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| “ | This planet was a beautiful experiment, but it is merely a remnant of what it once was. We will learn from this failure. I hope that you will learn from yours. | „ |
| ~ God of Light, to Salem. |
The God of Light is one of the two overarching antagonists (alongside the God of Darkness) of the RWBY franchise. He is the cause of light and creation in the world of Remnant, and one of the creators of humanity with his brother, the God of Darkness.
While not outright destructive like his brother, the God of Light chose to curse Salem with immortality as punishment for not obeying their rules, indirectly cursing her to a life of pain and suffering, and willingly stood by and watched as his brother wiped out all of humanity.
He is voiced by Chase McCaskill.
Personality[]
From birth, the God of Light was a kind and curious Afteran who sought to create and maintain life and balance in the Ever After, alongside his brother. However, the two became curious and tested the limits of their powers, creating two beings who could do their jobs for them, creating the Curious Cat and Jabberwalker, both of whom served different purposes. But the God of Light would see the creation of the latter as an imbalance and was quick to erase it, while the God of Darkness brought it back to life out of compassion, resulting in the beginning of their feud. As the two departed the Ever After, and as their powers continued growing, the God of Light developed more into his ideal as someone who maintained life and order, resulting in continued clashes with his brother who favored death and destruction. But he managed to convince his brother to come together to create Humanity together.
Differing from the Great Tree (the Blacksmith) who would let the things she created grow and develop on their own without her intervention like a kind mother, the God of Light developed a deep god complex in maintaining life and order that he and his brother designed without bending in that ideal. As despite coming off as kind and compassionate, as in his first encounter with the saddened and heart-broken Salem, who lost Ozma, her lover and savior, her continued questioning of the lose of him out of grief would cause the God of Light to speak in a firmer and commanding tone, showing no desire to hear further questioning. After his brother revived Ozma for Salem, he would enter the Land of Darkness, then killed Ozma in front of Salem as much as the God of Darkness revived him, mentioning that the saddened woman came to him first, and only sought for his aid after he refused to do so already. Instead of letting her go unpunished and ignoring requests, he and his brother would curse her with immortality, keeping Salem from ever reuniting with Ozma in the afterlife until she conformed to their belief, a cruel and uncompassionate show of force that would earn the woman's ire of the Brother Gods.
Despite someone who loves life and order, the true evil in the God of Light would come as he allowed his brother to commit a massive extermination of the First Humanity due to the selfish actions of Salem and the small number who turned against them in pursuit of power. Instead of showing sadness or compassion, he brushes it off the death of the innocent populace as being "a beautiful experiment" instead of a horrific massacre, referring to the Second Humanity as a "remnant of what it was" without them around anymore, showing his beliefs that without them, Humans would be "incomplete beings". His second act would come in reviving Ozma through a process of reincarnation instead of resurrection, where a like-minded man would become his next vessel. However, instead of becoming a new person, this would instead cause their individuality to be overwritten with them becoming Ozma, soul and all. And in the end, Salem was left alone on a barren world with no one, unable to die, instead waiting for the next Humanity to appear and became a shell of the former kind woman she was. Before giving Ozma his mission to "redeem" Second Humanity, the God of Light would place all blame for the destruction of the First Humanity despite doing nothing to stop him in the first place.
Despite the God of Light seeming "all knowing and seeing", he isn't aware of where his actions would lead people, Humans and Afterans instead assigning them tasks that are theirs to decide, with the punishments being theirs to live with. As turning Salem into an immortal made more her more spiteful of them, Ozma would lose faith in himself and humanity, and even the Curious Cat would go insane, without the ability to heal its broken heart himself or through Ascension, making him more or less shortsighted.
Biography[]
In the beginning, a mystical realm known as the Ever After, created two beings that emerged from the Great Tree, that was located at the center; a pair of brothers, one being a yellow fawn and the other being a purple lamb, both of whom would eventually become known as the God of Light and the God of Darkness respectively.
After emerging from the tree's blossoms, the two Brothers used their powers to shape the realm, first by clearing away the wilderness and making it less dangerous. Then, they used their creativity to imagine what could replace the wilderness, resulting in the creation of beings known as the Afterans. Finally, they created acres for them, each vastly different and with their own rules that was suited to the purposes they gave them.
However, as time passed and the Brothers grew in power, so too did their curiosity. They eventually outgrew their role and desired to do more. As such, in secret they created two beings who would replace them. The first was the Curious Cat who was made to be eternally curious about everything and who could find and fix the broken pieces of the Ever After, except for their own. The second was the Jabberwalker, who was made to "finish what the cat started", and had the power to disrupt the Afteran cycle of Ascension, thus being the only thing capable of truly destroying an Afteran. Seeing this, The older brother feared they had disrupted the balance of the Ever After with their creation of the Jabberwalker and thus destroyed it. However, the younger brother refused to condemn their creation because of their mistakes and restored the Jabberwalker whenever his brother destroyed it; this caused the two to fall into a bitter rivalry due to them both having different ideas of balance and how things should be.
As the two continued their destructive conflict, the Great Tree couldn't bear their actions any longer as it threatened the realm, and created a special doorway for the two to depart through to a "greater beyond", so they could create their own worlds as much as they liked. The two departed through the doorway, which the tree left open for the brothers if they ever decided to return, along with any of their creations that may happen to come across this mystical world.
After leaving, the two Brothers experimented by creating many new worlds, one of which that would eventually be known as Remnant. The God of Light took great pleasure in creating forces of life, light, and prosperity in the world. The God of Darkness hated these creations and would create forces of destruction, death, and darkness to remove his brother's creations from the world. However, life always prospered.
In an extreme attempt to finally rid the world of life, the God of Darkness created the Creatures of Grimm to help him destroy everything that the God of Light had made. After the Grimm were created, the God of Light decided that their feud would continue no further. He defeated his brother, then proposed that they make one final creation together, one that share their ideals and views. The God of Darkness agreed, and together they made humanity, which was capable of both creation and destruction. They also gave humanity the ability to choose, and the ability to gain the knowledge to make the choices.
The gods existed on the world, granting them the abilities of choice, creation, knowledge, and destruction, as well as the ability to control magic. However, one day, he is visited by a human named Salem, who pleads with him to bring back her deceased love, he refuses because doing so would disrupt balance and tells Salem to let him rest. When she makes the same plea to his brother, the God of Darkness, he agrees though the God of Light intervenes, sparking a conflict between the brothers. The God of Light reveals that she came to him first, leading the God of Darkness to realize that Salem did not come to him out of respect/worship. The two then curse Salem with immortality, hoping it will teach her a lesson as to the importance of life and death. Salem, however, uses her immortality to rise up a human revolution against the gods, truly only learning how easy it is to sway others and attacks them in the God of Light's domain. When asked who has lead them down this path, Salem reveals herself. Salem and her army then attack the gods, starting with The God of Darkness who easily catches them and turns into a sphere of energy. He expresses bitter disgust that humanity used magic, the very gift he bestowed upon them against him and wipes out everyone in the world except Salem due to her immortality. He and the God of Light then abandon the world as a "Remnant" of what it once was, the former fragmenting the moon as they depart.
However, the God of Light offers Salem's deceased lover Ozma the chance to reunite humanity as a force of good, where he would then bring together the relics of the gods to summon them and have them pass judgement. If unity and balance were restored, the gods would live among humanity again and grant them their gifts once more. If not, then he and his brother, the God of Darkness would deem humanity beyond redemption and wipe the world clean again permanently.
Ozma returned to Remnant to try and start a new life with Salem, but even after having a family with her, saw she was too dark and twisted to control anymore. He abandoned her, though every time he dies, his soul moves into a like-minded individual, and he eventually takes control of them, gaining their thoughts and abilities while also remembering his past memories, unable to rest until Salem is destroyed. Salem, however, desired to divide humanity, then gather the relics to summon the gods again, which would have them wipe the world from existence yet again.
Quotes[]
| “ | Mankind is no more, yet your world remains. And in time, your kind will grow to walk its face once again. However, without our presence, they will be but a fraction of what they once were. | „ |
| ~ God of Light telling Ozma of the new world. |
| “ | I understand your pain, but you demand of me that which I cannot make so. Life and death are part of a delicate balance. | „ |
| ~ God of Light speaking to Salem. |
| “ | I know we have our differences, but I have not come here with the aim to control you. The same, however, cannot said for her. This woman came to you only after I denied her pleas – pleas that would have disrupted the balance that you and I created. Together. | „ |
| ~ The God of Light telling the God of Darkness the truth about Salem |
| “ | So long at this world turns, you shall walks its face. | „ |
| ~ The God of Light and his brother after cursing immortality upon Salem. |
| “ | If brought together, these four Relics will summon my brother and I back to your world, and Humanity will be judged. If your kind has learned to live in harmony with one another and set aside their differences, then we shall once again live among you, and Humanity will be made whole again. But if your kind is unchanged, if you demand our blessings while still fighting amongst yourselves, then man will be found irredeemable and your world will be wiped from existence. Until your task is complete, you will reincarnate, but in a manner that ensures you are never alone. | „ |
| ~ God of Light telling Ozma of his new mission. |
| “ | Very well Our creation rests within your hands. | „ |
| ~ God of Light to Ozma before his departure. |
Trivia[]
- He and his brother both allude to the the Brothers Grimm, who are often thought to have created the classic fairy tales.
- In Live From Remnant it was joked that after abandoning Remnant he and his brother went to make their own planet with Blackjack and hookers, which is a reference to the animated show Futurama.
- The location of his domain has never been revealed, making it the only place other than his brother's domain that does not contain either humans or faunus.
- Despite his belief that the Second Humanity would be "incomplete" without them, people would ironically live more or less in peace with one another, with the inclusion of magic causing the issues in the future.
- The Blacksmith, the avatar of the Great Tree stated that true balance isn't something that could be forced or planned something that the Brother Gods, in particular, the God of Light hasn't understood. Ironic enough, the incidents caused in the series were caused from them cursing Salem and Ozma, in addition to them abandoning and leaving their past creation, the Curious Cat alone and unable to heal their own heart, soon causing it to snap.
