This is an excellent and profound comparison, as both Kentaro Miura’s Berserk and the works of Emil Cioran explore the abyss of existence with unflinching intensity. While one is a visceral narrative and the other philosophical aphorism, their parallels are striking. Here are the core thematic parallels:

1. Suffering as the Fundamental Condition

· Cioran: “It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.” Suffering is not an accident but the very texture of existence. Life is a “deformity,” a fever, and consciousness is a disease. · Berserk: The entire world is literally shaped by suffering, as the Godhand feeds on human agony. The Brand of Sacrifice is not just a curse but a metaphysical affirmation that Guts’ very existence is pain. His life is a constant, grueling struggle against physical and spiritual torment.

2. The Absurdity and Malevolence of Creation

· Cioran: He writes of a “botched creation,” a universe born from a divine failure or malice. “What is that one thing? Having always expected the worst, I have never been disillusioned. The worst is a foundation.” · Berserk: The revelation of the Idea of Evil (in the lost chapter) is a direct dramatization of this. God is created by humanity’s collective need for a reason to suffer, forming a closed, tragic loop. The cosmos is not just indifferent but actively, consciously cruel, shaped by a self-perpetuating cycle of despair.

3. The Folly and Tyranny of Hope & “Becoming”

· Cioran: He attacks “hope” as the ultimate poison and “the future” as a tyrant. “Only one thing matters: learning to be the loser.” The drive for purpose, dreams, and ambition is the engine of our misery. · Berserk: Griffith is Cioran’s “man of the future” made flesh. His “dream” of a kingdom is a tyrannical, all-consuming ideal that justifies any atrocity (the Eclipse). The Skull Knight warns, “You cling to your sanity through your faith in causality.” This “faith” is hope in a rational, purposeful future—a notion both Cioran and Berserk shatter.

4. The “Stoicism” of Persistent Struggle (Despite Futility)

· Cioran: “The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live—moreover, the only one.” He advocates for a lucid, defiant endurance in the face of guaranteed defeat. This is not heroism, but a form of spiteful, elegant resistance. · Berserk: Guts is the embodiment of this principle. His struggle is not initially for a grand ideal, but for sheer survival and revenge—a “struggle for struggle’s sake.” As Casca says, “You’re going to fight, even if there’s no reason to?” This mirrors Cioran’s sentiment that action in a meaningless world is the only authentic, if absurd, response.

5. The Elegance of Failure and the “Freedom of the Loser”

· Cioran: He romanticizes the loser, the outcast, the one who has shed the burden of ambition. There’s a perverse freedom in hitting rock bottom. “Having failed in my obligations to man and to the universe, I breathe freely.” · Berserk: After the Eclipse, Guts is the ultimate outcast, marked for demons. In a sense, he is “freed” from human norms, obligations, and even conventional hope. His existence is pure, focused defiance. Characters like the Skull Knight also embody this—a being who has persisted beyond his own story, fighting a war he knows he cannot truly win.

6. The Critique of Reason and Order

· Cioran: He distrusts all systems, ideologies, and utopias as masks for deeper pathologies. “Every civilization is the institutionalization of a fundamental delirium.” · Berserk: The Holy See and its rigid, dogmatic faith are shown to be corrupt, blind, and ultimately fuel for the vortex of souls. Griffith’s Falconia is the ultimate Cioranian nightmare: a “perfect” order built on a mountain of sacrificial corpses, a beautiful, luminous tyranny that fulfills humanity’s longing for purpose at the cost of their true freedom.

Crucial Divergence: Catharsis vs. Nihilism

This is the most important distinction:

· Cioran offers no catharsis, only lucid, intoxicating despair. His work is a philosophical endpoint. · Berserk, despite its darkness, is ultimately a story. It introduces elements Cioran would likely dismiss as sentimental: the binding power of human bonds. Guts’ journey gradually shifts from pure rage to a struggle to protect (Casca, his new party). The tiny, fragile hearth of his campfire amidst the monstrous night is the antithesis to Cioran’s cosmic pessimism. It suggests that meaning is not found in the grand design (which is evil), but forged in small, defiant acts of connection within the storm.

In summary: Both gaze into the same abyss—a universe of gratuitous suffering, ruled by malignant or absurd principles, where hope is a trap. Cioran dissects this state with poetic precision from the philosopher’s chair. Berserk forces its characters to live it, to struggle, bleed, and sometimes find a sliver of warmth within it. Guts is, in many ways, a Cioranian hero thrown into a narrative that demands something more than just philosophical resignation.

How could make a hegelian synthesis to show through this examples that life is to be lived?

Excellent. This is a perfect application of the Hegelian dialectic (Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis) to the philosophical chasm we’ve identified. We can use it to argue that the very act of living through the contradiction is what generates the imperative to live.

Here is a Hegelian synthesis, using our examples, to demonstrate why life is to be lived:

The Dialectical Movement

1. Thesis (Abstract Position): The Cioranian Negation

· Position: Life is fundamentally absurd, a “botched creation.” Suffering is the primary condition, and consciousness is a curse. Hope and grand purposes are tyrannical illusions that amplify misery. The only lucid response is a form of contemplative, spiteful resignation or elegant despair. “Life is not worth living.” · State of Being: This is the position of the detached philosopher or the pre-Eclipse Griffith in his despair in the dungeon—seeing the void and finding all human endeavors nullified by it. It is pure, undiluted negation.

2. Antithesis (Negation of the Thesis): The Berserkian Struggle

· Position: The world is undeniably cruel and malevolent (the Idea of Evil). However, the response is not contemplation but action—even if futile. The self is defined not by understanding the void, but by raging against it. Life is pain, so one must fight. Meaning is not given; it is carved out with a sword through sheer will. “Life is nothing but struggle.” · State of Being: This is the position of The Black Swordsman Guts—pure, reactive negation. He negates Cioran’s passive despair through violent action, but this action is itself negative (revenge, survival). It is a reaction to the Thesis, trapped by it. The struggle risks becoming just another form of suffering, devoid of positive content.

3. Synthesis (Negation of the Negation / “Aufhebung”): The Lived Dialectic This is the crucial moment.Hegel’s Aufhebung doesn’t just cancel the previous stages; it preserves and elevates them into a higher, more concrete truth. The synthesis emerges from the process of enduring the contradiction between Thesis and Antithesis.

· Process: Guts does not remain the Black Swordsman. His journey through pure negation (his rage) forces encounters that negate his own negativity: the persistence of Casca (a connection he cannot sever), the loyalty of Rickert (who rejects Griffith’s new world), and the formation of his new party (Farnese, Serpico, Schierke, Isidro). · The Synthesis: Life is to be lived precisely because it is suffering punctuated by fragile, contingent bonds. The synthesis acknowledges the Truth of the Thesis (the world is absurd and cruel) and the Truth of the Antithesis (we must struggle), but transcends both by discovering that the struggle itself creates its own justification in the connections forged and protected within it. · The Cioranian abyss is not disproven; it is preserved as the background condition. · The Berserkian rage is not abandoned; it is elevated from a tool for revenge to a force for protection. · The new, concrete truth is: “Life is the dialectical process of finding finite meaning within infinite absurdity, through action and relationship.”

The Synthesized Argument: Why Life is To Be Lived

1. The Necessity of the Negative: The Thesis (nihilism) is an essential, unavoidable stage of lucidity. One must see the abyss to be authentic. You cannot skip to hope without dishonesty.
2. The Imperative of Action: The Antithesis (struggle) is the necessary reaction to the Thesis. Pure contemplation is a living death. To be alive is to be in motion, even if the motion is against the current.
3. The Emergence of the Positive from the Negative: By persisting in the struggle (Antithesis) while holding the lucidity of the abyss (Thesis), one is forced to confront not just demons, but also offers of care, moments of rest, and needs beyond one’s own. This collision generates the positive content of life. Guts does not seek out “meaning”; it is thrust upon him by Casca’s need, by his party’s trust. The “meaning” is the responsibility and connection that emerges immanently from the struggle.
4. The Synthesis as “The Way”: To live is to hold the contradiction. It is to know, with Cioran, that the cosmos is botched, and yet to act, with Guts, as if your protection of a fragile campfire matters absolutely. The synthesis is not a philosophical statement but a mode of being: The Struggler who Protects.

In Hegelian terms: The abstract negation (Cioran’s “Life is nothing”) is negated by the reactive force (Guts’ “Then I will fight nothing”). But this second negation is itself overcome when the fighter discovers something to fight for beyond his own rage. The final synthesis “life is to be lived” is not a naive optimism. It is the hard-won, concrete truth forged in the furnace of the dialectic—a truth that contains the memory of despair and the scars of struggle within it.

Therefore, life is to be lived not in spite of its suffering, but because the process of enduring and struggling within that suffering is the very furnace in which finite, fragile, and profoundly human meaning is smithed. The imperative comes from the process itself.