Episode 378

[Aazealh]

Miura told us the state of Kushan at the time of Ganishka's birth, but nations rise and fall, and 303 gives us small hints of the historical relations between Kushan and its neighbors (for the record I typo'd my last post where I mentioned episode 376, it was 377).

Look, as the saying goes, you can bring a horse to water but you can't make it drink. I've pointed you to where the history of Ganishka's empire is established, and it is wholly incompatible with what the Continuation team described in episode 377. If you refuse to acknowledge this because you want to cling to the illusion that it doesn't break the canon, that's your problem. But you're wrong about it and no amount of mental gymnastics can make it otherwise.

Well, referring to Puella's translation of 358, that isn't quite what Griffith says.

Yes it is. I said "Griffith surmises that it's the only place that still has a government on the continent". Griffith says "This country, Midland, could be the only one that still keeps the form of a state on this continent, probably."

So again, your interpretation doesn't actually show us any explicit contradiction in what we're seeing, in regards to the ongoing persistence of the Kushan Empire.

I don't know why you assume our entire understanding of Fantasia is based on that one sentence. I only cited it as an example. There's also everything else. What we see happen in volume 34, what Gedflynn tells Guts' group in Elfhelm, Raban and Rickert's exchange, and much more. For example Ged says Falconia is "the only country where humans can lead a peaceful life." How's that for an explicit contradiction? You really should reacquaint yourself with these parts of the series before continuing to argue like this. You're just wasting my time.

If anything, that makes sense because it is a far more powerful nation than other kingdoms we glimpse in the territories around Midland from the Golden Age, so it's reasonable that they would endure for longer.

No, actually it doesn't make any sense at all because Ganishka and his armies were completely annihilated, and we've never had any reason to believe he had another giant army back home. By the way, it looks like you've abandoned the idea that the Great Wave of the Astral World hadn't hit these lands yet here, but you keep arguing for it below. It reads like a guy who just doesn't want to admit he was wrong instead of someone with a coherent vision.

Was the Great Wave of the Astral World simply an extinction event and there are no humans elsewhere anymore?

At least not in the form of prosperous, organized civilizations. Survivors scraping by? Quite possibly. But not big cities with functioning governments. This is what we're told in the story.

It seems more logically parsimonious to argue for a gradual collapse of the existing world than an instantaneous one.

There is no need to argue about what the series tells us and shows us.

Lastly, and I mention this not out of pedantry but because these small linguistic details are also very interesting to me, is there a particular reason you choose Gaizeric as the transliteration of that character's name?

That's how Miura wrote it in Japanese.

I've also read that the morphophonology of g vs k suffers a similar effect due to rendaku which has led me to wonder if Ganishka should not have been transliterated as Kanishka, in keeping with the references to real world historical figures.

No, Miura wrote them differently on purpose.

Silat isn't an omniscient narrator, so what is the contradiction here? I can only see it if your interpretation of instantaneous collapse is taken as fact. He's just espousing nationalist drivel about how strong Kushan is and will probaly be proven wrong in short order. If anything, the contradiction I see here is that Silat shouldn't be foolish enough to say this given what he has experienced firsthand over the course of the story.

Why would Silat be "espousing nationalist drivel"? That's not at all in the spirit of what he says, and as you remark yourself, it doesn't fit at all with his character. You're just contorting your brain to find reasons your idea could still work despite the fact the Continuation itself goes against it.

By the way, do you know Silat was going back to the Bakiraka's stronghold originally? It makes no sense for him to be in this coastal city. Another big deviation from what Miura had set up for the story. I'm only mentioning it here to underline to you that the inanity with the Kushan empire is built on top of other liberties the Continuation team has been taking with the story. It's like Russian dolls.

No, I agree, but you've simply described the opposite extreme, whereas I would situate the typical skullknight.net user on the other tail of the normal distribution of Berserk readers.

I repeat: I don't see what this has to do with the discussion. Or do you want to go back to complaining about other people's opinions?

I'm not confused about anything. I think it's a reference to previous visual motifs and that it is not nonsense because it is similar to but different from what we saw before, as the situation at hand is similar to but different from what has happened previously in the manga. The artistic merit of dropping references like these is another debate entirely. As I mentioned in my previous post, at least until we see what happens next, I find the visual parallel between what's happening at the Kushan palace and what happened at the Count's castle relatively interesting, whereas the reuse of elements like the trolls is rather mediocre.

You clearly were confused about what I was saying since you thought my mention of the shockwave being lifted from when Griffith's beherit activates was an acknowledgement that Rakshas himself could somehow serve that role in a way that made sense. Furthermore, it is absolutely nonsense regardless of the fact it's slightly different visually because there is no reason nor explanation for why or how an apostle could do such a thing. It is not supported by the way magic works in the world of Berserk as it had been described by Kentarou Miura.

This is why, regardless of whether you "find the visual parallel interesting", it is nonsense. Saying otherwise shows that you don't understand the purpose it served in the story when Miura did it. It wasn't just a random thing to depict that looks cool. I explained all of this in my review of the episode, so it's tiring having to keep repeating it to you.

Serialized forms of media such as manga drip feed us information. We don't know exactly what is happening for you to reach these conclusions. If anything, why should we expect to work things like they did before? [...] You're reaching premature conclusions about the storytelling of a scene that we've only just started to see unfold.

You still don't understand. The things I've pointed out won't be magically solved by whatever happens next. They can't be because they directly contradict established facts. Do you really think this sort of basic shit doesn't occur to me? I've addressed this already. No offense, but if you're under the impression that there's some leeway in places where I say there isn't, it's not because I missed something obvious, it's because you're not as familiar with the story as you believe yourself to be.

Many of your responses to other details I've mentioned hinge on the before vs after of the astral and physical planes merging in the story, which rewrote the metaphysical rules of the world entirely.

Fantasia did not "rewrite the metaphysical rules of the world entirely". Said rules are largely unchanged. You're out of your depth here. And you're wrong, I fully take Fantasia into account, obviously. I mean don't you think it's a little odd to say "the gate to the astral world" is being opened given that the two worlds have merged? It doesn't make sense.

Furthermore, given what I already said - Rakshas is confused about what's going on and Daiba explicitly remarks that an apostle shouldn't be able to cause what's happening with the astral gates - it seems clear that this scene is foreshadowing whatever we'll see in the next few episodes.

But I told you: it doesn't matter if it foreshadows that a member of the God Hand might show up. Things still don't make sense. What you don't seem to realize despite my considerable efforts is that this is just a drop in a giant bucket of inconsistencies. Like, there are no "astral gates", that's not how the corporeal and ethereal worlds work, and Rakshas shouldn't even be here in the first place.

You said earlier on that he was brought back when the "astral gates" opened, and I didn't bother correcting you at the time, but surely by now you've realized this isn't possible, right? He first shows up inexplicably, then he unleashes that shockwave and "opens the gate to the astral world", then the pseudo-trolls show up. You talk as if it all makes sense because he's confused, but his presence, behavior and abilities are all incongruent with what Miura had established for him.

It's funny because you said you were very against the Continuation until episode 377, but here you're really clinging desperately to the idea that everything we're seeing might make sense. But surely you haven't forgotten all the other stuff that didn't make sense before? Like Falconia suddenly being a seaside city, the island's magicians losing their powers inexplicably, the island's elves all disappearing but not Puck nor Hanarr, and yet Isma and the merrows disappearing too even though they weren't from there. Phew, there's so many, I mean I haven't even gotten into all the issues with Guts.

None of that stuff was ever explained, and none of it will be. Similarly, most (if not all) of the inconsistencies I've mentioned in my review will remain unexplained and unjustified. And believe me, I wish it wasn't the case. It's not like I'm happy that it sucks.

Do you think that the qliphoth manifests in fixed, invariant locations in the physical world?

The Qliphoth is a territory of the astral world. It doesn't manifest itself. Rather, like we see in volumes 25 and 26, a passage is opened between the corporeal world and the Qliphoth in a particular location where they overlap. That means people travel to the astral world's depths (that's how they could encounter Slan). In Enoch, it was a freak incident, brought about by Femto's incarnation (according to Schierke's guess). With Fantasia, it should be much more frequent. Like I said in my original post, the Qliphoth should probably be accessible through many dark forests, sinister swamps and damp cellars.

The issue here is that the Continuation team is using it like a summon spell in an RPG. We see Rakshas emit a shockwave, then a tornado forms, then pools of black fluid appear randomly (including miles away from the palace), then pseudo-trolls immediately come out from said pools. But where's the Qliphoth exactly, with its eerie scenery and weird animals? It's nowhere to be seen. They're just using the name to explain why pseudo-trolls are showing up... which, as I mentioned in my review, seems to be based on another misunderstanding about what happened when Slan appeared. She specifically brought forth some ogres to delay the Skull Knight, it's not like monsters naturally sprout from the ground all the time.

What it comes down to is that they wanted critters to rampage through the city and that was their halfassed solution.

In 377, as Rakshas begins to emerge, Daiba notices his evil prana, probably tantamount to dark od.

Prana is just another word for Od. But "evil" isn't another word for "dark".

To me the implication is that Rakshas' od is an anchor drawing other beings with dark od, and that qliphoth is manifesting accordingly.

No, it just refers to the fact he's an evil being, and specifically an apostle. And also, the way you're describing this isn't how it's actually depicted. Daiba first detects Rakshas' presence as he comes out of the guy, that's when he talks about his Od. Farnese, Molda and Guts sense it as well. The next episode, after some scuffle and as Rakshas is surrounded, he unleashes a shockwave and we get that "open the gate" thing. And only after that do we get the "Qliphoth is appearing" line.

Furthermore, apostles aren't related to the Qliphoth so there's no basis for this idea that he could be an "anchor" that would draw the territory to the world. It's just not how it was shown working in the series by Miura. As a reminder, apostles are unique in that they're humans whose soul was infused with evil power, they're not comparable to astral creatures like trolls.

Daiba seems to find this situation very abnormal, so I think we'll find out next episode what's really happening. I suspect some greater evil is coordinating these events to create a bridge for itself to appear in the city.

Like I keep saying, even if a member of the God Hand shows up next episode it won't make all these errors disappear. This is almost besides the point to be honest.

And yet, we're given earlier precedent that Daiba does know quite a lot about magic and the astral world. As I mentioned before, he gave Ganishka his beherit, and he's the only human magical practitioner we've seen well-versed enough in the dark arts to produce something like the artificial beherit Ganishka used to incarnate for a second time. The actual extent of his knowledge is rather ambiguous, in this sense, even if he took advantage of Ganishka's great power to further his own art.

Daiba is a magician, nothing new. But giving someone a beherit doesn't count for anything (Was Vargas a magician? Was the gypsy who gave Griffith his beherit a magician?), and the artificial beherit wasn't something Daiba made all by himself. It relied on Ganishka's power from beginning to end. Meanwhile, as I said, we've seen him being stumped by simple things, like not being able to perceive Schierke's body of light. Put all together it forms a relatively clear picture of his abilities.

Schierke is also consistently portrayed as a prodigal practitioner of magic and her having an advanced intuition for the mechanics of metaphysics doesn't necessarily cast Daiba in a negative light. That said, I don't disagree that characters like Ged far surpass him, but given that he's the foremost Kushan magician that we've seen and the party is currently in Kushan lands, I don't think what we're seeing is outlandish.

Like I said, I quite like Daiba as a character. He's great specifically because his skills are limited. That's what makes him so interesting. He's old, cunning and resourceful, and I'm sure Miura would have done very cool things with him if there hadn't been that tragedy. But the Continuation team uses him as a generic vehicle for exposition in ways that don't make sense, from his vague divinition in 375 to that comment about the "gate of the astral world" in 378. The same goes for Farnese to some extent. Now is this among the Continuation's biggest problems? No. But it bothers me precisely because I like his character, and I wish better use was made of him, in ways more faithful to what Miura had established.

 

[eldritch]

Look, as the saying goes, you can bring a horse to water but you can't make it drink. I've pointed you to where the history of Ganishka's empire is established, and it is wholly incompatible with what the Continuation team described in episode 377. If you refuse to acknowledge this because you want to cling to the illusion that it doesn't break the canon, that's your problem. But you're wrong about it and no amount of mental gymnastics can make it otherwise.

Ganishka's empire is a period in the history of Kushan, but not synonymous with it. Referencing a tradition which might predate it is not in fact a contradiction, even if it is something we didn't know before and that Miura didn't mention (you appear to equate these two things constantly). Like I said, I don't know the original Japanese wording and it could be phrased in a contradictory way or not, but given Silat references the ancient past in the same chapter, we know that he could be referring to something from long before. My point was simply that this is such an ambiguous detail that harping on it is pointless among the litany of actual errors, and that this doesn't "break the canon."

Honestly, this is just a semantic debate for me about why it doesn't make sense to dissect every single panel and line of text as contradictory, because there are plenty of real contradictions to point out among the ambiguities that are fine as creative leeway of the team behind the continuation, even in the scenes we're discussing. For example, if you pointed out Silat referencing Kushan as an ethnically heterogenous culture, this does seem more difficult to reconcile with 303's description of Ganishka as the prince of a small kingdom... and yet even then, we know nothing of all the surrounding peoples who were integrated into Ganishka's empire except that they certainly had prior diplomatic relations, given that 303 tells us how Ganishka followed the tradition of marrying into the aristocracy of a neighboring culture. Perhaps Kushan is an epithet that describes them as well. If the continuation had told us as much, how would you feel about these inconsistencies? (it doesn't really matter, I'm not saying this is the case)

Yes it is. I said "Griffith surmises that it's the only place that still has a government on the continent". Griffith says "This country, Midland, could be the only one that still keeps the form of a state on this continent, probably."

If you don't see the difference between absolute statements of fact and "could be, probably", it is beyond the scope of my interest in this conversation to explain it to you. You frequently appear to mistake your subjective interpretations of the story as factual observations, so perhaps this is something you do need to revisit.

I don't know why you assume our entire understanding of Fantasia is based on that one sentence. I only cited it as an example. There's also everything else. What we see happen in volume 34, what Gedflynn tells Guts' group in Elfhelm, Raban and Rickert's exchange, and much more. For example Ged says Falconia is "the only country where humans can lead a peaceful life." How's that for an explicit contradiction? You really should reacquaint yourself with these parts of the series before continuing to argue like this. You're just wasting my time.

(I fixed something I misread in your post here) In episode 345 from volume 39 that I believe you're referencing, Ged's dialogue states:

Gedflynn: In this world that has turned back into "chaos", ironically, the place where that enormous tree roots has become a land full of mild spiritual power, like the eye of a typhoon, preventing evil astral bodies from approaching it. Now we can even say it's the only country where humans can lead a peaceful life.

Again, "the only country where humans can lead a peaceful life" and "the only country" are two distinct ideas. We're probably about to witness the fall of Kushan, so this is, again, not contradictory. If you want to actually respond to what I said, you are welcome to.

To once more appropriate your own choice of words, you seem to be confused about my point, because I was not disputing that the Great Wave of the Astral World merged the two worlds across the entire planet. We see as much in 303. I was disputing that its full consequences should necessarily be interpreted as producing the immediate collapse of every civilization in the world of Berserk, and why it is perfectly suitable as a narrative device to take the most prosperous nation introduced in the story thus far and show us its collapse to give weight to those consequences, rather than immediately jump to the postapocalyptic aftermath.

Why would Silat be "espousing nationalist drivel"? That's not at all in the spirit of what he says, and as you remark yourself, it doesn't fit at all with his character. You're just contorting your brain to find reasons your idea could still work despite the fact the Continuation itself goes against it.

By the way, do you know Silat was going back to the Bakiraka's stronghold originally? It makes no sense for him to be in this coastal city. Another big deviation from what Miura had set up for the story. I'm only mentioning it here to underline to you that the inanity with the Kushan empire is built on top of other liberties the Continuation team has been taking with the story. It's like Russian dolls.

I don't know why, nor do I know why you acknowledged that I actually said it doesn't fit his character, but not the words that came immediately before. Perhaps contort your brain around the sentence that says "Silat is not an omniscient narrator", which is to say that his dialogue needn't describe the reality of Berserk's world, and was in fact most likely foreshadowing the imminent collapse of Kushan that we're about to watch unfold.

Yes, I do know that Silat was going back to the Bakiraka stronghold. I presume that this would have been a lengthy detour in the narrative that the continuation couldn't encompass because they didn't know what Miura wanted to do there, and didn't want to invent material wholesale.

Do you really believe that people who actually worked with Miura don't remember parts of the story that they themselves may have helped ink, edit, etc? The same way the abrupt dissolution of Elfhelm and quick shift in the narrative to Kushan was almost certainly required in order to cover major plot beats that the team might have had more context for as opposed to developing sideplots that ostensibly lacked material from Miura, I think the nature of the continuation contributed to this particular unfortunate inconsistency.

I repeat: I don't see what this has to do with the discussion. Or do you want to go back to complaining about other people's opinions?

Given the volume of complaints about other people's opinions in your posts over the years, including in this very post, it is amusing (to continue to borrow your tone) that you keep coming back to this point.

You clearly were confused about what I was saying since you thought my mention of the shockwave being lifted from when Griffith's beherit activates was an acknowledgement that Rakshas himself could somehow serve that role in a way that made sense. Furthermore, it is absolutely nonsense regardless of the fact it's slightly different visually because there is no reason nor explanation for why or how an apostle could do such a thing. It is not supported by the way magic works in the world of Berserk as it had been described by Kentarou Miura.

This is why, regardless of whether you "find the visual parallel interesting", it is nonsense. Saying otherwise shows that you don't understand the purpose it served in the story when Miura did it. It wasn't just a random thing to depict that looks cool. I explained all of this in my review of the episode, so it's tiring having to keep repeating it to you.

You still don't understand. The things I've pointed out won't be magically solved by whatever happens next. They can't be because they directly contradict established facts. Do you really think this sort of basic shit doesn't occur to me? I've addressed this already. No offense, but if you're under the impression that there's some leeway in places where I say there isn't, it's not because I missed something obvious, it's because you're not as familiar with the story as you believe yourself to be.

Fantasia did not "rewrite the metaphysical rules of the world entirely". Said rules are largely unchanged. You're out of your depth here. And you're wrong, I fully take Fantasia into account, obviously. I mean don't you think it's a little odd to say "the gate to the astral world" is being opened given that the two worlds have merged? It doesn't make sense.

I am trying to reconcile how you believe that Fantasia didn't alter metaphysics when it fused two worlds, affected magic, gave physical forms to creatures previously restricted to the astral world, etc, but whatever. It so happens that episode 345 contains relevant dialogue to this point you're attempting to make.

Gedflynn: It literally pierces through the deep layers of this world and of the astral world
Gedflynn: A giant "fissure" that penetrates through the world.

Isma: A fissure... a crack?
Isidro: What does it mean?

Schierke: Please think of it like of a mole's den.
Schierke: On a full moon night or some such circumstance, it very rarely happens that a road appears, connecting this world to the astral world. Small ones are called the "Road of Elves", which is connected to shallow parts of the astral world and sometimes causes children to get lost in a forest.

Gedflynn: And the big ones are called the "Road of Dragons", which can reach deep into the astral word.
Gedflynn: The "egg" at your waist is a fetish that is needed to reach the Abyss, which it does by opening the "Road of Dragons".

To make this as clear as possible for you, all of the language used here - "the deep layers of this world and the astral world", "a fissure that penetrates through the world", "a road appears, connecting this world to the astral world", etc - quite handily proves that connections and paths between the physical and astral worlds continue to exist. The beherit is explicitly said here to "open" one of these paths, for example. Examples of things that open are doors and gates!

But I told you: it doesn't matter if it foreshadows that a member of the God Hand might show up. Things still don't make sense. What you don't seem to realize despite my considerable efforts is that this is just a drop in a giant bucket of inconsistencies. Like, there are no "astral gates", that's not how the corporeal and ethereal worlds work, and Rakshas shouldn't even be here in the first place.

You said earlier on that he was brought back when the "astral gates" opened, and I didn't bother correcting you at the time, but surely by now you've realized this isn't possible, right? He first shows up inexplicably, then he unleashes that shockwave and "opens the gate to the astral world", then the pseudo-trolls show up. You talk as if it all makes sense because he's confused, but his presence, behavior and abilities are all incongruent with what Miura had established for him.

It's funny because you said you were very against the Continuation until episode 377, but here you're really clinging desperately to the idea that everything we're seeing might make sense. But surely you haven't forgotten all the other stuff that didn't make sense before? Like Falconia suddenly being a seaside city, the island's magicians losing their powers inexplicably, the island's elves all disappearing but not Puck nor Hanarr, and yet Isma and the merrows disappearing too even though they weren't from there. Phew, there's so many, I mean I haven't even gotten into all the issues with Guts.

None of that stuff was ever explained, and none of it will be. Similarly, most (if not all) of the inconsistencies I've mentioned in my review will remain unexplained and unjustified. And believe me, I wish it wasn't the case. It's not like I'm happy that it sucks.

There are certainly a lot of inconsistencies in the continuation, I just don't agree with some of the ones you point out, nor do I find it productive for them to be taken as fact when they actually are not. You keep saying things and yet that doesn't actually make them true (at some point this causal relationship between you saying things and their factual nature appears to have become confused for you). The text I just cited hopefully clears up why I don't think that this description of "astral gates" is particularly controversial or contradictory, unless you want to take issue with the difference between opening a path and opening a gate.

Those other inconsistencies you mentioned are definitely problematic. I think a lot of them, like I stated before, probably result from the team not knowing what to do with many of the story's nuances. Others derive from incompetency. I believe it is useful to distinguish between them when discussing the continuation. Rakshas' uneven characterization here is not something I dispute, but I don't think we're intended to believe he's the one causing the events in this chapter, he is merely facilitating them.

The Qliphoth is a territory of the astral world. It doesn't manifest itself. Rather, like we see in volumes 25 and 26, a passage is opened between the corporeal world and the Qliphoth in a particular location where they overlap. That means people travel to the astral world's depths (that's how they could encounter Slan). In Enoch, it was a freak incident, brought about by Femto's incarnation (according to Schierke's guess). With Fantasia, it should be much more frequent. Like I said in my original post, the Qliphoth should probably be accessible through many dark forests, sinister swamps and damp cellars.

The issue here is that the Continuation team is using it like a summon spell in an RPG. We see Rakshas emit a shockwave, then a tornado forms, then pools of black fluid appear randomly (including miles away from the palace), then pseudo-trolls immediately come out from said pools. But where's the Qliphoth exactly, with its eerie scenery and weird animals? It's nowhere to be seen. They're just using the name to explain why pseudo-trolls are showing up... which, as I mentioned in my review, seems to be based on another misunderstanding about what happened when Slan appeared. She specifically brought forth some ogres to delay the Skull Knight, it's not like monsters naturally sprout from the ground all the time.

What it comes down to is that they wanted critters to rampage through the city and that was their halfassed solution.

You didn't actually respond to what I said or what I quoted in favor of repeating yourself, so I'll repeat myself too. Schierke's dialogue is ambiguous with regards to this:

Schierke: (...) Ethereal bodies tend to gravitate towards ods of the same nature. Warm ods would be drawn towards warmth... Conversely, this place here, the darkness where hearts steeped in darkness congregate... that is qliphoth.

I mentioned that I couldn't find alternative translations or discussion of this line in particular, so if there is material that contradicts me, feel free to point it out. Otherwise, I don't see how this is clearly delineated: is the darkness where dark things congregate the qliphoth, or is the qliphoth where dark things congregate? These are two different ideas.

When a damp cellar is built, how does it connect to the qliphoth? You also argue that this is all wrong because Rakshas is an apostle and these are not abilities linked to apostles, but I don't think that's the critical element on which the story is relying at all, rather it is his association with darkness (volume 38, Night Battle to cite a textual reference) which makes him an adequate conduit or instrument to facilitate whatever is happening.

No, it just refers to the fact he's an evil being, and specifically an apostle. And also, the way you're describing this isn't how it's actually depicted. Daiba first detects Rakshas' presence as he comes out of the guy, that's when he talks about his Od. Farnese, Molda and Guts sense it as well. The next episode, after some scuffle and as Rakshas is surrounded, he unleashes a shockwave and we get that "open the gate" thing. And only after that do we get the "Qliphoth is appearing" line.

Furthermore, apostles aren't related to the Qliphoth so there's no basis for this idea that he could be an "anchor" that would draw the territory to the world. It's just not how it was shown working in the series by Miura. As a reminder, apostles are unique in that they're humans whose soul was infused with evil power, they're not comparable to astral creatures like trolls.

It doesn't matter that he's an apostle, it matters that his powers are specifically related to darkness.

Like I keep saying, even if a member of the God Hand shows up next episode it won't make all these errors disappear. This is almost besides the point to be honest.

It really isn't, because you keep positing that Rakshas has some agency in whatever's happening that contributes to the inconsistency, but if he is simply being used to open a path somewhere, it is a wholly different situation.

Daiba is a magician, nothing new. But giving someone a beherit doesn't count for anything (Was Vargas a magician? Was the gypsy who gave Griffith his beherit a magician?), and the artificial beherit wasn't something Daiba made all by himself. It relied on Ganishka's power from beginning to end. Meanwhile, as I said, we've seen him being stumped by simple things, like not being able to perceive Schierke's body of light. Put all together it forms a relatively clear picture of his abilities.

This almost reads as if you're being willfully obtuse about my point. Did the gypsy who gave Griffith his beherit then go on to take advantage of him to further their position and power? Did Vargas? Daiba facilitated Ganishka's transformation into an apostle, then exploited it to great effect for his own personal gain, a serious mark for his character's competency in my book. Other than that, I don't think we really disagree, so I'll leave this point at that.

 

[Aazealh]

I've removed your 5 paragraphs spiel about how I'm a big meanie and so on since it's got no value nor relevance to the discussion. Needless to say this will also be the last of this conversation, which is not a loss as we're mostly talking past each other at this point.

Ganishka's empire is a period in the history of Kushan, but not synonymous with it. Referencing a tradition which might predate it is not in fact a contradiction

Ganishka literally created the Kushan empire, as told in his backstory. There couldn't possibly have been a great council of chieftains presided by an emperor before the empire itself existed.

My point was simply that this is such an ambiguous detail that harping on it is pointless among the litany of actual errors, and that this doesn't "break the canon."

It does break the established facts of the story to have the Kushan empire predate Ganishka, just like it does to have it still exist after Fantasia, and for Silat to be there instead of being in the Bakiraka's hideout, and so on and on.

For example, if you pointed out Silat referencing Kushan as an ethnically heterogenous culture, this does seem more difficult to reconcile with 303's description of Ganishka as the prince of a small kingdom...

It's not called "Kushan" but the Kushan empire. Although the Continuation team does use the name incorrectly, so maybe you can find a justification for that too. Anyway, the Kushan empire being constituted of many factions isn't new and isn't a problem. It's referenced by Locus in volume 23 for example. Ganishka ruled over many vassals. There's nothing complicated (or problematic) about it. Unlike the Kurultai.

If you don't see the difference between absolute statements of fact and "could be, probably", it is beyond the scope of my interest in this conversation to explain it to you. You frequently appear to mistake your subjective interpretations of the story as factual observations, so perhaps this is something you do need to revisit.

Evidently you don't know what the verb "surmise" means. I won't shame you for it, but you should have checked a dictionary before replying.

Again, "the only country where humans can lead a peaceful life" and "the only country" are two distinct ideas.

As I told you, these are just examples among everything we've seen of Fantasia. There's no question that Falconia is supposed to be mankind's last bastion. And what's your point here anyway? This Kushan city is as peaceful as can be when we first see it. The citizens are so pacified they stay dumbfounded even as the monsters eat their faces. You're getting nowhere with this stuff, not to mention that your idea of a "slow moving wave" is completely baseless to begin with.

I was disputing that its full consequences should necessarily be interpreted as producing the immediate collapse of every civilization in the world of Berserk, and why it is perfectly suitable as a narrative device to take the most prosperous nation introduced in the story thus far and show us its collapse to give weight to those consequences, rather than immediately jump to the postapocalyptic aftermath.

This is what is told and shown to us in the story. Whether you like it or not doesn't really matter.

I don't know why, nor do I know why you acknowledged that I actually said it doesn't fit his character, but not the words that came immediately before. Perhaps contort your brain around the sentence that says "Silat is not an omniscient narrator", which is to say that his dialogue needn't describe the reality of Berserk's world, and was in fact most likely foreshadowing the imminent collapse of Kushan that we're about to watch unfold.

What you say doesn't mean anything. Silat's response to Roderick has nothing to do with him being omniscient, it's just an answer about why the Kushan empire still exists. It doesn't foreshadow anything (and definitely not the Kushan empire's destruction, in fact it says the direct opposite). And by the way, just because that city's under attack doesn't mean the Kushan empire as a whole will be destroyed. Although it's such a simplistic line of thinking that the Continuation team might just do it!

Yes, I do know that Silat was going back to the Bakiraka stronghold. I presume that this would have been a lengthy detour in the narrative that the continuation couldn't encompass because they didn't know what Miura wanted to do there, and didn't want to invent material wholesale.

You can't seriously believe it was meant to be a detour on the way to this coastal city. In case you haven't realized yet: one has replaced the other, and this is actually material they're inventing wholesale.

Do you really believe that people who actually worked with Miura don't remember parts of the story that they themselves may have helped ink, edit, etc?

I don't have to believe anything, it's quite clear that the Continuation team is taking huge liberties with the story and is severely diverging from what Miura intended to do with it. Also the assistants didn't ink or edit the episodes.

Given the volume of complaints about other people's opinions in your posts over the years, including in this very post, it is amusing (to continue to borrow your tone) that you keep coming back to this point.

Complaints from whom? Guys like you, who barge in here to whine about the community, show extraordinary degrees of bad faith before resorting to namecalling and storming off? Yeah sounds about right.

I am trying to reconcile how you believe that Fantasia didn't alter metaphysics when it fused two worlds, affected magic, gave physical forms to creatures previously restricted to the astral world, etc, but whatever.

You're using the wrong terminology, not sure why you keep insisting on talking about "metaphysics". Anyway, what I said is that the fundamental rules of the world are largely unchanged. And it's true, they are. Magic still works the same way and astral beings haven't received corporeal bodies. I'd offer to explain it to you (again), but I'm afraid my patience has run dry.

To make this as clear as possible for you, all of the language used here - "the deep layers of this world and the astral world", "a fissure that penetrates through the world", "a road appears, connecting this world to the astral world", etc - quite handily proves that connections and paths between the physical and astral worlds continue to exist. The beherit is explicitly said here to "open" one of these paths, for example. Examples of things that open are doors and gates!

You really are cute. You do realize that I've contributed to all these translations, right? You're trying to explains things to me that you don't even understand (like how beherits take you somewhere, they don't bring the astral world to you) while using my own words for it. And you sound like you didn't even get what I was talking about in the first place. Truly futile to have this discussion. Serves me right for even engaging with you, I guess.

The text I just cited hopefully clears up why I don't think that this description of "astral gates" is particularly controversial or contradictory, unless you want to take issue with the difference between opening a path and opening a gate.

It doesn't clear anything up at all and it is contradictory to what was established in the story in many ways. I guess you just can't understand how. Too bad for you.

You didn't actually respond to what I said or what I quoted in favor of repeating yourself

That's not true, I directly answered your question...

I mentioned that I couldn't find alternative translations or discussion of this line in particular, so if there is material that contradicts me, feel free to point it out.

Sorry, I believe I've helped you understand the story enough as it is, don't go imagining I'm also going to be providing you with references and documentation. Like are you serious? And with the way you're talking to me? That's rich.

is the darkness where dark things congregate the qliphoth, or is the qliphoth where dark things congregate? These are two different ideas.

Uhhh, sounds like gibberish to me. The Qliphoth is where spirits that have an affinity with darkness gather. What's hard to understand?

You also argue that this is all wrong because Rakshas is an apostle and these are not abilities linked to apostles, but I don't think that's the critical element on which the story is relying at all, rather it is his association with darkness (volume 38, Night Battle to cite a textual reference) which makes him an adequate conduit or instrument to facilitate whatever is happening.

I actually cited that as a joke in my big post because it's so stupid. Yeah he's the Night Demon, so he's got an affinity to the Qliphoth!
And yet here he just shows up in the open and squares off against 40 people, very much like him. Oh but that's because he's secretly controlled from the Qliphoth so he can be a conduit to the Qliphoth! I mean you can't seriously tell me this shit doesn't sound ridiculous.

It doesn't matter that he's an apostle, it matters that his powers are specifically related to darkness.

You don't know what you're talking about. His powers aren't "related to darkness". He's just an assassin who prefers to work in the dark. How is this hard to understand?

It really isn't, because you keep positing that Rakshas has some agency in whatever's happening that contributes to the inconsistency, but if he is simply being used to open a path somewhere, it is a wholly different situation.

He's shown doing it himself though, that's the part you just won't admit. We see his thoughts and all, he's not a lifeless puppet being remotely controlled. But I did mention right from the beginning in my review that I feel he's being deprived of his agency by this portrayal and this situation in general. It's a really disrespectful treatment of the character as far as I'm concerned.

This almost reads as if you're being willfully obtuse about my point. Did the gypsy who gave Griffith his beherit then go on to take advantage of him to further their position and power? Did Vargas? Daiba facilitated Ganishka's transformation into an apostle, then exploited it to great effect for his own personal gain, a serious mark for his character's competency in my book. Other than that, I don't think we really disagree, so I'll leave this point at that.

Daiba didn't take advantage of Ganishka. He didn't mastermind his way into becoming his right-hand man. He was quite obviously recruited after the sacrifice and then served him. It's not like he knew what the beherit would do and planned the whole thing. By the way it's amusing that even as you concede I'm right, you still have to pretend I'm the one not getting it.

 

[Ithier]

Anything to avoid the uncomfortable truth that Studio Gaga doesn't understand how any of this works. You've put more thought into this slow moving wave cope than they probably did in the writing room.