[The life of a small man;]
[The life of a madman;]
[The life of a sage;]
[The life of a fool;]
On the screen,
the concluding words about Otto were concise—
yet every line was deeply moving.
From the perspective of the universe,
or even of epoch-spanning civilizations,
Otto's existence was insignificant.
Just one Archbishop of Schicksal
who appeared briefly in the long river of human history.
And yet—
Otto's existence was also undeniably great.
As a member of humanity,
he led Schicksal in resistance against the Honkai for over five hundred years.
Five hundred years—
to the Honkai, perhaps no more than an instant.
But to humanity,
it was the passage of five full centuries.
[The Life of a Small Man]
Otto's definition is, in fact, very simple.
A "human"—
a human no different in kind from the masses.
The only modifier that must be added is this:
He was a man of absolute selfishness—
someone who, for the sake of his ultimate goal,
could sacrifice anything without hesitation:
The interests and lives of others,
his own interests and life,
even the entire world itself.
In everything he did,
his own objective always came first.
To achieve strategic goals,
everything else could be discarded.
Thus, he could tear apart Siegfried's family,
bring about Himeko's death,
and speak with biting cruelty toward Welt.
But if a situation arose
where his goal could be achieved without harming others,
he was equally willing
to use his boundless knowledge to cultivate the next generation.
After all—
what he admired was Kallen's justice and kindness,
and he was willing to see those things passed on.
Otto truly was human.
He was not ignorant of good and evil,
nor did he fail to contemplate morality and ethics.
On the contrary—
he understood them more deeply than almost anyone else,
so deeply that he could manipulate the human heart itself.
He simply did not care
how he himself would be judged,
so long as it did not interfere with his goal.
He reached the pinnacle of selfishness—
So selfish
that he could sacrifice even himself
for the sake of his objective.
He also possessed a strong tendency toward self-destruction.
On one hand,
as long as his goal could be achieved,
he would die without hesitation—
even deliberately leaving others a chance for revenge.
On the other hand,
he knew perfectly well
that his sins deserved judgment.
Beyond this,
any attempt to subject Otto to conventional moral evaluation—
to define him as simply good or evil—
becomes largely irrelevant,
missing the essence of who he truly was.
Otto did not need such judgments.
Nor could such judgments truly define him.
He committed evil acts,
but did not desire evil.
He performed good deeds,
but did not desire good.
In fact,
he desired nothing else at all—
Becoming a being with emotion yet without desire,
a dangerous and mad individual without weakness.
If there had existed a method—
one that required no price,
or even a simple one that harmed no one—
to resurrect Kallen,
Then naturally, everyone would have been happy.
But if no such method existed—
Then he would not hesitate
to rule the world with iron and blood,
to mobilize every living force available,
to eliminate without mercy anything that stood in the way of that goal—
And even if the feasible solution demanded
the sacrifice of the entire world,
he would still carry it out.
And this—
[Is the life of a madman.]
Yet…
if this were all there was to him,
Then Otto would be nothing more
than an unrestrained, genius lunatic.
But that is not how the audience perceived him.
To those watching the screen—
Otto was, beyond doubt,
a sage.
Otto possessed profound insight into human nature and philosophy—
and he clearly understood, and did not believe,
that his actions were morally righteous.
At the very end, he chose to confess—
yet he did not change his course.
He acted.
He informed.
That was all.
And his desire to resurrect Kallen
was not merely born of romantic attachment.
Personal love mattered—
but there was something even more important.
Kallen represented the benevolent side of humanity,
and the tragic reality that those who practice goodness
are so often obstructed, broken, and erased.
Otto's obsession was directed at a world
where those who wish to do good are thwarted,
where those who seek to improve society
are forced to confront their own powerlessness—
An obsession born of disappointment,
and of resistance against such a reality.
Despite knowing the evils he had committed,
the evils he was committing,
and the evils he would yet commit—
He still sincerely practiced
Schicksal's public creed under his command.
Whether in his words to Ragna,
or later to Durandal,
his teachings toward goodness were genuine—
Just as they were long ago toward Vera and the others.
And this—
[Is the life of a sage.]
But Otto's life
was also undeniably—
The life of a fool.
In the course of all that happened,
he chose to use evil to eradicate evil.
In doing so,
he lost the ability
to genuinely practice goodness both inwardly and outwardly.
From the moment Kallen was imprisoned,
to the day she died,
Otto's already fragile understanding
of the sacredness of "humanity"
as a spiritual ideal
collapsed completely.
From that moment on,
he embarked on his path of calamity—
a vortex that led inevitably to his final release.
Just as Kallen
could have broken her shackles and torn apart the ropes,
yet willingly walked onto the gallows—
Otto, too,
could have abandoned his obsession
and tried to live as a good man.
Instead,
he willingly chose death.
And chose it freely.
[He was not only Caesar or Macbeth—
he was also Claudius, Othello, and even Hamlet.]
[He was beautiful and cruel,
great and evil.]
But none of that mattered to him.
What mattered
was Kallen Kaslana.
Good and evil coexisted within him.
Perhaps Otto never sought
to balance merit against sin.
Yet it cannot be denied—
His achievements
had already surpassed his crimes.
[He stood in opposition to the entire world—
the Imaginary Tree, the Sea of Quanta, the Will of Honkai.]
[He deceived the Honkai God, consumed vast quantities of Honkai energy, and delayed the next Honkai invasion—granting Schicksal, Anti-Entropy, and others precious time to recover.]
[He gave Kiana and Durandal unprecedented experience in directly confronting the Honkai God.]
[He cultivated Kiana, Durandal, and other outstanding warriors of this era, granting humanity the right to challenge the Honkai.]
[He prevented the tragedy of "Binding" from repeating as it did in the previous era, directly causing its dissolution.]
[He ensured Schicksal's transition to Theresa with minimal casualties, clearing the path for her leadership.]
[He allowed Bronya to confront the name "Herrscher of Reason" head-on, and awakened Durandal's Kaslana power.]
[He developed medicine to cure the Great Plague during the Middle Ages.]
[He reformed the decaying Schicksal, making humanity's resistance against the Honkai far more efficient.]
[He led a renewed Schicksal to protect humanity and fight the Honkai for over five hundred years.]
[He…]
Line after line appeared on the screen,
enumerating Otto's merits and sins—
And each one shook the hearts of the viewers.
Countless extraordinary beings
could not help but draw a deep breath.
Until the final line appeared:
[He may have deserved death—
but he deserved to leave with dignity.]
[We will all eventually fade into time, like tears in rain.
But generation after generation passes down knowledge,
and it is through this inheritance that civilization reaches its present height.]
[Transmission itself—
is the dignity and value of humanity.]
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