Nikaposting Pt 4: Sun God Tropes
This is the fourth of a series of posts about Nika & associated religious practice in the One Piece world. As I write and post the rest of the series, I’ll add links to this header.
Pt 1: Crypto-Religion | Pt 2: Symbology & Syncretism | Pt 3: Joyboy was Shandian
Enormous credit to @oriigami for being my discussion partner through all of this and having a substantial influence on the final product. Check out our ao3 series Joyful for a narrative rather than analytical take on the Nika tradition, and definitely go read her OP blog @kaizokuou-ni-naru for meta and translation fun facts.
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#JustLittleSunGodThings
So Luffy’s a sun god, or the embodied power of the wishes for one, or whatever. But does he do mythological solar deity things?
Yes actually.
This post is the fourth and last (as of now) in this series, and it’s entirely for fun. I’ll almost certainly miss things as I go down the list here- if you can think of other solar or dawn deity things he gets up to, please add them in the replies!
With no further ado, here is a list of sun god things Luffy has been known to get up to, & which will no doubt inform the mythology developing around him in the One Piece world. (How many people were deifying this guy even before he awakened his devil fruit? Like it was definitely not zero is all I’m saying.)
Getting eaten by snakes
What started this whole list was me turning to @oriigami in the middle of the night after we’d been rewatching Little Garden and trying to make an accurate count of how many times Luffy’s been swallowed whole and going “you know what’s sun god shit? getting eaten by snakes.”
Sun gods are often doing this. Take Apep in Egyptian myth, who tries to devour the sun god Ra every day. Or Rahu, the Hindu shadow planet and serpent, who swallows the sun to cause solar eclipses.
Luffy is also often doing this. The most notable example is of course the Nola Incident in Skypiea arc, but if we expand the definition of snake to include generally snakeish sort of guys, he also gets briefly ate by Kaidou very shortly after awakening, and just now by Mister Sandworm in ch 1110. (And by Kaidou fish-fish fruit equivalency I’d argue we can also count the Little Garden goldfish and the crocodile that ate him as a kid here but obviously that’s more tenuous and mostly just funny.)
Slightly more tenuously as well, there’s Amaterasu of Shinto lore retreating into her cave (a cave is a kind of snake), as well as the Norse wolf that chases the sun Sköll (occasionally merged with Fenrir), the Javanese god (described as an ogre) Batara Kala who eats the sun and moon to cause eclipses, and the alchemical Green Lion that devours the sun.
Storm and sky gods are also often interacting with, killing, and being eaten by snakes, which is less relevant here except that Nami is storm god coded and she also got ate in the Nola Incident. So that’s fun!
Having a chariot that circumnavigates the world
Many sun gods, especially in the Indo-European sphere of traditions, have some sort of chariot or boat that they ride from east to west each day to carry the sun across the sky. Often they have attendants (sometimes dawn and dusk gods; or sometimes these gods have their own chariots or horses as well) to help them with this.
If you want a list of sun vehicles the wikipedia page for solar deities has a whole bunch of them. Have fun.
I think Thousand Sunny speaks for herself on this front: not only is Sunny a ship designed, destined, and dreamed up to herself circumnavigate the world with Luffy as her captain, but she also has the Sun on the front as her figurehead in a manner that does kinda remind me of some depictions I’ve seen of the sun being carried across the sky in such a chariot. Also, she can fly!
Association with royalty
Kings and emperors love to use sun gods to give divine legitimacy to their rule. This is in no way universal (there’s lots of storm gods out there who also do this, just off the top of my head) but take Amaterasu (Shinto), Inti (Incan), Amun-Ra (also Aten) (Egyptian), Sol Invictus (Roman), etc.
Obviously Luffy is going to be King, and is currently an Emperor. But also, he tends to go around and toppling kings and gods and tyrants and vaguely lending legitimacy to whoever is stepping up to the throne in their place. He’s got the Mandate of Heaven (this is a joke mostly but we HAVE all read Loguetown)! And also distributes it to people he likes. Thanks Luffy.
Solar discs, radiate crowns, and beetles
A solar disc is a flat circle, sometimes with rays, that symbolically represents the sun or the sun personified. If you have read pt 2 of this series, you will recognize the Nika symbol in this description.
In the same vein, when applied to a personified depiction of the sun, the solar disc has the habit of becoming a halo or a radiate crown (such as the one worn by the Statue of Liberty - the radiate crown used to be an emperors and sun gods thing and has since become associated with personifications of liberty. So That’s Fun). Obviously Luffy is not in the habit of having either of these representationally, except of course for. The hat that encircles his head in gold.
The final note on symbology I have here is that the Egyptian god of the morning sun, Khepri, is associated with scarabs/dung beetles. A fact that I think known beetle-lover Luffy would appreciate. Get this guy some scarab symbolism stat. Check these bugs out!!!
Bonus: descending into the underworld and eclipse stories
Katabasis, that is, a descent into the underworld, is in no way a sun god exclusive, although solar myths do often involve the sun god, having traveled across the sky by day, needing to find their way through the ocean, the underworld, or some other sort of nether realm to return, overnight, to their morning home in the east. And it’s very fun to look at in the context of Luffy, eclipse myths, and the Marineford saga.
So obviously the Impel Down arc is is a very literal katabasis. It’s Hell, it’s got all the Dante’s Inferno theming, and, like in so many katabases, Luffy descends to the depths in pursuit of some goal, eventually emerging miraculously alive but unsuccessful (see, for a very quick shortlist of katabases of this type, Orpheus & Eurydice, Inanna, and Izanagi & Izanami).
So that’s delightful. But I think it’s even more fun to think about the Marineford saga in general, eventually culminating in the timeskip, as a prototype for an eclipse story.
Solar eclipses, though predictable, are something like a rarer and more frightening form of night, and so their associated myths have a general tendency to involve a more dramatic and/or violent symbolic death of the sun- see, for example, the various devourers of the sun mentioned in the first bullet point of this post.
So, we have the timeskip. The fire goes out. The sun, having descended into the underworld and pushed himself past his own limits, is defeated, disappearing completely from the world for two years. Until- In a way that was, technically, predictable, if you had the correct sphere of knowledge, he returns, miraculously renewed.
I’d incorporate that into my belief system, is all I’m saying.
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Thank you all for reading! This is all for the series so far, but not, I hope, forever. Many more thoughts to have and webs to weave!
Have a lovely week!
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Tom Riddle headcanons!!
because lately i've been thinking about this tragic little human <3
tw: mention of torture as a topic
first of all I wanted to clarify that in this there's no Voldemort, no interest in practicing dark magic, just a teen who goes to Hogwarts soo... :)
proud slytherin. no matter how much other people can say 'slytherin = bad' he just doesn't care, he will not argue with you if you think or say that cause he will find it pointless
I don't now where I read this, but if I'll find it I will tag the person who said this before me: he has autism!!
which means he is not a very social person, and he has little/no friends
and he is deeply attached to an object/topic
the topic in question is dark magic
he doesnt want to practice it, he just finds the whole thing interesting
which deeply concerns professors
he knows everything. about horcruxes, the three unforgivable curses, origin and all
he simply thinks that knowledge is knowledge
IF HE READS?!?! OH DAMN
i strongly believe he has one hell of a library in his dorm
the most dramatic myths ever? knows them
he's just a nerd
read books about t0rture, c0mmunism, n@zism, because knowledge is knowledge
also reads light books of course i dont want to scare you
maths is not his thing
like yes he's good at it but he doesnt really care
did i say hes dramatic?
and an absolute pessimist
since i do not believe that his hair is like that just because it is, he HAS to have a hair routine (DROP IT TOM)
has an infinite collection of bookmarks
no person is allowed to touch his books
doesnt write on books even with pencils
listens to DRAMATIC classical music
EXAMPLE
(also y'all have to teach me how to put spotify songs with the blue rectangle cuz i dont have a clue on how)
JUST THE START
Idk it reminds me of him (and regulus but this is not about him)
this goes against the fact that he's dramatic, but i think that in a relationship he would be a good-old fashioned lover boy
flowers, love letters, POEMS, kissing in the rain, handing you his jacket when you're cold
and of course he wears suits
NOT a sports kid
mf doesn't know a single sport
he just learned how to swim
that's it
is defo the kind of person who is SOSOSOSOSO SKINNY
He's skeptical af on food
like i believe he's a picky eater
and i dont think he eats a lot
like he will go through the day with some coffees, some water, breakfast and a snack in the afternoon
is always gentle doing anything
when he's mad he's even more mad that he can't throw anything because then he would be even more angry that it got broken
has NO PHYSICAL FORCE AT ALL
Like his arms are spaghetti
im sorry but imo he's short
like 1.70 cm (5'5''-5'6'')
which is not really short
I CANT SEE HIM AS A TALL BEING
will not admit it but hates the sea
like as long as he can reach with his feet the "land" below then it's no problem
if he can't he'll try to act cool and say he's tired and immediately get out of the sea
it gives him a sense of pure confusion because he doesnt know what he could run into
which annoys him
because when he cant know something it hurts him physically emotionally psychologically
he knows plenty of languages
english, french, latin, russian and german
why?
because it's cool
also knows how to play the piano and the flute and the viola
"never judge a book by its cover" he does exactly the opposite
especially with books he judges the book by the cover, if he likes the cover he'll like the book too
and people can gain his interest only at first sight
he hates how lots of people can easily change their opinions as long as their group/loved ones have a different opinion
or how people always follow the crowd
people who judge mudbloods just because they're mudbloods are too stupid for him
i think we all know that he is THE teachers' pet
he's the Hermione of his generation
which means that while there are plenty of people with their hands raised the only one who will be listened to is tom
is a MANIAC in cleaning
his bed and his overall room is always tidy af
he hates getting his uniform dirty
he has plenty of nightmares about his past
which he never talks about with anyone
is the kind of person to have 4 or 5 cats
he is absolutely quiet
i got a strong feeling that this man was bullied before hogwarts at the orphanage
he has a cute little stuffed animal in really bad shape which he has from his years at the orphanage and it's hidden at the end of his wardrobe
he strongly despises children because he doesn't have a clue how to deal with them
acts like he has patience
lacks patience
in a modern au, the only thing he'd have going to school would be a black pen
not because he didnt care or was too lazy to get other things but because he didnt find having 3985729947 pens and highliters necessary
dada would be boring for him because out of curiosity he would've already learned most of the spells or wtv
i dont remember if i said it but quidditch is NOT something he likes
or just flying on a broom in general
(remus lupin behavior)
(I had to say it)
studying consists in him burying his face in the books for like 4 or 5 hours straight (my man has some serious issues)
you could tell im completely delusional because he became a killer and nothing's good-old fashioned lover boy about canon him but oh well🥰
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at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"
like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.
"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."
... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.
and i'd still keep writing.
i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.
i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley
"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"
and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.
it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.
you create because you're greedy.
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