Record of Ragnarök Review: Why the Hercules Versus Jack the Ripper Fight is so Iconic.

The Record of Ragnarök is an anime that deals with the antiquities and struggles of humans throughout history, this is most explored with the fight between the mighty hero Hercules from Greek Myths and the most notorious serial killer known as Jack the Ripper.  The explanation given to us of Jack's background is that he is the offspring of a prostitute and a very rich man who promised to marry his mother and take her away, with Jack, from the hell which was the brothel.  The interaction between two people and a situation he barely understands come to define Jack and his history, which seems to define us all, in some form or fashion, the sustained trauma that each of us experiences throughout his or her life.  He never knew his father but knew of him from the stories told to him by his mother, even though he lived life without his father, he at least had love from his mother or that was what he thought.  The actual situation was a lot more tragic; we tend to think a mother's love as unconditional, but as we find out, her love for Jack was based on the condition that she would be loved by a man that did not love her, whom of which was Jack's father.  Jack's father promised to come back and take her and Jack away, but as we find out the only reason, she decided to give birth to Jack was to be with his father, but as she discovered from reading the newspaper, she sees the man she so desperately desires in the arms of another woman, he is calling his wife.  This event sends her into a tailspin, not knowing what to do and unfortunately, she takes her pain out on Jack and tells him the truth about his origin, as a result this enrages Jack, he comes to the realization that the love from his mother was nothing more than a mere fantasy and begins to commit unspeakable acts because as he was wronged, in his mind at least, the best outcome should be for him to wrong others.

Hercules is the pinnacle of human existence and represents the potential within humans.  He, in the Record of Ragnarök series, is the only human to earn his godly status.  Hercules is presented to us as normal man that wants to protect his city-state and the whole of humanity from being destroyed by the god's wrath, so he challenges Ares, the God of War, to a brawl.  Hercules to compete with Ares consumes the blood of Zeus, but according to Zeus, any human who consumes his blood dies, but as it so happens Hercules survives.  And as a result, was granted great strength that was able to match the gods as a reward for his survival. He then goes on to defeat Ares in a one-on-one encounter, fighting on humanities behalf, the Gods were so impressed with his valor they made him an honorary god and bestowed upon him all the traits of Godhood. The most interesting thing about Hercules is his selflessness and his love for humanity and the desire to see humanity be prosperous, which makes this an inspiring story.  But harkening back the relationship of Jack and Hercules, let's flip the circumstances on its head and look at this from a face value interpretation. What makes us cheer for Jack the Ripper over Hercules and the simple answer is perspective, we empathize with Jack the Ripper over Hercules, the same reason Batman has more fans than Superman.  Jack the Ripper's life came with heartache and pain, that we understood, we see ourselves within Jack.  The second Hercules took a sip of Zeus' blood, he lost the right to be accepted by humanity because he made himself into a hypocrite.  Hercules abandoned humanity when he first desired to be a god, no matter what his intentions might have been, he began to see his role as above us and not with us.  This diverges from Jack's point of view because he never saw himself greater but apart and that's why him defeating Hercules, the man who became a god, the most satisfying ending to this tragedy because to truly side and be a friend to humanity, you have to empathize and Hercules gave up his right to do that when he chose the gods over humanity, which makes this so iconic.  Sometimes it serves us better to be a martyr rather than a hypocrite.