I wanted to take a brief pause from my regular schedule to let you know what I have planned for the foreseeable future.
I just finished my series of posts on Chinese mythology, and I'm not planning on starting another series yet. Instead, for the next four weeks I'm planning on doing posts jumping from one culture to the next. If you have a specific fairy tale, myth, or deity you would like me to cover, hit me up in the comments, on Twitter, or via email to let me know!
Why the next four weeks? Because after that, I'm going on temporary hiatus!
I've been running this blog nonstop since October of 2014. It's a lot of fun, and I enjoy it immensely. However...it can also be stressful at times when I have other things going on. And oh boy, have I! I've (mostly) kept up with posting once a week, despite school, work, and four surgeries in the past two and a half years. As much as I love this blog, and you guys...I could really use a short break.
My final post for a little while will be on May 22nd. After that I'll be recovering from Phoenix Comic Con, packing, and then...out of the country, without my laptop or my mythology books.
I'm going to Japan for three weeks!
I'm really excited for this opportunity, and I'm sure I'll have a ton of stories to share when I get back home. However, I'm also sure that I'll need a week or two to recover.
So, I'll do a post on May 22nd, and then be on hiatus until probably July 17th.
I'll post a reminder about this a bit closer to the dates. Until then, if there's any posts you'd like to see in the next four weeks, please let me know!
Greetings readers! I hope you had a lovely Easter. If you're interested, I did a post about the Easter Bunny's origins a year ago; you can read it here.
Today I thought that I would try something a little bit different for a blog post. This past week has been a very good one for trailers, between Detroit, The Last Jedi, and Thor: Ragnarok. As a huge Marvel fan, I was very excited by the trailer for the new Thor...but, as a huge mythology nerd, I was even more excited. That trailer packed so much mythology into under two minutes, and I fangirled pretty hard at some of what was included.
But then I thought - I have a blog where I talk about mythology. Why not do a breakdown of the trailer? But, instead of focusing on the Marvel aspects, why not point out all the similarities to classical Norse mythology?
And so, without further ado, let's jump into the trailer!
First of all: The name. In Norse mythology, Ragnarok is literally "The Doom of the Gods". In traditional mythology, Ragnarok ends with most of the Norse pantheon (and all but a handful of mortals) dead. The name of the movie alone is setting the stage for a cataclysmic event.
Thor drops into the trailer right away. Mythological Thor isn't the brightest lightning bolt in the sky, but he's always game for a fight, and he fights hard to defend those close to him. Marvel movie Thor is pretty much the same in that aspect.
What really interested me were the red, glowing eyes and mouths that can be seen six seconds into the preview. In mythology, Ragnarok comes at the hands of the denizens of Muspelheim - fire Jotunn. These giants are led by a being named Surtr, and it's at their hands that the world ends in fire. The few seconds these dark figures are in the trailer doesn't say much about them, but it has me wondering if they might be the fire Jotunn. (Frost Jotunn have already appeared in the first Thor movie, and their world was explored by Thor and his companions. It wouldn't surprise me to have the fire Jotunn show up, and I'm wondering if Thor might be hanging upside down in Muspelheim.) If so, it's another way the trailer is tying back to Ragnarok.
The next character to appear in the trailer also supports Ragnarok; her name is Hela. This is the Marvel version of the Norse goddess Hel, who rules over (if her name didn't give it away) Hel, the Norse variant on the underworld. Mythological Hel is the goddess of death, as well as being the child of Loki. When Ragnarok arrives in mythology, the forces of Hel (led by Loki) rise up from the underworld and fight against the gods.
The trailer certainly sets Hela up to be a major villain. She destroys Mjolnir with what looks like very little effort. Then she is shown standing in front of the armies of Asgard, home of the gods. "Asgard...is dead." she declares dramatically, and then fire sweeps throughout Asgard, destroying everything. (Fire! Again, it all ties back to Ragnarok.) I'm very much looking forward to seeing what role she plays in the movie.
Next you have Thor being dragged away by a beautiful warrior woman. This woman is called Valkyrie in the Marvel comics, and she too has a mythological counterpart. I'll shamelessly borrow a line from my book to describe the valkyrie:
"The valkyr were the angels of the battlefield, fearsome women warriors who could sense the approach of death and were tasked by Odin to aid his chosen side in battle. When a warrior died they bore him up to the Halls of Valhalla, the Hall of the Slain, where he would join the ranks of the Einherjar. There he would be waited upon by the valkyr and never know sorrow until the coming of Ragnarök.”
Now, I highly doubt that Thor is dead in the trailer, and the arena he winds up in doesn't look much like any afterlife. However, it's worth noting that the Hall of the Slain, where all the valorous dead wound up, was known for its feasting, drinking, and brawling. To have a character named Valkyrie dragging Thor to a place where he's forced to fight isn't too far off from mythology. In addition, her very name is already setting this character up to fight on Thor's side against the bad guys during Ragnarok. She seems to be a pretty competent fighter, so I'm looking forward to that.
A few of the characters from previous Thor movies make a cameo in the trailer. Heimdall, the watcher of Asgard, is there - and so is Loki. Now, it's no surprise that they chose to show Loki in the trailer, since he seems to be a fangirl favorite of Marvel. The inclusion of Heimdall could just be a coincidence, one of many characters from the Thor franchise that they just so happened to pick. However...the myth nerd in me says otherwise. I think his inclusion, along with Loki, was a deliberate foreshadowing.
In the myths, during Ragnarok Heimdall plays an important role. The watcher was never particularly fond of mythological Loki, a trickster whose mischief often went a few steps too far. When Loki eventually was responsible for the murder of a god, Heimdall helped track him down and imprison him. During Ragnarok, Loki breaks free of his bonds and fights against the gods. Heimdall counters him.
In the myths, Heimdall and Loki kill each other.
I can't see Marvel killing off Loki. (At least, not permanently, at any rate.) Tom Hiddleston is a huge asset to them, and as previously mentioned, Loki has a lot of fangirls. My best friend is one of them, and I know she would riot if her favorite character died. (Just like I did when my favorite Marvel character was killed off by Loki...)
However, I can see Heimdall being killed off. It would lend additional emotional weight to the story. His sacrifice could inspire Thor to fight harder. And it would help to show again the villainous side of Loki, who tends to swing between villain and anti-hero in the movies.
And those are my thoughts on the trailer! It's a lot of text for less than two minutes of video, haha. I'm not sure if any of my speculation will pan out, but it's always interesting to me to see what they choose to draw on from the myths. What are you guys' thoughts?
(Pictures to follow later - sorry everyone, I'm swamped with school.)
Hey guys! I hope you had a great week!
This will be my last post dealing with Chinese mythology for a while.
For this post, I wanted to look at one of the stories from Chinese
folktales in which not all is as it seems to be. Let's look at the
story first, and then I'll talk about it afterward.
China is a huge country, and in olden days travelers would have to
walk for days or more to get between towns. Because of this,
pavilions were built alongside roads – think of them as a sort of
motel. Whoever owned the pavilion would provide a meal for a weary
traveler, and they could sleep inside it before continuing on their
journey the next day. Sounds nice, right?
Unfortunately, there was one pavilion in which no one wanted to
sleep. It was...haunted.
Anyone who slept within that pavilion was found dead the next
morning, an expression of terrible agony contorting their face.
Because of this, travelers sensibly began to avoid the pavilion.
Until one day, when a traveling scholar happened along. He was
warned by the couple who managed the pavilion that it was haunted.
The tales were told to him, and the scholar was pressed to move on,
to find somewhere else to sleep.
Instead of being afraid, the scholar was intrigued. He decided to
stay in the pavilion overnight to see if he could solve the mystery.
The pavilion's managers tried to talk him out of it, but his mind was
made up.
So they brought him food and then hastily retreated back to the
safety of their own home. The scholar ate his meal and then settled
down with a book. Darkness fell.
Quite a while after night had fallen, the scholar's reading was
interrupted by footsteps outside. He could just barely see someone
garbed all in black approaching the front of the pavilion. They
stopped, and called out a greeting to the master of the pavilion.
From inside, a voice returned the greeting. The mysterious guest
asked who it was staying inside the pavilion, and the pavilion master
responded that it was a scholar...but, unfortunately, he was reading
and still awake. The strange guest let out a sigh of disappointment
and left.
The scholar, now more cautious than he had been, returned to his
book.
Some time later another figure, this one wearing a red hat,
approached the pavilion. It too greeted the pavilion master, and
inquired as to the man within. Like the first, it let out a sigh of
disappointment and left when it heard that the scholar was still
awake.
Once the second figure had gone, the scholar crept outside of the
pavilion. He approached the front and called out a greeting to the
master of the pavilion. Like the others had done, the scholar
inquired as to who was “inside” the pavilion, and was told that
it was a scholar who was reading and, unfortunately, still awake.
The scholar sighed like the others, but then he changed the dialogue.
He asked who the figure in black had been, and the pavilion master
replied that it had been the black sow who lived in a house nearby.
When asked who the figure in the red hat was, the pavilion master
responded that it was the rooster from yet another house. The
scholar then asked who the pavilion master himself was, and was told
that it was the old scorpion who lived within the pavilion.
The scholar snuck back to his spot in the pavilion, and was very
careful to not fall asleep for the remainder of the night.
When the humans who ran the pavilion approached in the morning, they
were shocked to find the scholar still alive. Their surprise grew
when he asked for a sword, saying that he could solve all of their
problems. He had figured out who was haunting the pavilion.
The sword was brought, and the scholar got down to business. He went
first to one corner of the pavilion, where the manager's voice had
seemed to emanate from. Inside a crack in the wall was a massive,
angry scorpion, who was swiftly killed by the scholar. Next he went
to two houses in the village. At one he killed a black sow, and at
another he butchered a red-crested rooster.
The scholar explained his actions to the villagers, telling them how
the demons had identified themselves. From that day on, the pavilion
was no longer haunted. No more travelers died there, and it was once
again a safe haven for those on the road.
And that's the story!
There are a lot of tales in Chinese mythology in which humans (or
demons) are not what they seem to be – but rather are animals in
disguise. We've already talked about the Heavenly Maidens, who can
take the form of a crane or of a human. Unlike some other stories,
these women are wed by men who know exactly what they are. There are
stories of beautiful girls who are wooed and married, only for their
husbands to later find out that they're foxes in disguise. Though
the foxes often love their mortal husbands, these tales often end in
tragedy. Then there are stories where a creature – a massive
snake, for instance – takes human form and seduces a mortal to
achieve her own ends.
I hope you guys enjoyed this look at Chinese mythology! I know I
did. I'll see you next week!
Hey guys! Today I'm going to be wrapping up my series of posts about
the Monkey King.
When we last saw Sun Wukong, things were looking pretty rocky for the
Monkey King (pun fully intended). He had angered the heavenly host
so much that they had gone to war with him. Unfortunately, the
monkey proved to be a competent adversary, and was able to handily
defeat the armies of heaven. At this point the Jade Emperor called
upon a higher power, begging the Buddha to come and stop the Monkey
King. When Sun Wukong failed to best the challenge of Buddha, he was
imprisoned under a mountain for five hundred years.
Today's post is going to focus on what happened when those five
hundred years were up. Unfortunately, it'll be a very brief
overview. The entire adventure embarked upon by Sun Wukong can be
read in the book Journey to the West, and is much too long for
me to cover in a day (or even in a few posts). The entire history of
the Monkey King I've discussed so far is basically just the prologue
to the story. Still, I'll do my best to provide a rundown here so as
to provide some closure to the story of the Monkey King.
Five hundred years after Sun Wukong was imprisoned, it was decided
that the holy sutras of Buddhism needed to be retrieved from India
and brought to China. Guanyin, the bodhisattva of mercy, chose a
monk by the name of Xuanxang to make the pilgrimage to the west. (Xuangxang was actually a historical monk who did set out on a pilgrimage to India, and returned to China with holy teachings.)
However, Guanyin knew that the journey would be dangerous. Many
demons and monsters would seek to stop Xuanxang from completing his
task. To this end, she also found several noble guardians to ally
with the monk. One of these guardians was the Monkey King.
It is telling that it is Guanyin who chooses the traveling
companions, because she represents mercy. The whole story focuses
upon compassion, mercy, and redemption. Each individual chosen to
aid Xuanxang is flawed.
As my other posts about him showed, Sun Wukong was wild, rebellious,
and possessed of both ego and temper. He had been imprisoned for
these flaws by the Buddha himself.
Zhu Bajie was another of the companions, and he was both lazy and
gluttonous. He had flirted with a major goddess, and been banished
for his insatiable lust.
Sha Wujing had been exiled for angering the Jade Emperor by breaking
a precious object, and reincarnated as a man-eating demon. He wore
the skulls of a group of holy men he murdered.
The last companion was Yulong, the son of a mighty dragon king.
Yulong had destroyed his father's pearl (a symbol of longevity and
wisdom among the dragons) in a fit of anger, and had been sentenced
to death for his crime. He spent most of Journey to the West
transformed into a horse to aid the others.
(A very unlikely group of heroes, to be sure. I'm reminded of the
DC/CW tv show Legends of Tomorrow: “We are a team of outcasts and
misfits. So please, don't call us heroes. We're legends.”)
In an epic journey spanning dozens of chapters, Xuanxang and his
companions set out for India. They were constantly set upon by
monsters and demons, who sought to kill the monk and devour his
flesh. Each time Xuanxang's co-travelers managed to save the monk.
Their journey took over a decade, but after much fighting (and some
bickering betwixt one another), the group arrived at the temple in
India and claimed the sutras. They then returned to China,
delivering the sutras into the hands of the temple.
Each of the individuals were rewarded for their efforts. Yulong
became a naga, a magical being who was a combination of dragon and
man. Zhu Bajie was granted the status of altar cleanser, meaning
that he got to eat all of the scraps of food left at altars – a
wonderful holy position for someone with such a great love of eating.
Sha Wujing achieved nirvana, attaining a position similar to that of
a saint in Catholicism.
But the greatest rewards were for both Xuanxang and Sun Wukong. Sun
Wukong's impetuousness had been tamed, and he had given his life into
service to a higher power. The monk and the Monkey King were both
given the gift of enlightenment, and were raised to the positions of
Buddha. Ironically, this meant that the monkey finally achieved his
goal – he was given a rank equal to that of anyone in heaven.
And so ends the tale of the Monkey King.
I hope you guys enjoyed it!
(Overwatch did a series of skins based on Journey to the West for their Lunar Festival event. They also did an animated comic, which can no longer be found on their website. However, some wonderful person uploaded it to YouTube, so you can watch it here. It's adorable.)
