*

Once the float goes up, God will home in on it from the M71 nebula, some 4,800,000 light years away.

Shadow Hearts is comically specific about where in the material universe “God” resides.

These games have kind of an interesting relationship with mythology/religion. Deities from multiple religious/folkloric traditions are confirmed to exist in the material world itself and can be summoned (and summoned from other parts of the material world rather than some other dimension of reality) — and yet characters still talk about “God” as a singular entity as if there is or could be some overarching deity presiding over time and fate from a higher metaphysical plane. There’s a point in Shadow Hearts II where Yuri says “If there really is a God —” as if he’s in some doubt as to the issue despite having destroyed/fused with multiple entities considered to be gods and this one summoned by Albert Simon and presumed to be The God. At least, according to Roger Bacon, “God” is just what humans call this entity — and yet other characters continue to believe in the possibility of a God after it is destroyed. And I think it’s interesting that the game never passes judgement on which is the ‘correct’ view; it never establishes whether a single overarching God exists, whether it was the “God” defeated at the end of the first game, or etc. Different characters adhere to different interpretations of their world and all of those interpretations — including Roger’s scientific atheism — are shown to hold power. Also. I really didn’t mean to write all this. I just wanted to laugh at the specificity of the location of God. That’s all I wanted to do.