Shin Megami Tensei IV *SPOILERS ABOUND*

Or the great existence that divided itself in Gnosticism.

The whole series carries a strong Gnostic theme in the overall mythology, after all.

Or maybe it's like a Titan from Scion, with every creator god and goddess in existence as its avatars and other gods and demons as its titanspawns.

The Platonic "form of the good"/Aristotleian "unmoved mover" seems like a good fit, yeah.

Fun fact: even in their time, Plato and Aristotle hated how the official Greek gods were portrayed. As mentioned they were both deists - believing that a "god" of some sort exists but that it doesn't interfere with mortals.

Mankinds nature as Observers is what allows it's emotions and self to become gods. In Anarchy/Massacre that Dagda wishes for blinds humans effectively from that nature to stop the gods from being born.

Also nice to know the fusion fetishist and Count who loves shiny rocks are Buddha's.

edited 6th Aug '16 8:14:21 PM by OmegaRadiance

Mido is a Buddha?

They mention right there in theere that the artbook says that him, Count of Saint Germain (Who is a time tourist) and Stephen are Buddha's due to transscending the Cycle of Transmigration.

edited 6th Aug '16 8:20:15 PM by OmegaRadiance

Huh. Are they supposed to be a Big Good Triumvirate of sorts?

Nah. The other two are doing what they've always done and helping the protags is just a side effect.

Now I need to know if they've met Seraph.

Man, Count of Saint Germaine is a hell of a guy.

Demonic Gene's last chapter has been translated.

Amon was Walters DEMONIC GENE all along. Chaos Flynn is indeed repeating a Stable Time Loop of neverending chaos.

So I'm sort of wondering if whoever wrote this game had read Watchmen, because YHVH's character from what we've heard sounds a lot like Dr. Manhattan. For the uninitiated, Watchmen is a famous deconstructionist superhero comic, and Dr. Manhattan is one of the main characters, being a powerful Reality Warper. The point of his character is essentially that omnipotence would actually be terrible to have, because sooner or later, and probably sooner, you'd become so disconnected from reality that your morality would become completely alien and you'd lose your ability to care for people less powerful than you - Dr. Manhattan at one point watches the brutal murder of a pregnant woman and does nothing to help her, because he doesn't and indeed can't give a rat's ass about lesser beings anymore. To someone at his level of power there's no difference between killing a person and swatting a fly.

Sounding familiar?

This is a series where human belief created demons, and gods including YWYH are demons?

So... Dr.Manhattan is a demon?

x2 Note that it varies between games how things work. Lucifer himself points out that demons were the ones who influenced the world in ancient times in a SMTII Visionary Item and that their influence waned with time. Fake YHVH being a rare exception. Lucifer and YHVH/Kagutsuchi were made as direct counterparts as absolute Dark/Light in Nocturne, and other things I won't get into.

Also demons making humans has been a thing as much as humans making demons too.

So it's a very recursive and mutual process.

Interesting.

So I think I may have solved the mystery of Tenkai. His presence as a Famed demon has always somewhat confused me, since while he was a respected figure he was never officially deified or canonized... but then, on Wikipedia I found that there is a noteworthy myth about him - namely that Akechi Mitsuhide, Oda Nobunaga's deputy who suddenly betrayed and killed him, faked his own death after his defeat by Toyotomi Hideyoshi and became a monk. Mitsuhide himself is a figure Shrouded in Myth, as are many Warring States notables, as his exact reason for turning on Nobunaga isn't known.

Wait you didn't know about that?

Oh, that's been known for a while? Sorry.

Also it seems the real Tenkai was a centenarian as well. Bet that was rare back then.

Still, I'm not sure why this justifies him being above the likes of Guan Yu and Rama, but that may be more Gameplay and Story Segregation than anything else because the NDDs are all unlocked near endgame. And he's still the weakest.

edited 3rd Sep '16 4:00:25 PM by HamburgerTime

Home Field Advantage is my guess.

I kinda want a sidequest in a future game that focuses on Dairokuten Maoh having a grudge match with Tenkai.

That's actually apparently one of the theories as to why Mitsuhide killed Nobunaga - Nobunaga started calling himself a demon king and Mitsuhide thought he'd gone totally batshit.

Well, in his defense ain't that basically the Japanese equivalent of calling yourself Satan?

If they ever decide to revisit the P4 cast, give Kanji a Sitcom Arch-Nemesis with Tenkai for a Persona.

More or less, though many reports consider the possibility that Nobunaga was being sarcastic and had an exceedingly odd sense of humor. He also apparently crossdressed for fun. Odd duck, even among the weirdo warlords of the era.

...I started another round of IV Vanilla. I just can't stay away, it's so good you guys. I'm already about halfway through the Mikado arc, having just "saved" Navarre.