Wow, what an ending

[Thanatos]

If option a is true, then demons paradoxically enough have souls... somehow... (You can also do away with all the half-demon stuff at that point).

Uhm... why? Firstly, why is it a paradox? and secondly, why in hell would you have to lose all those theories?

1) Find me an earthly religion that claims that demons have souls, and I withdraw my statement claiming that demons having souls is a paradox...

2) If demons have souls, then Venge being a half-demon is simply a needless complication. Venge could just simply be a demon. Period.

[Masked Gamer]

Firstly, The Way, although having religious parallels is not a religion itself. Secondly, some religions consider demons to be damned souls, therefore, they have souls in those religions.

Secondly, I think the whole half-demon thing is a needless complication. Whose to say the Lord Below didn't simply make him in the form of a human. After all, Frankenstein's monster considered Frakenstein to be his father, despite the obvious lack of genetic parentage.

[Chaos Perfected]

Or Venge could not be created by the Lord Below in any way. He may have been found as a baby and raised by him, or simply served him and the Lord Below treated him as a son.

[Thanatos]

Firstly, The Way, although having religious parallels is not a religion itself. Secondly, some religions consider demons to be damned souls, therefore, they have souls in those religions.

Secondly, I think the whole half-demon thing is a needless complication. Whose to say the Lord Below didn't simply make him in the form of a human. After all, Frankenstein's monster considered Frakenstein to be his father, despite the obvious lack of genetic parentage.

Well, you would obviously think that it's a needless complication, because you are clearly of the belief that demons have souls. Now, there's no indication throughout the six episodes whether demons have souls or not.

And this is where we have two fundamentally different point of views. You believe demons have souls. I don't. I could argue that demons, angels, and any other extra-planar creatures have no souls as they're the instruments and tools of two abstract concepts. You could argue that theology in the Way is unique.

The only remotely decent argument we could use is that when the Lord Below used his aura-decimating shockwave, then these "demons with souls" should also have been decimated by that same shockwave, as they would have auras. I'm also under the impression that only those with a conscience can really have a soul. Demons, and their heavenly counterparts, don't have consciences. One only has the capacity for evil, the other for good. There's no decision-making involved.

But there's no way to prove that either, so we're back at the beginning of the circle. And for that reason, I'm just going to let it drop there.

[Victor]

One only has the capacity for evil, the other for good. There's no decision-making involved.

Excuse me while I play devil's advocate (pun intended). Mind reminding me who Lucifer is and what he did?


I feel compelled to try to apply Occam's razor, sometimes. But I can't quite convince myself that, in a work of fiction, the author hasn't gone out of his way to make sure that the explanation with the fewest assumptions is not the right one.

On the other hand, Lun said that he has given us all the pieces, and we just need to put them together, which might favor Occam's razor, given how little we have actually learned directly. If it looks like this piece of the puzzle might fit with that piece, and seeing as how we don't have many pieces, it just might be that the two pieces go together, rather than assuming we have somehow lost the proper piece to go with it.

[Thanatos]

God bless Occam's razor.

As for the Lucifer comment, you could argue that Lucifer never really had a choice to do the right thing or the wrong thing. An angel with the sin of vanity, Lucifer was doomed to oppose God, due to his very nature.

But that's a domain for theology. In fact, I'm pretty sure that a bunch of theology professors would love to tackle that one, and go at it for days. (In other words, perhaps a bit out of our league...?)

In retrospect though, I guess you could say that the Lord Below/Venge situation is essentially the God/Lucifer relationship turned on it's head. Which means one of two things.

1) Lun has put an extensive amount of thought into the storyline of the Way, above and beyond what anyone would've guessed, or expected from a home-made computer game, or most novels for that matter.

Or,

2) Years of damnable education have taught me to overanalyse everything and look for layers upon layers upon even more layers of meaning that don't even exist, in every single piece of creative work I find.

Still, I can't help but think of Venge as being some kind of anti-Lucifer as being really cool... I blame the schools.

PS: If we're denied the use of Occam's razor, then this is a lost cause, because there'd be no limit as to how many assumptions we could make. Don't take it away from me, it's all I have to keep my sanity in check.

[Sage Of The Wise]

1) personality is decided on the soul with the most desire

I say its whatever personality the sword finds to be the most easily manipulated. Granted, one with alot of desire is easily manipulated, as we've seen.

[Masked Gamer]

The thing is, if we're talking Christian theology, one could argue that humans are ruled by fate, in which case they are simply ruled by their preexisting natures. Consider Judas who was put in the exact same situation as Lucifer. Does this mean that humans don't have souls then? After all, they have no choice. This is yet another reason why I'd put The Way in its own realm. Note that the Phantom Slasher seems to be autonomous. I don't know whether to group him with the demons/angelic beings or whatever, but if the shadow swords were made by either omnipotent faction, then I'd say it's a good representation of them.

[Imoto]

Aren't you told at some point, that there are people who believe that since there's the pits and the reaches below the way, a "lower" way, that there should be an "upper" way too?

Think Lun would every do anything like that?

[Masked Gamer]

Well, I think at least some of the things NPCs say in this game are false. After all, it'd be simple logic that some people would believe there should be an upper way if there is a lower way. Not to mention that if the lower way is ruled by the Lord Below, then logic also states that the Purpose rules the upper way. However, there is speculation that the Purpose doesn't even exist. Finally, we have seen no actual proof of an upper way in the entire series. I'd imagine that the upper way started as logical speculation and was used by Tetzel to reinforce the mythos of the Purpose.

[loke204]

1) personality is decided on the soul with the most desire

I say its whatever personality the sword finds to be the most easily manipulated. Granted, one with alot of desire is easily manipulated, as we've seen.

Intersting, I'm going over this stuff in school.
Since shadows and the like are generally associated with evil and such, we could say many things about the Shadow Sword.
The desire thing is taken from King James the First, actually. From Daemonologie he states 3 basic things:
1-A spirit will return to one who seeks revenge, is ignorant, is evil, or who hates God
2- An evil spirit finds it easy to work on a meloncholic mind.
3-A spirit may cause madness, an imbalance of the humors; they may cause the evil to suffer or the good to be tested.

Well, we could easily relate the shadow sword to above said.
Well, I'm done with random, useless rants.

[Masked Gamer]

1-A spirit will return to one who seeks revenge, is ignorant, is evil, or who hates God
2- An evil spirit finds it easy to work on a meloncholic mind.
3-A spirit may cause madness, an imbalance of the humors; they may cause the evil to suffer or the good to be tested.

Wow. That's the most relevant allusion I think I've ever seen on these boards! Not to mention all the swords seem to belong to people with extreme inbalance in humours especially. Rhue is very sanguine and sometimes very melancholy because of his love for Serena. Traziun is choleric because of his lust for revenge. I can't remember who else has a shadow sword off the top of my head, but I'm sure they are imbalanced as well.

That is REALLY cool.

[Imoto]

1-A spirit will return to one who seeks revenge, is ignorant, is evil, or who hates God
2- An evil spirit finds it easy to work on a meloncholic mind.
3-A spirit may cause madness, an imbalance of the humors; they may cause the evil to suffer or the good to be tested.

Wow. That's the most relevant allusion I think I've ever seen on these boards! Not to mention all the swords seem to belong to people with extreme inbalance in humours especially. Rhue is very sanguine and sometimes very melancholy because of his love for Serena. Traziun is choleric because of his lust for revenge. I can't remember who else has a shadow sword off the top of my head, but I'm sure they are imbalanced as well.

That is REALLY cool.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=humor

Note the fourth definition.

[Masked Gamer]

Check it out on Wikipedia for a more indepth analysis of the humours. In classical sciences, these four fluids were related to the four elements as well as different temperments. Sanguine(air) being blood, Phlegmatic(water) being phlegm, Melancholy(earth) being black bile and Choleric(fire) being yellow bile. Sanguine personalities are generally associated with being a dreamer, being in love and passionate decisions made on the fly. Phlegmatic personalities tend to be knowledge seeking and ruled by logic. Melancholy is a word still used today with the same meaning, essentially, easily depressed but also down to earth. Choleric personalities are associated with hot-headedness, bloodlust and vengeful urges, etc.

[nemesis92]

I have a question though. Considering that Illuminati is an aura of the shadow sword, I believe that the Illuminati were not corrupted but rather absorbed by the already existing shadow swords. I also believe that the shadow swords were what wounded the lord below, rather than the illuminati. As a BIG stretch, it could be that the Illuminati were actually the shadow swords in the first place, having been absorbed long before the "Crusade" against the Lord Below. The game says that they were lost and believed gone, until rediscovered eventually. Perhaps they had been lost by being absorbed into the shadow swords, and the people found the shadow swords instead. This would fit with the people having turned from good to the lord below, and alos fits with the concept of the illuminati in the first place. (Illuminati is a term that represents corrupt and shadowy manipulators of religion, based on the real world illuminati, a secret religious cult)