The fascination Gras found in the heliocentric theory is left in the hands of Oczy. Clinging to faint hope in heliocentric theory, Oczy visits the brilliant, aloof monk Badeni with the stone box newly in his possession. Oczy and Badeni seek a new collaborator to help prove the theory. They find a girl despairing of the world, crushed by an era that laughs at the notion of a female scholar. Also entrusted with the research of Count Piast, a luminary of the geocentric theory, Badeni digs yet deeper into his efforts to prove the heliocentric theory. But even as they each pursue their respective hopes, overwhelming despair comes creeping up to them. Close your eyes. Plug your ears. Be ordinary. That's the only way to resist true knowledge.
I just feel like the author has such a tenuous grasp on Christianity. Jolenta feels guilty for saying words are a miracle- as if the first words of the book of John aren't "In the Beginning was the Word." In Christianity, God is The Word. By words He created the world. By their preservation in the bible, we learn of Him. Paul teaches saints across the sea via written, his epistles being the bulk of the new testament. To suggest the written word is anything less than a miracle is blasphemy.
Again, a failure of the author to read the bible. A student asks "why are there rainbows" and the Father gives a completely nonbiblical answer. The theological answer to this question is in the first book of the bible - God creates rainbows as a token that He won't flood the Earth again, as He did with Noah. So when it rains, we can be at peace and remember His promise, but also the lesson of the story of Noah. This is a great theological lesson. He could even keep the same message, the student probing to understand, or asking "well why does my watering bucket make a rainbow when I water my plants then?"
There's an interesting monologue near the end of volume four about basically arguing for peer reviewed papers and the scientific process. It's actually fairly interesting, and I can see one of the characters has been designed in his selfish way to teach this lesson. But again, when religion is brought into the monologue, it just shows how little Uoto understands about Christianity and Faith. His description of faith is "refusing to acknowledge you might be wrong and not allowing for rebuttal from a third party." He describes the scientific process as "trusting others." There's some logic there, but it mostly misses the mark. When faith is, essentially, trust. When God told old man Abraham he would have posterity like the stars, the bible says Abraham "believed God," despite he and his wife being extremely old. Faith IS a type of trust. It's deciding to believe what God has said.
The only valid argument is that this isn't actually about Christianity, after all, it's never called the "Catholic Church," but the "C- Church." To be honest, the story would work much better if it was complete alternate history, paralleling real history and religious suppression. That way you can be as hyperbolic as you want with little regard for reality. It fails as a commentary because it doesn't theologically understand what it's trying to comment on. Just really unimpressed, and the story isn't compelling enough to drive me to keep reading. I'm halfway through, but I'm feeling like maybe I'll just stop here.
Untuk yang menanyakan aku mengapa baru volume ini saja yang aku ulas: sebelumnya aku sudah menontonkan animenya sejak awal tayang dan menamatkannya, maka dari itu aku merasa tidak perlu untuk membeli manganya secara berurutan. Toh, manga satuannya baru akan diterbitkan di Indonesia tahun ini. Dan kudengar-dengar belum juga ada rencana untuk penerbitan omnibusnya
Buku yang ku baca ini ialah yang translasi Inggrisnya, ku beli sewaktu di Singapura. Jadi mohon maaf apabila perkataan di ulasan ini tidak sesuai dengan apa yang tertulis di terbitan Indonesia nanti akibat kendala bahasa.
Kurasa buku ini sangat kuat dalam menyampaikan perjuangan untuk menetapkan kesetiaan di suatu kepercayaan. Penggambaran mengenai bagaimana banyak dari rakyat sebenarnya tidak menentang agamanya, melainkan pada pihak yang berkuasa(dalam kasus ini, pihak gereja). Meskipun agak dangkal, aku sangat suka dengan penulisan sang author mengenai patriakis yang berpandang jelek kepada ilmuwan wanita, serta menulis sang ilmuwan wanita(Jolenta) tidak seperti klise 'satu-satunya perempuan yang kuat di tengah gelombangan lelaki' melainkan sebenarnya hanya perempuan biasa yang teguh pada agamanya, memiliki ketertarikan pada astronomi dan ingin menyampaikannya pada dunia sebagai sebuah amanah; namun sebaliknya ia justru terhambat dan dibungkam oleh lingkungannya yang otoriter dan hipermaskulin.
Perlu juga diacungkan jempol dariku, sang penulis mampu tidak menggambarkan orang-orang di gereja sebagai yang '100% salah' dan berhasil memadukan garis moral yang tidak hanya hitam putih. Bahkan, karakter yang paling aku suka sendiri adalah sang inkuisitor dan bapak Jolenta sendiri, Nowak. Beliau bukan yang paling religius namun bekerja di lingkungan religius karena ketakutannya terhadap agama, terhadap pengertian-pengertian salahnya yang disebarkan tidak bijak oleh pihak gereja.
Untuk sebuah karya manga, ini bisa saja salah satu dari karya favoritku selain karya Nobuyuki Fukumoto dan Takehiko Inoue. Touche, Uoto.
Aww I love Okgi. Dude finds a reason to want to learn, and to admire the world around him. He actually cares about people, and his commitment to the movement of the Earth isn't out of a desire to show how smart he is or leaving some grand footprint on reality, rather an admiration of wonder. He's so cool.
How hard would you fight for your beliefs? Would you spill blood for them? Orb puts that question forward in its story and follows through to the conclusion. Really amazing experiences. I’ll remember the invocation in moonlight at the end of this volume going forward. 🙏