The Penatium are taking solid shape, todays musings sparked off by "which member should we be invoking to save us from swine flu?". If you missed the earlier post, the Penatium is a mythic cycle we are constructing around the Campus. The seven buildings here are named after the seven chief deities (well, strictly the other way around...) Our patron deity is the Dude in Brown, who you will have heard me speak of in tones of awe and respect: I adore him! But read on for more Heavenly Creatures goodness.
Vapilla noted we'd missed a building out - the Queen Mother. We're envisaging the Queen Mother as a dark, Hecate, pre-goddess - though no one really knows much about her as yet. Perfect target for mystery cults.
Lord Cameron, the head of the pantheon and father figure, has not been much further investigated, except that over the door of his Hall is a curiously wrought symbol of iron: a castle, flanked by two flying birds. Either geese or swans. Or ducks. When we decide which, doubtless it will become his symbol.
We decided that in some form, the state of the halls were a combination of the deity's interest in house and home, and the devotion of their followers. We surmised our kitchen problem hasn't actually been noticed by the Dude yet, as he's a wandering, disconnected sort of fellow - and Ellison's state of disrepair was due not only to Ellison's commitment to higher levels of thought, but also the lack of work being done on campus. Curiously, Calypso visited the Hall of Lady Chapman last week, and not only confirmed it was green, but also immaculate. The kitchens are clean, the buildings new and well kept - and no one has locks on their cupboard doors. The Lady obviously keeps good watch of her temple, which makes a sort of sense considering her vague matriarch role. Green is the colour of the lady, and her servants and messengers are squirrels.
Their daughter, Rosalind Franklin has taken on a curious turn. Calypso has pointed out, quite correctly, that though she is a maiden archetype she has people fighting for her hand - there's the feeling that one day she could transform into something new. She won't - the battle of Maynard and the Dude is eternal - but she is waiting and willing, unlike how Artemis or Athena would react, by frying them to a crisp at the very suggestion. And plus: how many demure virgins do you know on campus? Thus where is the wellspring of her power, to govern one of the larger houses? The answer lies in the idea of blossoming potential: Rosalind is the nurturer of Freshers.
The Dude too has taken on a more detailed role, as patron of student angst. There's a lot of it about. This fits with his evolving role as a guardian of travellers, and onwards to those of us still up at 4 in the morning making toast and worrying about essays - the antisocial and the morose.
True, he's our trickster archetype, but more dark and cunning than fun loving: he might play jokes, but he's the only one laughing. And I bet he doesn't even laugh, except on the inside. Naturally, he also whispers in the ear of every student pranker. Even though the Dude is, by his very nature, stubborn and untrustworthy, not a deity quick to love or be loved, nevertheless I adore him unconditionally. True, I gripe that he's ignoring the ant invasion in our kitchen, but wouldn't have him any other way. I'm also starting to wonder whether he governs, has kinship with or actually is the fox I've met on campus twice. He is armed with a staff - not openly martial, but just as deadly.
Hmmm, I wonder if it's the Dude we should be placating to help us with the London transport network?
Maynard has not evolved much since last time, except the suggestion that he should have a chariot: emphatic yes! He and his brother are the classic duality, brains vs. brawn, the party animal vs. the committed loner, openness vs. secrecy, optimism vs. pessimism, noise vs. silence. I suppose he too has a secondary role, after Lord of War and Sport, as the overseer of student parties and good-natured booze ups.
Chesney and Ellison remain problematic - they're twins, but less human than the rest, more etherial. We've brainstormed - are they remnants of an older pantheon, or invaders from a new? Are they children, or are they simply childlike and actually older than the rest? Whatever it is, they are something different - they don't interact with the other, bickering half of the Penatium in quite the same way. They are being identified with the sun and the moon, which again makes them...less earthy, more spirity glowy than the others. You get the feeling that, like Kronos, Zeus or Odin, Lord Cameron could be threatened or overcome - he's set himself up as a god and aquired power. They argue and relate on a familiar level - those five are the same, whatever that might be. But I wouldn't know how to begin on the defeat of Ellison and Chesney - can it even be done?
Finally, we've started scraping out the wider world they inhabit. Lord Maughan is a guardian of the underworld sort. I don't have time now to find my notes, but I think we hypothesised that there was a Book of Ultimate Knowledge in the centre of the Maughan, of which he is the guardian. Sometime, there will evolve a travel to the underworld myth which requires this book be consulted or stolen. We are also not agreed on whether Cameron has read this book, or whether he is forbidden to see it - in other words, is Maughan's guardianship decreed by Cameron, or by some higher source - possibly the Queen Mother herself?
The first heroes have also been developed - Ras, guardian of the harvest, wielder of the great trident, beloved of Lady Chapman - a mighty folk hero who defeated the ruthless Skeelings when they came to steal food. He is still invoked as a patron among us, to guard the fridges from wandering fingers. The second hero is yet to have a name - she is an archeress, and hunter of mould-monsters. These fiendish beasts cannot be killed, but by a special tincture with which she anoints her arrows. Rumours this substance is called "Fairy Liquid" have been exaggerated. I haven't discussed this yet, but I presume she would be governed by Maynard?
Vapilla noted we'd missed a building out - the Queen Mother. We're envisaging the Queen Mother as a dark, Hecate, pre-goddess - though no one really knows much about her as yet. Perfect target for mystery cults.
Lord Cameron, the head of the pantheon and father figure, has not been much further investigated, except that over the door of his Hall is a curiously wrought symbol of iron: a castle, flanked by two flying birds. Either geese or swans. Or ducks. When we decide which, doubtless it will become his symbol.
We decided that in some form, the state of the halls were a combination of the deity's interest in house and home, and the devotion of their followers. We surmised our kitchen problem hasn't actually been noticed by the Dude yet, as he's a wandering, disconnected sort of fellow - and Ellison's state of disrepair was due not only to Ellison's commitment to higher levels of thought, but also the lack of work being done on campus. Curiously, Calypso visited the Hall of Lady Chapman last week, and not only confirmed it was green, but also immaculate. The kitchens are clean, the buildings new and well kept - and no one has locks on their cupboard doors. The Lady obviously keeps good watch of her temple, which makes a sort of sense considering her vague matriarch role. Green is the colour of the lady, and her servants and messengers are squirrels.
Their daughter, Rosalind Franklin has taken on a curious turn. Calypso has pointed out, quite correctly, that though she is a maiden archetype she has people fighting for her hand - there's the feeling that one day she could transform into something new. She won't - the battle of Maynard and the Dude is eternal - but she is waiting and willing, unlike how Artemis or Athena would react, by frying them to a crisp at the very suggestion. And plus: how many demure virgins do you know on campus? Thus where is the wellspring of her power, to govern one of the larger houses? The answer lies in the idea of blossoming potential: Rosalind is the nurturer of Freshers.
The Dude too has taken on a more detailed role, as patron of student angst. There's a lot of it about. This fits with his evolving role as a guardian of travellers, and onwards to those of us still up at 4 in the morning making toast and worrying about essays - the antisocial and the morose.
True, he's our trickster archetype, but more dark and cunning than fun loving: he might play jokes, but he's the only one laughing. And I bet he doesn't even laugh, except on the inside. Naturally, he also whispers in the ear of every student pranker. Even though the Dude is, by his very nature, stubborn and untrustworthy, not a deity quick to love or be loved, nevertheless I adore him unconditionally. True, I gripe that he's ignoring the ant invasion in our kitchen, but wouldn't have him any other way. I'm also starting to wonder whether he governs, has kinship with or actually is the fox I've met on campus twice. He is armed with a staff - not openly martial, but just as deadly.
Hmmm, I wonder if it's the Dude we should be placating to help us with the London transport network?
Maynard has not evolved much since last time, except the suggestion that he should have a chariot: emphatic yes! He and his brother are the classic duality, brains vs. brawn, the party animal vs. the committed loner, openness vs. secrecy, optimism vs. pessimism, noise vs. silence. I suppose he too has a secondary role, after Lord of War and Sport, as the overseer of student parties and good-natured booze ups.
Chesney and Ellison remain problematic - they're twins, but less human than the rest, more etherial. We've brainstormed - are they remnants of an older pantheon, or invaders from a new? Are they children, or are they simply childlike and actually older than the rest? Whatever it is, they are something different - they don't interact with the other, bickering half of the Penatium in quite the same way. They are being identified with the sun and the moon, which again makes them...less earthy, more spirity glowy than the others. You get the feeling that, like Kronos, Zeus or Odin, Lord Cameron could be threatened or overcome - he's set himself up as a god and aquired power. They argue and relate on a familiar level - those five are the same, whatever that might be. But I wouldn't know how to begin on the defeat of Ellison and Chesney - can it even be done?
Finally, we've started scraping out the wider world they inhabit. Lord Maughan is a guardian of the underworld sort. I don't have time now to find my notes, but I think we hypothesised that there was a Book of Ultimate Knowledge in the centre of the Maughan, of which he is the guardian. Sometime, there will evolve a travel to the underworld myth which requires this book be consulted or stolen. We are also not agreed on whether Cameron has read this book, or whether he is forbidden to see it - in other words, is Maughan's guardianship decreed by Cameron, or by some higher source - possibly the Queen Mother herself?
The first heroes have also been developed - Ras, guardian of the harvest, wielder of the great trident, beloved of Lady Chapman - a mighty folk hero who defeated the ruthless Skeelings when they came to steal food. He is still invoked as a patron among us, to guard the fridges from wandering fingers. The second hero is yet to have a name - she is an archeress, and hunter of mould-monsters. These fiendish beasts cannot be killed, but by a special tincture with which she anoints her arrows. Rumours this substance is called "Fairy Liquid" have been exaggerated. I haven't discussed this yet, but I presume she would be governed by Maynard?
Comments (7)
I was nearly ecstatic when I saw that the walls inside Lady C were green.
I think we need to pay S. a visit so we can get a look at Maynard's temple - I imagine she'll be hosting a baking session soon, so that'll be a good opp! :)
I am still lobbying for Dae-Toelia as the name of the archeress, if it's far enough removed from Dettol to not be risible. ;) I always thought of her as a more of a nymphy, demi-goddess type though, rather than a mere 'hero' - though perhaps that's just because there were no female 'heroes' as such in the Greek, just nymphs/demis, queens, and goddesses.
Much adoration for the Queen Mother. She's cthonic like anything - almost Eumenidean, if you see what I mean - ancient, dark, bloody, pre-pantheon, but now reborn (a la Furies to Eumenides) as a kindlier nature-Gaia-mother figure. And now I want to write some equivalent of the Oresteia that details her transformation... Christ, this really is getting VERY Heavenly Creatures.
There's a really interesting tension there in Rosalind. Or maybe tension isn't the right word - more a dichotomy of energies, or something? A certain moving vitality born of opposition. THE ACADEMIA SPEAK, IT WILL NOT STOP. (I have been doing Lit Theory today, that's why.)
I still adore the Dude, too. Very much. He's the bastard child of Odin and Loki (mpreg!), with added style.
Have a really, really strong feeling for Ellison and Chesney - possibly because I'm the temple of Ellison, hehe. Again I feel it's kind of Eumenidean, but more intrinsically benign. They're eternal, indestructible, and irreducible - the sun and the moon principles, as old as the Queen Mother, but with the domain of sky rather than earth, so not even slightly cthonic. They're 'above' the petty, capricious quarrelling of the Greek/Norse stylers on the other side of the Penatium. And yet despite being eternal, they are childlike and innocent - because at the end of the day, they are and will always remain sun-principle and moon-principle, untarnished and unchanged. They -can't- age, as it were. And yet - and yet - they have sort of 'accumulated' these extra art-principle and logic-principle attributes, with the slow rise of man from beast, and the growth of civilisation - as folk look up at the sky, Ellison and Chesney are the 'Muses' they see, and the association grows slowly, vegetatively... but the race of man has now lived long, and sun-art and moon-logic have grown on top of Chesney and Ellison like moss growing on unwithered rock.
Goodness me, how poetic. I'm also quite terrified for my sanity at this point.
(Words of the day: blegral, bicrous.)
Oh, and on the Maughan/Cameron/QM thing - I'm pretty sure he's not read it. Maughan feels to me like a very ambiguous figure (kind of like Hades and Hel, really!) - guarding the underworld, well, -somebody- has to do it, and he's not an actively evil antagonist, but... he's not exactly pleasant. A necessary evil, perhaps (which suits the function of the Maughan building perfectly). But yes. Perhaps he is Cameron's elder brother or half-brother? But Cameron is favoured in the world of the light, with his family and court, while Maughan has the darker but arguably more powerful blessing of the Queen Mother... since they're both earthy, underworld and cthonic, it makes sense to me... hey, could the QM be in some way the parent of Cameron and/or Maughan?
(Word of the moment: subzgat.)
This is all sickeningly sensible, and is just darn brilliant. Applause for the Ellison and Chesney revelation!
Dae-Tolia it is! And I know where you're coming from with the nymphiness. Hmmm...she's certainly on a quest/dutybound/vengeance thing.
For the record, Maynard's golden chariot is drawn by huge ginger cats.
I'm liking the Cameron/Maughn duality. The only problem with making them decended directly from the QM - which otherwise makes sense - is where the others came from. Lady Chapman doesn't seem so much a sister-wife as Hera and Isis are, but her own entity. Plus, the Dude and Maynard (though they are the same, um, species as the others), are likewise unrelated.
The cats are perfectly sensible. :) Since the campus cat is such an angry little thing... Oh, oh, we need to donate to the cat fund! To pay for her vet bills!
So, Maynard has the ginger cat(s), Lord Cameron has the ducks/geese/swans, Lady Chapman has the squirrels, the Dude has that fox... leaving only Rosalind in the Inner Penatium without an animal (I think QM and E/C don't really need them). Perhaps she is a patroness of the late-night songbirds? She could be something of a singing twilight wanderer herself, a la a more peacable Artemis... (I must admit, with classic Quenya/Latin confusing, I did have a thought of Rosa-lindur, i.e. rose-singer...)
As for where the other gods came from, I'm sure I can think of an appropriate creation myth. I mean, in some very literal ways, there's no way that Maughan and Cameron can be the offspring of the Queen Mother - they're different orders of being, and there's no father figure (since The Twins are our sky-types we can't have the default Mother Earth and Father Sky thing)... so I'm not really seeing QM as a literal mother of anyone, more as a sort of scarier Allmother (have you read Tailchaser's Song? It's bloody excellent)... an awakener of the gods of the Inner Penatium, and Maughan and Cameron were the First-Awoken, the Morning Sons. I don't know whether she woke them up on purpose or by accident - perhaps both, or either, depending on the version of history and whether she was in Gaia-mode or Hecate-mode - but they were the first 'humanlike' gods to come into existence. And for a time all was well, but Maughan retreated further and further into darkness and study and knowledge while Cameron wanted sociability and power and order and a court. There may or may not have been some kind of big fight, or it could have more a cold war tensions thing. So Cameron (possibly with the help of QM as I doubt he could have had such creative power himself) sets about awakening the rest of the Penatium. Or possibly steals the magic potion used to awaken himself and Maughan and throws it over an area of the land (which is now known as 'Hampstead'...), and the rest of the IP (with possible exception of Rosalind?) springs up? Possibly, indeed, FROM or with the influence of, their special animals? Hmmm. You're going to be here in a minute so I'll quit typing now...
(igumpa, opialia)
OH. MY. GOD.
You know how I said a while ago that 'Rosalind Franklin' was an example of double-naming a la 'Pallas Athene' or, more appropriately, 'Elbereth Gilthoniel'. Well, combined with the 'Rosa-lindur' thing (which incidentally as 'russa-lindur' could mean 'red singer' in straight Quenya I believe) I was going to do a bit of fake academia about Rosalind was probably identified with Elbereth/Varda by the elves (yay for crossover canon...) - and it turns out that 'Varda' actually means 'rose' in Hebrew. Connections! Everywhere!
This seems much less amazing when I type it all out. Oh well.
Also, instead of sleeping I am drawing a sort of flowchart of the Penatium. Will show you tomorrow.
(word: 'ovenin'. Clearly it's the language of ovens (c.f. Sindarin, Telerin)
Erm. Flowchart became six-page creation myth. Damn. Really do need to sleep now, then. But! WE HAVE THE CREATION MYTH. Quite a lot of it comes from what we discussed on the Tube earlier; the rest is largely interpellation on my part, trying to deduce what 'should' or 'must' have happened given what we know about the characters and the world they inhabit... It's all come together and is making a lot of sense to me. Worrying a bit that in places I've sped off in my own direction too much and have abandoned the creative impulses of you and Sinead - but see what you think? After all, it's not as though real legendaria have only -one- version of their myths...
(cappe)
Christ. I stayed up trying to write the damn thing in PROPER PROSE. And now Rosalind's birdies are singing loudly. Fuuuuck. Sleepytimes now.
(shemal)