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ninjewtsu posted:Why? The power a human king wields is plenty great, they start and perpetuate wars and heaven doesn't give a gently caress. Since when does the power one holds determine one's agency in using those powers? Why does heaven care here, but doesn't care about powerful humans? I suppose it's because public displays of powerful magic spells are indistinguishable from actual miracles, which ties into the previously mentioned issue of belief and its implications. Kings and Emperors, for all their armies and weapons, can't replicate miracles. But witches can and do act in ways that human witnesses will perceive as miraculous. quote:Why? Why isn't Maria part of that natural order? What excludes witches from the natural order? Why aren't Maria's actions also considered "the natural order?" Because they are...supernatural. Even if, true, that can be interpreted as something of a paradox (witches are born within nature, yet have the magical power to defy it).
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Mar 2, 2015 02:25
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I guess I'm just used to accepting that if magic exists in a fictional setting, then magic is essentially part of nature in that setting. I don't really see why magic and witches aren't just part of nature here, but whatever I supposed. It's something I'd like explained in some fashion at least. EDIT: I also don't see why heaven would particularly care about people worshiping witches or not, besides "well they just do, god is a jealous god, etc" but that's a bit easier to accept ninjewtsu fucked around with this message at 02:32 on Mar 2, 2015 |
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Mar 2, 2015 02:30
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ninjewtsu posted:I guess I'm just used to accepting that if magic exists in a fictional setting, then magic is essentially part of nature in that setting. They care because Christianity (as represented by Michael) has a spiritual monopoly on Europe and doesn't like that Maria's horning in on their metaphysical turf. Ezekiel is basically a mob enforcer who's trying to apply a moral framework to her actions and failing, much to her distress. It's not that what Maria is doing is wrong or evil, but that it's making some powerful people look bad. The fact that she's kind of naive and short-sighted doesn't help, but it's not why Michael and Bernard have it in for her.
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Mar 2, 2015 03:50
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Darth Walrus posted:They care because Christianity (as represented by Michael) has a spiritual monopoly on Europe and doesn't like that Maria's horning in on their metaphysical turf. I'm not Christian. I don't know why this would matter to them at all. I guess it's probably a religious deal at that point though
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Mar 2, 2015 03:59
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I think the reason, not that it's really clear because this show has been spinning it's loving wheels for perhaps an episode or two too long, is tied into the whole power of belief thing. Michael and co don't necessarily wish for the other supers to gently caress off and die, as clearly he doesn't care about them running around on the fringes, what they're worried about is Christianity's preeminence, which would be endangered if every witch had free reign and valkyries went flying around on the visible spectrum. I think the scene here with the Celtic God as well as the previous one with Michael talking about Maria's supposed deific pretensions imply that the more people with faith in you, the stronger you are.
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Mar 2, 2015 04:18
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ninjewtsu posted:I'm not Christian. I don't know why this would matter to them at all. lol
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Mar 2, 2015 04:25
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Rodyle posted:I think the reason, not that it's really clear because this show has been spinning it's loving wheels for perhaps an episode or two too long, is tied into the whole power of belief thing. Michael and co don't necessarily wish for the other supers to gently caress off and die, as clearly he doesn't care about them running around on the fringes, what they're worried about is Christianity's preeminence, which would be endangered if every witch had free reign and valkyries went flying around on the visible spectrum. I think the scene here with the Celtic God as well as the previous one with Michael talking about Maria's supposed deific pretensions imply that the more people with faith in you, the stronger you are. Ok I can accept this
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Mar 2, 2015 04:53
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ninjewtsu posted:I guess I'm just used to accepting that if magic exists in a fictional setting, then magic is essentially part of nature in that setting. We're talking about three worlds here. Maria's world covers all of nature, including areas deemed by the Church as pagan, if not evil. Anyone who wasn't a Christian could live in this world without fearing much. This show being a fictional show, magic and sorcery should be everywhere, and it is. But the Catholic Church is also shown here, and magic and sorcery are in no way a part of its reality, or shouldn't be. The Church's world doesn't acknowledge those areas. In the Middle Ages the Church was THE spiritual force in Europe. Witches, astrologers, and anyone else doing things not endorsed by the Church were targeted as being in league with Satan, and thus persecuted. God alone was to be relied upon, through the teachings handed down by the Church. Magic and witches were things to be feared (because of Satanic influence), and the less they were part of nature, the better. Heaven doesn't interfere because of the free will given to humanity. Heaven's hands-off approach is much like Star Trek's Prime Directive, which dictates that one does not interfere with the culture of the planet the Federation is visiting. The hands-off approach also allows the Church to be God's representative on Earth, as Jesus designed it to be. By the same taken, it doesn't want anyone consulting witches, astrologers, and other ungodly sorts. Still, it allowed belief in these people and angels, and even allowed them to appear once in a while, since the villagers report seeing Maria, St. Michael the Archangel, and other beings. I like this show. The only qualm I have about it is various characters wanting Maria to lose her virginity, and thus her magical power, as quickly as possible.
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Mar 2, 2015 11:26
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ninjewtsu posted:I'm not Christian. I don't know why this would matter to them at all. You don't see why an elite with an ideological stranglehold on a country might feel threatened by someone who (a) doesn't like them and (b) has the potential to be an effective, popular alternative? This isn't about some abstract, metaphysical religious thing. It's about power and people wanting to hold onto it. It's a dictatorship clamping down on the opposition in order to ensure its rule is absolute.
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Mar 2, 2015 12:32
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Darth Walrus posted:You don't see why an elite with an ideological stranglehold on a country might feel threatened by someone who (a) doesn't like them and (b) has the potential to be an effective, popular alternative? I meant why would heaven care "Heaven's power comes from people believing in them" is a pretty good answer to this, since then heaven actually has a stake in this. If you remove that, then I don't see why it would matter at all to heaven whether people believed in them or not, outside of "God is a jealous God" I guess WillieWestwood posted:We're talking about three worlds here. I don't care at all about the church (for the purposes of this discussion). My problem was "why does Heaven have a handsoff approach to humans, but not to Maria" ninjewtsu fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Mar 2, 2015 |
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Mar 2, 2015 23:30
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ninjewtsu posted:I don't care at all about the church (for the purposes of this discussion). My problem was "why does Heaven have a handsoff approach to humans, but not to Maria" It could come down to something as simple as 'Witches don't count as Humans.'
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Mar 3, 2015 07:51
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It could, sure. But if that was the case, the show never explained that at all, and I'd still be confused as to why it matters
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Mar 3, 2015 08:31
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Another good episode for several reasons, in my opinion, including Viv being pretty badass in her own right. It's interesting that the quasi-rape attempt was more of a bait and switch than an actual one. It doesn't make Galfa that much of a better person, no, but just somewhat less of a jerk. Incidentally, it was pretty sad to see the Grandmother suffer like that again. I imagine some might take Bernard basically going temporarily loony through theological/philosophical babbling for a minute while trying to analyze Maria's thinking the wrong way., but then again I'm already used to the character acting kind of amusingly at times, while still being a bastard who is responsible for a lot of bad poo poo happening.
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Mar 8, 2015 20:36
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She said a few idealistic sentences to me, time to pace in circles and have an entire ecumenical council in my own head! what an utterly ridiculous character
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Mar 8, 2015 22:38
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I hope they were saving all their budget for next episode or something because that fight between Viv and Micheal was laughable. I was pretty ready to drop this show entirely for like the first ten minutes.
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Mar 8, 2015 22:54
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Rodyle posted:She said a few idealistic sentences to me, time to pace in circles and have an entire ecumenical council in my own head! Yeah that was pretty awkward. I've never studied theology but even I know a monk of Bernard's standing isn't going to be remotely blindsided by the problem of evil. I suppose it's possible that he's deliberately trying to set up an argument for use in a show-trial, but the show isn't exactly portraying it that way.
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Mar 8, 2015 23:10
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I think he's just supposed to be nuts, he freaked out in an earlier episode just because her name was Maria and she was a virgin.
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Mar 8, 2015 23:13
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Sakurazuka posted:I think he's just supposed to be nuts, he freaked out in an earlier episode just because her name was Maria and she was a virgin. That's how I look at it. He's not completely evil, but still qualifies as not entirely sane. Can't say I agree with you about disliking the first ten minutes though. Hidingo Kojimba posted:Yeah that was pretty awkward. I've never studied theology but even I know a monk of Bernard's standing isn't going to be remotely blindsided by the problem of evil. They might (or might not) use some of that against her in the next episodes, yet Maria's own existence and his perception of her behavior is what's affecting his judgment. Not the arguments, which he could probably deal with on paper under normal circumstances. It's an obsession that literally made the man argue with himself. Silly, yes, but not unexpected. wielder fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Mar 8, 2015 |
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Mar 8, 2015 23:44
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Yeah... he doesn't seem to have all the pages in his bible. Incidentally I thought I recognized a voice in another anime and when I looked it up I discovered that Viv is voiced by Mamiko Noto*. I was not expecting that at all.  *I don't have a clue which is her most famous role but you've probably heard of Kini Ni Todoke, where she voices the main character Sawako (which might be the only series I've watched where I didn't like her voice).
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Mar 8, 2015 23:44
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Bernard does mostly just seem to have a Thing about Maria specifically. I'm glad they decided to not just straight up have her raped, that scene was already weird enough
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Mar 9, 2015 00:13
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The implication has been for a while that Bernard is in a weird place regarding the tension between his secular and spiritual concerns. Maria's speech may not have been especially profound, but it gave him an out, and it helps (or doesn't, depending on your perspective) that he's already started to identify her with the Virgin Mary, giving her an aura of divine authority. Do also note that he's based on Bernard of Clairvaux, who was super weird about Mary (link NSFW).
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Mar 9, 2015 00:22
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Hidingo Kojimba posted:Yeah that was pretty awkward. I've never studied theology but even I know a monk of Bernard's standing isn't going to be remotely blindsided by the problem of evil. I actually did Philosophy and Ethics, mostly covering Christian theology because hey, Catholic school, and it seemed Bernard's issue was less to do with the problem of evil and more trying to find some resolution in the cosmological arguments for God's existence, and what exactly his 'will' is, given he somehow controls all reality and yet gave people free will. The most obvious bit, to me, is when he mentions Thomas of Aquinas' counter to the concepts of affirmation and negation, since a popular concept for Christian scholars (and still somewhat is today) is that you just couldn't know anything about God precisely because He's supposed to be transcendent and such, and Aquinas deconstructed previous ideas on how you could try to figure Him out through citing specific acts in the Bible as indicating what He did or didn't like (ie, you shouldn't use the battle of Jericho to indicate that God inherently supports conquest) outside of clear cut instructions like the Ten Commandments. What Maria presents him with is basically existentialism - ie, if you can't find inherent meaning in life, make your own - and it seems that to Bernard, that lets him resolve the issue of being able to properly rationalise God's existence by basically realising he doesn't need to, and he can instead let the idea of God be self evident by the application of morality by people, meaning there must be something out there. Yes, there are a lot of fallacies and inductive leaps involved, but such is what you can find in many of the arguments by religious scholars of the time, since they were assuming God is real and trying to find proof from there, rather than starting from no assumptions and seeing what they arrived at in conclusion. Edit: tl;dr ^ What he said This show has been frankly quite interesting for me to watch as a British Catholic with a massive history bent, if you couldn't tell. That said, it seems like Bernard could go either way with Maria, and her how he judges her in the trial. She's basically a walking ball of irony as far as being a Christian is concerned, so whilst strict law of the time demands destroying her as a heretic (and Gilbert prefers sticking to that law), he might try to save her as his little pet project of reconciliation.
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Mar 9, 2015 00:38
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Darth Walrus posted:The implication has been for a while that Bernard is in a weird place regarding the tension between his secular and spiritual concerns. Maria's speech may not have been especially profound, but it gave him an out, and it helps (or doesn't, depending on your perspective) that he's already started to identify her with the Virgin Mary, giving her an aura of divine authority. He also began to kiss her feet which is, in some way a sign of holy reverence if I recall correctly.
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Mar 9, 2015 02:49
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Xelkelvos posted:He also began to kiss her feet which is, in some way a sign of holy reverence if I recall correctly. Washing feet (which the kissing was an extension of) has considerable religious significance in Christianity, yes.
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Mar 9, 2015 02:55
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Based upon this summary from that other site, Bernard actually goes through several centuries of philosophy/theology in extreme fast forward."Reddit" posted:He considers a world without God. His first thought is that this is impossible, given that St. Thomas Aquinas proved the existence of God. (His famous "five ways", which are pretty complicated but can be simplified to: 1. Something must have been the first thing to create the universe without being created itself and this must be God (he essentially restates this argument three times), 2. The world possesses regularity which must be regulated by God, 3. If things can be better or worse than each other than there must be a perfect pinnacle to which all things are compared to.)
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Mar 9, 2015 05:06
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Should I ask Kyrie Elaison to come to this thread? Heh. Just joking. But I really didn't expect this season to have two shows which inspire considerable religious discussions.
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Mar 9, 2015 09:16
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Not sure what the other show, but in Maria's case, I'd say its because the writer (whether the original mangaka or the head writer of the anime) actually has a decent understanding of Christian theology and symbolism. The monsters don't just blow up into crosses - their names and appearances are specific references to folklore. The names mentioned in Bernard's philosophical ramblings are actual philosophers and, even if glossed over, the references fit with what he's been musing. Maria herself is specifically loaded with the kind of symbolism and attitude that should make her like, a super Christian, but is subverted by her being a witch - a point that Bernard even picks up on in universe.
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Mar 9, 2015 12:16
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The other show is Death Parade. And it's always awesome, if an author has decent background knowledge. Hell, Shirobako profits so much from this, because it's an anime about making anime.
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Mar 9, 2015 12:20
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The show kept getting darker for a while this episode, but things are looking up now. Pretty good, plus we got some siege action for those who were missing the medieval warfare content. I also have to say that spear attack at the beginning looked quite painful. I really liked how it was Edwina who saved Maria and not Joseph though. Incidentally, he's angry enough to be fighting Galfa. By the way...of course, the cat would be another familiar. I guess that explains why she was always wearing a cloak in human form.
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Mar 15, 2015 17:20
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There's something funny to me about the inquisitor's reaction. "flying, barriers, fire, whatever but holy poo poo a cat girl!
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Mar 15, 2015 19:24
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Rodyle posted:There's something funny to me about the inquisitor's reaction. "flying, barriers, fire, whatever but holy poo poo a cat girl! Hey, we all got our fetishes.
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Mar 15, 2015 20:15
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Rodyle posted:There's something funny to me about the inquisitor's reaction. "flying, barriers, fire, whatever but holy poo poo a cat girl! I think its meant to be that he actually recognises her as the girl he was speaking to at one point (though I can't remember the exact episode), but that might just be her looks having been based on that girl - ie, same way Priapus is modelled after Joseph. Though it is admittedly just funnier to imagine that's where he draws the line on supernatural nonsense. Also I'd be surprised if Joseph made it out of this. Seriously, the death flag is just so obvious
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Mar 15, 2015 20:43
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Rodyle posted:There's something funny to me about the inquisitor's reaction. "flying, barriers, fire, whatever but holy poo poo a cat girl! So learned theologians of ADTRW, what is the stance of the church on the matter of cat girls?
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Mar 15, 2015 21:07
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Astro Nut posted:I think its meant to be that he actually recognises her as the girl he was speaking to at one point (though I can't remember the exact episode), but that might just be her looks having been based on that girl - ie, same way Priapus is modelled after Joseph. Anne's dad still isn't dead yet, so I'm inherently suspicious of the value of death flags in this show. Besides, they've set up an ideal opportunity for Maria to get her magic back by using it to save Joseph, whether from Galfa or from the battle going badly wrong for France as battles usually do in this show.
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Mar 15, 2015 21:14
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Rodyle posted:There's something funny to me about the inquisitor's reaction. "flying, barriers, fire, whatever but holy poo poo a cat girl! Pretty sure that familiar is the hooded girl he got medicine from the one time back in... whatever episode it was. The face/hair/gloves are the same. It was kind of a one-off scene, but his reaction makes a bit more sense in that context. Whoops, someone else beat me. Guess that's what I get for not reloading before replying.
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Mar 15, 2015 21:15
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Joseph is going to live a happy life with Maria, because love was the true magic all along.
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Mar 15, 2015 21:16
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Oh god I've forgotten to keep up with this. Is it still as good as it started out as. Has it gotten even better?
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Mar 15, 2015 21:28
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everythingWasBees posted:Oh god I've forgotten to keep up with this. Is it still as good as it started out as. Has it gotten even better? It's my favorite show this season that's not Parayste or Shirobako.
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Mar 15, 2015 21:30
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Yes. Watch it.
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Mar 15, 2015 21:30
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Or the gundam show. It's a pretty good season.
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Mar 15, 2015 21:31
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