I’m starting a thing where I post some art from Betelgeuse or rillxn and a couple of thoughts. It’ll make the world feel a little nicer.
Commence poast factory beautification project! This one is by rillxn, acrylic on moleskine:
I picked this one to start because the analysis part is pretty easy. Everything is painted to denote motion from left to right, even the warrior’s stance as he backpedals, indicating an implacable onslaught. This shows that he’s unable to resist the tides of fate, which is helpfully literalized by the wave behind him. You can see he’s acquitting himself well in the face of overwhelming odds. But the red arrow has his name on it, and the trail behind it suggests its trajectory is guided by something more meaningful than chance. This refers back to an older understanding of the term “doom” which is used synonymously with “law” but with an extra connotation of foreboding to mean something like “condemnation” or even “damnation”. The overall idea of the painting is to illustrate this older feeling of “doom” in the sense of the gods having cast judgment on you, and the futility of resisting your fate as a condemned man.
Even the greatest warrior can’t fight the gods. It’s sort of an anti-Berserk idea that hearkens back to pre-Christian times, when there was no such thing as a “redemption arc”. In the pagan version of Berserk Zodd’s prophecy comes true and Guts gets eaten during the Eclipse like anybody else, despite being the greatest warrior on earth and the “struggler”. Or in the case of rillxn’s warrior, even the perfect fizeek won’t save you. Muh aesthetics :’-(
Aeoli Pera 
>In the pagan version of Berserk Zodd’s prophecy comes true and Guts gets eaten during the Eclipse like anybody else, despite being the greatest warrior on earth and the “struggler”.
When you first did the last 2015 Behelit post I actually thought the series ended at the eclipse with Casca getting raped and Guts having to watch it (with him then dying off screen- not even that small heroism would be allowed in the end).
Was somewhat disappointed to find out that was not the case as my original understanding had a terrible purity to it and struck me as exactly what would (perhaps does) happen in reality.
To clarify: ‘perhaps does’ is meant in a cynical fashion in regards to their being a ‘Guts’ there at all in this day and age.
I am sure plenty of ‘eclipses’ do happen/ are happening as I type.
The virgin dark fantasy vs. the chad cosmic horror.
I think this dark fantasy / cosmic horror split is fundamental to the difference in our worldviews. Berserk is an optimistic story and could be described as fundamentally Buddhist in the same way that the ending of the Evangelion rebuild was. The thesis of both is more or less “survive trauma, get over yourself, forgive, go to heaven.” I.e. Everybody gets raped in the ghetto, what makes you so special?
“the pathos of ‘in vain’ is the nihilists’ pathos – at the same time, as pathos, an inconsistency on the part of the nihilists.” The Will to Power, section 585.
I am not a nihilist.
Because if a thing has a meaning to a subject then… it has meaning to a subject.
Even if it is just a reflex- a twitch of a nematode- only a fool could say that it did not exist.
It seems that most ‘nihilists’ do not understand themselves. They should realize that they are not crying over the ‘death of meaning’ but only for (assured) meaning beyond man and time and reason and themselves. In their spite, they declare that life has no meaning.
“A second world or none at all!”
It’s like anyone who identifies as an incel claiming that there are ‘no women with good personalities”.
It is just not true. I’m sure you could find a “3” with a good personality (I suggest retirement homes, ‘special ed’ classes at the local high schools).
But nobody fucking wants a 3.
Even if she is retarded!
So nothing is worth anything and everything is shit and I want chad to die!
It’s the same baby poopy diaper syndrome that lead to leftism and many other things.
I do believe tragedy can be an affirmation. Why?
Because it feels so. To me. That is valid, and life-affirming, I suppose.
It just is not life-transcending, which is what everyone seems to want.
Maybe I’m more like a C. elegens than I’d like to admit, and something ‘horrible but meaningful’ is way better than nothing at all because it constitutes an actual stimulus.
> But nobody fucking wants a 3.
I beg to differ, on account of my ex. She was a 3 but had the best personality of any woman I’ve ever met.
I stand corrected on that.
Still, you wouldn’t be with a jiggling mass of flesh and teeth and tentacles just because it loved you and had a great personality.
(Which is the plot of that visual novel Saya no Uta that guy posted here a while back- I think it was the same guy who told you to ban him? [gotta love dis blog] Still, even then the mc sees her different in that- as a cute… not appropriately aged… female and if he gets fixed then of course they go their separate ways.)
> Still, you wouldn’t be with a jiggling mass of flesh and teeth and tentacles just because it loved you and had a great personality.
*closes private browsing window*
Right, the general point stands. I may be on the k end of the r/k spectrum when it comes to sexual preference (where I’m more aroused by a girl I admire as a person than average) but I’m not an inorganic creature.
shadow spawn from beyond the stars GF is top tier taste tho ngl
I actually think that meme slowed down because everyone realized they couldn’t top that one.
>[gotta love dis blog]
You should see the shit I don’t let through.
The craziest of the crazy would make a good post, and likely seed enough material for a dozen more…
And I suggest getting into arts and crafts in a semi-rural area (i.e. somewhere that still actually exists outside the internet’s fever dreams) because that’s where these girls are.
>”fundamentally Buddhist”
Now there is a rabbit hole. Many people say that Buddhism is a nihilism, others refute that.
From my view its a mixed bag with many very good ideas (any of the middle way stuff, with the usual caveats such as the differences in nature of subjects, and issues surrounding ‘longevity’ vs ‘intensity’ of pleasure, absence of displeasure, meaning, etc.)
But I am more of the former than the latter. The highest goal of Buddhism- nirvana – does appear to be aimed at destruction of the self, with the retention of mere consciousness, in the majority of what I have read (not a ton, but a decent bit).
Buddhism also believes that, because the self changes over time, is an amalgamation, and has no true center, that is not a valid or desirable entity (or perhaps does not even exist at all!).
I very much do not agree with this…
Most fundamentally, I do not think that I believe that tranquility (and perhaps even magnanimity in the usual sense) is at all the highest value.
(Ataraxia, after all, was a joke. I ‘sell’ the opposite)
The cycle of death, rebirth, and suffering bring much more interest methinks,
>Everybody gets raped in the ghetto, what makes you so special?
I was the one who liked it.
(not really…)
Quite the entertaining and insightful discussion, gentlemen. My main inspiration was this spread from the art book Once More Unto the Breach:
https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.YQ820HINNqjFsWTB6UWzGgAAAA?pid=ImgDet&rs=1
The theme I had in mind was the inevitability of fate. And not just the inevitability, but the precision with which one’s fate is delineated in time. I was also chewing on the Sisyphean nature of fighting against the unending tide of ruin.
I’m squarely in the dark fantasy corner as opposed to cosmic horror. I believe there is always a redemptive thread – which I, insofar as I’m capable, try to allude to. In this instance I’m not sure I found it. I considered including lucent dragonflies flitting about and landing atop the arrows as if inhabiting a space outside time. I imagined them as an allusion to a ‘magical reality’ his death would segue into.
Many thanks for the great analysis and generative discussion. This has far exceeded my expectations. I’m pleased as punch.
Fun fact: some working titles – Liver Quiver, Deluge
> to an older understanding of the term “doom” which is used synonymously with “law” but with an extra connotation of foreboding to mean something like “condemnation” or even “damnation”.
I wonder how “Anno Domini” is affected by this.
That looks very cool.
> Commence poast factory beautification project!
Change the blog header!
What’s wrong with the snow one? I like it.
Not metal enough
I actually tried changing it to that exact picture but the aspect ratio messed up everything.
That could work.