It's not exactly "guilty" is slightly more practical than that. Alda wants to "restore" the world entirely to it's former state. This is largely due to Bellwood managing to brainwash him with extremist enviromental ideaollogy. This means anything that appeared in the world after the Demon King appeared is subject for purging because in Alda's eyes it simply doesn't belong in the natural order of the world. At the same time though he hates some races of Vida more than others. Specifically those with Ranks are the most abomidable to him as they are tied to the Demon King's system. That's why after a certain point in the story he decides that in order to counter the fact Van isn't actually a bad person he's lighten up on his crusade against Vida and "allow" the races of Vida without ranks to live. It's pretty much certain he'll change his policy back later since races like the dark elves are still in the way of his vision of perfect restoration of the old world. But for now he's prioritizing those with ranks as he loathes them so much more.
I’ll say it’s close. But I was of the understanding that why Vida’s races had to go, even the ones that weren’t “abominations” like the dark elves(vampires and other quasi-undead and monster stock get full abomination treatment), was all because the Demon King’s and Vida’s circles of reincarnation represented violations of order. Which they do. Both circles are deeply unstable. DK’s circle was unstable during DK’s life because he didn’t bother to maintain it. Vida’s circle is unstable because she didn’t have the “authorities” needed to make one first. Second she used the DK’s unstable creation as her basis(photocopy of a photocopy). And then third she was locked out of it by Alda punishing her making the whole situation worse. Alda has tried multiple times to get Rodcorte to intervene in both circles. But Rodcorte refuses and states the only way to fix things is to genocide all creatures connected to both circles and then destroy the unstable circles. Mostly because Rodcorte doesn’t want the “pain” of those two unstable circles. At least that’s what I understood to be the main reason for the genocide order. “No better options so have to swallow the bitter pill and do what must be done. For the greater good.” Not great thinking. But thinking that fits with Alda’s teachings at the very least. Even if those teachings have been warped.(Bellwood) I don’t know. Am I completely off here?
No, he actually recognizes he's being a hypocrite because at one point fairly early we see him acknowledging that some of Vida's kids are perfectly law abiding people, but he won't make an exception for them. The Greater Good just overrides that for him. However, this IS hypocrisy, meaning it's not what he preaches. It's an inconsistency. All of Vida's races are in her reincarnation circle apart from some evil god worshippers, most notably the three pure breeds. They lost access to Jobs, which seems to be because the DK's system doesn't provide that function. All of the monster races are in the DK's apart from those who were guided to Van's. These two systems are less stable than Rodcorte's, which is why Alda prefers that one. Now, slightly separately from that is that some of Vida's kids pollute the environment around them merely by existing and some don't. These are the ranked and non ranked kiddos. They're both in Vida's system without any issue because Vida's system can handle Jobs and Ranks just fine. Meanwhile, Rodcorte's system seemingly can't handle Ranks (or at least can't handle the foreignness that lets them develop ranks) for whatever reason. So. Putting this together, Rodcorte has two reasons to want races like Arachne gone: They pollute the area with corrupted mana and they're part of a system that competes with the one he prefers. However, races like dark elves don't have either problem, thus Alda has no particular grievance with them so long as they otherwise don't cause problems. So he's willing to let them move into Rodcorte's system if this is at all practical and then just treating them like anyone else. This actually makes him something of a moderate in his own religion, kinda. But Arachne can't be moved into Rodcorte's system, so they have to just be wiped out. Whether he would still believe this if Arachne could be moved into Rod's system but kept making corrupt mana is unclear, but these properties are probably mutually exclusive in the first place, so it's a moot point. Basically, he's hell bent on genocide because it's a bit more convenient, because he was brainwashed by Bellwood and because he refuses to see that Lambda actually has a pretty good thing going for it and wouldn't necessarily be any happier if things returned to how they were in Lambda's golden age. A bit safer with no monsters around, yes, but also lacking diversity and losing out on literally infinite resources. Also he just straight up hates vampires and we don't know why, which is why they're weak to light.
I'd say you're a little off. What bears worth mentioning is that Vida's system for reincarnation is entirely valid. It's not that she "lacks authority" she just lacked expertise. It's like making something for the first time, you're going to be a little rough with it. But van stated at least one point it was entirely possible to improve upon it to the point they could break off from Rodcorte's system entirely. DK's system is similar in that sense but it would need a lot more work done to it since he didn't really care when he made it. Keep in mind despite how "unstable" Vida's system is we have seen very few problems appear in it. From what we know the results of a flawed reincarnation system are essentially still births (basically being born with no soul) and reincarnating with memories intact (in this case without a god specifically letting that happen). So her system is entirely usable any any flaws can be fixed over time. The REAL problem is Alda simply won't accept that answer. Again Alda is absolutely obsessed with restoring the world to it's former state and part of that former state is Rodcorte's system. So even though Alda actually hates rodcorte he still wants to use his system because the only system he trusts is Rodcorte's. But this trust is more due to his obsession and less because Vida's system isn't usable. Nah you're off on this one. First of all Rodorte's system has never been stated to have any particular issue with Ranks. He just doesn't want them is all. Ranks were made by DK for the sake of strengthening his soldiers and weren't invisioned for the sake of a peacful world really. Of course after 10,000 years Lamda has more or less adapted to the existence of the rank system ... but again Alda doesn't really care about that. THe other thing you're getting a little wrong is the matter of pollution. Even with Vida's races possessing ranks some had villages or otherwise lived outside of devil's nests without corrupting them. Meaning while Vida's races possessing ranks often live in devil's nests this is more to avoid humans than because they made them. I'm pretty sure the scylla village wasn't actually a devil's nest and was just Marshland. That's why the humans were so eager to try to take it when the scylla left. Devil's nests will dissapear eventually if you purge all monsters but not that fast. Plus a proper devil's next would have monsters besides the scylla. Now some of Vida's races MIGHT produce "demon mana" but the story hasn't 100% spelled it out in large detail mostly due to Van not really seeing it as a big deal either way and the fact he takes sentient monsters as allies as well and those 100% do produce devils nests. It's also possible that the issues with monster races that do corrupt the land can be dealt with in a stable manner. Like having a god of death attribute mana to mannage it. Remember all of the other elements had god's maintaining their balance. It's entirely possible the DK's mana is so corrupting of the world is simply because no one maintains the stuff. But again Alda wants the world the way it WAS so instead of trying to find a proper solution he's only focused on getting rid of it. In fact this story will probably end with either Van himself or subordinates he's blessed becoming death god's and managing the death attribute so it can exist in harmony with the other elements.
And even before both these posts existed there was a little evil gremlin part of my soul that envisioned stirring a massive pot lol. I love how disproportionately passionate all of us get about a completely fictional, non-sensical world.
The difference between Vida's imperfect system and Rodcorte's perfect one seems to be that Vida's requires her subordinates gods and heroic spirits to maintain it. It also can't handle anything as big as Rodcorte's, apparently. Other than that yeah there aren't any notable issues. We do know that Rodcorte's system can't handle bringing in the ones with Ranks. Why that is is unclear, but he said it himself after Alda questioned him about migrating the Vidakids into his system. The answer was that it'd be theoretically possible to move dark elves and stuff in but the other were SOL. Even that would basically require totally removing Vida's authorities because she would never voluntarily go along with that. Now, it isn't explicitly SAID that it's because Rod's system can't handle Ranks, but I think it's a reasonable assumption when that's the only real difference between an oni and a mermaid on the level of their souls. The amount of mana Vida's races produce may not be significant, but it's still there. It's entirely manageable too: The Scylla were handling it just fine, to use your example, but when they left there was no one to hold it back and THEN it all turned into a devil's nest, especially with all the undead Van stuck in there. Also, nobody was eager to get that land. The Scylla deliberately picked marshy, mountainous terrain because it was so terrible no one else would really fight them over it. But yes, having a devil's nest spawn isn't necessarily a bad thing. It does require a different model of city planning, but that's not a bad tradeoff.
Actually Rodiot has said it has an issue with them, but as he described it seemed more like the whole issue is with Rodiot's system being to narrow, and he is to lazy to modify/upgrade it. If he wanted he almost certainly could modify his system to handle them, or make a sub-system that could either handle them or convert the ranked souls into a form his system could accept. But Rod does not do work Rod does not have to...
I thought rod said the only way to get the souls from the other systems are to dismantle them and the only way to do that is to kill everyone in that system.
Easiest way, but not the only way. If you use Vida as an example it is possible for a nearly dead, narcoleptic God to take a soul from one reincarnation circle to another. Rod probably just wants to save himself the tedious work of popping each individual soul out, reformatting it so it works with his system, and then adjusting his system so meshes with the Vida and DK systems in place.
I like to think of it as Vida's system is a bunch of loose code, she somehow got it working but even a beginner can read that code and add changes, edits or mods; while Rodcorte's is a massively micro-managed original source code, nobody knows how to read this programming language, and there are so many pathways and parents to make it as optimized as possible that 1 little change or addition crashes the system, so there is just no room for ranks.
Rodcorte's reincarnation system predates even Alda by quite a lot. For Alda, Rodcorte ruling over reincarnation is a law that even he can't mess with. Vida's races are all "guilty" as a result of this and this alone. The punishment was judged to be complete extermination. For him, the verdict of "guilty" was determined a hundred thousand years ago. Now he's just trying to enforce that verdict. That process has involved a lot of compromising since it hasn't gone at all smoothly. The real problem is that Alda recognizes and accepts Rodcorte's authority, while the gods outside of his faction do not.
Yeah, if Alda can remove Vida from her position as a goddess (whatever that means since he can't kill her and stakes weren't enough) then she won't be able to defend her circle from interference. Then he can pull all the mermaids etc. out into Rod's system. That seems to be his current endgame plan rather than literally killing everyone, which he considers something like a final favor.
I imagine the Van/Alda post fight speech to be basicially? Alda: don't kill me, the world needs me to manage the light and law. Van: I got several people lined up to handle those tasks. Alda: All the sealed fragments and evil gods will be released causing untold damage. Van: My friends and helpers have collected all of them in a subspace controlled by Gufadgarn I'll eat them later. Alda: Vida wouldn't let you destroy me. Van: She asked me to "try" not to eat you, so NOM NOM NOM.
Sorry, nothing related to the topic it's just, reading your NOM NOM NOM and then seeing your profile pic, I can't stop laughing XD
Hmm well I don't remember that conversation at all so I'll just take your word for it. It might also be more of an issue with those with ranks simply having a connection to DK's system and Rod might be unable (Or even just unwilling) to connect with it. As for the scylla's territory becomeing a devils nest I think the undead van unleashed were the primary cause. After all those guys are basically giant lumps of death attribute mana. I think it was stated he did that partly to cover their escape as well as just a "Fuck you" to oppurtunists trying to lay claim to the scylla's land the moment they left. So it was mostly on purpose he turned it into a devils nest. Either way like you said devils nest aren't a completely terrible thing and aren't uninhabitable. ESPECIALLY if there was a god or two to manage them. I mean just look at the demon continent. While it's certainly a rough region various races do live there and that's a region polluted to the max possible. I think it was implied the other god's there are partly reformed the region but that just further proves devils nests would be perfectly safe if a god maintained them like every other element in this world is maintained by a god.
They were the primary cause, yeah, but iirc it's also said the Scylla not managing the place anymore also contributed. The undead make it doubly bad though because all the other monsters run away from them, which means they're spreading out into the surrounding countryside and polluting it as well.
But that's not what Alda's group is doing, presuming Goldie is in Alda's group. They're not engaged in vigilante mutilations on "innocents." They're framing people and then declaring them guilty to mutilate them so they can frame Van's bunch, especially the real "face-stealing demon," for doing that. As chapter 262 demonstrates, there's a very real danger of that backfiring if they get caught, which they did, because they were just too secure in the "righteousness" of what they're doing. Would love to see Goldie and his unnamed subordinate get dragged across the coals not just for their own murdering and framing, but being tied to the murders done by Bragga, and having to try to prove to an angry crowd that they weren't framing those victims too. BWAHAHAHA!
Honestly I doubt Alda wanted him to do this. Also, you said "It's not what you said, it's exactly what you said."
I've stated as such before, Basdia is best girl. However, shouldn't we consider Van a father already with his many pseudo reincarnations, All the Gehenna bees born from Quinn are his grandkids, Julianna and the female minotaurs, Pauvina, Does his mother count? If so is Van the progenitor of the entire chaos elf species? What about all the people and animals that have ingested and absorbed his blood to mutate? Man the Van family tree is already complicated without any actual kids.
At this point, his family tree is more like a 5th dimensional hypercube of tangled mess and confusion.