admittedly circular way of looking, but if Idea really were all-powerful, there'd be no need for it to delegate, nor any contestation of the path of events by pesky interlopers such as Gatts. On its own, Idea works by the nudging threads of events here and there. The establishment of a causal monopoly, though, requires more immediate and blatant methods of control.
The God Hand are named quite literally: they are the fingers manipulating the elements of the world to enforce Idea's programme: extrusions of Idea's meta-self designed explicitly to act as a lens for perceiving and controlling the totality of causality, and thus the totality of Idea. Their function is to trim the branches of causality with greater efficiency than Idea can; limiting random events such that the extrapolations of possible outcomes are narrowed to a trickle of probable outcomes. Their powers and command of fundamental forces that influence humans means that causality narrows down to the trickle: plagues and disasters are not products of meteorology and bacteriology, but of individual whims.
In the same vein, one can look at the way the Apostles end up being epicenters of causality in moment-to-moment human events. Their supernatural strength and longevity means that they become de facto societal forces, influencing culture, war, or just body counts. Furthermore, their shared behavioral traits ensure a continuous level of active disruption of "normal" life process: between the violence, sadism, lust, etc., Apostles are neither likely to take down time, nor to simply languish unnoticed. The proliferation and circulation of Apostles means that the lives that they "touch" -- and the ones they end -- are spokes about their causal hub, rather than agents of possibility in their own right.
