Note: This post discusses spoilers for Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation through season 3, episode 13 (mostly of that specific episode), and mentions mature topics that some readers may find uncomfortable.
Tragedy
One of the recurring features of classical tragedies is that the main character’s strengths always bring about his demise. The hero thus ends up betraying himself (or herself, but until recently tragic protagonists were usually men): For example, Oedipus’s knowledge and persistence drive him to discover that his sins (though committed unknowingly) have brought the wrath of the gods upon his city; Macbeth’s decisiveness leads him to become a tyrant, but the question is left open as to how much is his choice and how much is fate foretold by the three witches.
Tragedy thus blurs the line of responsibility for evil: Who is at fault, and to what extent? When someone commits evil, do they do so because they want to, or because circumstances—including their own character, in some cases—have forced them to? Ironically, this blurring actually clarifies an uncomfortable truth about our world and ourselves: that very often, our sin is a complex result of our own choice mixed with things that we can’t control.
In many anime, especially of the shonen variety, villains tend to come in one of two flavors. On the one side is the person who is revealed to have a tragic backstory, making them more sympathetic; we can understand how they ended up making the choices they did and think that, perhaps, they are not so bad after all. On the other side is the villain who takes pleasure in evil for its own sake, who doubles down on their position and removes any room for sympathy. The antagonists thus tend to simplify the complexity of sin, either absolved of most or all of their guilt or shown to be irredemptively evil.
One anime that does not do this is Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation.
In the thirteenth episode of Jobless Reincarnation season 3, “The Diary,” the main character Rudeus follows a similar tragic path, but with a twist: Unlike the classical tragic hero, who betrays himself, Rudy’s downfall comes from betraying others—his family, friends, and the like.
It all starts when a mysterious illness threatens the life of his second wife Roxy, and Rudeus—like the loving husband he is—sets out to find a cure at any cost. Having grown up in a less-than-ideal household, Rudy has made an effort to be a good family man as a way of overcoming the hurts of his past; his determination to save Roxy stems at least in part from this conviction. Here one of his strengths is on full display, and yet it is the start of the destruction for himself and everything he holds dear.
Traitor
The words “traitor” and “betray” come from the Latin word tradere, meaning “to hand (someone or something) over.” They describe someone who gives up another person to obtain some desired end. This is an intrinsically selfish act, and one that spends human life as its currency. No wonder that Dante put traitors at the absolute bottom of his Hell, with Judas, who handed over God Himself for thirty pieces of silver, in the center.
With two of his close friends, Rudeus sets out to obtain the magic spellbook that will allow him to heal Roxy. But the brief scene in the anime suggests that he has to steal the book, and he and his two companions are set upon by the book’s protectors. One of his friends is injured and eventually dies on the road back. The friend’s wife, also someone close to Rudeus, is understandably horrified at her husband’s violent demise; and after angrily confronting Rudeus, she departs.
And the worst part? When Rudeus returns home, Roxy has already died. All of his efforts and everything he lost were in vain.
In short, he has betrayed his friends (not to mention the life of the person he kills, who was presumably only doing their job).
Now, Rudeus is clearly not directly at fault for Roxy’s illness and death. Had he stayed home, she would have succumbed anyway. But it was his love for her that drove him to commit theft and murder—as he notes, the battle for the spellbook is the first time he has ever killed a human being. He has crossed a moral line—and that’s saying something, for as long-time viewers of Jobless Reincarnation know, Rudeus may be jobless, but he’s a real piece of work! And he is also indirectly the cause of his friend’s death, and thus also of his falling out with the friend’s wife.
How much is he responsible for, and how much is simply out of his hands?
This being Jobless Reincarnation, we are of course only getting started. Buckle up.
Depressed at his loss, Rudy turns to drinking. When Sylphie (his other, surviving wife) tries to reach out to him, he rebuffs her. He takes to wandering alone through the city, where he chances upon a prostitute and accepts her invitation. Note that he had no intention when he set out of being unfaithful to Sylphie, but we viewers know it is entirely in keeping with his character to fall into this kind of behavior when depressed—and when Sylphie, who has been searching for him out of concern for his well-being, sees him leave the brothel, she is heartbroken nonetheless. She leaves him a letter and goes back to her job as the princess’s bodyguard.
Now he has betrayed his other wife.
Rudy is at fault, and yet the deck is stacked against him. Someone in the throes of severe depression is arguably not themselves; mental illness is called mental precisely because it impedes one’s ability to think and decide clearly. Every step on the path that leads to Sylphie leaving him is one that he chooses, but also a trial that he is not equipped to overcome.
How much is he responsible for, and how much is simply out of his hands?
Buckle up.
Rudeus reflects that he has done Sylphie wrong, and heads out to apologize and try to make things right with her. He is once more driven by love for his wife and family, with a willingness to acknowledge his errors and make amends. Unfortunately, he arrives at the princess’s home city only to find that she has been executed for a failed rebellion—and Sylphie along with her.
As Rudeus stares in horror at his wife’s corpse, hanging in the center of the city while crows feast on it, a passerby mistakes him for one of the rebels and chucks a rock at his head. In physical and emotional pain, Rudy—one of the strongest mages on the continent, and who until then has only killed one person, and that at least somewhat in self-defense—lashes out and incinerates crowds of bystanders with a single thought. One after another, the helpless men and women burst into flame and run screaming to their deaths. Once, a single killing disturbed him; now, he slaughters indiscriminately without a second thought.
Rudy returns home and succumbs to depression once more. He takes to drinking again. The family maid, who has taken charge in the absence of the wives, once more tries to talk him round. But Rudy has another angry outburst that leaves his mentally challenged mother injured; the maid promptly takes the rest of the household and departs. Now Rudy has betrayed his remaining family and is completely alone.
Completely? Well, not quite. There is still the Man-God, the sketchy figure who appears in Rudeus’s dreams every so often, sometimes to help Rudy but also seemingly with an agenda of his own. This time, the Man-God reveals that something he had asked Rudy to do years ago was actually responsible for Roxy’s illness and death. The Man-God had requested that Rudy look in his basement and…just see if there was anything unusual. Unbeknownst to Rudeus, when he opened the basement door, an infected rat escaped—and ultimately passed its disease to Roxy.
The Man-God had wanted Roxy dead all along—and he made Rudeus his unwitting accomplice.
Rudeus is, of course, utterly dismayed and blames the Man-God for all of his tragedies. To this, the Man-God says, “You had the seeds of that in you all along.”
And therein lies the paradox: We have the seeds of sin in our hearts, and all it takes is fertile ground for them to sprout. That’s why Jesus taught to pray, in the “Our Father,” “Lead us not into temptation” or “Subject us not to the trial” (depending on the translation). Temptation, the trial, is the set of circumstances that nourishes the seeds and brings sin to fruition.
It is a testimony to the artists who brought Jobless Reincarnation to life that as I watched Rudeus facing Sylphie’s death, I found two thoughts going through my mind: “What he’s doing is wrong” and “I sympathize deeply with him.” The moment forced me to confront myself: If a family member were treated so horribly in front of me, and I were given the destructive power that Rudy has, would I be able to exercise better self-control? I would like to think so—but even more, I hope I never have to find out. “Lead us not into temptation.” (Incidentally, I’m not the only blogger to feel compelled to do some self-reflection in the face of this scene.)
Decades pass, and Rudeus obsessively seeks out a way to avenge himself on the Man-God. But eventually, he is forced to conclude that this is beyond his control.
There is only one thing left that he can think of to do: find a way to undo his mistake.
Tradition
Rudeus eventually discovers a way to magic himself into the past, in a last-ditch effort to warn his younger self not to listen to the Man-God, not to open the basement door. But ironically, even with the power of time travel, his time is short: He is dying, and he doesn’t have enough magical power to transport his whole body to the past—some of his organs must be left behind, condemning him to a swift and painful death.
So he writes a diary. He records everything that has happened, all of his choices and their results, and everything that he has discovered about the Man-God.
Then he pulls off his magic time travel, meets with young Rudy, warns him not to open the door, and hands him the diary.
In doing so, old Rudy embodies the Christian ideal of tradition.
Like “traitor,” “tradition” comes from the Latin verb tradere, but now with the meaning of “handing (something) on” to someone else. Tradition is the handing on of what one knows, has learned, remembers, or has experienced to someone else so they can benefit from it. Where betrayal is intrinsically selfish, tradition is intrinsically selfless—the person who hands the knowledge on does so for the benefit of the other.
Paul describes this in his first epistle to the Corinthians, writing, “For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you” (1 Cor 11:23, NAB). I like this translation particularly well because it uses the phrase “handed on”—the etymological meaning of tradition. Jesus handed on his word to his disciples, who handed them on to their converts, who handed them on to other new believers, and so on down the centuries to us. And now we have the obligation—and the opportunity—to hand his word on to the next generations.
This “handing on” takes two forms, both for Rudeus and for us: the spoken word and the written word. Rudy delivers to his younger self a spoken warning and a written record. Likewise, when we spread the faith, we bring two things to “hand on,” the written word of God—the Bible—and our spoken testimony, the witness of how we have encountered God personally. Both of these are crucial in bringing others to the truth.
Both of these are Tradition.
Those we witness to may listen to us. Or they may not. But now, like young Rudy, they will have a choice—a chance to learn from the past and to choose a better future.
Grace
There’s a beautiful coda to Rudy’s attempt to hand on what he has learned. As he lays dying, wondering whether his efforts have been successful or in vain, he is welcomed into the afterlife by Roxy and Sylphie. There is no sign of anger or sorrow in their faces, only love.
That’s the power of grace. Though old Rudy’s sins are never undone, at least in his timeline, they are forgiven. Nothing he’s done has merited this—nothing he could have done could merit it. Grace is a free gift, as is forgiveness.
Yet it’s not a coincidence that this experience of grace comes after Rudeus changes his way of life from a selfish one to a selfless one. There’s a strong link in Christianity between God’s free gift of grace and our actions in spreading awareness of it (which is, after all, what tradition is). For as Paul (once again) says,
But how can they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how can they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone to preach? (Rom 10:14)
God certainly doesn’t need us to spread his word. But he’s given us the opportunity—and the obligation—to work with him in doing so. And therein lies our chance to help others (and ourselves) discover that tragedy won’t have the last word.
