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mark_asphodel) wrote2013-09-06 04:30 pm
mark_asphodel) wrote2013-09-06 04:30 pm
Entry tags:
Pay in Blood: Celtic Myth and Jugdral
I never much liked Celtic myth, despite being 1/4 Irish and having it shoved at me periodically as part of my heritage. My mother, who had everything from The Golden Bough to Hermes Trismegistus on the bookshelf in her bedroom, didn't much care for it either. I recall one conversation we had when I was about 13 or 14 wherein we agreed that Celtic myth was basically about beating people up-- the more people you beat up, the bigger a hero you were. I was far more interested in myths that praised wit and cunning-- the exploits of Theseus and Odysseus, Raven, Anansi, Daniel and Joseph from the Old Testament. Even famous Celtic stories that involved trickery, like the one where Fionn mac Cumhaill decides to fuck with Cuchulainn to get out of fighting him, didn't seem especially clever or admirable. I mean, Cuchulainn's dumb as a rock anyway, so fooling him isn't much work. Also, biting someone's finger off is a pretty nasty trick, but if your magical powers are stored in your middle finger I guess it's a valid target.
I think the other thing I didn't like is I didn't understand how justice worked in these stories. It didn't seem to, really. With characters like Odysseus and Joseph, there was an actual payoff in their exploits. Live right, honor the gods, outwit your enemies, persevere during your hardships, and you get rewarded in land, women, sons, renown, etc. Sure, things often fall apart a generation or two down the line (or in the case of Theseus, in his own lifetime) but there seemed to be an actual, you know, life lesson involved her. Teacheable moments and (mostly) happy endings.
Celtic stories are a never-ending bloodbath. Let's have a look at the exploits of Lugh mac Ethlenn, the apparent antecedent of Jugdral's Leif. Lugh's epithets include "skilled in many arts" and "boy hero", FWIW, and arguably he's one of the more appealing and human characters in Celtic myth but IMO that ain't saying much.
DISCLAIMER: This in no way implies that I think Jugdral characters are meant as one-for-one representations of their mythological namesakes. They very clearly are not. For one thing, some Jugdrali share names derived from the same mythical figure. But some draw more from the myths than can be chalked up to random chance.
Okay, to make a very long and convoluted story quite short: Lugh's father Cian gets killed by some dudes. Lugh makes these guys do some impossible tasks-- collecting some magic artifacts-- as payment but they all get fatally wounded in the process and Lugh refuses to save them using the magical artifacts. Then he takes all the stuff they got for him and wages war, settles down, poisons some people here and there and is generally a good king who founds festivals to honor his foster-mother and stuff. Then one of his wives has an affair with some other dude and Lugh kills the guy. Unfortunately that guy has a pack of sons and they hunt Lugh down and drown him. End of story.
[Fun fact: Lugh's been regarded as both a sun god and a trickster god, and his exploits do involve a lot of dirty tricks. They're pretty insane tricks, like building three hundred wooden cows filled with poisoned red "milk" to murder a guest who can't refuse the milk under hospitality law. There is a lot more trickery in the Celtic myths than I gave them credit for as a child and the tricks are almost always deranged. Midir makes fifty other women look just like Etain so the guy who wants the real Etain ends up with his own daughter instead.]
Maybe I just never read an accessible telling of these stories that really brought out the humanity in these alleged heroes, but it's enough to make one long for a simple tale of decency like the Book of Ruth or the story of Baucis and Philemon. I mean, dig what happens to Conchobar, the bad guy in the love story of Deirdre and Naoise (Noishe): "Conchobar is eventually killed as a result of a wound inflicted by the Connacht warrior Cet mac Mágach. Cet had stolen one of Ulster's trophies of battle, the petrified brain of Mesgegra, king of Leinster, and shoots it from his sling so it embeds itself in Conchobar's head."
A petrified brain fired out of a slingshot and embedding itself in some dude's head. Classic. Deirdre killed herself by flinging herself out of a chariot and dashing her head against a stone. Naoise and his brothers all got killed over the Deirdre thing. Diarmuid also got murdered for wife-stealing. Cuchulainn gets offed by a conspiracy of men whose fathers he murdered (see?) after being spiritually weakened by eating dog meat (don't ask). Cuchulainn has already managed to kill his own son by mistake. Fionn became enough of a folk hero that some legends just claim he's off sleeping somewhere, waiting to defend Ireland in crisis, but the less fanciful version has him killed while weeping over the body of his grandson Oscar after the new High King breaks up their protection racket, which is what the fianna warriors degenerated into. After a while your eyes glaze over from this never-ending cycle of beating people up, swearing oaths, backstabbing your enemies, making off with someone else's wives and cattle and then getting murdered in turn. At least Taillte (Tiltyu) dies a reasonably dignified death from exhaustion after making agriculture possible.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure the mad "kill your family" aspects of Jugdral were fed by this, the same way that elements like Fer Doirich the Dark Druid and significant numbers got incorporated into Kaga's stuff. The murderous career, repentance, and death of Michalis in FE1 feels like a suitably Greek tragedy. Something like Johalva slaying his brother over Larcei's affections, then wiping out his other male relatives and then voluntarily exiling himself from the seat of Dozel would be right at home in the Ulster Cycle. There's a certain element of Right to Revenge here-- or even Obligation to Revenge-- but also an acknowledgement that the revenge part just keeps on perpetuating itself. Kill a man, and his son and his servants will be on your ass no matter how long it takes. Better have a lot of strong sons yourself to keep the bloodbath going. Small wonder the crucial lesson that Seliph specifically learns is to let go of that stuff-- Seliph and Julia at least are truly Better Than That. Forseti!Ced might arguably be. Leif and Arthur and Johalva and Faval and Lester and Finn and even Tinny (the one Gen2 girl really allowed to get her revenge on) are not. Altenna and Arion end up as something of a question mark. Gen 1 is most certainly not Better Than That.
Again, one wonders what Kaga's conception of Gen3 was-- who would've been reclaimed, and who subjugated, and what would the price of all of it be.
I think the other thing I didn't like is I didn't understand how justice worked in these stories. It didn't seem to, really. With characters like Odysseus and Joseph, there was an actual payoff in their exploits. Live right, honor the gods, outwit your enemies, persevere during your hardships, and you get rewarded in land, women, sons, renown, etc. Sure, things often fall apart a generation or two down the line (or in the case of Theseus, in his own lifetime) but there seemed to be an actual, you know, life lesson involved her. Teacheable moments and (mostly) happy endings.
Celtic stories are a never-ending bloodbath. Let's have a look at the exploits of Lugh mac Ethlenn, the apparent antecedent of Jugdral's Leif. Lugh's epithets include "skilled in many arts" and "boy hero", FWIW, and arguably he's one of the more appealing and human characters in Celtic myth but IMO that ain't saying much.
DISCLAIMER: This in no way implies that I think Jugdral characters are meant as one-for-one representations of their mythological namesakes. They very clearly are not. For one thing, some Jugdrali share names derived from the same mythical figure. But some draw more from the myths than can be chalked up to random chance.
Okay, to make a very long and convoluted story quite short: Lugh's father Cian gets killed by some dudes. Lugh makes these guys do some impossible tasks-- collecting some magic artifacts-- as payment but they all get fatally wounded in the process and Lugh refuses to save them using the magical artifacts. Then he takes all the stuff they got for him and wages war, settles down, poisons some people here and there and is generally a good king who founds festivals to honor his foster-mother and stuff. Then one of his wives has an affair with some other dude and Lugh kills the guy. Unfortunately that guy has a pack of sons and they hunt Lugh down and drown him. End of story.
[Fun fact: Lugh's been regarded as both a sun god and a trickster god, and his exploits do involve a lot of dirty tricks. They're pretty insane tricks, like building three hundred wooden cows filled with poisoned red "milk" to murder a guest who can't refuse the milk under hospitality law. There is a lot more trickery in the Celtic myths than I gave them credit for as a child and the tricks are almost always deranged. Midir makes fifty other women look just like Etain so the guy who wants the real Etain ends up with his own daughter instead.]
Maybe I just never read an accessible telling of these stories that really brought out the humanity in these alleged heroes, but it's enough to make one long for a simple tale of decency like the Book of Ruth or the story of Baucis and Philemon. I mean, dig what happens to Conchobar, the bad guy in the love story of Deirdre and Naoise (Noishe): "Conchobar is eventually killed as a result of a wound inflicted by the Connacht warrior Cet mac Mágach. Cet had stolen one of Ulster's trophies of battle, the petrified brain of Mesgegra, king of Leinster, and shoots it from his sling so it embeds itself in Conchobar's head."
A petrified brain fired out of a slingshot and embedding itself in some dude's head. Classic. Deirdre killed herself by flinging herself out of a chariot and dashing her head against a stone. Naoise and his brothers all got killed over the Deirdre thing. Diarmuid also got murdered for wife-stealing. Cuchulainn gets offed by a conspiracy of men whose fathers he murdered (see?) after being spiritually weakened by eating dog meat (don't ask). Cuchulainn has already managed to kill his own son by mistake. Fionn became enough of a folk hero that some legends just claim he's off sleeping somewhere, waiting to defend Ireland in crisis, but the less fanciful version has him killed while weeping over the body of his grandson Oscar after the new High King breaks up their protection racket, which is what the fianna warriors degenerated into. After a while your eyes glaze over from this never-ending cycle of beating people up, swearing oaths, backstabbing your enemies, making off with someone else's wives and cattle and then getting murdered in turn. At least Taillte (Tiltyu) dies a reasonably dignified death from exhaustion after making agriculture possible.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure the mad "kill your family" aspects of Jugdral were fed by this, the same way that elements like Fer Doirich the Dark Druid and significant numbers got incorporated into Kaga's stuff. The murderous career, repentance, and death of Michalis in FE1 feels like a suitably Greek tragedy. Something like Johalva slaying his brother over Larcei's affections, then wiping out his other male relatives and then voluntarily exiling himself from the seat of Dozel would be right at home in the Ulster Cycle. There's a certain element of Right to Revenge here-- or even Obligation to Revenge-- but also an acknowledgement that the revenge part just keeps on perpetuating itself. Kill a man, and his son and his servants will be on your ass no matter how long it takes. Better have a lot of strong sons yourself to keep the bloodbath going. Small wonder the crucial lesson that Seliph specifically learns is to let go of that stuff-- Seliph and Julia at least are truly Better Than That. Forseti!Ced might arguably be. Leif and Arthur and Johalva and Faval and Lester and Finn and even Tinny (the one Gen2 girl really allowed to get her revenge on) are not. Altenna and Arion end up as something of a question mark. Gen 1 is most certainly not Better Than That.
Again, one wonders what Kaga's conception of Gen3 was-- who would've been reclaimed, and who subjugated, and what would the price of all of it be.