Source
r/ChainsawMan•
bitzl

Makima's contract (theory)

SpoilerDiscussion

Based on the points we know about her powers :

  • She is immortal/can resurrect
  • Work/work best in high places
  • Work/work best in shrines
  • Require/work better with a human sacrifice
  • Her powers seem to have an extreme (omnipresent?) range

I feel like it's reasonable that Makima's either contracted with a god or IS a god using on the following reasoning :

  • It's a more elegant explanation for having the two powers of immortality and long distance hugging compared to having two separate devil contracts.
  • If she is a god it could explain her emotional detachment to human emotion/lives
  • Elements of her ritual's location like high places and shrines may suggest a "closeness to heaven/god"
  • The clear difference between her activation cost and other devil hunters in how she sacrifices others while devil hunters usually sacrifice parts of themselves brings to mind the difference between offerings to gods and deals with the devil.
  • It would fit with her role as the most powerful individual shown to be on the devil hunter's side (so far) in the sense that it would become this sort of angels vs demons dynamic.

That being said, what would fit the story's theme more is if gods were not so clearly demarcated from devils. Ie not objectively good but more along the lines of devils that run on faith or offerings instead of fear.

My bad if this has been brought up before but I did do some rudimentary ctrl f-ing threads for a little due diligence and didn't find anything then.

Posted Jun 24, 2019, 10:12 PM UTC · edited

339
Nobody119900•

i don't think she is a god as she has superiors and no god would take orders from those beneath them and i don't see why the information about gods would be hidden as the knowledge of their existence could make devils weaker. as hope can override fear. i think she uses a combination of high ranked demons, and she haggled them into taking things like emotions and others lives.

4
bitzlOP•

Not that I intend to try too hard to defend this theory, because it's just a theory, but here's what I was thinking when I was writing up the post

Gods might not be literally godly, and are closer in power level to devils (like I said above, devils but with minor differences). That way it would be advantageous for her to stay in hiding, making use of the human's resources, instead of directly confronting the devils/the gun devil. This scenario also works if she is powered down with the idea that modern belief in deities is dwindling.

That being said, I'm more for the scenario that she's simply contracting a god instead of being a god herself, just because there's less evidence for the second scenario at the moment.

3
SIRINHellsing•

Alucard from helloing?

2
TheGreyPotter•

Japanese ‘kami’ gods would definitely interfere on the same level as devils, imo. Plus, kami can become corrupted and essentially become devils themselves. It may be that all gods became corrupted this way, save a powerful few.

2
hyperchromatica•

I actually really like this theory in addition to makima being the heights devil one. Also brings to mind the term "fear of god" as a way of referring to faith.

2
TheGreyPotter•

Divine Retribution demon?

1
bitzlOP•

Feels like "divine intervention demon" and "fear of god god" are mostly interchangeable but it'll be interesting to see which way the story frames it if this theory does turn out to be true.

I like "fear of god god" more as a personal preference just because a devil who uses holy powers seems semantically clunkier. As in, why go to the extra step of a devil who's special enough to use the powers of a god instead of just going straight to a god?

But a lot of manga have it where the mythical beings in it, regardless of good/evil, are all framed under one name because it's established in the frame of reference of the humans in that world. The mundane are humans and everything non-mundane is called like youkai/impurities/akuma or whatever, so even if gods are different from devils they might still be called devils by the humans.

3
TheGreyPotter•

I guess my preference is to think of all “magic” under the same system, in this case, a that label of Devil. If a God was introduced, it’d be interesting if it was powered not by fear, but by faith or hope? Like a positive extension of the same emotion-based power?

It does make me wonder what word is used in Japanese though... since in English, devil implies impurity and lack of divinity. But in Japanese, if ‘yokai’ was used, that doesn’t have the same level of impure implication... I suppose it’s a more evil term than ayakashi or kami, but less evil than akuma.

2
Rootator•

Considering how she dealt with the guys on the train I feel that it’s possible she’s contracted with the gun demon, or at least connected to it in someway

2