thoughts on.... Goetia! I finished the Temple of Solomon a little over two weeks ago, and I'm So Not Over It!!! I enjoy your writing and your meta, please give us some more of your thoughts!!
LOVE THAT BITCH
usually in fiction gods are written either of these two ways: “They’re just like humans” (which, valid) or “They do basically whatever the plot demands” (which fair enough but predictably less of my jam) Fgo is one of the rare times where I’ve seen “gods are fundamentally different than humans without being inherently evil/good” actually pulled off and Goetia is a shining exemple of that.
He’s not doing his shit for the lolz. He obeys to a logic of his own. More than that: he obeys to morlities of his own, and from his perspective, what’s he’s doing is right. We can conceive why he’d go from point A to point B even if that’s a reasoning that’s completely bonkers from our point of view, because well, even if it will end, we do value our life, thank you very much. Taking it away to make a newer stronger humanity is good on paper but it won’t change the fact that I, personally, will be very much dead.
And likewise! Goetia cannot conceive why we wouldn’t agree that this is objectively the better path for humanity because he’s never had the whole “I’m alive and one day I won’t be” experience. He doesn’t understand why life would have a value when it has a set end because himself spent 99% of his life without an end in sight. “Misplaced pity isn’t any kinder than hate.”
Which is why he becomes the “King Of Men” when he is on the verge of dying and crumbling away. When finally, finally he sees his death coming, when finally he sees he only has a few minutes remaining, then he understands that hey, even if I’m gonna die, that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t do the most of what time I have left. Which is why he fights you even though at best he’ll just drag you down with him. This isn’t about ideals anymore. This isn’t even about living anymore. This is about being seen. This is about being heard. Witness me. The one thing he can do with the last remnants of his life is make sure he has an impact on you.
And honestly, who am I to blame him? When I crawled up the Temple of Solomon, I didn’t expect to win. My reasoning wasn’t that I was going to stop time. My reasoning was if I must die here, at least I want you to remember me, I want you to know that all your carefully crafted plans almost got casted aside by one puny human you deemed unimportant. Fuck you.
The King of Men was the perfect reflection of the person I was when I reached out to force humanity on him with my bare hands around his throat.
