All joking aside, now that I've finally completed Fate/Grand Order, there's so goddamn much lore I want to unpack and discuss from the setting.
The first thing I want to ask about is the nature of the Beasts. In FGO they are specifically referred to as the Evils of Humanity, and each one has its own official number that is portrayed as independent of Chaldea's classification system, somehow. Just for example, I'm really confused as to why Tiamat is refered to as Beast II and Goetia as Beast I. How would they even know which order they would be listed in unless they somehow had direct knowledge of that domain of reality? I'm assuming that it's because Merlin and Solomon were on the Chaledea staff and thus there were special circumstances, but it's never really confirmed.
In any case, each one embodies an inherent negative flaw present in all of humanity, so long as humanity retains its Wisdom, and apparently they gain strength over time as human civilization advances, eventually reaching some unknown trigger point that causes them to manifest as a Disaster that threats the very existence of humanity.
Here's where things get really confusing for me. In my original understanding of Fate lore before getting into the later Singularities of Grand Order, the Beasts were described as extremely powerful Spirits/Phantasmal Beings under the command of Gaia, the will of Planet Earth, acting as its Counter Force to protect the Planet from harm. This is separate from Alaya's Counter Force, which serves to protect Human existence. Primate Murder is one of these Beasts, and this is also true in FGO. Even Merlin himself outright states during the Babylonia Arc that Tiamat is "one of the Beasts of the Counter Force".
This specific fact seems to conflict with the Beasts' origins in FGO as "evils of humanity" made manifest. Gilgamesh further expands on this during the Solomon Arc, saying that the Beasts don't act out of malice toward mankind, but rather out of love for mankind and a desire for a better future, albeit in an extremely warped and harmful manner. That seems to be a fundamentally different metaphysical origin and reason for existence compared to being a Spirit of Gaia. I would have figured that, based on the original interpretation, the Beasts would have no relation to humanity except as nuclear option to wipe them out in case they became too much of a threat to Gaia's existence. Unless this is some newly expanded aspect of their existence that simply wasn't covered in depth before FGO? And then where does this leave the position of beings like the Dead Apostle Ancestors/True Ancestors, who are also descended from Gaia?
Honestly, I think the overall cosmology of the Nasuverse is a mess, and is really weird and doesn't make sense in a fair number of places, but in spite of that, it's a very *cool* mess. But I do wish there was more consistency about how this stuff is portrayed.