What Happens
Leaping Fish
Using a wooden beam and some rope from the rubble, Isidro, Nina, and Jerome are able to free Casca, dropping the former down to cut her bonds and using a stone tied to the other end to pull them back up. This prompts some dive-bombing by Mozgus, which they barely avoid. Guts fights his way through the spirits atop the tower and jumps down, his sword piercing Mozgus’s chest.
Bestial Priest, Chapters 1-2
Mozgus smashes into the battlements but quickly rises to his feet with his new form fully revealed. His wings end in two massive fists, and his body is covered in feather-like scales and harder than steel. He reveals that the copy of the scriptures he wears against his chest is what saved him and vows to punish Guts in Heaven’s name and avenge the deaths of his men.
Nina panics and tries to slip away. The twins catch her between their giant saw-blades, but before they can cut her in two she stumbles and falls over the side of the battlements. Puck blinds the twins with a flash and Isidro hits them with stones, knocking them to the battlement. Jerome cuts their heads off.
Those Who Cling, Those Who Struggle
It’s near impossible for Guts to dodge Mozgus, who seems to have no weak spot. Below, the masses desperately call out to him for salvation, urging him to burn the witch. He asks if Guts is deaf to so many pleas, but Guts says they shouldn’t put all their hopes in one thing. He spots a wound where the scriptures stopped his sword before, and during Mozgus’s next attack he tosses some of Puck’s bombs into it. The explosion injures and distracts Mozgus, and Guts’s sword pierces his throat.
Tidal Wave of Darkness, Chapters 1-2
Mozgus tries to breathe fire again, but Guts vaults him over the wall and off his sword in time, and his burning body crashes to the ground amongst the refugees. In the words of one little boy: “Mother. The angel died.”
The spirits consume those below the walls as they plead for Casca to be burned. In a panic the survivors flee into the tower grounds and lower the gate, trapping the Knights and many of their number outside. But more spirits are pouring from the front door, and Nina, whose fall was broken by a woodpile, is almost trampled but saved by Luca. With the spirits coming and Nina unable to run because of a broken ankle, Luca hides her in a barrel, telling her that if she’s a coward, now’s the time to be curled up quiet and scared with all her might.
Atop the wall, Serpico spots a few refugees gathered safely around Mozgus’s burning body and everyone realizes the spirits avoid fire. Guts gathers some wood and tells everyone their only chance is to make torches and hold out until dawn.
Resonance
Guts and the others desperately try to hold the spirits back with their torches. Nina’s barrel is carried along by the flow of spirits but remains intact. Within the tower, with nowhere to run, the refugees are gradually consumed. Puck can sense everyone, the dead and the living, crying out for one thing…
The Sky Falls
A great mass of spirits swarms up the sides of the tower, and the homunculus is growing into a human shape as the Egg-Apostle weeps tears of blood. Suddenly the spirits burst, and the tower collapses as morning arrives.
Daybreak
Not a single person inside the tower survived. Nina is alive in her barrel and reunites with Guts’s group, and they find Luca at the bottom of a well. But it’s no time for a happy reunion – Silat and his men are here. A very alive Azan appears and joins the fight, and Apostle-form Zodd shows up and starts tearing into the Kushan. Adding to the survivors, Guts spots the Skull Knight atop the wall, pointing towards the rubble…
The Arrival
From amidst a burst of bright light and white doves emerges…Griffith.* Everyone senses that the “desired one” has arrived.
Determination and Departure
Kushan troops are moving up the road towards the monastery. Zodd flies off with Griffith on his back, and Guts and Casca ride out on a stolen horse as he cuts their way through the Kushan cavalry. Luca, Isidro and the others slip away down the hillside and reunite with the other girls from Luca’s group, whom she’d told to keep their distance when she went into the monastery.
In the valley below, they spot people leaving. There’s only a handful, but others did survive. Jerome wonders what the point of faith is when those who called on God died whereas those who simply fled the camp survived. Luca insists that isn’t it – those people survived because they tried to live on rather than escape their fear like those who sought safety in the monastery; people cannot know why God visits misfortune upon them and it remains their responsibility to act. She picks some flowers and sets them free in the wind to give the Egg-Apostle at least a small tribute to its memory.
After Isidro leaves Nina heads down to the river to cool her ankle and runs into Joachim, who was ashamed of his actions at the heretics’ cave and hid in the mountains. He says he reported them because he was afraid of being killed otherwise and tries to apologize for his actions. Nina realizes he was scared the whole time, just like her, and forgives him. She decides she won’t be able to leave if she goes back to say goodbye and they depart, confident that they can overcome their weaknesses together.
Farnese considers Luca’s words and realizes that until now she’s only been trying to escape her fear rather than acting out of faith and renounces her post. With a flustered Azan behind them and Serpico at her side, she goes to follow the Black Swordsman.
Commentary
It might seem like the moral here is that there is no God (OK, the Eclipse already has that covered; well, actually…but I’ll get to that in due time), or at least that he doesn’t care, and religion is bad, but I don’t think that’s the case. It’s certainly possible to draw those conclusions since this story arc has given us the single-minded and devotionally-based cruelties of Father Mozgus (obligatory nod to how his methods historically have little basis in fact, and some of the devices in the torture chamber aren’t even medieval) and everyone who called on God for salvation got swallowed by the incarnation of the malice permeating St. Albion’s or crushed beneath the tower, but I think it’s more nuanced than that.
The theme of hope is especially prevalent in this story arc, whether it’s the longing for savior to resolve the crises gripping the kingdom or the promise of hope and succor a monastery like St. Albion’s offers. It’s a powerful force that’s hard to resist, especially when it’s so near. And if there’s one thing religion, or at least the Abrahamic ones, are meant to do, it’s offer people hope. So like I said last time, even if it’s fickle to go from fearing Mozgus to hailing him as their salvation, it’s hard to blame the refugees for it given their circumstances. But clinging to it at the expense of everything else is not the way to go. As Puck points out, Mozgus’s plan of action would actually work since it’s the Brand the spirits are drawn to, hence killing Guts and Casca would help do the trick. But once that’s no longer an option, the last thing you want to be do is rush en-masse into a crowded space.
On the morning after, Luca asserts that “people exist within a domain that is theirs in which to act”, and the outcome of the nights’ events reflect that. Those who survived did so because they worked towards it and relied on their own strengths, whether that’s standing up to fight or cowering like they’ve never cowered before, rather than relying on a miracle to come down from on high. That doesn’t preclude helping others or being helped, because that’s what’s needed for survival sometimes – Guts’s group had to work together, and Nina was able to come out at least a bit stronger through Luca’s help and encouragement – but in the end everyone is responsible for themselves and must not try to pass that on to others.
Maybe it worked because there is no God and therefore it really is up to the individual, but I think it’s more a case of ‘God helps those who help themselves.’ No one is really shown questioning whether or not God exists after the fact. Farnese walks away from her post not because she’s lost faith in God – she quickly dismisses faith itself as the cause of her doubt – but because she was “hiding [herself] behind order and awe to escape fear”, and Luca, despite putting God in parentheses, isn’t ruling out the possibility that such a being exists (more like she was a bit of an agnostic to begin with and her views haven’t changed). There’s no way of knowing, but it wouldn’t surprise me if at least some of the surviving refugees counted their survival as a miracle and proof that God was watching over them. That their course of action worked supports the notion that God gave humans the free will do decide their own actions, but to me it also suggests if He is out there then maybe, just maybe, if you’re willing to own up to that He just might gently nudge things in your favor. I do wish we’d know what happened to those who stayed around Mozgus, though; it would give some implications as to how far you can rely on faith. And I’m not sure what to say about Azan either – he survived because his club was propped upright and prevented the rubble from crushing him when he lost consciousness, and I find it hard to read that as anything other than luck. Maybe God likes him; he’s pretty cool.
I doubt Guts and his “quit pushin’ your God on me!” would be happy with the idea that anyone but him has a role in the outcome of his actions, and I can’t be sure it’s exactly what Miura is trying to say, but that’s what I get from it (I’m agnostic, btw, but that it’s still a view of God that makes sense to me; probably why I really like Luca’s take on things). At a more basic level, it’s a very individualistic view of life, which I think is the real point and very in tune with the series’ themes – that it’s destructive to rely too much on someone or something else and while doing so can help you along, in the end people must find their own way.
I like how not only Guts and his group but also a handful of anonymous refugees survived. Not only would it strain credibility if the main characters and their auxiliaries were the only ones to ever make a sensible decision, this also adds an element of hope to the ending. It affirms that in a crisis, as long as you do what needs to be done you can come out alright regardless of what happens. It’s awful that so many died, but also great to know that no matter how hopeless a situation, you can still survive.
I wouldn’t call the Holy See a condemnation of Catholicism or Christianity in general either. It’s more of a Crystal Dragon Jesus version with little to connect it to the medieval Catholic Church beyond its trappings. We know basically nothing about its doctrines or beliefs beyond a few passages that can be interpreted more than one way – Mozgus just happened to choose the interpretation that justifies violent means. Even if it’s a case of Christianity is Catholic, the latter was the official church of most of medieval Europe, which this setting is heavily based on. It makes sense to use it as a basis for the Holy See, even if it is a bit stereotypical and based more on negative popular perceptions than actual fact. This isn’t historical fiction, and those negative elements serve the points being made.
*I wrote this before I said I'd stop doing that
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