#and (2) he's seeking to be reconciled and end his quadrillion kilometers

[kaurwreck]

the below is excerpted from Ivan's conversation with Satan in The Brothers Karamazov, Sec. 4.11.9 (The Devil. Ivan Fyodorvich's Nightmare):

I, for instance, demand simply and directly that I be destroyed. No, they say, live, because without you there would be nothing. If everything on earth were sensible, nothing would happen. Without you there would be no events, and there must be events. And so I serve grudgingly, for the sake of events, and I do the unreasonble on others. People take this whole comedy for something serious, despite all their undeniable intelligence. That is their tragedy. Well, they suffer, of course, but...still, they live, they live really, not in fantasy; for suffering is life. Without suffering, what pleasure would there be in it—everything would turn into an endless prayer service: holy, but a bit dull. And me? I suffer, and still do not live. I am an x in an indeterminte equation. I am some sort of ghost of life that has lost all ends and beginnings, and I've finally even forgotten what to call myself. [...] Mephistopheles, when he comes to Faust, testifies of himself that he desires evil, yet does only good. Well, let him do as he likes, it's quite the opposite with me. I am perhaps the only man in all of nature who loves the truth and sincerely desires good.

oh, so bsd!fyodor isn't a christ figure. he's a satanic figure, as projected by ivan karamazov. which makes sense, considering everyone calls him a demon. and how he behaves. and his role as an instigator and adversary. and his schism between selves. and his comment that perfection is boring because he can't observe man's karma through perfection. and his aspect on earth as a parasite incarnated in and through those who've killed. and that he suffers but does not live. and that time he convinced ace to hang himself. okay.

(natsume is a buddhist, and also a cat, for whom there is levity and significance in embracing the absence of inherent existence and nature. so i can understand, now, why V was so concerned with him in The Untold Origins.)