First off a what the hell moment:
The last time this happened was with my Code Geass posts, albeit on an even more perplexing scale of almost Top 10’s. I didn’t get it then and I still don’t get it now. What is it about this article that could have possibly warranted it being up there among the political musings that usually make the top 100? Who is reading this stuff? WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?! It’s like, the RNC is attacking Obama, what are we going to do about Gitmo detainees…..oh and this guy talks about some TV show in Japan. :/
And now for something we hope you’ll really like.
What is a man but a miserable pile of secrets?! What is a god? Despite the reemergence of the Moe goddess in Haruhi Suzumiya, Zeus still remains the one true Gar god of this season in my books. However, that gets me thinking deeper about this question though of what makes for a good godlike character or entities depiction in an anime. What is it about this Zeus character that makes me so in awe of him? What is it about this Haruhi character that makes other fans of different walks so in awe of her. Let’s have a look at some of the various examples over the years:
What if God were like Angel and Big Venus from The Big O The director of a play and her chair with the ability to dictate the scenario at her whim. If all the world were just a stage and we were merely players with no real memories or pasts of our own and Angel and her literal Deus Ex Machina had the ability to reset the play, change the setting, change the characters, and even change the outcome at her will, what would we do? Where would we go if anywhere? The thought scares and intrigues the curious existentialist mind.
Possible Believers: Steven Spielberg, Friedrich Nietzsche
What if God were like Ashera and Yune, the perfect forces of Order (Restriction, Predictability, Safety) and Chaos (Freedom, Sponaneity, Choice) in an eternal struggle within itself to find balance. The inquisitive mind could see the benefit of both and would probably imagine the perfect being embodying the middle ground between both halves like her reconstituted self Ashunera.
Possible Believers: Joker, Taoists
What if God were actually less powerful then some lesser beings living under his watch like Kami in Dragon Ball Z, but made his godhood out of a case of infinite wisdom and the ability to keep watch over all of his dominion and know what is going on within it at any given time.
Possible Believers: Hinduists (sarv-gyaata), The CIA and FBI
What if Godhood were a measure of infinite destructive power like it is with the Ide in Ideon. Where nothing can stand in the Ideon’s way if the Ide chooses to offer it’s destructive power, but with power witheld it becomes impotent.
Possible Believers: J. Robert Oppenheimer, Michael Bay
What if God were actually a false idol like Ribbons Almark from Gundam 00? A usurper of greater ideals akin to Lucifer himself that has nothing but his own best interests in mind and furthering his own power, vanity and selfishness at the expense of the human race. Would this be a true god, or the devil himself pouring lies and decide and trying to sway the fragile hearts of man to do his selfish bidding in a war with the true god.
Possible Believers: Aleister Crowley, Babylonians
What if God were a Messiah figure set to guide humanity on the path towards evolution and a greater destiny like Setsuna F. Seiei and his 00 Gundam. A mortal man of simple, but tragic origins forced to find himself and the goal that is laid out for him by a higher power that gave him what he needs to carry out his mission. Tempted by the devil but always rejecting it and moving along the path he believes in as offered him by the true father of his creation, he ascends to a higher level of evolution and finds a way to make humanity understand itself better and guide them on the path to ascension in it’s darkest hour during a final battle with a devil and his forces.
Possible Believers: Christians, Vladimir and Estragon
What if God were a mild mannered high school girl unaware of her powers to alter reality to fit her subconcious whims like Suzumiya Haruhi. What if this god figure were subject to the same selfishness, petty cruelty, and vanity akin to that of the gods of Olympus such as Aphrodite, with no higher purpose in mind but to engage in hedonism and make the planes of mortal men their playground. What would we do?
Possible Believers: Ancient Greeks, Femdom Fetishists
What if God were someone you could call up in and out of nowhere to say “If you won’t save me please don’t waste me time” like Juiz the favour granter in Eden of The East? Imagine having the ability to talk directly to a god that could grant any wish you desire for nothing more then the price of common currency on the expectation that it be put to the greater use of ones fellow man
Possible Believers: Noel Gallagher, Alexander Graham Bell
What if Godhood were a measure of ones ability to be omnipresent like Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann in the show of the same name? Would such a god watch over us, or dwarf us in it’s presence and lead the universe to a self-collapse in an apocalyptic scenario. Could such a god be controlled even by the noblest of souls who hold the key to it’s power?
Possible Believers: Emperor Constantine, St. Thomas Aquinas
What if God were just an immortal being who walked among us like C.C from Code Geass? With the overall physical capacity of a normal human, but the ability to be unkillable and unaging such that it doesn’t really matter. Using this to it’s advantage such a being could manipulate the events of the human race without consequence and drive us towards a certain direction in our own evolution….all the while just trying to make it’s way home.
Possible Believers: Ponce De Leon, Joan Osborne
What if God were simply the physical manifestation of the true unconcious will of humanity like the Jupiter thing in Code Geass. Would this imply that the true face of god unmasked is really just man itself and what it chooses to make of the idea of god as a projection of it’s own will? Would that mean god really doesn’t exist at all, or that we are merely the gods of our destiny as well as others we come in contact with, influencing them and in turn being influenced by them on our own course of life whether we know it or not?
Possible Believers: Atheists, Kaioshin Sama
What if God were actually an alien of improbable strength, courage, honour and compassion that to us merely appeared to be godlike as a result of our own comparable lack of technological and evolutionary advancement like Zeus in Shin Mazinger? Would such a godly figure in our eyes truly fight against his own race to save a lower existence such as us humans, or would such a thing be a work of the imagination?
Possible Believers: Fox Mulder, Trekkies
Guess what, this is the co-op article I’ve been talking about doing with my good friend ghostlightning, so now I’m going to turn the topic over to him to give us his own deifiable anime figures and why he thinks they could be seen as godly in some manner. See you at We Remember Love.
LOL at Michael Bay worshipping the Ideon. Not my favorite show but I’ve a soft spot for it nonetheless. I think I’d watch a Michael Bay version of Ideon.
Very interesting theories on God
I like to think that God is a little bit everyone of the types you listed, well most of them. For the most part I think God is a combination of Kami and Ideon; A wise one who watches over his domain, knows anything at any given time, but also has the destructive powers that none can stand against (Noah’s Ark and the Great Flood from the Old Testement). However, at the same time he chooses to restrain that power and allows humanity to choose its own destiny (free will) while at the same time offering advise (through the Messiah), but still leaving the choice up to humanity, for better or worse. One can challenge that theory by saying in the Old Testament and other religions there are stories about God intervening in humanity’s affairs. Well, think of humanity, as a whole, an infant at first. The infant needs to be under strict guidance and most be taught how to live and make the right decisions in life. However, as it learns and grows, God lessens his control over humanity and once humanity has reached adulthood the future is entrusted to humanity (“The childhood of humankind has ended” – Gundam 00 S2).
Of course free will could just be an illusion and we could all be pawns in a game or simulated world and at the complete mercy of the creator, without even knowing it, Matrix style (scary thought).
LOL at #100.
“Written by Kaioshin Sama”, “Suzumiya Haruhi”, “First impression”.
’nuff said.
@ghostlightning: It does blow stuff up on a scale that even Michael Bay would be in awe at. Awesome….
@Zetatrain: Yes I too would probably go with a combination of some of the above, but that could also have to account for the vanity of Haruhi and Ribbons. It’s an interesting conundrum.
@sadakups & Duo Maxwell: What you think so?
Heh, you capture the essence of Gundam quite nicely, though I think you can actually go further back to Gundam SeeD as well: Kira, after all, is colloquially referred to as “Jesus” Yamato.
Not sure how I’d slot in Buddhists, Muslims, and Jews into the examples you laid out; perhaps other anime examples might be in order. (Kannagi for Shinto and Animism, perhaps?) Still, nice slice of various “deific” characters.
What if we over-analyze God and his motives. What God is really just someone who made humanity by pure whim
God has no set rules, set goals, love nor hatred for humanity
Because to God we are simply a meaningless product and it is us who chose to make up an otherwise pretentious reason for our creation.
Anime: Slayers.
Novel: DDD
@Loligoth powered: That would kind of support the whole God is dead theory whereby he once took an interest in us and/or we believed in or saw it’s presence in everything, but suddenly that mutual interest waned on both sides of the equation and God seems less important in our modern lives.
I find the Haruhi god an option with two possibilities. Either she could be the only living god on the planet, or we all are and Haruhi just happens to be one who is able to subconsciously use the power. It would be possible that we all have the power but need only to become enlightened to be able to tap into it. Perhaps that is what the other 90% of our brains are for?