Marx, obiter, stultus est.

Oftentimes when I play metaphor I have to understand that the studio that makes it (ATLUS) is a Japanese company. With that in mind I will be 100% blunt.

When it comes to the depiction of sanctism and it's very clear allegory to Christianity. It is uncomfortably true in certain regards especially considering sanctism is heavily based on the Catholic branch of Christianity (and I have a few choice words when it comes to the Catholics mainly all criticisms directed to how they approach prayer and the very questionable decision to create a hierarchy in the church.)

Now before I begin I want to preface something

Coming into playing metaphor refantazio I was (and still am) a Christian, a protestant to be specific and so when it comes to sanctism it is no real surprise I do not care for how the church works in the way it's written, and I mean that in the good way.

Let's talk about the one bastard in this game I Vehemently hate and very much want to strangle the life out of, the 78th sanctifex of the sanctist church, Forden.

Forden to me is a appropriate bastardization of faith leaders and I say bastardization because Forden is someone I consider to be complete human garbage and I say that as a guy who looks at the actual antagonist of this game- Louis guibern

(who is pretty obviously partially based on Lucifer, I mean his name is Louis, he wears white and gold colors often associated with the divine, many of his followers call him Lord Louis, he hates sanctism and wishes to remove it much like how the devil himself hates Christianity, plus the final fight has him achieve two forms, one based on the commonly assumed appearance of Lucifer, and the other based on the devil of inferno from the divine comedy, it is EXTREMELY apparent Louis is based on Lucifer the game basically says it out right through character design)-

and still says that he doesn't hate Louis but more wishes to ensure that no else turns out like him by creating a better society where no one has to suffer only because of their race or societal standing.

But why do I hate Forden so much? Well for starters he blackmailed a child, Rella, to assassinate the prince via placing a curse on the prince was also A CHILD all to place blame on Louis who also at that time was a child (this was all 7 years prior to the start of the game by the way)

The reason as to why though? Because the prince was part elda, a race that sanctism supposedly paints as demonic and evil when In truth they are simply the descendants of humans who didn't mutate into the other species or became the monsters that took the name of “human”.

He wanted the prince dead because of his heritage, and before that he raised the home of the elda, their sanctum to the ground simply because he hated elda.

He burned the homes of innocent people to the ground all because he didn't like their race, and we know for a fact that the writings that sanctism is based on, has no reference to discrimination against the elda, because it was the ancestors of the elda themselves who wrote the book.

All of this and even after, Forden still chooses to be a rotten piece of garbage because he still pushes racists agendas, he and his cabal of the members of Euchronia's council plotted to put Forden on the throne after the king's death or retirement as they assumed the prince was dead.

And then after the king's death and the postmortem spell the king put in place to have the people decide their new king Forden and his cabal schemed and decided to host a competition, all to set up Forden as the perfect candidate for the throne.

And when the protagonist and the party bring sanctoress Joanna to the first leg of the competition to confess her crimes of kidnapping children and feeding it to a monster “human” after the death of her own child because her child was mixed and the father was someone from another race, which modern sanctism having a big “no no” to the idea of interracial children, leading to the nanny of the baby to murder it in its crib.

All of that was because Forden created a faith where it was originally about forgiveness and spreading of truth and turned it into an exclusionary and bigoted church who only sought to put its own head into power.

After all of that and lady Joanna confessing to it, what does Forden do? He executes her, not because he actually wanted to right the wrong that he let happen but to save face (the game even shows this) he had someone- the protagonist, an ELDA- bring the evil he sowed straight to his front door and instead of realizing he's been going down a path of hate and changing his ways, he keeps going.

With the second step of the competition being to go to the island of the mustari, a race of people with third eyes and are as the sanctist refer to as “pagan”, Forden figured that to have it be the second step was to show loyalty to the sanctist church via pillaging the mustaris homeland and robbing them of their relics before having those relics being claimed as originally being from sanctism before sealing them away, but he intends to make it fine by having it be introduced via having the mustaris faith being about worshiping “Eldritch” deity's and that they are “Savages”

…I don't think I could further explain his atrocities in the story without popping a blood vessel, I hate Forden, I view him as a complete bastard, and this was all intentional on the part of ATLUS.

But I will say this historically there is very little evidence of Christianity committing atrocities in the same vein, it doesn't stop the fact that I still feel furious looking at Forden because he is such a level of self righteous cowardice that it burns me up when I think about people who act like him.

Ya see metaphor refantazio is a very political story, not in the American sense obviously because the game is from Japan, but in the sense of discussing governance and how should a government be approached when it comes to ensure it does not become corrupt.

Metaphor has this by having the government being a monarchy, with a king, a prince, everything but the king also had a council with Forden being a member.

And Forden being of the sanctist church with sanctism being the kingdoms state religion it is very apparent what metaphor is trying to say.

I hate Forden because he is the corruption of faith given flesh, he is someone who is trusted and loved in the faith, he is someone of a high position in the church and he is a rotten piece of shit who uses his connections to push a harmful status quo while turning the people of the faith against those he views as evil, and while he is most likely not the first person who pushed this status quo, he has certainly pushed hard to get there.

And when I look at Forden I feel nothing but anger, not at the game, but at the character, I see him and I feel the urge to just scream “WHY ARE YOU SUCH A HORRIBLE PERSON?! WHY WOULD YOU WANT THIS?!”

But the game never gives answers and I think that's for the best, because Forden I don't think could ever be sympathetic, Louis wanted a world of survival of the fittest and while his ideals were inherently leading towards a world that would hurt countless people for no reason he has often not taken glee in his cruelty as much as Id like to say otherwise.

Forden is essentially the opposite as he is someone who enjoys being on top and forcing everyone to bow down to him, but he's also a sniveling coward.

He supplants himself as seemingly superior and instead of keeping to the teachings of his faith he instead chooses to use his power to hurt innocent people.

When he discovers there is a way to kill a candidate using a relic acquired by the party he is incredibly terrified because he's afraid that it's going to be used on him, and when he is killed he does not go out glorious, he goes out pathetically.

He is a sniveling rotten man who I can only say is a perfect representation of corrupt faith leaders.

I will say this, I do not believe all leaders of a faith (in this case Christianity) are corrupt, however there are those who use their position to scam people out of money, who use their power to fear monger and discriminate against those who do not fit in the status quo, there are even members of the faith who aren't leaders yet choose to fear monger, I know this because a part of my extended family specifically my step father was not accepted as a pastor because the people of the church thought his daughters were lesbian simply because they wore pants, when for all they knew they probably weren't.

It is ignorance that festers when faith is used to excuse cruelty, when a faith that is supposed to be about teaching the word of God, about guiding people back to Christ, about obeying ten fucking commandments that are so fucking simple to follow even children of the church know them. When a faith that is supposed to be about having empathy yet speaking and acting with truth, when a faith like that is twisted by blind ignorance and hate that leads to things such as bigotry I feel nothing but a deep seeded anger, because that is not the faith I was taught.

Christ flipped tables when he found a temple of worship was turned into a home of rotten liars and individuals who would rob people blind simply to satiate their own greed. I would wish to do the same, because I will not tolerate ignorance in the house of God, nor would I tolerate it in my own home.

I will not tolerate the deceiving of people of the faith by sycophants and bastards, I will not tolerate a church that has gone cold.

I wish for the churches to no longer be divided, I wish to ensure that the house of God is once again a house, because the church is meant to be a home, it is meant to be a sanctuary for all to find truth and forgiveness.

This may just be me acting with my heart more than my head, but I will never tolerate blind ignorance, because it is that ignorance that breeds fear, and fear brings disorder, and disorder brings extremism. I do not want to see something I view as the Pinnacle of humanities potential to be good brought down into a vile den of monsters.

I'm getting ahead of myself, apologies.