Good & Evil and The Contrast Between Them (Berserk Themed/Inspired)

How do we determine what is good or evil, who are we to say the final word? There is no such thing in the world as pure good or pure evil, everything is neutral, whether it be lawful neutral or chaotic neutral, and Berserk portrays this perfectly. If there was such a pure contrast that everything was black or white, how could we, humans, differ the two? Can we judge it by the looks? Most of the time, yes, as all living beings have prejudice by nature. If something “looks” harmless, such as having round-shaped features and optimistic colors like light blue, white, etc. We think of it as innocent and good, whereas the exact opposite is true also. If something has sharp-shaped features and darker colors like black, crimson, etc. we think of that thing as dangerous or evil. This is by no means an unhealthy thought, this helped our ancestors to survive yet this never is a completely correct way to judge, as in many cultures there are such things as “Evil light – Good Dark”. We can see this opposition in Kentaro Miura’s Berserk, the most renowned manga in the world and one of the best dark fantasy. The main character has sharp-shaped facial and body features and dresses are black while the villain has round-shaped features, looks beautiful and innocent, has blue eyes with white hair and his armor is white. The manga actually succeeds in terms of portraying this misconception, people worship the villain as if he was sent by God to save and protect them and the main hero is a blood-starved, emotionless and savage beast. After the things that I’ve said earlier, you might think that the truth is the exact opposite, and you would be absurdly wrong. Take a second look at what I said, there is no such thing as pure good or pure evil. The villain is indeed a chaotic person, he strives for his own good and does everything to achieve his goals, including sacrificing his own friends, yet, he still helps people in many ways. People think he is a gift from God for a reason. The villain keeps humans protected from monsters that hunt and brutally kill humans while he is also the one who brought monsters to the world. The same also applies to the main hero, he is extremely tortured and torn apart in terms of mentality, he had an abusive childhood and became a mercenary without a purpose. He met the villain on a battlefield, yet he wasn’t a villain at that time, and took the main hero under his command and saw him as a friend. The main hero had a purpose, friends and family but the villain took that away in cold blood. He sacrificed every man and woman to monsters in order to ascend and become a god and raped the hero’s first and only love in front of his eyes. After these events, he became a psychopath and was driven by vengeance. He only cared about killing monsters for what they’ve done but there is a twist, the monsters would return to their former human bodies and all that would be left is a scenery of bloodshed. Later on, he would be known as the black swordsman for him dressing in black and murdering “people” brutally. Humans started to fear him and think he is a bad guy. While is not evil at all, he is not good either. He did many questionable things, letting people die who were caught between him and monsters as he thinks that anyone who died in someone else’s battle is weak and deserves to die anyway. In reality, the same applies to every single thing. You, the reader, might think that you are a good person while someone else sees you as a bad, evil person. Your achievements might be someone else’s demise and for that, they wouldn’t be wrong. You may be the hero for your own good while this can make you the villain for someone. But, does this make you a bad person? Can we really judge people who strive for their own morals and goods as good or evil? We, humans, are simply unfit to judge others, we are only judges for ourselves. If your consciousness is okay with what you do, you shouldn’t care about what others may think. Follow your dreams and achieve your goals, do not let anyone interrupt them. As if you do, you will have betrayed your dreams.