Religion and deities in the setting (split from "Trace of Two Pasts novel discussion")

[Obsidian Fire]

I can't accept that human beings would worship things they can control.

This is half the point of *most* forms of ancient religions. Maybe if you pray/appease/worship/beseech/sacrifice to the god enough, they will do something favorable towards you (or *not* do something bad to you). Most "gods" are like... superheros people can influence to be superheroes in *their* favour if they call the right number and say the right things. Like... humanity has been living with this concept of "gods" for the vast majority of human history when it comes to what a "religion" is. Most gods are local and not all-powerful and can make mistakes and need to be reminded to do stuff for their worshipers.

Part of what makes the Judeo-Christian god *terrifying* (or at least, very unlikable) to a lot of *modern* people is that he really can do whatever the heck he wants and no one can change his mind once he decides to do something. Most "variants" of Judeo-Christian religion make him out to be *less* autonomous so that his worshipers can have some sort of control/say in his decisions or so that he pays more attention to them. And no one likes knowing another being made decisions about how their life is going to turn out without their input.

It's only recently that humanity has gotten away from the concept of "gods" *at all*. Before that... they are *very* common with varying degrees of influence, power and relationships to their worshipers. A lot of them are...

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I know. That's exactly what I said in my earlier post, Obsidian. Ancient religions are about trying to control things we can't control. They're a contract between humans and the powers that govern the universe. Individual gods have limits to their powers and are not omiscient or omnipresent, but what they all have in common is that they are beyond our control. They're not tame, and they can't be entirely trusted. They certainly can't be defeated in battle by mortals. If we could control them - if we could summon them at will to do our bidding - why would we worship them? The people of FFVII don't need to make a contract with summons. A summons is already at the command of the human who holds its materia.

FFXV is an excellent example of this "social contract" between gods and men used in the context of a video game. Noctis, the embodiment of the state, and Luna, the nexus between gods and men, are the only ones who can interact with the god-summons, and even then the summons come when they choose. They are not under Noctis and Luna's control. They set challenges for Noctis so he can prove his merit, such as the trial of stength against Titan. When they have determined his worthiness, they forge a bond with him. These powers are bestowed upon him because he has a special quest to fulfil. He's like Jason or Perseus in the Greek myths.

The summons in FFVII are not like the gods of FFXV. I agree that the Summons in the Remake do behave a little more like gods than the summons of the OG, in that you have to 'earn' the power to summon them. But they're still like demons or djinn, not gods to be feared and propitiated.

I can imagine a religion in which the summons play a role, perhaps as servants to the gods or temporary avatars of the gods. But I wouldn't be convinced by a religion in which the people are worshipping the summons themselves.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

But... they really did in both Ireland and Japan. "Worship" has somewhat different connotations, but we see shrines, offerings, gestures of faith, beseeching these actions, and belief that these things were following the needs/desire of communities and people. Is it that different?

I am pretty sure that in both Ireland and Japan indigenous worship is about propitiating the forces of nature/the supernatural which are beyond direct human control. Since we can't compel those forces to do our will, we have to cajole, plead, and bargain with them, and buy their goodwill with prayers and offerings.

 

[Humming]

Summons being a product of their worshippers is not new. In FF XIV, the primals or eikons (classic summons like Ifrit, Titan, etc) are born from aether and focused will. In other words, faith.

 

[Makoeyes987]

The summons in FFVII are not like the gods of FFXV. I agree that the Summons in the Remake do behave a little more like gods than the summons of the OG, in that you have to 'earn' the power to summon them. But they're still like demons or djinn, not gods to be feared and propitiated.

In terms of function, yes. Culturally, Summons are revered, worshipped, respected and carry significant within the people that look up to them.

But in terms of function and accessibility, they're almost like Guardian Forces. They become allies with whoever carries them and they impart their abilities and strengths. So FFVII sorta meets in this middle ground between calling down literal gods to help with battle, and making pacts with spirits who will help you in battle when possible.

 

[waw]

Individual gods have limits to their powers and are not omiscient or omnipresent, but what they all have in common is that they are beyond our control. They're not tame, and they can't be entirely trusted.

I think you're looking at this from a very modern/western perspective that understands in many meaningful ways these gods don't exist (or at least aren't tangible/within our grasp). But people in these cultures felt very differently. Heck, many priest classes in societies develop because they can reliably intercede/cajole/direct these forces. The kami in Japan aren't things that are controlled, but they aren't independent either. Many need priests to take care of them in order for them to be healthy, and this gives the priesthood a power over them. (Or at least, believed by the community.) Priest kings were believed to be either god-incarnates or those who could control the spirits. Even in Ireland, the High King had to "wed" the Earth/Mother Goddess in order to ensure things would be healthy (in terms of crops) and so there was a power that flowed from the earth, but also from the king. The Chinese Son of Heaven was to rule the Earth like the Heavens and act as a mediator, but while these powers above them acted of their own accord, many positioned themselves as Heaven itself. So if this were the case, if Humans in Egypt or China are perceived as divine beings, they have power over the gods. Arguably, shouldn't Jesus factor into this paradigm, too? Not to cast Christianity as mythology, but he's a divine human whose existence changes biblical and cosmic law from the Old Testament to the New Testament. While he's not depicted as overthrowing his father, he fits that very mythological paradigm as his newer/more compasionate will overrides what came before.

In Arabic mythology, the spirits of the desert (such as the djinn) were in a mythological/deific ranking. The Irish had something similar, and the kami of Japan aren't any different. The definition of "god" you're working with here, these all-powerful cosmic beings isn't the universal one. The kami rank in Japan the and the Sidhe/Sith/Shee/Fey in Ireland rank from your small little house sprits/local spirits to clan guardians/mountain dwellers/to those that create the universe. In Japanese, the word is all the same for these beings: god/kami. Though they have an internal hierarchy, some of which are far easier for mortals to control (at least in mythic stories), they're the same thing. They're gods.

So when I say these Summoned Creatures seem to be gods... we have two things going for the statement:

1. We have at least two cases (Minerva and Leviathan) in the FF world in which gods and summons are somehow interchangeable.
2. We have historical conditions in which people believed in and worshipped things beyond most of their control, but in the thrall of a very few.

I see no reason why Summons can't fit that paradigm. Now, because the Wutai folk call Leviathan a god and worship him, doesn't make him one. It may be that their ancient warriors used that summoned materia, believed it was a fraction of his power, and worshipped him because of it. They could believe he's a god when he's just... a djinn, but we do have what seems like incontrovertable evidence that he's viewed as a deity.

I am pretty sure that in both Ireland and Japan indigenous worship is about propitiating the forces of nature/the supernatural which are beyond direct human control. Since we can't compel those forces to do our will, we have to cajole, plead, and bargain with them, and buy their goodwill with prayers and offerings.

What gets weird here is our defiinions of "direct human control." Folks in the FF world can't seem to call upon summons without the materia, and even then it's a limited vision/echo of that being. Is that limit not under what you listed here? They still have to cajole/plead/bargaain/offer/attempt to channel that being when normal means means they can't! You're acting here as if the Summons could be put on a leash and do whatever they heck their human masters want, but they aren't used that way in OG FFVII or Remake.

 

[Makoeyes987]

One thing summons are definitely in FFVII, is "under human control."

So I can get the feeling one may have that they don't completely come off as "all-powerful." After all, they're sealed in a crystal orb which can be carried in one's pocket or weapon and used when convenient and space permits it.

However. They do represent specific powerful deities or creatures of myth.

This is really just the reflection of the world of FFVII, where the mythology and power of magic has been combined and even tamed by the industrialization and proliferation of mako energy. Materia can be synthesized, wielded and even used by multiple people. It's nothing close to other FFs where such things are sacred. Thanks to Shinra, materia can be used by all sorts of people now.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I have a vague memory something something Shinra creating a new summons materia something...? Or did I make that up?
@ Waw, what exactly is the role played by the "kami" in the relationship between man and the forces of nature?
Obviously in most ancient religions there's an entire hierarchy of "gods", from Zeus all the way down to some little nameless nymph responsible for a single tree on a hill. According to wikipedia, the Shinto saying is that there are "eight million kami". However, there are not eight million summons. I don't know exactly how many there are, but you could fit them onto Mt Olympus and it wouldn't be crowded. So in this respect kami and summons are not analogous.

"Shinto seeks to cultivate and ensure a harmonious relationship between humans and the kami and thus with the natural world." This is a very good description of the role played by the summons-gods in FFXV, who interact with the human world via their intermediaries Noctis and Luna. They are not by nature all-benevolent or all-knowing and most of them don't seem to care about human beings that much. What they seem to care about is maintaining the right order in the world.

Again, FFVII summons are not like this. They do act rather randomly, but they don't seem to have any will of their own - or, let's say, they don't have any agenda of their own.

I keep saying, "People don't worship things they can control," and other posters seem to keep disagreeing with me by providing examples of societies that have worshipped forces they couldn't control.

 

[Makoeyes987]

I have a vague memory something something Shinra creating a new summons materia something...? Or did I make that up?

Shinra doesn't create new summons, but they can create summon materia of summons who exist, which they did for Zack. It's basically what Chadley does for Cloud and the others.

Again, FFVII summons are not like this. They do act rather randomly, but they don't seem to have any will of their own - or, let's say, they don't have any agenda of their own.

Well, Minerva clearly had an agenda of its own and it is essentially a summon of its own. That's the best example of a summon creature in FFVII that doesn't seem to submit itself to any person. It exists independently and in connection to the Lifestream.

There was also a Makou Ifrit that seemingly existed on its own and fought anything that got near it and was hyper aggressive. These are rare examples of summons that manifest independently to attack others who come near by.

 

[waw]

I want to take this in part because they're good questions. What I'm suggesting by pointing to kami is that we need to expand our definition of god away from a western/Eurocentric/Abrahamic one. In many cultures around the world, "gods" aren't anything like Greek Mythology or the GOO (All Good, Omnipotent, Omniscient) deity of Abrahamic mythology. It's something akin to spiritual being, something that lives beyond the material edges of the world, with some sort of metaphysical power - but that power isn't capped. It ranges from things that are literally bound to your household to the thing that is the sun and the thing that created the universe. All of these can be gods - rather, there are cultures that use a singular word for all of these things. Therefore, we need to dig down and get precise (and on the same terms) when we're using "god" here as I think we're all talking about different things.

@ Waw, what exactly is the role played by the "kami" in the relationship between man and the forces of nature?

Shinto is a bit odd because the relationship isn't transactional like many other faiths. In old Abrahamic religions, for example, you would "sacrifice" something to Yahweh and if he was happy, your prayer would come true. (Kain and Abel springs to mind). Shinto you don't exactly give sacrificings so much as offerings. In many cases, the Shinto priest/priestess would leave offerings and clean the sacred shrine/home space for the deity. When it's clean and pure, the deity does it's role in nature... wether it's making the sun shine, the crops grow, the birds chirp, etc and so forth. Kami, like people, can get "dirty" in a spiritual sense. This is kegare, it's not quite sin. It's better thought of as pollution/dirty. Think you touch something covered in bad bacteria, you have to wash it away, right? This is kegare, it is almost a metaphysical dirtiness. So when you or the kami come into contact with something like this, it spreads that pollution. Moving water is constantly used to purify these things.

So the priest/priestess will often try to clean the Kami's living space to keep them free of kegare. They often don't force the kami to act, the kami does the job on its own.

However, there are sorts of "onmyoji" (Uh... quite literally Feng Shui-ers) who do manipulate and control the cosmic elements, which aren't really different than the kami. I recently read a story when one early dude literally controlled four demons and attacked the emperor (one of the sources of the 4 Fiends/Shitenno concept). This is Chikata Fujiwara. Various ninja clan claimed a sort of lineage with this man, including magical connections. (Sorcerers in a lot of non-Abrahamic faiths control the spirits, and there's even esoteric Christian mysticism from the medieval period that involved things like summoning circles and Solomon's Ring in order to control these spirits. These things are more akin to the djinn you made reference to... however, if we were to use the Japanese word for these things they would all be "kami.")

Obviously in most ancient religions there's an entire hierarchy of "gods", from Zeus all the way down to some little nameless nymph responsible for a single tree on a hill. According to wikipedia, the Shinto saying is that there are "eight million kami". However, there are not eight million summons. I don't know exactly how many there are, but you could fit them onto Mt Olympus and it wouldn't be crowded. So in this respect kami and summons are not analogous.

Yeah, 8 million. You have all the kami of the cosmic order, the mountains, the trees, the wells, the hosueholds, the family lines, and more. 8 Million isn't a list somewhere, it's a semi-poetic phrase for countless/endless. The Celts were similar with animism and the rivers, wells, mountains, craigs, and forests all having their own spirits, let alone clans and the like. I want to be careful with our summons here as we're working a wierdly limited number but I'm not sure the FF7 world has the same limited number that we see. So there's less than 2 dozen of these things that we see over the course of these games, but some of them have variations, right, like Bahamut. They're never depicted in some sort of unified panetheon/order as in FFIV and they presumably come from different areas/regions of the FF7 world. However, there very well could be more of these creatures than we see. And we certainly have to explain the use of multiple Ramuh materia, when one gets duplicated, do we have multiple Ramuhs running around? Should we number them? What would happen if two folks summon Ramuh at the same time? My sense is that each summoner has a slightly different iteration/formation to their summon meaning it's probably a different expression (or maybe different to the materia, not the caster). But in this sense, Bahamut Zero/Neo/Shin are just what happens from different stones and it's all drawing on an avatar/emanation from the same thing. Kami do have a precursor concept here. So there's one water deity shrine in Yokohama, and it's kinda the water dragon shrine, and an ordained priest could take that a piece of that shrine, build a different site and the kami would live in both places simultaneously. Someone has been trying to bring the Yokohama deity to Chicago, actually. This happened in the Kumano region of about 8 shrines all to the same deity simultaneously while also housing the local deities. In a way, it's like mastering a Red Materia in OG FF7. You have a new, duplicated materia with the same deity in each. They deities aren't in multiple locations, but they are. They're kami, they have different properties.

Again, my correlation to Kami isn't that they number the same, rather I think a native Japanese person's understanding of god is typically very different than a westerner's.

"Shinto seeks to cultivate and ensure a harmonious relationship between humans and the kami and thus with the natural world." This is a very good description of the role played by the summons-gods in FFXV, who interact with the human world via their intermediaries Noctis and Luna. They are not by nature all-benevolent or all-knowing and most of them don't seem to care about human beings that much. What they seem to care about is maintaining the right order in the world.

Yes, this is the primary role of pirests in Shinto. You have divergent individuals, variously identified like the onmyoji above, or witches elsewhere, that manipulate and control... these are not looked upon favorably by the priesthood and often plays a negative role in mythology. Nonetheless, they certainly do exist.

I
Again, FFVII summons are not like this. They do act rather randomly, but they don't seem to have any will of their own - or, let's say, they don't have any agenda of their own.

Well, we also need to think through what the summons are in relation to Materia. For example, materia are repeatedly said to be housing memories of sorts. Like a "Bolt" materia in OG FF7 is implied to carry the memory of a Cetra who could cast magic readily. If we stick with the Mako relationship to memory, we can certainly ask then if a summon materia houses summon creature a la pokeball or if it houses the memory of a summoned creature.

If it is a memory then these things could certainly well be of a divine and cosmic order far behind the likes of mortals and they're only calling upon a fraction of the deity in question's power. Personally, this is the only way I can really wrap my head around Shiva freezing the northern continent and being a weakling summon! (Okay, part of that can be game mechanics, but even at her best, her powers are nowhere near what she did in legend!)

I
I keep saying, "People don't worship things they can control," and other posters seem to keep disagreeing with me by providing examples of societies that have worshipped forces they couldn't control.

Rather, I think what's happening is people are defining "control" differently. I think you're using it in a sense that someone could grab this thing and make it do what they say like a Remote Control Car. I think many other people here are pointing to a belief that ancient priests at least claimed to be able to manipulate the gods at their whim. This ranges, of course, from interceding on a people's behalf like the Saints of Catholicism to straight up manipulating the forces of nature. Heck, the Irish believed that if a King was unblemished, the land would be healthy. If the king blemished, the land would die. The land is personified as a goddess. Who is in control here? If a king blemishes, the land diminishes - this is a relationship in which the goddess is that mercy of a king. A bard could satirize a king and make them break out in boils, thus killing the goddess of the land (Or at least severely wounding her) through his John Oliver styled takedowns.

Is that not control? Solomon had a ring with a thousand spirits in it, he was a masterful wizard who controlled these things at his beck and call like pokemon. He controlled them more directly. Now... is this stuff true and factual? I'm not telling anyone what to believe religiously, rather... there are cultures that certainly believed their priestly class controll the Otherworld and the gods while simultaneously being at the mercy and whim of the gods. Yes, historically, there are peoples who believed they could control these things they worshipped.

Finally this:

Well, Minerva clearly had an agenda of its own and it is essentially a summon of its own. That's the best example of a summon creature in FFVII that doesn't seem to submit itself to any person. It exists independently and in connection to the Lifestream.

There was also a Makou Ifrit that seemingly existed on its own and fought anything that got near it and was hyper aggressive. These are rare examples of summons that manifest independently to attack others who come near by.

So we do see things identified as summon creatures work on their own and/or not yet be at the mercy of a materia that controls them. What does this mean? Well, I think in the case of the deities in materia, we just don't have enough information on them to identify them as much.

I do think they're more akin to memories/emanations/echoes/avatars rather than the deity itself.

I don't think Cloud ever killed Bahamut in AC, I think he destroyed a manifestation of it's memory.

 

[Makoeyes987]

So we do see things identified as summon creatures work on their own and/or not yet be at the mercy of a materia that controls them. What does this mean? Well, I think in the case of the deities in materia, we just don't have enough information on them to identify them as much.

Well in the context of Crisis Core, Mako Ifrit was more than likely under the influence of Minerva to keep people out and kill them so as to prevent further incursion.

Minerva is its own thing that apparently follows the will of the Lifestream. It's the eponymous "Goddess" of the poem LOVELESS, and clearly has a lot of power.

I don't think Cloud ever killed Bahamut in AC, I think he destroyed a manifestation of it's memory.

Well of course, you're right. A summon can't really "die" since it's just a magical manifestation that's invoked via materia. I suppose the only way you'd "kill" it is if you burned its energy away like Shinra does mako energy. As long as its materia exists, it will live. Not to mention it exists within the Lifestream as well.

 

[waw]

Well in the context of Crisis Core, Mako Ifrit was more than likely under the influence of Minerva to keep people out and kill them so as to prevent further incursion.

Minerva is its own thing that apparently follows the will of the Lifestream. It's the eponymous "Goddess" of the poem LOVELESS, and clearly has a lot of power.

It'll be interesting if Minerva shows up in Remake to any extent.

Well of course, you're right. A summon can't really "die" since it's just a magical manifestation that's invoked via materia. I suppose the only way you'd "kill" it is if you burned its energy away like Shinra does mako energy. As long as its materia exists, it will live. Not to mention it exists within the Lifestream as well.

It's important to note though since we're seeing a discinction made that summons couldn't be gods because they're being controlled by people. That should be taken off the table. At best, we're controlling some sort of memory of the god, this is a very different thing, no?

 

[Makoeyes987]

Well, in the end by that token, all spirit energy is a form of "memory." Because spirit energy is based off of memories.

It's sorta like how the Al Bhed refuse to believe in the "soul" or whatnot because they only see pyreflies and spirit energy as mirrors that reflect memories. That's not the case, the spirit energy does exist as the soul, and is a memory but memory is real.

The spirit, memory, image, etc, of these summons become tangible and are able to be invoked temporarily. They live spiritually, which lets them grow and change through the memories of other people. So while they may be memories, they're alive spiritually and continue to evolve. Bahamut is a perfect example of this.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I'll make one more post and then be done:

"People don't worship things they can't control." The examples everyone has given me of ancient religions are evidence that the function of ancient religions is to exert control over things that cannot otherwise be controlled.

A belief that ancient priests at least claimed to be able to manipulate the gods at their whim. This ranges, of course, from interceding on a people's behalf like the Saints of Catholicism to straight up manipulating the forces of nature. Heck, the Irish believed that if a King was unblemished, the land would be healthy. If the king blemished, the land would die. The land is personified as a goddess. Who is in control here? If a king blemishes, the land diminishes - this is a relationship in which the goddess is that mercy of a king.

Exactly. Ancient humans had no actual control over the fertility of the land - unlike we moderns who have science with which to control nature, and so suppose we don't need religion. So they had to create rituals and contracts - social contracts, spiritual contracts, however you like to think of it - to bring those forces under control. Your land is unruly and uncooperative? Marry it and make it obedient to your will! A claim to be able to control deities is only that, a claim. An unsubstiantied claim based on belief, not proof. No priest of any religion has in reality been able to make rain fall, or crops grow, or enable a woman to survive a difficult childbirth. However, it's far too frightening to accept that we are at the mercy of inanimate forces, like gravity and weather, that don't care whether we, individually, live or die, so we personify them and then think of ways to placate them and get them on our side - and that's religion.

Solomon did not actually possess a ring that containing ten thousand djinns. (I know you know this). This and all other religious stories are stories we tell to comfort ourselves.

In short, religion is an elaborate apparatus that comforts us by letting us believe we can control forces which are, in fact, outside our control. Even a sincerely religious person would have to agree that the practice of their faith is a type of covenant with their god or gods, in which both parties know what is expected of them: the human provides worship and follows the rules, and the god provides the good stuff (e.g. food) and refrains from smiting them with the bad.

As I said, the Summons-Gods of FFXV are a good example of this kind of deity... although even in Eos it doesn't seem that people have an established form of popular worship for these entities.

The summons of FFVII are not outside of human control and therefore there is no reason why a religion would ever evolve in order to exert control over them. People in their world with no apparent faith or knowledge of religion at all, like Cloud, can easily control summons, so religious faith isn't needed to exert control over them.

However, I could totally see a religion for FFVII based around FFXV-style powerful deities with control over both big things - like wind and rain, fertility, disease - and small things - like preventing the porridge from boiling over, finding house keys, and making sure your axe-head doesn't fly off the handle and slice your thigh open. The summons that are conjured out of materia would then not be these entities per se, but a temporary manifestation in corporeal form of their specific powers - like a prayer made flesh, so to speak. "Help me, Shiva!" the summoner cries, and the spirit energy in the materia is able to briefly project a hologram-y image of Shiva to assist you. But that isn't the real Shiva. This would be how their world could have multiple summons for the same entity. They're not a million different little Shivas; they're all projections of the same eternal Shiva.

Maybe when Zack defeated Minerva she hopped back into her Pokeball and he put her in his pocket and took her away. Or maybe she vanished into the realm of the divine and left behind a crystal he could use to summon her projection. Or maybe she was only ever a projection of the real Minerva who exists elsewhere.

I am absolutely not claiming that this is the religion Nojima or anyone else has in mind. I'm only saying that I would find a religion based on the worship of this kind of deity more convicing than imagining the early people of this world started worshipping things that are, essentially, as biddable as a pet dog.

 

[waw]

Yes, obviously I know Solomon didn't have a ring that controlled the spirits... and that claims of such powers are fabrications. Nonetheless, it doesn't stop folk from believing in things well beyond their control that other people control. For whatever pontificating we can do on the subject, we see two direct links between Summoned Beasts and "godhood," so it's not a stretcht to surmise there is some potential correlation between other summoned beasts and religion in the FFVII world.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

You're still not understanding the point I'm striving to make; at least I assume you're not, because you're not responding to it, but re-stating points I have already made. I wish I could explain myself better.
Anyway fwiw I really doubt that the developers have given any serious thought to what the religion of the pre-modern FFVII world was like, or care about making it coherent. It's such a trivial detail - a throwaway remark of Ifalna's, not relevant to the plot. If they do a handwave and say, "Uh, they worshipped summons, I guess," I'll shrug my shoulders and say "Sure, whatever."

 

[waw]

I am missing something for sure and I don't mean to.

What I understand you're saying is humans haven't really controlled these forces of nature.
I'm saying the reality there is irrelevant.. they believe they have. Humans have felt positive in proof of that for millenia.

So in the FFVII world, if there are Summons that people obviously control, it's no different than what humans have believed all around the world (just real). So I think a claim like the FFVII world folks couldn't have gods that are summons is off. But it's also directly contradicted by the game in which two summons are called gods.

Can you point out what I'm missing? I'd like to understand as I think your posts have a value to them.

Anyway fwiw I really doubt that the developers have given any serious thought to what the religion of the pre-modern FFVII world was like, or care about making it coherent. It's such a trivial detail - a throwaway remark of Ifalna's, not relevant to the plot.

Oh you're right. It's a really small comment in a book that likely won't have any sort of larger impact on anything (like the Kiltia faith or Glabados for example). I'm just a super nerd about some of this and I really want to see FFVII have the world-building detail of LOTR or Star Wars honestly XD

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

What I understand you're saying is humans haven't really controlled these forces of nature.
I'm saying that since they cannot physically control these forces of nature, they have to resort to other means - magical, spiritual, call it what you will - in order to create for themselves the comforting illusion that these forces can be controlled. This comforting illusion is called religion.
If a force of nature exists which is already subject to human control - such as summons - they don't need to build a religion around it to pretend to themselve that they can control it.

I'm saying the reality there is irrelevant.. they believe they have. Humans have felt positive in proof of that for millenia.
Yes, I absolutely agree. My point is that they don't need to create a religion in order to believe that they control summons, since they actually DO control summons. So it wouldn't make sense for summons entities, as they currently exist in the world of FFVII, to be the basis of their religion. Why am I going to worship Titan, or even Minerva, when - as long as I have a materia - I can summon them to help me with the heavy lifting any time I like, and they must obey? They're my slaves, not my gods. As far as we know, as far back in time as it goes, that's always been the case in FFVII's world: summons are slaves.

Now in a polytheistic religion like Shinto or Graeco-Roman mythology we do occassionally get tales of divinities finding themselves enslaved to human beings, but they're the exception and it's usually some form of punishment imposed on them by a more powerful god. When gods are punished by ensalvement to mortals, the arrangement is always temporary and a great humiliation to whichever god is being punished.Apollo and Poseidon, for example, were forced by Zeus to work for the King of Troy, building the walls of his city (and then he stiffed them on their wages, but that's another story. Maybe the salient point here is, Cloud isn't paying Bahamut to fight his battles for him! He owns Bahamut. Bahamut is, quite literally, his bitch).

If Square Enix are interested in creating a coherent religion for the world of FFVII that aligns with what sociologists and anthropologists know about how religions evolve, they will have to provide us with more lore than simply stating that a couple of entities with the ability to manifest in summons form are "gods", whatever they mean by that word. To put it another way, if Minerva is the "god" to whom the people in the Sector 5 church used to pray, then she's going to have to be an entity far more powerful and less biddable than the summons we've seen so far in both the OG and the Remake.

It would be fun to play around with, that's for sure.

 

[waw]

Why am I going to worship Titan, or even Minerva, when - as long as I have a materia - I can summon them to help me with the heavy lifting any time I like, and they must obey? They're my slaves, not my gods. As far as we know, as far back in time as it goes, that's always been the case in FFVII's world: summons are slaves.

You have a pretty liberal interpretation of summons here. I don't think in OG FFVII we ever see them do anything other than a singular attack, which means I'm not sure how "slave like" they are. That is, we have no evidence you could summon Shiva to make a block of ice in the desert to make things a bit more comfortable. Time and time again, the heroes are in a perilious situation, like freezing on Gaea's Cliff, and never call upon summons to just do something for them. They never use the summons in any way other than a singular attack. If we're looking for canon representations, there is no other use. Meaning, we have no evidence they are slaves or totally in control.

But there's a few other pieces here.

I'm saying that since they cannot physically control these forces of nature, they have to resort to other means - magical, spiritual, call it what you will - in order to create for themselves the comforting illusion that these forces can be controlled.

Why is this different than using a materia? They aren't controlling it physically.

Further, we have to define what a summon materia and a summoned beast actually are. I believe evidence points to them largely being a memory, meaning, I don't think Ifrit is in that stone. I think a memory of Ifrit is. If that's true, people in FFVII are simultaneously "controlling/enslaving" a summon while not controlling a higher deity. It's like they get to create an echo of that thing, rather than control the whole thing. Does that make sense?

So you have a bit here stating you see no reason why a religion would develop around this stuff and you have a very specific view of why a religion is created - that it's all fabrication and that folks fabricating know this. I don't know that the FF creators always have that clear understanding of religions and their history in mind. There's usually some shred of truth behind their faiths. I'm not sure that'd change in FFVII.

Now in a polytheistic religion like Shinto or Graeco-Roman mythology we do occassionally get tales of divinities finding themselves enslaved to human beings, but they're the exception and it's usually some form of punishment imposed on them by a more powerful god. When gods are punished by ensalvement to mortals, the arrangement is always temporary and a great humiliation to whichever god is being punished.

I don't agree with this at all. Chikata Fujiwara controlled 4 devils/kami that weren't being punished. In many polytheistic religions, like Shinto and Druidry, we see humans with supernatural powers that can, while rare, exert power over the metaphysical universe.

In FFVII, Materia holds a weird role where it's somewhat limited and widespread all at the same time. We do see that ordinary people have it, though they don't always use it well, certainly not like the party does. The Kids are All Right I think sheds good light on this to show the weird balance. Summon materia seems to be quite rare, firstly, but not everyone can just command this stuff. If nothing else, if the MP usage is a reflection of one's spiritual potency, then not all folks are trained enough to use Materia readily and often. We do have, then, the seeds of why someone would create a religious order: if the secrets of magic and materia are kept within a group who meditate, train, and prepare themselves to keep and horde materia and use it, they very well could be a spiritual class akin to druids, shugendo, buddhist monks and more (who are all perceived as having supernatural abilities). We don't know that materia has always been prolifically availabe, and education around it is somewhat lacking.

We don't have evidence to make a lot of claims around religion in FFVII, but we do have two summons referred to as deities. Regardless of our own views as to why and how religions form, their roles in society, etc, something is there.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

If you don't like me calling summons slaves, then I'll call them "tools". A woman doesn't worship her loom. She might worship the forces that could cause the thread to snap, but she won't worship the loom itself. Of course, like a summons, a loom only does one thing. And all summons do is fight. Their usefulness really is exceedingly limited.

If using a crystal, which is a physical object, in order to call an entity into the physical world and compel that entity to interact with said physical world in a physical manner, albeit to the limited extent dictated by that entity's nature - if that isn't physical control, then I don't know what is. The summoner is controlling the summons' physical actions. When I whistle for my dog I'm not literally physically dragging it towards me, but it's physically still under my control. It still obeys me.

Does Chikata Fijiwara make offerings to, and pray to, the four kami under his control? Does anybody pray to them and worship them? Shinto has a hierarchy of divine beings just like every other religion. Is Amaterasu ever compelled to obey the orders of a mortal in the same way that Fujiwara's kami must obey him (until the Emperor steps in, at least).

I am in no way suggesting that summons wouldn't play a role in their religion. I am specifically saying that these entities would not be at the top of the divine hierarchy, they wouldn't be the kind of god you'd pray to on your knees to for help and favour. They'd probably be more like angels or little helpers or emissaries of the divine or mischief makers or all the other million and one immortal beings humans have imagined. Or even demons, who knows? They would not, therefore, be the 'god' to whom Ifalna refers in her throwaway remark.

"We do have two summons referred to as deities. Regardless of our own views as to why and how religions form, their roles in society, etc, something is there." Yes, I acknowledged this. What that something is, we don't yet know. And we may never know.

If you disagree that religions originate from humanity's desire to bring under its (albeit illusory) control forces not under its control, such as the forces of nature, then where do religions come from, in your view?

 

[Makoeyes987]

Further, we have to define what a summon materia and a summoned beast actually are. I believe evidence points to them largely being a memory, meaning, I don't think Ifrit is in that stone. I think a memory of Ifrit is. If that's true, people in FFVII are simultaneously "controlling/enslaving" a summon while not controlling a higher deity. It's like they get to create an echo of that thing, rather than control the whole thing. Does that make sense?

Just to clarify, yes while the "memory" of Ifrit is within that materia, a summoner is conjuring/manifesting the spiritual embodiment of Ifrit into reality and allowing it to act within the physical realm.

It's like how Fayth seal themselves into an eternal dreaming state where their soul is no longer within their physical body, but instead called forth and able to be manifested via pyreflies and in the form of wondrous entities of imagination known as aeons.

In FFVII, "Fayth" aren't needed for whatever reason (probably due to materia functioning as this medium) because those spiritual entities exist in the Lifestream and are able to be recalled through the materia itself. In FFX, for whatever reason, a it takes a living person's soul caught in between life and death, in perpetual dreaming sealed in stone, to conjure the spiritual entities known as Aeons.

Their spirits are able to come back thanks to materia.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

I'm saying that since they cannot physically control these forces of nature, they have to resort to other means - magical, spiritual, call it what you will - in order to create for themselves the comforting illusion that these forces can be controlled. This comforting illusion is called religion.

The thing is... a lot of religions and cultures don't see a whole lot of difference between the physical world and the mental/spiritual world. If you can mently/spiritually control something, you might as well have physical control over it. Or vice versa, pollute a lake and you pollute the god that mystically lives there. Cleanse the god of the lake, and you facilitated the lake cleaning itself faster. They're the same thing just on different "planes" of existence and what happens to one effects the other. They aren't as "seperate" (or at times, at odds with each other) as they often are in Western Thought.

Having the "physical" and "spiritual" be the same thing is... a lot more relevant than a lot of people think even in the modern day. It comes up a lot in Eastern Storytelling like oh... Kingdom Hearts and FFVII. There it's the concept of "心" (kokoro), which is... really, really, really hard to get across in English as English has no *direct* term for it based on how Japanese speakers use it in sentences. It's like the concepts of... "mind/spirit/heart/will/core/core/center/the effect of those on the body" all wrapped up in one word that means all of them at the same time. Kind of like some huge "everything about you that makes you who you are" term ("sense of self" tends to work rather well to get the concept across). And it's not just Japanese that has this kind of term, there's other languages that have it as well. (Here's some insights into what "心" means in relation to Buddhism, scientific discovery and kendo.)

In Kingdom Hearts and FFVII, you have beings who can damage people's "mental/spiritual" sates... which effects their physical bodies as well in some ways. Really, what is being damaged isn't something like the "mind" or "soul", it's the "心". And when people get "healed" from that damage, both their physical body and "mental/spiritual" state is fixed at the same time. Jenova isn't *just* giving people a virus, she isn't *just* showing people illusions.... she's really damaging a person's "sense of self" which causes that person to see themself as as something other than who they truly are. The way to beat Jenova's influence is to have a strong "sense of self" that keeps Jenova's "sense of self" from taking over your own.

Anyway, point being, the difference between "physical" and "spiritual" can be... really fuzzy and almost non-existent in certain cultures. So if people say they have control over a "spiritual" being and that being is thought to have control over a physical reality... people would think they had control of the physical reality. And humans are *really good* at seeing patterns where they want to see them.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Splitting this up because this goes in a *very* different direction.

She might worship the forces that could cause the thread to snap, but she won't worship the loom itself.

This is... totally a thing that can and did happen. Or rather, does happen. We do a similar thing today even subconsciously when we name our cars and give them personalities. See anyone who thought ship spirits was a thing a few hundred years ago or ghost trains on railways... Or anyone who uses Alexia, Cortana, or anything else programed with a personality. Our smartphones have a lot in common with minor gods/kami/etc. and how people *write* about worshiping/using them and sacrificing to them so they do things they want them to do.

Think of people worshiping/sacrificing to a specific diety like how people keep paying to keep rolling on gacha games. Only the gacha game is "will we get rain instead of hail this year?" And the gacha keeps giving you *just* enough of the thing you want from it to justify rolling on the gacha. You *know* it works some of the time, just not all the time, but it's enough to keep you with it and playing.

And don't ask how many game players the world over treat the Random Number Generator like it's some kind of actual higher being with a personality (in their heads). Complete with different ways to "set" the number generator (rituals) and the general idea that if they got a really *good* roll, that means they won't get another one for a while. This one works really well because (a) everyone knows how Random Number Generators *actually* work and (b) everyone knows that because RNGs are *seeded* (based on a non-random input number) they themselves technically do have some control over what the outcome is far down the line. And they want to exercise as *much* control as possible and come up with different things they *think* works based on humanity's shoddy pattern recognition.

Humans are just... drawn... to giving things personalities that fit how that thing functions in the real world... and it's not that big a leap to think that if something has a personality, there might be a way to influence that personality...

If you disagree that religions originate from humanity's desire to bring under its (albeit illusory) control forces not under its control, such as the forces of nature, then where do religions come from, in your view?

As someone who is religious, I'll answer this... with the very large caveat that my religion is on the very far end of the "you cannot control god" spectrum. It should be noted that does *not* mean there are things you do not have control over. Especially in regards to how you yourself react and act in relationship to the world at large (and the ramifications of those actions in the afterlife). Just that trying to "control god" is a futile effort and is the height of arrogance.

In a very real sense, there is something "more" to the world than what is physically "there". The animating force of people's spirits/souls/personality is perhaps the most obvious indicator of this followed up by the beauty of the natural world. What is the point of something so... non-utilitarian as a person's souls or aesthetics that they would both (a) exist and (b) stir up uncontrollable emotions in people. They aren't "needed" strictly speaking for the world to really function. So why are they there?

The answer for the longest time (until recently) has been that there is some "higher" being (or beings) that is (are) intersecting with the physical world in some way. Just as people feel emotions when they interact with other people, they feel emotions as they interact with nature. So just as people have "something" that animates them and gives them life (call it a "soul" for lack of a better term; "animus" is probably closer in some ways), so does everything else in the world. The physical world is a manifestation of some kind of being/s that shows something of the nature of the being/s that created/inhabited it. And like how humans want to have relationships with each other for a myriad of reasons, so they want to have relationships with the being/s who intersect with (and influence) the physical world.

Where religions start breaking apart is when it comes to what kind of "being/s" intersect with the physical world. Is there only one? Is there more than one? Did they create the world? Are they created themselves, or are they "self-existant"? Did they just create the world and leave it alone or are they still active in the world? What kind of relationship do they have with the other inhabitants of their world? That last one is really important because that impacts how they interact with *humanity*. Interestingly, all religions assume these beings *do* notice humanity. It's how they react to humanity that differs... a lot...

But still... apart from all that... knowing that there is "someone else" out there that has some measure of control over the physical world is... *very* comforting. Or at least, it *can* be... and for *many* people it has functioned (and continues to function) this way. The world isn't some random chaotic mess that is directionless. There's a being (or several beings) that are *reliable* in their personalities that have control over what happens in the world. And like how you can *plan* on how to interact with people based on their personality traits, so you can *plan* on how to interact with those beings. Most of religion revolves around this kind of interaction. The generally benevolent beings? don't test their generosity; the generally angry ones? manage their anger so they don't have reason to direct it at *you* (your enemies on the other hand...). For beings that *can't* be influenced? figure out what they *really* want out of people and figure out if the pay-off for doing what they want is worth it or not.

Also comforting is the *very* common idea of the afterlife. Where what a person did while alive is rewarded/punished in some way. It's the ultimate form of "what happened to you and what you did mattered". Even if it was forgotten or not addressed while you were alive, it isn't forgotten in death. In religions without reincarnation, this very often involves humans becoming a lot more *like* the beings they worship. Particularly when it comes to the immortality of the soul and always being in the prime of life. Some forms of the afterlife even involve becoming the kind of being that can intersect with the physical world itself (if a not as powerful one than the "primary" ones). Just about all afterlives have some kind of reward/punishment structure to them, with the point of the religion being to get to the "reward". Reincarnation works a bit differently, but there's very often still some kind of reward/punishment involved with it.

TLDR: Religion takes a scary, random, ultimately meaningless world that has man at it's mercy and makes it into a world man can have *some* aspect of control over and find meaning/fulfillment in. Note that it's less "complete" control that religion is after and more like "enough" control vs "no" control.

 

[waw]

Just to clarify, yes while the "memory" of Ifrit is within that materia, a summoner is conjuring/manifesting the spiritual embodiment of Ifrit into reality and allowing it to act within the physical realm.

Mako, could you provide a source for that? To be quite honest I'm operating under the assumption that Summons aren't all that defined here. Getting something concrete here could really help me wrap my head around this.

If using a crystal, which is a physical object, in order to call an entity into the physical world and compel that entity to interact with said physical world in a physical manner, albeit to the limited extent dictated by that entity's nature - if that isn't physical control, then I don't know what is. The summoner is controlling the summons' physical actions. When I whistle for my dog I'm not literally physically dragging it towards me, but it's physically still under my control. It still obeys me.

I see a lot of religious organizations living in symbiosis with their spiritual world understandings. My shyness to a word like "slave" doubts the complete control over these things, which I currently doubt summon materia gives us.

I do think we're using physically differently. A summoning circle in Christian mysticism theoretically brings in and binds a spirit to a given place that the summoner could then exert their will over. (Whether we believe this is legitimate/real should be set aside here). Wiccan power circles can be somewhat similar. I don't think these mystics would express this as a "phsyical" control, even whent they use objects (wants, stone, salt, etc) there's a metaphsyical component to it all. For whatever reason, I do imagine the use of materia is metaphysical due to how he connects with what... uh... mana? and memory. I think you're calling this physical.

Regardless, I don't see it being a barrier. A lot of what I understand and believe around this hinges on what sort of canon evidence we have on a what a summon is, exactly.

Does Chikata Fijiwara make offerings to, and pray to, the four kami under his control? Does anybody pray to them and worship them? Shinto has a hierarchy of divine beings just like every other religion. Is Amaterasu ever compelled to obey the orders of a mortal in the same way that Fujiwara's kami must obey him (until the Emperor steps in, at least).

I haven't been to all his shrines. There's one shrine that uses a smooth stone, said to be the head of an enemy that Chikata tossed into a well during his rebellion. Praying to it can bring rain. It's something he created with his magic, it's a lesser thing (just a severed enemy head) that's embued with power.

"Worship" is entirely the wrong word to use and it comes from a Judeo-Christian/western concept of how deities are interacted with. That's not the case globally and is one of the main points I'm making.

I am in no way suggesting that summons wouldn't play a role in their religion. I am specifically saying that these entities would not be at the top of the divine hierarchy, they wouldn't be the kind of god you'd pray to on your knees to for help and favour.

I haven't understood your position here. Thank you for clarifying.

If you disagree that religions originate from humanity's desire to bring under its (albeit illusory) control forces not under its control, such as the forces of nature, then where do religions come from, in your view?

It's just such a broad explanation of religion, and we've been using a lot of western concepts, I don't think I'm comfortable with depicting all religions this way. A lot aren't about control, they're about appeasement, or something like Buddhism is about polishing one's self rather than controlling the phsyical world or meta forces or something. The Celts, from what we can typically tell, lived in conjunction with that world, with power going back and forth.

I also don't think I can ardently say this stuff is all fabrications either. I am religious, I do have a metaphysical worldview (despite often operating as if I were an atheist). One, that's asserting my view onto others, which I can't do. Second, I can understand why folks hold their religious views, which does involve various degrees of control (and lack thereof). It's just too diverse for me to make broad claims.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

The thing is... a lot of religions and cultures don't see a whole lot of difference between the physical world and the mental/spiritual world. If you can mently/spiritually control something, you might as well have physical control over it. Or vice versa, pollute a lake and you pollute the god that mystically lives there. Cleanse the god of the lake, and you facilitated the lake cleaning itself faster. They're the same thing just on different "planes" of existence and what happens to one effects the other. They aren't as "seperate" (or at times, at odds with each other) as they often are in Western Thought.

I know that. Indeed that's a significant point in my argument whole point. Let's use the weather as an example. I think we can all agree that pre-Industrial Revolution humans had no means of controlling the weather. Our inability to control the weather was inconvenient to say the least, and often deadly. So we personified the forces that create the weather and then imagined the spiritual world where we can, indeed, talk to, pray to, negotiate with, placate, and so on, the forces that control the weather. Or at least we believe we can. If you're someone who believes that by praying to God or Zeus or Amaterasu you can ensure that the sun shines on your wedding, I'm not going to disrespect your faith. My point is that if human beings actually could control the weather in the same way that we can control a rake or a car or, in FFVII< a summons, we would have no reason to invent and worship weather deities.

People don't worship their cars. They don't kneel down and pray to their cars. There's no religion based on negotiating with cars so that they will take us where we want to go. Some people personify their cars, but that's not the same thing. Human beings tend to personify and anthropomorphise just about anything that moves.

Having the "physical" and "spiritual" be the same thing is... a lot more relevant than a lot of people think even in the modern day. It comes up a lot in Eastern Storytelling like oh... Kingdom Hearts and FFVII. There it's the concept of "心" (kokoro), which is... really, really, really hard to get across in English as English has no *direct* term for it based on how Japanese speakers use it in sentences. It's like the concepts of... "mind/spirit/heart/will/core/core/center/the effect of those on the body" all wrapped up in one word that means all of them at the same time. Kind of like some huge "everything about you that makes you who you are" term ("sense of self" tends to work rather well to get the concept across). And it's not just Japanese that has this kind of term, there's other languages that have it as well. (Here's some insights into what "心" means in relation to Buddhism, scientific discovery and kendo.)

That's very interesting, but I'm not sure it's relevant to what I said. Of course humans conflate the physical and the spiritual - this is the consequence of our desire to physically control physical things and physical forces we cannot physically control, and therefore we assign them a spiritual existence as well and seek to manage them via the spiritual route instead.

In Kingdom Hearts and FFVII, you have beings who can damage people's "mental/spiritual" sates... which effects their physical bodies as well in some ways. Really, what is being damaged isn't something like the "mind" or "soul", it's the "心". And when people get "healed" from that damage, both their physical body and "mental/spiritual" state is fixed at the same time. Jenova isn't *just* giving people a virus, she isn't *just* showing people illusions.... she's really damaging a person's "sense of self" which causes that person to see themself as as something other than who they truly are. The way to beat Jenova's influence is to have a strong "sense of self" that keeps Jenova's "sense of self" from taking over your own.

Maybe a translation for kokoro would be "essence of one's being"? These abstract concepts are often a challenge to translate directly from one language to another.
Again, that's interesting, but it has no relevance to what I was talking about.

Anyway, point being, the difference between "physical" and "spiritual" can be... really fuzzy and almost non-existent in certain cultures. So if people say they have control over a "spiritual" being and that being is thought to have control over a physical reality... people would think they had control of the physical reality. And humans are *really good* at seeing patterns where they want to see them.

I don't know how many times I have to say "Yes, I know." The reason the border between the physical and the spiritual is fuzzy is precisely the reason I have already given many times. Well, that's one of the two main reasons. The other is that it's always been well known by humans that what hurts or heals our flesh can also hurt or heal our souls/minds/self (whatever you want to call it), and thanks to our tendency to anthropomorphise, we assume the same is true of the whole of the natural world. If we assume the land has a spiritual dimension, a soul, as well as a physical dimension, a body, then of course it is going to be wounded in its spirit when its soil is poisoned by toxic chemicals. And if you offend it spiritually, then of course it will respond with a crop failure.

You keep talking about effects here when I'm talking about the cause of those effects.