Monster - The Psychology of Johan Liebert (Anime's Greatest Villain)

could the devil exist note that i did not ask does the devil exist i asked could the devil exist but for clarity's sake i will answer both questions does the devil exist if by that you mean does the epitome of all evil as described in the judeo-christian tradition exists somewhere out there in the cosmos or in hell beneath us then i would have to say no in my opinion the devil does not exist but could the devil exist could a devil-like entity be brought into being could the devil cross over from the realm of myth into the material world i would say it is certainly more likely i envisioned two scenarios where this could happen one pathway is through artificial intelligence i have speculated in past videos about the idea of birthing a devil or antichrist like figure via ai namely in my videos on the game soma if we go with the theory that human consciousness is computational maybe there is an algorithmic recipe for the devil the second pathway is through some combination of eugenics and psychological manipulation though the recipe for that would not be as scientifically reliable but maybe not impossible thankfully we do not have the scientific or medical knowledge that would produce such a being but there has been fictional speculation one example is with the eugenically produced character johann liebert from naoki orosawa's masterpiece monster though i am a relative newcomer to the world of anime and manga my understanding is that aside from griffith the lead antagonist of the berserk series johann is widely recognized as the greatest villain of both mediums and in my opinion rightly so at the very least you can reliably expect to see johann on all the top 10 lists of anime and manga villains it is near impossible to list every reason why johan merits his place on those lists those who have read or watched monster know that johann's evil is one that is easier to intuit rather than explain but i can use a metaphor that will give you a general idea imagine every negative trait that you can deceit betrayal resentment hatred recall the times in your life that you have felt the most extreme form of those emotions now imagine all of those traits were a color now imagine that an artist threw all those hundreds of colors at a canvas eventually all those colors would congeal into a singular blackness and that blackness would be johan if you have never watched the anime or read the manga the language i just used might seem overzealous or melodramatic but those who have experienced the story of monster know that the words i have chose were done for the sake of accuracy and not exaggeration like the hypothetical artist who projects every color onto the canvas i and many other viewers are inclined to project every negative trait onto johann just as religious folk do with the devil but unlike the devil johann at least in the reality of monster is real i wonder what knowledge of evil did urosawa possess that allowed him to birth the devil in his story how did he manage to write johan in such a way that he would reliably compel the deepest feelings of disgust and horror from his audience finally the most terrifying question of all is whether it is possible to replicate a personage like johann in the real world i will attempt to answer all of those questions but in order to do so first i will introduce one of urosawa's potential inspirations one that seemingly many fans of monster have overlooked for the past few decades it is from that source of inspiration that we might be able to glean some of the ingredients for that recipe of evil and how those ingredients constitute johan's psychology needless to say there are spoilers ahead the overlooked form of inspiration is hinted at in episode 59 of the anime and chapter 124 of the manga here we see johan introduced to the other main villain of the series peter chapek a bureaucrat in league with white supremacists this meeting was made possible by the character eva heinemann a character who manages to find herself tied up with all the other main characters in the story she pointed johann out to chepak at a party later that evening after the party ends ava describes the meeting of these two men to one of chapek's henchmen martin riest she describes that meeting as bringing together mephistopheles and faust unless you're german or a connoisseur of the arts you're likely not going to understand that reference faust and mephistopheles are characters from a german play titled faust faust is one of the most influential works of german literature written by a man who is essentially the german shakespeare his name is johann wolfgang von guerta a man who just so happens to share the same first name as monster's villain and his middle name is the first name of a character named grimmer faust is the story of a man who wishes to attain infinite knowledge in order to attain said knowledge faust sells his soul to an evil spirit named mephistopheles what follows are the inevitable consequences of making any sort of deal with a devil or demon there are many reasons why faust sits at the foundation of both german literature and culture one of which is the fact that the story of faust was refined to perfection over the course of 60 years the final version was only published after gertha's death at the age of 82. i imagine that one of the many reasons he was reticent to publish a final version during his time alive was that he wanted to perfect his depiction of evil within the character of mephistopheles in order to understand how gurtha was able to write such an influential despicable villain like mephistopheles it's important to keep in mind the culture that gertha was a part of at the time and how that likely informed his writing he was alive during the time of the french revolution and the enlightenment movement that that revolution birthed this was the time when the judeo-christian doctrine which undergirded western civilization was starting to be effectively challenged where age-old religious symbols like the god and the devil were starting to lose their potency culminating in the nietzschean death of god a century later gertha was influenced to a degree by these ideas in regards to christianity he would draw upon christian symbolism in his works but he also despised the church this is not to say that he had no interest in spirituality or religion mind you his views shifted broadly throughout his life his interests at one time or another embracing pietism mysticism the kabbalah alchemy folklore neoplatonism liberalism and many other vogues gurtha's experience with all these traditions and their views on evil no doubt had an influence on his conception of mephistopheles some might say that mephistopheles like johann can simply be understood as an analog for the christian devil but the reality is far more complicated than that rather mephistopheles is a synthesis of all the aforementioned traditions and their understanding of evil mephistopheles is much too complex diverse and ambiguous to be identified with the christian devil girtha kept the ambiguity pronounced as part of mephisto's function is to deny any dichotomy in nature moral or otherwise mephistopheles appears both as the opponent of god and as the instrument of the divine will as the creator of the material world and as god's subject despite these and many other contradictory traits that mephistopheles possesses it is possible to gain a general understanding of him by once again introducing a metaphor he is fundamentally a nature spirit representing the undifferentiated world as it presents itself to human experience he is an invitation to the reader to face the multiplicity of reality that multiplicity reflects the painting metaphor i used before he like johann represents the blackness the chaos and all the negative traits that come along with it the only purpose that chaotic force has is to negate all that is good or ordered mephistopheles says as much in what is arguably his most famous quote when faust asks methistopheles who he truly is he replies i am the spirit that negates and rightly so for all that comes to be deserves to perish wretchedly to where better nothing would begin thus everything that your terms sin destruction evil represent that is my proper element if that quote and the previous descriptors were not enough to convince you of a connection between mephistopheles and johann then consider the following both characters take on many different forms mephistopheles will take on the form of a wandering scholar a magician or even a poodle johann will dress up as his twin sister and has even taken on other names like franz hainau michael reichmann and eric springer one other form i neglected to mention that mephistopheles took was that of the emperor's fool which he did in order to urge disastrous social policies i imagine johann sought a similar type of destruction when he was aiming for control of germany's economy via the killing of hans shuvald and fraternizing with bureaucrats like peter chapek the resemblance between both characters is uncanny if for nothing else but for their core purpose unlike the vast majority of villains who commit evil deeds for either selfishness or what they view to be a noble cause the sole aim of both characters is simply to negate to destroy for it would be better that life never existed what i've noticed in my time analyzing villains online is that the villains that tend to be the most terrifying are not the ones who believe they're doing good though there are several villains of that sort that are frightening and compelling the villains that i tend to see bolstered as the most terrifying include heath ledger's joker anton shiger from no country for old men alex delarge from a clockwork orange or pazuzu from the exorcist they all act as if they are instruments of a divine will as if they are acting out the will of chaos itself johann is no different he like mephistopheles will use his slick intelligence and superficial charm in order to have people and institutions perish in the most wretched and painful ways he will kindly draw you in with false impressions of love and concern only to expose your greatest weakness to you in the hopes that you will commit suicide he will burn down a library of priceless books manipulate an orphaned child into believing he isn't loved all because he wishes for this shitty existence to disappear with both characters established i return to the question that i asked at the beginning of this video could the devil exist though given what i have just said i think it would be better to reformulate the question to something like could evil incarnate exist could mephistopheles incarnate into someone like johann in our reality the exact recipe for such a being is unknown but given how well johann was written it's worthwhile reviewing what made him into the person he is maybe by doing so we can discover some clues once that will help us determine whether the results are replicable in reality just as johan and mephistopheles wish for nothing to exist this wish extends to their own being on numerous occasions in monster we see johan attempt to erase his existence there are two main methods he uses to do this on the one hand he attempts to kill everybody who knew him in life before he ultimately dies this is kind of brilliant because the only thing worse than having a killer get away with his heinous crimes is to not have a killer to blame those heinous crimes on even in the case where the killer got away with their crimes like the zodiac killer at least we have an image and a name to blame those killings on in the case of johann he would have it so that the public would have to find a scapegoat which ideally would be existence itself you would have to curse existence for not only allowing such unimaginable and horrific crimes to take place but for the killer to completely evade the eye of those who would wish to do good the other way he attempts to erase his existence is by striving for namelessness though he goes primarily by the name johann it is clear to me that he does so merely for convenience he not only wishes to be nameless but he seems incapable of adopting a name for he has no firm sense of identity any sense of identity was engineered out of him before and after his birth after all he was born as a part of a eugenics experiment one that would supposedly create a genetically superior being a key component of making this experiment successful apparently would be making sure that he did not have a name this is of the utmost importance a name confers identity identity equates to individuality and what confers our individual identity is that which makes us different from other individuals how are your values different how are your interests different those differential traits revolve like electrons around the central nucleus that is our name our identity without a name or identity without a sense of self then what are you you are nothingness now what happens if you give that nothingness consciousness you get a paradoxical being like johann or mephistopheles they exist but yet they don't they live but only to destroy they can take one form but that isn't their soul form it is this paradox of being that elevates johann and others of his elk to the realm of not just profundity but also divinity it is not unusual to see paradoxes as expressions of the divine in religion for example unities of opposites like baphomet divine hermaphrodites like adana resvara or the merging of mortal flesh and divine substance in jesus christ this trait is reflected in the most infernal way with johann let us review how johan achieved this paradoxical state of identity and non-identity again in the earliest part of his life he did not have a name when johann his twin sister nina and his mother escaped the eugenics experiment his mother ordered him to wear girl's clothes this was done so that it would be more difficult for those operating the experiment to find the family and take them back it seems to me that forcing feminine clothes onto johann contributed to his confused sense of identity so much so that it made him susceptible to confusing his own memories for his sister's memories recall the moment in the series where nina is re-kidnapped and then returns after weeks of further experimentation nina relays her painful memories to johann and then johann adopts those memories as his own finally there is the children's book the nameless monster written by one of the forerunners of the eugenics experiment klaus pape this book amongst other books were written to brainwash certain children so that they could become the genetic superior desired by the eugenicists this book along with the emphasis on namelessness and confusion with his sister nina permitted johan's self-erasure but even though johann had no let's say traditional nucleus of identity he needed something if he could not put faith in the reality of his own existence he would have to put his faith in a different reality even when everything about the world around us is in a cartesian sense of doubt the one reality that is hard to argue against is the unpleasantness of our own pain from johan's birth pain and all the emotions it produces was the only surefire thing there was the pain of being a part of a eugenics experiment the pain of not having a father figure the pain of having a confused identity but the worst pain of all for johann as we know was the memory of his mother when his mother was rediscovered by those who conducted the eugenics experiment she was forced to give up one of her children over the span of a few seconds she chose johann but then chose nina johann for his entire life was left to wonder if his mother knew who she was choosing in that moment even though some might argue that the mother had to make an impossible sophie's choice-like decision in that moment and that she actually loved both children equally that wouldn't negate the fact that this existence allowed for such a painful decision considering these circumstances it is difficult to not feel sympathy for johann there are times in all of our lives where we are completely taken out by suffering so much so that we contemplate suicide at least in those cases we have a center we can return to we can turn inward and nurture our identity we will clutch our values like cornerstones and choose to act morally even in the most challenging situations then we can work our way up from the bottom but johan has no identity he was born in the abyss he is the abyss and the abyss has no center could johan exist could evil incarnate in someone like him theoretically yes we've come close while with the mass murderers of the 20th century and many others throughout history but even those men had values and identities thankfully the exact circumstances to burn the mind like johanns natural or artificial would have to be so precise that they might as well be impossible still it's unnerving to think that such an effective and sophisticated form of evil could incarnate in our reality if that were to happen what would we do to save ourselves from evil's whims well the series actually tells us for all the things that johann was able to account for he could not account for what would happen at the end of monster he wanted the series protagonist dr tenma to kill him in doing this he would complete what nina referred to as his perfect suicide though tenma nina and a few others would attest to johan's existence it wouldn't be enough to prove that he was the committer of his crimes in this moment temma almost shot him but instead a local drunk pulled out a gun and shot him instead but this wasn't the moment that johann was unable to account for though he certainly did not anticipate it rather it was dr tenma's decision following this incident dr tenma used his skills as the most talented neurosurgeon in the country to extract the bullets from johan's head and save him to perform a surgery like this on a single occasion is borderline impossible in temma's case he did it twice and on the same person johan suffered the same gunshot wound to the head as a child and was saved by tenma consider the power of this deed for a moment granted killing johann would have been understandable and forgivable given his monstrous deeds but i wonder if that would have been the right decision and i'm not talking about the side effects of killing johann that might inflict tenma's soul i think that affirming the value of johann's life despite his deeds and saving him from certain death twice might be the miraculous act that would break johann out of his nihilistic pit to do so would demonstrate the eternal upper hand that love has over hate how it could triumph over even the devil and the choice to preserve life even in the face of the infinite abyss is a power that every human being possesses even if the devil could exist we would all have the power to say no to his whims we just have to hope that whenever our soul is on the line that we like dr tenma make the right decision [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Max Derrat

Views: 673,495

Keywords: monster, monster johan, monster anime, naoki urusawa, monster analysis, monster explained, monster ending explained, max derrat

Id: 92YPpnz8m1o

Length: 22min 55sec (1375 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 18 2022