Fyodor And His God. How Does Dostoevsky See Him? BSD Analysis.

Fyodor and his God. How does Dostoevsky see him? BSD analysis.

God is the only entity Dostoevsky seems to love genuinely. So I've been cracking my brain up about how Fyodor "experiences" His presence. What he imagines God as.

As a bright light? A warm embrace? What else?

One thing for sure: Fyodor's faith is strong. And I think that it's partially due to how many near-death experiences he had.

Some people report seeing visions of the heaven/loved ones/afterlife in the moment of dying. What they see differs from person to person, but it's often connected to the collective subconscious and has some religious undertones. In the moments like this brain's working overtime to increase it's gamma activities and problem-solve it's way out of death. It almost feels like dreaming.

I wounder, how many of these dreamy visions Fyodor saw. How many times did he fly through the dark tunnel towards the heavenly light and only to "woke up" in his new body? How many times did he come close to "attaining" God and then was pulled away into his earthly existence again?

It probably cemented his beliefs in Paradise, and the fact that at least some people go there when they die.

Maybe, Dostoevsky's special ability has somehow influenced the way he views God too. And it's also shaped the way in which Fyodor eventually plans to "unite" with Him.

You know, Dostoevsky's whole gist is to get killed, then "fused" with his killer, replace them and then adopt some aspects of their personality?

It goes like this:

Someone kills him -> Fyodor respawns -> He absorbs some of the feelings of the person who tried to murder him before

It's an automatic response created by his ability. Dostoy lived through it over and over. It's probably imprinted into his subconsciousness.

And what's God? Traditionally, he's seen as all-embracing love, forgiveness and peace.

What if Dostoevsky thinks that if "God" kills him, he will get to experience all of this?

He will act so horribly and sinfully that God will try to kill him… Personally. Will he be able to "fuse" with God, using his ability? And become the "love, light, peace" he earned to experience for eternity?

Does it mean that "God's" presence will entirely erase Fyodor's personality and overpower him, so he would no longer have to be a sinner and an ability user?

Maybe, being "killed" by God is a way for Fyodor to return his soul to where it belongs.

Nikolai fought against God in order to lose the sight of himself.

Fyodor fought for God in order to become one with him. And probably lose the sight of himself as well.

It's interesting, how they have similar goals of self-erasure, but go about them in the opposite ways.

No wounder Gogol thought of them as besties.

Nikolai talks non-stop, but Fydor is into it (?)

Fyodor: Impressive. Sometimes, I can't read your thoughts at all.

Nikolai: That's because I don't think before I speak! >:D

Fyodor: That makes sense. I can't pick up on what's not there.

Nikolai: Yes! Speaking on impulse is the only way I can silence my brain. Anyway, about your plan…

Fyodor: (I'll let him talk. Maybe, it'll help him quite down his internal monologue)

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Asagiri said that Fyodor would gift his lover a country (or a land).

Do you know what country this would be?

A Promised Land 💀

Dostoevsky would literally send his loved one to Heaven. So he can reunite with them later. And anyway, if earth is such a horrible place, why would Dostoy want his lover to stay there?

By this definition, Fyodor has already "confessed" to so many people. Since he has murdered so much, maybe, he is poly? Who knows 🤔

Maybe, Dostoy wants to go to Paradise and have a harem there. So if he kills someone he fancies, this person's soul just teleports to heaven and joins other people Dostoy has "picked" to be together.

Why did God abandon Dostoevsky & how Osamu Dazai can help Fyodor regain his humanity (bsd analysis)

1. Heaven out of reach

Dostoevsky firmly believes that every sinner should be redeemed, recycled and turned into a pure light ascending to paradise. Sadly, ability users are oblivious to their sinfulness. They're too stupid to die themselves. So Fyodor has to help. He's going to be the one to set them on the right path. They're all be in heaven soon enough.

But if Fyodor believes that he can send anyone to heaven, why isn't he going there himself?

He paradise as a savior, while fearing that his soul isn't worthy of salvation.

Fyodor is convinced: if he dies now, God will just cast him into oblivion as a punishment for what he's done. And to avoid it he has to “redeem” himself by “saving” others.

It's an endless cycle. What does Fyodor blame for being stuck in there? An ability that has been corrupting his mind for centuries.

So we have an interesting paradox: Dostoevsky believes that he can send people to heaven, but he himself can't go there (yet).

So what's so wrong with Fyodor's soul? (apart from committing thousands of crimes, of course).

Let's start with the belief behind his motivation: “All abilities are sinful without expectation”.

What's so bad with having a special skill? Why does Fyodor see them as bad and evil?

From Fyodor's perspective, every ability is an abnormality that defines God. A special skill could give its owner a chance they weren't meant to have in the first place. It goes against the laws of reality and God's plan.

It also creates a huge power imbalance between a skill user and everyone else. It gives them some extra “temptation” in the form of a power that's difficult to handle.

This cursed gift alienates a person, pushes them into isolation, makes it harder for them to relate to others. All because a special ability changes the way it's user perceives reality with everyone in it. It morphs their world view, leading them away from humanity.

And heaven is created for humans and maybe other pure animal souls. The “inhuman”, abnormal skill users don't belong there anymore. Their unnatural talents distort their very core.

At least, Fyodor thinks like that.

This is Dostoevsky's ideology in a nutshell: Special ability corrodes its user's humanity and makes them unworthy of heaven.

Where did Fyodor get this from? His own life experience and the pain he's been feeling for a very long time.

2. Fyodor's broken dream and how his ability ruined his self-esteem

Fyodor Dostoevsky seems like a person who's probably wanted to die early and become as symbol of his beliefs (that's why he has “clicked” with Nikolai Gogol so easily).

Maybe, an idea of becoming a martyr was alluring to him. Martyrs sacrifice their lives for something greater than themselves. After their death, they often become saints. They're worshiped and praised for being selfless, virtuous, and kind. They're considered beacons of light that lead everyone to paradise.

And become Fyodor is heavily influenced by an early orthodox Christianity, he has probably read a lot about the lives of saints. To the point he wanted to become one himself.

For someone, like Dostoevsky, who was most likely terribly unloved throughout his formative years, an idea of being loved, even worshiped, after death is very tempting.

So it's not a far stretch to say that Fyodor dreamt of becoming a martyr, and welcomed an early death as a ticket to paradise.

And well, you can guess, how it all turned out.

Due to Fyodor's ability, he can't die as a martyr at someone's hands. He can't clear his sins with his blood. That means, regardless of what he does, he won't ascend to Heaven or become a saint through the deathly suffering someone inflicts on him.

Of course, not all saints were killed by someone in a painful or brutal way. Some of them met a very peaceful end. But knowing Fyodor, he probably believed that the best way to get rid of his sins is to suffer and die.

And then, this plan didn't work out. Fyodor learned that he had an ability, that defies a death itself. So no matter what sins he committed throughout his life, he couldn't redeem himself by dying. He died, and died, and died. But he was unable to go to paradise.

Maybe, at first, Dostoevsky thought he had a “set amount” of lives, like cats that are supposed to have 9. So he probably got himself killed multiple times, but with no result.

At one point, it clicked in Fyodor's head:

What if he can't be accepted to Heaven as he is now?

What if it made Fyodor think that God found his soul so repulsive, he couldn't die during his first “death”?

Dostoevsky started fearing that God didn't want him, and therefore he couldn't meet his creator in the afterlife. Perhaps, Fyodor decided that his ability made him so unworthy, he couldn't even come close to God.

“Crime and punishment” postpones Dostoevsky's demise. It goes against God's plans and resets the time at which Fyodor has been “meant” to die. His ability is so unnatural, it distorts the death itself. Maybe, that's what angered the creator?

Even more so, dying humanizes people. “Everyone dies”. It's something everyone believes in. According to some Christian believes people live, die and then their souls get evaluated in order to be sent either to hell, heaven, or limbo. Except for Fyodor. He can't even face the trial. At least via his preferable way of dying.

What other ways of achieving death does he have?

It's either suicide, an accident or an old age.

I doubt that Fyodor would willingly kill himself by the poison injection or some other method. It's not that he doesn't want to. His suicidal ideation is pretty strong. But unaliving oneself is considered a sin in many religions, especially in the orthodox Christianity from the early days. And Fyodor is afraid of Hell and God's wrath.

Dying from a disease or an old age won't do either. Since Fyodor considers himself very “sinful”, he craves a redemption as big as the crimes he committed. Cue his dreams of being a martyr.

But if Fyodor just waits until his body gets old and dies, won't it mean that he's gotten an “easy” way out? Will God forgive him after that? Unlikely. He'll probably get stuck in limbo, somewhere in between, and he can't live with it.

So if Fyodor gets killed by his own body, he won't go to heaven. 'Cause he wouldn't repent for the sins he already committed.

The same goes with the death by an accident. Dying too early means not earning God's forgiveness. Plus, if an accident is caused by another human, he'll still get reincarnated into their body.

“No longer human” could apply to Dostoevsky so well. How can he be human if he can't experience death like everyone else?

Wouldn't it mean that he was already marked as a “worst sinner of all” even before he was born?

Dostoy probably thinks that he isn't worthy of Heaven YET, or he hasn't done enough to earn his place there. For centuries, no one has been able to give Fyodor the gift of “absolute silence” (death).

So Dostoevsky didn't die as a martyr = didn't purify himself= couldn't ascend to Heaven.

It doesn't seem that Fyodor wants to live. He is exhausted, angry and almost lucid. But his consciousness clings to one idea: that all of this will get better, if he just “removes” his ability from himself.

This is why Fyodor is also afraid of dying NOW, before he can pull off his world-changing plan.

Dostoevsky thinks that until he'll get rid of his ability, he won't be accepted into Paradise. He is terrified that if he dies without removing “Crime and punishment” he will be doomed to endless suffering.

So he wants to make a sacrifice. He'll sacrifice what's left of his humanity, sanity and any personal connections. He'll erase any traces of desire for comfort and salvation by life, not by death.

His place on Earth will be sacrificed for his place near God.

That was his plan all along.

But then… Dazai came.

3. Osamu Dazai is what Fyodor can be if he gives a chance to his humanity

Dazai did what he does best: intervened with the plans and mixed up everything else.

Now Fyodor's sinful ability could be erased by the touch that wasn't God's at all. Now he could be killed by another human being. Now he could risk dying and seeing what was on the other side.

But Dostoevsky was terrified. After so many centuries of avoiding death, it almost became a reflex.

The more Fyodor lived, the more he sinned, the more he got scared of would happen to his soul in the end. And as a result, he became even more attached to his plan of “earning God's forgiveness by purifying the mankind”.

But then Dazai entered the scene and introduced Fyodor to another side of God, a side he used to overlook for so long.

Dazai believed in another version of a Devine being. And his was far more realistic and convincing. The God that Osamu envisioned was different. He was forgiving, messy, humane, and capable of change.

And of course, Fyodor could use his favorite trick to debunk this belief. “He is too stupid to understand anything”. Only this ploy wouldn't work this time. Because Dazai was smart.

That's why, in Fyodor's eyes, Osamu was so disgusting. He was intelligent enough to be different from everyone else, but somehow it didn't cause him to feel the same isolation Fyodor had to suffer through for all these years. At least in the present days, Dazai had friends, colleges, and aspirations. And he was capable of winning their chess game over and over again.

This made Dostoevsky's core belief shake up a little bit.

Did Heaven really exist? Did Fyodor choose the right pass to get to it?

Dazai made him doubt the way he acted. That's why Dostoevsky was so angry. Osamu threatened his faith. That was unforgivable.

Feeling cornered, Fyodor threw every bit of the intellect he had to destroy the agency and the bandaged man.

If Fyodor won, it would mean he was right all alone.

And if he didn't… He would die as a sinner, unloved by the very God he sought.

Impossible.

4. Two Gods and one desire: to reunite with a humankind

Fyodor says that God is a perfect, intangible being that loves ideally planned things. To be like him, one needs to be objective, emotionless, and prepared to discard everything for the greater purpose.

Dazai says that God is humane, imperfect and made of everyone's desires and emotions. Therefore, to be like him one needs to be a human to the best of their abilities.

Fyodor craves the love that Dazai's God can give him. He secretly wants all the imperfect, fun, messy things that can give his life a meaning. But humanity scares him. It's too unpredictable, wild, and difficult to control.

So human God terrifies him to the core.

It's a tragic a case of “want this, but need that”. Fyodor chases God, but craves humanity.

Dazai had to learn how to be human, and Dostoevsky could do it too. But Fyodor is too stuck in his ways to see another perspective. He doesn't know how to change, so he pretends not to care.

Until all the Fyodor's defenses will be completely demolished and broken down, he won't even allow himself to change his mind.

Maybe, his salvation will happen through death.

But it doesn't have to be this way.

The issue I feel I always hit upon with Nikolai is the six months he spent as a secretary.

If he'd joined the DOA suddenly and, within a few weeks to two or three months, decided to kill himself like this and went through with it, that'd be one thing. But he spent at least six months before Sunday Tragedy as Tonan's secretary, doing God-knows what, which is a real sticking point for me.

I mean, really think about it. Nikolai's whole plan seems unhinged, and somewhat mirrors Gogol's death. But Gogol's death was sudden, with almost no time between talking to the priest and taking up his fast. There wasn't time for deliberation or second-guessing.

Nikolai's part in the DOA's plan, though, gave him more than plenty of time to think it through. He had so many nights after coming home from work. He had so many opportunities to leave. Over six months. It completely changes the context of his death. It's impossible for it to have been impulsive, or spur-of-the-moment. It was methodical, intentional, decisively decided upon.

And that's... really bad for me rn. Because it says something very fundamental about his character, that he was able and willing to spend six months as a Japanese secretary to a high-ranking official, and to stick to that plan the entire time (I'm ignoring Nikolai's whole wanting to kill Fyodor thing until I see evidence that it actually furthers his character).

No matter how I look at it, deciding to die in that way had to be an impulsive action, just as Gogol's death was, and yet according to the manga, it couldn't have been an impulsive action, at least not for so long. At first, sure, it could've been impulsive, but Nikolai had more than enough time to think about it and change his mind (and I believe he'd be able to back out regardless of what the DOA wanted, he's resourceful enough).

The only other explanation would be that Fyodor somehow manipulated Nikolai into wanting to the whole time, which... I guess could be said. But that sort of explanation just undermines the entirety of Nikolai's motivation imo.

So, that leaves me between a rock and a hard place. Because I don't want to change Nikolai's character so fundamentally by altering canon, but I also can't explain to myself how he could've gone through with this whole thing, if not on impulse.

The only reason I can think to explain why Nikolai would be a secretary is because Akaky Akakievich was a secretary. And, just like Akaky Akakievich, he dies after appealing to a superior and without his overcoat ("Save me, sir!" and, if you look at the panels where he's in the chainsaw chair, his cape is conspicuously missing). But making that parallel isn't enough justification for why my interpretation of Nikolai would do this. Even if he didn't want to stay behind in Russia while Fyodor went off to Japan to become a terrorist, I don't see why joining in said terrorism would be anything more than one of his frequent flights of fancy.

I'm not ignoring the fact that he wants to be free. I know that's why he does everything. It's the fact that this particular way of going about freedom is absolutely batshit insane and he had enough time as a secretary to reflect and realise that.

It's also just really difficult for me to make that freedom compelling... Gogol wanted to purify himself, and, presumably, that priest he spoke to at least suggested that an extreme fast would help. His morbid fear of death, hypochondria, religious extremism--all of these character traits help contribute to the relatability of his actions, paint a picture as to how he possibly could've ended up there. And we can feel the humanity in his actions. There's something innately human about fear of death and striving for purity.

But Nikolai's freedom... Try as I might, I can't find an angle that finds its roots in humanity. I try to relate him to Kirillov, but Kirillov looks ascance and tells me that their motivations aren't alike at all, which is certainly true. I try to relate him to Gogol, but my issues are mentioned above. In sheer desperation I try to relate him to Akaky Akakievich, but there's nothing there for it. I've even tried Nastasya Fillipovna, and while she was helpful in other ways, nothing could be found for his freedom.

As I understood it, Kirillov's whole thing was "If God doesn't exist, then I must be God, because my existence is the only one I can prove, so I must be God and not remember>death will free my soul and I'll become God again", and since he was going to die anyway, he figured he might as well accept and give his death to Verkhovensky. But it also seemed to me sometimes that he just wanted to die, and was coming up with excuses. Either way, even that sentiment of "if my existence is the only one I can prove, then am I God" is fairly relatable, I think, even if Kirillov as a whole isn't much.

But Nikolai's freedom... He feels that society is a cage, and wants to escape it. Which... sure, it makes sense, especially for an extreme and eccentric personality like him. That he can't ever truly seem to break free of his societal conditioning is relatable. But somehow, torturing eight people to death and sawing himself in half because he's upset that he can't overcome his conditioning somehow isn't all that relatable.

I feel like Gogol's death was, in its own way, a perfect literary conclusion to Gogol life (though very early and I dearly wish he'd lived far longer). It was foreshadowed and fit his personality completely, and as a story is deeply fascinating and moving.

But Nikolai's death... it was sudden and shocking, a bit intriguing, and that's about it. It certainly didn't relate to any deeply human struggles. People do kill themselves often because of societal rules and conditioning (and people's poor reactions to them when they don't fit those rules), but they don't typically methodically plan out violent acts of terrorism. And I don't find domestic terrorists who commit acts of extreme violence to be particularly relatable. Or redeemable.

I want to make it work so badly, but I fear I never will. My Nikolai might be able to do it if it was spur-of-the-moment, with no time to reflect, but as a secretary... Well, actually, it's even worse than that. Not only does he have time to reflect, but living as a secretary again when he hated it so much the first time would also give him insight into how his life was as an actor... Idk, it's just a mess.