So let me ask you this.
What is something precious that you've lost?
What is something or someone
that you think you can't live without?
And if you had the opportunity,
would you go back to the time where you had them?
And how much are you willing to give up for such a chance?
Now these are all questions that today's character
asked himself and subsequently answered.
So let's take a deep dive into the dangers of obsession
and how we can drive one mad
through the eyes of the eccentric mage,
Roswell L. Mathers.
Hey, what's going on guys?
My name is Nate.
You're listening to the Otaku Liberation.
I sure will be helping you break the chains
that are holding you back in your life
by connecting some biblical principles
with themes from your favorite anime.
And without further ado, let's get into it.
So this today's verse that I wanted to cover
going over Roswell himself is Matthew chapter 16 verse 26.
And it says, for what will it benefit someone
if he gains the whole world yet loses his life?
Or what will anyone give in exchange for his life?
And again, the verse is kind of self-explanatory,
but I'm going to explain it anyway.
But it poses the question is essentially,
how much is someone willing to give up
just so they can have the whole world,
have the thing that they are striving so hard to get?
It doesn't have to be literally the entire world,
but whatever that level of success,
whatever that dream or ambition or obsession that someone has,
how much are they willing to sacrifice?
How much are they willing to put on the line
in order to achieve that?
And let's say they do make it to their end goal,
and they get whatever it is they have their sights set on.
How much had to burn away?
How much did they have to give up just to get there?
Because at some point, you've got
to start doing your way and pros and cons, right?
Because we all know to achieve the things that we
want to achieve in life, they do require sacrifice.
That's just a rule of life, right?
But how much sacrifice is really worth the goal in the end?
Right?
I mean, again, that's essentially what the question is.
And for Roswell, he literally bet it all.
He felt that no price was too great
to achieve his ultimate goal, right?
So to give you a little background on Roswell
is this mage that's been alive for like 1,000-plus years
or something like that.
And he actually met the witch of breed, right?
Echidna, who's the witch of breed,
who I might have mentioned in previous episodes
with Amelia and Subaru.
And the whole sanctuary that Amelia had
to go through her trials and the words,
Subaru went through the trials as well,
is Echidna's resting place.
It's where her body is, right?
She died, and that's where her body stored at.
And she created the entire place.
And Echidna is a very special person to Roswell.
And that's because she saved him from essentially
manna or mana, however you want to say it,
mana poisoning in his own body.
And essentially what it is, his own magical power
was killing him.
His body couldn't handle it properly.
It would just build up in his body,
and he had no way to get rid of it.
But she showed him and taught him
how to get rid of the excess mana, basically.
So it's not going through this excruciating pain
all hours of the day and night, right?
And for him, that was the first time
that someone understood what he was going through,
because his parents didn't understand, his siblings,
his other people around him didn't understand
that what he was afflicted from.
They just thought he was being extra different, weird,
whatever you want to call it.
They just thought he was just being Roswell.
But no, he was always suffering silently,
because no one understood what he was going through,
so there was no point in him even trying to explain it.
But Echidna knew exactly what it was,
and she gave him the relief that he so desperately needed.
And that was the beginning of this whole story
that is Roswell, right?
And it started off as, you know,
just an innocent crush, right?
He fell in love with her,
but at some point it began to turn in the dark
towards the line of obsession.
And that's the same thing for a lot of things
that we are trying to strive for and accomplish,
is that, you know, at least in my case, right,
I know getting well that I don't try
to be obsessed over things, and you know,
that's not my end goal.
It starts off as a genuine interest,
and if left unchecked, I can easily spiral down
and just be down that rabbit hole, right?
And I know that that's just, that's how my personality is,
how I've been my entire life.
Once I'm really interested in something,
everything else just ceases to exist, right?
It's just the only thing I wanna do
is the only thing I wanna focus on.
And, you know, on one hand,
that is a very good and commendable trait to have,
because at the end of the day, I'm gonna get stuff done.
But on the other hand, it's like,
it's not a healthy way to live all the time, right?
You can't keep your head down
and completely ignore everything else
that's not related to whatever thing you're interested in,
you know, whether it's, you know, learning a new skill,
even just be a hobby, right?
Maybe I play Yu-Gi-Oh!
If I was really obsessed with Yu-Gi-Oh!
and it's the only thing I wanted to do with my life,
then that's just not good, right?
It's just not good.
And so for Roswell,
that one moment of kindness,
I'm not saying in quotes,
because Akina's not, she's not kind at all.
Everything she does is to satisfy her own curiosity.
She can really care less about other people.
But in Roswell's time of need,
she was there and she saved him.
And that's how he looked at it.
So my question is, who was it that saved you?
And who did you feel that you couldn't live without?
How did they make you feel?
Who was that one person or people
that you feel like without them in your life,
you would have nothing, that you would be nothing, right?
Because, and really I want to focus on that,
with that latter part of that question.
If you truly feel like you are nothing
without somebody else, then that's not admiration,
that's obsession at that point.
Because you feel like your whole life revolves
around that person or people or the thing.
And you get your value from that.
And that's not how it is.
I mean, our value isn't in this world, right?
Because again, God created us all to live with that purpose.
And the purpose in mind, He says that we are His.
And that's, you can't get any more valuable than that.
The creator of everything says that you're His, right?
But so often we get so tied up in what other people say
and what other people think and what other people are doing.
And we try to be who we're not.
And you try to become other people
because they seem to have a value,
they seem to be accepted by society and norms
and things like that.
I don't wanna be like them.
And again, like I would say,
it's good to be inspired by other people.
People who are further along in their journey than you are,
who are doing the thing that you wanna do,
it's good to be inspired, right?
I mean, the thing that's good, genuine motivation.
But at some point you have to,
you have to put your own spin on things, right?
You can't copy other people and expect to have
the same success that they have because you're not them.
Right?
That's for them and that you have your own way
about doing things.
And so again, all this is about finding your own value
and finding what makes you tick
and not putting so much stock into what,
into everything else outside, right?
And yeah, for Roswell, it wasn't so much he devalued himself,
it was just that he valued her more than everything else.
And it kinda leads to my second point
where his willingness to sacrifice everything.
So again, like I said, Roswell is over a thousand years old,
right, and Echidna ended up being killed
by the Witch of Envy, who is the main antagonist
of the entire series.
So when that happened, Roswell set out to find a way
to essentially resurrect Echidna,
to put her soul into a suitable host, more or less,
because that's what he's been doing with himself
all these years.
He's been creating new bodies and just transferring his soul
to the new younger bodies so he can keep living
essentially forever.
And he was trying to find a way to replicate that for Echidna.
But her being a witch, it makes it slightly more difficult,
as you would imagine.
But the interesting thing, at least the interesting thing
for me when I was watching the anime
and didn't research it for this episode,
is that he was willing to give up his own life
in the lives of those close to him
just to try to resurrect Echidna.
And this is what I mean by that.
So, kids point, I'm sure you guys know by now,
Yo-Su-Vu, who's the main character,
his power is essentially, it's called return by death.
He has death loops.
When he dies, he goes to a previous point in time
where he can essentially start over, right?
And Roswaal knew about this power.
He knew about the power that Zubru has,
or I should say he had a very smart guess about it
because Echidna gave Roswaal
and another person named Beatrice
these books called the Book of Knowledge
or the Book of Wisdom, rather.
And it essentially inscribed it.
It tells him about the future and possible futures
and things like that.
And because of the everything that he's done
since Echidna's death has been dictated by this book, right?
And it one-on-one shows how far one's willing to go
that they're losing all a sense of reason,
all a sense of their own autonomy, really.
I mean, he's just literally following this book verbatim.
And part of what the book's telling him,
it showed him that Zubru has this unique ability.
And essentially what it is,
it's not like he's rewinding time.
Zubru's essentially going off into a different branch
of a possible future.
But he's going back to where the future branches off
so he can try again.
And Roswaal wanted to use this to his advantage.
And part of that was he forced Zubru into a corner
and where he had to choose to either save the sanctuary
or Roswaal's mansion, because in both places,
there were people who Zubru cared deeply for
that through Roswaal's own orchestration,
he, and again, I'm just,
I'm going back to when I was watching this,
Roswaal is terrible, but there was own way,
I mean, he put a hit out on his own maids in his mansion
and then he made it so where this super dangerous beast
would come to the sanctuary
and essentially made it, lifted up to Zubru,
was like, I need you to basically become like me,
is what he was telling him,
to become so fixated on his goals
that he would do whatever it took to achieve them.
And ultimately that meant putting Amelia into a corner
as well to break her down completely.
And again, I'm trying not to spoil too much,
you gotta watch the anime,
cause I'm not doing it justice,
but it's a whole thing.
But the point I'm trying to make is that he went so far
as to put all the people who have sworn loyalty to him,
who love him as a mentor, companion, as a friend,
he just all their lives mean nothing to him
in the face of his goal,
in the face of just at a attempt to resurrect the master.
Again, none of this is guaranteed, right?
He doesn't even know this is gonna work in the end.
He doesn't even know if his master's gonna be able
to come back, but all for the chance that it might happen.
He's willing to do all of this.
And this makes me ask the question,
how far have you gone to follow your obsession?
And how far are you willing to go?
And these are heavy questions
to really truly ask yourself, right?
And I say obsession and not passion,
because they're the kind of two sides of the same coin.
There is a very thin line between the two.
And sometimes they can seem to be like the same thing,
in all honesty, but really how far are we willing to go
for our obsession, for our passion,
for what it is that we deem is right?
Are we really willing to risk the lives of,
not just ourselves, but our loved ones as well,
of innocence, are we willing to sacrifice
and give up everything that this world has to offer
just to have a chance at that goal?
Because again, like I said, Roswell,
he didn't even know that this isn't gonna work or not.
This is just a chance that it will.
And he's willing to go this far.
And so just imagine if he knew for a certainty
that this would work, nothing would stop this man.
Nothing and no one.
And he'd kill for it, because we've seen it.
You've seen it.
And I just know for that, that's a,
damn man, that's a dangerous mind space
for anybody to be in, to get to the point
where you're just like, where life means nothing to you
without this thing, without this person, without this goal.
And it's crazy, it's sad.
It really is that we would even get that low.
But I do know, man, life has a way of beating you down.
And when you have that hope, when you hold onto that person,
that thing, whatever it is for you,
you just hold onto it so tightly.
You just, you can't open your hand
for anything else to come in.
Because I truly, I do believe that we meet people,
we go through things in life,
we have opportunities for certain seasons of our life.
And some of them are meant for us to carry on
to the next one, and others aren't.
I mean, there's plenty of people I've met in my life
that I don't really keep in contact with now,
because I mean, that part of my life is over.
There's not so much that, okay, I don't need you anymore.
So I'm just, you're just cut off.
Like, no, it's just, we meet people,
and sometimes it's not even for our benefit.
Maybe it's for theirs.
Maybe we're bringing something to them
that they need to get through this season in life.
And once we've fulfilled our role in the night,
we just go on our separate ways.
And that's all it is.
I mean, that's all it is.
That's part of the joys of life, right?
Just being able to help each other out like that.
And then, you know, sometimes you get those true,
true like righted eyes, those kindred spears
that you do bring on into the following seasons
of your life, because now you're not so much
helping each other, and now you're just growing together.
You don't need to be there as a crutch.
Now you guys are walking side by side,
and hey, that's awesome too.
But if you're so obsessed about the one that got away,
whether it's a person, like you're talking about,
oh man, if I would've just stayed with her,
if I would've just stayed with him,
then my life wouldn't be like this.
Or the opportunity, like man, if I just would've
taken that job interview, if I would've taken school
seriously, then now maybe I would be better off here.
If you worry so much about the what ifs,
the what shoulda couldas,
then you're just gonna miss everything else
that's around you, everything else that's
you know, right in front of you now, right?
And honestly, that's what it was with Roswell.
He was so blinded by his love and obsession over Echidna
that he lost sight, honestly, of what it means
to be human, first of all, and then two,
of the truly great things that people are doing around him.
But luckily for him and for us,
I mean that spell can be broken,
that hold of obsession can be broken.
And in Roswell's case, it was,
it started with him making a bet with Subaru
that, you know, Subaru, that during this loop,
he was going to save both the mansion and the sanctuary.
Right?
And then the bet was if Roswell lost,
then he would have to truly support Emilia,
and he would no longer try to do, you know,
these heinous acts that he's been doing.
And guess what happens?
Subaru died and everyone lost.
No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
You know, Subaru ends up winning,
and Roswell is forced to obey the contract
that they made between the two of them.
And so that was the first thing,
is that now he no longer can act on his obsession.
Right?
And sometimes that's what it takes.
Sometimes we had to put ourselves in a predicament
where we physically cannot pursue the things
that we're trying to pursue,
because it's more of a detriment to us
than it is a benefit.
And it takes a lot of willpower to do it yourself,
but, you know, it helps to have someone around
who can keep you accountable.
In the Roswell case, it's Subaru, you know,
his enemy at the time.
I mean, he's contractually obligated,
but I'm not saying you got to go that far,
but, you know, get someone who you trust
to keep you on the straight and narrow,
keep you, you know, honest,
and can just keep you not just not going off
on the deep end, right?
Who can, you know, pull you back to reality
every once in a while.
And again, that's me all the time,
but just enough when you say,
hey, you're going too deep again.
I need you to come back out and smell the roses.
Say, okay.
And then, so Roswell has Subaru for that,
and he also has Rahm.
So Rahm is one of the twin maids that Roswell has
in his employment.
And Rahm is actually in love with Roswell,
which whether he knows or not,
I think he does know just from their interaction.
He's just, again, obsessed with a kidna,
so he doesn't really care.
But Rahm ends up burning the book of wisdom
that was given to Roswell by a kidna.
And again, back to Hull,
you're being forced to move past,
forced to move on.
So since she burned the book,
he has to rely on what he sees in front of him now.
He doesn't, he's not going to this book
for his every decision
and seeing how things are gonna work out.
Now he has to actually live life, right?
He has to live and not be so obsessed with the past
and not trying to orchestrate the future.
He has to live in the present now.
And part of that for him is that,
hey, he's Hull Subaru.
He still has his ambition,
but he isn't blinded by it anymore.
And I think that's a key thing.
And for me, it kind of ties back to the concept of pride
with both Borrow and Vegeta
that I've covered previously on the podcast,
is that in both of those cases,
they were egotistical, arrogant guys
who were all about themselves
and their own strength and power and things like that,
to the point where they were,
they would look down on other people, right?
But after they were subsequently humbled
by the main character, right?
The main character showed them
that they are not the best around
and that there are other people
who can rival and even beat them at their own game,
then it really put a perspective shift on them, right?
And what I really like how the authors
of both of the series handled these characters
is it wasn't like a whole 180
where all of a sudden they're super humble,
they're nice guys now,
they're pleasantly to be around, things like that.
No, there's none of that.
They're still as arrogant and fooling themselves
and prideful as they were before,
but now it's through a different mindset.
Now it's, you say, I still think I'm the best,
not because everyone else is beneath me,
but because I'm gonna work hard
and just be better than everyone else now.
And they are able to recognize
that other people are at their level,
that no one else is beneath them,
they just have to be better, right?
And there's a clear difference in Roswell's case.
So I'm still gonna try for my goals
of reviving my master, the love of my life,
so I'm trying to bring her back,
but I'm not gonna go to such lengths
that I went previously to get it done.
I'm not gonna risk my life and everyone else's life
just to have this one singular goal.
And I think, and I really love that
when authors do that for character,
not just in anime, but in media in general, right?
Where what makes the character themselves,
just because they lost it,
doesn't mean that they do a whole complete transformation
all of a sudden, right?
I mean, there's still qualities
that make them who they are,
but now they're just toned down slightly, right?
Or they're using a different light.
And for me, that's why I kind of called back
to the whole thing about,
the whole thing about obsession and passion
or ambition, things like that,
it's very easily dissuade one way or the other.
And you can still have your ambitions,
you can still be passionate about something.
It's just that no, just know that that's not all there is.
That's not the only thing that's out there.
There's more out there for you.
There's more out there that needs to be seen, right?
That you need to do, that you need to experience.
It's not all about what happened previously.
Because again, what this whole season is about
is about facing our past and overcoming it
and being able to move forward from it, right?
Not living in it, not forgetting about it, right?
Because again, we have to accept it.
Part of that is, part of accepting it
is acknowledging that it happened.
And it's really just taking what we can from it
and moving on.
So what can you take from your past relationships,
from your past opportunities, good or bad, right?
Whether they were good or bad or not.
And how can you apply them in this moment,
just this moment going forward,
how can you apply those things?
What have you learned about it?
What can you internalize and reflect on about yourself
and what can you do to move forward?
I mean, that's, I mean, that's pretty much it, right?
And then what can you do to be able to still follow
your passion and your ambition and still aim for your goal,
but not to be so tunnel visioned in
and that you don't see anything else, right?
And again, that's something I'm still working on.
Getting better at it each and every day is to, you know,
not so much find balance in life,
but have an order to things.
I think that's a better way to put it, right?
Cause to truly be kind of great in whatever it is
that you're striving to be,
in order to achieve your goals,
again, sacrifices have to be made, right?
It's been, sometimes that means you don't have a,
quote unquote, balanced life or your balance
doesn't look like somebody else's balance
cause they have a different life than you.
But I do encourage you to take the time and order
and put order in your life for the things
that are the most important to you
and have the time that reflects that right.
And just again, this is always be by trial and error.
You gotta figure it out.
And again, you don't have to go to such extremes
like Roswell did to get a binding contract
and have somebody burn your stuff to get that idea across.
But I do encourage you to find somebody who,
who you trust enough and who will keep you honest
and accountable.
And just as a, you know, just as a, hey,
just check it in and make sure you're doing
what you're supposed to do or doing what you said,
what you said that you were gonna do, right?
Not so much, not someone who's gonna be
over your shoulder all the time or overbearing,
but these are things that you said you were gonna do
and someone's gonna hold you to it.
And because that end date is all about making you better
and getting you better just one day at a time.
But yeah, so that's all I got for you guys today.
Just wanna thank you for tuning in to today's episode.
And I pray that you got what you needed out of it.
And hopefully you can learn something new about yourself.
Feel free to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review.
I love reading you guys' comments
and it helps me improve each and every episode.
And speaking of next episode,
we're gonna be going over the other twin,
the other twin that Roswell employed,
who his name is Rem.
I know, Rem, Rom, twins.
Yes, that's funny.
But in Rem's case,
we're gonna look at the concept of regrets
and how that affects us and continues to hold us back.
So look forward to that.
And I want you guys to always remember,
you are the main character of your story
and that story doesn't end until he says so.
All right, be blessed.
And I'll see you guys next time.
Bye.