(For part one, go here)
ELDER GODS
Their immortal hearts have been seared and hardened by an insurmountable evil that makes them immune to all fantasies & hallucinations of gods who still believe in ideals. Elder gods reject Cartaphilus, that dangerous prophet, and the most audacious thinker of delirious times.
The elder gods are typically radical skeptics & lovers of doubt. Instead of an impetuous glorification of life, these elders have a disillusioned outlook that considers themselves to be superior skeptics and exorcists of all certainty & conviction. Their observations are fueled with the abysmal mechanisms of doubt – an antiseptic that pacifies the spirit and detaches it from any vital stakes.
The Elders insist upon the sufficiency of their intellect while remaining trapped in the art of unmasking illusions and demystifying the drunkenness of the senses. They pride themselves in transcending all utopian expectations & be consumed by a inquisitorial fetish that aims at the demolition of all fiction. That portrays a merciless image of the entire architecture of the universe, constructed with an ominous nudity, one that is left without the protective shield of idealization or teleology.
Besides relishing this veritable debauch of intellect, some of their gods of wisdom also confess to the disappointing consequences of such an outburst of the inexorable machinery of the intellect. They ruthlessly analyze the results of disenchanting of the reality they impose, in progressive elimination of all belief & undermining of all arguments that benefit life, to the hegemony of indifferentism and the spread of boredom & anguish.
The preeminence of this vision draws a relentless image of an existence in which innocence, utopia, and illusion are completely absent. Sarcasm, cynical remarks are the default modes of speech used to demonstrate the inanity of all hope or belief in benevolent karma or fate. These gods are quick to ridicule even the most minimal forms of optimism. The shrewder of them deconstruct with malicious ingeniousness the beliefs held by proponents of progress and disqualify any attempt at amelioration of the destiny of the mortals they oversee.
Elder gods maintain that a lucid vision of the universe do not allow any room for the slightest hope. The universe is a botched work of creation, for the roots of existence have been corrupted from the earliest beginnings. All gods and mortals are mere victims of this Original Error. Every sentient being is naturally inclined towards selfishness, for they easily coexist with barbarity & abomination, and good acts occur entirely by accident. This explains why many older gods hold nostalgic feelings for the state preceding creation, for their golden age, for the preconscious & initial condition of mortals.
On one hand, Kaeli exalts the appearances & stimulation of existence, particularly its most narcissistic excess. Inspired by Cartaphilus’ eulogizing of individuality & its heroic tragedy, Kaeli is motivated to embolden the submissive & sluggish mortals into rebellion, into the vortex of history: i.e., the only means for affirmation, the only court that can judge them and bring either salvation or atonement.
On the other hand, the elder gods have done away with such traces of youth by renouncing all illusions of self, extinguishing all passions, and suppressing all projects. The gods of wisdom criticize the lure of the carousel of appearances. Thus, for this reason, history is a procession of atrocities, an unending episode of fatal involution, a brutal force that subjects everything to the implacable corrosive effects of time, and quickens the pace at which the end of history approaches. That explains their obsession with destiny.
Physiological decadence imposed the abandonment of worn out instincts & a crippling hegemony of philosophy which inhibits the pulsating spontaneity of emotions. Religious effervescence is replaced by an incapability of believing that leads to the atrophy of all divinity. Mortals must slay gods (they eventually expire or are slain) in order to be free, albeit at the cost of their youth.
Some elder Gods interpret decadence differently: they see in their ancient incumbency a culture that has reached its end, but do not question the survival of gods & mortals and without its meaning a general obscurity, a denial of the possibility of other cultures, or a grand universal decline.
Others disagree with this cyclic diagnosis of culture and instead see in this decadence either a expectation for the extinction of gods or a proof of permanent decline. Instead of circularity, they propose a headlong linearity towards catastrophe, one that eventuates in the final destruction of all mortals or, due to its persistence, in a post-historical condition by either regress or mutation.
These pessimists of divinity see a singular vision of history, then diagnosis a general decline and expand it on a universal scale. Instead of the context of formula of a culture in its final stages, they transform it into a disillusioned vision of existence. They repudiate the cyclic understanding of history and invoke the idea that the universe will be consumed by a conflagration at the end of its current period.
Elder gods are disgusted with certain species, and distinguish between those that are active and affirmative and those that fancy themselves beyond history, beyond time by refusing to enter the dance of evolution.
Cartaphilus often decries species that lack a destiny or metaphysical ambitions to change the world, for they’re solely interested in survival and are content with anonymity. Elder gods have the opposite view: higher wisdom allows them to maintain a distance from the inescapable combustion that consumes all agents of universal history. The result of greed in the evolution of every culture (mortal, immortal) is decline and precipitation of the end. History is never the salvation of anyone who tries to carve a permanent place in the memory of the universe, nor is it a cheerful escape from anonymity. It is merely a death trap, the concession of a devastating disease that will secure the end.
Young cultures or gods lack a model for their hypercharged metabolism isn’t to be imitated and their native aggressiveness cannot be emulated. However, their adventure is scorned since they can’t offer any solution except a head-long surge towards disaster. Elder gods denounce the confederacy of higher cultures against the older ones and their devious schemes, for they cannot bear the thought of being forced into the maelstrom of history.
Such apocalyptic pessimism of the elder gods leads to not just a bleak vision of history and the entire structure of reality in which the domination of evil is a metaphysical fact, but also in a sardonic description of Mother Nature. Their moralistic dimension, presented this way, forcing the absurd, the parodic, or the macabre, depends the rhetoric effect of paradoxical & sophistic formulation, inventing the entire catalogue of vices – be they laughable or hideous, monstrous or just grotesque. Elder gods have nothing in common with the moralist gods who utter concise bon mots to present an objective model of behavior, following a pedagogical aim by means of the ruthless unmasking of individual degeneracy and emotional handicap, & thus intentionally contribute to moral rehabilitation.
The reader of this graphic novel is drawn into the systematic elimination of noble or disinterested motivations & the revealing of the deeper reasons that determine them as they are (often ignoble, hilarious, and born out of resentment, cowardice, envy, vanity, desire for glory, & will to power). The world the elder gods perceive is one of a visceral inferno, of irrational passions that buffet the spirit, leading to the setting up of the most unscrupulous scheming to the purpose of gaining honors & supremacy. The only functional strategies in this worldview are cajoling & hypocrisy, resentment and imposture. There’s no room for sincerity, abnegation, friendship, heroism, or admiration, for they are superficial words, mere instruments perfidiously utilized to disguise the only true impulses.
More telling is how they analyze love: Kaeli was always seeking for an explanation of a profound mystery when she tried to learn the secrets of love and its fatal mechanics by getting involved with sibylline passion in solving this enigma and believing in the importance of her actions. The elder gods, on the other hand, contemplate ironically & quite cynically a topic that never fails to stir younger gods’ enthusiasm. Their cryptic remarks reveal a disillusioned view, an acidic skepticism that scrutinizes every reason that’s invoked as a justification for individual virtue, or the value of an idea, or the transformation of a farcical reality.
Kaeli’s vision is often dominated by her obsession with life, with irresistible energy and mind-boggling fulfillment during the crusade for ecstatic experience, whether it is a mystical rapture or the result of an orgasmic agony of physical bodies. Older gods seem unable to distance themselves even for the slightest moment from the reflection of the skeleton, of the rotting flesh or of the organic revelation of the futility of all things. Embittered by such a vision, they sarcastically capture the intricate details that are overlooked by the stalwart of ideal love. Old gods are insistent upon the grotesque ceremony of sexuality, upon the profound bestial character that underlie & control the dynamics of supposedly higher feelings, pointing out the powerful transformations such ferocious desire bring about.
For Kaeli, gods must adopt their carnality and employ it as an indispensable means of living the magic of vitality, of increasing the powers of its spirit & contributing to the enlargement of their ideal attitude. Gods must live up to their inevitably heroic existence by means of embracing the most profound and greatest experiences. The older generation on the other hand considers the body as one of the generator of illusion, merely just another source of aggrandizing appearances, another enemy of the merciless scrutiny of reality. True clarity demands disdaining the body, eliminating its agitating effect, & erasing this source of phantasms.
Given the nature of my thinking and the boycott I’ve imposed on the traditional methods of writing I intend to raise problems for commentators, make them curious by the fragmented character and by the stylish quality of the art and writing, and prevent easy labeling of my thinking. Some may consider my work must be included in literature, while others will argue in favor of the philosophical nature of the writings.
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