I'd give an explanation for the long absence, but it'd just be excuses. I'm also not sure this one is as good as it theoretically could be given the time I've had, but I've let things slide enough and giving it 'just a bit more time' probably isn't going to change much at this point.
So without further ado, let's get back into this:
What Happens
Kushan Scouts, Chapters 1-2
In an abandoned village a boy named Isidro watches from hiding as a group of Kushan scouts easily dispatch a band of mercenaries. Then Guts walks through town and kills them just as easily. On a nearby hilltop Silat reminds his men they’re here to scout, not intervene – yet, and warns them not to underestimate Guts.
Tower of Shadow, Chapters 1-2
At St. Albion’s, some of the refugees are so desperate they try to steal food from a wagon bringing tribute to the monastery. They are quickly surrounded by Farnese and her men, but one woman pleads for her child, who’s too sick to even nurse. Mozgus overhears and commends the woman for her concern, promising to show mercy.
The would-be thieves are taken into the monastery. The woman’s baby is brought to a physician, and Mozgus promises her he will receive proper care. Then he takes her to the torture chamber to pay for her crime with her fellow refugees. Farnese is horrified by the hellish spectacle unfolding within, but Mozgus tells her she must not look away – God is not only benevolent but a judge as well.
Jerome, one of the Holy Iron Chain Knights, takes his leave of Luca. He gives her food as the usual payment but also a necklace as a sign of his favor, promising to make her his mistress when he returns home. But Luca makes a point of not believing everything johns tell her and shares the beads with her fellow prostitutes. She has them share half the food among their neighbours to maintain goodwill. They keep Casca, whom they call Elaine because she can’t tell them her real name, swathed in bandages, claiming she has syphilis; they’re worried some of the men in the camp won’t be able to resist a pretty girl who can’t say ‘no.’
Children of Shadow
On their way to see Mozgus Farnese and Serpico are met by one of his torturers, who explains that he and his colleagues were outcasts Mozgus took into his care, reassuring them that God must have made them as they are for a reason. In turn he has earned their loyalty in spite of the cruelty they perform as part of their office.
They find Mozgus in chapel performing his evening devotions. This means slamming onto his knees and smacking his face on the stone floor. According to the torturer he repeats this a thousand times a day and has not missed one day in the last ten years. He can barely walk, and can’t run anymore, but he cherishes this daily ritual as proof of his faith and humility.
Farnese is concerned that their extreme methods in the heretic hunt aren’t working and are doing more harm than good. Mozgus tells her that only God can judge what is right, and mortals must never shrink from the path set out in His scriptures, no matter how distressing.
Nina, one of Luca’s fellow prostitutes, is delivering their food to other refugees. Joachim, one of her regular customers, inquires after her health. She tells him to meet her by the river at midnight if he really cares about her. Luca sees this and secretly follows them after dark. Unbeknownst to anyone, so does Casca.
Bowels of the Holy Ground
In a cavern near the monastery heretics are partaking in an orgy, which Nina and a very reluctant Joachim join in. The drugs in the cookpot cause him to hallucinate, but when he undergoes initiation at Nina’s urging he discovers he’s not hallucinating the body parts in the soup. Fleeing the scene, he accidentally stumbles and falls over the side of a cliff.
The Witch
Joachim’s pursuers make one of the most basic mistakes and leave. Nina stays behind, upset at his supposed lies. Luca approaches and Nina tries to tell her she's as much at fault for looking down on those who condemn others, but Luca just takes her over the knee and spanks her. Ashamed, Nina apologizes and they head home, but find Casca surrounded by the heretics. One of them wants to see a syphilitic face and tears off her bandages, deciding to rape her when he realizes she’s clean. But when he tears the front of her dress, exposing the Brand, her emotional reaction summons Interstice spirits, who possess the heretics. As they kill each other Casca tries to grasp the homunculus controlling them, which vanishes, taking the others with it. The heretics hail Casca as a witch.
Downstream, Joachim washes up on shore. He’s alive.
Spirit Road, Chapters 1-2
Isidro finally catches up with Guts, who refuses to take him as an apprentice. Possessed bodies tied to wagon wheels, victims of Mozgus’s purge, roll into view. Guts throws Isidro out of the way when the latter refuses to flee.
Having eventually destroyed or outrun all of the wheels, Guts runs into the Skull Knight, who says the Godhand may be at St. Albion’s. Rather, they are drawn to great concentrations of negative emotion, and once in a thousand years, when such emotions reach a critical point, one of them can be incarnated in the world, in a parallel to the Eclipse. Oh, and remember that dream of a hawk everyone had?
The Skull Knight seems to believe that events cannot be altered, but Guts remains defiant – he and Casca survived the Eclipse, contrary to Zodd’s prediction, and the Skull Knight himself calls Guts the Struggler because he resists fate. The former agrees that minute details can happen outside even the Godhand’s predictions.
Pillar of Flame
More refugees have been convicted as heretics and sentenced to burn at the stake. A man in the crowd tries to make the son of one of the convicted throw a torch to prove he’s not a heretic as well, but Serpico forces him to back down by very pointedly (har har) informing him that the boy’s innocence was proven during the trial. Jerome is impressed by his display of chivalry, and Serpico confides that he’s uneasy around fires because his mother was burned at the stake three years ago. That makes something click in Jerome’s head.
Farnese remembers the heretic burnings from her childhood, and the euphoria she felt throwing torches onto the pyres while the adults praised her devotion. But now she’s wavering, no matter how much she reminds herself of Mozgus’s words.
Commentary
Ladies and gentlemen: Father Mozgus – devout, disciplined, compassionate, firm believer in the merits of torture. But seriously, excesses aside, I can actually respect him to an extent. He’s a true religious man, who accepts every responsibility, kind and cruel, his faith entails. I know I care too much about what others think to ever be able to take such extreme measures without seriously straining or outright compromising my conscience, and I could never willingly hurt myself the way he does. Its shows that he expects as much from himself as he does from others, and is willing to put himself through some of the same pain. He’s also capable of far more compassion and kindness than he seems at first glance. Not only is there the baby, but also his men. He’s the only one who had the compassion and intelligence to look beyond their appearance and realize that in the scriptures “not a word is written which condemns [them] as [demons or monsters].”
That being said, he’s still not a nice man. On the one hand, his punishment of the refugees who tried to steal, especially the mother, is a case of ‘tough but fair’ – she’s rewarded for looking out for her child and punished for committing a crime. I understand the idea of “sin is sin,” as Mozgus puts it, and that someone should not be exempted from punishment for wrongdoing regardless of intentions. But is torture really appropriate in this case rather than, say, spending a few days in the dungeon? There’s a difference between starving people stealing food and literal baby-eating heretics, but it seems to be his default for everything and, in this case, out of proportion to the offence.
What he’s done for his men is also a mixed blessing. On the one hand, he’s made them feel wanted and that they have a place within a higher purpose. After all, nobody wants them – excepting freakin’ God; what does it matter if they are “shunned, hated, and feared” (which they were already), or that they might feel “as if [they] really have become [monsters]” when their work is done in His name. Mozgus gave them hope, a sense of purpose, and allow them to be part of something greater. Sure, if you want to be cynical (in this series?!), he’s using people who are already hated by society to do work that would make them hated anyway, but it’s not like anyone else is offering them a better deal.
Farnese has a point when she worries about the effect his methods are having on the refugees’ morale. One of the refugees points out that “it used to be [we] could get on well with the priests, but ever since this heresy business scared everyone out of their wits…” Everyone’s already cold, starved and desperate, and now there’s the fear of being accused of heresy. It’s got people throwing stones at someone in the stocks just so no one asks why they didn’t, or bullying others into doing something just to ‘prove’ their innocence. I wonder how many of the “zealous believers” Mozgus talks about just had mundane grievances with the “suspicious individuals” they reported, blown out of proportion by their physically and emotionally trying circumstance, or how many of those who confessed just did so to make the pain stop.
Is it really any wonder there actually is heresy festering within the encampment when the institution people have been told is there to help the needy is seemingly letting them down? That isn’t really fair to the monks; the refugees may complain that the daily charity is inadequate, but there’s so many of them, plus the monks themselves and Farnese’s men to feed (they hardly “eat [their] fill every day” as one man accuses; more like the same bland mush as everyone else). Quite frankly, the former are likely doing all they can and there’s simply not enough to go around. If Mozgus’s words are to be believed, his work is as much a part of the Holy See’s mission as charity, but the notion that suffering is a “trial provided by God” given by God to prove one’s faith can be a lot harder to accept when you’re starving, desperate, and just want to survive. Getting strapped into a spiked chair isn’t going to seem beneficial to those interests. It’s a ripe situation for opportunists to exploit people’s base desires and need for satisfaction.
On an unrelated note, Guts is forgetting something: Zodd only predicted “a death [Guts] can never escape.” Sure, he probably assumed it would happen during the Eclipse, but as long as Guts has the Brand and therefore can draw the attention of the Godhand’s agents, he’s still one misstep away from death.
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