Given the plot differences between the original resident evil 4 (2005) and the remake Resident Evil 4 (2023), plus the aim of the article, the present writer has arranged the plot as necessary, to best get across the spirit of the game.

Part 1: Village, The Parasitic Body, Castle

Chapter 1: Village

Resident Evil 4 changed video games forever. The game took the horror genre which the franchise was known for, kept that tension and built it into an action game, with a camera system that influenced virtually all third-person shooters to follow. Nearly two decades later, Game Informer said Resident Evil 4 is “the most important third-person shooter ever,” as the game “innovated two genres.”1 Resident Evil 4 inspired both the survival horror and shooter genres.2

Part of the success of the game was undoubtedly its story. Particularly the game’s narrative use of inverted religious themes. There’s a parasitic body, a Pharaoh, and the plagues.

Narratively, the game is set in the early 2000s. It begins with United States special agent Leon S. Kennedy. He’s a somewhat grizzled veteran now, six years after gamers first met him in Resident Evil 2. There, he was a capable but novice policeman. It was during the T-Virus zombie outbreak in Raccoon City.

Due to his heroic efforts there, and the knowledge he gained about Umbrella Corporation’s horrific experiments with viruses—plus the government’s cooperation with Umbrella Corporation—Leon was ‘asked’ to report directly to the President of the United States for covert operations. Leon trained extensively for his new role, with his mentor Major Jack Krauser; a figure who will become important later.

The game opens six years after the events which led to the destruction of Raccoon City. And Resident Evil 4 opens specifically with the following scene, which is taken from the game’s script.3

“[In a dark room, lit only by a dozen candles, several black-clad monks perform a ritual. One of them, standing at the altar, holds the girl trying to escape. Another reads a prayer in Spanish.]

[Prayer in English]

‘Submerged in the purifying waters, shrouded by an immaculate [...] and that we offer to you. Oh, Lord, let your light shine (over her path) to your paradise. Accept this lamb, show your might and take us into your paradise, into your immaculate bosom. Oh, Lord!’

[The girl's mouth is tied and her body is covered with bruises and bloodstains. A monk dressed in an executioner's mask draws his axe over the girl's head. The axe falls and the music drowns the rest of their mumblings. The blood flows down to the altar, which bears the symbol of four bound hands against the moon.]”

Leon’s new mission is dear to the President, because the President’s daughter Ashley Graham has been kidnapped from the university she attends. The abductors are an evil cult, and U. S. intelligence has determined that Ashley is in rural Spain. So Leon is sent to the Spanish countryside; to the small Spanish village where Ashley was last sighted.

When Leon arrives, he finds that the locals are unexplainably hostile. The villagers are all followers of the Los Iluminados cult, which is the cult that captured Ashley. And the villagers all carry a mind-controlling parasite: Las Plagas.

More than anything, the game inverts the mystical Body of Christ. The game does so, through the narrative use of the parasite. There are also inverted elements of the Eucharist, which is another meaning of that phrase the Body of Christ. In essence, Resident Evil 4 shows the opposite of what a community is. The opposite of what a properly functioning religious organization organism is.4

To understand the symbolism of the game, we have to keep in mind that phrase the Body of Christ. It’s “a significant term for the church and a good way to understand the church. It affirms that Jesus is the head of the church. We as believers follow Christ, listen to Christ, and let Christ guide our steps, just as the head of the body does.”5 The phrase is important because Resident Evil 4 is about the parasitic body. The inverted body. A body aimed down rather than up. A body which is aimed at evil and control, rather than goodness and obedience.

Saint Paul the Apostle explains the phrase the ‘Body of Christ,’ in 1 Corinthians 12:16-18: “And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact, God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.” In Resident Evil 4, the cult is a parasitic and inverted body—the opposite of the Body of Christ.6

There are also the Exodus plagues in Resident Evil 4. These plagues are caused by the cult. A smaller example is how there are flies in the villagers’ houses; particularly in their cooking pots: “The fourth plague, flies, was a judgment on Uatchit, the fly god. In this plague, God clearly distinguished between the Israelites and the Egyptians, as no swarms of flies bothered the areas where the Israelites lived (Exodus 8:21–24).”7

The villagers’ livestock can also be killed—with a cow even being set on fire to burn the villagers:

“The fifth plague, the death of livestock, was a judgment on the goddess Hathor and the god Apis, who were both depicted as cattle. As with the previous plague, God protected His people from the plague, while the cattle of the Egyptians died. God was steadily destroying the economy of Egypt, while showing His ability to protect and provide for those who obeyed Him. Pharaoh even sent investigators (Exodus 9:7) to find out if the Israelites were suffering along with the Egyptians, but the result was a hardening of [Pharaoh’s] heart against the Israelites.8

“The sixth plague, boils, was a judgment against several gods over health and disease (Sekhmet, Sunu, and Isis). This time, the Bible says that the magicians ‘could not stand before Moses because of the boils.’”9 In the game, those who have the parasite experience physical changes. Not boils, but a blackening of the skin as the veins turn black; most prominently in the person’s face.

The plagues are not Leon’s fault. They are brought on by the cult. In particular, by the ‘Pharaoh’ Lord Saddler. He is revealed to be the real leader of the cult. Saddler sets himself up as a god. Yet Leon ends up using these plagues against the cult. It’s as though God is on the side which opposes the tyrannical Pharaoh.

There are ten plagues in the Old Testament account of Exodus. The Nile turns to blood, there’s frogs in the water, lice from the earth, swarms of flies, death of the livestock, ashes turn to boils and sores, locust in the skies, fire from the sky, three days of darkness, and finally the death of the firstborn. All ten plagues are used in Resident Evil 4. And Leon is attempting to escape the tyranny of Saddler—to return to the freedom which Leon and Ashley had in the United States—as the Americans are akin to the Israelites attempting to leave Pharaoh’s Egypt.

Orthodox thinker Jonathan Pageau explains how the Exodus plagues are an undoing of Creation:

“What you’ll see now in the plagues, is you’re going to see something like this, something like death coming from below, and getting higher and higher. So it starts with just the water, which is turned into blood. Now from the water come these frogs. Then later you’ll see from the dust, comes the lice and then the livestock. And it’s going to continue. The undoing of creation, you can understand it that way.

“That is, creation is this union of heaven and earth and now there’s going to be an undoing where at first you’re going to see the revolution of the earth from below, and then you’re going to see a kind of oppression and hostility in aerial phenomena. Even during the flood, we tend to think of the flood just as the water, but that’s not what’s going on. There’s the water and the heavens. And it’s the separation of the two, which undoes the world. So we think of the flood just as the water, but you can think of the image of just water and just heaven, and nothing alive in-between.”10

Additionally, as BibleProject says: “[Pharaoh] is not only doing bad things, but he is fundamentally misrepresenting the rule and character of God.” So “when God brings the ten acts of de-creation upon Egypt, God says it’s a judgment against Pharaoh and the gods of Egypt. This isn’t run-of-the-mill human stupidity or simply poor decision making. Pharaoh and Egypt represent the height of corruption and rebellion, partnered with spiritual rebellion. Pharaoh represents the snake, the archetypal foe of Yahweh among the nations.”11

“There are times when God deals [in] severe justice with human evil. And you learn something about someone’s character from how they respond to really horrendous evil.”12 Saddler has a staff made of worms or snakes; as he is “the height of corruption and rebellion, partnered with spiritual rebellion.”13 He’s attempting to control the entire world, as if he is God.

Catholic and Orthodox bishops also carry a staff with snakes. Those staffs are related to the symbolism of medicine, calling back to the bronze serpent in Exodus; where poison is used to make an antidote.14 Saddler’s staff is not that because he is the opposite of the bishop. The bishop represents faith in God, Saddler represents selfishness or ‘faith’ in oneself. Saddler wants everyone to place their ‘trust’ in him. Rather than place faith and trust in God; Saddler demands his own will be done.

“By not acknowledging Yahweh’s name, Pharaoh is not only denying the basis of his own existence, but setting himself up as an equal rival to Yahweh.”15 For “Yahweh’s response to evil in the Exodus narrative becomes a defining mark in Yahweh’s revelation of his own name, and consequently, in the identity of the people of Israel and the story of the Bible.”16

Chapter 2: The Parasitic Body

Soon the village chief captures Leon, and injects Leon with the parasite. Now Leon is on the path to becoming part of the parasitic body. He wakes up and realizes he is chained to someone else. That person is Luis Sera, who claims to only be a researcher; who was looking into Las Plagas. A former researcher, who was assisting the cult.

Leon and Luis are able to escape their captivity, but Luis runs away without giving further information. Then Leon learns that Ashley is locked up in a church, and he rescues her. The church has been repurposed by the cult, complete with rainbow-coloured lighting. In due time, it’s revealed that Ashley was also injected with the parasite, which will eventually make her part of the parasitic body.

Next, the plan of Lord Saddler is revealed. Ashley was injected with the parasite and Saddler intends to have her inject her father the President, with that same mind-controlling parasite. Then Saddler can control the world through the President. Saddler is the Pharaoh who will not let the Israelites leave their bondage; as Leon and Ashley are both literally tied up at different points in the game.

We should also note how God uses Moses to tell Pharaoh: "Let my people go, that they may serve me."17 Because Leon does the same. Throughout the game, Leon begins experiencing visions of Saddler because of the parasite. It’s akin to Moses meeting with Pharaoh over and over. Here is the first vision:

“[Leon wakes up. His eyes are foggy and he cannot see clearly. A monk in a robe is leaning over him.]

Monk: Sacrificial lamb. You will receive our most sacred body. It begins now.”

And there are other times when Leon sees Saddler:

“[Leon sleeps, he sees the monk again, wearing a black robe and carrying a staff, the stem of which appears to be alive.]

Saddler: Sacrificial lamb. You will receive our most sacred body. It begins now. When day breaks, you too will join our covenant. To share in my holy blessing … forever.

[Saddler extends his hand to Leon, from which some worms crawl out. Leon's head begins to hurt badly, and he screams in pain as he wakes up.]”

Once, when Leon encounters Saddler, the Pharaoh says: “Cease your pointless struggling. Abandon your body to the will of our God.” And there are other times when Saddler speaks about the body he is to be the head of: “Prostrate yourselves! This is our Holy Body. Our divine providence! And soon … such a profound blessing for all … las plagas! Welcome, my children. I am Osmund Saddler. The speaker for our Lord.” Saddler also says: “I simply wish to share this gift with as many as possible. A humble wish, don't you think? You see, we are all connected through the Holy Body. And now your flesh and bones, your very thoughts … are already one with us.”

The Latin phrase for the ‘Body of Christ’ is Corpus Christi. Now there’s a lot of confusion, even among devout Catholics, as to what is meant by the idea that the bread and wine transform into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Many faithful Catholics still hold a scientific worldview, when it comes to what’s happening in the Mass. That’s where much of the interest around Eucharistic miracles originates from—claims that the bread at Mass has human DNA. The Church holds a different idea; even though some of those miracles could be real.

The real idea of transubstantiation, entirely transcends the limited—but very useful in certain circumstances; such as medicine or physics—scientific worldview. Science is only one form of knowledge. A person need only look to the experience of love, to know that the material explanation of oxytocin as a bonding chemical doesn’t fully explain the phenomenon of love.

Even people who would say that such a scientific explanation is sufficient, don’t act as it if that explanation is sufficient. They still fall in love and make decisions based on love—not decisions which are scientifically based; not decisions based on the scientific method, about love.

Saint John the Evangelist says God is love. Because God, love, transubstantiation—all of these things are outside the bounds of scientific knowledge. Science is not the only way for human beings to know something, even though science is extremely useful and compatible with faith.

Again, the phrase “the body of Christ” can refer to what Christ said about the body and blood, the bread and wine at the Last Supper. Or it can refer to the mystical congregation of all the people in the Church, united in a mystical body with Christ as the head.

The first sense is found in Luke 22:19-20. In reference to the bread, Christ says “This is my body.” The second sense is found in 1 Corinthians 12:12-14. There, Saint Paul talks about how all those who are in the Church are “in Christ.”

Some Protestant groups consider the words of Jesus at the Last Supper, to refer to only a symbol. The bread and wine are only a symbol of Jesus’ body and blood. The Catholics and Orthodox disagree, and hold that at a non-scientific and metaphysical level, there is a transformation of the bread and wine into the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ of Nazareth; the Second Person of the Holy Trinity; the Logos Incarnate; the Word Become Flesh.

The transformation—transubstantiation is the word used, means the ‘essence’ has changed. The bread is now the Body of Christ, which is why Catholics kneel in the direction of the bread before sitting down in a pew. It really is the Body of Christ, once the priest speaks the words of consecration. None of that means that a microscope would find human DNA in the bread. Because the claim is about a metaphysical change of essence. It’s held to be a miracle.

To the human eye and the tools of science, nothing has changed about the bread. But at a deeper level of reality, to which science has no access and human beings can only interact with through faith, there’s been a fundamental change of essence. So the substance has changed, transubstantiation, but in the ancient use of the word ‘substance’. It originally meant something closer to essence. Now when people hear the word substance, they think of a material and scientific—physical, reality. But that is not what is happening, nor is that what is meant.

The philosopher Aristotle used the terms ‘substance’ and ‘accident,’ then Saint Thomas Aquinas used those terms himself, to write about transubstantiation. One could think of a chair—where the accident is the wood, and the substance is the idea or essence of what makes a chair a chair.

But by the time of the Protestant Reformation—when Aquinas’ view of transubstantiation was being rejected—the meaning of the word ‘substance’ had moved from meaning essence, to meaning what it does now: the physical properties observable under a microscope. So in a sense, the word substance had taken on the meaning of the word accident. Which is to say, that Saint Thomas Aquinas would have rejected that new, scientific and physical meaning of transubstantiation too—the meaning which the Reformers were reading back into Aquinas.18

Often when Catholics hear that the bread is actually, or really, or truly, or literally, the body and blood of Jesus Christ—Catholics think there is a scientific and physical change of the bread. Which goes to show that even many devout Catholics primarily view reality through the lens of a scientism—as though science is the only form of knowledge we have.

With Aristotle, the ‘substance’ is the essence and the ‘accident’ is the material reality. The material reality remains, the bread—scientifically observable—but because the substance has changed, the essence is no longer bread, but is now the Body of Christ.

To avoid all the confusion of these terms, it’s often said that the real presence of Christ is in the Eucharist. That’s another way of saying that the essence has changed. It does not mean something scientific or physical has changed. Even though that could possibly happen, as an additional miracle; over and above transubstantiation.

The priest presents the essence to the believer and says “the Body of Christ.” And because of the changed essence, the believer says “Amen.” The believer is not agreeing that the bread has scientifically and physically changed; or that the bread now has human DNA in it. Rather, the believer is agreeing that metaphysically—at a level of reality beyond the physical world—the substance, the essence of the bread, is now the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ.

As the game progresses, Leon goes to a lake and fight a giant sea monster which is a leviathan; leaving the lake filled with the blood of that ‘god’: “The first plague, turning the Nile to blood, was a judgment against Apis, the god of the Nile[;] Isis, goddess of the Nile[;] and Khnum, guardian of the Nile. The Nile was also believed to be the bloodstream of Osiris, who was reborn each year when the river flooded. The river, which formed the basis of daily life and the national economy, was devastated, as millions of fish died in the river and the water was unusable. Pharaoh was told, “By this you will know that I am the LORD” (Exodus 7:17).”

There’s also three times where Leon must fight an El Gigante, a giant. A giant which was created through experiments on humans. As biblically, giants emerge from demons procreating with the ‘daughters of men’. These are similar origins, one expressed scientifically and one in spiritual terms. The origin of the giants in Resident Evil 4 is the same as the parasitic body and the plagues, in the sense that the game gives a scientific reasoning for the existence of these spiritual realities.

Near that time, Leon also encounters the village chief once more. Leon kills the village chief, despite the chief transforming into a giant parasitic monster.

After, Leon and Ashley seek safety in a nearby castle; as the American evacuation helicopter which they are waiting for cannot land due to a thunderstorm. Leon and Ashley find more cult members inside the castle. And they encounter Ramon Salazar, who is the head of the royal family; the family who has lived in the castle for generations. Soon, Salazar is revealed to be working for Lord Saddler. Deep within the castle, Leon and Ashley are separated yet again and Ashley is captured.

Chapter 3: Castle

The castle is roughly the beginning of the last stages of the plague narrative. There is inclement weather which prevents the evacuation. Fire which reigns down from the sky, sent by catapults in the castle towers.19 And there is darkness for the rest of the game.

“Before God sent the last three plagues, Pharaoh was given a special message from God. These plagues would be more severe than the others, and they were designed to convince Pharaoh and all the people ‘that there is none like me in all the earth’ (Exodus 9:14). Pharaoh was even told that he was placed in his position by God, so that God could show His power and declare His name through all the earth (Exodus 9:16).”20

And “the seventh plague, hail, attacked Nut, the sky goddess; Osiris, the crop fertility god; and Set, the storm god. This hail was unlike any that had been seen before. It was accompanied by a fire which ran along the ground, and everything left out in the open was devastated by the hail and fire. Again, the children of Israel were miraculously protected, and no hail damaged anything in their lands.

“Before God brought the next plague, He told Moses that the Israelites would be able to tell their children of the things they had seen God do in Egypt and how it showed them God’s power. The eighth plague, locusts, again focused on Nut, Osiris, and Set. The later crops, wheat and rye, which had survived the hail, were now devoured by the swarms of locusts. There would be no harvest in Egypt that year. The ninth plague, darkness, was aimed at the sun god, Re, who was symbolized by Pharaoh himself. For three days, the land of Egypt was smothered with an unearthly darkness, but the homes of the Israelites had light.”21

There will be more on the locust to follow, as Resident Evil 4 places the locust later in the plague narrative than Exodus does.

Pharaoh was the king of the Egyptians, and was worshiped by his people because the people thought he was the greatest god. It was believed Pharaoh was the son of the Egyptian god Ra—the sun god. Pharaoh was considered an incarnation of divinity.22

Following the three days of darkness, Pharaoh continued his bargaining with the Lord, offering Moses another compromise. Nearly all Egyptian-owned animals were destroyed in the plagues. So Pharaoh told Moses that the Israelites could leave Egypt, but the Israelites had to leave their animals in Egypt.

That offer was rejected. Because the animals were intended to be offered by the Israelites in the desert, as a sacrifice to God. Then Pharaoh warned Moses:

“Get thee from me, take heed to thyself, see my face no more; for in that day thou seest my fact thou shalt die.” And Moses said, “Thus saith the Lord, About midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt: And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the firstborn of the maidservant that is behind the mill; and all the firstborn of beasts. And there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall be like it any more."23

Leon essentially makes the same promise to Saddler, because Saddler will not let Leon or Ashley leave their captivity in Spain.

While Leon and Ashley are in the castle, Luis the researcher is searching for the antigen which will slow the parasitic infection. The antigen will not remove the parasite, but the antigen will delay the mind-controlling effects. Luis is also searching for a sample of the parasite, which he is able to find and Luis brings it to Leon.

Luis reveals that he is helping the Americans because Luis wants to atone for his sin of researching Las Plagas. But Luis is stabbed by Major Jack Krauser, the man who trained Leon. Then Leon fights Krauser and is able to force Krauser to run away, as Luis gives Leon the key to Luis’ lab, right before Luis finally dies.

Eventually, Saddler is able to recover the parasite sample. Leon holds onto the antigen which was given by Luis. During the castle segment, the spy Ada Wong emerges and assists Leon. She was also in Resident Evil 2, assisting Leon in a mysterious way. Leon makes his way alone through the castle, to fight Ramon Salazar. One of the things Ramon Salazar says is the following:

“Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Kennedy. How noble. Nonetheless, you see, the girl must be ours. With that girl as the very source, your United States, and then … the entire world shall overflow with his grace. For that is the iron will of my master, the most holy Lord Saddler! So then, you will comply, yes?” It’s clear that there is an inverted shepherd in the person of Saddler, who aims to make the whole world his body. Ramon Salazar is part of that parasitic and ‘mystical’ body.

Leon reaches the part of the castle where Ashley is being kept hostage. And the following ensues, showing the game’s commitment to the parasitic and inverted body.

“[Leon] makes his way to the castle on top and enters a room with an altar that we could see in the opening cutscene, but now this room is lit by many candles and a huge chandelier above. Leon notices Ashley lying on the altar.]

Leon: Ashley!

[He tries to touch her, but some unknown force stops his hand. The girl's face, or rather the veins in her face, have already turned black. Just like the rest of her body.]

Saddler: You have come, my child.

Leon: What ... do you want?

Saddler: I simply wish to share this gift with as many as possible. A humble wish, don't you think? You see, we are all connected through the Holy Body. And now your flesh and bones, your very thoughts … are already one with us.

Leon: Bullshit.

Saddler: Why do you reject serenity? When you need only accept the sacred gift? Like ... she did.

Leon: Saddler!

Saddler: Ah yes. The time has come … for this lamb to join our covenant! Oh, blessings unto him and the sweet mercy they bring. Exult all—and let it be so!”

Saddler, being the head of the parasitic body—the body aimed down rather than up—wants to exult himself and that body. Which is the opposite of what Christ says in Luke 14:10: “For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” But Saddler’s body is upside down, so Leon is sent down to the bottom of the castle through a trapdoor. He is unable to save Ashley.

In the castle’s watery depths, Leon has to fight amphibious monsters in the water—as one Exodus plague is frogs in the water. And Leon finds the following note:

“May, nine years since my awakening—

Upon the release of this valve, black liquid shall, enter my veins and circulate throughout my entire body.

I expect this will be the most painful experience of my life.

I await the trial with great anticipation. It is an honor to suffer through the holy labor of rebirth.

The next time I awaken, it will be as a true servant of Master Ramón.

I, Isidro Uriarte Talavera, make this vow.

I will surpass the limitations of man and become a true servant of God.

I will find the heretics and serve as their executioner. Their Verdugo. [Spanish; executioner.]”

Leon ultimately kills that parasitic monster in the depths, and then kills Ramon Salazar; after Salazar transforms into a giant parasite. Next, Leon follows Krauser who has now taken Ashley to a nearby island, which has an industrial-looking facility on it. Soon, Leon finds Ashley on the island facility, but Saddler finds them both and uses the parasite to halt Leon’s movement.

“Saddler: Foolish lambs. Why do you deny grace?

[He waves his hand and Leon and Ashley fall to their knees.]

Saddler: Now, abandon your body! Obey. Obey the voice of our Lord.”

Part 2: Island, Parasites, The Red Sea

Chapter 4: Island

Saint Paul in his letter to the Ephesians, describes three aspects of the Body of Christ. Those “who heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit" (Ephesians 1:13;) people who "are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit" (Ephesians 2:22;) and those who are "joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love" (Ephesians 4:16). Saddler is attempting to make a parasitic body, which is an inversion of all these positive aspects of a body which are described by Paul.

Christ linked himself with the poor, and the poor are also called the Body of Christ. Pope Francis said the following, speaking at the World Day of the Poor. "If we truly wish to encounter Christ, we have to touch his body in the suffering bodies of the poor, as a response to the sacramental communion bestowed in the Eucharist. The Body of Christ, broken in the sacred liturgy, can be seen, through charity and sharing, in the faces and persons of the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters."24 In Resident Evil 4, the parasitic body extends to the whole community of villagers. But it’s an inverted body, which has the evil Saddler as the mind-controlling head of that body.

Leon shoots Saddler during that earlier confrontation on the island. With Saddler saying: “Pray, forgive these wicked sinners. My faithful disciple shall deliver to you[,] your ... penance. Now child, you need not be afraid. Submit your body and release yourself from fear!”

Saddler is relatively unaffected by the bullet and escapes with Ashley. Leon continues moving across the island facility, searching for Ashley. He learns that Krauser was responsible for the initial kidnapping of Ashley. Krauser did that because of the U.S. government’s cover-up of a mission Krauser was on, where his entire unit was killed but he survived.

Due to Krauser’s resentment over the United States’ handling of that incident, Krauser took Las Plagas, in order to become a mutant who would be more powerful than a normal human. A parasitic and inverted body, Krauser is like the Egyptian magicians. Jonathan Pageau notes how the Egyptian magicians can reproduce the plagues, but that isn’t necessarily a good thing.

“It’s interesting to notice that when the magicians are doing the plagues, it’s funny that they just reproduce the plagues, which [are] causing them harm; instead of healing the plagues. They’re not stopping the plagues. They’re just showing that they can do the same. And so they’re actually increasing the plague, through their magic, rather than stopping it. Because you’ll see in the story of Exodus, you’ll see places where the Israelites have issues and God solves their issues; He helps them.

“It’s not like—I don’t know the snakes in the desert are biting the Israelites and it’s like ‘oh this is a sign from God,’ so Moses shows that he can make snakes also bite the Israelites. No. It’s like God is healing them. But here, the magicians just repeat the same magic. Ultimately harming their own land at the same time. So it’s very interesting to see that.”25 

Krauser is using Ashley to gain Saddler’s trust, so that Krauser can steal the parasite sample. Ada Wong and Krauser are both working as mercenaries, attempting to retrieve the sample for Albert Wesker, who is the real villain of the Resident Evil series. Wesker is suspicious of the spy Ada Wong’s intentions. Meanwhile, Saddler thinks that either death—Leon or Krauser, will benefit Saddler. So Saddler wants Krauser to kill Leon, but Saddler doesn’t care if Krauser dies in the attempt.

Krauser says the following to Leon about the parasitic body, right before Krauser and Leon fight: “I'm not surprised you made it this far! Not bad, but I didn't expect anything less. After all, I know your potential better than anyone. It's a damn shame you can't see the truth. How long do you plan to fight in that primitive body of yours?” Leon fights Krauser and kills Krauser, although Leon does not want to kill Krauser; given their history in the military. But Leon does reluctantly kill Krauser, with Krauser’s own small knife, the one which Krauser used in training Leon.

And all across the island there are locust; one of the plagues. These locust are human-sized flying bugs with camouflage.26 Near when they are first encountered, the following note is found. It’s taken from the cult’s holy book; with the last line having echoes of God promising Abraham a lineage: a lineage as numerous as the stars one sees in the daytime—meaning stars not even visible, stars one cannot even begin to count.

“Praise be to the holy insects!

We have been promised paradise on earth!

Man, woman, or child!

His love does not discriminate! Beast, fish, or bird!

All creatures shall be equally blessed!

Praise be to the holy insects! We are the humble servants of God!

His wisdom will overcome any mountain!

His omnipotence will cross any ocean!

The light of heaven dwells in all things!

Let our bodies be the seedbed!

Praise be to the holy insects!

We are the flock and the shepherd guides us!

Our prayers will be sung all over the world! They will be heard by all!

At last, we shall exceed the stars in the sky!”

This is how the locust plague was developed:

“July, two years since my awakening—

Master Ramón has bestowed upon me a truly righteous undertaking to improve upon the flaws of our human form to seek perfection as observed in our arthropodal siblings.

To this cause I shall willingly devote my life.

January, four years since my awakening—

My efforts to transfuse the black liquid into the body are at the precipice of success.

The womb is the key.

A pure soul proves to be a highly malleable and adaptive subject.

January, six years since my awakening—

I have named these sacred larvae, carried in the wombs of the chosen, U-II after my own. They shall carry the prestige of my family name as if I had spawned them of my own flesh.

The U-II are now close to the size of adult humans, and they continue to feed and multiply. I have successfully created a new species!

Master Ramón has recognized my efforts and blessed me with his praise. He has taken to U-II, calling them Novistador, meaning "The Unseen."

I've been told that his holiness, Lord Saddler himself, has also expressed pleasure with my work.

What an extraordinary honor this is! I can hardly see the tip of my quill through the tears of joy.

His humble servant, Isidro Uriarte Talavera.”

Additionally, on the island research facility, there are enemies called Regenerators. If the player shoots off a Regenerator’s body parts, the Regenerator will regenerate those body parts instantly. The only way to kill a Regenerator is to use a thermal scope, so that the player can shoot the different parasites in the Regenerator’s body. All the parasites must be destroyed for the body of the Regenerator to explode.

Here is more writing which the player finds, explaining the Regenerators:

“Upon examining the body with a biosensor scope. I was able to confirm that the parasites behave like vital organs for the host, almost as though it has multiple hearts!

This new creation of mine is essentially immortal.

Surely, even Dr. Frankenstein himself would want to shake my hand in admiration!”

The Regenerators are clearly another abomination of the body. After reading that note, the following happens: “[And at that moment, a naked body enters the room, but it does not look human at all. The face of the monster has a huge mouth with many sharp teeth. The body of the monster looks like a fat man who has lost a considerable amount of his weight.]” Once Leon starts shooting it: “[The Regenerator instantly rebuilds the upper part of his body.]”

Pressing through the island facility, Leon finds Ashley once more but Saddler shows up and attempts to control Leon through Las Plagas. However, the spy Ada Wong is on a balcony and shoots Saddler—Saddler loses his focus on controlling Leon—and while Saddler is relatively immune to the bullets because of his mutations, there has been enough of a distraction for Leon and Ashley to escape.

Soon after the escape, the effects of Las Plagas have almost entirely taken over Leon. Ashley is not even conscious anymore. But Leon carries Ashley to Luis’ laboratory on the island.

Chapter 5: Parasites

Here are the instructions for eliminating the parasite in the laboratory.

“There are two ways to eradicate las plagas: antigen injection and surgery.

If the parasite has not hatched yet. it can be treated by administering antigen directly into the body.

Once it has hatched however, there's not much that can be done besides slow its growth.

With surgery, the plaga can be targeted and killed using a certain wavelength of radiation.

But this is not without its risks. If the parasite has attached itself to the host's nervous system, the host will experience excruciating pain. And there is no effective anesthesia for this kind of procedure.

Surgical removal carries considerable risks, even before the parasite has fully developed.

Once fully grown however, it is too late: removing the parasite would kill the host.

But considering what will happen to them, death may be a mercy.”

The University of Toronto cognitive scientist John Vervaeke uses the phrase parasitic processing: “Every time you're exercising your intelligent agency, you're making yourself vulnerable to self-deceptive self-destructive processing.”27 One way to understand parasitic processing, is through the example of addiction.

The addiction is a demon and also a parasite, which will destroy its host. The parasitic processing, which the addiction is, will make the host submit all goals toward the addiction. An addict will sell their belongings for the substance they are addicted to. The parasite will use the host, for the parasite’s dark aims—even if that destroys the host in the process.28

Vervaeke explains further. “It's like a parasite in that it takes up life within you, and it takes life away from you. It causes you to lose your agency. It causes you to suffer. And here's what's important. This capacity for your cognitive brain to be self-organizing, heuristic using, [heuristic meaning essentially a mental shortcut;] complexify, to create complex systems and functions with emergent abilities, [it] has a downside to it.”29

“This is a complex, self-organizing, adaptive system. If you try and intervene here the rest of the system reorganizes itself around your attempted intervention. It can adapt and preserve itself as you tried to destroy it. Why? Because it's making use of the very machinery by which you adapt, and [makes] use of the things that are trying to destroy you. That's how it works. No matter where I am, this is a perennial threat. No matter what I am doing, [parasitic processing] is always liable to happen.”30 One is reminded both of the Regenerators, where only destroying all of the parasites will work, and one is also reminded of the parasites themselves—which attach to the already existing human nervous system, the host, and use the host for the parasite’s dark aims.

There are many Bible verses about parasites. Acts 12:23 says: “Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last.” Then there is Exodus 15:26: “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, your healer.” Leviticus 11:42 commands that: “You are not to eat any creature that moves about on the ground, whether it moves on its belly or walks on all fours or on many feet; it is detestable.” Then Leviticus 11:43 says: “Do not defile yourselves by any of these creatures. Do not make yourselves unclean by means of them or be made unclean by them.”

But, “Christianity has always been opposed to dualistic models devaluing the human body. The human person is created in God's image to be resurrected on the last day; his or her body is worthy of respect. It is in the body, or more precisely through it, that the human person is called to glorify and reveal the presence of God, manifested in the love between human beings.”31

That is why the theologian Christopher West says, noting the main idea in Theology of the Body by Saint Pope John Paul II: “The body, and it alone, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine. It was created to transfer into the visible reality of the world, the mystery hidden since time immemorial in God, and thus to be a sign of it.”32 Saddler is the opposite of that mystery. He doesn’t want to use his body to honour God—Saddler wants to parasitically use other people’s bodies for his own dark aims.

Leon operates on Ashley with the radiotherapeutic equipment. Then Leon collapses and loses consciousness. He awakes to find that Ashley has already operated on him and now both of them have eradicated the parasitic bodies within their own bodies— those parasites being the complete opposite of the Eucharist. Through the eradication of the parasites, Leon and Ashley have also escaped the parasitic ‘mystical’ body of the cult.

In the laboratory, the player finds this note which explains Luis’ motivations.

“Do not be fooled into thinking that las plagas are merely tools for creating powerful bioweapons. Their true value lies in their ability to control.

No matter how hostile the subject, a single injection can turn anyone into a faithful servant. Who needs spies when you can turn yesterday's enemy into today's ally?

Controlling just one insider can bring an entire organization—an entire country—to its knees.

Mass production of the superior species has made this possible. We have empowered Saddler.

It is clear what he intends to do next.

Can you imagine if Saddler had that much control?

Six billion loyal servants at his sole command. There would be no opposition, no war.

Maybe for the first time in human history, the world would know peace.

But I know how Saddler and the others have oppressed the people of this island for generations. I know how he treats them.

That's no way to live. And because of that, I won't let it happen.”

Further, this note is also written by Luis—about the parasite sample which Saddler currently has.

“This sample, which I've come to call ‘the Amber,’ was just sitting in the storeroom collecting dust.

We used to have ample specimens for experimentation in the past, so it makes sense that this one was overlooked.

In fact, the only reason I brought it back to my lab was because of its peculiar shape.

After a basic analysis, I've changed my mind.

The Amber possesses a very unique quality. Although small and in a suspended state, it contains the same organ found in the "dominant species", which we've only seen in Saddler himself.

When fully developed, the Amber may rival, or perhaps even surpass, Saddler's power.

Unfortunately, the Amber was confiscated by Saddler before I could make any further progress in my research. He may be onto me.

I need to get my hands on that sample again and escape in order to continue my research elsewhere. It's the only way to counter Saddler.

Of course, I don't think I can trust this outside group either, but I've already come this far.

[Much earlier, Luis was working to give the sample to Ada Wong in exchange for evacuation from the region.]

Hopefully I can sweet talk my way out of this one too.

I'll have to. For the world's sake.”

Inside the Amber’s container is the special parasite sample.33 There are other less powerful parasites samples, which the player encounters, and these lesser samples were dug up from below the castle. The samples look like a tiny bug. Because one of the Exodus plagues is lice from the earth. Which is what these ‘contagious’ samples are.

The Spanish word plagas means pests. Even though the English speaker may assume plague. And the Latin word plaga does mean plague. The parasite is the lice from the earth, which serves as the symbolic and narrative and bridge between the Exodus account, and the game’s core theme of the parasitic body; as is expressed through the cult.34 Because the plaga is both lice from the earth and the cause of the parasitic body.35

And the development of science applies to the character arc of Luis, who is a scientist and responsible in some sense for creating the inverted and parasitic body. But a scientist who has a change of heart and aims to put his newfound ethics on par with his science.

“[Carl Jung] believed that the scientific endeavor emerged out of the alchemical endeavor. He has his reasons for believing that, and I think it’s a reasonable proposition historically. There’s many roots of the scientific endeavor, but Newton was an alchemist, so there’s one staggeringly important example. And alchemy was a fantasy about the value that might be lurking in the material world.

“Jung believed that we needed to fantasize about what value might be held in [the] study of the material world, for thousands of years, before we could organize ourselves psychologically to do something as technically sophisticated as science. But alchemy was still one tenth science and 90 per cent imagination and religion, in some sense. Then the scientific part of it blew up, massively, over the last 400 years. And it’s put us where we are technologically. But the ethical part, the religious part, didn’t blow up and expand in the same way. But it has to. We have to be as ethical as we are powerful. Or we won’t manage.”36

Chapter 6: The Red Sea

After leaving the laboratory, Leon and Ashley attempt to escape the island but find Ada tied up outside. Leon recognizes it’s a trap set by Saddler, but Leon cannot leave Ada to die. So Leon cuts Ada down from the high place. Immediately, Saddler moves to control Leon’s mind through the parasitic body, but Saddler finds that he can’t.

“You foul renegade! You have forsaken the Holy Body … the great gift ... to become one with us. You require ABSOLUTION!

[He turns into a monster, a living symbol of his faith. Saddler attacks the heroes but they cleverly evade. The final battle begins!]

Such blasphemous desecration! Such unforgivable heresy! Yet, is it not the sinner who is in most need of salvation?”

Leon fights Saddler with help of Ada Wong. Ada gives Leon a rocket launcher, as Saddler transforms into a second and even more disgusting parasitic monster. Right before Leon finally kills Saddler, Leon says the following:

“I'll give you a holy body!

[Leon takes Saddler's staff and stabs him with it. Saddler's body begins to disintegrate and Leon is thrown back. He loses consciousness for a few minutes and when he comes to, he finds the Amber capsule next to him. Ada comes over and picks it up.]”

There is the final plague after the death of Saddler, when the head of the parasitic body dies—and cannot resurrect—then all the members of that body convulse on the ground and die. The villagers, the Egyptians, are all literally dying on the ground at the end of the game. It’s the death of the firstborn of the parasite, the firstborn of the parasitic body.

“The tenth and last plague, the death of the firstborn males, was a judgment on Isis, the protector of children. In this plague, God was teaching the Israelites a deep spiritual lesson that pointed to Christ. Unlike the other plagues, which the Israelites survived by virtue of their identity as God’s people, this plague required an act of faith by them. God commanded each family to take an unblemished male lamb and kill it. The blood of the lamb was to be smeared on the top and sides of their doorways, and the lamb was to be roasted and eaten that night. Any family that did not follow God’s instructions would suffer in the last plague.”37

Meaning, Leon and Ashley are passed-over. Commentator Ben Shapiro notes how in the Passover: “The Egyptians supposedly used to worship lambs. So the idea was that you’re going to sacrifice a lamb. Like literally take their god and sacrifice it.”38 That is what Leon and Ashely do in eradicating the parasites in the lab; and what Leon does in killing the parasite Saddler—in both cases, sacrificing the false god.

In better understanding the last plague:

“God described how He would send the destroyer through the land of Egypt, with orders to slay the firstborn male in every household, whether human or animal. The only protection was the blood of the lamb on the door. When the destroyer saw the blood, he would pass over that house and leave it untouched (Exodus 12:23). This is where the term Passover comes from.

“Passover is a memorial of that night in ancient Egypt when God delivered His people from bondage. First Corinthians 5:7 teaches that Jesus became our Passover [Lamb] when He died to deliver us from the bondage of sin. While the Israelites found God’s protection in their homes, every other home in the land of Egypt experienced God’s wrath as their loved ones died. This grievous event caused Pharaoh to finally release the Israelites.”39

Leon and Ashley are passed-over because they are now not part of the parasitic body of the Pharaoh. Rather than blood on a door, because Saddler’s body is parasitic and inverted, the Americans don’t have the parasitic mark. It’s been removed in Luis’ lab. So Leon and Ashley do not suffer the final plague, which does kill the parasitic body; Pharaoh’s ‘mystical’ body.

Ada Wong steals the parasite sample from Leon at gunpoint. Then Ada escapes in a helicopter while Leon and Ashley attempt to escape the now-exploding island on a jet-ski, moving through watery caves. Onboard the helicopter, Ada decides not to give the sample to the villain Albert Wesker; as Wesker aims to use the parasite to affect the deaths of millions if not billions of people, as he himself readily admits.

Leon and Ashley destroy the parasitic body and find “salvation not only from physical death but from spiritual death as well.”40 The two Americans presumably make it back to the United States, having escaped the tyranny—despite Saddler refusing to let them go—as Saddler and his army die in the waters, but the Americans have escaped through the waters which are opened, out of the exploding cave which they steer the jet-ski through. The game ends with Leon and Ashley in safety on the jet-ski, out in the open waters, and Ada no longer listening to Wesker on the radio.

The parasitic body is gone, the Pharaoh is defeated, the plagues are over, and there is freedom for the Israelites out of Egypt. The sea around the island can now be said to be a red sea, as it contains the blood of the firstborn; due to the island exploding.

“Even after the tenth plague, Pharaoh once again hardened his heart and sent his chariots after the Israelites. When God opened a way through the Red Sea for the Israelites, then drowned all of Pharaoh’s armies there, the power of Egypt was crushed, and the fear of God spread through the surrounding nations (Joshua 2:9–11). This was the very purpose that God had declared at the beginning. We can still look back on these events today to confirm our faith in, and our fear of, this true and living God, the Judge of all the earth.”41

Leon’s call to let his people go is answered.

Dan Sherven is the author of four books, including the number one bestseller Classified: Off the Beat ‘N Path and Uncreated Light. Sherven is also an award-winning journalist, writing for several publications. Find Sherven’s work.

Sources:

Part 1: Blood, Fire, and Stone

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is one of the most revered games of all-time. And the ending of the game is a symbolic testament to Christ. In particular, Christ’s death and resurrection. But to understand the ending of Oblivion, we have to focus on the secondary character of Martin Septim.

Martin Septim’s father is Emperor Uriel Septim VII. Uriel visits the player’s prison cell in the first moments of the game. It’s revealed that assassins have killed all of the Emperor’s known sons and are now targeting the Emperor himself. Because of that, the Emperor is accessing the cell where the player is—the player being an unknown person—as there is a secret escape tunnel in the back of the cell.

The Emperor is escorted by the Blades, who are a small group of armed soldiers sworn to protect the Emperor. And the Emperor says that the player is the person from the Emperor’s dreams. Some of those dreams, having shown that the Emperor himself will soon die. So the Emperor pardons the player’s death sentence, and the player assists the Blades in escorting the Emperor out of the tunnel system.

However, the Captain of the Blades is soon killed by the assassins in the tunnels. And the Emperor predicts that his own death is imminent. He gives the player the Amulet of Kings; a necklace worn by the Septim line of Emperors. The Emperor tells the player to take the Amulet to the Blades’ Grandmaster. Then the Emperor is suddenly killed by the assassins, but the player escapes the tunnels while holding onto the Amulet of Kings.

The Amulet of Kings is worn by Emperors of the Septim line. That is a line of Emperors born with dragon blood. Only those with dragon blood can wear the Amulet, otherwise the Amulet will fall off the imposter. Leviticus 17:11 says that “the life of a living body is in its blood,” a statement which begins to explain the Biblical symbolism of blood. For “life belongs to God, and so blood belongs to Him.”1 There are also elements of death in the symbolism of blood.2 But that is only true when blood is poured out, which is how blood also came to mean life.3 Once the body loses blood there is death, there is no longer life. And the dramatic acting-out of that pattern, can be seen in both the Old Testament altar sacrifices, and in the Christian Eucharistic chalice.

There are many legends as to the Amulet’s origin, with one legend being that the Dragon God Akatosh himself created the Amulet with his own blood. The Amulet is held to be a symbol of Akatosh’s willingness to protect the people of Tamriel, the continent where The Elder Scrolls takes place, from the demonic Daedric Princes. The Daedra are essentially demons who originate in the realm of Oblivion, more on Oblivion will follow. Additionally, the Amulet of Kings is specifically a symbol of the covenant between Akatosh and the Septim line; that so long as the Amulet is worn by a deserving Emperor, and the Dragonfires remain lit, the gates of Oblivion will stay closed. Meaning that the Daedra will not be able to attack Tamriel.

But with the death of the Emperor, there is no heir to the throne. So the Dragonfires are no longer lit because the Dragonfires require a Septim Emperor on the throne. That means that the covenant with Akatosh has been broken. Due to the covenant being broken, Oblivion’s barrier has shattered; Oblivion is a dangerous realm of hell-fire and monsters. The worst of which are the Daedra, who can can now invade Cyrodiil, that being the specific province of Tamriel where the game takes place.

The player carries the Amulet of Kings to the Grandmaster, who tells the player that the only way to close shut the gates of Oblivion is for someone from the Emperor’s bloodline to relight the Dragonfires. Symbolically, fire is viewed by Jews, Christians, and some Chinese as representing divinity.4 Particularly in Christianity, fire is a symbol of “religious zeal and martyrdom.”5 In Oblivion, the Dragonfires represent the Emperors who stand for all of Tamriel; both the Emperors and Tamriel itself being united with the divine, Akatosh. Many real-world cultures view fire as being representative of “wisdom and knowledge.”6 In ancient Egypt, fire symbolized “superiority and control.”7 All these aspects of fire can be seen embodied in the Emperors, as they are the divinely-appointed rulers of Tamriel.

Soon it’s revealed that there’s a priest in the town of Kvatch, who is the illegitimate son of the Emperor. That son does not know who his father is, and that son is Martin. The player leaves the Amulet of Kings with the Grandmaster and journeys to Kvatch to find Martin. Upon arrival at Kvatch, the player sees a gate to Oblivion just outside of the town walls. The town is burning and the Daedra are attacking. So the player fights through hordes of demonic creatures and enters the Oblivion gate. Now in the demonic realm of Oblivion, the player battles more fearsome enemies and is able to close shut the Oblivion gate. The Oblivion gate is a portal of fire. A portal into hell. For evil is not a substantive reality.8 Evil can only be a parasitic opposite-imitation of Good.9 Which is why fire is used as a symbol of evil, in the case of the Oblivion gate itself.

In Christianity, “fire purifies, consecrates, destroys, and brings judgement.”10 Making fire “a symbol of God’s unyielding love and righteous fury.”11 With fire also symbolizing “the transformative power of the Holy Spirit.”12 Additionally in the liturgical churches, heaven and hell can be viewed as the same place—the same direct experience of God; experienced differently as either joy or burning based on a person’s free will, in terms of their lifetime relationship with God.13 Therefore fire is an appropriate metaphor for both God’s mercy and justice. Because fire is a source of light and safety, which humans are evolutionarily drawn toward, but fire can also cause a horrific death.

In Rome Sweet Home, author Scott Hahn recalls speaking about the symbolism of fire; getting into an argument for the existence of purgatory.

“The Bible shows how many times God revealed himself in fire to his people in order to renew his covenant with them: as a ‘fire pot and flaming torch’ with Abraham in Genesis 15; in the burning bush with Moses in Exodus 3; in the pillar of fire with Israel in Numbers 9; in the heavenly fire which consumed the altar sacrifices with Solomon and Elijah in Kings 8 and 18; in the ‘tongues of fire’ with the apostles at Pentecost in Acts 2.

“Hebrews 12:29 describes God as a ‘consuming fire,’ it isn’t necessarily referring to his anger. There’s the fire of hell, but there’s an infinitely hotter fire in heaven; it’s God himself. So fire refers to God’s infinite love even more than his eternal wrath. God’s nature is like a raging inferno of fiery love. In other words, heaven must be hotter than hell.

“No wonder Scripture refers to the angels who are closest to God as the Seraphim, which literally means ‘the burning ones’ in Hebrew. That’s also why Saint Paul can describe in 1 Corinthians 3:13 how all the saints must pass through a fiery judgement in which ‘each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire.’

“Clearly, he’s not talking about the fire of hell, since they’re saints who are being judged. He’s talking about a fire that prepares them for eternal life with God in heaven; so the purpose of the fire is manifest: to reveal whether their works are pure (‘gold and silver’) or impure (‘wood, hay and straw’).

“Verse 15 makes it clear that some saints who are destined for heaven will pass through fire and suffer: If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.’ The fire is there for the purpose of purging saints. That means it is a purgatorial fire; one that purifies and prepares the saints to be enveloped in the consuming fire of God’s loving presence forever.”14

After closing shut the fiery Oblivion gate, the player enters Kvatch and ultimately takes back the town from the Daedra; with the help of Kvatch’s surviving swordsmen. Martin, the town’s priest, has survived and agrees to travel with the player back to the Grandmaster who has the Amulet of Kings. Even though Martin reveals to the player throughout the game, that Martin has many doubts about the whatever the gods’ plans are—or whether those gods even have a plan. Those gods are the Nine Divines; Martin specifically doubts their plans for him; based on the new information Martin now receives from the player: that Martin is the Emperor’s son. More on the Nine Divines will follow.

The player returns to the Grandmaster, but now there are assassins afoot. The Amulet of Kings has been stolen. However, the player is able to get Martin and the Grandmaster to Cloud Ruler Temple, which is the main fortress where the Blades live.

Clouds are used throughout Scripture to show God’s presence in Creation.15 The clouds are His energies but not essence, as Saint Gregory Palamas would say. Exodus 13:21-22 has a “pillar of cloud” guiding the Israelites in the desert by day, away from Egypt. And by night, fire is the guide. Both are God. So there must be a union between clouds and fire in Oblivion, between Cloud Ruler Temple and the Dragonfires; between the Emperor and Akatosh; between Tamriel and above. That is a union there was and currently isn’t—with the result being the demonic invasion from Oblivion.

Author Matthieu Pageau speaks about how when things are mysterious or perhaps unknown, or at the least not integrated properly—some kind of knowledge we do not understand, something “complex”—those things sometimes present themselves as dark clouds.16 Martin Septim is an unknown son and therefore resides at Cloud Ruler Temple for most of the game. There are also many examples in Scripture, of God appearing in a cloud.

“When God came down on Mount Sinai, he did so by means of a cloud. Clouds continued to play a significant role in the further revelation and theophany at Sinai. When Jehovah came down on the Mount, he did so by means of a cloud. As Moses went up into the mountain to receive covenant revelation from the Lord, "a cloud covered the mountain." We are told that the glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day He called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud." (Ex. 24:15-16; emphasis added)

Continuing his redemptive work among his people, the Lord came and dwelt in the Tabernacle in the pillar of cloud:

It came to pass, when Moses entered the tabernacle, that the pillar of cloud descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses. All the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the tabernacle door, and all the people rose and worshiped, each man in his tent door. (Ex. 33:9-10; 40:34)

The people knew that the Lord had come to dwell with them when they saw the cloudy pillar come down on the Tabernacle. Additionally, the Lord would make his presence known to the Priest when he would come and dwell over the Ark of the Covenant. He promised that when he came, He would "appear in the cloud above the mercy seat" (Lev. 16:2). The Shekinah glory was a glory cloud in the Most Holy Place.”17

The Shekinah glory “is a visible manifestation of God on earth, whose presence is portrayed through a natural occurrence.”18 So the Dragonfires are a “Shekinah glory” of the creator; the creator being the Dragon God of Time, Akatosh.

Once gathering information about the assassins, the player learns that the group is the Mythic Dawn Cult. There is a Christian “countercult movement,” which rejects all teachings not in accordance with the Bible.19 Their definition of a cult is whenever a Christian group promotes a rejection of central Christian teachings.20 Those teachings include “salvation, the Trinity, Jesus himself as a person, the ministry of Jesus, the miracles of Jesus, the crucifixion, the resurrection of Christ, the Second Coming, and the rapture.”21 Now, the Mythic Dawn Cult worships Mehrunes Dagon; a Daedric Prince. That is equivalent to a rejection of the Nine Divines; particularly the Father Akatosh and the Son Talos, as Talos is the Christ figure in The Elder Scrolls.

“Talos is the Man-God and the One Divine among the Eight Divines. These Nine Divines make up the Imperial pantheon of gods, who are venerated throughout Tamriel. The Divines are essentially a Pagan pantheon with different gods representing different aspects of Being. And the turn toward including Talos, the Man-God, is symbolically the introduction of Christianity into Pagan Rome. Talos was a mortal man who united all of Tamriel. Upon his death, he ascended to Godhood and became the Ninth Divine, the God of Man, specifically.”22

Talos is a new introduction to the pantheon; an addition to the earlier Eight Divines. Again, Talos is the Son and Akatosh is the Father. That will be important later at the end of Oblivion. Also, just in terms of the spelling of the words, Talos is close to the Greek word telos; meaning purpose. As the Logos, the Son, is the purpose of all reality. Which is an idea noted by Saint Maximus the Confessor: the Logos is both the origin of reality and the goal of reality.23 So in a way, Logos is telos. Talos is telos. And Akatosh has a human face; Akatosh is also the One; anticipating Talos.

Again, the Mythic Dawn cult worships Mehrunes Dagon who is the Daedric Prince of Destruction. When Israel’s King Saul dies in battle, the Philistines find his body and take away his armor. That was a common practice in Ancient wars.24 In 1 Chronicles 10:10, the Philistines “put [Saul’s] armor in the temple of their gods and hung up his head in the temple of Dagon.” Doing so was a symbolic attempt at representing Dagon as having defeated Saul.25 Dagon was a fish god from Assyria, who was also worshipped by the Babylonians.26 He “wreaked havoc throughout the biblical narrative. Even the Israelites themselves fell prey to the worship of this merman-ish idol.”27

Moreover, Dagon was held to be the father of Baal.28 Biblically, Baal is the name given to many deities who are idols, but the name is usually reserved for the Canaanite-Phoenician god of rain and fertility; moreover, the figure of Baal is associated with demons, the devil, and Beelzebub.29

The association between Dagon and Baal helps us understand the visual representation of Mehrunes Dagon in Oblivion. Seeing as the character of Mehrunes Dagon looks a lot like Christian representations of Satan. Plus in Oblivion, Mehrunes Dagon is “a god of bloodshed and betrayal. Dagon revels in destruction on a grand scale, from mass murder to deaths resulting from floods or earthquakes.”30 So he is symbolically close to Satan. Mehrunes Dagon is also related to natural evil; meaning natural disasters or accidental death; the darkness of a fallen world.

With the ‘Daedric Prince of Destruction,’ one is reminded of the phrase the Prince of Darkness. It’s “a term used in John Milton's poem Paradise Lost; referring to Satan as the embodiment of evil. It’s an English translation of the Latin phrase princeps tenebrarum, which occurs in the Acts of Pilate, written in the 4th century, in the Historia Francorum by Gregory of Tours (6th century), in the 11th-century hymn Rhythmus de die mortis by Pietro Damiani, and in a sermon by Bernard of Clairvaux from the 12th century.”31 Additionally, Proverbs 14:28 says that “in the multitude of people is the king's honour: But in the want of people is the destruction of the prince.” Which speaks to the Emperor, his prince son Martin, and the role of Mehrunes Dagon.

The Mythic Dawn cult holds that Dagon is the real creator of the world. And the cult seeks for Dagon to bring purity to Tamriel. That is a common goal with those who adopt the Spirit of Cain—bitter resentment and shaking one’s fist at the sky for God not rewarding one’s own half-hearted sacrifices—a genocidal impulse emerges, where it’s thought that the world needs to be cleansed and people need to die for purity.32 The planet has too many people on it.33

Therefore, both the Emperor’s death and the opening of Oblivion were necessary. Those are the first steps in getting Dagon back into Tamriel and bringing purity. Nevertheless, the player is able to enter the cult’s ranks while remaining undetected, in an attempt to retrieve the Amulet. Things do not go according to plan and the cult’s leader Mankar Camoran escapes through a portal, while carrying the Amulet.

Back at Cloud Ruler Temple, Martin the priest reveals that in his youth he did not always follow the ways of Akatosh and the Nine Divines. Instead he was familiar with Daedric rituals. He knows how to create a portal which will lead to where Mankar Camoran escaped to. So the player retrieves the items needed for the ritual; including the Blood of the Divines, although that is substituted and in its place is the blood of a Dragonborn Emperor. That Dragonborn Emperor, an Emperor with dragon blood, being one of Martin’s ancestors—with the blood being taken from an old set of armor, which belonged to Emperor Tiber Septim; the Man who became the Man-God Talos.

The player enters the portal and arrives at the supposed Paradise, the plane of Oblivion which Mankar Camoran has created. The Paradise is filled with demonic creatures and cult members, who must be dealt with before reaching Mankar Camoran. The supposed Paradise reminds one of how the utopian Tower of Babel was created by worshipping techne, the garments of skin. In due time, within the supposed Paradise, the player slays Camoran and retrieves the Amulet of Kings. After, Martin and the player go to Cyrodiil’s central city to relight the Dragonfires, as that would end the Oblivion Crisis, but the city is being attacked by the Daedra.

Martin and the player fight through the city and reach the Temple of the One. The Temple of the One is near the central building in Cyrodiil; it is devoted to the Dragon God Akatosh, Chief of the Nine Divines. The Dragonfires are at the Temple of the One; those sacred fires which keep Oblivion closed. But when Martin and the player reach the Temple, the Daedric Prince of Destruction Mehrunes Dagon emerges. He is towering over the city and destroying everything in his path. Martin the priest feels that all hope is lost, until he realizes there is only one way end the Oblivion Crisis.

Lighting the Dragonfires no longer matters because the Daedric Prince has already crossed through from Oblivion. So Martin smashes the Amulet of Kings, binding his blood with the blood of Akatosh. That is what one does in the Eucharist, drinking the blood of Christ; it’s also noteworthy that Martin is wearing armor with the blood of the Man-God Talos. Martin is then transformed into an avatar of Akatosh, the Dragon God of Time, smashing through the dome of the Temple of the One. For Akatosh also has a human face.

Martin, as Akatosh, then fights Dagon who is the father of Baal. Martin destroys the Daedric Prince—but suffers a serious wound, and Martin as Akatosh turns to stone. Because in the Bible, stones generally stand for truth:

“Stones have signified truth for the reason that the boundaries of the most ancient people were marked off by stones, and that they set up stones as witnesses that the case was so and so, or that it was true; as is evident from the stone that Jacob set up for a pillar (Gen. 28:22; 35:14), and from the pillar of stones between Laban and Jacob (Gen. 31:46, 47, 52), and from the altar built by the sons of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh, near the Jordan, as a witness (Josh. 22:10, 28, 34). Therefore in the Word truths are signified by stones; insomuch that not only by the stones of the altar, but also by the precious stones upon the shoulders of Aaron's ephod and upon the breastplate of judgment, there were signified holy truths which are of love.

As regards the altar,--when the worship of sacrifices upon altars began, the altar signified the representative worship of the Lord in general; but the stones themselves represented the holy truths of that worship; and therefore it was commanded that the altar should be built of whole stones, not hewn, and it was forbidden that any iron should be moved upon them (Deut. 27:5-7; Josh. 8:31); for the reason that hewn stones, and stones on which iron has been used, signified what is artificial, and thus what is fictitious in worship; that is, what is of man's own or of the figment of his thought and heart. This was to profane worship, as is plainly said in (Exodus 20:25). For the same reason iron was not used upon the stones of the temple (1 Kings 6:7).

That the precious stones upon the shoulders of Aaron's ephod, and in the breastplate of judgment, signified holy truths, has been shown before (AC 114). The same is evident in Isaiah:--

Behold I will make thy stones to lie in carbuncle, and I will lay thy foundation in sapphires, and will put rubies for thy suns (windows), and thy gates in gem-stones, and all thy border in stones of desire; and all thy sons shall be taught of Jehovah, and great shall be the peace of thy sons (Isaiah 54:11-13).

The stones here named denote holy truths, and therefore it is said all thy sons shall be taught of Jehovah. Hence it is said in John that the foundations of the wall of the city, the holy Jerusalem, were adorned with every precious stone, and the stones are named (Rev. 21:19, 20). The holy Jerusalem denotes the kingdom of the Lord in heaven and on earth, the foundations of which are holy truths. In like manner the tables of stone, on which the commands of the Law, or the Ten Words, were written, signified holy truths; and therefore they were of stone, or their foundation (fundus) was stone, concerning which see (Exodus 24:12; 31:18; 34:1; Deut. 5:22; 10:1), for the commands themselves are nothing else than truths of faith.

As then in ancient times truths were signified by stones, and afterwards, when worship began upon pillars and altars, and in a temple, holy truths were signified by the pillars, altars, and temple, therefore the Lord also was called a Stone; as in Moses.”34

Christ himself, or Talos, who is the son of Akatosh the Father, is Truth. Christ is both the stumbling block and the cornerstone, depending on who encounters Him. Or perhaps how one encounters Him. But the Logos Himself as the origin and end is Truth. Martin Septim is the second-coming of Talos, as Martin becomes the Man-God united to Akatosh—more than a mere Man could and because Martin is begotten not adopted—Martin having dragon blood, but remaining different from his ancestors who also had dragon blood, because Martin is the only one who becomes Akatosh. The only other one who could be said to become Akatosh is Tiber Septim, who also became the Man-God Talos. Talos and Akatosh are One.

So in the beginnings of a Trinitarian dynamic between Akatosh the Father and Talos the Son, Tiber Septim as Talos and Martin Septim as Akatosh—given the human face of Akatosh which historically anticipates Talos in The Elder Scrolls, and which is akin to the Angel of the Lord in the Old Testament, who prefigures Christ; such as when Jacob ‘literally’ wrestles with God—Martin Septim as Akatosh is:

Part 2: The Death and Resurrection of the God-Man

In understanding the symbolism at the end of Oblivion, it’s important to note that Martin is really the main character and the Christ figure. Martin willingly goes down to his own death, becoming united with the Father Akatosh, so closely that Martin becomes the incarnation of Akatosh. Through Martin’s self-sacrifice he saves the world. Martin’s story is clearly not a perfect overlap with the story of Christ, but there are many similarities. At its core, the story of Oblivion is about Christ willingly going to the Cross to save everyone else. Martin Septim does exactly that.

Martin is the lamb slain before the foundation of the world, and through his self-sacrifice he makes the world exist. Even ushering in a new Creation. One is reminded of Christ likening Himself to the bronze serpent. In Numbers, the Israelites are being bitten by snakes in the desert and God commands Moses to lift up a bronze snake on a pole. The Israelites look at the snake to be cured. Then the real snakes no longer bite them. Christ is lifted up on the Cross, in part because looking at His death is the cure to the suffering of the world. It is to gaze on the worst thing, the death of innocent Creator, which gives us strength. That is the nature of exposure therapy. And Christ is the snake without venom, a bronze serpent, because He is sinless.

“It's like a cure for a poison where you take some aspect of the poison and then you make a cure out of [the poison].”35 And there are other patterns. Christ is fixed on the solid cross. So He is the new version of the snake in the garden, the snake who was wrapped around the tree. Although Christ becomes like the bronze snake too. Christ becomes fixed to the tree, the cross. Christ becomes both fixed and still alive, still moving. Making Him both order and chaos. He is unity and multiplicity because He is not only alive and moving, but also fixed to a solid cross while dying.

Martin is the same. He becomes a flying snake, a dragon, but then becomes stone. He is a snake, deception. But a snake without venom. So only movement and not deception. Plus he is stone, Truth. Martin as Akatosh is both fixed and moving. It’s also significant that once he becomes stone, he is fixed at the Temple of the One. Because the Temple of the One is near the central structure in Cyrodiil and Cyrodiil is the central province of Tamriel, with Tamriel being the central continent in The Elder Scrolls. That centrality of Martin’s death is important because “[the cross is] basically a point of attention. It’s like everything is moving towards [the cross]. [The middle of the cross] is the place where you are in space and then there's the four directions.”36

“But the mystery of it is, why is it someone being killed? That's the hardest part to understand. And of course it has to do with the idea that—the existence of multiplicity in our world or the world of the fall, the world of this death, deadly body that we have—is something that in the Christian story is seen as a consequence of a fall. Seen as the consequence of a compromise, of pride, of all of these things which brings about—which kind of leads into fragmentation, into a fall. Then there's a mystery which is that to return to the middle, or to return to the center, there's a kind of death which needs to happen. Or a consciousness of death. Or a conscious death, [that] may be the best way to understand it.”37 That’s all exactly what Martin chooses.

In other words, “you're a slave of death because of the fall. We all have that experience. We’re pulled apart. We're ripped apart by our thoughts. By our desires. By the world. You're going to die.”38 But “there's a sense in which the way to deal with that is also to die. And it's weird because it sounds so contradictory. But once you once you kind of pierce that mystery, you realize that it actually makes sense in a very basic way.”39 That’s why, despite Martin not understanding the will of Akatosh throughout the game, with Martin starting to actively doubt the divine plan, he still ultimately chooses to die.

With Christ becoming Man or with Akatosh becoming Martin, we can see how “in order for God to save something He has to assume it. So God enters—becomes Man and then dies and fills up death, and transforms it into something else. Transforms [death] into glory.”40 That’s what happens with Martin’s death. So much so that not only is he considered the greatest Septim, but the stone Akatosh remains the central structure having taken the place of the Temple of the One.

The veil of the Holy of Holies ripped from top to bottom when the incarnate Christ dies. As the Holiest Place became a Person who is God. Death becomes glory. A cross becomes a sign of the highest religious value. The king reigns in self-sacrifice. All of that is revealed by Martin being united to Akatosh. Martin becomes the incarnate Akatosh and the second-coming of Talos.

It’s “the person that gives themselves to others openly, not out of resentment,” who “when they die you realize that their story has completely filled up all these other stories. Now they're the person that that will receive great testimonies and people say they changed my life, that all these things that they've done—all of a sudden that death is actually filling—its glory. That's what glory is. Glory is this thing that moves out of you and shines out. So there's a way in which Christ is revealing, the way in which the world actually exists.”41

In Martin who gives himself up even to the point of death, a self-emptying—kenosis is the Greek word—it’s seen how those are the people who are “the most luminous. Those are the people that in a way are the most empty. [Yet] it's surprising because they are also empty, but they also become very particular.”42

Martin climbs the ladder of divine ascent throughout the game, as he gives up his past life to discover who he really is. Ultimately choosing to sacrifice himself to save everyone else, in the same way that “Moses ascends [up] the mountain to meet God. And as [Moses is] ascending the mountain, he's basically giving up everything. He gives up his friends, he gives up his sandals, he gives up all the coverings that he has. So he enters into the divine glory of God. Then when [Moses is] there he receives [all those things] back in a way, but almost like in a pure form.”43

Martin is almost called to give up the priesthood itself in his honest doubt. But he continues to trust in Akatosh despite doubting that plan of the Nine Divines. It reminds one of 1 Peter 2:5: “you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” Because that is what Martin does; and he becomes a living stone.

Even though Martin dies, he is still remembered as the greatest Septim. In becoming united to Akatosh, to the point of Martin becoming the avatar of Akatosh, Martin essentially gets the priesthood back in a more pure form. All of Martin’s doubt is gone by the very end of the game. And while he gave up his life, he is granted eternal life. Not only in remembrance, but in actuality and perhaps even with Akatosh himself. Martin gets the most pure form of the priesthood, by properly giving up the priesthood.

Through Martin’s self-emptying throughout the entire game, in learning he is a Septim and at the end of the game when Martin discovers who is really is; becoming united to Akatosh: “That's the mystery too. Is that when we empty ourselves, we actually find something which is truer to our self. That seed—when Christ talks about selling the field to get the pearl. Or getting rid of all the externals to get to the kernel of what you are.”44 Martin becomes who he is in dying.

Jordan Peterson also speaks about the importance of carrying one’s cross: “You should pick up your damn cross and stumble up the hill. That's your job right. And the cross is the ‘X’ where everyone is located. You're right at the center of reality. You're suffering and dying and being reborn all the time at the center of reality as you transform.”45 That’s exactly what Martin does, and he does it at the center of the world.

Peterson continues: “You have to accept that and embrace it. You have to—and that's [a] very, very hard thing to do because it means to embrace all your flaws, and the flaws of reality, and the tragedy of existence, and your death, and the sum total of human evil. All of that. Unbelievably demanding requirement. But you do what you can to do that. Then not only do you pick up your cross so to speak, but you stumble uphill towards the City of God. You stumble up towards what's good. That's your destiny and that's where meaning is to be had.”46

In choosing to die and taking up his own cross, Martin is not only united to Akatosh, but after Martin’s death he has literally ascended into the heavens. He is in the City of Akatosh. Although Martin also helps create the City of Akatosh down below in Tamriel, symbolized not least by the remaining statue of Akatosh at the center of reality in the middle city. And also in how Martin directly saves Tamriel’s central city, from the Oblivion Crisis. Peterson says more about the nature of carrying one’s cross:

“That's your goal; is the imitation of Christ. And Christ is the Logos, this is the Christian story, Christ is the Logos that God uses at the beginning of time to transform pre-cosmogonic chaos into habitable order. Truthful speech. So that's the thing. The fact that you're capable of uttering truthful speech is an indication that you've shouldered your cross and are stumbling uphill.”47

Throughout the game Martin is perhaps the most truthful character. He does not shy away from his cross of having to become the next Emperor. Nor his final cross of him sacrificing himself to save Tamriel. And all throughout the game he openly shares many of his doubts about those things, while wrestling with Akatosh. It’s important that Martin becomes Akatosh because in the world of The Elder Scrolls, Akatosh is the creator God. So Martin closely but not entirely resembles the Father using the Logos to create Creation. Martin becomes the creator of Tamriel, Akatosh; making Martin an even closer symbolic representation of Christ. As Christ is the creative Logos. Clearly there is no direct Logos correspondent in Tamriel, as Talos is not creative; Akatosh is. But Martin, in becoming Akatosh through the blood of Talos, becomes the Man-God of Tamriel, which in a sense necessarily makes Martin the second-coming of Talos.

The following words are spoken by Peterson and could easily apply to the narrative arc of Martin Septim. Particularly Martin’s choice to sacrifice himself. “You’ve got a heavy load of suffering to bear. And a fair bit of it’s going to be unjust. What are you going to do about it? Accept it voluntarily. Try to transform as a consequence. That’s the right answer. Pick up your cross and walk up the hill. Dramatically that’s correct.”48

Martin unjustly has to give up his life as a priest to become an Emperor, taking the place of the father who Martin never even knew was his father. If that’s not enough, he then has to sacrifice his life. Literally by transforming to save Tamriel. And Pageau says more about the Cross, which is useful for understanding the ending of Oblivion:

“[The cross is] a meeting of a vertical and a horizontal. Which means that it's something like the meeting of heaven and earth, is maybe the best way to understand it. So you have vertical relationships. You can understand that as hierarchies or different types of vertical relationships. Our relationship to God, relationship to the gods in general. Whatever it is you imagine as a vertical relationship or a new relationship, to your general if you're in the army. They’re vertical relationships.

“Then there [is] horizontal reality, which is let's say your particular reality as a person who's dealing with all this stuff in the world. And the cross is the place where those two meet. So you can imagine that the cross is every place where the vertical and the horizontal meet. You can imagine that for example being represented in something like a sacred space. A sacred Temple where there's a theophany in the holiest place of the Temple. Then you encounter that [theophany.] Then you have this contact between me as a person and then a vertical relationship.”49

All of that happens in the ending of Oblivion. Horizontally, the Temple of the One is in the center. As it is near the middle, of the middle city, which is in the middle province, of the middle continent of Tamriel, and Tamriel is the middle realm of reality in The Elder Scrolls; making the Temple between ‘heaven’ and ‘earth’ in the Biblical cosmology. So Martin’s death is a microcosm of the entire world in The Elder Scrolls. The Temple of the One is also a place of verticality because people would go there to worship what is above, Akatosh. And the Temple is a sacred space where a theophany takes place at the end of the game. Akatosh himself, the One, emerges at the center of reality in the middle of the Temple because of Martin’s sacrifice at the center of his own cross; becoming Talos.

Moreover “the shape of the cross is actually part of the mystery. It's part of the meaning. Which is that the cross is something like a cosmic shape. It has everything in it. Because [the cross] has the middle, it has the center. Then it has a vertical which is let's say heaven—is the best way to understand the vertical itself—the verticality, a ladder, is heaven. And [the cross] has a horizontal which is earth or which is the particular. So the cross is the place where the invisibles and the ladder of heaven [meet] the particulars.”50 That is the location of the Temple of the One, which becomes the stone remembrance of Akatosh’s theophany through Martin’s self-sacrifice.

So “[the cross] is a symbol that represents the union of heaven and earth, but the Christian contention is that [the] highest version of that is the cross on which Christ was crucified. And like you said it seems like a very strange thing because—so with the meeting of heaven and earth [that’s] the place where someone is tortured by the Romans? That's where the meeting of heaven and earth is? Like what the hell's going on there? But it's not that complicated to kind of understand. The world was built, in the ancient world, was built on sacrifice. There was a sense in which, in order to reach that vertical relationship you had to give something up. So you have to give something up and then if you give something up, then you get the protection. You get the strength. You get the relationship with that vertical.”51

Martin gives himself up, willingly, dying at the center of reality for the betterment of the world. He gains the fullest expression of the relationship with the vertical. He becomes Akatosh. In the ancient world, people made sacrifices of their animals or perhaps even their children. However the Christian mystery shows that the most useful sacrifice, to get what is good for you from above even though you do not necessarily get what you want, is self-sacrifice. Martin binds his blood with the blood of Akatosh. Smashing the Amulet. Binding heaven and earth. A new covenant which is the fulfillment of Akatosh’s old covenant.

“It is self-sacrifice which is the real way [that] heaven and earth bind. Think about anything that you participate in vertically. You're I don't know, you're a basketball player. You're playing for a basketball team. So you realize wait a minute, the way for the basketball team to function is I have to give myself to the purpose. To the higher purpose. There's a higher purpose in this game. Obviously it's not a super high spiritual purpose. But it is a higher purpose. Because [the higher purpose is] what's binding us together. That's why we exist as a team. So I give myself up. And if I do that, then I get the most out of the world. I get the most out of the team.”52

Martin’s death is a symbolic echo of Christ’s Crucifixion and Resurrection. “The crucifixion is a limit story. It's a story of the most compressed version of what self-sacrifice is. Then it also has in its story, especially in the crucifixion, it has resurrection as it's result. And the resurrection is a glorious resurrection. It's no longer a resurrection of pain. So if you understand the crucifixion and the resurrection together as a single story,” then a person can see how the cross “ends up being the whole image of love.”5354 Because “[the cross has] an image of love at the center.”55 As there is kenosis. A self-emptying. A giving oneself up to the vertical for other people. Martin sacrifices himself and lives as Akatosh, through that very death.

Additionally when Martin dies, he does so to defeat the Daedric Prince of Destruction. And Martin is transfigured into Akatosh, making the ending of Oblivion also have symbolic echoes of Christ’s Harrowing of Hades: “The pattern of the descent and return from Hades is both transcended and fulfilled at the same time, and that's Transfiguration.”56 Martin chooses to die and in doing so he brings Akatosh to fight the Prince, who has emerged from Hades; emerged from Oblivion. Martin lives through his own death and his self-sacrifice ensures that the gates of Oblivion, Hades, remain forever closed; as Martin rescues the world from Hades.

Pageau talks about Christ’s Harrowing of Hades; something which Martin acts out:

“We believe that Christ died; with everything [death] implies. He was not visiting death. He united himself to death. He took death within himself. In extra-biblical traditions we have these images of Hades rejoicing; thinking [Hades] has won because he has taken everything in; only to be surprised. Did Christ just go down into Hades to save someone and then come back? No, that's not the story we tell. By bringing God into death, we believe as Christians in the words of the Apostle, that Christ abolished death completely. We say it over and over at Pascha. [We] reread Saint John Chrysostom's homily every year: Christ is Risen and you O death are annihilated. The evil ones are cast down. The angels rejoiced. Life is liberated. Christ is Risen and the tomb is emptied of its dead. Oh death where is your sting?”57

Now, Christ being on the cross is “hiding a deep, deep irony which is hidden underneath. When Christ is being beaten and mocked for being a king, [that’s] actually revealing His kingship. So as He's emptying Himself, He is also becoming full at the same time. [That’s] what Christ is doing on the cross. As He's dying on the cross and everybody's [mocking]—as a criminal and as the worst type of person—above His head is an ironic statement about Him being the king which is actually true. He's actually filling up that role while He is emptying at the same time. It's a deeply mystical image.”58

Christ is the High Priest which is why Martin is a priest. And Martin is an Emperor who no one recognizes. He is a hidden Emperor. So Martin is also like King David who was a hidden Israelite king, and who is in Jesus Christ’s ancestral bloodline. It’s only through Martin’s self-sacrificial death that Martin’s kingship is revealed. And it’s a kingship not of this world. Martin becomes Akatosh rather than becoming the next Emperor of Tamriel. He is the second-coming of Who the first Emperor became.

Much as Christ is God; Christ is not the expected political messiah. And Christ ushers in the Kingdom of Heaven which is not of this world. Pilate even recognized that. So while Martin empties himself of being Emperor, he actually fills up that role. At the same time, entirely transcending what people thought that role could contain. He is remembered as the greatest Septim, even though he never took the throne. He is not the expected political messiah. His kingdom is not of this world. A royal bloodline, but instead: ushering in a new and spiritual kingdom. A high priest and a king.

Pageau also notes how: “when Christ says ‘My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?’ [One has] to understand what that refers to. That's a Psalm. And it's a Psalm [which] talks about that—uses an image of resurrection at the end of that Psalm. [That Psalm] is the king David’s call to God. ‘God oh God why have you forsaken me?’ There's this sense of being abandoned and emptying it. And an emptying of yourself. Then when the Psalm ends there's a fullness and a resurrection.”59 Martin goes through similar doubts about being abandoned by Akatosh and the Nine Divines. But by the end of the game, Martin experiences a fullness and a resurrection in Akatosh. It’s similar to Christ, where there is a “deep kind of koan [or] aporia moment. Where in emptying Himself, He is also revealing the fullness.”60

Both for Martin and for Christ, their death is not a game or a play. “Christ is being tortured” and He’s not secretly thinking that He has tricked everyone and He is the king.61 “There's a reality to what is happening.”62 Also, “on the Mount of Olives He's truly sweating blood. Whatever that means.”63 So “the way the whole story is told, He's showing how in that emptying, He is also reaching totality and fullness.”64 By being the sacrificial lamb, Christ is also the shepherd. The same is true of Martin, which is why Martin becomes the Chief Divine; Akatosh; empty; full.

Pageau continues: “Christ is the shepherd, we are the sheep. We are meant to hear his voice and to manifest his will. That is our function. We are supposed to let's say, put aside our own will in order to discover the will of our shepherd. To discover and follow and manifest the will of our shepherd. Of course there's a mystery in that. Which is that as we do that, we will also discover that it ends up not being just a denial of our will but ends up being—actual filling of our will with the higher will.”65 That is exactly what happens to Martin throughout the game, with the culmination being him becoming so united to the will of Akatosh that Martin becomes Akatosh. It’s a theosis moment in a sense, even though Martin ultimately does become Talos.

“In terms of Christ being also the lamb, now this is all about Christ, this is all about the insane way that Christ joins alpha and omega together—how the insane paradox of Christ being the first and the last. Being the top and the bottom. Filling the entire world with his glory. So there is an aspect of Christ’s symbolism which is that He's the king. He's the shepherd. He's the sower. He's the reaper. He's the groom. He's all of these images of above. But there's also a whole aspect of symbolism in which He is the servant. The suffering servant. The lamb. The crucified one. The one who becomes sin for our sake. Who becomes the snake for our sake. Who goes down into death. Who willfully dies. Who is silent. Who is quiet before his accusers.”66

Martin becomes the suffering servant of Akatosh. Martin is the sacrificial lamb on the cross. He chooses to die. He takes on the sins of Tamriel. Sins which resulted in the opening of Oblivion. And Martin willfully goes down into death, silent before Mehrunes Dagon; ‘silent’ until Martin becomes Akatosh, and then he turns to stone. So Martin is both the beginning of Tamriel as the Dragon God, and Martin is the end of Tamriel as the sacrificial lamb who saves the world at the time of revelation; as the Man-God Talos. Martin is both the person who is helpless and must die, but also the Dragon God who destroys the Prince of Destruction. He is both the first Emperor and the last Emperor, which is part of why Martin is remembered as an even greater Septim than Tiber; Tiber who united all of Tamriel and became the Man-God Talos.

Pageau says that: “[Christ is] the Logos, but He's quiet before His accusers. There is this spanning of symbolism that is so big, that it just fills out the entire world. That's why you will also see that symbolism in Christ, that Christ is both the origin of reality, but he's also the lamb slain before the foundation of the world. That's it. That's the mystery of Christ. I can't explain it to you completely, but I can see it. And I can just be completely blown away by the mystery of being able to contain all this symbolism into one story. And into one person, who is exactly that. He is this containing of everything into His person.”67

Martin follows that pattern in becoming Akatosh. Making Oblivion about the death and resurrection of the God-Man. For Martin is the second-coming of the Son, being born in the same bloodline as Talos; that of the Dragonborn Emperors; Martin Septim is the second historical incarnation of Akatosh; after Tiber Septim who became Talos. So Martin is both beginning and end. With Tiber Septim being the first Dragonborn Emperor and Martin Septim being the last, but both of them being Talos; the One.

Martin reveals to the player from the afterlife, that the Oblivion Crisis is ended and cannot happen again. The throne is empty and the Amulet of Kings is destroyed. Martin takes his place in the afterlife as the greatest Septim. The future of the world is left up to the player. It’s because the Septim line of Dragonborn Emperors has ended, that the old covenant is superseded and a Septim Emperor is no longer needed to prevent further invasions from the Daedric Princes of Oblivion.

With the royal bloodline ended, a prophecy of the Elder Scrolls has been fulfilled, sacred scrolls which foretell the return of the evil dragon Alduin. And the emergence of the Last Dragonborn. That story is the basis for the next game in the series: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

Read Dan Sherven’s The Symbolic World article: “The Logos, Dragons, and Revelation in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.”

Subscribe now

Dan Sherven is the author of four books, including the number one bestseller Classified: Off the Beat ‘N Path and Uncreated Light. Sherven is also an award-winning journalist, writing for several publications. Find Sherven’s work.

Doom 3 is a 2004 first-person shooter and horror video game, set on the planet Mars in the year 2145. The game takes place at a research facility, where a military-industrial-complex conglomerate is experimenting with new weapons, biotechnology, and teleportation.

During the teleportation experiments, the scientists accidentally open a portal to Hell. The Martian base is then invaded by hordes of demons, while the player who is a space-marine, is tasked with stopping those demons from reaching Earth. The game relies heavily on the symbolism of the garments of skin, the Tower of Babel, the Flood, subtle bodies, and a resolution of those problems through the pure heart or the pure nous.

Doom 3 begins with the space-marine being transferred to Mars City, where he’s sent to investigate a series of strange incidents at Delta Complex; which is part of the United Aerospace Corporation’s Martian base. It does not take long for the player to find a scientist in Delta Labs, who is trying to send a message to Earth. The message is a warning about a certain Dr. Malcolm Betruger and his teleportation experiments, which are a techne in a far-out civilization. More on techne, technology, to follow.

The scientist, the one who was concerned about the teleportation experiments, is speaking to the player when another teleportation experiment takes place, but the containment protocols fail. That causes demons to invade Mars through the teleporter; as in Doom 3 Hell is a physical place in a different dimension. Soon the Martian base is overrun with demons and almost all of the remaining humans are turned into possessed or zombified people. The cognitive scientist John Vervaeke notes the present-day prevalence of zombies in popular culture, as being a symbol for people without meaning, wandering through life—zombies are a common pattern some people can recognize, understand, and maybe even see themselves in.1

The space-marine, the player, works his way through the hordes of Hell within the Martian base, battling the invading demons, while constantly trying to get the message sent to Earth—or trying to prevent the message from being sent to Earth, it is up to the player, with each choice having its risks—that Hell has invaded Mars. Eventually the player is contacted by Dr. Betruger, who is now shown to be working with Hell to bring the demons to Earth. If the player has not sent the message to Earth, Betruger will; so in either case the message is sent and ships start travelling from Earth to Mars to help fight the demonic invasion. The problem is that the demons aim to use those very ships to get to Earth.

So there has been a flood unleashed because of the scientists worshipping the garments of skin; prioritizing scientific progress above all else; creating a Tower of Babel which aims to replace the transcendent and symbolically reach the heavens. More on the Flood and the Tower of Babel will follow, for now we will look at the garments of skin as they relate to the teleportation experiments and the Martian base.

Garments of Skin

The garments of skin, sometimes translated as the coats of skin, or tunics of hide—are used by Adam and Eve to “hide” from God in Genesis 3:21. That is after Adam and Eve freely choose to Fall away from pure communion with God:

21 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them. 22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: 23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. 24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.2

Orthodox Christian icon-carver Jonathan Pageau says that Adam and Eve are clothed in glory or light before the Fall.3 That’s because the only thing which Adam and Eve needed to exist before the Fall, was their pure communion with God. But Pageau says that after the Fall: “[Adam and Eve] feel like they have to hide themselves from God. So what do they do? They take leaves and they try to cover themselves. That is the very first human act; act in the sense of the first human making. The first thing that humans made was clothing. First human art … What’s its purpose? It’s to cover; it’s to protect; it’s to hide.”4

Pageau also notes how the Greek word techne, which is where we get the English word technology, was considered to be a lower form of knowledge; most explicitly in Hellenistic (Greek) culture but also in the Old Testament.5 There is a sense that applied knowledge, techne, is a kind of degradation of pure knowledge; abstraction.6 We can see that distinction present in the veil of the tabernacle, where the Holy of Holies or the pure ephemeral—God, within the most sacred part of the Temple—is kept away from the material world.7 However the tabernacle is also the meeting place, the space of theophany: it is where God meets the world.

At the moment of Christ’s death, the veil of the tabernacle rips from the top to the bottom. As through the Incarnation, the lower material half of reality has been divinized. Through the life of Christ, and in particular the Incarnation, the Word taking on matter, humans can now begin to understand the dignity of matter; something which was an uncommon thought in the Ancient world.8 In the Word becoming Man, in the person of Christ, the uniting of heaven and earth or the union of spiritual reality and material reality, is most clearly seen. God is no longer to be contained in the Temple, for Christ’s body is the New Temple. “Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”9

Pageau points out that when Adam and Eve Fall, “God gives them the garments of skin. And the garments of skin are the best image to understand this clothing; to understand this addition to our nature; this adding that we put on top. Because the garments of skin are made of dead animals; [the garments of skin] are made of death. It’s using death to protect us from death. Taking something dead and making it as a covering, so that you protect yourself from death outside.”10

That is what the scientists on Mars are trying to do, with their base and their research; particularly with the teleportation; using the teleportation as a kind of temporal death made from matter, a garment of skin, a techne, which would nevertheless be a potential protection against physical death in combat scenarios. That plan does not work out though. Instead, the scientists invite a Fall into Hell; a separation from God; and interactions with demons. Because the techne in question, the garment of skin, was revered above all else; worshipped as an idol. Science was pursued with no ethical boundaries; the danger of the experiments yielded to the notion of scientific progress.

Pageau adds: “[Saint Gregory of Nyssa] says Moses’ sandals are the garments of skin. It’s a perfect image. Because these skins, sandals, on the bottom of your feet—to protect yourself from the thorns, spikes, and hostility of the ground—[it’s] a very beautiful image to help you understand.”11 When Moses approaches the Burning Bush, God commands Moses to take off his sandals; the garments of skin; techne; protection against death; because Moses is stepping into the glory and light of Holy Ground. Moses is entering back into a pure communion with God. Therefore Moses will be clothed in glory, not in death. He does not need the garments of skin for protection against death because he will have the garments of light; God’s energies but not His essence as protection against death. Moses is returning to the Source.

Cities and art itself are garments of skin.12 These things are all techne, which is not needed until after the Fall; until after death has entered Creation. It’s only once death exists that a person needs protection from death through death. As Pageau says, “there’s a play between death and these protections from death. There’s a game happening between the two. As you go further out into the world, you need to build stronger and stronger things.”13 Such as Cain does with cities; or the humans do with the Martian base, which is called Mars City.

Pageau gives the example of living in Canada, where one is further out into the world than one’s ancestors; who lived long ago in warmer climates. Now the Canadian needs more protection: a coat of skin in the winter.14 A person can also think of medicine as being a garment of skin because medicine is “a human activity which uses death to put death away. [As] all medicine is poison; it’s all something that can kill you. We use something that can kill you in order to stop something that can kill you.”15 Pageau gives the example of using chemotherapy to kill cancer. Even the Canadian’s jacket is made with a dead animal, a protection against death through death.

The scientists on Mars aim to use teleportation as a temporal death, which would be useful in combat scenarios to help people survive. At least that is how it is portrayed in the game—once the scientists start teleporting soldiers into Hell to investigate Hell, with the plan being that the soldiers would return to Mars through the teleporter. Moreover, it’s because the scientists are further out on Mars that they need more elaborate protection against death—first Mars City, then teleportation.

Drawing on Genesis 21, Saint Gregory of Nyssa writes about how Moses says: “the first humans became involved in things forbidden and were stripped naked of their blessedness, the Lord clothed his first creatures in coats of skin [see Gen. 3: 21]. I do not think [Moses] intends the word ‘skin’ in its literal sense. After all, what species of animal is supposed to have been slaughtered and frayed to provide this clothing for them? No—every skin when taken from an animal is a dead thing and this convinces me that ‘skin’ here means ability to die.”16 The teleporter provides the ability to die. The teleporter destroys the person’s physical body only to reassemble the person’s body. The scientists also choose to ‘die’ to their loves ones, in choosing to work on Mars.

Saint Gregory of Nyssa also talks about Moses' ascent to meet God, in relation to the garments of skin: “Before [Moses’] ascent of the mountain he washes his clothes in accordance with the divine command; the clothes are a figurative representation of a respectable habit of life. No one would say that the fact of dirty clothes in a literal sense was any impediment for those who are mounting up to God; but I think that ‘clothes’ is an appropriate designation for the exterior habits of one’s life;” the washing is necessary because “the man who seeks to approach the vision of intelligible reality needs total purification.”17

The following is an inversion because the scientists are not aimed at God, rather the scientists are worshipping techne which leads to the demonic invasion—but, the teleporter deconstructs a person’s matter in order to re-construct that person elsewhere; meaning that the exterior habits of one’s life are washed away. Visually in the game, the first-person experience of teleporting is shown as a tunnel of bloody flesh and the sound of someone screaming. Worshipping techne is clearly a portal to Hell. The scientists also give up their clothing to wear the clothing of Mars City.

It’s important to remember that before the Fall, Adam and Eve are clothed in glory or light which is also the image of God.18 Adam is naming things and bringing light (unity) to the chaos (multiplicity) of earth. He brings the naming from the top of the mountain (order, heaven, or unity) to earth.19 In Jewish tradition and first century Christianity, it was thought that the garments of light and the garments of skin are the same thing.20 A person can think of Christ’s crown of thorns or the glory of a soldier’s death. In those ways “death can be changed into glory,” as a person manages to “bring more and more light into chaos.”21 Christ is the ultimate example of that. And it’s the destiny of the space-marine player, to attempt to do the same thing as Christ. The player must go into death: teleportation, and Hell, to save Mars and Earth.

While the garments of skin are a protection against death through death—one can think of wine being a techne which turns decomposition against itself, as the garments of skin are simultaneously “death and cure for death, both the cause of and the solution to the world of the fall”—the garments also obscure “the divine spark hidden within us.”22 Further, Pageau writes: “the incarnation of Christ is already shown as an entry into death by the very taking on of flesh, the hiding of Christ’s divinity in Adam’s garments of skin.”23 It’s not easy to think of oneself as having a divine spark, while travelling through a screaming tunnel of bloody flesh which leads to Hell. But the player is still supposed to take on that bloody flesh and use that very garment of skin which the teleportation is, to save the world; turning skin into light.

It’s traditionally held that the garments of skin are the biological body; the body which is needed for life in Creation—so it’s interesting that teleportation is represented as biological matter, skin—and the garments of light are the spiritual body.24 That physical body is given by God, to Adam and Eve after the Fall. Before the Fall, Adam and Eve were clothed in garments of light. So perhaps Moses and Elijah’s ability to enter into the garments of light—Moses on Sinai encountering God, and Elijah being taken up in a whirlwind to heaven—are why those two appeared in the garments of light beside Christ, in the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor. It’s also noteworthy that teleportation in Doom 3 has elements of flashing white light, given that the garments of skin and the garments of light are two sides of the same coin.

Pageau continues: “Death and multiplicity have been changed by Christ into vehicles of grace unto the ends of the earth. This is the mystery of Christianity itself, how the end of Eve’s seduction would render all at once, all that was promised even in ill-will. Man would both die and become god, one aspect holding the other by the hand through the power of the cross, which is both the tree of knowledge and the tree of life.”25

There is a sense in which for the player, who is trying to correct all the errors of the scientists’ worship of techne—Hell being unleased because of the garments of skin—that the same techne of teleportation becomes the key to save everyone. For the space-marine, teleportation becomes a garment of light. Which is why it is represented with light and flesh. Rather than the scientist, who eats from the tree of good and evil, the player willingly goes to that same tree which is now the cross, then down into Hell itself to save everyone. Saving particularly those who caused the problem and are the first victims of Hell, the scientists. That is the pattern of Christ saving Adam and Eve, who introduced sin into the world. Christ is both light and flesh, but he transforms the Pauline conception of flesh as being inherently sinful. The light is stronger than the skin. Even though the skin is necessary for living in a Fallen world. But the skin is still to become light, as Christ shows.

Subtle Bodies

In Doom 3, the demons of Hell are not on Earth naturally because the demons are subtle bodies. The demons are intelligences who need a body, a human person, to manifest themselves in physical reality. The example Pageau gives of a subtle body is asking a child to bring you a glass of water.26 In that example, you are the subtle body. You use your voice, a physical thing, to affect the physical world—but it’s more the spiritual or ephemeral quality of the Word, rather than your actual vocal chords, which causes the action to take place. It’s a spiritual reality affecting the material world. That’s what a subtle body is.

Angels and demons work the same way. They act on a person in a quasi-physical and quasi-spiritual way. One can think of a passion toward lust. There is a physical aspect, but it is also mental or spiritual, as any addiction is. That is why the demons are in space; ephemeral reality, the demons are not on Earth; physical reality. It takes Dr. Betruger to bring the demons to Mars, or possibly the player’s own choice. But for the demons to hypothetically get to Earth—earth in the Biblical sense refers to material reality—it always takes human spaceships.27 It takes people. The demons act as a subtle body which is acting on a real person; a spiritual reality which affects the material world. A ‘higher’ agency affecting humans. A subtle body.

The game continues and the player learns more about how Dr. Betruger became increasingly obsessed with the teleportation experiments. The player learns that there were archaeological digs beneath the surface of Mars because it was discovered there was once an ancient Martian civilization. These excavations unearthed a strange artifact known as the Soul Cube. It’s a weapon created by the ancient Martian civilization to defend that civilization against the forces of Hell. Also, it’s revealed that the demonic invasion which the player is currently fighting began when Dr. Betruger took the Soul Cube into Hell. The Soul Cube represents the Church because the Soul Cube is the community of all souls and even the gates of Hell cannot prevail against it. There will be more on the Soul Cube to follow.

In due time, when the player has almost caught up to Dr. Betruger, Dr. Betruger springs his trap which pulls the player into a teleporter—sending the player to Hell. The player battles their way through the legions of Hell, eventually defeating the demonic controller of the Soul Cube. For even the gates of Hell cannot prevail. With the Soul Cube now in hand, the player uses some of the teleportation equipment which was left behind by previous expeditions into Hell, to return to Delta Labs.

The Soul Cube is the result of a desperate final attempt by the ancient Martian civilization. In their war against the demons of Hell, the Martians found that conventional weapons were not effective. Only the Church, the mystical bride and mystical body of Christ, could prevail against Hell. The remaining Martian survivors sacrificed themselves; their souls being used to create their greatest weapon against Hell: the Soul Cube. A Martian figure known only as “the Hero,” took the Soul Cube into Hell and was able to seal Hell’s portal shut. The Hero’s tomb is at the excavation site, where both the Soul Cube and tablets explaining the Soul Cube were found. In the game-world of Doom 3, it appears that the Hero was an Old Testament ‘precursor’ to Christ, perhaps akin to Abraham living at peace in the Jewish underworld of Sheol.

The Soul Cube speaks with many voices, seeing as it is the result of many souls: "Destroying evil gives us life and makes us stronger. Unleash us when you hear our call. We will pass the life force of those we slay to you. We foresee a great battle. The outcome is not clear. We are the only way to destroy Hell's mightiest warrior.”28 The Soul Cube is not a perfect representation of the Church, but there are symbolic similarities. And it was only by the Martians sacrificing themselves to create the Soul Cube, that the demons were defeated; as often happens when one chooses to let go of sin.29 A person might have to give up of a large part of themselves to defeat demons, as is seen in addiction.30

Carrying the Soul Cube—with the teleporter that the human’s built; going from the Martian base to Hell, now being destroyed—the player learns about the Hellmouth. The Hellmouth is a teleporter from Hell to Mars and is the work of the demons. So the player must go back to Hell in order to close the Hellmouth. The Hellmouth is an inversion of the Word; the Hellmouth is a demonic mouth where cursed speech originates from. Logos is a Greek word, often translated as Word. The Logos is true speech; but also the intelligibility of reality; or creative action; perhaps even reason itself. Christ is the Logos Incarnate. In the beginning was the Word. (John 1:1) One definition given by Britannica, says that the Logos is “the divine reason implicit in the cosmos, ordering [the cosmos] and giving [the cosmos] form and meaning.”

Symbolically, the Hellmouth is many demonic intelligences leaving Hell; demonic subtle bodies aiming to act on Earth’s people. Because evil is not a substantive reality, evil is a parasite on good.31 Evil is real, but it only has reality as an opposite-shadow-imitation of good. Which is what the Hellmouth is in relation to the Logos.32 One can think of lust, as being a parasitic version of love.33 All vices are parasitic versions of virtues.34 The vices are failures to act out the corresponding virtues. That is why the Hellmouth can only be an opposite-shadow-imitation of the Logos. Evil cannot create anything new; evil can only destroy what already exists as a good; evil has no reality. That is why even Hell has to use deformed crosses and people crucified upside down.

Once back in Hell, the player has to fight Hell’s greatest warrior: the towering Cyberdemon, by using the Soul Cube. The space-marine player is able to do so, then the Soul Cube seals the Hellmouth shut. It is the Christ figure, the player, using the garments of light along with the Church; the Soul Cube, who defeats the inverted Logos which is the Hellmouth; closing Hell shut.

That’s the conclusion of the main game and the ending scene shows the reinforcements from Earth arriving, but thankfully the portals to Hell are now all closed so the demons cannot get to Earth. The demonic subtle bodies can no longer reach material reality because the portal for their intelligence, to be able to act on humans—the cursed speech of the Hellmouth—is closed.

The space-marine is found alive, but no one can locate Dr. Betruger; who is then shown in Hell having been transformed into giant dragon-like demon. The longing for the Tower of Babel, which is seen in the development of the Martian base itself, and most particularly in the techne-worship toward teleportation—a sin most prominently featured in the character of Dr. Betruger, is only beginning.

Resurrection of Evil

Doom 3 had a major story expansion called Resurrection of Evil. The expansion continues the story, taking place two years after the events of Doom 3. Essentially, the researchers on Mars notice a strange signal and decide to investigate. The team finds something known as the Artifact. The player is now a different character, taking the role of the combat engineer who found the Artifact, the unearthing of which causes another demonic invasion; another flood; as once again the worship of techne results in a possible extinction event. The scientists could not leave their investigations alone and in the attempt to discover new techne; the attempt to build a new Tower of Babel—a piece of technology which would replace the transcendent and lead to the heavens—there has been another demonic invasion. Dr. Betruger takes notice of the Artifact, more on the Artifact later; as Dr. Betruger also wants a new Tower of Babel.

Tower of Babel

The mystery of Christianity is that through the ability to die, eternal life should be born. The garments of skin are necessary for life in Creation after the Fall, which is why God clothes Adam and Eve in techne. But when that technology is worshiped, as is the case with Dr. Betruger and to a lesser extent the other scientists on Mars, that causes a flood. It is idolatry. It is putting something in the place reserved for God. Consequently, techne which aims to reach the heavens is halted by God. That’s the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, a story which takes place after the Flood.

4 Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." 5 The LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. 6 And the LORD said, "Look, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech." 8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9 Therefore it was called Babel, because there the LORD confused (balal) the language of all the earth, and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.35

All of that can be seen in the building of the Martian base, the scientists’ teleportation experiments, the events of Doom 3, the scientists’ unearthing of the Artifact, and Dr. Betruger’s attempt to control the Artifact; literally from Hell. Now during the Exodus seminar, Jonathan Pageau and author Jordan Peterson exchanged ideas about the garments of skin; technology, leading into the Tower of Babel. The following ideas also apply to the previously described aspects of Doom 3. Here is their exchange.

Peterson: “All of the technologies that are relied upon in the Biblical order are the consequence of the activities of Cain. So how is that tied into this idea of the danger of the constructed order?”

Pageau: “The problem is not making things; it's not even making images. We're going to go a bit later down the text and we'll have God telling them to make a big Cherubim and put it on the Ark of the Covenant. And people will actually bow down before the Ark. So it's not the idea of making images, that's not the problem. The problem is: You will not make images so that you worship them like gods. In the descendants of Cain, Cain develops technology and civilization in order to protect himself and to rely upon it solely; having forsaken God.”36 That is essentially a description of Dr. Betruger and the teleportation scientists on Mars.

Peterson also spoke about the Tower of Babel being an example of how human groups start to fracture when the group becomes too big.37 That’s what happened as the Martian base grew and the teleportation experiments actually started to work—the United Aerospace Corporation was too big. So the Martian base, the teleportation experiments, and particularly Dr. Betruger himself, did not have proper oversight.

Peterson notes that when an organization becomes too large, it can’t care about the individual past a certain point.38 That’s perhaps most clearly seen in totalitarian or poorly-functioning bureaucratic systems. And it’s worth remembering that the Tower of Babel story immediately follows the Flood; with the Flood being brought about because the descendants of Cain create weapons of war, techne. There are plenty of weapons of war throughout Mars City, and new weapons are constantly being developed there.

Here are Peterson’s further comments: “You keep aggregating the group—it gets more and more powerful and you can think of that as something that has the capacity to replace the transcendent: We’ll make a society that's perfect. It's like a utopian vision, that's what I see happening in this story. It's like, we'll make something so great on the part of human beings that it will reach up to heaven itself; which means it will take the place of God.”39 That’s what the scientists on Mars are doing, in the heavens.

Continuing: “[The Tower of Babel story is] only four or five lines. It's just the outlines. But it's placed in a very particular place. It's placed right after the flood. It's like well, there's the nihilistic chaos of the flood and then there's the totalitarian temptation to build hyper structures; that can theoretically replace the transcendent. What happens? You build a hyper structure and it fragments from within. And then people don't speak the same language and they distribute themselves sort of chaotically.”40

Again, that is what happens in Doom 3. There are the garments of skin, then a flood, then the Tower of Babel. Although in the game, the Tower of Babel also precedes the flood. Both orders happen—whether one is considering just the main game, or the main game and then the expansion. Regardless, everyone involved with the Martian base starts to not speak the same language; and chaotically distribute themselves; once the demons invade.

Peterson also mentions Mircea Eliade’s series of books A History of Religious Ideas, where Eliade writes about the flood story being common across ancient cultures: “What happens is that there's a human settlement and it's washed away by a flood. And the flood is generally envisioned as a consequence of God's judgment. So if you take the flood stories that are distributed worldwide and you boil them down to pull out their archetypal substructure, you find that there are fundamentally two reasons that a flood occurs. Eliade says that it's the tendency of things to fall apart, combined with the proclivity of human beings to sin.”41

The human settlement of Mars City was too big for oversight and was washed away by the demonic invasion. Dr. Betruger and the scientists sinned in worshipping techne and building a Tower of Babel. They were all actively attempting to reach Hell, then suffered the consequences of the demonic invasion, which could be “envisioned as a consequence of God’s judgement.” And for Dr. Betruger to complete his Tower of Babel in Resurrection of Evil, he requires the Artifact which the player found.

The Artifact

The Artifact is an ugly, blackened, still-beating human heart with strange technology built into it and around the heart itself—Man is his heart and he builds techne. The Artifact is also capable of bending time. More on that later. At first, the Artifact was designed by the demons to help open a portal to the humans. However, the ancient Martians found out that was the case and captured the Artifact. The Martian civilization could not destroy the Artifact, so they locked it away beside the Hero. As when starting the journey of faith, a person might find their heart is locked away near Abraham in the underworld of Sheol—perhaps the good part of Sheol, which is called ‘Abraham’s bosom’—Abraham being the first person God made a covenant with.

Protopresbyter (Archpriest) of Ottawa’s Christ the Savior Orthodox Church, Maxym Lysack, speaks about the importance of the heart in terms of understanding the inner person within the Orthodox Tradition. In particular, he mentions how it’s the “deepest aspect of the soul [which] we call the heart. The heart informs the entire person; including the body of course, but the intellect, the will, the emotions; everything is informed by the heart.”42 All of that is important in understanding the Artifact.

Father Lysack continues: “We hear the expression a divided heart. The wounded heart is fragmented and when it is fragmented it becomes dysfunctional. The symptoms of this fragmented heart include dispersed powers of the heart. A more of a modern word: disintegration, confusion, lethargy of the heart; these are all possible symptoms of a heart that is fragmented.”43 The Artifact is by nature a fragmented heart; one torn between heaven and Hell, actually originating in Hell, within the game that the player experiences, but aiming for real heaven. As that is how our heart might feel, when starting the journey of faith.

Father Lysack adds that “the heart can become a paradise and each and every one of us can carry that paradise equally. The heart can become a hell. Both are true. We should know that Christ visits the human heart; comes to the human being, to the heart, in the heart, and seeks to dwell there. ‘Behold I stand at the door and knock.’ He seeks to dwell there and we need to admit Him. We need to let Him in. This is a conscious act by the way, when we admit the Lord into the heart. Every single human being has a heart, but not every single human being is aware of it. The discovery of the heart is the beginning of the spiritual life, but only God can lead us there.

“The heart opened to Christ receives the grace of God. And at that point the devil is pushed to the outside of the heart. That is very good news. The devil and the Lord do not coexist easily and they certainly do not coexist in the heart. The heart that has welcomed Christ is a heart that is protected against the devil. Other aspects of the human person can be attacked, but the heart remains secure.”44 We must keep all of that in mind, particularly the part about how the heart must choose between good and evil, chose between Christ and the devil—while we examine the end of Resurrection of Evil.

Repentant Heart

Soon it’s revealed that Dr. Betruger is indeed a demonic dragon known as the Maledict. He’s in control of all the forces of Hell and sends the demons back to Mars, specifically to retrieve the Artifact for himself. The word “Maledict” means “to utter a curse against,” or to be cursed oneself.45 That’s symbolically related to the Hellmouth being an inversion of the Logos. And Dr. Betruger not only utters a curse against the player, in the sense of sending demons to attack the player, but Dr. Betruger is himself cursed. Not least because of his willingness to assist Hell, which resulted in him losing his humanity and becoming a demon. He has lost the ability to even navigate between angels and demons; to choose good or evil; essentially becoming a permanent vessel for the subtle bodies of the demons. In the game, that is represented dramatically, symbolically, by Dr. Betruger becoming a dragon-demon.

The player moves through the Martian sites, battling different demons including three particularly vicious demons known as Hunters. The whole time the player is attempting to return to Hell, so that the Artifact can be returned; something which would seal shut the portal to Hell. Soon enough, with the powers of the Hunters now trapped inside the Artifact—that darkness being reoriented toward a higher purpose within the heart—the player enters Hell and fights the Maledict.

We should keep in mind, that Father Lysack says it’s “precisely when the heart begins to be healed that we begin to become aware of [the heart]. When the heart is not being healed it is enormously difficult for a person to locate it; or even to understand what Christians are talking about when we mention the heart. The Holy Spirit, we read in the New Testament; Saint Paul tells us, is given directly into our hearts and begins to pray in our hearts unceasingly.”46 The player is now very aware of his heart, entering Hell with the repentant heart; a changed heart which incorporates the Hunters—that blackened heart has been reoriented toward a higher purpose—in a sense, using the dark past of the heart as a spiritual weapon for the side of Light against Darkness.

It’s a long battle, with the Artifact’s ability to bend time being a key gameplay weapon. Then the Maledict bites the player, but the player is able to shove the Artifact down the Maledict’s throat, causing the demonic dragon to dematerialize. The player wakes up back on Mars, having sealed shut the gates of Hell and somehow returned to tell the tale. The player has properly used the heart.

The devil is defeated by the once dark heart turning toward a higher purpose, turning toward Good; God; ‘turning toward’ being essentially the definition of the word repenting. The blackened heart has become healed, which has defeated evil.

The Pure Nous

With Doom 3, we can now understand that the game is about a fragmented heart; a darkened heart. The demons seek to control the heart; the Artifact. And it was because the demons had the wounded heart, that the demonic invasion was possible. The leader of the demons, the Maledict, seeks to control the heart. But it’s the human player who must use the heart to disintegrate the master of the demons. In that way, the heart becomes a weapon to destroy Hell’s power. The heart is able to bend time; as a person’s past need not be his future, once his or her heart is purified. One is reminded of Christ forgiving the adulteress while He was writing or drawing in the sand; or perhaps Christ’s interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well.4748

Father Lysack explains how the heart is related to the Greek nous. “How should we relate the mind to the heart? The mind is a power of the soul. In the Christian tradition, mind can sometimes be what is called in Greek nous and is interpreted often as intellect or sometimes just simply as heart. Since [nous is] a faculty of the heart as well. And this particular faculty that is sometimes called mind, sometimes called intellect, has some other translations—is the soul’s faculty of spiritual awareness. [The nous] has images, thoughts, impressions.”49

Additionally, Father Lysack points out how Saint Maximus the Confessor talks about the nous: “A pure nous sees things correctly. A trained intelligence puts them in order. And there you go. Once you hear that you understand essentially what [Saint Maximus the Confessor] means. A pure nous, that kind of mind sees; perceives.”50

We might look at our own heart and think it is diseased beyond repair, but even that heart is something Christ can work with, as a weapon against the subtle bodies of the demons. That’s why it’s important our heart arrives at peace; that we make sure our nous is not darkened. Because a pure nous can determine whether subtle bodies are angelic or demonic and act appropriately. So to defeat the Enemy, we must focus on the greatest commandment as given by Christ: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.”51 For the pure heart, the pure nous, destroys Hell’s dead demonic dragon—repenting, turning toward, God.

Dan Sherven is the author of four books, including the number one bestseller Classified: Off the Beat ‘N Path and Uncreated Light. Sherven is also an award-winning journalist, writing for several publications. Find Sherven’s work.

Subscribe now

Contains major spoilers for Alan Wake II and major spoilers for the Remedy Connected Universe.

It’s hard to know where to start with a review of Alan Wake II. Because in many ways one has to go all the way back to 2001 and start with Max Payne. Developer Remedy Entertainment has always been strange, but over the years that strangeness has become even more profound. The Creative Director of the studio, Sam Lake, is also the Lead Writer for the games, which is part of why Remedy’s titles have incredible stories and why the studio’s games all exist in the same universe.

Alan Wake II is about a writer who is trapped in the Dark Place after the events of the first game—the Dark Place being the bottom of the lake where Alan went on vacation, a vacation his wife planned as a remedy for his writer’s block, given that Alan is a bestselling novelist; and a lake/Dark Place which can turn art into reality, something Alan is now trying to do with his writing to save himself from the Dark Place. With that in mind, and to give an example of the meta-narrative Remedy carries across their games, we will examine one scene in Alan Wake II.

To fully understand the scene, we have to go back to Max Payne. In that game; about a detective whose family is murdered and his dark noir attempt to avenge them, the title character Max Payne has the face of the real life game writer Sam Lake. Now in the first Alan Wake game—Remedy had already sold the rights to Max Payne at that time—it is revealed implicitly and not explicitly because of the legal consequences—that Alan Wake’s books were actually the stories experienced as the Max Payne games. But the character of Max Payne is called Alex Casey.

In the first Alan Wake game, Alan saves his wife from the Dark Place but ends up trapped there himself. During the game, it’s intentionally hard to tell whether the paranormal events are real or if they are in the mind of Alan Wake. Years later, Remedy released the game Control. That game is about the Federal Bureau of Control, an agency responsible for investigating things which break the rules of reality. At the end of Control, Alan Wake shows up and it’s not clear; and ambiguous a good way, whether Alan Wake wrote the events of Control in order to save himself—or if the Bureau of Control was actually real and investigating the paranormal events which happened to Alan Wake.

Who is Who

Now that we know that background, we can turn to Alan Wake II. At the beginning of the game, two FBI agents are investigating ritualistic murders in the town where Alan Wake went missing. One of the agents is named Alex Casey, the legal loophole pseudonym of Max Payne, and Alex Casey’s appearance is that of the writer of the games: Sam Lake. So is Alex Casey real? Or did Alan Wake write these FBI investigators into existence to save himself from the Dark Place?

The scene we will examine, happens about a third of the way into Alan Wake II. It’s a live-action scene where Alan Wake is on a late-night talk show. He is being interviewed (by a character who seems to be the villain from Remedy’s other game Quantum Break, now present in the reality-bending Dark Place, and it is the very Quantum Break character who was messing around with superimposition of particles and time travel) about the newest Alex Casey movie. And the actor who plays Alex Casey in these Alex Casey movies, is also being interviewed. Here it’s important to note that there was a Max Payne movie, which Sam Lake did not particularly like, partly because he was not able to be that involved in the production. In the talk-show scene, Alan Wake is talking about how he doesn’t like the Alex Casey film adaptions. The scene is live-action and Sam Lake is playing the actor who plays Alex Casey.

The following paragraph explains the meta-nature of the scene. There are three images below, which show the key characters mentioned in the below paragraph. However, both while playing the game and while reading the following paragraph, if you do not understand all the meta connections, and the whole scene somewhat does not make sense to you, that is okay and actually somewhat intended as a first reaction.

Sam Lake’s fictional writer Alan Wake is being interviewed about Alan Wake’s fictional character Alex Casey (Max Payne); and Alan Wake’s created fictional character; Alex Casey, for the fictional movie; is played in live-action by Sam Lake, perhaps a nod to how the Max Payne movie actor was not Sam Lake, despite Sam Lake lending his likeness to the game character Max Payne; which would correspond to the novel character Alex Casey not looking like the Alex Casey movie actor; and in any case Sam Lake is the one who made all these characters; meaning that Sam Lake is being interviewed as a fictional creation, based on a fictional creation—it is the movie version of the novels’ character—the novel character being made by Sam Lake’s fictional creation Alan Wake, while Alan Wake is beside Sam Lake; although it is live-action, which is another fictional abstraction but it looks like reality; so the live-action Alan Wake is a fictional representation of the fictional Alan Wake; then at a different point, the interviewer asks about the live-action Alan Wake’s newest book, which is a fictional story about a fictional writer named Alan Wake; which is itself a fictional version of the same story Alan Wake is writing in the game to save himself; all the while, the game’s overall story is written by Sam Lake, who is both present in live-action while acting as an actor of Alex Casey; and Sam Lake lends his real-life likeness to the FBI Investigator Alex Casey, who is supposedly a real person in the game, who just so happens to also have the same name as Alan Wake’s fictional novel character Alex Casey (Max Payne); not to mention the FBI Alex Casey looks the same as the actor playing the movie adaptation of the fictional novels’ Alex Casey; with all of that being in a fictional game, which is narratively about fiction becoming reality; and we haven’t even mentioned the (fictional) poet and filmmaker Thomas Zane, who has the same appearance as Alan Wake, and who is connected with the fiction-becoming-reality properties of the lake in the game; leaving people to wonder if Alan Wake is a fictional creation of Thomas Zane, with some key characters in the game referring to Alan Wake as “Tom,” or perhaps even the other way around with Thomas Zane being a fictional creation of Alan Wake; so the question is also open as to whether Alan Wake or Thomas Zane or neither is a fictional representation of Sam Lake, and if so, the order of fictional representation in terms of who is more real between Alan Wake and Thomas Zane remains to be seen; then there is also Mr. Scratch, who in a sense is Alan Wake when he becomes possessed by the Dark Presence—more on the Dark Presence to follow—meaning that Mr. Scratch looks like Alan Wake and additionally Mr. Scratch looks like Thomas Zane; Mr. Scratch being an old English name for the Devil, as the word Scratch has its origins in a similar old English word for demon.

It took a lot of real estate to explain that one scene. But it serves as a good example of what one can expect with Alan Wake II. The graphics are incredible, easily one of the best-looking games ever released. The switch to survival-horror makes perfect sense, not only gameplay-wise but also in terms of story. There are two campaigns to experience, which narratively intertwine and meet at the end. The game is around 20-hours long and the game is really all about the story, although the gameplay and particularly the one-on-one combat are intense too. It’s a good game.

Alan Wake II became one of six finalists for the 2023 Game of the Year Award. The game ended up being tied for the most votes to get into that final round. Ultimately, Baldur’s Gate 3 won the award. Although Alan Wake II took home Best Art Direction, Best Narrative, and Best Game Direction. Alan Wake has always had a special place in my heart, being a writer myself. Now 13 years after the release of the first Alan Wake game, and with many versions of an Alan Wake sequel being scrapped by Remedy over the years; as Mark Delaney with GameSpot points out: That long development journey makes Alan Wake II “a miracle illuminated,” not only because Alan Wake II exists at all, Delaney notes, but because the game ended up being the specific version with the specific vision which we get to play.

That miracle quote originates from the aforementioned Thomas Zane: “Beyond the shadow you settle for, there is a miracle illuminated.” However, that line also appears in the song “Balance Slays the Demon,” which was written by Alan Wake’s agent Barry Wheeler and is performed by the fictional band Old Gods of Asgard, who is the real-life Finnish band Poets of the Fall. Remedy is a Finnish studio.

Symbolism

When it comes to Christian symbolism in Alan Wake II, the most striking example is the character of Alan himself. Much as the Logos became Jesus Christ; God became Man; God became a character in the story He is creating; Alan Wake does the same thing. The opening remark of the first enemy in the original Alan Wake game, is an attack against the writer for thinking that Alan can be God—deciding who lives and who dies in the story which Alan is writing. Yet there is an even deeper meaning to that enemy’s comment, as Alan has become incarnate in his own story, like God.

There is a sense in which: any author is to his story, what God is to reality. But with Christ as with Alan, the creator of the world becomes a character who is subject to even the evil present in the story. J.R.R. Tolkien is not a character in The Lord of the Rings, but as author he is present everywhere. He’s both immanent in all the details and transcendent to the whole sub-creation, to use Tolkien’s phrase; much as God is with Creation itself. However, Tolkien doesn’t become a character in his own story as Alan Wake, Sam Lake, and Christ do. Moreover Christ who is the Logos, is hidden throughout the entire universe; much as Wake’s ideas are hidden throughout the details of the Dark Place such as on posters; and Sam Lake is hidden throughout Remedy’s Connected Universe.

It’s also worth mentioning the Cult of the Word, which is a cult based on the writings of Alan Wake. The Cult uses the Alex Casey books as their scripture. Now Christ is the Logos, a Greek word which is translated into English as the Word, making the connection between Wake and Christ even stronger. It’s interesting that the Cult is sola scriptura, only scripture and not tradition, which was one of the main threads of the Protestant Reformation.

There’s also plenty of symbolism about light and dark in Alan Wake II, which is derived from the Prologue of the Gospel of John:

To give one example at the end of the game, and there is backstory left out for brevity, Alan is trying to write a solution to all the problems which have transpired throughout the course of the game; to save everyone with fiction that becomes reality. The story which is becoming reality, the piece of fiction he has to work with, is in the horror genre because of the Dark Presence; which is essentially a supernatural entity hell-bent on the destruction of reality, who earlier changed the story. So Alan and FBI Agent Saga Anderson, the other protagonist of the game, realize Alan must write a horror ending; one which tracks with the rest of the story that has already happened in the game.

The ending they come up with, is for Alan to allow himself to become possessed by the Dark Presence—then Saga will shoot Alan in the head with the Bullet of Light. Clearly Alan is the Christ figure as he becomes sin, much as Christ did on the Cross, taking on the dark presence in the world. Alan enters his own story even to the point of death. Which is what Christ did, as Saint Paul points out: “And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8). Christ becomes a character in His story who takes on the darkness present in the story; present through no fault of His own.

It’s similar to the bronze serpent in the wilderness. In Numbers, the Israelites are being bitten by snakes in the desert. To solve the problem, God has Moses hold up a bronze serpent on a staff and all the Israelites are commanded to look at it. Doing so, seeing the serpent raised up—the bronze serpent which has no venom—staring into one’s fear, solves the problem of the snakes. Things which were once horror, no longer bother a person. That is the nature of exposure therapy.

In the New Testament, Christ likens himself to the bronze serpent. He too has no venom in Him, being without sin. And He too is raised above on the Cross, for all the world to look at as a cure. It’s through seeing the catastrophe of existence in a Fallen world, the limit-case of suffering which Christ’s death is; by looking through the lens of the worst death possible which is of the Innocent Creator, that now everyone in Creation who looks can be redeemed. Wake plays the same role in his story.

The game ends after Alan is shot. Then in the post-credits scene, Alan wakes up alive with the Dark Presence gone. Alan dies for the sins of the world which are not his, but are in the story he is writing because of the Dark Presence of the world: Satan. Through Alan’s self-sacrifice, even to the point of death, Alan resurrects.

While he is dead, the light within him is able to cast out the darkness; the darkness Wake takes into himself. It’s a darkness Wake goes into, much as Christ takes on death and goes into death. Wake too harrows Hades, at least when it comes to saving the souls within the horror story he is writing, as Christ did for the story of Creation.

Pope Benedict XVI writes in Jesus of Nazareth about the Cross: “God himself becomes the locus of reconciliation, and in the person of his Son takes the suffering upon himself. God himself grants the infinite purity to the world. God himself drinks the cup of every horror to the dregs and thereby restores justice through the greatness of his love, which, through suffering, transforms the darkness.”

Alan Wake, the creator of his story, sacrifices himself—and earlier Wake says to Saga Anderson that whatever horror ending Wake chooses to write, the scales have to balance and the hero must pay a great price. Much as God himself paid the ultimate price on the Cross to wipe away the darkness within His Creation; Wake does the same thing for his own story, transforming the darkness. In both cases, the creator of the story balances the scales of justice through merciful self-sacrifice; crowned king on the cross; transforming death into glory.

It’s an example of kenosis, self-emptying, and how that self-emptying fills the entire story—the kenotic death of the Creator fills all Creation. The martyr gives himself up and is therefore present everywhere. That is the nature of kenosis; self-sacrifice; Wake dies so that everyone else will live.

God says through the Prophet Hosea: “I desire mercy and not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6). There is a sense in which Christ’s death is not only sacrifice, but is also the Son giving mercy to everyone in His Creation, by choosing to take on the ultimate consequences of the sin of the world; by sacrificing Himself; self-emptying. The Hero pays the greatest price possible to change the ending of the horror story, while making sure the scales of justice balance. Wake makes the same choice with his story, transforming the darkness through kenosis.

In terms of gameplay, almost the whole game is about light and dark, both the combat and the puzzle-solving. So is the ending in terms of narrative, as it is the Bullet of Light which casts out the Dark Presence. There’s also the element of the author being in his own story, with light as a weapon. Again, all these things remind one of Christ and the Prologue to the Gospel of John:

Wake uses light as a weapon, not least in the Clicker which is a supernatural object—a light switch needed to make fiction become reality; a light switch which is taken from a lamp with an angel on it; with the Clicker being used at the end of the game to make Alan’s sacrifice become real—as the author Wake, and the following is also true with Christ: enters into his own story while bringing light to cast out the darkness.

In the ancient Church, Christmas was called the “Festival of Light” because Light Itself, the Creator, had entered history as a character in His story. That is the same with Wake. Non-Christian winter festivals have appeared in many different cultures throughout history, with stronger traditions based on how extreme their winter tends to be. Someone always wants to light a fire in the Dark Place, Christian or not.

Wake is equipped with a flashlight from the beginning of the first game, used to cast out the darkness of the enemies who are against their creator: “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own home, and His own people received Him not (John 1:10-11). Plus as creator, the author Wake, or Christ, is the origin light of his characters: the light of men. That light shines in the darkness and the Dark Presence has not overcome the Clicker.

Alan Wake’s story of light prevailing against a personified Dark Presence, is a retelling of Christ’s Light entering the story He created; even to the point of death, taking on darkness, to save everyone from the Prince of Darkness through kenosis.

Kenosis both means Christ’s “renunciation” of his Divine nature in becoming human, and kenosis also means the renunciation, a self-emptying, of the human will. That second sense being a kenosis available to everyone. Wake empties his own will, taking on instead the will of the creator of his story—himself, even to the point of death. There are the beginnings of a Trinitarian dynamic in that, which point to Christ.

Wake’s journey is a symbolic representation of how Christ rewrites the horror story caused by the Fall—Darkness having changed the original story; permanent communion with God in the Garden of Eden being left behind, for the darkness within and the darkness without, darkness presented by the personified Darkness which is the snake in the Garden, Satan. And it’s through Christ sacrificing Himself, Christ doing the will of the Father, Christ “emptying” Himself of his Divine nature, in order to become a character in His Creation—like Wake does as the creator of his story, Wake who chooses to die in the story—that Christ, and Wake symbolically echoes the following: resurrects in Light and changes the ending of His Creation for everyone.

Alan Wake II is my personal 2023 Game of the Year. I highly recommend you play it and experience the story for yourself. Just whatever you do, don’t go out in the dark, stay in the light.

Subscribe now

Dan Sherven is the author of four books, including the number one bestseller Classified: Off the Beat ‘N Path and Uncreated Light. Sherven is also an award-winning journalist, writing for several publications. Find Sherven’s work.

Halo is one of the most iconic video game series of all-time. The Halo games redefined the first-person shooter genre, influencing all first-person shooters which followed. And the games guaranteed the success of Microsoft’s new Xbox platform. Even today, these early-2000s games are still widely-played and held to be among the greatest games ever made.

Throughout the original Halo trilogy, there is a heavy reliance on religious symbolism. In particular, the trilogy uses the Covenant, the Flood, and the Ark. But the games also feature the Prophets and the Law. The main character symbolizes Christ, and the secondary protagonist symbolizes Paul the Apostle. So for whatever it is worth — famously J.R.R. Tolkien did not like allegory, while C.S. Lewis did use allegory — the Halo trilogy is a masterful allegory.

Halo: Combat Evolved

Halo: Combat Evolved is the first entry in the series. The game opens with Master Chief, the main character, awaking from cryogenic sleep. His other name is John 117, which is a reference to the corresponding verse in the Gospel of John. Here is that verse: “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”¹

The Master Chief is a super soldier, a Spartan, trained from childhood for war and equipped with a suit which can sustain gunfire. The Spartans are humanity’s last hope in the Human-Covenant War. And in Halo: Combat Evolved, the Master Chief is Earth’s last remaining Spartan. In a sense, he is asleep until his time comes — much as the Word, the Logos, the Second Person of the Trinity ‘rested’ until he was born as Christ. Even then, He often said that His time had not yet come. The Word was slain before the foundation of the world, but His hour had not yet arrived.

John 117 is awoken from his frozen state as the ship he is on, the Pillar of Autumn, is attacked by Covenant forces. The Covenant is an alliance of alien species, led by the High Prophets, who are on a mission to fulfill their religion’s promise. That being, an afterlife known as the Great Journey. The Prophets are not on-screen until Halo 2, but it is useful to understand them now to better grasp their symbolism and the overall symbolism present throughout the Halo trilogy.

Symbolically, the Prophets are actually more like the Pharisees than the Old Testament prophets. But they do prophesize about the end-times, and hold that the Forerunners — a mysterious ancient race — are divine. However in Halo, the Prophets do not focus on prophecy as they are law-givers who demand totalitarian order within the Covenant. Only that cleanliness, will ensure the arrival of the “world to come” as it is called in Judaism; the Great Journey, the afterlife.² In Halo, allegorically speaking, the Covenant manifests patterns similar to the Biblical Jewish people, particularly those people present at the time of Christ.

The Prophets in Halo are an intellectual elite, concerned with proper behavior under the law. Even in their appearance they are the weakest in body among the Covenant, but the most intelligent. Their spirit is made manifest through the body of the Covenant. Much as the Pharisees’ will was manifest throughout the authority of some of the Temple-goers. The Prophets are all intellect, with improper heart, akin to the Pharisees’ treatment of Christ and his apostles.

The game takes place in 2552, with humanity presented as secular. Humanity is essentially the Gentiles, those outside of the Jewish religion in Biblical times. Humanity has no real knowledge of the Covenant religion, although they are aware of it. For the most part humanity stands outside the narrative of the Covenant, and would not bother with the Covenant at all if it was not politically necessary. 

So the humans are the Gentile authorities, the Roman authorities, who care little for the concerns of the Jewish people — unless Judaism will directly affect Roman governance. These allegorical character-patterns are not perfect overlaps. John 117 is a human; a Gentile, so not from the Jewish religion like Jesus is. But we can see how humanity is presented as being outside the Prophets, the law, and the Covenant. We will also see how John 117 is still the Christ figure in the Halo games.

Historically, the idea of a “covenant” began with legal custom and was later replicated in religion.³ That may be why the Pharisees have a more prosecutorial mind toward Christ. The Pharisee sect of Judaism had roots in a more legalistic tradition, which places great emphasis on covenant. And that is similar to how the culture of the Covenant in Halo is highly-concerned with the law, to ensure the “world to come,” as mandated by the Prophets. The Prophets will later see John 117 as the greatest threat to the Covenant, much as the Pharisees saw Christ in that way.

In the legal sense of the word, a covenant was an oath to uphold the promise made between two parties. The stronger party would ensure the weaker party received punishment, if the promise was broken. That idea of a covenant was used to explain Israel’s relationship with God. Because God offered both unconditional and conditional covenants. In the book of Deuteronomy, and subsequently in the twice-daily prayer the Shema, there is the idea that as long as the Jewish people are faithful to God there will be ample crops. But if the people are not oriented toward God, the land will not support them.⁴ 

The covenant must be upheld, for things to work properly. Symbolically, the Jewish people must unify heaven which is abstract reality, with earth which is the material world, to bear fruit. That is what the Prophets in Halo are always at pains to instantiate throughout their Covenant. If the Covenant is not followed because the law is disregarded; the criteria for bringing about the Great Journey is disregarded — one of the most important points being to follow the intellectual class of the Prophets themselves, similar to the Pharisees — then there will be no Great Journey.

The Jewish people wandering in the desert were united through covenant. That covenant resulted in texts which were eventually unified, simplified, and codified as the Ten Commandments. However, the Decalogue (Ten Commandments) are not from Moses, who brings them down from Mount Sinai to the people, rather the Ten Commandments are from God.

In Halo, while the Covenant is a community unified by religious covenant — their covenant is from the Prophets and not God. That is similar to Moses in a sense, but it is also the complete opposite because the Prophets in Halo are false prophets. Following the law to reach the Great Journey, amounts to following the Prophets’ own message and not the message of the Forerunners; the ancient and mysterious race who the Prophets and Covenant hold to be divine.

Now, Jesus is rejected as a false Messiah in all branches of Judaism. In terms of symbolism, it is the destiny of the Master Chief to be viewed as a heretic and blasphemer against the Covenant’s Great Journey, like Christ. In Deuteronomy 13:1–5 we have a definition of a false prophet:

“If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder of which he has spoken takes place, and he says, ‘Let us follow other gods’ (gods you have not known) ‘and let us worship them,’ you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The Lord your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. 

“It is the Lord your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him. That prophet or dreamer must be put to death, because he preached rebellion against the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery; he has tried to turn you from the way the Lord your God commanded you to follow. You must purge the evil from among you.” 

We can see how there would be some kind of grey area, with Jewish people claiming Jesus worked miracles to introduce himself as another god; “gods you have not known.” Meanwhile the Christian interpretation would be that Christ was not a new god, nor a god one has not known, but is the incarnation of the very God of Israel who inspired that Deuteronomy passage. 

The Master Chief is referred to as “Demon” by the Covenant. He is the inversion of their religion’s ideal, as he attempts to stop the Great Journey. They view him as a false prophet who introduces new religious ideas which run counter to the Covenant. Christ isn’t considered a demon in Judaism; nor is he considered to be the inversion of their religion. But he is considered a false prophet for claiming to be the Son of God. So in a sense both the Master Chief and Christ have aims outside or beyond the original covenant — in the thought of the holders of the original covenants. Most particularly, the thought of the Prophets of the Covenant, and the Pharisees.

Humanity has been fighting the Covenant throughout the known universe and has lost many human-colonized planets. Yet the Covenant does not know the location of Earth. While the Pillar of Autumn is attacked, the ship’s leader Captain Keyes, decides to abandon the ship so that the Covenant cannot use the information on the ship to locate Earth. Master Chief is onboard and fights his way to an escape pod, as do the rest of the soldiers who do not die while the Covenant boards the Pillar of Autumn. 

The Pillar of Autumn is an old and small ship where “grace and truth” originate from; where John 117 originates from in the Halo story. Symbolically, we can look at his waking up on the ship as being akin to Christ being born in a manger — a cave in Bethlehem; an insignificant outpost on the fringes of the Roman Empire. 

John 117 is sleeping in a pod. He is the greatest soldier who ever existed. He begins in a manger; in an insignificant ship on the fringes of the United Nations Space Command’s army, the Gentile army. Bishop Barron notes how the great joke of God is that the Master of the Universe should appear in such an insignificant time and place, even while persecuted by Herod the Great.⁵ John 117 also appears while he is persecuted by the Covenant.

All the surviving humans escape on the drop pods and crash land on the nearest object in space. It is a huge ring world, Halo, which humanity has never seen before. In terms of symbolism, halos often represent a glow of sanctity. Halos originate in Hellenistic Greece and in Rome — and we still have 2nd century frescos, although the halos potentially began before then with the Zoroastrian hvarena: “glory” or “divine lustre.”⁶⁷

Halos are often used in iconography to depict saintliness or to identify Christ. It is the Master Chief’s symbolic destiny, as a symbol of Christ, to be surrounded by a Halo.

It is no coincidence that the Halo theme song is Gregorian monks chanting, as religious symbolism permeates the game’s world. The following is a rumour, but people claim Halo’s original title was Covenant. However that title was thought to be too religious to be commercially successful. Even Halo: Combat Evolved adds a subtitle which tries to draw focus away from the religious name. Yet it is precisely the religious themes which gave Halo what made it so beloved: the presence of the ancient, the mysterious, and the expansive.

The Covenant consider Halo to be a holy relic — the key to beginning the Great Journey. Symbolically the New Testament uses light, which is what a halo is, to speak of God. 

“In poetry, this symbol of light is chiefly used in the form of rays and flames or a diffused glow. The Bible presents the best example: God is Light. The Son of God, the Brightness of His Father’s glory (Hebrews 1:3). An emerald light surrounds God and His throne (Revelation 4:3), and the Son of Man seems to the prophet a flame of fire (Revelation 1:14 sq.). So also He appeared in His Transfiguration on Tabor.”⁸

For now we will focus on the Old Testament. Because the Covenant in Halo, due to the Prophets, is more concerned with the law: proper cleanliness and righteousness to bring about the “world to come.” In the Old Testament we see God appear in a cloud on Mount Sinai, which both hides and reveals Him; and we see Moses shine with a bright light in the presence of God.⁹ These imagistic representations led to halos being used in iconography throughout Christianity.¹⁰

Back on Halo, the Master Chief finds that the Covenant is already on the ring world. Throughout the game the player learns that Halo itself is a super weapon, which the Covenant aims to use. The Covenant believes that firing Halo is the fulfillment of the Prophets, and will bring about the Great Journey, the “world to come.” 

The Covenant is zealous in their cause to fulfill the Prophets’ claims and cares little for the Gentile world of humanity. That isn’t a direct match to the Jewish people and the Gentiles. But allegorically, we can see how the Covenant is more concerned with their own religion and its law, rather than the beliefs of the pagan world around them. 

The Prophets will stop at nothing to fire Halo. The word prophet, combines the two Greek words pro (in advance) and phesein (to tell). So a prophet is someone who predicts the future or acts as a speaker for the divine. Some prophets in the Jewish and Christian tradition include Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Samuel, Job, and Daniel is only considered a prophet in Christianity.

In Christianity, a false prophet is someone who preaches a Gospel against the revelation of Jesus Christ, as was revealed to the apostles and explained in the Bible.¹¹ A true prophet is someone who more fully reveals God’s plan for humanity. The Prophets in Halo function as both prophets and theocrats. They prophesize about the Great Journey and how to uphold the law to fulfill the Great Journey. But they also rule over all the other alien species which are allied within the Covenant because of the Prophets supposed, special knowledge.

Again there is a difference here between the Covenant and the Jewish covenant. Because in Judaism the covenant is for those with Jewish ancestry — or those who opt into the Jewish beliefs, way of life, choice to follow the Law, and decisions to worship God and have a relationship with God. The Covenant in Halo is a dictatorship of the Prophets. 

It is a theocracy, willing to enslave other species to demand that they follow the law. That is how the Covenant came to be in the first place, by the Covenant enslaving other alien species. So there are huge differences between the Covenant and Judaism, but in both there is still an emphasis on the prophets, the law, covenant, and all of that leading to the “world to come;” the Great Journey. Much of that is true of Christianity too. But Christianity places a greater emphasis on the spirit of the law because Christ exemplified spirit being greater than letter. A person, Christ, was the fulfilment of the written Law.

The game progresses and humanity attempts to control Halo, but the Flood is released in the process. The Flood is a parasite which can infect any living organism and turn them into a hybrid monster: half-Flood, and half-Human or half-Covenant. Symbolically, much like the Covenant, it’s not hard to tell what the Flood represents and participates in.

The Genesis flood narrative is the Hebrew telling of a story common to all Middle-Eastern and ancient civilizations.¹² The myth of a global flood destroying all life first appears in the Old Babylonian period, which is from the 20th century to the 16th century B.C.¹³ While scientifically it is doubtful there was a world-encompassing flood, it is scientifically possible there was a Black Sea Deluge or a Persian Gulf flood around 7,500 years ago.¹⁴¹⁵ 

Either possibility would have flooded the areas — the known world — of these Middle-Eastern and ancient civilizations. So as far as the writers of Genesis were concerned, there was literally a world-encompassing flood, with that being a scientific fact. Even though the idea of scientific fact being separate from spiritual fact was not thought of until the advent of science in the 1500s, further cemented by the Enlightenment in the 1600s and 1700s.¹⁶

The Biblical flood narrative is about God’s decision, because of human sin, to return the world to its pre-Creation state. That means, the dry land will be gone: the structure, predictability, order, “space.” And the world will be returned to water: rest, renewal, chaos, “time.”¹⁷ Yet God intends to re-create the world with Noah’s Ark serving as a microcosm for all of Creation.¹⁸

In that story, God says: “And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.”¹⁹ The Flood in Halo will destroy all sentient life — anything with flesh and the breath of life. In the Biblical story, God is particularly concerned with how much violence there is from humanity. And the Flood in Halo arrives as humanity is in an intergalactic war. God finds Noah, one righteous man, and tells him to build an ark to survive the flood. We will later return to the Biblical flood narrative and the ark in the context of Halo’s symbolism.

The player learns, not only is Halo a weapon designed by the ancient Forerunners around 100,000 B.C. to destroy the Flood — but Halo destroys the Flood by killing the Flood’s food source. Halo will destroy all flesh with the breath of life to stop the Flood. So the Flood in Halo is only stopped by another flood. In a sense, the flood is inevitable. It’s just a matter of how one will deal with it. The subsequent games will explore that symbolism.

Still, the Covenant believes activating Halo will bring about the beginning of the Great Journey. They aim to fire Halo. It is a belief continually propagated by the Prophets, who demand all their followers follow them; not the Forerunners; not the divine. The Pharisees want to be followed; they cannot tolerate anyone following Christ; the Divine.

The Master Chief is able to stop the activation of Halo by detonating the Pillar of Autumn, which destroys Halo as he escapes into space on a different ship. He goes into “space” as he restricts “time”. Space is the dry land, order. And time is the water, chaos. The detonation eliminates the Flood and the Covenant forces surrounding Halo, while sparing the universe at large.

Halo 2

Halo 2 begins with a scene in a mausoleum and there is an Elite on trial — the highest ranking Covenant species aside from the Prophets. A mausoleum is a building, a monument, which honours the memory of those buried there. The Elite was responsible for controlling the ring-world in Halo: Combat Evolved and failed. He is stripped naked, put on a cross, and tortured with a burning spear. 

Symbolically, it is clearly an allusion to the Crucifixion and specifically the Piercing of the Sacred Heart. But the Elite is not Christ in the story; John 117 is. The Elite is one of the apostles. Still, symbolically we can watch the Elite fall into the underworld, destroy his own death, and resurrect like Christ. In a sense that pattern is also like the apostle who the Elite represents; that being Saint Paul the Apostle who in prison entered a great darkness only to later re-emerge.

The Prophets are trying to determine if the Elite is a heretic. The character torturing the Elite is Tartarus. He is the leader of the Brutes, another Covenant race which challenges the role the Elites have in the Covenant and who want to set themselves up as second-in-command; next to the Prophets. Tartarus is a Greek name, Τάρταρος, Tártaros, referring to a place of suffering for the wicked, a prison for the Ancient Greek Titans, and the underworld itself.²⁰

The Elite finds himself in both of these places of suffering. He is being punished for his failure, unlike Christ who is punished for His success. And the Elite suffers at the hands of his own religious kin, not at the hands of the Gentiles. Similar to the apostle who the Elite represents, as even in Athens, Paul was a sought after speaker despite some Jewish leaders wanting to kill Paul. (Although it is worth mentioning that Christ was first found guilty by the Jewish court, His own religious kin, before being turned over to the Roman authorities.)

Ultimately the Prophets conclude the Elite is not a heretic and offer him the title of Arbiter. Arbiter a title given to a disgraced Elite so that he may regain his honour. The Arbiter is known as “The Will of the Prophets” and is sent on suicide missions of the highest importance to the Covenant. The Prophets primarily send the Arbiter to assassinate heretics within their own religion; within their covenant. The new Arbiter does exactly that. He is a zealot and assassinates heretics, much like the origin story of Saint Paul, who the Arbiter allegorically represents. More on Paul’s origin story to follow.

Meanwhile on Earth, the humans are honouring their heroes from the events of Halo: Combat Evolved. Then Earth is attacked by a Covenant fleet. The humans manage to stay alive and the main Covenant ship which is carrying the Prophet of Regret, jumps through a “slipspace” portal. The Master Chief is on a different ship and follows the Covenant ship through the portal.

Now in a different part of the universe, the Master Chief finds himself in orbit around a second Halo ring. The humans realize the danger of another Halo and begin searching for the Index, the activation key for the ring, so that they can stop the Halo from firing. Master Chief is able to kill the Prophet of Regret, but more Covenant forces arrive and attack the Master Chief, causing him to fall into a lake where he is dragged further underwater by tentacles.

While that is happening, the Covenant is in turmoil over the death of the Prophet of Regret. The two remaining Prophets promote the Brutes to the position originally held by the Elites. The Arbiter steals the Index from the humans who found it. But then the leader of the Brutes, Tartarus, takes the Index and sends the Arbiter into a deep pit. The Arbiter is presumed dead. Those events begin what is known as the Great Schism within the Covenant.

In the depths of Halo, the Arbiter and the Master Chief are both being held by giant tentacles. It is revealed to the player, that the tentacles belong to Gravemind. He’s essentially the hive-mind and leader of the Flood. He is a giant parasite with high intelligence. So he is the personification of the Biblical flood, which returns both the Jewish and Gentile worlds to a state of pre-Creation. But to use John Vervaeke’s phrase, Gravemind is also the embodiment of parasitic processing.²¹

In other words, there is a sense in which Gravemind is a demonic force. He will destroy the identity of all humanity and the Covenant, so that his own identity will flourish. But in doing so, the parasite will destroy the host it needs to live. That is what a demon is and what parasitic processing is. It’s a dark force, a dark pattern, a dark spirit which latches on to an individual’s identity and destroys the identity from the inside out. That way the dark spirit can have body. Addiction is a good example of parasitic processing. And Gravemind is literally a parasite.

Gravemind tells the Arbiter that the Great Journey is a lie and sends the Arbiter and the Master Chief to different parts of Halo, to stop the ring’s activation. Gravemind is an advanced form of parasitic processing and understands that if the ring is activated he will die. There will be no food-source for the Flood. So the parasite identity will lose its host identity. It is at the point of The Arbiter meeting John 117 and Gravemind, that the Arbiter switches his allegiance from the Covenant — to the New Covenant of the Halo trilogy.

Allegorically, the Arbiter is Paul the Apostle. Paul was Saul of Tarsus — a town name similar to Tartarus — and Saul was a firm believer in Judaism. But that description barely scratches the surface. Saul held the covenant, the Law, and the prophets, in the highest regard — so much so that he actively persecuted followers of Jesus. He was even present at the stoning of Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr.²² All of that is in alignment with the Arbiter’s character arc. Plus Paul was a Pharisee; he followed the legalistic covenant much as the Arbiter did.²³

But on the Road to Damascus, Saul had a vision where Christ appeared to him.²⁴²⁵ And Christ asked Saul, why Saul was persecuting Christ. Once Saul recovered from his literal blindness he was now Paul, perhaps the most devout preacher and evangelist of the Christian faith and known simply as “the Apostle.” Paul saw Christianity as the fulfillment of the Jewish religion. He had met Christ, as the Arbiter met John 117. Saul was thrown from his donkey upon meeting Christ and the Arbiter was thrown into a pit.

Further, it is only once John 117 plunges into the depths and meets the personification of the Flood: chaos itself, death, isolation, loss of meaning — that he appears to the Arbiter. Much as Paul is the Last Apostle because he meets Christ after Christ dies; after Christ has already been to Hades.

At The Last Supper, Christ instructs his now friends the apostles, to drink from His cup in remembrance of the New Covenant.²⁶ A New Covenant bought with Christ’s own blood on the cross.²⁷²⁸

The Arbiter, upon meeting John 117: “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ,” is now on the side of humanity. The Arbiter sees the fulfillment of the Covenant’s promises of the “world to come.” Not so much in the law of the Prophets or within the Covenant itself, or even in a literal interpretation of the Great Journey, but in a New Covenant between formerly opposed nations. Humanity; the Gentiles, and the Covenant; the Jewish people, can now be together in a New Covenant. There will be a new heaven and a new earth through John 117.

However, as the Arbiter leaves Saul for Paul, and leaves the Pharisees for Christ, the Covenant is now in a full-scale civil war; the Great Schism. That name is clearly a reference to the Catholic-Orthodox Great Schism of 1054. The Brutes, led by Tartarus under the Prophets, are fighting against the New Covenant rebellion which is spearheaded by the Arbiter.

“The Will of the Prophets,” the Arbiter, transcends the letter of the law — the Covenant, instead choosing to embody the Spirit of the law — a New Covenant for all peoples. He is the Apostle to the Gentiles, to use the name given to Saint Paul. The Arbiter sees a new “heaven” in outer space and a new planet “Earth,” where humanity and the New Covenant are united through John 117. There is a new spiritual and material reality; unified. 

Rather than the old Covenant founded on race and birth, the New Covenant is one of spirit. There is no longer a physical circumcision but a “circumcision of the heart,” as Saint Paul said to Saint Peter in reference to the Gentiles who wanted to be Christians and eat at the same table as the formerly Jewish Christians.²⁹

The word arbiter essentially means mediator. Both words are legal terms and as we know, covenants were originally legal contracts before they were applied to religious thought.³⁰ So the arbiter meditates between the old Covenant and the New Covenant of John 117. Plus being a mediator, the Arbiter not only mediates between heaven and earth — abstract reality and material reality — and the heavens (outer space) and Earth itself, but he mediates between the Jewish people and the Gentiles. He mediates between the ‘New Covenant’ converts and humanity.

Eventually, a Flood infested ship which the Master Chief is on, crashes into Earth. In the chaos, the Prophet of Mercy is attacked by the Flood. The last remaining Prophet, the Prophet of Truth, does nothing to help Mercy; instead watching alongside the Brutes as the Prophet of Mercy is consumed by the Flood. Mercy is not shown mercy. The Pharisees fall into their own traps, as Judas threw the blood money on the Temple floor, leading to the purchase of the Blood Acre outside of the Temple because the Pharisees did not want to use that blood money either.³¹³²

The Arbiter and a human military force confront Tartarus in the Control Room of the second Halo. Tartarus is able to use the Index to begin Halo’s process of firing and killing all life in the universe. In doing so, beginning the Great Journey. The Arbiter tells Tartarus: “The Prophets have betrayed us.” But Tartarus does not believe in the New Covenant. So the Arbiter has to and does kill Tartarus, to remove the Index. 

The Control Room now reveals that there are seven Halo rings, all of which have been put on stand-by because the Index was removed after the firing-process began. The Halo they are on will not fire, but the rings can now only be activated by something known as the Ark. 

After these events, the Master Chief is shown on-board the Prophet of Truth’s ship, the last remaining Prophet. The ship is headed to Earth and in a cliff-hanger ending when John 117 is asked what he is doing on that ship, the Master Chief replies: “Sir, finishing this fight.”

Halo 3

Halo 3 begins with the Master Chief jumping from the ship he is on to Earth. He falls out of the heavens down to Earth. He comes into our world like Christ. The Covenant forces have been digging in Africa and unearthed the Artifact. It is a giant slipspace portal, which the Prophet of Truth enters in his own ship, and the humans then follow him through the portal. 

Here, somewhere else in the universe, is the Ark. The Ark is a giant piece of Forerunner technology, which began building an eighth Halo ring after the original ring from Halo: Combat Evolved was destroyed. The Ark controls all the Halo rings.

So the Ark is the solution to the Flood, both in Halo and in the Biblical flood narrative. God uses the ark to spare Noah from the world-encompassing flood and save humanity. John 117 is allegorically Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, who must use the Ark to stop the Flood and save humanity. Considering that God is a Trinity, Christ is present in Noah’s salvation through the ark. And John 117, allegorically Christ in the Halo series, must be present on the Ark. Additionally, Mary is held to be the Ark of the Covenant. More on that to follow.

The Arbiter’s forces deal with the new Flood threat on Earth. The Arbiter, like Paul, follows the example of Christ — John 117, in bringing salvation to Gentiles. Although the Prophet of Truth captures a human sergeant because a human is required to activate the Ark, as man is the microcosm of heaven and earth.³³ Man is the place where heaven and earth meet. Not least in the person of Noah.³⁴

So only a human figure could bring about the “world to come,” the Great Journey, the end of the Flood. Maybe that is why Christ had to be fully human. It was just a surprise that he was fully divine. The Covenant never saw John 117 as the solution to the Flood. Much as all strands of Judaism reject Jesus as the Messiah who would save humanity from the flood of humanity’s own sins. But Paul the Apostle, the zealot who assassinated heretics, did see Christ as God.

The Flood arrive on the Ark and the human sergeant is forced to activate the rings, as Gravemind forges a second alliance with the Arbiter and John 117 to stop the Prophet. The Arbiter assassinates the Prophet while the Arbiter symbolically has Christ in his heart — John 117 is right beside the Arbiter during the assassination — but the old Covenant is still against the Arbiter. Similar to how Paul had Christ in his heart: “It is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me.”³⁵ (While some Jewish leaders of the first covenant wanted to kill Paul; like the High Prophets and Brutes with the Arbiter.)

With the Prophet dead, the activation of the rings is stopped. But Gravemind turns on the humans and the Arbiter. It is revealed that because the newest Halo is not fully complete, activating that ring will destroy both that Halo and the Ark itself. The Master Chief activates the new Halo, the eight Halo which the Ark is building. That will eliminate the Flood on the Ark, which is all of the Flood. And because the Ark is outside of the Milky Way Galaxy, humanity will be spared. Only the Flood will be destroyed. The ark saves humanity from the flood, both in the Biblical flood narrative and the Halo trilogy. 

Noah’s Ark leads to a new covenant from God, where God says He will never again return the world to its pre-Creation chaos. It is the New Covenant of the Arbiter which leads to the Prophet’s death. As the Ark in Halo saves Gentile and Jew alike from the Flood. The universe does not return to a state of having no sentient life; a pre-Creation chaos.

For many years, it was thought Noah’s Ark could be found in the physical world. People maintained, using a literal interpretation of the story, that Noah’s Ark was on Mount Ararat and could still be found. Yet in Halo, as is the case with Noah’s Ark being a physical object in the material world — something to be physically found — the end of the Flood is the end of the Ark.

The Ark is no longer needed, once the chaos of the waters is resolved. The ark is symbolic, an imagistic representation which participates in and points to a greater reality. The Biblical flood narrative shows a pattern of reality. Whether or not Noah’s Ark can be found on the Earth is of secondary importance. Primarily, Noah’s Ark is not really of the Earth, but of heaven. 

The ark is not of material reality, so much as it is an example. The ark story shows the utility of using the patterns of Being which exist above us, in the heavens — to survive chaos, by instantiating those patterns of spiritual reality down within material reality.³⁶ Noah takes the measurements of the ark from God; from above; and instantiates them in the physical world. Noah is a mediator between heaven and earth. That does not mean the story is a metaphor. 

It means that the story participates in something way bigger than the scientific explanation of the story. The point of Noah’s Ark isn’t to go find Noah’s Ark. The point is to learn how to survive the flood. Whether or not a man named Noah survived the Black Sea Deluge in a boat with animals is almost beside the point. Because the story shows how to survive the flood, which is done through reference to God. The chaos of the earth is supplanted by the order of the heavens.

It’s not a metaphor because it is more real than a metaphor. It is as if there is a spectrum with literal on one end, metaphor on the other end, and symbolic in the middle. A symbolic story is one which both leans into a literal interpretation, but also leans into metaphor. It is as if that spectrum is a mountain range, with symbolism being the mountain peak itself, in the middle.

The story is more real than a literal story and more real than a metaphorical story. It is both and neither. It is a story which takes real events, but prioritizes the patterns of behaviour in the events — more than the forensic details of the events. It is a non-fiction account, which is more concerned with the meaning of the story than the camera-observer telling of the story — yet the story is not fiction. It could be a scientifically true story, but that isn’t the interesting part.

Because a person does not see the material world, so much as a person sees behaviours which can alter the material world. To really see — to act in the world based on abstract valuations about the world — is not about seeing material reality itself, so much as it’s about seeing potential. The material world is a place of decisions between chaos and order; “time” and “space,” in the ancient cosmology. We see the patterns which either underlie, or are above, the material world.³⁷

We can fall into the lower patterns; demonic parasitic processing, or be lifted up into the patterns of the heavens.³⁸ In either case we take the behavioural patterns of Being, which either underlie or are above, and instantiate those patterns into the material world. That can be heaven on earth, or hell on earth — man chooses as he is the meditator in-between, like Noah.

Now there is also the Biblical notion of the Ark of the Covenant. In the Old Testament, the Ark of the Covenant is a box with gold trim and the lid is called the mercy seat. The mercy seat has two cherubim on it and God appeared between the cherubim to speak with Moses.³⁹ The two stone tablets of the Ten Commandments, the rod of Aaron, and a pot of manna were inside.⁴⁰ 

The Ark of the Covenant was built one year after the Israelite Exodus, as the Ark in Halo 3 appears and starts building in 2253; one year after the events of Halo: Combat Evolved; and one year after the Covenant slaves headed toward Earth. The Ark of the Covenant was always carried before the Israelites during marches by the Levites (the priestly tribe); including toward war. Which is akin to how the Ark in Halo was in space ahead of the last Prophet, who was the religious monarch of the old Covenant.⁴¹

Revelation says that “the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple.”⁴² Theologians, including the Early Church Fathers and Saint Thomas Aquinas, see the contents of the ark as being made human in the person of Christ. The tablets of the Law become the One who gave the Law, Aaron’s rod becomes Jesus eternal authority as priest, and the manna becomes the Eucharist.

The next verse of Revelation is: “A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.”⁴³ The number twelve is used often in the Bible. For example, the twelve Tribes of Israel and the Twelve Apostles. That most recent Revelation verse, Revelation 12, is thought to refer to Mary, with Mary being the Ark of the New Covenant.⁴⁴⁴⁵

Such an interpretation was held by Saint Gregory of Neocaesarea in the third century and by Saint Ambrose, Saint Ephraim, and Saint Augustine in the fourth century.⁴⁶ The Catechism of the Catholic Church says: “Mary, in whom the Lord himself has just made his dwelling, is the daughter of Zion in person, the Ark of the Covenant, the place where the glory of the Lord dwells. She is ‘the dwelling of God . . . with men.”⁴⁷

In Halo, the Ark begins as the Ark of the Covenant and becomes the Ark of the New Covenant, through the Christ figure John 117. Because of the Master Chief’s involvement, being inside the Ark — the last Prophet is stopped, which is a symbolic end to the Covenant itself. Through that the old Covenant falls, as the veil on the Holy of Holies in the temple was torn from the top down during the Resurrection; signifying the end of the old Covenant and the beginning of the New Covenant.⁴⁸⁴⁹

The Old Testament Ark of the Covenant was kept in the Holy of Holies, which was the veiled part of the Temple. But by having the Savior in her womb, Mary herself became the Holy of Holies. Still, the beginning of the New Covenant was because of Christ. So in Halo, John 117 is in the Ark — the savior of mankind bringing about the New Covenant: “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”⁵⁰ John 117 is the fulfillment of the covenant.

The Covenant is defeated and the Arbiter’s New Covenant is all that remains, mostly because of John 117 and the Arbiter cooperating with John 117. The eighth ring fires as the Arbiter and the Master Chief escape on a ship. They enter the slipspace portal which leads to the Artifact, meaning they are heading back to Africa, while the portal itself collapses from the detonation of the ring. Only half of the ship makes it back to Earth. The side which makes it back to Earth, is the side the Arbiter was on. The Savior John 117 and the Ark of the New Covenant, both leave this life.

The Arbiter, embodying the role of Paul, is the last person to see John 117. Paul is the Last Apostle because Christ appeared to Paul in the vision on the Road to Damascus after Christ’s Ascension. There is a memorial service for those lost in the battle, including the Master Chief, who like Christ remains both in the heavens and in heaven.

John 117 loses his own blood forging the New Covenant. But the Flood is defeated, establishing that through the New Covenant, the Flood will not return.

The Arbiter leads his forces back home, having made peace with the humans through the New Covenant. The Gentiles and the Jewish “converts” to Christianity are on good terms because of the Arbiter playing the symbolic role of Paul the Apostle. He is the Apostle to the Gentiles.

The war is over. There is a new heaven and a new earth.

The player thinks the game is over. But then the other half of the ship is shown floating in space, with John 117 inside. He is in the heavens. He is alive. He is risen. 

That is a symbolic resurrection. After, John 117 enters cryogenic sleep while saying: “Wake me, when you need me.” Deepening the symbolism of the Ascension and pointing to a Second Coming.

In Halo, Spartans like John 117 cannot be listed as KIA: killed in action. They can only be listed as MIA: missing in action. Because the human military holds that Spartans cannot die. Clearly John 117 is the Christ figure in Halo, as he rises again from his tomb. But that ending is also symbolic: John 117 is taking his place in the heavens, to return to earth when needed.

John 117 and the Arbiter bring about the New Covenant of the Halo trilogy.

Dan Sherven is the author of three books, including the number one bestseller Classified: Off the Beat ‘N Path. Sherven is also an award-winning journalist, writing for several publications. Find Sherven’s work.

Subscribe now

Sources:

1. John 1:17

2. Spitzer, Jeffrey. “The Noahide Laws,” My Jewish Learning. 2018.

3. Mendenhall, George E. “Covenant Forms in Israelite Tradition,” in The Biblical Archaeologist. The American Schools of Oriental Research. 1954. 17 (3): 49–76.

4. Deuteronomy 11:13–21

5. Word on Fire. “Catholicism: Amazed and Afraid: The Revelation of God Become Man,” Word on Fire Catholic Ministries, 2010.

6. See “The Chariot of Poseidon,” Bardo National Museum, Tunis. 2nd Century AD.

7. Ramsden, E. H. “The Halo: A Further Enquiry into Its Origin,” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs. 1941. 78 (457): 123–131.

8. New Advent. “Nimbus,” in Catholic Encyclopedia, New Advent. 2023.

9. Exodus 34:29

10. New Advent. “Nimbus,”

11. See Nei, Briana. Revealed in Ephesians: The Mystery of Who I Am in Christ. WestBow Press, 2019.

12. Leeming, David A. Creation Myths of the World: An Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. ABC-CLIO, 2010. 400

13. Chen, Y.S. The Primeval Flood Catastrophe: Origins and Early Development in Mesopotamian Traditions. OUP Oxford, 2013. 3–4

14. Ryan, W. B. F.; Pitman, W. C.; Major, C. O.; Shimkus, K.; Moskalenko, V.; Jones, G. A.; Dimitrov, P.; Gorür, N.; Sakinç, M. “An abrupt drowning of the Black Sea shelf,” Marine Geology. 1997. 138 (1–2): 119–126.

15. Ryan, W. B.; Major, C. O.; Lericolais, G.; Goldstein, S. L. “Catastrophic flooding of the Black Sea,” Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. 2003. 31 (1): 525−554.

16. See Pageau, Jonathan. These ideas are present throughout the body of work.

17. See Pageau, Matthieu. The Language of Creation: Cosmic Symbolism in Genesis: A Commentary, 2018.

18. Bandstra, Barry L. Reading the Old Testament: An introduction to the Hebrew Bible. Wadsworth/ Cengage Learning, 2018. 61

19. Genesis 6:17

20. The Editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica. “Tartarus,” Encyclopedia Britannica. December 2022.

21. See Vervaeke, John. These ideas are present throughout the body of work.

22. Acts 8:1

23. Acts 26:5

24. Acts 26:13–14

25. Acts 22:7–9

26. See Sheen, Fulton. “Chapter 36: The Last Supper,” Life of Christ. Image Books, 1990.

27. Matthew 26:28

28. See Sheen, Fulton. “Chapter 36: The Last Supper,” Life of Christ.

29. See Romans 2:28–29

30. Mendenhall, George E. “Covenant Forms in Israelite Tradition,”

31. Matthew 27: 6–8

32. See Sheen, Fulton. “Chapter 46: At the Bottom of the List,” Life of Christ.

33. See Pageau, Matthieu. The Language of Creation: Cosmic Symbolism in Genesis: A Commentary.

34. Bandstra, Barry L. Reading the Old Testament: An introduction to the Hebrew Bible. 61.

35. Galatians 2:20

36. See Pageau, Matthieu. The Language of Creation: Cosmic Symbolism in Genesis: A Commentary.

37. See Pageau, Jonathan. “Love and Attention — Thunder Bay Conference,” YouTube, October 22.

38. See Vervaeke, John. These ideas are present throughout the body of work.

39. Exodus 25:22

40. Hebrews 9:4

41. Joshua 3:4

42. Revelation 11:19

43. Revelation 12:1

44. Ray, Steve. “Mary, the Ark of the New Covenant,” Catholic Answers. October 2005.

45. Lindsey, David Michael. The Woman and The Dragon: Apparitions of Mary. Pelican Publishing Company, 2000. 21.

46. Gustafson, David and Longenecker, Dwight. Mary: A Catholic Evangelical Debate. Gracewing, 2003. 32.

47. Catholic Church. Catechism of the Catholic Church. Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2019. Paragraph 2676.

48. Matthew 27:51

49. See Sheen, Fulton. “Chapter 51: The Rending of the Veil of the Temple, Life of Christ.

50. John 1:17

Author Jordan Peterson speaks about rescuing your dead father from the belly of the beast — which is the story of Jonah. One must go into the darkest place; the center of the suffering, to find what is most needed for the challenge at hand. If a person refuses that destiny, the person runs the risk of suffering Jonah’s fate: God throws Jonah into the sea; forcing Jonah into the belly of the whale to set things straight.

Peterson says what is meant by rescuing one’s dead father from the belly of the whale, is that “you repair your relationship with the culture that gave birth to you.”

Peterson explains with reference to Egyptian mythology; where Horus is the son and Osiris is the father:

“Culture is like an old king whose best days are behind him and who is always in danger of being overthrown by his evil brother. It’s a very astute representation of the state. Horus is the god of attention. He’s the eye, the famous Egyptian eye of Horus, and he’s the falcon who can see so he pays attention. That capacity to pay attention is for the Egyptians what rescued Osiris from the depths of the underworld, when he was overthrown by his malevolent brother.

“So who are you saving? Well you’re saving Osiris. That could be your father, insofar as the spirit of Osiris characterizes your father. But if you don’t have a father that doesn’t mean that spirit isn’t there. So maybe what you’re doing is rescuing your relationship with the central animating tendency of human civilization, insofar as that’s paternal. Or maybe you’re rescuing your relationship with God the Father; [God the Father] being an expression of that [central animating tendency of human civilization].”

Bishop Robert Barron speaks about a similar idea in his Sunday Sermon Rescued from the Depths. Barron asks: “What’s [God the Father’s] definitive rescue operation? In the fullness of time, God so loved the world that he sent his only Son. Where did the Father send the Son? Into our world, into our humanity, but all the way down — all the way into the dysfunction of sin; all the way down into death itself.

“Think of the downward journey of the Son of God, all the way to death on the cross. [That] is God going all the way to the very bottom of the tohu wabohu [the watery chaos] … that He might rescue us who had fallen into those depths. Now in the Resurrection, the Son of God [is] returning in the Spirit to the Father; bringing with Him the world that He has remade.”

The tohu wabohu is the chaos of the waters, before God creates the dry land in Genesis. As Barron says: “From the tohu wabohu at the beginning, God [is battling the watery chaos] in different ways, but then finally [there is] a definitive victory over it in His Son.” Barron says that “[the Father has] dealt, in Christ, with the tohu wabohu. The sea is no more [in the Book of Revelation; at the end of the Bible]. So now we’re ready for a remaking of the world.”

We’ll now shift gears to a video game from 1997, because all these ideas are implicit in Star Fox 64. Despite the game being designed for children, Star Fox 64 has an ending which dramatizes the idea of rescuing one’s dead father from the underworld.

The game follows Fox McCloud, a mercenary pilot and talking fox, who is attempting to save the Lylat solar system from Andross; a talking monkey and once promising scientist who is now trying to rule the Lylat System.

Before the events of the game, Fox McCloud’s father James McCloud — the leader of the original Star Fox mercenary team — was asked to investigate the planet Venom, where Andross was exiled after nearly destroying all life in the Lylat System; Andross is now considered to be a “maniacal scientist.”

Upon reaching Venom, James was betrayed by an ally who was secretly working for Andross. James is never heard from again and is presumed dead. Peppy Hare was one of the members of the original Star Fox team and was able to escape Venom.

Star Fox 64 begins a few years later, with Andross declaring open war on the Lylat System. Fox is asked to follow in his father’s footsteps and help stop Andross. The new Star Fox team consists of Fox, Peppy and two other allies.

The game progresses and the player defeats Andross’ forces on planets throughout the Lylat System. In due time, Fox and his allies arrive at Venom: the underworld.

Then Fox is forced to go alone on Venom. The player encounters Andross, who is a giant monkey head. Throughout the fight, it’s revealed that Andross is now only a brain. Andross has no body and is all mind. He is purely rational and cannot see the use for matter, spirit, or a soul which would unite mind and body. It’s no accident that he’s a monkey; the closest evolutionary ancestor to humans.

He is a dramatization of the human tendency to reject the spiritual element of matter; or to think that reason is the highest and only form of being human. All the characters have to be animals in the specific game-world of Star Fox 64, so Andross is the closest thing to an arrogant person with a strong intellect: a monkey who only cares about reason. He is a scientist because he is a caricature of a scientist; he only values scientific “progress,” whichever direction progress goes.

He’s a good representation of the darkest point of the underworld, because he is the sinful human tendency of the intellectually gifted: to think of oneself as being above the created order. Andross destroyed his own body in his scientific experiments. With Luciferian pride, Andross attempts to jump an ontological level (the category of being which something is). But in so doing, he falls an ontological level, as always occurs in sin; when a person attempts to become God. That is the story of Adam and Eve — eating the forbidden fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, then being exiled from Paradise. It’s also the story of Satan’s fall.

Andross’ head is so big there’s no room for a body. He thinks of mind and himself as the only reality. Mind is the highest value and his mind is the highest mind, therefore he is the highest value, which is to say he makes himself God. He is the Luciferian danger: that the most intelligent people who also idolize their own intelligence, have the potential to be the most malevolent people.

One is even reminded of C.S. Lewis’ novel That Hideous Strength, where the character Alcasan’s decapitated head is kept alive. Alcasan was himself a scientist; and the National Institute of Coordinated Experiments (N.I.C.E.) keeps his head alive with blood infusions, while saying how the head is kept alive: thanks to mankind’s scientific advancements. In actuality though, the reason; why the head is kept alive, is because it’s a mouthpiece for the Macrobes species who hate humans. The Macrobes are giving their ideas to those in N.I.C.E. through the head; demonic intelligences work through the head, as those dark patterns affect people who treat reason as a god, then treat their own ability to reason as a god, then treat themselves as a god.

A person must think of demons as intelligent patterns, rather than red creatures with pitchforks. The easiest example is addiction; a person is trapped in that dark pattern by dark powers. There is a demon of addiction. The cognitive scientist John Vervaeke calls that parasitic processing. The parasite identity, the addiction, will use and destroy the host identity; the person, in acting out the parasite’s aims.

So Lewis’ example shows: if a person thinks their mind can understand everything and is therefore above everything, including God — that will lead to demonic powers taking control of the person. Almost the definition of demonic, based on the head-demon being Satan, is that the intelligence in question thinks they are equal to or greater than God. And therefore can act as God, which is always the danger of the scientist and the politician; Andross is both.

With Lewis’ illustration as with Andross: if the intellect is made into God — in a dramatic representation; symbolically, that person is an evil head.

Tyranny is the complete control of all aspects of life by a single head. It’s the attempt to encapsulate everything, including God, into a human knowledge system. That is the danger of the scientist in our present era and the politician in all times. There is a reason that all religious traditions insist on the unknowability of the transcendent: to prevent such totalizing systems. And it’s worth noting that any intellectual pursuit — any person who pursues the life of the mind — is particularly susceptible to Andross’ unbecoming; intellectual arrogance.

Interestingly enough, both N.I.C.E. and Andross are scientific representations. Science is a good dramatic representation for these characters, because science is the attempt to get above everything. Science is the attempt of Man to become all-knowing; omniscient; to become godlike. The problem is that science only works for very specific questions.

Science can only explain how, but not why.

Science can explain how something works, but not why it matters. A person must expand their category of ‘meaning,’ why something matters, to include questions like why something exists instead of nothing. Science cannot give answers which address why questions; only reasons that address how questions. All questions of meaning live in the artistic and philosophical domains; domains which themselves give less complete answers than religion does. Perhaps no question of meaning can even be properly addressed at all, without God as an explanatory cause. Even if we could explain how reality came into being, we still wouldn’t know why. Explaining how one is good at writing is not the same as why those circumstances are.

Bishop Barron speaks about these issues on his Word on Fire Show:

“Why is there something rather than nothing? It’s an ancient perennial question. The point I’d like to make is, it’s a properly philosophical question. It’s not a scientific question. Not a question that can be adjudicated by physics, chemistry, or astronomy. Because [those disciplines are] always looking at events, [and] objects, and measurable states of affairs, within a finite contingent system. And that’s fine. That’s what the sciences are built to do. But when you ask the question we just asked, that’s not a deeper level scientific question. It’s a different type of question, [which] takes you out of the epistemological framework [theory of knowledge itself] of the sciences, and introduces you to a higher epistemological framework.

“One of the problems we face is scientism. One of its dimensions is a tendency to see philosophy as primitive science. [The philosophers] wished they could do real science, what they’re doing is some kind of underdeveloped science. No, what they’re doing is something qualitatively different than what the sciences do. The collapsing of all the epistemic orders into the scientific is one of the marks, negative marks, of our time.”

So Andross has no appeal to anything objective outside of science. Because he has no objective morality — a logical consequence of making something which is strictly non-ethical in the technical sense, such as science, a god. That is why Andross himself has to be the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong. That’s a consequence of answering only how questions and not why questions: every why question is answered by the individual’s assertion of power because there is no authority, but oneself.

Andross doesn’t believe in the legitimacy of any epistemological framework outside of science, which means that why answers can only be assertions of power, and not based on anything objectively true. That’s why Andross asserts the rule of his head-individual over all other individuals: if nothing about morality is objectively true, why can’t Andross make up the rules?

Venom, where Andross is exiled, is the furthest planet away from Corneria; Corneria being where the player starts. Symbolically, the underworld is always the furthest point from the origin. Another way of looking at it, is that claiming to be equal with God is the furthest thing from understanding one was created by God. That’s part of why Andross destroys his own body; he rejects how he was created and wants to create himself — Andross is a self-definition of identity.

Now deep within Venom; the underworld, Fox fights Andross’ head and then his brain.

Thankfully, Fox defeats Andross. Although Andross begins his lair’s self-destruction sequence. The entire structure the player is in begins to collapse and the only way out is through winding tunnels. The player has to fly Fox’s aircraft through those tunnels, which are essentially an exploding maze. Suddenly, Fox’s father appears while flying his own aircraft.

James instructs his son to follow, and Fox is led out of the belly of the whale by the spirit of his dead father. In other words, Fox rescues his dead father from the underworld. Through that, Fox saves himself and the world. Both ships make it to the surface of Venom, but Fox cannot find his father’s aircraft. In the distant sky, a point of light is seen speeding away into space.

The Lylat System has been saved and remade now that Andross is gone. The tyrannical scientist-government alliance, which is Andross, has been defeated. It’s always the case that when there is a tyranny, one must rescue their dead father from the underworld; to revive the culture and provide a renewal. The Egyptian myth of Horus and Osiris shows how that functions: it’s the ability to pay attention, which can help us rescue our dead father from the underworld. Proper attention is how Fox escapes the tunnels.

The son rescues his dead father from the darkest place; overcoming the suffering of that darkness by the son rescuing the spirit of the father. There’s an implicit Trinitarian relationship in rescuing one’s dead father from the underworld — just in terms of the language one has to use. Because it’s always the son who rescues the spirit of the father. As Bishop Barron notes with the Resurrection: the Son returns in the Spirit to the Father.

That mythological idea of Star Fox 64; rescuing one’s dead father from the underworld, finds its fullest expression in Christ’s crucifixion, descent into Hell, Resurrection, and ushering in of the New Adam in place of the Old Adam — remaking the world. Christ saves humanity from the darkest place; remaking the world, through the Spirit of the Father.

It’s by diving into the dark tohu wabohu — the watery chaos — that Christ rescues us from the depths. And that journey into the depths is how a person finds what is most needed to save themselves and remake the world. That’s how the person repairs their relationship with the Spirit who created that person. In symbolic terms, Fox’s father guides Fox out of Venom.

In our age of idolizing science and reason, we could benefit from understanding how to rescue our dead father from the underworld. Because when we try to get rid of God, we inevitably end up with a Godless religion. And perhaps there is nothing worse than a Godless religion, as shown by the totalitarian 20th century. That secular religion produces an underworld; and Andross is a symbolic representation of that pattern, in the particular scientific form.

If Man makes his intellect god, which is the essential religion of the nonreligious — and the best dramatic example is the scientist who wants to rule — the obvious result is that we end up ruled by a tyrannical brain. That same pattern is also seen in the stories of the Fall and Satan. These stories all show an attempt to jump an ontological level and become God.

If we undeservedly try to sit on the throne of God, or put an idol there, we fall into the depths. Often that ends up as a tyranny. Then we must rescue our dead father from the underworld; for that Spirit is the only thing which will save us.

Dan Sherven is the author of three books, including the number one bestseller Classified: Off the Beat ‘N Path. Sherven is also an award-winning journalist, writing for several publications. Find Sherven’s work.

Subscribe now