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destinyimage · 4 days

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Book of Enoch & Nephilim: Exposing the End-Times Resurgence of the Nephilim

From the primordial days of Genesis to the prophetic revelations of Daniel and Revelation, you cannot help but encounter the Nephilim.

Described as giants, fallen ones, or mighty men, these enigmatic characters loom like colossal shadows over the biblical landscape, leaving us to question who they were and what role they played in history. However, the most perplexing query is: could these same Nephilim have some connection to the antichrist and the end times?

Genesis Nephilim

In the pre-diluvian world, recorded in the early chapters of the Book of Genesis, we have our first glimpse of what were later termed the Nephilim. Genesis 6:1-2 (NIV) states:

When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.

Some proposed that the sons of God were simply godly males from the line of Seth, while others more accurately suggest they were celestial beings—angels, who somehow were able to procreate with human women. The text itself alludes to something extraordinary by stating that the progeny of these unions were called the Nephilim: “heroes of old, men of renown” (Genesis 6:4 NIV).

What were the Nephilim precisely? The term Nephilim is frequently translated as “giants,” and these entities were indeed described as unusually large and strong. However, the word derives from the Hebrew root naphal, which means “to fall.” Could these beings be “the fallen ones”? There is no reason to believe that godly males from the line of Seth would produce a race of giants.

The Watchers and Their Offspring in the Book of Enoch

Although the Book of Enoch is not part of the canonical Scriptures, it does provide a detailed account of the Nephilim. This archaic text delves deeply into the wayward angels who mated with human women to produce the race of giants. The narrative portrays a vivid picture of their skills, influence, and ultimate judgment.

Nonetheless, it is essential to consider the Book of Enoch with skepticism. The text is excluded from the canon of Scripture for a variety of theological and historical reasons, which we will examine in greater detail. Therefore, despite the fact that the Book of Enoch is intriguing and provides a more detailed account of these mysterious entities, its veracity and applicability to Christian doctrine are debatable.

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What About the Book of Enoch?

A subject as convoluted and mysterious as the Book of Enoch can be as hard to untangle as an ancient serpent. The Book of Enoch isn’t just any ordinary document; it’s classified as “pseudepigrapha,” which means it’s professing to be something it’s not. “Why exactly is this a pseudepigrapha, and why should I care?” It’s a valid question. The term refers to writings that falsely claim to be the work of a biblical figure, in this case Enoch. The label casts a shadow over the text, a shadow that dates back hundreds of years.

How does the Christian community as a whole view the Book of Enoch, and why is it deemed significant to investigate? It obviously appeals to our innate curiosity and our ceaseless desire for something new.

The renowned Dead Sea Scrolls include six fragments of the Book of Enoch dating back to approximately 300 B.C. The discovery of these artifacts offers a rare glimpse into a long-lost era. This is where we can all agree that the Book of Enoch has value. However, even in the first century, this book was the topic of passionate debate. Some thought this book had merit while others, such as Origen and Jerome, did not recognize its value.

As fascinating as this book may be, we must be cautious. How we approach it could determine how we view the inspiration of scripture in the future. One of the greatest battles of the next decade will be over the infallibility of the Word of God. If we become too loosy-goosey in our understanding of this subject, we may open the door to something far more damaging than we could have imagined. The Book of Enoch is a fascinating historical curiosity, but should it be trusted? We must be like the Bereans in Acts 17, who daily examined the Scriptures to confirm the apostles’ message.

Absence in the Hebrew Bible & Jesus’ Teachings

The Book of Enoch deserves a healthy dose of suspicion. There is no mention of the Book of Enoch in the Old Testament. Why would this be the situation? The Old Testament prophets would have made reference to the book if it were a source of divine insight. When instructed to place the Word of God in the Ark of the Covenant, the Israelites placed the writings of Moses but not those of Enoch (which would have preceded Moses’ writings).

Jesus, the personification of God’s Word, encounters His disciples on the road to Emmaus and begins to explain the references to Himself in scripture. Notably, Jesus began with Moses instead (not Enoch):

Then He said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself (Luke 24:25-27 NKJV).

Jude’s Bibliography

Some suggest that Jude is quoting Enoch and that this alone should verify its importance. Non-biblical passages are frequently cited in the New Testament. Paul cited a worldly poet in Acts 17:28, and Titus did the same in Titus 1:12. Even if a biblical author cites a book, that provides no evidence that the book is inspired.

What was Jude referring to in Jude 1:14-15 (NIV)?

Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all of them of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness, and of all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”

Let’s be careful not to read into the passage and hear something Jude is not saying. Jude alludes to a prophetic proclamation made by Enoch without citing a specific book. Moses did not specifically cite a book when he mentioned Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He spoke under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It is entirely conceivable that this is also how Jude obtained his information. Even if he cited a genuine book in circulation, this would not imply that he endorsed it. Jude could have also been referring to oral tradition passed down through the generations or an entirely different book. Alleged writings from Enoch come in many different forms and translations. We just don’t know.

We do know that there are some strange things in those writings.

Errors in Enoch’s Teachings

There are more questions than answers in the Book of Enoch. As we delve deeper into the teachings’ substance, we find a minefield of contradictions and inaccuracies.

The command to offer sacrifices to the sun, moon, and stars can be found in Pseudo-Enoch 100:10-12. This is a radical departure from what the Bible teaches.

According to Pseudo-Enoch 67:1-3, angels constructed the Ark. However, the Bible makes it quite clear that Noah built it.

In Pseudo-Enoch 9:1-4, the author seems to endorse prayer to angels suggesting that the angels served as some kind of intercessory intermediaries. I don’t need to tell you that we pray only to God, not to intermediaries in heaven.

Pseudo-Enoch also attempts to invoke sympathy for fallen angels (Pseudo-Enoch 13:1-7 and 15:1-2).

Pseudo-Enoch 69 goes on to attribute Eve’s deception to an entity named “Gadreel” and not to satan.

Pseudo-Enoch 10:8-9 attributes the origin of human sin to an entity named Azazel. Where does satan fit into this?

First Enoch 7:2 claims that the giants were 3,000 cubits tall (4,500 feet or 0.86 miles; conservative estimates are 450 feet).

These fallacies in the Book of Enoch contradict biblical doctrine and introduce ambiguity where clarity should exist. Proceed with caution when exploring the Book of Enoch, recognizing its cultural and historical value while rejecting its doctrinal inconsistencies. The ultimate foundation of our faith must be the Word of God, not the shifting sediments of human legends.

When asked about this book, I often reply with two key questions:

What scriptural evidence do we have that this is true?

What practical difference does it make in the average Christian’s life?

I often resort to these two questions when exploring a variety of contentious topics, such as the nature of the Nephilim or the genesis of demons.

The Book of Enoch provides an enthralling glimpse into the thoughts and worldviews of centuries past through its vivid legends and fantastical stories. The Book of Enoch is a literary work as opposed to an authoritative text. Yes, we can certainly learn from it. We can see how individuals struggled with spiritual truths and attempted to fathom their surroundings. Nonetheless, we must always maintain perspective and recognize the distinction between human speculation and divine revelation.

This is a question of both spiritual and theological precision. If non-canonical writings like the Book of Enoch were elevated to the status of authoritative scripture, our entire faith would be compromised. Therefore, let us approach the Book of Enoch with historical and theological foresight. Accept it for what it is, but never elevate it to a position of authority. The Bible must be the basis for our faith, hope, and manner of life. We find our firm foundation there. There, we discover our absolute truth. Our faith and confidence in God are grounded in the Bible.

Always remember that everything you need to know about any biblical subject or character can be found in the Bible itself. Everything you need to know about Enoch is in the Bible.

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anna-dreamer · 2 years

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There is a weird and fleeing thought i have about the Silmarillion and its odd ‘mythological’ nature witch strangely well gets in line with my tumblr experience with it. Fandoms are very folkloric in their spirit, the more they are the less authorial control is out there. And with Silmarillion the author is long dead, the editor is also gone, and the work was effectively never finished. So any fan’s interpretation effectively has merit. Furthermore, we are dealing with an attempt to create actual mythology, witch in general is destined to be syncretic, authored by many, never sure of what actually was, and very flexible in its reader’s hands.

When i first went to tumblr and got struck by sheer beauty and tragedy of those dead elves, I hardly imagined what the Silmarillion was telling about. I reconstructed the narrative by looking at fan art, reading short fanfics and metas written by awesome and passionate fans. This, effectively, was a folkloric learning. I learned of some events and stories, quite possibly not true, by consuming their collective interpretations.

How do I know Maedhros and Fingon loved each other? I don’t, and many people firmly believe they didn’t. But i do believe they did, this interpretation speaks to me, it makes sense, it fills my heart with joy of a good and profoundly sad story. I’ve read not too many fanfics, and the ones i love most are orphaned, The Starless Road being one of them. And this too oddly adds to a weird folkloricness of the whole experience. The author is not there anymore, their name and personality will probably be lost, and their incredibly beautiful work will organically mix into adjacent fanart, metas, and reviews of their story. Somebody will write or already has written their own stories with The Starless Road in mind, and this will go on and on, and i hope with all my heart it will never fall into oblivion.

And there is a weird paradox here. Arda is all about falling into oblivion. It’s always less than it was, darker than it was, sadder than it was. The time of Silmarillion is so far gone it’s a miracle somebody even remembered it in the Third Age. And with the last elves gone, the last living creatures who remembered the flat world, and Beleriand, and Feanor and his sons, and the Two Trees, and the white ships of the Teleri - no one will remember anymore. And as modern fan culture goes, the part witch is of the most importance for it - will also be lost. I speak, of course, of the characters, the people. They are already very scarce in the source material, even the most important ones being mentioned a couple dozen times. And yet - this exact thing is the ultimate focus of many fans’ experience with the Silmarillion, mine included - the characters. Their personalities. Their grieves, their loves, their losses, their emotional journeys. There are numerous, countless fan-made narratives concerning their inner lives alone - those dead elves, whose private matters couldn't be less interesting to the Silmarillion authors, in-universe or in real life. The Silmarillion doesn’t aim at exploring what those elves thought and felt, unless in some epic and timeless sense. It is an epos, after all, it deals with huge, primordial forces, it explains the world and its history as it is, and those personal, private tragedies that the Doom inflicts are not the point here. The common grandiose feeling of Fate and History and Marring and Fading - is. And yet the Tolkien tumblr i frequent - is all about the private. Yes, there are wonderful people, and i admire them, who are loremasters, who know history of Middle-Earth as if it was their own, who study the languages, who deal with the economics, war, and philosophy. And this, i kinda think, could be considered ‘the better, more right way’ of being a Tolkien fan. But there is no right way, and this one isn’t mine.

Who cares about redesigning of the world if Maglor could have been hit by a wave. And if he wasn’t - that means he is still there, poor soul! The Battle of Unnumbered Tears crushed the elves of Beleriand, yes, but Fingon died there! And yes, Finrod did a stupid thing agreeing to help Beren. I want a spin-off where Finrod leaves the Halls of Mandos and finds his father in a deep struggle with his trust in the Valar, and they try to deal with it together. And, i swear, i wand some Gwindor/Turin action. And Fingon did go to the Void and pulled Maedhros out. There.

Those dead elves were meant to be forgotten - and yet we do not let them die. And i love it.

#silmarillion #Anna reads Silmarillion #my heart is full of elves

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vantablade · 3 years

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【 🌌 MYTHOPOEIA V. 】

TLDR: A lore/world-building headcanon that focuses on the chronology (in this case, Epochs or definitive eras) of the in-universe of Nocturne’s canon. Also has some information, vaguely, regarding the mythology of divinity and important figures.

An era is defined by the most significant factor of its time. While planets and countries may have their own eras, defined by the reigning monarch or a particular age of change, the Bright Star System, as a whole, follows the timeline of Epochs, which denote significance of a grander scale. As of Nocturne’s position in the chronology, we are in the Sixth Epoch, which would be known by her people’s descendants as the Age of Anarchy. In-universe scholars will argue about the true beginning of the Sixth Epoch, as they argued about the Fifth before it, and the Fourth, and so-on; it is the Epoch’s nature to be debated, discussed, analysed and re-interpreted to fit whatever narrative is best to be served. Epochs are not limited by a particular stretch of time—there is no mandatory “limit” of days, months, years or centuries that permit a new Epoch being determined. Rather, it is determined by a time of significant change that alters how the denizens of Bright Star understand or adapt to their environment. For example, while the Genesis Migration was a significant cross-system event, it did not, on its own, cause enough of a cosmic upset to earn an Epoch-level importance to begin an era. Rather, it was but a mere instrument in the grander scheme of the Age of Champions, the Fifth Epoch.

This headcanon exists to give a context towards the chronology and a greater understanding of the world Nocturne is a mere part of. There will be references towards the in-universe mythology and other significant events that took place far beyond our hero’s birth, but there will be no in-depth description of those events, as I want to keep everything that could reveal too much—or is unnecessary in understanding Nocturne—under wraps. However, hopefully there will be enough information to provide a better grounding of the world Nocturne lives in, particularly if you are interested in combining universes or developing deeper threads with her character.

Despite the fact Nocturne exists in the Sixth Epoch, truthfully there are Seven; the first of all Epochs is known by scholars as the “Zero Epoch”, a time before time, a space before space, where the original Primordial first willed itself into existence. Here is where Essences, the foundation of all life, magic and matter in the Essential Universe, first came into being. It would not be until the First Epoch that actual physical space began to take form, as the Ancients—Gods comparable to the Titans of Greco-Roman mythology, who were more a physical embodiment of the things they ruled over and interpreted to be “carriers” of the Primordial’s divine will where it could not directly enact on its wishes—came into being. These Ancients are also comparable to the incomprehensible deities of the Cthulhu mythos, with titanic, unbearable bodies and minds so alien to us that they evade description or empathy. They are more like machinations of cosmic law, unkillable and undestroyable, for on their shoulders rests the entire Universe.

The Second Epoch is when the Divines, Gods who created “bi-essences” that combined the Primordial Essences into Lesser Essences, came into being as “children” of the Ancients that possessed a sentience closer to the realm of comprehension. They are capable of whimsy, of want, of ire and of fondness. Here, they would be most comparable to most pantheons of deities, with inter-relationships both within the circle of the Divines and with their creations, the Kinetics, pseudo-mortals who co-existed with the Divines and were taught their magic in return of being subordinate with them.

The Third Epoch is the first Epoch marked by a war of tremendous proportion, that resulted in the death of Divines and the weakening of magic that is still felt to this day. Here, the Divine Nolu, the God of Secrets and Mystery, prompted the Kinetics into rebelling against their deities by telling them forbidden secrets of mortality, encouraging them to upheave the heavens and take their power by storm rather than tolerating watered down lessons that kept them under their benevolent Gods’ thumbs. Nolu would abandon the Kinetics during this war, leading to slaughter on both sides, only to return at last moment to assure the death of all Divines—aside from themselves. The Third Epoch was solely this war, though the duration of it is unknown, and the true extent of the damage and knowledge of what the pre-Divine War world was like is knowledge lost, perhaps for eternity. All that is known is that likely it was a time of Edenic bliss, where magic flowed like wine and mortals were cared for by Divines. After the trauma of the War, the Fourth Epoch was birthed: the Age of Ruin, the Age of Loss, the Age of Abandonment.

Kinetics, now scorned by the Ancients whose children they had revolted against and punished by the Primordial who hosted them, suffered the punishment of agelessness. They were removed from the life-death cycle that promised reincarnation and forgiveness of the soul, forcing them to live an eternity of repentance and grief as they watched the world they knew rot into a mere husk of its former self. Magic weakened with nobody there to teach them, and without Divines to create Kinetics with such innate skill, they were condemned to physically reproduce until there were only Mortals.

Mortals lacked the intimate tutelage that gave Kinetics their mastery over the Primordial Essences, or the Divine Essences, and so their powers weakened too. Magical knowledge was not lost completely, but it would take lifetimes to achieve a level that most Kinetics had earned in adolescence. Over time, the era of bliss and magic that had once been an undeniable reality would fade to myth across the Cosmos, with the division of the New Way (the belief that all of this was purely mythology) and the Old Way (the belief that all of this was fact) separating mortals across the Universe, severing some from their magical heritage entirely to make way for man-made scientific advancement devoid of spiritual attunement.

The Spider Star System was a System that followed the New Way, forcing the less-magically repressed mortals—known as Undanes—into hiding lest they be rejected or destroyed for their absurdities. This System would also become the grounds for one of the greatest calamities recorded, with the Genesis Collapse marking a potentially unrepairable wound in the very fabric of reality whose effects are still present today, giving way to the Paroxysms that blight the Bright Star System in the Sixth Epoch. The Bright Star System followed the Old Way, however, and magic is still understood and studied with varying levels of skill and mastery across the System. It was the Genesis Migration that introduced the Genesse people, Undane and Mundane alike, to the cohabitation of magic-repressed and magic-expressive people, though not without duress. It was this discovery for the Mundanes that contributed to the genesis of the Ametsuchi, forged out of hardship, exile and sacrifice brought on by a primal rejection of this magical nature.

The Genesis Collapse was the locus of the Fifth Epoch, the Age of Champions, where it became apparent that Divinity could be reached by mortalkind should the Primordial bestow upon them the capability. The nature of Champions is debated among scholars; some argue that Champions, of which there is only one certainty and one other heavily contested, are the Divines reborn, returned from their celestial graves, while others argue that the Champions are entirely new in spirit as it would be disrespectful to the Divines to ignore the devastation they had suffered at the hands of men. Unfortunately, the effects of the loss of Divines is still felt to this day, as the sole Champion of the people, Genevieve (the sacred figure of the Holy Order), is absent. Whether she perished after the Genesis Collapse or otherwise went to another System or was killed by the Goliath in some unseen battle of tremendous proportion, is completely unknown. Mortals can only emulate what they think she would have done, such as the Divine Right of Kings applied to the Boucher imperial line on Neo, or the Holy Order’s fight against Paroxysms.

The Fifth Epoch is potentially the shortest of all Epochs, having spanned only several generations, perhaps not even a millennium.

The Sixth Epoch, then, is the playground for the plot of this blog and its attached extended canon. It is the Age of Anarchy, the Age of Monsters, of all things Eldritch. It is uncertain when the Sixth Epoch came into play, for some argue it was with the formation of Spider’s Eye as it tried to awaken the Spider-God Goliath, the destroyer of Genesis and the foe of the Champion Genevieve, or with their first use of Chaos manipulation and Paroxysm invocation as a weapon in the assassination of the Green-King Eoin of Namana. It is potentially even incited by the Ametsuchi Massacre, which was tied to the actions of Spider’s Eye and the High King Kazumi Ametsuchi, resulting in Chaotic manipulations and mutilations of all remaining Ametsuchi. The onus of the Sixth Epoch may be debated, but the end of the Sixth Epoch is entirely unknown: some fear that it may never end, others fear that it is the end, but hopefuls pray for a better, kinder Seventh Epoch, just on the horizon of what may be the most horrifying Epoch to exist in.

#mythopoeia #long post

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rpgmgames · 4 years

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February’s Featured Game: Ressurflection

DEVELOPER(S): charlottezxz ENGINE: RPG Maker MV GENRE: Fantasy, Cartoon, RPG WARNINGS: Paranoia, fear and tension, mild swearing and blood. SUMMARY: Ressurflection is a Fantasy/cartoon RPG set in the fictional universe of the Arbvar and taking center stage primarily at the coastal city of ‘Horizon Bluff’. Its story and game play are heavily character driven, with its narrative divided into two parallels told both within and outside the mirror itself. Ressurflection’s core themes draw from our inevitability of fearing death, and that at some point or another, we all must accept it, and to treasure what’s really important in the time that we have.

Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! *charlottezxz: Hiya this is Charlotte, lead game developer for Ressurflection! I’m some silly, overactive drawing monkey who works a lot with Narrow on Ressurflection! I’m always sketching and conceptualizing monster bois, taking a lot of inspiration from various games, primarily monster hunter! I’ve had avid interest in the Indie scene for a while now and a lot of the great friends I've made have been due to it and a lot of my recent favorite games have come from it! I would have had Narrow say a few things here but he’s hiding in a corner somewhere!

What is your project about? What inspired you to create this game initially? *charlottezxz: Ressurflection started out as what can be described as two separate stories. Myself and Narrow wrote our own stories and every so often we swapped over ideas or combined them together with each other. One day I said to ourselves ‘You know what? This could work quite well as a game rather than just a story’ so eventually Ressurflection was conceived, around the idea of a mythical mirror capable ‘Ressurflection’ the title of the game. We’ve gone through quite a few iterations of the story before it came to its current form and to be honest if we even showed or compared them side by side they’d be pretty unrecognizable as the same thing except for certain characters, locations and the mirror itself to identify its primordial form having any kind of ancestral relevance to how it is today. As for what Ressurflection is about, I think our synopsis can get that across quite nicely! ‘Horizon Bluff has always annually held its ‘Legend of the Wyvern Glass’ festivities. The Wyvern glass was a long lost mythical mirror, once fabled for its power of ‘Ressurflection’ and coveted by a kingdom now all but gone. That is quick to change however with the arrival of the Roulette Runner’s circus to the coastal city of Horizon Bluff. Trouble is soon to set in motion not just the kingdom’s sudden reappearance but the entrapment of one of their own acrobats within the mirror silver. Yet things are soon to worsen...with the spread of a purple ‘corruption’ across the city and the fact that our most unfortunate trouper is far from alone within the mirror, finding himself at the mercy of its ‘Mirror Maiden’. > The apparent all powerful manipulator of its realm…’

How long have you been working on your project? *charlottezxz: Conceptually we have been working on it for 4 years which is hard to even fathom, however that’s more tinkering around the idea for the story and conceiving it as we learnt the engine. The blog itself is hitting its 4th birthday in February! Ressuflection’s development went on as i attended university, so its always been a side lined hobby of ours.Steam says 108 days worth of hours in the engine and most of the game progress other than concepts has been done in 2019. So I could say 4 years for the ideas/stories and concepts and a year of that for actual game making!

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *charlottezxz: We each have our own inspirations, Lost Odyssey, Final Fantasy 9, Xenoblade Chronicles, Monster hunter and many older PSX titles such as Medievil, Tomba and Heart of darkness are great influences and inspirations to me personally. The dark, dangerous environments of Heart of darkness contrasted by some innocent characters, the monster designs in capcom’s franchise and the storytelling and themes with a cinematic approach to cut scenes found in some of FF9, Xenoblade and Lost odyssey, a lost game stuck in the recess of the xbox 360. There are many more but these spring to mind first and foremost. Narrow himself draws inspiration from games such as Earthbound, the Persona series and FF10!

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them? *charlottezxz: We started the project in VX ace to begin with, until MV released. It was in Ace that I experimented learning RPG maker and in the early days of MV too. Although before Ressurflection’s time i also dabbled a bit in XP. MV seemed more in line for what we wanted, as i really wanted to try animating beyond SV sheets and do more, with Java being a bit more flexible and the scope of it being able to allow dragon bones later. However it hasn’t been without its hiccups! Part of that is the sheer amount of time you underestimate games and certain elements to take in their development. That and everything that comes with it, streamlining, trimming the fat...in the past week alone i spent days optimizing pictures, sounds and music in the game to cut down the staggering file sizes they were. So far they have retained their form without being as costly on the MB! Since I do the vast majority of the game development myself, everything takes a lot longer to develop. You underestimate all the little things to consider and that you may need later. By the end of development, I hope to have the vast majority of the game consist of custom assets and be able to truly call it something that is ours. Though that path is long ahead we won’t stray too far from it.

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *charlottezxz: The game itself has always been a story-driven RPG at its heart, although certain game mechanics have been scaled down or developed further from puzzles to battle flow. As mentioned previously, the story has changed considerably which changed the direction of the overall narrative and gameplay as a whole. Certain characters and scenarios have been culled completely too. At its start the story wasn’t as heartfelt nor was the scope of the story all that big - Oh and the game had a time limit, a bit like Majora’s Mask! But it is a lot more meaningful now and we hope that you will enjoy it when the time comes.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *charlottezxz: It has been just myself and Narrow for the majority of the development but we reached a point where we wanted to reach out to find a musician for our game. We eventually came across Geoff who has done the majority of our music up until recently. However we have had friends help and contribute along the way such as Harry helping sprite some NPCs for me, Bart helping formulate and do some math balancing, Vaijack has also contributed to music making him our second musical boi and more on the way, our preliminary demo testers( it would take a little to list them all) and more peeps i’ll be sure to credit!

What is the best part of developing a game? *charlottezxz: For me it has to be conceptualising all the little ideas we have and bringing them all into being. This is especially so for any monster and character bois! I spend a lot of time visualizing and planning the design of areas, locales and creatures. Would this thing live here? Why would it be this way? If this is a historical town wouldn’t it have x and x? Then when we ultimately put it together, and all the pieces of the puzzle line into place and then you can just...experience, the final thing, that for me is the best part in developing our game for me.

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing? *charlottezxz: I learn best by doing, so more often than not I just dive into things, including the engine blind and tussle around with it. It’s a silly way of doing it, but I've often found myself learning more that way than following tutorials. Although in any game I've played, RPG maker or not, i do like to ponder and deconstruct scenes within them. The Witch's house, Pocket Mirror, Dreaming Mary, Mad fathers and Ib are all wonderful games that are great to learn from, dissect and understand what makes and made them tick. This applies across any game I've played or intend to play! I look at game making as one giant puzzle with lots of intricate little details that need to be solved, it’s more fun and engaging that way!

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *charlottezxz: There’s some characters I like a great deal, but i can’t talk about as it would be spoilers to the plot, that and it’s hard to pick any overall favorites. Charm comes across as a fun character to write for as she’s quite witty and sarcastic, the kind of dialogue that comes a bit too naturally to me. She’s a budding magical prodigy of the circus under the tutelage of Jerine. She bigs herself up a lot but isn’t quite ready to deal with the problems of the adult world just yet, as much as she strives to get into it. Then there’s the likes of Ashley as well, she’s the loudest circus member and a close friend to Zakai, its ringmaster. She’s a super hard working down to earth country girl who isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty and jump into the thick of things. Honestly I love all the cast, but there’s those two for now!

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *charlottezxz: I would say ideally we should have had all our ducks in a row before we dove into development. My development style is very messy, especially since when we started development we had a lot of learning ahead of us. That combined with focusing on a lot of coursework and real life things meant I often forgot how we made things for consistency. This has improved considerably since i started getting more organised now, keeping lists and things tabbed for reference. My desk has bits of paper kept with it with information I need to retain. I forget far too many things for my own good, but now I'm taking better count measures! I would advise anyone to keep tabs of important information about your game such as consistent sprite style sizes, resolution size, x and y positions of certain things and important variables and switches.

Do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *charlottezxz: There’s a few ideas bounced about to do side stories for some of the cast of characters in the circus, such as before they became one and the origins of how certain members joined the circus essentially the ‘First Stringers’ and ‘Second stringers’, these being those that joined afterwards. These would be great to do as small little episodes added onto the game post development, but currently they are just ideas and won’t be given too much thought until the game is either done or close to fruition.

What do you most look forward to upon finishing the game? *charlottezxz: My most hopeful thought is for people to enjoy the game and have as much fun and interest in it as myself and Narrow have had in creating it. It’s the kind of game we want to make and hope that the characters and story chime with people enough for people to see the journey through to its end! It’s a big scope of a project but i have endless enthusiasm for it, no matter how long it takes it will get out there at some point!

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *charlottezxz: That the games story and overall feel doesn’t quite hit the right notes, it's always a little back concern. From a technical perspective I would say that the game might have some oversighted bugs or critical crashes that slip under the radar or not run as smoothly on other PCs on release. We will do our best to optimise the game as much as possible for MV and squash those pesky bugs during testing, but it is on our minds often as a niggling fear.

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *charlottezxz: Gut everything from the base project that you know you most definitely will not be needing and give all your files smart tags and naming conventions. It would be great if MV allowed for sub folders, but it does not so naming your files smartly is key to finding what you need. Any of these files you know you will use often in certain ways, make them common events and call for those in events and cut scenes. This saves you mass editing them later. With naming conventions this could be Actor_1_Hurt or Chapter_1_NPC. Anything you want at the top of the list name it with _ to begin with. The bigger our project gets, the more important this has become for us and we hope it serves other inspiring devs well all the same.

Question from last month's featured dev @rojisroomrpg: How do you keep yourself happy and healthy when making your game? *charlottezxz: I’m normally a happy-go-lucky person, so I'm rarely not happy when working on Ressurflection. It's the happy little hobby I devote most of my spare time to. However, recently i would say my hands, wrists and neck have been hurting from spending a little too much time drawing assets and pieces for the game. Taking more breaks and spreading that time with other activities in between has helped to ease that pain and i would like to advise any dev to do so for their own health, including always having one or two bottles of juice, water or whatever beverage always at hand to sip at as you dev away!

We mods would like to thank charlottezxz for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out Ressurflection if you haven’t already! See you next month!

- Mods Gold & Platinum

#ressurflection #gotm #game of the month #rpgmaker #rpg maker #rpg maker games #ressurflection game #gotm 2020 #2020 #february 2020 #february #indie games #games

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existential-queers · 4 years

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Our Hero, Satan

A very silly paper written by a very silly person about a very silly poem

Thank you and goodnight

Modern interpretations of Lucifer Morningstar are overwhelmingly that of a sexy, misunderstood bad boy with daddy issues. Look no farther than Netflix's Lucifer or The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina for example. While it would be undoubtedly easier to sell one's soul to a tall, dark, attractive, chiseled beefcake, this is not Satan's long-established depiction. From the days of early Christianity, Satan was a monstrous and horrific creature of the deep—not so much tempting as terrifying. The question is then, of course: what changed? Enter John Milton's highly kudosed fix-it fanfiction, Paradise Lost, and its unlikely protagonist, the Morningstar.

Paradise Lost chronicles the biblical genesis from the perspective of none other than he who has been called Wicked One, Adversary, Father of Lies, and Prince of Darkness: ya boi, Satan. From his very introduction directly proceeding the Fall, Satan is undeniably charismatic. He is certainly the most dynamic of the ensemble cast with even some critical claims that “Satan is superior in character to Milton’s God,” an omniscient, omnipotent, all-benevolent, blah, blah, non-human, blah, blah, perfect, blah, blah, flat and boring character (Kaiter and Sandiuc 452). There are no excuses, Milton. In rousing speeches of revolution and sly temptations in the garden, he gains the audience's sympathies, though perhaps not trust. He is still Satan and his words should probably be taken with a grain of salt, or maybe a whole block, just to be on the safe side. Wading through the suave and sympathetic, the question often raised and hotly debated is: is Satan a hero or a villain?

Satan begins the poem in pain, chained in a lake of boiling sulfur, surrounded by fallen friends. After getting yeeted “headlong flaming from th’ ethereal sky,” free-falling through primordial Chaos, and crash landing in the wretched abyss, he is bound to straight up not be having a good time (Milton 1.45). Now you may be thinking: well that’s what he gets for rebelling against God and being, you know, Satan. What, then, would you say about an unsuccessful revolutionary who rebelled against a cruel dictator and was jailed and tortured indefinitely? This is the picture Satan paints, at least. Even after all this, he holds out hope to learn from prior mistakes, gather up his comrades, and

To wage by force or guile eternal war

Irreconcilable, to [their] grand foe,

Who now triumphs, and in th’ excess of joy

Sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heav’n. (Milton 1.121-124)

They all live to fight another day, and even in a place where hope cannot reach them, their leader inspires it once more.

This is terribly reminiscent of Greek tragic heroes the likes of Odysseus and Jason. Satan is a brave and clever leader, trekking through Chaos to the garden himself rather than sending a poor redshirt. After a bit of kitty shape-shifting and spying, Satan gets to work on infiltrating the garden in the most effective way imaginable: fighting battle-ready angels head-on. Again. After that predictably fails, he heals up in Hell while the demons build a cannon. A cannon that also fails. Come on, Satan; only a third of Heaven fell with you. Face it, you just don’t have the numbers. Back to pre-Plan A, Satan fits himself with another animal disguise but with fewer limbs this time. There must be something thematic about the number three—wonder what that could be—because it finally works. Humans: tempted, God: thwarted, Satan: could probably use a nap.

Satan may be the protagonist, but that does not necessarily make him a hero. One of the most important aspects of the Greek model of a tragic hero is hamartia. This is not to say that he does not have flaws—of course he does, he’s Satan!—but that his flaws are the same as all of his more admirable qualities. What gives Satan his complexity is his paradoxes and contradictions such that “envy, pride, ambition, [and] self-glorification give the character his singularity and magnificence but also pass the rigorous sentence on him” (Kaiter and Sandiuc 453). He is the protagonist in that he is the main character of the work, but he is also the antagonist in that he “drives the plot with his machinations” (Kaiter and Sanduic 457). Satan is just self-aware enough to realize: “Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell” (Milton 4.75). Of course, he tosses self-reflection off the not-so-proverbial garden wall moments later in favor of some mischief, but at least he recognized it.

Satan’s way of fighting what very well may be an authoritarian overlord is petty at best and truly evil at worst. In the narrative, he fights not for justice but for “desperate revenge” through the destruction of innocents (Milton 3.85). The humans were not involved in the first war, but Satan seems to play by the logic that ‘if I can’t play with you anymore then no one can.’ So, like a cat or a toddler lacking enough attention from father dearest, he throws a fit and breaks daddy’s favorite toy. That is if daddy’s favorite toy is an entire species now damned to eternal torment until someone else is brutally murdered. How barbaric. But, to be fair, that last bit is God’s fault. If you’re omniscient and omnipotent, can you not just design a better world? Are you not more powerful than sin, a literal child of your own creation? So then, are you not omnipotent or not all-benevolent? Either way, Satan’s actions are rather villainous.

On a more meta note, it is such an interesting detail that Satan is a supreme orator in regards to Milton’s beliefs on writing. Certainly, Satan had to be a phenomenally eloquent speaker and rhetorician to fit the narrative (i.e. rallying comrades in Heaven to go up against God himself, tricking Eve to eat an Edenic tide pod, etc.), but the way that Milton executes it inspires *chef’s kisses*. Milton, who found the heroic poetry format of rhyming couplets to be constricting, who deliberately chose to write his epic in plain verse, puts the rare and only rhymes in Satan’s speeches. He basically shouts to his audience: I hate when people write poetry in this style, oh and here’s a character I wrote whose speech emulates this style (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). You are not that slick, Milton. Okay, you’re kind of slick.

Milton may have set the precedent of Sexy SatanTM, but that is not all his Satan is. He seems to be in the my-book-started-a-genre-with-flat-tropes-and-cliches-I’m-blamed-for-but-are-not-representative-of-my-book club alongside JRR Tolkein and Suzanne Collins. The Satan of Paradise Lost is more complex than the bad boy who wrote his name on God’s blacklist. Milton “creates a character who is at once someone we tend to appreciate as heroic, and someone we want to see defeated” (Kaiter and Sanduic, 456). Satan is not an Enjolras, but he is not a Hope-less Pandora’s box of pure evil either. In the same vein, Satan is not properly a hero or a villain either. The most fitting label for him may just be that of an anti-hero: one who employs deplorable methods to do what is considered good and righteous but often succumbs to hubris anyway. Milton’s representation of Satan is almost nebulous in motivations and moral center, if such a thing could be said about Satan. While this makes him difficult to pin down, it continues to inspire religious and literary critique to this day.

#just ignore the citations #i had to use an academic article #but apparently this is what happens when you get burnt out on formal writing #i will admit that this is probably among the worst character analyses i've done #but i did write it in like four hours #so...#this was genuinely the most fun i have ever had writing a paper #the words just flow when you drop the facade of academia #i have the same professor next semester so i hope i didn't just ruin that #possible yikes

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jewlwpet · 5 years

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Let’s dissect the titles of each track on Seazer’s upcoming new Utena album!!

(EDIT: IMPORTANT UPDATE: J. A. Seazer made some last-minute changes to the tracklist after I made this post; I discussed those changes here).

1) 青銅製の人形俳優譚オルフェウス洞窟劇場/Chant of Bronze Puppet Actors: Orpheus Grotto Theatre

There was a famous real-life “Grotto of Orpheus” that Seazer is most likely referencing! It doesn’t exist anymore, but you can see a detailed engraving of it here. It was made by Tommasso and Alessandro Francini for Henri IV of France. You can read about it and see another engraving here.

My guess as to what the song will be about: The grotto of Orpheus existed to glorify the prince by showing that he had so much power at his command, he could create a marvel like this. However, the object of wonder was a mechanical illusion: empty movement, so to speak. This was around the same time that some scientists began voicing the idea that perhaps the whole cosmos was like a machine built by God. This suggests the question, though it went unvoiced, of whether we ourselves are merely puppet-actors upon a cosmic stage.

(More under the cut--this will be long).

2) 宇宙卵プロトゴノス ―すなわちアンドロギュヌスのポラリザシオン(分極作用)―/Cosmic Egg Protogonos ―Namely Androgynous Polarization (Polarizing Action)―

This one is actually pretty straightforward if you understand Seazer’s language.

This song makes use of the Orphic creation narrative. Seazer used it before in a now lost version of Absolute Destiny Apocalypse (original source now here). Note: At the time when I posted that translation, I was under the mistaken impression that it was the same as the version on the Ohtori Kuruhi CD (because Seazer frequently does use pronunciation totally different from how something’s written). It is not; that set of lyrics is in fact the one used again more recently in the “complete version” in the Barbara CD.

Protogonos (literally “first-born”), also called Phanes (“bring to light”) ( "You scattered the dark mist that lay before your eyes and, flapping your wings, you whirled about, and throughout this world you brought pure light. For this I call you Phanes.") was described by Damascius as “the first [god] expressible and acceptable to human ears.” They hatched from the primordial Cosmic Egg, generated by Time (Chronos) and sometimes also Inevitability (Ananke).

Another tradition claims that a triad of the first three “intelligible principles” hatched from the egg. “What is this triad, then? The egg; the dyad of the two natures inside it--male and female--[Ouranos... and Gaia... Heaven and Earth], and the plurality of the various seeds between; and thirdly an incorporeal god with golden wings on his shoulders, bulls' heads growing upon his flanks, and on his head a monstrous serpent, presenting the appearance of all kinds of animal forms . . . And the third god of the third triad this theology too celebrates as Protogonos (First-Born).”

Another fact about Protogonos: They were a dying-and-rising god.

Since the title seems to focus on the severance of male from female (androgynous polarization), here are some passages that focus on that (source).

And he [Epicurus] says that the world began in the likeness of an egg, and the Wind [the entwined forms of Khronos (Chronos, Time) and Ananke (Inevitability)] encircling the egg serpent-fashion like a wreath or a belt then began to constrict nature. As it tried to squeeze all the matter with greater force, it divided the world into the two hemispheres, and after that the atoms sorted themselves out, the lighter and finer ones in the universe floating above and becoming the Bright Air [Aither (Aether)] and the most rarefied Wind [probably Khaos (Chaos, Air)], while the heaviest and dirtiest have veered down, become the Earth (Ge) [Gaia], both the dry land and the fluid waters [Pontos the Sea]. And the atoms move by themselves and through themselves within the revolution of the Sky and the Stars, everything still being driven round by the serpentiform wind [of Khronos and Ananke].

Ere land and sea and the all-covering sky were made, in the whole world the countenance of nature was the same, all one, well named Chaos, a raw and undivided mass, naught but a lifeless bulk, with warring seeds of ill-joined elements compressed together.... Though there were land and sea and air, the land no foot could tread, no creature swim the sea, the air was lightless; nothing kept its form, all objects were at odds, since in one mass cold essence fought with hot, and moist with dry, and hard with soft and light with things of weight. This strife a God (Deus) [probably Phanes], with nature's blessing, solved; who severed land from sky and sea from land, and from the denser vapours set apart the ethereal sky; and, each from the blind heap resolved and freed, he fastened in its place appropriate in peace and harmony. The fiery weightless force of heaven's vault flashed up and claimed the topmost citadel; next came the air in lightness and in place; the thicker earth with grosser elements sank burdened by its weight; lowest and last the girdling waters pent the solid globe. So into shape whatever god it was reduced the primal matter and prescribed its several parts.

Incidentally, the repeated severance and rejoining (solve et coagula) of male/female and above/below, was a key component of alchemy (of course, the materials they worked with were inanimate, but the alchemists insisted on gendering and even sexualizing them, always).

Protogonos bears some resemblance to the Gnostic demiurge, (shaper of the material world, creator of humans, associated with severance and procreation). However, the Gnostics denigrated the demiurge, whereas Protogonos was venerated. One could also make

3) ミッシング&ブーピープ ―快楽の園の修道院のイメージ― /Missing and Bo-Peep -Image of the Monastery’s Garden of Earthly Delights-

Okay. Bo-Peep is, of course, a little girl in a nursery rhyme who’s lost her sheep but gets them back, wagging their tails behind them (wagging meant bringing). There’s an extended version where it’s specified that they’d actually lost their tails (but she found those too and reattached them). Before all that, “bo-peep” was used to refer to the children’s game of peekaboo, and in the Middle Ages, it was also a euphemism for being stood in a pillory. The Garden of Earthly Delights is a triptych by Bosch (viewable in detail here--arguably technically safe for work but only because it’s Art [tm]). From Wikipedia:

As so little is known of Bosch's life or intentions, interpretations of his intent have ranged from an admonition of worldly fleshy indulgence, to a dire warning on the perils of life's temptations, to an evocation of ultimate sexual joy. The intricacy of its symbolism, particularly that of the central panel, has led to a wide range of scholarly interpretations over the centuries. Twentieth-century art historians are divided as to whether the triptych's central panel is a moral warning or a panorama of paradise lost.

There’s also speculation that Bosch’s art (as a whole) is based on “esoteric knowledge lost to history.” The ambiguity is perfect for RGU.

I like this interpretation:

According to art historian Virginia Tuttle, the scene is "highly unconventional [and] cannot be identified as any of the events from the Book of Genesis traditionally depicted in Western art". Some of the images contradict the innocence expected in the Garden of Eden. Tuttle and other critics have interpreted the gaze of Adam upon his wife as lustful, and indicative of the Christian belief that humanity was doomed from the beginning... Art historian Charles de Tolnay believed that, through the seductive gaze of Adam, the left panel already shows God's waning influence upon the newly created earth. This view is reinforced by the rendering of God in the outer panels as a tiny figure in comparison to the immensity of the earth. According to Hans Belting, the three inner panels seek to broadly convey the Old Testament notion that, before the Fall, there was no defined boundary between good and evil; humanity in its innocence was unaware of consequence.

This is of course very different from the traditional Christian view of Genesis, which is that before the Fall, there was no sexual desire. In many Gnostic texts, however, “original sin” is something that existed before the creation of the world; thus there was no innocence of any kind in Eden. The “original sinner” in this view was generally said to be Sophia (Wisdom, an Anthylike figure sometimes known as “the Bride,” who was both revered and maligned), an attribute of the Godhead, which was made up of syzygies, complementary pairs of principles, described variously as spouses and/or siblings, who (because they were God) reproduced without lust. But it was this same Sophia who breathed life and spirit into humanity, making them more than just bodies.

In this belief humans were inherently sinful creatures from the very beginning; it was also said that it was wrong for the demiurge to separate Eve from Adam (I believe this was the same text that said “This world is a mistake”--by the way, the demiurge was supposedly brought into existence by Sophia, but they’re enemies).

There’s also this idea that Bosch followed the ideas attributed to a Gnostic sect called the Adamites (unfortunately, the only contemporary sources we have on them are anti-Gnostic propaganda, so we cannot know how much of it is based in reality), which basically advocated freedom from all moral laws; the last image seems to suggest otherwise, but it certainly is, at least, a theme.

Incidentally, this triptych has been used for the covers of at least two books by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, whose works Seazer draws on extensively according to my research.

Anyway, for my attempt at putting the pieces of the title together... However you interpret the triptych, it’s not something you’d expect to see in a monastery. Wikipedia indicates a general consensus that it was probably commissioned by a lay person, not a member of the clergy. So the title suggests a contrast, or a confluence of opposites, rather like that title from his last Utena album, “Monastic Life is a Flesh Apocalypse.”

4) 幾何学とエロス/Geometry and Eros

This is, word-for-word, the title of a 1974 essay by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, whom, as I said before, I have known Seazer to draw from very frequently. It was published in this book, which also contains an essay on the “cosmic egg” concept and an essay on the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.

I have it from book reviews that “Geometry and Eros” discusses the 18th-century French Neoclassical architext Ledoux and the supposed “spiritual analogy” between his works and those of his contemporaries Fourier and Sade. Now, unfortunately, there are two different “Fourier”s from this time period that are both feasible candidates: the mathematician Joseph Fourier and the utopian socialist philosopher Charles Fourier. I lean towards the latter, however, because Shibusawa had published a translation of his essay “Archibras,” which Seazer drew on for Tsuwabuki’s duel song, Conical Absolute Egg Archibras. I suppose Ledoux would represent “geometry” and the other two “eros,” assuming I have the right Fourier.

Apparently, Shibusawa criticized Emil Kaufmann’s commentary on Ledoux, but I don’t know specifics on that.

5) 少女錬金術師/Girl Alchemist

The main question is whether this is Utena or Anthy, because the meaning would be different in either case. But alchemy is about unifying opposites, and they both do embody opposites, just in different ways. And they are opposites of each other, even though traditionally, in alchemy, the union of opposites is exclusively framed in heterosexual terms--think Angel Androgynous. This heterosexual union--often, incidentally, described as one of brother and sister--is meant to lead to the birth of the “philosophical child,” which can be interpreted as a new self. It’s kind of like Nanami’s Egg, actually, though that did not use the incest metaphor since one of RGU’s themes is how incest inhibits individuation.

Interestingly, while almost(?) all the surviving alchemical texts (at least in the Western tradition, which is what I’ve studied) were written by men, many of them stated that the first alchemist was a woman, and a Jewish woman at that. Unfortunately, all we know of her is from what men wrote about her.

There’s a quotation attributed to her that has an interesting interpretation by Jung, which you can read about here. Alchemy as a metaphor for psychological individuation is something he wrote about extensively, and it definitely makes sense in this context although it’s not, imo, the only meaning alchemy has in RGU. Marie Louise von Franz wrote about it extensively also! The two of them worked closely together as well as individually.

6) 人間人形 ―空想・イン・ザ・架空―/Human Puppet -Fantasy in the Imaginary-

(I’ve got nothing, other than the metaphor of puppets which I already touched on).

7) 絶対天秤卵/Absolute Balance Egg

This is not a new song. It’s taken from 2006 Banyu Inryoku production, Illusion-Flesh Verse Drama “Black in the Dark.” Of course, this is nothing new; even the duel songs were recycled (and this was Ikuhara’s idea, not Seazer’s), so this is just an extension of that. I found its tracklist in this review; it’s described as an “improvised reverberation poem of flesh burning up in the dark,” which must be from a playbill or something because it’s such a Seazer description.

Apparently, the “intro” (written in katakana) to this song was taken directly from “Paint it Black.” I can’t guarantee this will carry into our version, but if you hear anything that sounds suspiciously like The Rolling Stones... I called it.

Actually, I should note: It’s possible that Absolute Balance Egg is from an even older Seazer production and was recycled in both this play and this CD. One can never rule that out.

8) 人間人形 ―空想・イン・ザ・架空―/Philosophical Bread (?) Seed

This sounds like an alchemy thing, and I’m not ruling that out, but the results that I found searching “philosophical bread” showed me it’s a very common metaphor used in many contexts. Generally it refers to “higher learning” of spiritual matters, sometimes specifically “to know the mind of God.” Sometimes it’s treated as the ultimate endeavor, sometimes as pointless. Seeds, I suppose, would be the beginning of that.

Note: "Bread,” in Japanese, is パン (pan) , and the Greek god Pan sometimes has his name written the same way. It’s very possible that パン is actually referring to the god here and shouldn’t be translated as “bread,” but we don’t know at this point. Either is plausible.

9) 法王驢馬寓意画意オペレッタ1 ―その声は人間の鳴き声に似る―/The Pope Ass Allegory Symbolism Operetta 1 -That Voice Is Like the Cry of a Human Being

The Papal Ass or Pope Ass, known from its use in a highly influential pamphlet by Martin Luther and Melanchthon, is often described as a caricature of the Pope. However, it’s not satirical like most modern political cartoons.It’s in fact based on the “monstrous birth” reports that were very popular at the time; this genre was referenced in the Rose Egg Sophia CD. To fully understand what the Papal Ass meant to its original audience, it’s necessary to have some understanding of the genre, so I’ll go into that.

It’s important to understand that such records are not always made-up, although they are frequently exaggerated. For instance, researching the term クシュポデュメー (no, I don’t know how to spell it) from Rose Egg Sophia’s Puchibanshou song (doragon no kodomo, offspring of a dragon) led me to a description of a “dragon” born with two heads, four arms, two legs, and one pelvis, said to have been part of the court of James III of Scotland. As a matter of fact, this bodily description corresponds to contemporary reports of a pair of conjoined twins known as the Scottish brothers, who were part of this king’s court. Many so-called “monsters,” from medieval times up until the xth century, were people. This particular one, however, was an animal, an actual donkey (or ass).

Luther wrote this for an updated 1535 version of the pamphlet:

The Papal Ass is itself a dreadful, ugly, terrifying picture, and the longer one looks at it, the more terrifying it seems. However nothing is so completely terrifying as the fact that God himself made and revealed such a wonder and such a monstrous image. If a human had invented, carved or painted it, one would scorn or laugh at it. However since the highest Majesty himself created and depicted it, the whole world should be dismayed and quake, for from it one fully understands what he thought of and intended.

From Monstrous Births and Visual Culture in Sixteenth-Century Germany by Jennifer Spinks:

I was able to find a book, Monstrous Births and Visual Culture in Sixteenth-Century Germany, that goes into great detail on how this was used by the early Protestant movement and has an entire chapter on this pamphlet: “Monstrous births could be viewed in positive and sympathetic terms, as the previous chapters have demonstrated. Yet this 1523 pamphlet by the two most important figures of the Lutheran Reformation forms a decisive shift in attitude, in which interpretation and representation became not only more polemical – and particularly anti-papal – but took on a notably apocalyptic aspect.” Of the Papal Ass and one of its contemporaries, the moon-calf, the author says, “The bodies of the monsters became texts to be read and argumentatively decoded using highly visual language.”

Notably, Luther and his coauthor did not invent the Papal Ass; they only named it. As Jennifer Spinks writes in this book:

The Papal Ass, washed up on the banks of the Tiber in Rome in 1495, made its way to Germany in visual form via an engraving by the Bohemian artist Wenzel von Olmutz, published in the late fifteenth century. Several decades later, and perhaps prompted by his colleague Melanchthon... Luther first became intrigued by the then-nameless monstrous birth and sought to incorporate it into his eschatological world view. He wrote a homiletic epistle that year (on the second Sunday in Advent, concerning Luke 21:25–33) titled ‘A Christian and well-substantiated proof of the Day of Judgement, and of the signs that it cannot now be far off ’. Although they were not referred to in Luke, Luther explicitly added monstrous creatures to his list and framed this addition as an attack on Rome and the papacy.

As for the pamphlet that made the Papal Ass famous, however, the section devoted to the Papal Ass was written by Luther’s coauthor, not Luther himself. Spinks states:

Melanchthon analyses the creature one body part at a time, utilizing biblical references, and conveying a central message about the corruption of the church in Rome as revealed by its bizarre physical structure. He begins his analysis of the Papal Ass with a reference to the Book of Daniel: ‘God has always indicated his grace or wrath by many signs, and in particular He has used such miracles for speaking to the rulers, as we see in Daniel’.

Melanchthon, she writes, “presents God in the guise of an artist who uses his creations to convey visual messages.”

The Papal Ass... has an almost jarring, collage-like combination of sharply delineated but ill-matching body parts. Step by step, Melanchthon describes and interprets these individual elements. He begins with... ‘Firstly, the head of the ass represents the Pope’. The Pope, he indicates... has brought the church into a worldly and physical, rather than spiritual, state. The low state of the ass in the animal kingdom is underscored through a reference to Exodus 13:13, in which first-born children and animals are consecrated to God: ‘but every fi rst-born donkey you will redeem with a lamb or kid; if you do not redeem it, you must break its neck’. That is, God does not value donkeys (or asses) as he does other creatures. That the head of the Papal Ass is formed in this way is a true sign of the creature’s low state.

Next, Melanchthon addresses one hand, which ‘like an elephant’s foot rep-resents the spiritual regime of the Pope’. As forcefully as an elephant, the Pope’s ‘regime’ makes its way into and corrupts souls with innumerable and intolerable laws. Melanchthon adds, in a metaphor that it is easy to imagine seizing the imagination of audiences: ‘like the great heavy elephant it tramples and grinds down everything that it comes across’. The human-shaped other hand of the Papal Ass, in turn, represented the Pope’s worldly ‘regiment’; that is, those secular rulers who gave support to the papal office. In Cranach’s woodcut accompanying the text, these hands are neatly displayed one above the other, emphasizing through contrast the peculiarity of the elephant hand. The right foot of the creature, in the form of the foot of an ox, is aligned by Melanchthon with the elephant-shaped right hand. The foot represents the servants of the church: ‘the papal teachers, preachers, priests and confessors, and particularly the scholastic theologians’. That is, it refers to those responsible, in the Pope’s name, for oppressing the ‘poor folk’ (‘arme volck’) with their activities. Identifying papal supporters with the End Times, Melanchthon refers the reader to Matthew 24:4: ‘There will come false Christians and false prophets’. The other foot, in the shape of a claw, is aligned with the human-shaped hand. It represents canons, as worldly servants of the popes. Melanchthon’s language becomes still more physical in the next section, in which the female belly and breasts of the Papal Ass are described: “[these] represent the body of the papacy: that is Cardinals, bishops, clerics, monks, students ... their life is simply guzzling food, boozing, unchaste lechery, and leading the ‘good life’ on earth.”

Melanchthon’s understanding of the belly and breasts as especially potent symbols was to be intensified in a revised 1535 edition of the pamphlet... In this 1523 version, however, he turns fairly rapidly to the arms, legs and back of the creature, with a metaphor that is a little less obvious: the scales on these body parts represent secular rulers, who tolerate the failings of the papal system, effectively protecting it as they cling on to its ‘body’. This passage makes a particularly intriguing visual appeal to the reader or listener. The innocuous scales represented in the woodcut must be imaginatively reconfigured by the reader into a multitude of earthly rulers. Much more anthropomorphic in form are the faces of the old man and dragon (‘trach’) that emerge from the Papal Ass’s backside. The man represents the coming end of the papacy, already growing old; the dragon represents the bulls and books published by popes with the purpose of universally enforcing their will. Melanchthon’s tenth and final point shifts away from the body of the creature and to the location where it was found: Rome... The distinctive shape of the Castel Sant Angelo in Rome is carefully delineated, and for those not familiar with the famous tower, the fluttering flag with the crossed papal keys could inform even the least educated of the connection with Rome and the papacy. The tower to the right is the Tor di nona, used as the papal prison. Dramatically, in his final point, Melanchthon claims that finding the creature dead, ‘confirms that the papacy is coming to an end’.

Also:

In 1535 Melanchthon prepared a new edition of his text on the Papal Ass, still illustrated by the original Cranach image. Melanchthon’s expanded text takes sharper, more polemical aim at the papacy in a number of short new passages, including one on the ass’s head as a demonstration of the foolishness of the Pope, and another on the human hand as a sign the worldly, aggressive ambitions of the Pope. Two particularly substantial new sections dramatically increase the anti-papal and also the apocalyptic import of the Papal Ass. Several new pages on the breasts and belly of the creature emphasize the themes of whoring and sin (and implicitly, perhaps, refer to the whore of Babylon), while the ‘shameless female belly’ (‘vnuerschampt frawen bauch’) represents the Antichrist’s worst excesses.

More from Spinks about what made this method of symbolism unique:

Some pre-Reformation publications had ascribed specific meanings to individual body parts in monstrous births, like the conjoined foreheads of the Worms twins. Yet none had so rigorously and polemically done so as Luther and Melanchthon’s publication. This pamphlet is at the heart of a tangible shift in the representation and interpretation of monstrous births, and one that fitted the aggressively polemical culture of the early Reformation... This period saw the rise of vigorous debates and fundamental shifts in visual culture. The most famous of these developments was the wave of iconoclasm, which saw the destruction of religious images and objects. More moderate ‘reforms’ of imagery included a move to remove any hint of lasciviousness (especially in female figures) in the images on church walls. Martin Luther had a pragmatic attitude towards the use of religious images, and contributed to a culture of visual propaganda that stood on the borderline of the religious and the secular. One of the most important aspects of the visual culture of the Reformation was the vigorous use of printed propaganda, deployed.. with remarkable success. Robert Scribner observed that ‘Luther and other reformers spoke of pious images as masks (larvae) behind which the devil lurked, hoping to lure souls to damnation’. This did not mean that Luther rejected the use of images, and Scribner provided examples of how what he called the ‘semiology of arousal’ (which went well beyond the sensual) could be ‘employed also for its revelatory effect, especially in Reformation propaganda, putting into practice Luther’s notion of the masks of the devil disguising diabolical reality’... Religious imagery nonetheless increasingly moved outside relatively controlled environments like church walls and elite manuscripts, and into the turbulent new world created by the widely available printed image.... Luther’s ideas about visual images are closely bound up with his views on the apocalyptic Book of Revelation – a connection seen in microcosm in the 1523 pamphlet.

The Apocalypse While Albrecht Dürer had created what many regard as the definitive illustrated series of the Apocalypse in 1498, a flood of other versions appeared in the first half of the sixteenth century.74 The increasing popularity of the Book of Revelation as a subject for illustration during the sixteenth century was evidently connected to the growth of an apocalyptic world view... In this environment there was a tangible value in giving shape to apocalyptic imagery, and a ready audience for the new editions that came onto the market. As Bernd Moeller has identified, the End Times (‘Endzeit’) were one of the four most popular subjects for sermons preached in German towns in the early Reformation period.

Another updated version was published in 1549 without Melanchthon’s permission, edited to include past writings of his that he had since renounced in favor of compromise.

Flacius... uses Melanchthon’s text on the Papal Ass... as a springboard to oppose any religious compromise... In an introductory text, Flacius argues that the papacy can be represented in both words and images as worse than the devil or the whore of Babylon from the Book of Revelation. He maintains the highly visual language used by Luther and Melanchthon, and even concludes by claiming that the arts of geometrical and arithmetical proportions are inadequate for the present times, which demanded instead a ‘new swinish art’ (‘newen Sewkunst’). Later in the pamphlet, Flacius adds additional texts that talk of the disastrous events leading up to the Last Days, specifically identifying the Pope as the Whore of Babylon, holding up her goblet, drunk on the blood of Christ, and seated on the back of the seven-headed beast which represented Rome itself (and also the ‘Roemische Reich’, or Roman Empire) and its support of the papacy. The increasingly voluptuous body of the Papal Ass accords with this emphasis on the Babylonian woman.

After this point, “wonder books,” which “collected together monstrous births and various other wonders and disasters across decades, centuries or even millennia,” became more and more common. Apparently, “negative and also apocalyptic rhetoric about monstrous births became still more deeply entrenched in this genre.” By 1569 (when Catholics started appropriating this trend for their counter-Reformation), “Monstrous births and the apocalyptic Book of Revelation were closely enmeshed, and overwhelmingly presented as such in German Reformation and Counter-Reformation print culture.”

Final note: The way “Pope Ass” is written in the title is nonstandard, which is why I went with the literal translation rather than the more common phrase “Papal Ass.” I did find one search result for this phrase that wasn’t about this album, indicating that it’s used in yet another Shibusawa book, 夢の宇宙誌 (this was also the only pre-Seazerian source I could find for クシュポデュメー).

未来のヒユネロトマキア ―狂恋夢・薔薇物語・愛の秘法伝授―/The Future Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Love in a Dream・The Tale of the Rose・Love’s Secret Initiation -

So... there are many parts to this.

The Future Hypnerotomachia:

That's a reference to the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (”The Strife of Love in a Dream” is included at the end of the title in some editions; it’s a translation of hypnerotomachia) and possibly also The Future Eve (referenced in the Rose Egg Sophia CD, specifically in its version of Saionji’s duel song). You can look in my tag on tumblr for my thoughts as to what that book might signify in relation to Utena.

As for The Tale of the Rose, we all know it as the play in episode 34, but there’s another “Tale of the Rose” I think Seazer is referencing here as well. Seazer mentioned “the medieval Tale of the Rose” as one of the inspirations for the Rose Egg Sophia in its liner notes (I’m working on a translation, off and on). It’s this book. The Japanese title is written the same was as the title of the play is written on the tickets in episode 34; it does not have much in common with the play, but you can think of it as “a way duelists look at Anthy.” You can also think of it as something possibly taught uncritically at Ohtori; you can certainly see its worldview reflected in, say, Miki.

The last part of the title isn’t a specific text, as far as I know, but it does have a traceable origin in, once again, Shibusawa, specifically his essay collection 胡桃の中の世界.

Since this title is about the themes of two or three entire books, I think I will make a Separate post for how those texts relate to Utena--and, of course, a new, updated one once we have the actual lyrics. And possibly another one several years from now when I inevitably translate 胡桃の中の世界.

#revolutionary girl utena #shoujo kakumei utena #rgu #sku #j. a. seazer #tatsuhiko shibusawa #this post has been a long time coming

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evilelitest2 · 6 years

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What do you think are some of the pitfalls of modern day feminism and how can we improve feminism? I don't think the current feminist movement does enough to help lower class women who are more likely to deal with things like sexual assult, domestic violence and restricted access to abortions. I think the transition from an academic setting to the blogosphere has lead to a lot of feminist terms being misused or overused. What do you think?

Fun fact, I tried to answer this question three times and every time something happened and I lost all my writing. But yes, great question, but sort of difficult because there isn’t one form of feminism, my critiques of Second Wave Feminism are totally different from my critiques from 4th Wave, or my critiques of Marxist feminism, its like having a single critique of every form of goverment, technically possible but the specifics matter a great deal. Some forms of feminism focus exclusively on lower class women, others do in fact ignore them. That being said, there are a few broad critiques I can make of the movement, but a few caveots i want to make clear first.

Firstly, every movement, regardless of its ideals, are going to have stupid people, simplistic people, and bullies within its ranks, and there is no real fix for “some feminists online are dumb”. The question when it comes to a movement is “are these just idiots attached to the wrong cause” or “is the cause itself rotten” which isn’t true of feminism the way that White Natioanlism is fundementally broken

Secondly, every movement interested in human rights struggles with intersectionality, it is not a uniquely feminist thing, intersectionality is hard both practically and psychologically, and that is something I think all of the movements are struggling with, feminism has done better than some with its active efforts to incorporate queer efforts into its larger movement.

Ok so actual critiques

1) Branding. Feminism has major major problems with its image, one thing I notice constantly is that various feminist ideas and terminology might be easily accepted by people because they are objectively useful, but when people hear that they are feminist, suddenly people are like “eww no” . Feminism really needs to rebrand itself to try to be more approachable, especially in regards to the usefulness of the ideas, because many of these concepts are just make life objectively easier to understand, but also there need to be active attempts to countermand the way feminists are depicted in the media, especially that sort of man hating militant

2) Clarify terms: THis is actually for the larger left wing movement, but the reason why the right can so easily strawman/co-op our rhetoric is that we aren’t specific about it . I mean take privilege for example, the fact of the matter is every person on the planet has some privilege in some context, a trans lesbian lower class black women in the Us still has privilege of being able bodied, or American citizenship. A wealthy white man might still have down syndrome, privilege isn’t like a bioware morality system with most privilege vs. least, its a complicated interconnected system of power relationships.

Or the Bechdel test, it isn’t just a scoring system for sexism, its a way of measuring an observable reality of the film industry, its a measurement of a larger trend rather than a condemnation of any specific movie. The more vague these terms are, the more they can be strawmanned and approprated by reactionaries.

3) Tell Terfs to fuck off: Terfs suck, end of story

4) Drop the moon goddess shit: This is more of a 2nd wave feminism issue, but i notice a lot of people perception of feminism comes from things like feminist fantasy or the sort of 2nd wave rements online, and its just utterly absurd. All of the sacred femininity, primordial matriarchy, feminine nature magic stuff is extremely dated and makes the whole movement come off as a neo pagan nonsense movement. Facts are on the side of feminism, embrace those

5) Embrace complexity. Again this doesn’t really apply to academic feminism, but more the way it is understood by tumblr folks, but we need to be more comfortable with larger complexity. Bad people can make good art, somebody can be problematic in one regard and useful in another, simplicity remains as always a tool of the right, so that needs to just be abandoned.

6) Explain utility: How is Feminism useful to me? Yeah this one kinda sucks, because when it comes to basic human rights, there is something kinda upsetting about having to be like “oh yeah, these people are being fundamentally oppressed but here is how caring about their plight can help men” like that fucking sucks. Problem is though, a lot of people are selfish, and if we can’t get them to support this cause, they will drift towards reactionary causes. Fact is, for men, it is beneficial to them to support sexism on the surface, they benefit from it, and feminism is never going to win out if you don’t draw more men away from opposition. So as much as it sucks, feminism needs to explain how patriarchy hurts men, how toxic masculinity is actually really destructive for men, how many of the issues that MRAs pretend to care about are issues caused by patriarchy rather than by feminists, how embracing gender equality is actually better for everybody involved.

7) Finally and maybe most importantly, embrace humor, I think the “humorless angry feminist” sterotype is one of the greatest weapons of the reactionary right, so we need to drop it. I admire what Anita Sarkeesian is trying to do but beyond the fact I think her videos are simplistic, she is really really boring and utterly without humor. Which i think weakens the movement as a whole, if feminism is funny and approachable, it can win adherents, cause again, the facts are on itself, it doesn’t need to hide its core identity the way that reactionary movements do.

Bonus Round: Feminism should not be equated with other causes, feminism isn’t necessarily communist or pacifistic,

Edit:

Ok one thing I think I should add here, and this isn’t really the task of feminism but I think this needs to happen for Feminism to figure out where it go next. There needs to be a clearer way for men to relate to the world feminists hope to build. Now I don’t mean that in the sense of “oh no feminism hopes to oppress me and leave men obsolete” and all that conservative nonsense, I mean that when patriarchal gender norms are challenged and broken down (as they should be) it isn’t necessarily clear where men should go. And many times they return back to reactionary hyper conservative gender norms, because those are simply and easy ad all that jazz. Like, this isn’t the fault of feminism, its more of an unintended consequence that happens when change comes a calling, like how ebay has been putting malls out of work. But while men should be able to come up with their own purpose once masculine identities are torn down, creating new identities based upon themselves rather than vague socialist expectations...that clearly isn’t happening, so feminism would do well if they could offer suggestions and try to address those anxeities. Which....isn’t fair. I mean its totally not fair at all that feminists have to both care for the needs and interests of a systemically oppressed under class....AND spend time trying to address the emotional needs of the oppressive class but you know...life isn’t fair. And its just easier, if men, episodically young boys, can’t find a new purpose and identity, they are going to drift back to conservatism, this is how MRAs recruit.

Honestly, a Men’s movement focusing on how to address men’s issues within the context of feminism and addressing the legitimate issues facing men (suicide, toxic masculinity, sexual insecurities etc) would be a really great thing, but that has largely been co-opted by MRAs as a way to recruit troubled young men into a reactionary hate group. It shouldn't’t be feminist job, but finding answers for the anxieties of these young men will help them greatly in the future, its just more practical to address that from the outset rather than let them be corrupted by simplistic conspiracy theory narratives about the castration addicted matriarchy bent on white genocide.

#ask evilelitest2 #feminism #social justice

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twh-news · 6 years

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'Early Man' Review: Nick Park’s Stop-Motion Marvel Is More Advanced Than Its Primitive Protagonists | IndieWire

With all due respect to Pixar and Studio Ghibli, can we start acknowledging Nick Park and Aardman Animations as the innovators they are? Those who’ve seen the “Wallace & Gromit” shorts and 2005 movie tend to love them, but the studio responsible for that iconic duo doesn’t get a fraction of the acclaim. Maybe it’s because the British studio has never been especially prolific, but with “Early Man,” its first feature film since 2015’s delightful “Shaun the Sheep Movie,” Aardman once again reminds viewers that its stop-motion creations are consistently joyous spectacles.

Beginning, as it must, with a primordial prologue about the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs — just as it strikes, two dinos who were fighting moments before embrace in fear — the film concerns a tribe of well-meaning cavemen whose happy existence is disrupted by the arrival of civilization: Bronze Age intruders show up one day, there to turn their communal cave into a mine so that Lord Nooth (Tom Hiddleston) can maintain his lavish lifestyle.

Park, a four-time Oscar winner who created Wallace & Gromit 30 years ago, is stepping into the director’s chair for the first time since 2008’s “A Matter of Loaf and Death” short. He hasn’t lost his step, with his latest fictional world being both a departure from, and continuation of, his usual settings. At the center of it is Dug (Eddie Redmayne), Park’s latest affable protagonist whose good nature can’t stop him from getting into increasingly ridiculous situations.

He and his cohort live in the crater left by the asteroid’s impact, which has grown lush and verdant in the centuries since it struck; the human price of progress was steep even then, as stone gave way to bronze and left the primitives in its wake.

Park fashions this inevitability something akin to Mordor encroaching on the Shire: industry subsuming an old idyllic world. If that setup sounds too Luddite-friendly, it’s also quite funny: Dug is among the smartest of his tribe, which is led by the very old (read: 31) Chief Bobnar (Timothy Spall), includes a rock with a face painted on it and a pig named Hognob (voiced by Park himself). He feels like a Gromit stand-in and, though not as memorable a companion, is still good for some laughs.

Under Nooth’s yoke, warring tribes settle their differences on the soccer pitch rather than the battlefield; England’s national team may be underachievers in the 21st century, but their predecessors in Real Bronzio were a dominant force to be reckoned with. And so it is that “Early Man” turns into a sports comedy of sorts, one in which the motley crew of good guys must somehow overcome an imposing squad that is in every way their better.

That’s especially difficult when Dug’s tribe is exiled to the Badlands, where they’re besieged by giant mallards, harsh conditions, and a paucity of the rabbits they used to depend on. Their temporary home proves the ideal training ground, however, its cruel landscape and craggy formations making formidable obstacles that do a right proper job of preparing the underdogs for their big match.

As ever with Aardman, the cleverest moments are also the most fleeting. Lord Nooth can be spotted reading a newspaper called the Prehistoric Times; a woman seeing sliced bread for the first time exclaims, “Wow! That’s the greatest thing since, well, ever.” The narrative as a whole is familiar, if not overly so, and after the Silent Era gags of “Shaun the Sheep Movie” it sometimes feels like “Early Man” could have gone further and been similarly ambitious.

What really gives our heroes a potential upper hand can be best described by a scene from, of all things, Carlos Reygadas’ “Post Tenebras Lux.” Assembled on a rainy field, a rugby team huddles as their leader explains the key to victory: “They’ve got individuals; we’ve got a team.” That isn’t an uncommon message in an animated movie aimed toward kids, but it is a worthy thematic bedrock.

Grade: B

“Early Man” opens in wide release on February 16.

#tom hiddleston #early man #film review #article #Aardman #Nick Park

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nephyartis · 4 years

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“The Right Frequency”

Our Archaic Age

I see lots of conflation and ignorance surrounding the topics of Power Words, Runes, Glyphs, Sigils, Wands, and Wyrdstones. I hope this text will help clarify some of it.

First, some terms. Rune. Glyph. Sigil. Runic Languages, which to say, languages associated with a script (often in addition to a non-runic script), are also often called Languages of Power. A rune in-and-of-itself is a sort of pictogram, representing related physical and meta-physical ideals. It’s a building block. Glyphs, on the other hand, are like compound words, or more nuanced building blocks. A glyph referencing the Tiger animal would be derivative of the basic rune for Beast, as an example. So for what runes are the basic words, and glyphs are the compound words, Sigils are the slang. A sigil will contain elements of runes or glyphs, but expressed in a personalized manner, often for the sake of identification. Different runic systems (languages) do exist, though, which presents some important distinctions.

Primordial, Supernal, The Elder Language, the Language of Creation. Call it what you will, they are all the same. There are vibrational patterns that comprise the nature of existence. They bear personality--mental traits. By mimicking these vibrations, and mental states, we may illicit changes in the world, all working through The Medium--the field of interaction between physical and meta-matter, that so many call the Weave. All languages of power are derivative of this original system. To glimpse it is a task of great difficulty, which is why divination is often used to expand one’s mental faculties, just to grasp the concepts wholly. On the conceptual, abstract, and divine, there is the Dethek Language Branch. On the mechanical, definitive, and arcane, there is the Iokharic Language Branch. Of special note, there have been systems that attempted to mix the two, such as the Seldruin, an arcane system composed with respect for the divine, but that is not the topic I hope to address.

The cultures and creatures that popularized these languages lend credence to the ideals they represent. The origin of species: warring elementals of crude matter, before the specialization of complex life--these creatures, such as Djinn with their reality warping wishes--they warred across the cosmos seeking places of higher potential, creating form from chaos. Crude, raw, powerful. Then in time complex life formed. The creator races were born. They grasped The Language, and further complexity, but they did not create worlds, like the elementals did. Great empires forming afterward, ever more derivative of the last. More complex, but in complexity, one sacrifices potential. Giants, Dragons, then Elves. Each came and created their own derivative systems, yet only two flourish to this day. The Giants and the Dragons. Of those two, it seems to me global culture has strayed, perhaps too far, into the arcane--the material--the Dragon--and in its cry for more--subconsciously aware of its own shortcomings--it has accepted falsehoods and niceties in place of reality and hard truth.

While scholars have debated whether Iokharic was influenced by Dethek, or if it were the other way around, I will posit that this is the wrong question. They share commonalities because they are inspired by--derivative of--the same root system. The universal language. As language has progressed, however, ever more nuanced, it has gained the ability to express more-and-more complex ideas, at the cost of its potency, much like the races that practice it. Each one branches out of those that came before, in a great tree of life. This is not to say that I believe movement along the branches is impossible, but that’s a topic for another time.

Compare both Iokharic and Dethek runes. Knowing their script will greatly assist. For that matter, compare the runic forms of any language. Those two are simply the most widespread. While there are differences, their similarities are key to understanding the pervasive narrative of our universe. Lake, Water, Ocean, Tide, Mutability, Longing, Gulf. A nuanced rune (also called a Glyph, or Hanzi) will appear visually similar to other like-minded runes, because their meanings are related. Shark will resemble Fish, which resembles Water. This holds true with all runes. They represent things, which in and of themselves, contain mental traits. These mental traits correspond to a certain vibrational frequency. Now compare the vibrations. The sound. The practice. Follow it up the linguistic tree, and watch it evolve. You will start hearing very familiar phonemes while on the same branch. It’s not until one reaches the Big Three, that language diverges greatly. Dethek, Draconic, and Elvish, respectively. Despite these apparent differences, though, their runes address and link the same ideals and frequencies.

Still, their differences are not unimportant. Dethek runes, like the cultures that popularized them, are grounded in the divine. They focus more on the intent, meaning, or associated mental traits, rather than physical measurements. The giants’ Ordning, dwarven paragons, human belief. There is a narrative beneath it all. Old churches of yore were cautious of science (read, arcane), and the pride of intellect. It was for good reason, even if it became misguided. One need not look far to see its dangers displayed in Dragons. Even the most noble among them face temptation in the face of ignorance or wealth. Primates in particular have evolved with a phrenology primed to notice serpentine figures, for the danger they pose is legendary. It is a story that our very blood cries out.

One can look at the spread of human language to see its influences, and trace its lineage along these branches. Often, mixing the two properties. Chessan, Raumtheran, Thorass, and Waelan, all take influence from dwarves (who took influence from Jotun), from the gods, or directly from Jotun. For some it’s harder to follow, such as the Untheric, Han, or Rauric languages (for that matter, any influenced by Netheril or Imaskar). The Netherese, first introduced to the Art by elves, then later for themselves with the great golden scales, became increasingly Iokharic. Likewise, their people, arcane. Independently, the same can be seen with Kara-Tur, and the Rauric (Imaskar, Thay) languages. Their cultures, while divine at first, made course along the arcane, increasingly adopting Iokharic methods.

Time for a closer look at Iokharic. The methodical. The measured. The arcane. These are focussed on what physical phenomena are represented, by the universe’s pervasive narrative. Iokharic is to Dethek, what Alchemy is to Herbalism, and what Intelligence is to Wisdom (Seldruin is the Charisma of the group, which muddies the picture a bit). Yet look at the great empires that rose in its wake, each pragmatic and worldly. The Dragons. The Elves. Netheril. Thay. Each has contributed greatly to the advancement of the sciences, and revolutionized the way we live. But left unchecked, history shows that innovation will be its own undoing. I do not intend to say arcane magic is wrong, or that it should not be practiced. Merely, that there is a balance in all things. Even the divine, and the arcane. Their balance--their synthesis--is godhood. It’s otherworldly. It is true divinity. It is that which lay closest to understanding the universal system. Magic Circles are often a good example of this, combining both practices.

At this point, let’s point out various ways these concepts can be utilized. Take Wyrdstones, for example. Primordial and awesome in power, they are still crude. While it cannot be said precisely, I would place their original creation prior to the divergence of language. One need only channel their intent to realize the potential held within Wyrdstones. Any symbols they hold are lost on the limited perspective of our minds. So following the route previously stated, this would suggest Wyrdstones to be very near the universal language, as one does not need to infer a narrative, nor discern a practice. Wyrdstones are more whole. Intrinsic. Dwarven runestones, on the other hand, tell stories, and those stories often possess a weaker, but more nuanced power. The corresponding flow of mental traits are their key importance. While on the other hand, Iokharic runes are measured and precise, constructed meticulously, and often with more material affect. They pay less heed to the overarching story, and more to its physical events. The reliable power achieved in this way is often very attractive to aspiring mages, which likely goes without saying. To which I point out again, and caution against, the Pride of Intellect.

The differences between these systems also aids in understanding how to use more complex magical items. Arcane wands, for example, require practical understanding. How to stand, what frequency to embody, and how. Whereas with divine wands, empathetic understanding is necessary. You must respect, emulate, and believe, the energies being channeled. Posture and tone become much less important. Of course, one could also just practice through intuition how to use magical devices, but such a skill only gets you so far.

Last but not least, bringing this to an end, I’m sure some will have thought by now, “What about the planar languages?” It becomes very difficult to say. We could speculate, for example, that Infernal aligns more arcane than divine. The ideas they espouse, and association with Tiamat, along with present day cultures (such as Thay) align enough to suggest it is true. However, there are two important dynamics to note. The gods are shaped by our cultivated belief. I have little doubt that their language could be as well, and that their language might evolve over time. Moreover, as previously described, godhood is a state of existence both arcane and divine, so at the very least it cannot be said that planar runes are wholly one or the other. They surely emphasize both practices, which is what makes them deific in the first place. It’s with these things in mind that it becomes very hard to pin-down planar languages. Combine that with the fact that they are obviously very far away from us, studying them becomes difficult. This is why I have focussed on a more grounded history of language. The planar systems are undoubtedly very close to the universal system, as far as origins go, but to what degree they still resemble it, may be impossible to say.

What I can say is that it’s time we stopped living in an age of ignorance.

#writtensamples #worldbuilding #sneak peak at something I've been working on

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olispleen · 4 years

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Track eight “After the Flood”:

With the album “Night Sweats & Fever Dreams” now distributed online this will be my final post on the songs theirin.

As I mentioned I’m going to write a bit about each song from the new HIV / AIDS themed album in the order they appear on the album with a little explanation as to the song’s background and who I wrote it with.

When the whole drawn-out feverish nightmare of the album’s narrative has played out we have its epilogue; “After the Flood”.

As you can probably tell, I didn’t die of AIDS in the summer of 2000, but the road to recovery was a long and painful one. For one thing I had fully lost the use of my legs and I was so thin and skeletal that, after my return to Hastings, people would recognise me in the street and burst into tears. Also there were other complications, the TB remained in my lymph system causing my lymph glands to swell and erupt five years later.

I was one of the lucky ones however, as the combination therapy was effective by the time I fell ill. Had I gotten infected five years earlier I would most likely have died.

“After the Flood” was written about how we piece our lives together after a great disaster. It was one of the first songs from what became “Night Sweats & Fever Dreams” which I showed to my main collaborator on this project Nick Hudson. I sang him the vocal melody and he instantly reached for his acoustic guitar and picked out a beautiful Leonard Cohen-esque chord progression. It’s simplicity was so fitting that Nick decided it needed nothing else but his voice, echoing some of my lines.

On the first session in the studio we recorded what was to be the opener and closer of the album “The Bedroom” and “After the Flood”, nailing the latter in it’s entirety together live, on the second take. Realising we were close to that year’s World AIDS Day I got on the phone to Terrence Higgins Trust and asked if we could release the two tracks as a double A-side charity single to raise money for them.

A dear friend and filmmaker Adrian Goycoolia agreed to shoot a video for this track and he managed to secure the rights to footage from Act Out protests which depicted the height of the epidemic.

The single managed to raise over £300 for THT.

This album is dedicated to all those who didn’t survive.

Lyrics:

After the flood

There was waste, there was mud

And the wreckage of all of us flailing

Grasping for fragments

Of what we once had

When we were young and life seemed plain sailing

Grasping for dignity

Grasping for hope

Grasping for strength

Just to survive and cope

But it all washed away

In the deluge that day

And we're left high and dry

In it's wake

After the flood

We crawled out of the sludge

Like the first from primordial slime

We came to our feet

And we soon learned to speak

All wounds will be healed in due time

Walking onwards to freedom

Onwards with pride

Onwards in pain

With the thorn in our side

Of when all washed away

In the deluge that day

And we took about all

We could take

After the flood

Crawling out of the mud

We foraged to find a new start

Patching the holes

Making new of the old

We pushed 'till we ploughed a new path

Healing the wounded

The damage now done

Building defences

'Till the next flood comes

And it's all washed away

In the deluge again

And we're left high and dry

In it's wake

Vocals: Oli Spleen

Guitar & Backing Vocals: Nick Hudson

Recorded at AudioBeach Studios, Brighton & Hove

youtube

#oli spleen #gay #aids #hiv #nick hudson #youtube #music video #adrian goycoolea #act up

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theseventhhex · 6 years

Text

Azar Swan Interview

Zohra Atash & Joshua Strawn,

Photo by Angelle Leigh Breaux

Azar Swan’s latest release entitled ‘Savage Exile’ is as much of a reflection of the band’s personal experiences as their professional ones. Unlike previous Azar Swan records, which had been collaborative in the sense that both band members had usually contributed something substantial to each song, ‘Savage Exile’ is more starkly divided between songs which Zohra Atash wrote, performed and recorded almost entirely herself and those where Joshua Strawn did the same. The album is a journey rather than a message, one made in the belief that truthful art made is still a dagger in the heart of pervasive evil. The album’s title refers both to the exile of “savages” and the savagery of exiling, as well as the need to create a home when all the forces around you don’t seem to care if you’re homeless. When people don’t have a sanctuary, they create one in their mind. ‘Savage Exile’ is not intended to be an easy listen. It’s both comfort and wound, blood as balm and evidence… We talk to Azar Swan about overcoming restrictions, using logic and downtime…

TSH: How do you feel your creative partnership has evolved in the lead-up to ‘Savage Exile’?

Joshua: I guess the evolution of our creative partnership has been organic, but it does feel different than before. Previously, Zohra would write a bulk of the demos and send them to me and I’d add my two scents with my production capacity. But now things feel even more collaborative than normal...

Zohra: Yeah, I think we have different ways of expressing ourselves. However, I could never do this without Josh. The collaboration factor is so important between us. It’s not about who plays what, we are very much a team.

TSH: What sort of ideas were you passing along to each other for this current release?

Joshua: Zohra was sending me videos of horrific plane crashes, but not in a distasteful way, she’d had an unfortunate experience which lead her to looking into this. All in all, most of the songs were written before Trump and Brexit. We were mainly obsessing over this fragile space, where you feel vulnerable and everything could fall apart.

Zohra: Yeah, so I was fascinated by pilot aviation in duress, in particular how when a plane crash is about to happen how the pilot and passengers react to the problem. I had this fascination with the way that people interact in those final moments when you know you’re going to die. It’s unlike a car accident and you even have time to pray. I looked into this because I had a fire scare in my building, which lasted for like 45 seconds. I was fortunate that a neighbour let me in to his house because I thought I was going to die. It was really bizarre, the thoughts that went through my mind. I fell to pieces without any survival techniques.

TSH: Did you decide early on to sequence ‘Shock’ as the album opener?

Zohra: Yeah, it was definitely intentional. We wanted to open with intensity and I really like how the song has a disruptive narrative as an opener. For that one, Josh was soundtracking textural parts of my voice to give it more of a cinematic feel. We were trying to find a natural way to express my voice without steeping on toes and bringing to mind the styles of other female vocalists.

TSH: What are the origins of ‘Territorial’?

Joshua: Well, the original version of ‘Territorial’ was completed a while back and it was mostly mixed too, but Zohra went back to the drawing board with that one. She decided to start again, much to my frustration, haha! The original was very was hooky and less pop-oriented. Nonetheless, I like how Zohra came back with a weird, twisted and dark throbbing version that you hear now.

Zohra: With this one, I wanted to convey what my favourite artists do, where the words are falling out of their mouths as they are singing. I wasn’t interested in making it simple ear candy to enjoy, so I purposely annoyed myself with this song ... and I hit a block. I just really wanted to compose a complexity with this song and find the cadence of the lyrics to the melodies. It took me a year to get this one right. In that time I almost lost my voice. I definitely had to go into a focused headspace to get it sounding musically satisfying.

TSH: Josh, you must have been very impressed seeing Zohra dedicate herself in this way?

Joshua: You know, I’ve made many records in the last 10-15 years and I’ve done a lot of different collaborations with various musicians. However, I’ve never seen somebody re-write music quite like Zohra with this record, haha! Regardless, I admire her dedication. Zohra can be so meticulous with her re-tweaking - it really is fascinating to see. It was frustrating for me initially, but I really feel that she nailed the end product.

TSH: Did you feel liberated having pushed your boundaries to excel with this record?

Zohra: Only now! I normally hate it when people use hyperbolics when they talk about creating music, but this album really was difficult and like a birthing process for me. It was tough for me to get out of a frame of mind where I wasn’t doing analysis paralysis. I really wanted to make this body of work something that was not an overthought, which lead to me chasing my own tail with constant overthinking. I was so focused on forming art that would move me, alongside expressions that come from an honest place. I’m just glad that I got there in the end.

TSH: How did you overcome the restrictions that you encountered with this record?

Zohra: To be honest, I thought I was going to lose the few people I had around me in life that relied on me. I had held up this record for over a year and I had this constant fear that if I didn’t make music no more, I’d go crazy. It got to a point where I was so deep into it and at the same time being surrounded by such awful political and personal issues made me really weak and put me in an emotional place. Once it was done, I was really thankful to Josh, who I’d made wait for so long. We had a timeline worked out and I messed that up, which is a serious issue in a partnership, but I‘m so grateful that Josh was supportive towards me the whole time.

TSH: You’re both very vocal about the injustices in America and lobbying for positive change. How do you stay upbeat amidst the bedlam?

Zohra: We’ll always be proponents for using logic in every situation. You have to be aware of the world around you - baby steps and patience is the only way to remedy the deep primordial fear we have of one another. It’s not as simple as just loving each other, it takes understanding. I believe a great deal of positivity will come into play if we use simple logic. Overall, I just feel that interacting with people helps. I mean not everyone is an awful YouTube commenter.

Joshua: For me, it’s been encouraging to see people I follow who have good political minds and are good political writers making positive steps and offering great advice amidst so much chaos in America. After all, everyone goes out into the real world and acts different to what they do on the internet. Also, I recently found myself thinking about why we are so bad at talking to one another these days. I went into this headspace and obsessed over technology and the history of the internet. I soon discovered how a lot of political philosophers are dealing with technology and the internet, which gave me some clarity. I do feel that I have a better understanding of where problems stem from and I feel like I can walk out into the world with a better understanding of what life is about.

TSH: Did you guys find out if Azar Swan Avenue in Las Vegas really exists?

Zohra: Haha! Well, I chose the band name before this was even discovered. Azar Swan is definitely an original name. But yeah, this neighbourhood is right off of Rhiannon Court. Oh, and they never offered us one of the houses, haha! It’s all really strange and funny to me.

Joshua: It definitely exists. I know someone who went past and snapped a photo of it.

TSH: What’s downtime like for you both?

Zohra: I tend to make sure that I don’t allow myself to be in a state of constant rumination and mulling over anxiety. So I stay positive and surround myself with loved ones.

Joshua: Well, I have a four year old daughter and I like to go camping with her at his time of year. My life consists of being present and responsible as a parent. It can be difficult to compartmentalise art and the frustrations of the world with family life, but I’ve managed to create switches that I can turn on and off which help me.

TSH: What’s the Azar Swan ethos for future plans?

Zohra: Our music has to be something that is useful to us in the making of it, because if it’s not, then it’s not going to resonate at all. The idea of being able to creatively traverse in a way that’s respectful to our art remains essential. Art can be such a healing expression and to be able to sing is truly great for the soul. Josh has always been there for me and the trust I have in him musically has been so integral.

Joshua: I’m really excited because I feel the field is really open for us to explore. I love that this record is an evolution and extension of our artistic intentions. Looking ahead, we can satisfyingly go into completely different and experimental directions with future music. We don’t know where we’ll end up next, but the door is wide open for us to discover new possibilities.

Azar Swan - “The Golden Age of Hate��

SAVAGE EXILE

#Interview #Azar Swan #Zohra Atash

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altughuner-blog · 5 years

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Indica’s Yatra conference will focus on how India has been explored in the past, while also looking at new trends in travel and tourism.

There are many ways of knowing India. Unraveling her layers through yatra has been the most primordial way of getting closer to her core. The idea of Bharat is understanding a unique culture that celebrates diversity. While the philosophy and symbolism are the same, the practices and expressions are extremely varied and ever-changing.

Indica Yatra conference will focus on how India has been explored in the past, while also looking at new trends in travel and tourism. Taking our cue from the past, we invite scholars to present the Indic traditions of yatra as spelled out in our scriptures and literature to build a repository of valuable yatras – both the lost and the thriving.

With a renewed understanding, we want to take inspiration from these traditions to design ‘Experiential Tourism’ products and services for contemporary travelers. We invite ‘Storytellers’ of all hues — travel agents, tour operators, curators, guides, digital platforms, and event management companies — to share with us their success stories as well as ideas for developing India’s Experiential Tourism.

Call For Presentations From Storytellers

Over the last few years travelers have begun to seek authentic, immersive and transformative experiences by engaging with the history, people, culture, food, and environment of the countries they visit in a more meaningful and engaging manner. This has given rise to a new genre — ‘Experiential Tourism’ (ET).

ET is now recognized as the fastest-growing segment within the global travel industry. Our conference will focus on tapping the potential of Experiential Tourism in India. By delving into our past, a thriving future based on tourism is envisioned.

We are inviting presentations from Storytellers who seek to develop new ideas, services, and experiences based on our heritage. These could be either case studies or presentation of an idea that can be developed as a viable tourism product.

Some specific areas where we are looking for presentations at Yatra Conference are:

Case studies of innovations

We invite presentations on pilot/start-up projects that have opened up new markets, destinations or segment of tourists. Ideas that have worked or have the potential to transform how people travel are welcome.

Newer routes & experiences

Curated travel based on the trails of great personalities like Guru Nanak, Swami Vivekananda, Mira Bai or Adi Shankaracharya helps to throw light on the spread of philosophies, tenets, and ideas across time and regions.

Experiential tourism covers not just tangible history and culture but also food, craft, environment, and wellness. In a world where most experiences are artificially curated, many travelers yearn for experiences that are indigenous and authentic.

How can we create broader experiences that include the above areas? What are the untapped opportunities that are waiting to be explored? What are the potential destinations or circuits that can bring a whole new set of tourists to India? How do we reach out to countries that do not have India at the top of their wishlist? How we can highlight the lesser-known destinations in India?

New careers in Experiential Tourism

Experiential Tourism requires new skill sets and knowledge base. People who are deeply passionate about our history and heritage need to be identified, trained and encouraged to embark upon careers as curators.

Aggregator platforms need to be established enabling smaller enterprises, operators and individuals to offer their services. A start-up ecosystem needs to be nurtured such that more jobs and enterprises centered around Experiential Tourism are created. This requires interventions at the policy level as well as through private participation and enterprise.

Call For Papers From Scholars

Given below are some of the indicative themes on which we are inviting papers.

In the Indic tradition, yatras were undertaken in two major forms:

Sacral (teertha yatra): These are undertaken for reasons such as obtaining puNya (supernatural reward), papavimochana (undoing of supernatural effect of wrong-doing), prayashchitta (penance out of remorse or repentance), parivrajana (the one done as part of ascetic life for the practice of detachment etc.)

Worldly (des’aatana): These are undertaken for reasons such as ullaasa (pleasure), kautuka (curiosity), lokadhyayana (studying the world and society), vartaka (trade), des’aatanajeevika (as part of an itinerant occupational lifestyle), etc.

Ancient, medieval and premodern scriptures and literature in Sanskrit, Tamil and other Indian languages cover these aspects of yatra in the form of narrative representation, in the form of sthalapuranas (legends of sacred places known for the sacral power of a water body or a land form such as a cave, hill or a temple) or even the descriptions of imaginary aerial tour of places and landscapes. For instance, the Mahabharata has the narrative description of a tour of penance by Arjuna.

We invite papers on these and other similar Indic ideas of Yatras as reflected in our scriptures and literature.

The sthalapuranas are repositories of culture, providing an overarching philosophy with roots in local traditions. Sthalapuranas are an important genre of premodern Sanskrit and other Indian literature. A large number of sthalapuranas have been included as part of maha (major) puranas and upa (minor) puranas; among them Skanda Purana has the largest collection of such narratives. Many of the sthalapuranas were in the form of oral literature.

We invite research papers with literary, critical, historical, anthropological and other analytical studies of sthalapuranas with a specific focus on the relationship between these narratives and the Indic Yatra traditions.

Also connected to yatras are the Sandesha Kaavyas (messages in the form of poetry) or the Doota Kaavyas (an envoy’s message in the form of poetry), in Sanskrit and other Indian language literature. The origin, inspiration and prototype of this genre is Kalidasa’s brilliant poem, Megha Sandesham (Megha means cloud), also known as Megha Dootam.

Under the guise of a romantic narrative of a cursed Yaksha (supernatural being) in northern India sending a message to his beloved in Southern India through a cloud, the poem has a description of an imaginary aerial tour from the north to the south provided as a guide to the messenger, the cloud. A number of Doota Kaavyas were composed in this model in Sanskrit and other Indian languages, each covering a different aerial route.

The motivations and background for these fanciful aerial travel imaginations in our literature make a very good topic for not just a literary but even a historical and cultural inquiry. We invite research papers on this topic for Yatra Conference.

India has attracted foreign tourists since ancient times as attested in the writings of Megasthenes, Marco Palo, Faxian, Abu Abdullah/lbn Batuta, Nicolo de Conti, Abdur Razzaq, etc. Indica of Megasthenes is reconstructed from later Greek works. Marco Polo’s ‘Book of the Marvels of the World’ and Faxian’s ‘Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms’ are considered valuable historical documents.

Very little work has been done looking at these works from the point of view of ancient foreign tourism in India. Viewing these and other foreign texts to understand the motivation, modes, and patterns of foreign tourism in ancient India may yield new insights on how India can continue to attract the world to herself.

We invite papers from scholars on ancient texts covering foreign tourism in ancient India.

Meticulously written travelogues were a part of many a foreigner’s visits to India. While European travelogues on modern India are interesting in themselves, travelogues written in various Indian languages inspired by European travelogues form an important area of research from a literary, critical, historical and anthropological perspective.

In the early stages of transition from a traditional to modern society, teertha yatras began to get documented. Emotional poetic expressions of a travel experience made the authors resort to classical modes of expression but in a modern style. Women travelogue writers emerged. The traditional response to new modes of transport were documented.

We invite scholars to present papers on this genre of Indian literature from different Indian languages.

The above themes are only indicative. We invite academic papers on these and many other such tours and travel-related topics in the premodern literary works in Sanskrit and other Indian languages.

Important Dates for Yatra Conference

Submission of Abstract – 25 August 2019

Final Paper/Presentation Submission – 5th October 2019

Curators – Dr. Nagaraj Paturi and Anuradha Goyal

Conference Dates – 8, 9, & 10 November 2019

Conference Venue – Varanasi

Contact email – [email protected]

Please mark in the subject if you are submitting as a scholar or storyteller.

Please reach out to us for any form of collaboration in organizing and promoting this event.

The post Indica Yatra Conference – A Call For Papers appeared first on Inditales.

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how2to18 · 6 years

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WE ALL HAVE our hang-ups about sex, and here’s one that troubles a lot of writers: the more explicit the depiction, the less sexy it gets. We understand — and are constantly reminded in literature, film, medical journals, health pamphlets, and online porn — that sex is potent, primordial, a vital motivator of human interaction, the wellspring of our species, and the driving force behind many of the stories we tell. Yet, like a vampire, it seems to shy away from the daylight.

Make it too literal, and sex becomes mechanical, dehumanizing, embarrassing. Throw it into the plot of a novel or feature film, and it risks holding up the action instead of advancing it, cheapening the story instead of enriching it. We’ve all read our fill of crisp, cream-colored sheets, pert breasts, and thrusting members; there’s a reason bad sex writing has turned into a spectator sport all its own.

Often, the story seems to be reaching for a crowning breakthrough experience, some ennobling human moment, but what we’re given is more like a pair of zebras humping at the zoo. Even when handled competently, sex on the page risks being a drag or a letdown. Strip the characters and the act itself naked, and we’re liable to ask, like the heroine of Stendhal’s unfinished final novel Lamiel after she has unceremoniously given up her virginity, “That’s it? There isn’t anything else?”

True sexiness thrives on suggestion, not explicitness, on what we imagine, not what we see. So says the received wisdom, anyway. More than a century after Freud, more than half a century after the Lady Chatterley’s Lover trial, the consensus seems to be that sex in literature is best tackled obliquely, if it is to be tackled at all. Make it funny, or humiliating, or transgressive, or self-consciously voyeuristic, or even a little political — maybe a combination of these. Do what the Marquis de Sade did in his time, or Henry Miller in his, or Philip Roth in Portnoy’s Complaint, or Mary Gaitskill in Bad Behavior.

To tackle the subject head-on, to celebrate the act of human coitus, is a task best left to poets, perhaps because poetry is suggestive by nature and can content itself with a single moment, a knot of fleeting feelings. Paul Éluard wrote sexy poems. So did e.e. cummings, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Richard Brautigan, and Adrienne Rich. It takes a brave, and technically accomplished, prose writer to match their achievements with a full-length erotic novel that succeeds on its own terms while also making itself heard against the contemporary background noise of Pornhub and Fifty Shades of Grey.

That is precisely what the Anglo-American writer Allegra Huston has set out to do in her debut novel, Say My Name. Huston is an accomplished stylist, a screenwriter and former book editor who published a remarkable memoir, Love Child: A Memoir of Family Lost and Found (2009), about being the accidental daughter of Hollywood royalty — she was adopted by John Huston, the Oscar-winning film director — and the secret love-child of a British aristocrat. She has constructed her fictional tale less as the meeting of two minds and bodies (though there is also that) than as a woman’s emotional and physical reawakening after half a lifetime trapped within both a stale marriage and the limits of her own perception about who she is and what she ought to be.

The book is suffused with sensual feeling from the very first page, as Eve Federman, the protagonist, finds a beautiful but broken stringed instrument in a junk store and feels a visceral connection she cannot bear to break. The instrument is one of those impossible literary objects that requires a leap of faith on the part of the reader more than a literal reimagining of what it looks like. It is hundreds of years old, oddly shaped — like a viola da gamba but with a hint of Oriental mystery — and ornately decorated, with carvings that include a cherub’s face and vine-like tendrils dotted with jasmine flowers.

Eve is a garden designer, so she knows her flowers and their scents. (“It was the jasmine — secretive, blooming in darkness — that seduced her,” Huston writes.) The instrument also connects her with Micajah, a professional musician on the cusp of success with an unconventional rock band. They meet by chance on the streets of New York while he is out walking with his father, an old college friend of Eve’s. Micajah offers to help get the instrument restored, a pretext they use to rendezvous at a swanky private club on the Upper East Side where they play a breathtakingly sensuous game of backgammon on a board of unabashed luxury. Then, as they say, things get interesting.

Eve is 48 and keenly aware of both her aging body and the dead-end toward which her life has been heading. Micajah is 20 years her junior, beautiful and soulful beyond his years. In other hands, we could be wading into How Stella Got Her Groove Back territory. But Huston is interested in a whole lot more than an older woman getting it on with a hot younger guy. Eve is intelligent but finds herself at a loss to understand the trajectory of events before she has surrendered to them. She knows she needs to reckon with who she is, with what it means, as an empowered woman, to step out of the wreckage of a failed marriage into the arms of a man with whom there can be no meaningful future. After the meeting at the club, Eve sleeps. Huston writes, “[T]he sleep of the dead — not because she was sated from sex, but because she was emotionally exhausted by the assaults of the truth.”

Throughout, Huston constructs a delicate and compelling edifice of images, symbols, and motifs — flowers, scents, music, games, the act of artistic creation — that feed into and off each other. All of these fuel the couple’s sexual desire and are in themselves wildly, polymorphously suggestive. Huston describes the touch of a human hand on a musical instrument like a sexual act and, conversely, describes sex like the handling of a beautiful instrument.

Here is Eve allowing herself to be seduced by Micajah for the first time: “She thinks, this should not be happening. This is not my world. But it is: his tongue is running down the cords of her neck, digging into the hollows of her collarbones.” And here is Yann, an instrument restorer, inspecting her viola d’amore, as she comes to call it, with its wooden back bashed in: “His fingers slip inside the hollow. Then he buries his face in the gash, as if searching for a sign of life.”

It takes a writer of great assuredness to keep this pattern of suggestive imagery from collapsing into a succession of snigger-worthy double entendres. As if to accentuate the difference, Huston includes a scene of a work meeting at which a potential client of Eve’s, a New Jersey town council member, catches a glimpse of a dirty text from Micajah on her cell phone and splutters with laughter as he riffs about the gravel “getting laid […] on a bed of something.” The awkward comedy, which shakes Eve but does not unmoor her, only underscores Huston’s mastery of tone.

The sex scenes work in large part because they too build on the imagery that she has so carefully layered into the overall narrative. Huston is frank but does not dwell on details of anatomy — not for her D. H. Lawrence’s insistence on cocks and cunts and lovers “coming to their crisis.” Rather, she describes the most intimate moments between Eve and Micajah in terms of fire (“the blaze of him etching a path of fire inside her”), because a fire is exactly what the relationship is lighting. The sex scenes are a catalyst, and Micajah’s fire makes everything sexy, whether it’s sculpting clay, or the smell of Yann’s workshop, or tulips, which become “curvy and bulbous, with flaring petals that promise more.” Even things that disgust Eve become irresistibly sensuous: the bodily noises her husband makes in the bathroom, or the memory of a client who once forced a kiss on her with lips that she recalls as prehensile, like a camel’s.

There are aspects of Say My Name that tip into the realm of unabashed romantic fantasy: a vertiginously dramatic backdrop to Eve’s first sexual encounter with Micajah, a love song that becomes an overnight worldwide hit, a trip to Venice in full-on Grand Tour style. These elements stick out in what is otherwise a tightly disciplined narrative. Still, the point is made: there are worlds Eve could have inhabited, vistas she could have conquered, had she not squandered so much of her life as a discontented New Jersey housewife.

To Eve’s credit, she is exhilarated, not depressed, by this realization. She makes her magical musical instrument whole and, in the process, performs a similar magic on herself: she knows all along what she has with Micajah and what she does not, and she ends in a place that feels perfectly calibrated, for her and for the reader, as a woman at peace, having experienced “love without expectations or explanations, relying neither on the past nor the future.” The ultimate power of Huston’s book lies in her insight that love and happy endings do not have to depend on one another to coexist.

Andrew Gumbel is a Los Angeles–based journalist and writer and a longtime foreign correspondent for British newspapers.

The post The Sensual Music of Sex in Allegra Huston’s “Say My Name” appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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alphacenturian4 · 7 years

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Genesis 2 Commentary

By Alphacenturian4

Let’s be clear this polemic narrative is obviously “an artificial and religious interpretation of history” (NRSV Oxford Commentary). But that doesn’t make it false, that makes it non-factual, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. Just as an actor must find their truth in their performance, just as a painting of a cigar is not the cigar itself. So too is there truth here, and more so, there is genuine wisdom and understanding of greater truths.

And those truths are echoed in the creation myths that predate it. Interesting enough, the Genesis stories only show up in post exile text. When the Israelites left Babylon at the beginning of the Persian Achaemenid Empire. During the seventy-one year period of exile, the learned scribes of Israel would have picked up on many if not all the major religious narratives of Babylon from Sumerian to the Assyrian traditions. And it is against these traditions that Genesis was written, to explain how we are us and not them, to differentiate the Israelite beliefs from the Mesopotamian and Persian way of thought.

�� So why read it, it’s not science, it’s not real history, and if you can find a period of time that, the tradition it sprang from existed without it? Well you should read it for the same reasons you read Jane Austin or Shakespeare, for the same reasons I read The Epic of Gilgamesh and Livy. For the same reasons you might watch Interstellar or read the book the Martian. Because there is a greater truth, a spark that connects with your soul and feeds your imagination and dreams. To say there is no history there is say there is to say that there is no history in the movies “The Alamo” or “the Patriot,” or “the 300.” Was there a time before earth existed? Yes. Was there a first man and woman? Yes. Is this their story? Well …

This is the story of the first time we became human, the story of our first human thoughts, of the birth of reason. In a sense, Adam is the first philosopher and Eve the first researcher. Or, maybe this is the story of the 1st humanoid primates to experiment with psychedelics, I don’t know, and neither do you.

But what I do know is that Genesis two is the second telling of creation in the bible, and according to scholars, it is the older of the two versions. In the NAB the idea of a second creation is more pronounced, here expressed more clearly as a second version of creation form Genesis one and an alternative to other popular Mesopotamian and Mediterranean creation myths. All the animals are created for a second time, if not third. This makes me think of the great extinctions at the end of each epoch. While in Genesis one, we see God created the Earth out of watery depths, where there are allusions to Tiamat and the Enuma Elish; in Genesis two we get creation out of nothingness, creation from the word. What we also get is an inversion of nature as we know it today. In the first tale man is created last, here man is create before the other animals, perhaps hinting that first a mind must perceive and name a thing before it can understand a thing exist.

We also get the invention of the week. We have the Seventh day, a day of rest, and a holy day “Sanctified” (KJV). How man 1st came to recognize a seven-day cycle to the week still amazes me. And the fact that this mythological observation just happens to be scientifically true is even more amazing. What we see, with the observances of creation is that people view the world as it suits them; they 1st see how it can benefit them and how they can exploit it. Of other religions and denominations that believe or ascribe to this story I cannot speak to their belief but I will give mine and I will try to couch it in my faith, that of Roman Catholicism.

In the catholic, God is the progenitor, the pre-casual. His works were in and of the creation; yet the creation itself could be self-determining and random. God here is more as a cause and gift-er of freewill and not seen as a Greek Fate or Hindu Destiny ascribe-er.

To my modern eyes, when read with some distance and much reverence, the biblical history of the earth seems to follow the geological historical in a nice parallel; that is if you, the reader, can get over the metaphorical use of word “Days” (NIV). Days here equaling “generations” (KJV). For example, “While as yet there was no field shrub on earth and no grass of the field had sprouted, for the Lord God had not yet sent rain upon the earth … (NAB).” This makes me think of the Precambrian Eon, specifically the pre-Hadean & Hadean period just before water formed and the earth just began to cool, four to five million years ago.

When someone hears these kind of verses, one can see a desert people, maybe even a lone wanderer, or a small family of nomads pondering existence and waiting for, or being surprised by, a sudden gush of underground spring water coming up from the burning sand and soil. The water of life, the “mist” (KJV) of creation, that gives rise to primordial earth. And the land is most definitely wild before man learns to harness it.

So to with mankind and humanity, is there a great poetic and maybe even pre-philosophical element. The creation of man seems to be an understanding of decay in reverse. For this to be true, someone would have had to have watched a body die and decompose out in the open. Think about it. A man is created from dust, then his body is a still thing, then he gets breath, and then has life. This is death in reverse. One has breath, when it is lost the body is a still thing, then it decomposes into dust. The “Breath of life” (KJV) to my mind makes me think of CPR.

Man is infused with “a living soul” (KJV). Which make me ask, as oppose to a dead soul? Here in the catholic tradition it seems to intimate that the body and soul are one, not two separate entries like they are in other understandings of other denominations. To me, this sudden breath of life makes me think a consciousness. A first awakening. Our primate ancestors’ first coming to realize they existed and were living.

According to every commentary I have read, from nondenominational, to protestant, to Catholic, Adam is the Hebrew word for man and is closely related to their word for ground, humus, and clay (adamah).

Then we get to “A garden in the east” (NIV). My guess is, to the east of the storyteller and his audience, when this story was first told? Eden is a Sumerian derivative meaning fertile plain, one can easily think of the Fertile Crescent from these words. Eden in the Hebrew and the Greek takes on a meaning more akin to a “Paradise of Pleasures” (NAB commentary). A garden of delights, if you will.

Here God sounds like a good father or parent providing for and protecting his young. And we hear of two trees in the center of the garden. The Tree of life, and Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Here the trees are a left over from ancient sematic nature worship, were the trees represented feminine powers. The word knowledge here could be exchanged for wisdom or Sofia, another abstract divinity.

After the trees we hear about the four branched river. It’s heads, or sources, are the Pishon in Havilah where there is gold. Gihon, in Cush, which is Ethiopia in the KJV, but is more likely a reference to the Kassite region, in Aribia. The Tigris or Hiddekel, in Ashur; that’s Assyria. And then, the Euphrates.

Here in the historical, theological, and mythical cradle of civilization actual cultivation begins. This cultivation is a first step towards civilization, though far from its true beginnings.

Here, some say we get the 1st lie of the story, at least the Gnostics would say so, and a few skeptics out there too. But as I said earlier, this is a polemic, and the whole story shows that before knowledge all Order and Nature is inverse to what we understand now as rational beings. And to this yet unconsumed knowledge, God seems to promise an immediate death upon consumption. If that is true, then it would be unto a type of death, a death of a previous self and a death of innocence.

Again, here god reminds me of a parent talking to a child in simple terms. This is edible, but this is poison, eat it and die. What parent wouldn’t explain that to a child when in the wild, even in the controlled wild of a garden, let alone a first garden? A first an attempt at taming nature.

But it is in the naming things and the power of language that things are 1st tamed. Yet, this cataloging does not satisfy the man and the story turns to the longing for companionship. And, comically it explains how a pet does not equal a person. So instead, we get The rib of Man. But. How would you explain the sudden appearance of an individual that arrived as you slumbered, especially if you were a child, or if you had an extremely limited understanding of reality? And, here again, we see nature as we understand it inversed. We see the reversed order of birth, here the man “births” the woman, not the other way around.

Most organized religions state that this is a claim to the origin of marriage. And indeed it does say that “Two of them become one body” (NAB). It could easily be a metaphor for sex; or genetically speaking it could be a good description of what a child is, two separate individuals becoming one new individual.

But. It is also a play on words. Eve here meaning something like the word Wife. Though, in most versions she is not named until the next chapter. The same play on words is done with man and woman, Ish and Ishah in Hebrew.

The chapter ends with, a time of nudity without shame. Though mankind is still uncivilized here, unlike later in the bible, humankind is “very good.” It is almost comical how the relationship between man and woman must be affirmed so early in the text and twice in the first two chapters of the bible. What was going on at the creation of this story, that this was a matter that had to be addressed so often and so concretely? I honestly don’t know what the Babylonian perspective was on homosexuality. I’ve read recent articles that speculate that Enkidu and Gilgamesh could have been in a homosexual relationship, but that is mere speculation on the reader’s part. I have read multiple accounts of the epic of Gilgamesh, and honestly, to me, their friendship sounds like a best friend bro thing and nothing more, you’d have to really read into things to get anything more out of their relationship. And it has been about ten years since I last read a translation of the Hammurabi code, but I don’t remember anything sex positive in there either. But, maybe there was something with the Babylonian priests’ or priestesses’ practices that I’m not aware of that the teller of these stories would be railing against with this last line. Either way, it is an odd and yet beautiful way to end this part of the story, nude without shame.

#The Bible #Genesis #Genesis 2 #Genesis two #Philosophy #Bible Study #Catholicism #Catholic #Christian #Christianity

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