Extra Credit - Reading Crash Course Myths (Tricksters)

I watched the Crash Course Mythology on Tricksters, partially because I have a tendency to skim the assignment descriptions instead of reading them, so I need some extra credit, and partially because I'm considering writing a story wherein tricksters from different traditions try to trick each other, so I needed some background. 

I really liked the video. It was entertaining, informative, and it really got at the heart of why I think everyong loves not only tricksters, but myths in general. They tell us about ourselves, they give us heroes (or anti-heroes, which I am a sucker for) to root for without taking on any of the risk ourselves. They tell us whats important to us as a culture, and they offer us an imaginative escape. 

Anyway, tricksters, specifically, are popular for several reasons. They're usually the underdog, someone who is not known for having super human qualities. They aren't super strong or super fast, these are things that we normal humans know we'll ever be. But they're super clever, and that is somewhat attainable for us. Easier to imagine, certainly. Tricksters are known for being "agents of chaos," and their stories usually follow the model of them getting stuck in their own tricks but always getting away with it. Tricksters get their comeuppance...briefly...then it's back to scamming fools. 

In a way, the way one sees a trickster is very revealing about their own personal philosophy. Someone who loves a trickster might say something like "Everything is legal if you don't get caught!" while someone who doesn't like a trickster might say "Well, he's gonna get his!" 

But everyone loves a trickster! They're the ones who throw a wrench into the system, making them cultural heroes for the oppressed because they went against someone who clearly outmatched them and still got away with it! Like Brer Rabbit or Hermes. They're also culture heroes because their stories can be used to explain the invention of something that a society really relies on, like Loki and the enchanted boat, Odin's spear, and Thor's hammer. They're creative, inventive, and intelligent, and every culture in the world has some form of artistic expression and/or intellectual appreciation which makes them universal characters as well as culture heroes. Usually they portray moral ambiguity--which even the most pious of people have struggled with, which makes them relatable. 

I think that the reason some people don't like a trickster is the fact that they remind us of our baser instincts. No matter how sophisticated we become as a species, we can't forget the fact that we're animals. I think that the Native emphasis on animal/human spirits and heroes shows this pretty well. The trickster is always motivated by the lowest of needs, even though he uses his higher intelligence to achieve his goals. Food, drink, sex, entertainment, greed...we don't outgrow base desires, they just get more sophisticated as we as a species becomes more complicated. A modern trickster might be motivated by political power, by money, by no-strings sex, by social media status...

I chose this video because I was going to do a portfolio project on tricksters. But thinking about "modern hedonism" gives me ideas for maybe writing a new trickster...I don't know. That's the thing about tricksters, they keep you on your toes. 

Anansi - by mikkel
via piq

Story Lab - TV Tropes

I read up on the different tropes in tv and other genres. I really did find a lot of familiar set-ups. A trope is a recurring theme, motif, or plot device. Some of my favorites are:
1. Real Event, Fictional Cause
2. Discount Lesbians
3. Screw Your Ultimatum! 
I also really liked some of the tropes that fans proposed be added to the data base, like "when a non-human character fails to impersonate humanity because they don't understand human culture." Like Starfire from Teen Titans (the original, not whatever the reboot is), or the Minions, from Despicable Me. I also liked the Fan-Preferred Couple trope, because immediately I could think of several examples where fans preferred one pairing over what was the official/endgame pairing. Like That 70's Show, where Jackie and Hyde obviously should have ended up together; or the more militant Sherlock fandom, which had some members actually sent death threats to Amanda Abbington for playing Mary Watson, because they really wanted Sherlock and John to be together.

But a lot of the tropes I sort of recognized instantly. I love a good "Real Event, Fictional Cause" story. I don't really know what separates that from a mythological origin story other than the seriousness with which the story is taken. I mean, if you wanted, you could consider the moon origin stories from the Anthology as "Real Event, Fictional Cause" stories. Except they are deeply ingrained in culture, rather than sitting on the surface of it like TV characters do. For example, the Doctor from Doctor Who supposedly inspired some of Shakespeare's writing, was responsible of the brief disappearance of Agatha Christie, and invented Yorkshire Pudding (which I have personally never had but it looks pretty simple, I don't know what would be gained by taking credit for it.)

"Yorkshire Pudding"
Sam Greenhalgh via Flickr

I also think the threat on "Discount Lesbians" was pretty accurate and kind of funny. It makes a good point about "othering" homosexual relationships by making sure that one or more of the participants has a very obvious difference in appearance from the audience. Take Doctor Who as an example (again). He has a long-time friend named Vastra, who is a Silurian (a lizard-person from the dawn of time). She's living in Victorian England and is married to a human named Jenny, who pretends to be her maid to avoid that era's homophobia. Jenny is obviously super gay, because not only is she married to a woman but she's married to a lizard woman with a six-foot long retractable tongue ( 😉). 

The third trope that I recognized and instantly cracked up was the "Screw Your Ultimatum!" page. I loved that the site broke it down into the 2 possible responses that the protagonist always seems to choose from. The first is to say something to the effect of one of the following: "Shut up," "Get It Over With," or "F*ck You." The site suggests 'bonus points' for a counter ultimatum. The second option is that the protagonist actually chooses one of the options without having to think about it, and/or chooses a third option that isn't mentioned. My favorite example of "Get It Over With" from the first option is from Supernatural, (spoilers ahead) when in Season 5, Sam has started the apocalypse and gets killed by some (understandably) angry hunters. Even though they're wearing masks, Dean--Sam's big brother--figures out who they are. To keep Dean from hunting them down in revenge, they decide to kill him too. But the Winchester brothers are known for never staying dead, so Dean says my favorite line in the whole series: "Go ahead, Roy, do it. But I'm gonna warn you. When I come back, I'm gonna be pissed." 

Honestly, iconic.

Reading Notes - Twenty Two Goblins (Reading B)

Wow, what a twist! 

So the whole time I'm reading Twenty Two Goblins I'm thinking that the goblin is just this jerk who keeps making this weary king keep going back to pick up a dead body. But turns out that the monk, who sent him on this whole cockamamie journey is evil and wants to kill the king and become king of the fairies. It wasn't until the second to last chapter, "Father and Son, Daughter and Mother," that we even learn that Patience the Monk is actually scheming and conniving against the king. And at first it seemed kind of abrupt for the goblin to reveal what was really going on. But I wasn't even suspicious that the goblin might have an ulterior motive. I just believed him, and so did the king. Because it turns out that the goblin's true nature wasn't an abrupt revelation at all.

I made the rookie mistake of scrolling straight past the intro to each chapter and going straight to the riddle. But in the introduction to each paragraph--which I initially believed I could skip because they were all basically the same--there is a slow and subtle shift in the goblin character. He goes from being an "obvious threat" to having respect for the king's persistence. He grows fond of the king, or maybe he always was and shows it more in the later chapters. The king seems to grow weirdly attached to the goblin as well, because he believes him immediately, so at some point, the king stopped seeing the goblin as a threat. Or maybe he never did. 

The point is that both the characters and the reader get lulled into a sense of security by the repetitive nature of the story, even though ever riddle is different and some of the introductions show subtle shifts in the main characters. I loved that it was a big reveal, and it honestly did catch me off guard. 

"Twenty Two Goblins"
 by Perham W Nahl via Wikimedia

Reading Notes - Twenty Two Goblins (Reading A)

I chose Twenty Two Goblins for this week's reading. I thought it would be interesting to read something with riddles, because I've never been any good at them. The thing about this unit is the King's answers all seem justified, but for some, you could reasonably justify any answer. For others, it's obvious that there is only one choice. 

For example, the very first story, where in three brothers are all in love with the same woman. She passes away and each of them has a role to play in bringing her back to life. The goblin asks the King which of the brothers deserves her, and he chooses the brother who laid around in the girl's ashes (gross) over the brother who took her bones to the Ganges River (double gross) and the brother who went off and learned a magic spell to bring her to life. I think that you could make a case for the magic brother, but I guess the one who rolled around ini her ashes was the right answer, since the goblin didn't kill him. 

But for the story about the three delicate wives, where in three wives are wounded by things that definitely shouldn't wound them, the answer is more obvious. The first wife is hurt by a falling lotus petal, the second is burned by a moonbeam, and the third is bruised by the sound of a mortar and pestle. The goblin asks which wife is the most delicate and the King chooses the third wife. Which seems obvious to me since she was hurt by a sound, and not by anything actually touching her. 

The other thing that I noticed about these stories is how transparent the names are. Even in the introduction, the monk who sends the king out to retrieve this goblin is names Patience. He had been sending the king jewels for twelve years to try to get him to go out and get this goblin (which is hidden inside of a corpse, gross); then, every time the King correctly answers a riddle, the body vanishes and the King has to go back and get it. So this monk has not only been waiting 12 years for the king to even go on the quest, now he's waiting even longer for the king to complete the quest. And the King's name is Victory, which I suppose explains why he keeps surviving the goblin's riddles. All the names in the riddles are transparent as well. A warrior named Brave, or a King named Heroic, a beautiful girl named Lovely, a launderer named Clean-cloth. 

I think that two of these elements would be interesting to try to incorporate into an original story. First, only after reading these stories do I see nothing wrong with shamelessly naming characters after the values they are meant to incapsulate. And second, the casual nature of death and bodies adds an element of horror without horror being the focus of the story. I like that.

"Twenty Two Goblins" by Perham W. Nahl
Wikimedia