Goblin Slayer: What Does Purify Do & Why Was Priestess Shaken After Using It?

GOBLIN SLAYER! is a dark fantasy and adventure light novel series that focuses on a young and inexperienced Priestess who wants to become an adventurer but lands in trouble as goblins wipe out her first party; she is saved by the mysterious Goblin Slayer, a brutal murderer of goblins, whom she then joins as they adventure together. This article will be dedicated to Priestess and a scene from the recent episodes of the anime series, which saw her use her Purify ability on the evil goblin shaman, but against Earth Mother’s ideals. What does Purify do, and why was this such a problem for her? Keep reading to find out!

Purify is a powerful and very usefull spell, but Earth Mother has some rules about how it should be used

We know that Priestess is an incredibly powerful, as well as a timid character. Among her powers are the Miracles she can use, whose usage is controlled by Earth Mother, the deity of mercy and compassion. This is why, in general, these Miracles can only be used for good or in case of defense, i.e., it is generally prohibited to be used to harm others. This will be an important fact later in the article, so we have told you this now so you can completely understand the story from the second section.

So, as far as the Miracles are concerned, Priestess can use several of them, and among them is Purify, a very powerful Miracle that can… well, the effects of this Miracle are quite obvious. Purify purifies things. It can purify clothes or objects from filth, it can purify air and it can purify water as well. It can also purify other types of liquids by turning them into pure water, including blood, which is the gist of this article, i.e., a scene where Priestess used Purify to turn blood into water.

Water is considered to be the purest of all liquids, and since there is water in the blood, purifying blood means removing everything that is not water, so this is what we are going to talk about in the next section. This was an important moment for the Priestess, so we think that it is very important to explain it and tell you exactly what happened.

Priestess used it to harm someone, and that realization pushed her to the verge of a breakdown

The battle against the goblin shaman and his horde of goblins was a specific one. There were many of them, and the shaman swore that he would make the heroes eat their own blood and feces. The priestess was praying at the time, and she used Protection to defend her friends and allies, but at one point, she realized that she had never fought such a large group of enemies, and that scared her. She then remembered her first experience with fighting goblins and that broke her concentration, which meant that Protection stopped working.

She quickly regained her composure and used Holy Light, which blinded the goblins, but before the heroes could get back to fighting, the evil shaman cast a Sleep Cloud, and Priestess was left alone with the enemy. She was shocked and scared, and at one point, instinctively, she used her miracle ability, Purify, which needed to be “approved” by Earth Mother on the shaman. This purified the shaman’s blood and turned it into water, which caused the shaman a great deal of pain. Earth Mother immediately told her that miracles cannot be used with the intent to kill and that she granted her the spell this time but that she would not do it another time.

Realizing that she had used a miracle to kill – and disregarding the fact that she had done it instinctively – Priestess broke down. She was on the brink of a breakdown for completely abusing her ability as well as Earth Mother’s gifts, something she never thought she would do. But, at that moment, the Goblin Slayer woke up from the spell and told her that she did well, which helped her regain her composure a bit, after which the heroes could save themselves.

This is why this moment was so important, as Priestess felt disappointed in herself, and that is actually why she was on the verge of a breakdown, i.e., why she felt so bad because she used something that should be good with the intention to actually kill someone.

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