Giratina - The Pokemon Devil?

[Webspidrman]

What people seem to be reacting to so strongly on this thread, and in general involving any discussion between the Christian devil and Giratina, is the idea that Giratina is malevolent or evil. If you ask me, the origin story of the Pokémon Multiverse incorporates many aspects from creation stories from around the world. I don't think it was a coincidence that he is the "Renegade Pokémon" or that he was "banished" by Arceus to the Reverse/Distortion World for its violence. And his association with the number 6 is odd as well. (Remember that whether the "Devil's Number" is 666 or 616 is unimportant, it's just what most people believe that matters as far as design is concerned.) So evidence seems to suggest that Giratina's design recieved some influence from the Christian idea of the devil.

However, these aspects almost certainly only were incorporated to add to the internationality of the Pokémon franchise. Note that Arceus's description of creating the universe with "a thousand arms" hearkens back to Avalokiteśvara from Buddhist belief, and the story itself is similar to that of Chinese mythology among others. Arceus's vary appearance seems to be based upon that of the Qilin of Chinese mythology. Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres, are thought to be based upon the Arabic Anka, the Native American Thunderbird, and the Russian Firebird and Western Phoenix, respectively, while Ho-Oh resembles the Huma bird (Eastern Phoenix) of Sufi tales with the power to resurrect itself and others and the immortal Fenghuang of Chinese myth. the Groudon, Kyogre, and Rayquaza are thought to be based upon the Behemoth, Leviathan, and Ziz, the unconquerable beasts of the land, sea, and air according to Jewish doctrine, as well as the Chinese dragon in Rayquaza's case.

What i am trying to say is, the designers of the Pokémon recognize that their fanbase belongs to a variety of different religions, including Buddhism, Shinto, Christianity, Islam, Judaism and others, and so they have deliberately attempted to connect to their audience with references to the various religions and mythologies of the world without picking favorites with any one of them. The same goes for Giratina. Even if the designers deliberately incorporated aspects of the Christian creation story in Giratina's design, they also wanted it to be a unique creature and not just a parody of the devil. It's similarities with the devil are an attempt to connect with Christian audiences, but the similarities are just as important as the differences. For example, while Satan is generally viewed as the embodiment of pure evil, Giratina, despite having had an ancient feud with Arceus, is depicted as a misunderstood and at times heroic figure, who honorably fulfills its duty as guardian of the Reverse World and correcting imbalances there in the animé, and appearing to stop Cyrus in the games. Furthermore, he is a necessary balance to Dialga and Palkia, and was created by Arceus with the intention to be so. So even if it draws some influence from the Christian creation story, it is a unique character that is purposely not presented as a Pokémon devil. In other words, it's the kind of creature that a devout Christian can hug and not feel bad about. :angel:

The best similarity that can be made between the Christian devil and Giratina is they are both "renegades" who are rebellious and refuse to obey authority just because, but what they choose to do with themselves and their intentions are drastically different. (Actually, showing up in the real world, which Giratina seems to do often enough in the games, appearing in cemeteries and Turnback Cave, is already being a renegade, since he was "banished" by Arceus to the Distortion World, and therefore shouldn't leave to go to the real world.) Being a renegade is neither good nor bad, it is what one chooses to do as a renegade that determines character. Giratina's and Ash's closeness is telling of this: both of them are renegades in a way, Giratina by displeasing Arceus, and Ash by his unorthodox methods of raising Pokémon. (Let's face it: not every non-evil person in the Pokémon world consider Pokémon to be equals to humans, as Paul obviously demonstrates. Nowadays Ash has even gone as far as to ask Pokémon to join him rather than simply catching them and forcing them to like everyone else.)

To conclude, while Giratina being a renegade is an obvious reference to the Christian creation story, calling him the "Pokémon devil" is very much an oversimplification. He is a unique character that draws inspiration from multiple influences, including dualism, the concept of antimatter, and the fallen angel of Christianity.

 

[Yabukuron]

Webspidrman just said it best to me. While they're similarties, it's oversimplification to just say that Giratina is the Pokemon "Devil"

Giratina is more of an Anti-Hero than anything else.

 

[TeamGalacticMercury]

I am not a very religious person, so beware. I do not think that Giratine is the devil; he seems more like a shunted lonely loner pokemon that can be cold but is very compassionate inside. He saved Dialga in movie 12, did you forget that? Giratina also saved Ash multiple times in Movie 11 and movie 13. He is more of a hero than a devil. This is just me.

 

[Stuntology]

I think that it's possible, especially with all of those 6's. Actually, they're unnerving me now...

 

[howardtheeduck]

I agree on how Arceus created Giratina, but as a Pokemon Devil? I dont think so. When it comes to religious aspects, it DEFINITELY matches so close. BUT, in my belief, for I am spiritual and not religious, I have to disagree.

The terms 'good' and 'bad' are judgements. Just like 'right' and 'wrong'. All of these terms derive from the flat out terms of: what 'works', and what 'doesnt work'.

Just as you have said, Squirtleman, Giratina is the balance to Dialga and Palkia. Since Arceus is where everything originated, then Arceus is the center of all that there is, and all that ever will be.

So, anything that Arceus creates is basically a piece of itself. Arceus is matter, anti-matter, dark, light, chaos, control, etc, you get my drift.

In conclusion, Giratina stopping Cyrus from the creation of an emotionless world (although everyone would assume is Mesprit, Azelf, and Uxie's problem to handle) is in fact EVERYONES problem because if Arceus created everything that is needed to function in what we call 'life', then one major thing such as EMOTIONS would upset the balance of everything and throw things out of proportion. Everything that was created is here for a reason. Giratina was simply saving its own existence, but in turn, saved everything else along with it. Accidentally? Nope. Purposely? Nope. It simply just DID.

So is Giratina the Pokemon Devil? I guess you can CALL him that, but only without judgement. There is positive and negative, but to judge any of them as 'good' or 'bad' is when both have things that work and do not is simply pointless.

 

[kilon]

Sorry, I didn't read all of this but purely from looking at the sprite you must be crazy if you call that the devil.
Devils are supposed to be extremely scary and dark, Giratina obviously is not.
And pokemon will never be the platform to host truly evil pokemon.

 

[Mr Post Man]

Ooh, I got a good one.

Giratina's Origin Form is a serpent, Satan appeared to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden as a serpent.

Happenstance/Coincidence? =P

The christian devil makes zero appearances in the "old" testament. Get your fiction right.

Also, this topic is incredibly stupid. Seriously.

 

[Data_Error]

I agree with Postman in that this topic is stupid, especially since it's been established multiple times that Giratina represents antimatter, not the devil:

Interview confirming this fact

Can't very well argue with the people directly involved with the game design, now, can you? Now please stop trying to force Pokémon into the God/Satan roles. People were trying to do this not too long ago with Darkrai, too. C'mon, folks. For that matter, I'm pretty sure that Arceus is meant to be a creation god, not necessarily the Christian one. The "thousand arms" description sounds much more Buddhist than anything else, but that's a bit off-topic.

 

[Webspidrman]

I agree with Postman in that this topic is stupid, especially since it's been established multiple times that Giratina represents antimatter, not the devil:

Interview confirming this fact

Can't very well argue with the people directly involved with the game design, now, can you? Now please stop trying to force Pokémon into the God/Satan roles. People were trying to do this not too long ago with Darkrai, too. C'mon, folks. For that matter, I'm pretty sure that Arceus is meant to be a creation god, not necessarily the Christian one. The "thousand arms" description sounds much more Buddhist than anything else, but that's a bit off-topic.

I agree. While i still think that Giratina's design received some influence from the story of the fallen angel, it is clear that it embodies other concepts such as "antimatter" as much if not more so.

As a physics nerd, i just want to point out that antimatter is merely matter that looks exactly like the particles of normal matter but have the opposite charge. For example, while we normally think of electrons as negative and protons as positive, the antielectron (also known as the positon or positron) is positive and the antiproton is negative. There is even an antineutron which is made up of oppositely charged quarks and has an opposite polarity than the neutron. It is also possible to form "anti"- atoms and molecules, which work just like normal atoms and molecules. Whenever a "pro"matter particle and its antimatter counterpart collide, they then turn into energy. Similarly, according to quantum physics theories, energy spontaneously turns into a particle and its counterpart all the time, which often annihilate themselves back into energy soon after. According to the same theories, this happens even in supposedly empty space as long as energy is present.

How this ties into the concept of the Distortion World is that since promatter and antimatter come into being in about equal percentages, all the antimatter particles created by the Big Bang, assuming they were created in equal amounts to promatter particles, had to go somewhere because they weren't annihilated. Therefore, it has been theorized that there may be a counterpart to our universe somewhere formed by antimatter from the Big Bang in the same way that our universe was formed by promatter from it. That said, such a universe wouldn't necessarily have distorted time and space like the Distortion World. (Also setting foot in that universe would cause all the promatter making up your body to be annihilated into energy by the antimatter around it.) So Giratina embodies the idea of duality between chaos (Distortion World) and order (normal world) just as much as it resembles antimatter.

Did i cause anyone's head to spin with that last part? :spin:

 

[Nogitsune]

Also, Nogitsune, what are you talking about? The numbers will probably go through the 500s and stop around 600. Remember, we're only at 493 right now.

Well, yes, the fifth generation will likely only go to around 600 (if that), but presumably this is not the last generation of pokemon, thus:

"It will be interesting to see what happens come the sixth generation of pokemon since they will include the numbers 616 and 666 (and, if patterns hold, 616 ought to be a Normal/Flying type or a Bug, Bug/??? type while 666 could be anything)."

 

[SquirtleMan493]

I agree with Postman in that this topic is stupid, especially since it's been established multiple times that Giratina represents antimatter, not the devil:

Interview confirming this fact

Can't very well argue with the people directly involved with the game design, now, can you? Now please stop trying to force Pokémon into the God/Satan roles. People were trying to do this not too long ago with Darkrai, too. C'mon, folks. For that matter, I'm pretty sure that Arceus is meant to be a creation god, not necessarily the Christian one. The "thousand arms" description sounds much more Buddhist than anything else, but that's a bit off-topic.

I already know that is what the creators say, I made reference to that in my very first post. But it seems rarely do they draw inspiration from any one source.

You're taking the title "devil" to seriously; I'm not saying he's downright evil and demonic, I'm making note of possibly inspirations for his design. I just said "devil" to simplify, I could have said "Satan" or "Lucifer", I guess. I personally wouldn't say Giratina is hellbent on bringing hell to the world, I just can't help but see similarities to the Christian idea of the devil. I'm sure Giratina has similarities to other religious characters, but being a Christian myself (though not a practicing one) his similarities to the devil are what I see the most.

And I'm not going to argue something I don't know a lot about (8P), but from what I can find the serpent in the Garden of Eden was an embodiment of Satan.

 

[hamammm]

Giratina is actually a very good natured pokemon that wouldn't really fit the personality of the Devil or Satan/Lucifer. What it does fit tho is the Greek God Hades who wasn't inherently evil.