Who is Ouranos in Danmachi? Is he Evil?

Updated: March 5, 2022

4 Comments on Who is Ouranos in Danmachi? Is he Evil?

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Ouranos has asked the Hermes family to look into the talking monsters, aka Wiene, however, his intentions don’t seem to be good.

DanMachi’s new season is off to a great start with new characters and conflicts already being introduced. In the first episode, we saw Bell and the others come across a young vuivre who was being hunted by humans.

While they saved and named her Wiene, with the other families now looking into the talking monsters, the dungeon is thrown into chaos.

Furthermore, the inclusion of the Hermes and Ikelos family has complicated matters even further, especially with the guild head, Ouranos, instigating them in the first place.

Contents

Who Is Ouranos in Danmachi?

What Is Ouranos’ Goal?

Is Ouranos Evil?

About Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?

Who Is Ouranos in Danmachi?

Ouranos is the leader of the Guild and one of the first Gods to descend from heaven. He resides underneath the Guild, in the Room of Prayer, where he uses his divinity as a “prayer” to prevent the monsters in the dungeon from leaving it.

Basically, Ouranos is the single most important being in Gekkai, and the only reason he isn’t ruling the world is that instead of amassing power, he’s been spending the last 1,000 years watching and keeping the monsters in the dungeons.

Who Is Ouranos in Danmachi? — Ouranos | Source: Fandom

His name bears similarity to Ouranos, the Greek god of sky. Along with Gaia, Ouranos fathered the Titans as well as the hundred-handed Hecatoncheires, whom he imprisoned in the pit below Hades, Tartarus.

Furthermore, according to the myth, Ouranos imprisoned his children, the Titans, within the womb of Gaia, fearing they would overthrow him.

The whole concept of gods, and the creator’s inspiration from the Greek mythology, makes it so that there is some semblance between Ouranos of the series and the one from the myths.

It heavily foreshadows that there might be a massive uprising in the future and that perhaps Ouranos’ goals aren’t as noble as they sound.

The strong parallels to Berserk also hint at Ouranos being crafted with “The Desired God” motif. He was likely the one who answered the prayers of the complacent descendants of the Ancient Heroes.

But how would he have the power to destroy the impenetrable seal of Pandora’s Box? Simple, he could be the Black Dragon.

It would all makes sense, as only he would have the power to pull off a feat like that. Also, the mystery of his confinement to the dark quarters of the prayer room can finally be solved.

With Albert Waldstein and the Great Spirit Aria blinding one of his eyes, he’s forced to remain hidden away for fear of being exposed.

Since Pandora’s Box is infamously known for spreading all kinds of evil worldwide, an uproar is sure to happen if it is discovered that he was the one who unleashed the monsters on Orario.

What Is Ouranos’ Goal?

From what we have seen so far, Ouranos leaves the matters of the Guild to Royman Mardeel, while he stays in the Room of Prayer to use his divinity to keep monsters within the dungeon.

From when he first descended 1000 years back, he’s always been open to new ideas, even believing that the Xenos could peacefully coexist with the people on the surface.

Ouranos’ goal of keeping the dungeons in check and having the Xenos coexist peacefully with people also gives us a reason why he’s looking for Wiene.

What Is Ouranos’ Goal? — Xenos | Source: Fandom

But with the plausibility of him being the most fearsome and powerful creature of Orario, his goals seem to be morphing into something sinister.

Is Ouranos Evil?

From what we have seen so far, Ouranos seems to be a relatively good person, as he supports the Xenos and even paid for Bell’s barely healed arm. However, it is often these types of characters that pull a fast one on the fans and turn evil.

Ouranos is evil because his heroic intentions feel more like a front to his true dark intentions. Fans even fear that he wants to see Orario burned, and has a sinister plan brewing underneath.

Hestia meets Ouranos, Guild’s true plan | DanMachi III

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Ouranos has always been kind of distant and cold. Even as the leader of a group with noble intentions, he’s always seemed –suspicious due to all the secrecy surrounding him.

However, at the same time, if Ouranos truly wants to destroy Orario, then we can only wonder what the reason behind supporting Bell and the Xenos is. Either he simply helps them on a whim, or he has a far greater plan in mind.

It seems he’s grooming Bell to become the spark that causes the destruction of Orario and using it to spread the fires and chaos even further.

He could also be lulling him into a false sense of security, seeing as he could be the Black Dragon, who will battle him one day.

While he can easily let the monsters free right now and fulfill his goal, perhaps there are circumstances that don’t allow him to do so.

Spoiler

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About Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon, also known as DanMachi for short, is a Japanese light novel series written by Fujino Ōmori and illustrated by Suzuhito Yasuda.

The story follows the exploits of Bell Cranel, a 14-year-old solo adventurer under the Goddess Hestia. As the only member of the Hestia Familia, he works hard every day in the dungeon to make ends meet while seeking to improve himself.

He looks up to Ais Wallenstein, a famous and powerful swordswoman who once saved his life and fell in love with him.

He is unaware that several other girls, deities and mortals alike, also develop affections towards him, most notably Hestia herself. He also gains allies and improves himself with each new challenge he faces.

Comments

4 replies on “Who is Ouranos in Danmachi? Is he Evil?”

Thank you so much for this article Vansh. I have tried many times to say similar things on the Danmachi fan wiki, and they delete me every time. Not even on the wiki itself, on the “discussions” part where critical conversation is supposed to be allowed. No message about what rule I broke, not even a “don’t do that again”, just “poof” deleted.

It’s well known that Danmachi’s author was very inspired by Berserk and that there are certain parallels between the two. The biggest parallel of all is what I think strikes the biggest nerve of all.

The whole motif of “The Desired God”.

Long story short, Babel is often called “the lid of the Dungeon” (referred as that in the 1st light novel), but it is anything but. Monsters, even huge ones, just go thru the huge arches, just like the Violas and Virgas from light novel #1 did. And people who want magic stones go thru the other way. What kind of a “lid” is that? Clearly one that does absolutely nothing.

There was another lid before Babel existed. It says in light novel #2 that the old lid was “no bigger than the other buildings around it”. It stands to reason that that was an actual lid, not a fake lid with huge arches where giant monsters bigger than houses just go thru it such as the Violas that just went thru it during “Monsterphilia”. Yes, it stands to reason that that was designed to be a permanent, irremovable lid like the concrete sarchophagus over Chernobyl. Permanent. Irremovable. Nothing gets in, nothing gets out.

Now here’s the thing. It explicitly said in LN #1 that most adventurers were motivated by greed. I think that’s precisely what happened. By 1,000 years ago, the people had become greedy and stupid.

The Ancient Heroes of the Age of Argonaut sealed Pandora’s Box with an irremovable seal. Their greedy and lazy descendants flocked there and built a city surrounding the lid and prayed day and night for a god to descend from heaven and break open that very seal over Pandora’s Box. Ouranos became The Desired God because he had the power to break the seal over Pandora’s Box and was willing to do so. Need I say more.

But I will say more: Why does Ouranos keep his room almost pitch dark except for a couple of very low torches? For fear that someone might notice that one of his eyes is blind.

There is an iconic scene in the Danmachi manga (and replicated in other places) depicting 1,000 years ago in which a sad and scared Ais Waldstein is told by her father “Stay here, Ais”, as he and her mother, the Great Spirit Aria, walk off into the distance. This is taken to be the point in which Albert Waldstein and Aria depart to fight against the Black Dragon.

I think there is a reason for the sadness and fear in Ais’s face in that scene other than “they didn’t tell her where they were going, and somehow she just knew it was going to be bad.”

I think all three of them heard that terrible sound of the lid over Pandora’s Box being destroyed. The dark ritual prayer, which Albert must have thought was nothing but the ravings of a bunch of greedy cargo cultists, was actually answered, and a fell black dragon appeared from the sky. What was supposed to have been an irremovable and indestructible lid over Pandora’s Box was broken apart by the terrible power of that dragon.

Why was Ais sad and afraid? Because her parents told her to stay and left her without further explanation, and more so because they headed determinedly straight in the direction of that giant, terrible sound of that huge stone lid cracking apart.

Unlike a lot of people I don’t believe that Albert was any sort of “superman”, although his Great Spirit-wife Aria vastly amplified his capabilities (indeed far more so even than Argonaut with his “regular” spirit). But just like Crozzo and Epimetheos, Albert was simply a person who just wound up being in a certain place at a certain time and was foolish enough to believe that he could struggle against “destiny” and “causality”.

Albert died fighting against the Black Dragon and Aria has been missing for 1,000 years, but their struggle was not in vain. For they blinded that dragon, the dragon Ouranos, in one of his eyes.

Even in human form, he is forced to stay in a dark, dark room. For while he is still The Desired God to most of humanity, should some new Albert discover that this self-proclaimed “god of gods” is actually blind in one eye, then he, or she, will not hesitate to put two-and-two together. And even the darkness has not entirely protected Ouranos, for some who may become a new Albert have begun asking questions as to why he surrounds himself so.

Hey! I should be thanking you for such a detailed comment. And I apologize for the late response. Your comment somehow got misplaced, which is ironical given how big it is.

In any case, thanks! I’ll try and incorporate these points into the article itself.

Hi Vansh,

You’re welcome, and thank you for your own reply.

And yes, please feel free to use any material from my replies to your articles in any old or new article.

Ouranos being the Black Dragon does perhaps leave one lingering question: How he got to wherever the Black Dragon was supposed to be when it was assailed by Zeus and Hera’s Familias without being detected. But the answer is simpler than some might suppose: It’s an open secret that there are tunnels, some perhaps natural, some certainly monster-made, some perhaps man-made, leading from Tartaros (“The Dungeon”) to areas outside Orario. One was specifically mentioned in canon DanMachi as leading to the Bay of Melen. Did any exist in the era of Fianna and the Ancient Heroes? Not particularly. If they were used as such by any sizable number of monsters, they would have been plugged as the Dark Hole itself was.

As mentioned before, Babel, unlike the lid built in the era of the Ancient Heroes, provides no protection from monsters even the size of small buildings from simply leaving Tartaros through its great arches. But it does provide insulation for Ouranos’s schemes. Schemes such as men and monsters building these sorts of tunnels. Tunnels like the one leading to the Bay of Melen which was deliberately used to bring hordes of Violas into those waters.

If the Tartaros-Melen Bay tunnel was deliberately used in this way, and we know Knossos was deliberately built, then I contend the odds are better than average that the former was also deliberately built.

If a tunnel was buildable connecting Tartaros to Melen that could fill its seas with Violas, then a similar one for a similar purpose was also buildable from Tartaros to the Black Dragon’s Lair in the North.

PS: Also, before I forget, re the DanMachi-Berserk parallel re the motif of The Desired God: In DanMachi, Ouranos is titled the “God of the Dungeon”, while in Berserk his counterpart is called the “God of the Abyss”.