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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.
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As for Gen 3, well, there's always Seliph the Pure and Simple against Diabolical(ly rational) King Leif ....
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Fortunately Seliph has a good, calm head on his shoulders and he's not a moral simpleton. Frex, I'm pretty sure he knows Patty's stealing to keep the troops fed, and he knows it's not "right" but he goes along with it anyway until the crises are behind them. Maybe it's a shade hypocritical, but that kind of hypocrisy-- as opposed to Sigurd's flat-out inability to understand when he was being a hypocrite-- helps give Seliph the edge IMO.
Also, fortunately for Seliph, Leif idolizes him. If that ever wavered.... ouch.
Teh Bad Guyz should've framed Sigurd for Cuan's murder while they were framing him for everything. That would have made things reeeeal interesting.
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9 bucks betting that if IS actually done this if they remade FE4
hopefully never, it become nothing but Aless mk2no subject
Sadly this is almost certainly true.
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Huh. So I guess we don't know how it's punished, then.
See, in a framework where some abstract form of karma avenges you, it's easy to imagine that parricide will result in you generally get you screwed over. But when it's your own family that's supposed to avenge you, what's that then -- suicide? Or does it pass to the closest kin who isn't you? (Eg, your dad's brother? Should Danan be grumping more about Lex?)
Because it seems like the importance of family is very much there, an assumption beyond all that blood and death, and the Celtic system must have something to say about knifing your dad. (In its absence, I suppose Kaga just used his Japanese senses about it.)
Though the other way around isn't necessarily the same thing. Given how children are often seen as offshoots of their parents I imagine killing your kid can be justified in any number of ways in old world myths. Is that the case here?
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I think that's the case, and it's the case for the Greco-Roman appropriations in, say, the Marthverse, too. I believe it was Hitomi who pointed out how the whole business of divine right as seen in the FE games is very much NOT the Western/Christian version thereof, and I'm sure that goes for filial obligation and some other points as well.
Knowing the Celtic myth and stuff helps to piece together an idea of where Kaga was coming from, IMO, but it's definitely not the Answer to Everything.
Given how children are often seen as offshoots of their parents I imagine killing your kid can be justified in any number of ways in old world myths. Is that the case here?
Good ol' Cuchulainn was just being an idiot. Again. And he was devastated by it. And in a sense it was the kid's "fault" because he was under a geas not to tell anyone his name and never to refuse a challenge.
Generally losing a child or grandchild (especially sons) was yet more cause for bloody revenge, same as fathers and brothers.
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Generally losing a child or grandchild (especially sons) was yet more cause for bloody revenge, same as fathers and brothers.
Revenge against... who, exactly?
EDIT: Oh wait, by "Generally" you mean if some stranger killed them. Right.
EDIT2: I just wiki'd Cuchulainn. I'm almost shocked he isn't Sigurd's namesake.
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Comparing Sigurd to that mythical nitwit is actually unfair to Sigurd. I think Cuchulainn is the source of much of my distaste for Celtic myth. THIS is the best-looking and most heroic thing they can come up with? A brute whose physical description sounds like a monster out of the book of Ezekiel? WTFF.
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Can't say I'm fond of Cuchulainn either. Most of his mistakes come out of his "kill first, think later" approach to life, but unfortunately it seems he never learns.
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So how does all this barbarian hero stuff fit in with all the stuff about fairies? I remember there being quite a lot of it.
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Well, some of the fairy stuff doesn't seem to be connected much to the major heroic myth cycles any more than folk tradition in Catholic cultures ties into the Bible, but IIRC a good deal of Celtic 'fairy' lore is post-Xtian bastardization of earlier stories of Lugh and the rest of the Tuatha de Danann, who weren't exactly humans.
Cuchulainn and Fionn each come out of their own separate heroic myth cycles, the Ulster saga and the Fenian cycle respectively. Basically Big C was the hero dude of Ulster and Fionn was the hero dude from Leinster/Munster and Connacht was the enemy a lot in both stories. There's a fourth major Celtic myth cycle but I don't remember it right now. Some of the Ulster material is basically the Celtic equivalent of the Iliad while the Fenian cycle is more like 'stories about cool guys who did awesome stuff' with no religious elements, really.
And of course this stuff is all Irish; the Welsh and the Bretons had their own variants, with Lugh Mac Ethlenn being Lleu Llaw Gyffes and so on, while the Fenian stories crossed over into Scotland.
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Thanks for the summary.
The main thought I have right now is "wow did Nino's kids take their names from the same guy?"
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Yes! They did. While referencing Leif!
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On a side note, the image of FE!Finn biting someone's finger off is so out of character that it goes beyond amusing all the way to disturbing. I think you're right-at some point, we have to stop matching the characters and their names.
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I think you're right-at some point, we have to stop matching the characters and their names.
Yeah, I wouldn't take Finn's name any more seriously than we'd take Beowulf's or Arthur's. IMO the designers clearly mined Fionn's mythical exploits for stuff like Deirdre's abduction in Ch3, not to mention the name of Fiana village, but it's all just thrown in the great whirly plot blender and spooned back out as needed.
However! When the Lance Knight class was revived in FE9, I do find it amusing that they went for "Oscar" for the name of the only playable LK. I have to wonder if that wasn't a cute winking nod to Fionn's grandson Oscar-- just a little in-joke, if you will.