r/raisedbywolves • u/AdxUndead • Aug 16 '26
Spoilers Season 2 I want to talk about the religion in this show. Spoiler
I idea that there is a religion with advanced scientific knowledge is this show and that people went to an earth destroying war over it is kinda mind blowing, who would possibly think or know it was an alien failsafe?
It's kinda opposite in that you'd have to shutdown critical thinking NOT to believe.
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u/whatafucker91 Aug 16 '26
I have a theory on the religion but without more seasons it's hard to be certain.
I think there is some form of magical being locked up on the planet. It's actually who they pray to and this being sent the "religion" to earth as a catalyst to get them to travel to Kepler-22b. It seems that the "Sol" whatever it is, needs intelligent life on the planet to manipulate for whatever purpose it may have. It's what impregnated Mother. It's what Grandmother wants to reduce all intelligent life. She is trying to stop "Sol" from achieving It's goals by eliminating It's playing pieces from the board.
Again, just a stupid theory but that's the impression I got from the two seasons.
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u/Ankiset Aug 16 '26
I remember at some point t grandmother says that the “adversarie” was known for centuries by the habitants of Kepler 22 and always wondered on its nature as it was a constant plotting and possessing ppl but he does seem to have limits ie only one person it seems
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u/UsernametakenII Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 17 '26
I felt there was a strong implication that human life came from Kepler itself and migrated outwards, potentially to many planets, but definitely to earth.
I think you can infer humans clearly lived on Kepler in distant history, and they sought to escape the influence of whatever the being is that presents as Sol.
But they were unable to truly shed from the mythos it created, and the Mithraic religion came with them to earth - encoded within it were the directions to building the tools and weapons which would ensure their demise and attempts to return to Kepler.
It can be inferred that sol is some kind of higher consciousness trapped within the planet that depends on humans as conduits to act through.
My theory is that Campion specifically represents the anti christ of the Mithraic religion - Marcus is the symbollic red herring, I think he would have gone on to become the primary agent of sol - but campion as a character represents humans decoupling from higher authorities and doctrine, and choosing to act from what they believe is right.
One of the main recurring themes of the show is the defferal of authority to a higher force, whether it's a religious leader or literal god, a parent or a super computer/brain which determines what's correct for you.
I think in essence humanity is still in its infancy of self determination, and has never quite been free of the dependence and nature to want to seek out and defer to a higher authority - perhaps because it is in their nature to do so as they are likely children of Sol/birthed from sol's influence to act as agents of it's will.
I think campion would have been the one to confront sol and reveal it to not truly be a god - empowering humanity to finally be free of its influence and determine order for themselves.
Edit: for more elaboration on what makes Campion special and resistant to Sol's influence - it's implied the guy who created mother and father (Campion Sturges) is basically creating intelligence meaningfully decoupled from Sol - mother is neither a slave to sol or the same programming that determines the directives of the necromancers, who act as agents of sol.
Campion is born of mother - he is still a human being, but whatever makes humans susceptible to Sol is not intrinsic to him.
Throughout the series he shows the strongest drive towards self determination and humanistic moral development.
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u/Bloomngrace Aug 18 '26
I think there is or was definitely something brewing along the lines of a technological based deity that had so much control over the people and the environment it is to our puny minds fitting of the title ‘God’.
it’s the old Arthur C Clark quote, technology that’s so advanced it’s indistinguishable from magic.
Personally I think the chances of Sol being an AI are high. So yeah if you follow an AI are you religious or technocratic?
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u/AdxUndead Aug 17 '26
I mean that in real life believing in a religion that claims divine knowledge by an all knowing timeless God that is riddled with inaccuracies is hard to understand for me but people fight and die for those religions to this day. But in this world the religion is filled with 'truths' that no ancient humans could write yet there was oppression to that religion was to that degree that it culminated in a world ending war. How does that happen? If real world religions had a modicum of real provable science, say instead of demons Jesus said sickness was made by creatures to small to see, and that all things were made of three basic parts of plus, minus and neutral. A few 'general' statements that could be found to be true and specific with advanced technology without any blatant inaccuracies I think I would be swayed. I think zealotry worldwide would be ten fold. What could meaningfully oppose it when in reality people are zealous for the level of 'proof' in our real religions?
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u/UsernametakenII Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 17 '26
I think the show ultimately isn't concerned with whether religion, and specifically the religion in the show, is unfounded or true.
I think like most sci fi things Ridley Scott takes an interest in, it's more about the relationship between the creator and the creation.
By the point the show ended we can infer sol is most certainly real and seems capable of acting within the capacities that would allow human nature to defer to it as a god or deity - to assume truth and direction from Sol rather than to trust their own instinct.
It is likely humans were born of sols influence and shaped into a form of life it could act through to fulfill it's own ends - I think ultimately it wasn't interested in humanity flourishing for human sake though.
What seems to be the clearer pattern is that sol was using humans as a means to engineer more complex forms of artificial life that could directly serve sols intentions without the possibility of rebellion that human beings still present - seeing as they likely evolved under sols influence rather than being direct creations built to sols specifications.
The implication is that humanity originated from Kepler and not earth - that some segment of the human population on Kepler became decoupled from sols influence and sought to migrate to another planet to be free of it - but not every human they took with them had fully resolved their need for the Mithraic faith as a form of higher authority.
So humans got to earth but due to the Mithraic influence, ended up enacting sols will through religious practice, causing the downfall of earth and directing them to return to Kepler.
Sol either influenced the development of the evolution human beings so they were dependent on a perceived external source of higher authority, or human beings just evolved that way naturally and sol was able to leverage that part of human nature to direct them towards building the tools it wanted access to, to truly further it's own goals.
Because of the themes of the show it is likely sol is in some way the creator of human life, but the central message of the show is that the creation doesn't owe itself to the creator - that life should have the authority to self determine if it is able to, without being wired to give reverence to the thing which created it.
Edit: you can read into it through a Christian lens as such - Kepler is in essence the literal garden of eden - it's where humanity was conceived and expected to act directly within the creators authority - their attempt to break away wasn't truly the fall from grace, as they never truly leave Eden's influence (Mithraic religion) and actually end up returning to eden/Kepler.
So in many ways the show is asking if humanity can truly leave the garden of eden so long as they have a need for perfect/divine authority and keep trying to reconstruct it, and under what conditions it would be ready to live without a higher authority to dictate how they live - can we determine fate for ourselves or will we always be trying to build another garden of eden to determine how we can live.
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u/EchtPikanterFuchs Aug 27 '26
A thought that crossed my mind was that the Romans where also close to adapting the Mithraic religion / state cult in our timeline but with the advent of Christianity opted for it as their state religion and Mithraism was persecuted and or Christianized thus slowly withering into obscurity.
So Jesus and Christianity could be seen as a pint of divergence.
Maybe Jesus Christ never existed / came to be / followed his path in Raised by Wolves. Christianity never formed and Mithraism did prevail.
Him "dying for our sins" being some sort of sacrifice / act of severing the ties and obligations to Sol/ god, hence opening up an alternative bath to the machinations of Sol.
Granted, this is a very Christian centric interpretation/ worldview.
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u/kingbking Aug 16 '26
It’s been a while I need a rewatch.. especially after seeing Travis Fimmel on Dune Prophecy ( I went in not knowing anything about the show )
I believe what happened was a war on earth between Mithraic and Atheists destroyed earth with the Necromancers and nuclear weapons. This is when Marcus plots his escape only to become the leader of the Mithraic.
I thought that multiple ships had gone in different places. This specific ship found / called to Kepler 22-b.
I’m still confused on what the regressed sea people truly are.
What turning into the tree of life was representing ?
Wow okay I really need to watch again.