Wednesday, May 24, 2023

Tower of God: Allusion to the Bible

 

With the second season of Tower of God (ToG) in the works and SIU stopped being off his hiatus and releasing more chapters I thought it would be a good time to write another post about this amazing franchise. For those of you who do not know Tower of God is a South Korean webtoon that has over 550 chapters released. SIU started publishing this series in 2010 and it seems like there is no end in sight; yet.

What I really enjoy about this series is there are many references to the Old and New Testament. In this post I will go over some of the easter eggs I have noticed while reading this webtoon.

Tower of God

Let’s get the easiest easter egg out of the way first. Tower of God represents the tower of Babel. In Genesis chapter 11:1-9; the people wanted to build a tower “whose top may reach unto heaven”. Heaven referring to the place where God dwells. In ToG people are selected to enter the tower and if they reach the top, then a wish will be fulfilled by God.

We know from the series there are three individuals who want(ed) to reach the top of the Tower. Rachel, one of the best antagonists ever written, who wants to see the stars, Baam who initially wanted to reach the top to see Rachel, and young Zahard for reasons unknown my guess is he was searching for power.

Ten Great Families

 
@danyaeljl

This one I noticed early on, but the farther you read into the series the more you understand how the ten great families are very similar to the twelve tribes of Israel. In the Old Testament after Abraham has Isaac who begot Jacob who is renamed Israel (Let God Prevail) has twelve sons and their descendants are known as the twelve tribes of Israel or children of Israel. Ten of those tribes obtained land; Reuben forfeited their right and the Levites oversaw the temple. Eventually 10 tribes of Israel were lost besides Judah and Benjamin who merged and became what is known to us as Jews. However, we believe that there will be a gathering of Israel that is happening today.

When Young Zahard was climbing the tower, he had 12 party members. After some drama one of them died and the other mysteriously disappeared and had a child outside the tower named Baam. The ten remaining members scattered and became known as the ten great families. Now you may be wondering how they are scattered if they are all in the tower, that is easy to explain. They lost their purpose. The 10 great families and Zahard had a purpose to reach the top of the tower, but for some unknown reason they stopped. What I think is starting to happen is Baam is gathering the families together again and will take them to the top. Zahard hasn’t been trying to reach the top of the tower. He may have been trying to bring the families together but is doing it the wrong way by taking daughters from the ten great families and adopting them to be his princesses.

Lo Po Bia Ren

In Matthew 7 Jesus Christ gave a powerful sermon on the mount and in verse 15 Jesus says, “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” One interpretation of this verse is that we should be careful who we follow because we could be deceived, enter Lo Po Bia Ren.

Before Baam enters the tower and climbs to the top, he (and others that are granted to climb) must be trained and tested. They are each split into positions that best suit the individual strengths. Baam is taught by Lo Po Bia Ren to help him become what is known as a wave controller. At the beginning he helped Baam, but once he learned that he was an irregular (someone that willed themselves to enter the tower without being granted), he turns against him and tries to kill him. 

As you can see above Lo Po Bian Ren is dressed in sheep’s clothing and we never really get to see what he looks like underneath at the beginning. As you learn later in the series the Lo Po Bia family (one of the 10 great families) can control animals and many of them are animals. Even though underneath his sheep clothing he is not a wolf this character is sharp and intelligent like a wolf.Therefore, we can relate that verse of scripture to Ren.

These are just three easter eggs that this series relates to the scriptures. There are more that I know of and some that I haven’t picked up on yet. I have personally enjoyed reading this long series. The world building is great, the foreshadowing is executed well; meaning I didn’t predict it, but once it came, I understood what happened prior. If you are interested in reading a clean series, then I would suggest reading this webtoons. It is free online, and you can access it here.

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