Warning: This show contains intense and violent imagery. Also, spoilers.
The Third Week of Lent is upon us, and once again the Liturgy shows Our Lord curb stomping a devil, this time in front of a crowd:
At that time, Jesus was casting out a devil, and the same was dumb; and when He had cast out the devil, the dumb man spoke. And the crowds marveled. But some of them said, By Beelzebub, the prince of devils, He casts out devils. And others, to test Him, demanded from Him a sign from heaven. But He, seeing their thoughts, said to them: Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and house will fall upon house. If, then, Satan also is divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand? because you say that I cast out devils by Beelzebub. Now, if I cast out devils by Beelzebub, by whom do your children cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. But if I cast out devils by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. When the strong man, fully armed, guards his courtyard, his property is undisturbed. But if a stronger than he attacks and overcomes him, he will take away all his weapons that he relied upon, and will divide his spoils. He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters. When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he roams through waterless places in search of rest; and finding none, he says, ‘I will return to my house which I left.’ And when he has come to it, he finds the place swept. Then he goes and takes seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter in and dwell there; and the last state of that man becomes worse that the first. Now it came to pass as He was saying these things, that a certain woman from the crowd lifted up her voice and said to Him, Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts that nursed You. But He said, Rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it. (Luke 11: 14-28)
What sticks out the most to me is the sheer audacity of the people (presumably, the Pharisees and scribes) who ask for a sign from heaven, as if they did not just see Our Lord yeet a demon out of a mute man, and right after give the same mute man the ability to speak. Indeed, by this point Our Lord had been healing sick people, casting out demons, and raising the dead to life all over Galilee and the surrounding areas. At least the ones calling Him a servant of the Devil have the honesty to accuse Him as such.
Our Lord’s reply to their accusation (“If, then, Satan also is divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand?”) is profound and full of meaning. Our favorite Immortal, Rene Girard, has commented on it at length, and I dived into his reflections on it in this space two weeks ago. For this entry, notice that these religious men are for more worried about Jesus exorcising demons than the fact that there are so many demonic possessions happening on their watch. It’s not as though Jews of the first century did not have exorcists. Jesus even says that their children (their disciples) can cast out devils. Why, then, are there so many afflicting so many people in their own backyard?
Sadly, as Girard has told us, this is what happens when people in any kind of authority choose to operate by envy instead of compassion. In the case of these Pharisees, a number of “bad sorts” on the margins of society give them, like in the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, someone to compare themselves to. Their religion, rather than a cure and counterweight to their ego, has become just another tool to inflate it. As for the demoniacs left without help, well, those are just the broken eggs necessary to make the omelet whose main ingredient is them possessing more of the power, privilege, and professional pride they’ve become accustomed to. It’s a problem many of us are familiar with. Against the resistance of such leaders to real solutions and the natural drag of institutions, it takes a fanatic to make any headway.
Which brings us to this week’s anime: Goblin Slayer.
In a fantasy world governed by roleplaying game mechanics, a ridiculously overpowered hero with a ridiculously overpowered legendary weapon will rise up to save the world from being destroyed by an all-powerful Demon Lord and his evil army of monsters.
This is not a story about her. It is the story of a man called Goblin Slayer. If Batman and the Mandalorian had a child, and that child was a Dungeons and Dragons character, it would be this guy. (Goblin Slayer is his actual name, by the way. All the characters in this show are named like that: Priestess, High Elf Archer, Dwarf Shaman, etc.) He’s covered head to toe in armor, he never takes off his mask, he travels alone, he uses elaborate traps and ordinary weapons to fight, and he’s completely obsessed with, you guessed it, slaying goblins.
That’s not a bad thing at all, since the goblins in this world are particularly vile creatures. Like their counterparts in other fantasy tales, these goblins are brutal killers and looters, delighting in cruelty. What’s particularly nauseating about these goblins is the way they breed. In brief: they reproduce sexually. But there are no female goblins. Yes, it’s exactly what you’re thinking, and it’s part of why the show has attracted so much controversy since it premiered. The other part is that, uniquely in this day and age, every single goblin in the show is evil, even the little baby goblins.
Yes, Goblin Slayer even kills the goblin children he encounters. One of the adventurers he rescues early on, a compassionate young Priestess, tries to object to this. Goblin Slayer responds that goblins mature fast and hold a grudge for life; within weeks, the goblin baby he spares will be a fully mature killing machine, ready to reave and rape all over the countryside and sire more goblins ready to do the same. This is not mere theory: the Goblin Lord that our hero fights at the end of the first season has this exact back story, surviving again and again by playing on his opponent’s compassion and killing them the moment their back is turned. It reminds me very much of C.S. Lewis’s interpretation of the end of Psalm 137:
From this point of view [i.e. that of moral allegory] I can use even the horrible passage in 137 about dashing the Babylonian babies against the stones. I know things in the inner world which are like babies; the infantile beginnings of small indulgences, small resentments, which may one day become dipsomania or settled hatred, but which woo us and wheedle us with special pleadings and seem so tiny, so helpless that in resisting them we feel we are being cruel to animals. They begin whimpering to us “I don’t ask much, but”, or “I had at least hoped”, or “You owe yourself some consideration”. Against all such pretty infants (the dears have such winning ways) the advice of the Psalm is the best. Knock the little bastards’ brains out. And “blessed” he who can, for it’s easier said than done. (Reflections on the Psalms).
Assuming that these goblins that survive to adulthood are irredeemably bad, one has to wonder why such creatures are running rampant in such large numbers. Surely any self-respecting King would have long ago sent out a massive army to exterminate them all.
Unfortunately, the King’s attention is occupied with the Demon Lord, who attempts to destroy the world every ten years or so. In addition, goblins predominantly attack poor rural settlements on the frontier. Aside from poorly trained peasant levies, the only trained fighters available to stop them are the adventurers, who are basically mercenaries for hire. Most adventurers actively avoid accepting quests that involve goblins; given the poverty of the likely victims, the reward is small, and the risk (especially for females adventurers) is far too great. As a result, the goblins, like the demons of first century Judea, multiply and grow into more terrifying forms, relatively unopposed.
Or they would be, if not for Goblin Slayer’s obsession with destroying them. He has good reason to hate them: he had to watch from the shadows as a hoard of them burned down his village, killed his parent, and raped and murdered his sister. With such trauma in his past, it’s no wonder he doesn’t socialize and easily plays the strong, silent loner. Thankfully, this starts to change when he takes Priestess under his wing, and he continues to come out of his shell when they are joined by the snobbish High Elf Archer, the jovial Dwarf Shaman, and the stoic (except in matters of cheese) Lizard Priest.
But Goblin Slayer has an effect on them too: it only takes one adventure with him for them to leave their former lives and join Goblin Slayer in his one-man crusade. And this effect isn’t limited to his newfound friends. At the end of the first season, Goblin Slayer begs the other adventurers to help him defend the farm of his childhood friend from a massive goblin attack, even offering his own life as payment. Touched by his appeal, one by one the adventurers offer their services for incredibly small payment, until at last the Guild offers a substantial bounty on goblins. The lone crusader finds himself commanding a small army, and after their victory, trusts his comrades enough to show them all his face.
Still, for all their valor, the saving of one farm and a short-term bounty on goblins doesn’t fix the ongoing goblin problem. Goblin Slayer and his friends, barring a miracle, will be slaying goblins for a very long time. But it turns out that Goblin Slayer has had more effect on his world than anyone realizes. We learn at the end of season one that Chosen Heroine (the one who stopped the Demon Lord) has met Goblin Slayer before: when she was a child, he saved her village from a goblin attack.
Before the story even started, Goblin Slayer’s fanaticism saved the world.
And so it is in our world. In a world in which reckless hate and cruelty are met only with indifference and corruption in the highest levels of Church and State, it can be easy to grow frustrated, and to lose hope of our ever being to change anything. But though our life may seem a life of endless side quests, it is far from meaningless. It matters to us. It matters to those around us. It matters to our God, Who sees all, loves all, and, as the Chosen Hero, has saved the world from the Demon Lord. And our lives and struggles matter in the “Big Picture,” even if we can’t see exactly how this side of Eternity. After all, the Big Picture is made up of an infinity of small pictures, and each one affects the grand design.
So, stay the course and have courage. Be faithful to your disciplines. Be fanatical in loving and helping others. And if you see any goblins lurking in your inner world, slay them without mercy.
Once again, this has been posted later than I would have liked. Next week’s article will be posted earlier in the week. If you’d like to support me, and are into epic romances, check out my novel, Cain Son of Adam: A Gothic Tragedy, available in paperback and eBook formats on Amazon, and free to read on Kindle Unlimited.
Stay tuned for next week’s article: Maus and Motherhood: Laetare Sunday and Girls und Panzer.
Blessed Lent!