The shadow is able to possess Tera and seems drawn to corruption and evil, so there's where the hints of Chaos and Shaft are.
As for Maria, she does have reasons to be specifically against Christanity and God, not only are the Speakers enemies of God (For some reason.), she outright states the Church is her enemy for it's opposition to the revolution.
So I can see her being fine with other religions as long as they aren't against the revolution but it's an interesting parallel with Mathias.
Edited by RedHunter543 on Jan 21st 2025 at 1:45:48 AM
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"Considering how the Reign of Terror ultimately included its own proponents as its victims, primarily Robespierre, Maria's list of targets is just going to grow.
The Church being antagonistic to the Revolution, or at the very least too in favor of the status quo that it was willfully blind to the nobility's excesses, is also contrasted to the other active non-Christian religion showcased in this show Vodou w/c was practiced by Haitian Revolutionaries and has 1 of its champions in Annette. One could also try to contrast the mainland clergy w/ the clergy that arises from the indigenous populations of European colonies who are in favor of Revolution in order to free their people from colonial rule but that's too far down in the timeline.
Edited by KRider on Jan 20th 2025 at 9:57:12 AM
Set! Avenge! "Henshin." Black General! Bujin Sword! Ready, Fight!And in a RL sense, portraying other religions that have historically been oppressed by Christianity as evil, would be a bad move that I feel the showrunners can avoid given how it handled Sekhmet in this show.
With Christianity, as the interview with Dragonfire cited mentions, there's a lot more focus on the corruption from the organization behind the faith, rather than the faith itself.
Edited by RedHunter543 on Jan 21st 2025 at 1:59:54 AM
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"
x4 The Speakers believe that God struck down human cooperation in jealousy when he destroyed the Tower of Babel they are naturally God's enemies because they live in cooperation and hide their stories inside themselves by preserving knowledge purely orally.
That said I don't think that Tera raised Maria culturally as a Speaker.
Edited by lycropath on Jan 20th 2025 at 10:04:46 AM
Though the looks that Alucard and Trevor gave her when Sypha told that story would hint that the Speaker might be off base on that one.
As for Maria.....we know the girl is gonna go all in on !@#$% the church, I just wonder if she'll be put in a position where she's deciding the lives of innocent people and has to question if she's still doing the right thing or not.
One Strip! One Strip!![]()
Yeah that's why I cited Sekhmet as an example of the showrunners knowing what they are doing.
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Yeah I still remember that part, and that Alucard even asks if she's sure that's the point of that story. It was actually a joke that Warren Ellis made a character who is canonically loyal to the Church into someone who hates God.
Edited by RedHunter543 on Jan 21st 2025 at 2:07:49 AM
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"Drolta's basically a non Christian take on the corrupt religious figure that's prevalent in this series. She too is projecting her own issues on to her god and using said god as an excuse to commit sins.
Sekhmet was just more direct in her condemnation of Drolta than God was in His condemnation of the Bishop from the first series (in that case God simply refused to intervene when Blue Fangs tore him apart).
Disgusted, but not surprisedAll this talk about Maria potentially turning villain makes me wonder how scary she would be if Tera did not get there and Erzebet did actually turn her into a vampire.
Her unique brand of magic paired with her hatred for the top 1% would probably make her Olrox tier vampire already at the least. Also I think Emmanuel's fate would of been far worse if he did get her turned into a vampire with his stupidity (which nearly happened) as I think she would of gunned for him even faster with her summons just fully being despair and rage turned.
Old Man Coyote also may of been able to influence her far easier that way?
@M84: What I’m taking following Ellis being gone in the series is Gods complete non interference outside bestowing holy power to some people is for the same reason the other Gods ultimately don’t look favorably on their followers after they left the mortal realm: They exploit and abuse the gifts their given for evil and say they do so in their name. God follows the same M.O.
Gods lack of direct interference is itself a good representation of this, with him removing his blessings from those who do evil, and that even a damned soul from hell can be more worthy of His blessing than the man whose corpse was used to make it
Every accusation by the GOP is ALWAYS a confession.Blue Fangs outright says as much to the Bishop, telling him that God has forsaken him for all of his bullshit. Which is why there's no divine intervention coming to save the Bishop from being torn apart by Blue Fangs.
Given that holy power is very real in this series, Blue Fangs was probably correct.
Edited by M84 on Jan 21st 2025 at 7:54:03 PM
Disgusted, but not surprised![]()
All it takes is for evil to win is for good men to do nothing, it's interesting how God's disgust with his followers like the bishop has allowed evil to thrive.
Hell, we have the Shadow actively corrupting people. Gonna really backfire depending on how God hating Maria becomes.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"Yeah the Bishop is my example as well, since God considered a damned soul from hell worthy of his blessing, and said creature was destroyed by sanctifying the water.
Well he doesn’t entirely do nothing. He does remove their ability to use his Holy blessings and removes any protection a Church has from evil so that evil may devour those inside.
Edited by OmegaRadiance on Jan 21st 2025 at 3:57:44 AM
Every accusation by the GOP is ALWAYS a confession.

While Shaft directly corrupted Richter in Symphony of the Night, The Abbott did it to Maria in a roundabout way.
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Most likely Maria will lash out at anyone who isn't revolutionary enough.
Set! Avenge! "Henshin." Black General! Bujin Sword! Ready, Fight!