God in Berserk

snake1mi

Blood is just red sweat.
I was wondering if there was a god in Berserk, not like the one in the lost episode, but a god who, like some of us says, created the worlds and the existence of human and animal.

And sorry if this has already been discussed earlier, I did search both this forum as well as googled but didnt find the answer for my question.

My first post by the way.
 

Forest Wraith

Evil is born when we lose power over ourselves.
The Four Kings of the World are the closest thing we've seen yet to any kind of a God outside of the influence of The Idea of Evil. There's been no indication that they created the World of Berserk itself though, only that they govern the Astral properties of the Elements somehow. Any creator God that might be above that more than likely takes a very inert, hands-off approach towards things.

Oh yeah, welcome aboard and congrats on your first post.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Welcome to the forums.

The Idea of Evil is the only god of the Berserk world, and of course, it was created by man so it's really not what you were looking for.

The four kings really aren't comparable. They're the figureheads for the individual elements and to our knowledge, aren't conscious or even have ego. For all intents and purposes, they just respond to the calls of magic users.

I know you're looking for something else, but no, there's no evidence of anything on a higher (or lower) plane of existence or power than The Idea of Evil. Certainly nothing's come close to hinting at the creation of the world, and I don't expect it to. I really don't think that's the story Miura is trying to tell.
 

snake1mi

Blood is just red sweat.
Thanks, that did answer my question.

Another thing; all the churches and religious groups shown so far in berserk, Who do they worship? Does someone know that god really is evil?
What about the priests? The only priest I remember turned out to be an apostle (Mozgus).
 

Forest Wraith

Evil is born when we lose power over ourselves.
theblackswordman said:
Thanks, that did answer my question.

Another thing; all the churches and religious groups shown so far in berserk, Who do they worship? Does someone know that god really is evil?
What about the priests? The only priest I remember turned out to be an apostle (Mozgus).

Well, Mozgus (Don't forget his disciples) was turned into a Pseudo-Apostle by the Beherit Apostle. Then there's Dahl way back in volumes 2-3. More importantly, the Priest of Enoch Village, he was convinced by Schierke and Farnese to be tolerant of magic and permitted the worship of The Water Elemental of Enoch Village (Undinu, right)?
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
theblackswordman said:
Another thing; all the churches and religious groups shown so far in berserk, Who do they worship? Does someone know that god really is evil?
What about the priests? The only priest I remember turned out to be an apostle (Mozgus).
First of all, the Holy See's teachings are only known to us by vague parables and scraps of information strewn about the series, so it[s difficult to answer the question completely. However, the Holy See's notion of god is best described by Mozgus in vol. 18, that of a benevolent but strict entity. A being that rewards the chaste in the afterlife and punishes the wicked (think the Christian God, only even more Old Testament style) Of course, it's all a farce generated by misinterpreting supernatural incidents as acts of god's will. And then there are the prophecies of the Hawk of Light and Darkness. The foreknowledge of that kind of information (along with Farnese's little speech at the beginning of the Lost Children chapter regarding the Red Sea) proves to me an indirect (possibly even direct) manipulation by the God Hand, as the church's actions fit like a glove into GH's agenda.

Forest Wraith said:
Well, Mozgus (Don't forget his disciples) was turned into a Pseudo-Apostle by the Beherit Apostle. Then there's Dahl way back in volumes 2-3. More importantly, the Priest of Enoch Village, he was convinced by Schierke and Farnese to be tolerant of magic and permitted the worship of The Water Elemental of Enoch Village (Undinu, right)?
None of the above is an answer to the guy's question...
 
Taking Schierke's quote regarding the 4 elemental kings:

"この四色の光は幽界の奥深くで私たちを守り慈しんで下さる偉大なる存在の霊力が現世に発露したものです。”

"These four colored-lights are the result of the (spiritual/magical/ghostly/whatever) power displayed in the real world by great beings who live far deep in the spiritual world who protect and have sympathy on us "

So they do have consciousness and an ego, just one that's (thankfully for Guts and co.) very friendly towards humans. It will be very interesting when Farnese gets to interact with the four kings.

And don't forget that Flora, despite being a witch herself, often mentions God and seems fairly convinced of God's hand in creating opportunities (such as Schierke's meeting with Guts and co.). So it's not just the Holy See.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
theblackswordman said:
I was wondering if there was a god in Berserk, not like the one in the lost episode, but a god who, like some of us says, created the worlds and the existence of human and animal.

The short answer is no. Not that we know of. Nothing of the sort has ever been hinted at.

Walter said:
The four kings really aren't comparable. They're the figureheads for the individual elements and to our knowledge, aren't conscious or even have ego. For all intents and purposes, they just respond to the calls of magic users.

Yeah, despite being extremely powerful entities, the kings can't really be called Gods, or at least they can't be put on the same scale than the Idea of Evil (I guess that in a polytheistic religion they would be gods, along with many other lower creatures). Although I wouldn't say they aren't conscious or don't have an ego since we know practically nothing about them. I think it's clear that they're at least sentient, but whether they're sapient in a way similar to humans or not is much harder to tell. Being pure elemental creatures, their thought-process and conception of the world must be very different from humans'.

theblackswordman said:
Another thing; all the churches and religious groups shown so far in berserk, Who do they worship? Does someone know that god really is evil?
What about the priests? The only priest I remember turned out to be an apostle (Mozgus).

Well, they all worship their own gods, without the gods in question necessarily existing. For example the Holy See's scriptures don't seem to refer precisely to the Idea of Evil, nor to be very informative about what the afterlife is really like. But of course with the extremely limited knowledge we have of them it's hard to tell. Then there's the Kushans; we know even less about their beliefs, but from the look of their idols, they're also not too close to the truth. As for Mozgus, like Forest Wraith said, he wasn't originally an apostle. He, his disciples and the heretics' figurehead were made into pseudo-apostles (not real ones) by the Beherit-Apostle. Before that Mozgus was merely a cruel and unforgiving fanatic. And apparently, considering what the monk from Enoch said about it, he was applying a rather personal, extra-rigorous and harsh version of the Holy See's scriptures too. Not too different from how extremists in our world turn the meaning of scriptures around or ignore whole parts so that they can justify their actions.

Forest Wraith said:
The Water Elemental of Enoch Village (Undinu, right)?

It's the little creatures that make up the element of water that are called Undines, like Salamanders for fire and Sylphs for air. The spirit that inhabits under Enoch has no real name that we know of (same for all the spirits we've seen thus far), she's just called the "Underwater Noble Lady".

Walter said:
Of course, it's all a farce generated by misinterpreting supernatural incidents as acts of god's will. And then there are the prophecies of the Hawk of Light and Darkness. The foreknowledge of that kind of information (along with Farnese's little speech at the beginning of the Lost Children chapter about the Red Sea) proves to me an indirect (possibly even direct) manipulation by the God Hand, as the church's actions fit like a glove into GH's agenda.

Well, I don't think the Holy See's scriptures are completely worthless and/or clueless. Of course what they say has likely been distorted, they're probably in a large part allegorical, and some wrong beliefs may have been added over time, but there are enough things in them that ring true to deduce that the original writer(s) knew what they were talking about. For example there's the Hawk of Darkness prophecy that you talked about, but also the fact the 4 elemental kings are mentioned in it, albeit under another name. This makes me think that at the core, there's probably a lot of semi-hidden truths to be found in them. I believe it'd be interesting to know how the whole thing came about and what changes the scriptures underwent over time, and I agree that there's probably been a manipulation by the God Hand or the Idea of Evil at some point to make them fit their agenda.

yota821 said:
"These four colored-lights are the result of the (spiritual/magical/ghostly/whatever) power displayed in the real world by great beings who live far deep in the spiritual world who protect and have sympathy on us "

So they do have consciousness and an ego, just one that's (thankfully for Guts and co.) very friendly towards humans.

Good point, though ultimately I don't think that necessarily goes against what Walter meant, which is that basically the elemental kings don't actively exert their will over humans.

yota821 said:
And don't forget that Flora, despite being a witch herself, often mentions God and seems fairly convinced of God's hand in creating opportunities (such as Schierke's meeting with Guts and co.). So it's not just the Holy See.

But Flora's references to God are quite different from the Holy See's. Whenever she talks about God it's related to causality and such (like you said, creating opportunities), it's not really comparable. Let's not forget that "God" is a pretty generic word that can refer to whatever people want it to. In Flora's case, given her vast knowledge of the world, it seems to me that she was referring to an entity similar to the Idea of Evil, even though she didn't know the details of what it truly was. She supposed/believed something existed deep in the Abyss, but had no way to know its true nature. On the other hand the Holy See's conception of God just seems mostly incorrect.
 
Aazealh said:
But Flora's references to God are quite different from the Holy See's. Whenever she talks about God it's related to causality and such (like you said, creating opportunities), it's not really comparable. Let's not forget that "God" is a pretty generic word that can refer to whatever people want it to. In Flora's case, given her vast knowledge of the world, it seems to me that she was referring to an entity similar to the Idea of Evil, even though she didn't know the details of what it truly was. She supposed/believed something existed deep in the Abyss, but had no way to know its true nature. On the other hand the Holy See's conception of God just seems mostly incorrect.
^On that I can certainly agree.

I still can't wait for Farnese to actually summon or interact with a spirit that is akin to the Underwater Noble Lady though.
 
I think the 'Law of Causality', such as it is, is the closest you're going to be able to get to a "God" god in Berserk, that is, if the LoC is much different from the Idea of Evil in the first place.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Bekul said:
I think the 'Law of Causality', such as it is, is the closest you're going to be able to get to a "God" god in Berserk, that is, if the LoC is much different from the Idea of Evil in the first place.

Well, it's more like a principle ruling the world, it's not a conscious entity or anything. And the Idea of Evil manipulates it.
 

snake1mi

Blood is just red sweat.
I see. So there's no proof that Mozgus and co believed in the Idea of evil.
And that thing about Mozgus which Aazealh pointed out, that Mozgus wasnt really an apostle in the beginning- I didn't know that. So thanks for that, man.

I first watched the Berserk anime 3 years ago, and I couldn't wait for the DH manga (too slow) so I purchased like 25 volumes from ebay, imported from Japan. Though the only thing available for me at the moment is the crappy hawks and evil genius scans online. It's been a long time since I've read the old volumes.

Anyways, I was looking for something like the creator(s) of the world, like the first being(s) (in the beginning) if you've ever played Zelda games you'll know what I mean. I don't think that this has anything to say, but it came to me when I was thinking about the churches and priests.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
theblackswordman said:
Anyways, I was looking for something like the creator(s) of the world, like the first being(s) (in the beginning)

Well, like it was said, so far nothing has hinted at the existence of such being(s). We simply don't know anything about the creation of the world.
 
P

Pencil-smith

Guest
theblackswordman said:
Anyways, I was looking for something like the creator(s) of the world, like the first being(s) (in the beginning).
Illuvatar did it. :troll:
 
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