Many if not almost all of the final fantasy games have some content relating to an overarching, and many times blind power, causing pain to those below it. It's difficult to really put a finger on what exactly is agnostic, buddhist, hindu, or just eastern tradition. Example (trying to leave out spoilers) the 13 series and the nova crystalis series has gods (fal'cie) that, while being the ones keeping the world alive, often seem blind or oppressive. These gods were created by a higher power(s) and other fal'cies, which for the most part majority of creatures are completely oblivious towards the nature or existence of. there are a lot of parallels with Gnosticism as well hindu and buddhist tradition in terms of servitude, knowledge of higher powers at work, death, and almost most of all servitude/samsara. How much is intended is debatable, but it seems quite easy to get these kind of vibes.
Now then I'm know even more about Ancient Philosophy and Mysticism, I think Final Fantasy VII at least resembles Stoicism more then any other school of Greek Metaphysics.
I'm conflicted about using the term "hermaphroditic." It's considered offensive in intersex circles, and there has been a movement to discontinue its use. One of the reasons for the discontinuation is the fact that "hermaphrodite" brings to mind one who has both fully male and female gonads, which is basically never the case with intersex conditions. However, its use here describes figures who DO possess both male and female sex organs.
Like I said, I'm conflicted. I want to reword the article, but I'm not sure how else to communicate the idea. Any ideas? What about putting an explanation about Hermaphrodism? Should there be a Useful Notes page for intersex people?
This may shock many. But I actually think now that the most Gnostic Anime is Sword Art Online. The Anicrad and Elfmheim arc in different way.
All the players are essential Sophia in the World Soul sense, with Kaiba as the Demurige of Aincrad. But once we get to Alfheim it's villain is arguably more like the Dmeiurge, since he didn't create anything from scratch but just basically Rom Hacked Kaiba's work, and is delusional. And this time Asuna is Sophia.
Angel Sanctuary seems to be based on at least the Sophia concept.
Edited by MithrandirOlorin
Okay, where in the world is the information on this page coming from? It has almost no correlation to any form of gnosticism I've heard of ever, anywhere. In fact, some parts of it directly contradict everything I've come to know about gnosticism. Gnosticism is a sect nearly 2,000 years old. This article is a bunch of new age beliefs that look like they were dreamed up in the 90's, if that.
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I especially want to point out the line "However, it is important to remember that Gnosticism at no point constituted a monolith of doctrine." If you wanted to pick a Greek word that meant a constituted monolith of doctrine, gnosis would probably be that word. And gnosticism is all about gnosis.
Actually, "gnosis" just means knowledge. It has nothing to do with doctrine or organization — it's about personal revelation. You should probably, you know... do some research.
I recommend reading the following literature for an answer to this question:
Gospel of the Egyptians, which gives a Kemetic version of the precession of the Aeons from the Monad On the Origin of the World, The Apocryphon of John, and The Hypostasis of the Archons, which lay out the cosmology and cosmogony Allogenes is a good example of a first-person theophony that characterizes much Gnostic literature Hypsiphrone is just weird shit and is interesting simply for being so strange, so fragmentary, so convoluted, and so completely unorthodox in character.
So yeah, if you just have a passing familiarity based on what the Catholics say about them, it might seem a bit that way... but if you read the texts themselves you can piece together a "New Age" cosmogony that's actually very ancient
For the original questions on FF 7 and 10...I think that since 10 shares such similarities with Gnostic beliefs that it is fair to place it here..However FF 7 in particular is one that I wouldn't feel so safe about because the theme in that game is more mystical/divine than knowledge/power through man.
Patriotic Panoptic Platonic...Pondering Probability of P words being Permissible.
This trope uses the term gnosticism to refer specifically to a small group of VERY old Christians that are actually called Sophist Christians, they are polytheistic. Yet gnosticism is actually a term used to describe ANY non-mainstream (or long dead) form of Christianity (and Judaism to a much lesser degree).
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The Manichean group were many things but they were not small and the Mandean religion is neither Christian nor Jewish...though I never liked grouping them in with the other Gnostic sects on account of how different their belief are from those Christian/Jew offshoots but the fact they are categorized makes this statement hard to buy.
Modified Ura-nage, Torture Rack
I'm conflicted on how accurate I consider placing Final Fantasy VII and X here. At most their stories could be called allegories for Gnostic ideas, but the actual cosmology of those worlds is clearly not.
Gnosticism is frequently confused with Platonic and Neo-Plantic schools of philosophy that use a lot of the same key words (including Gnosis itself). The key thing however is that Gnosticism hates the physical world, which means he Gia worship ever present in F Inal Fantasy, including Aerith's role, is as antithetical of Gnostic ideas as you can get.
If VII and X can be considered to have Gnostic themes, then so can XII I think, where the Occura are clearly Archons who want to control how much Knowledge Man can have, and that stories main villains and heroes both choose to reject that. And thus Venat becomes a well intentioned version of The Serpent.
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