#zealot

[eepejay]

relined and inked an old sketch

I'm of the belief that everyone with white hair should look vaguely like each other to muddy the water as much as possible.

[alternativeminiatures]

Imperial girls by @rnrqkq123

[hushabyevalley]

"Clover" - Zealot of the Red Sun

Working in higher resolutions feels so uncomfortable. But will probably end up as a poster eventually. :>

[rosebesch]

batman #137 variant + wonder woman #1 variant + superman #6 variant + poison ivy #14 variant + harley quinn #32 variant + wildc.a.t.s #11 variant + the flash #1 variant + green lantern #3 variant

[dailydccomics]

Zatanna in Absolute Power #3 by Mark Waid and Dan Mora

[why-i-love-comics]

Batman #152 - "Emotionally Compromised" (2024)

written by Kelly Thompson art by Mattia De Iulis

[soranatus]

Bird of Prey (2023) #4 variant cover by Joshua Swaby

[alpaca-clouds]

"I thought you wanted this!" Religious Zealotism in Castlevania

Something Castlevania Nocturne Season 2 made me think about a lot about is its relation to religious zealotism, and how generally speaking religious zealotism is a theme that has been around since the first season aired in 2017.

And there is one very interesting aspect to this: Only one character escapes the grasp of religious zealotism for good - at least from all we know. And that character is Isaac. (Though I guess we also can talk about Mizrak.)

The Bishop & Emmanuel

The unnamed Bishop, who gets killed by Blue Fangs in season 1 of the show, and Emmanuel both are Catholics. They are similar in their motivation - and yet also very different.

The Bishop is very self-righteous. He claims he is acting in the will of God, even though obviously nothing he is doing has actual basis in the bible - especially not in the New Testament, which I remind you does explicitly state that it does undo a variety of rules from the Old Testament. Lisa was in the end just helping people with knowledge that he did not understand, and he killed her for it. Even if her husband had not been Dracula, who then exacted revenge on humanity for it, probably killing thousands in the process, the bishop would have probably doomed quite a lot of people through it. People, who without Lisa's medicine would have died even without Dracula's genocide. We maybe should not give a whole lot on what Blue Fangs says, but generally speaking I think that his entire thing with "your work makes God puke" is not too far off. Still, the Bishop very much clearly had very successfully convinced himself that he was indeed doing God's bidding. Of course God never thanked him for it, and he - like most other people - eventually ended up being killed by Dracula's creatures.

In Nocturne then we have Emmanuel. I wrote about his motivation already. He is different from the Bishop in that he does not think fully that he is enacting God's direct will, but thinks he is still acting in the name of God. He thinks he works for God, if he stops the heretic Revolution and then also Erszebet. Still, he is of no illusion about the fact that his actions will eventually end him up in hell. It is still zealotism that makes him act like this, though. He is absolutely certain of the fact that he is doing what he is doing for heaven and for God. In this he has convinced himself to not even do the kind of Witchcraft that definitely is forbidden by scripture, as he makes a deal with what he thinks is a demon. But of course, just like other religious men before him, he absolutely is convinced that this is still for the greater good. (Insert obligatory Hot Fuzz reference here.)

And just like the bishop in season 1 of Castlevania, Emmanuel obviously eventually dies because of this, not finding protection through his religion.

Drolta

Drolta is quite interesting in regards to the religious Zealotism, because she is the kind of Zealot that we very rarely see in media.

I talked about it before: Western media at the very least tends to be iffy about depicting religion in any strong sense outside of the religion of a possible exorcist in a horror movie (which tends to be Catholicism, as to Americans apparently Catholicism is a very magic religion, I assume). If we see Zealots they are usually Christian or Muslim.

A kemetic Zealot is something I have never encountered. But indeed, Drolta is a very interesting character through this. I wrote about her motivations, too. Her religion at this point is close to being a dead religion. And then the religious community she has gets murdered around her. She is a member of a cult (aka someone from a polytheistic religion just praying to one of the many gods). And thus she prays for a sign from her goddess. And the first thing that happens after this is that a vampire comes in to feed of the dead bodies. So to Drolta this is the sign she has been waiting for. And she, who clearly is afraid to be ever helpless again, decides the goddess wants her to be a vampire.

Now, she knows her goddess to be dead, and herself now being undead, she also decides that the goddess must want this too. Undead immortality. And thus she starts to reason herself into believing this is, what she has to do. And when she finally is confronted by her goddess she cannot even comprehend, that this could not have been what the goddess has wanted. That indeed the goddess was not aware of what Drolta was doing.

Her case is of course quite interesting in that she indeed gets opposed by her goddess herself, rather than just facing defeat in the end.

Mizrak

Before we talk about Isaac, we should quickly chat about Mizrak, too. Because within this conversation of Zealotism Mizrak is quite interesting exactly for being very, very religious, but not a zealot. Mizrak's religious experience in fact is very much focused on his doubt and his guilt. Yes, he strongly believes in the Christian God and in Catholic doctrine. He see him pray several times, and he soothes himself by saying prayers. Yet, he very much is doubting what gets presented to him. While every other character in this list goes to further and further extremes in the name of their deity, excusing those crimes to themselves by telling themselves it is what the deity wants, Mizrak cannot do that.

Mizrak does not know what God wants, and he does not claim to know. He is in fact at times clearly doubting God, partially probably because of his own homosexuality. Doctrine at the time said, homosexuality was a test given to the people to test them and their devotion to God. But of course, someone thinking critically about this, cannot help but conclude that this means God is quite cruel to test some people like this, and not others.

However, the point for Mizrak gets reached, when Emmanuel is about to kill Maria in his Zealotism. No doctrine, and no religious scripture will convince Mizrak that it is right to kill or even endanger a child - no matter to what end. And this is the point where he concludes that even if this was what God wanted, he - Mizrak - in that case cannot want what God wants, and he will in the worst case stand against God's will, because his moral integrity is stronger than his religious zeal. (This is the reason I like this character so much.)

Isaac

Finally we have Isaac, who is very much interesting in this - mainly in that the show does not quite as clearly telegraph his religious zealotism, if you have not read Muslim scripture (and that is more than just the Qur'an). I have seen quite a lot of discussion about why Isaac is so perfectly happy to commit genocide, despite his deeply held religious believes. After all, religion in general has strong opinions about killing people, right? And even if we were to assume that God was alright with killing non-believers, or non-Muslims specificially, "killing all the people in the world" would definitely include quite a lot of Muslims, right?

If you have however read the scripture, there is enough answer to this question in Isaac's dialogue. He does quote and reference scripture more than once, and from this it becomes quite clear: Isaac believes that the prophecized end times have begun and that he has been chosen by God to enact His will to end humanity, so that all the humans can eventually be reunited with God in heaven. (Please note: While it depends on the flavor of Islam people follow, Islam in general has an idea more closely to Hinduism, in that souls that end up in hell will be punished until their soul is redeemed. While in Hinduism this means a soul is ready for reincarnation, in Islam it means the soul can finally ascent to heaven and it is God's goal that in the end all his children will be in heaven. Which is why Isaac references several times that "hell will be empty". In Isaac's view he pulls souls from hell to enact God's will, which will cleanse them and allow them to eventually ascent to heaven.)

Isaac however is interesting in comparison to the other zealots of the show, as he allows himself to be reached by reason. After the Captain, the shopkeeper and Miranda talk to him, he does eventually come around to the believe that not only he was on the wrong path, but also that his zealotism itself was a sin. Which allows him to stop from going further on this path, and rather choosing a different goal, in which he eventually does want to help people.

[vatillly]

Cassiel has had an unfortunate run-in with the Herald of Admonition, and it seems like her faith won't be enough to save her this time.

bonus doodle under the cut of Skuld coming to save her gf :)

[wwprice1]

Awesome art abounds in Absolute Power #3!

[illyanarasputinfan]

Diver Shin

[eepejay]

sorry guys for the dry spell. I had to practice anatomy

[mangaka-neko-chan]

Squad Leader Harken has the dad energy buff. Based on a Veteran Professional line I got while playing him.

Veteran Ove Harken by me. Ogryn Gar by Od. Zealot Moggy by me. Psyker Theina by @elinilinxfoot.

[comicmancer]

[shamlesspandanerd]

[dailydccomics]

Birds of Prey #11 variant cover by Gleb Melnikov