Category: Not Pokémon

Anonymous asks:

I came across the story of Kupe and the giant octopus of Muturangi and find it really interesting! But I’m having a difficult time following all the (Maori?) words in the text… If you know the story, could you provide a summary of it? And is it popular or well known in New Zealand, or actually an obscure piece of folklore?

I wouldn’t say it’s obscure, but it’s not one of the stories I was taught at school; I know it because I happen to have a Maori language textbook that draws a lot of example sentences from the story.  This page should give you the gist of it.  Here’s a rudimentary glossary of words that might confuse you (note: the letters “wh” in Maori make something close to an “f” sound, so the word for octopus, wheke, is pronounced roughly like “feké”): Continue reading “Anonymous asks:” →

Anonymous asks:

I love your insight and your posts!!! You’ve made me think about the Pokémon world in ways I never looked at. Just one question, do you sometimes feel overwhelmed by your commitment to this?

AH-HAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHA BAHAHAHAHAHAHA

ahahahahahahahahahahaha

ha

yes

Seriously though… yes, most of the time.  But the thing is, I’m an academic, and academia has a way of trying to make itself into the only source of achievement or self-worth in your life, in a way that’s honestly kinda toxic.  So even if it’s hard to find the time for it, I think it’s important for me, personally, to keep doing this.  That, and it’s good to always be writing.

Anonymous asks:

Why are foxes across different cultures always portrayed as being sly and cunning tricksters? From Western and Northern Europe to East Asia to South America to West Africa, what’s the deal with foxes getting such a rap?

I’m very much not a comparative mythology person so I don’t know if I can help you with that one, but I would guess because they’re stealth hunters, quite intelligent, and despite being similar to dogs and wolves, are much less social.

Anonymous asks:

What’s your position on euhemerism in mythograhy?

(Euhemerism, for the uninitiated, is the idea that mythology derives from retellings and exaggerations of real events)

I’m not super in touch with current trends in the theory of interpreting mythology, and maybe if I were, I would have a favourite theoretical approach, but as it stands, I’m inclined to regard theories like euhemerism and structuralism and myth-and-ritual as a set of tools, which can be more or less appropriate for different jobs.  Some myths make sense through a euhemerist lens and some don’t.  Most myths can be explained using several different theoretical perspectives, and it’s probably a bad idea to expect any one theory to explain every myth.  I think it’s been quite a long time (like 100+ years) since anyone with a real stake in the field seriously believed that euhemerism is sufficient to explain every myth.

Anonymous asks:

In the course of research for a story I’m writing, I found that the Roman god Janus is a perfect allusion for my main character. Could you perhaps spare a little of your time to tell us a bit about Janus? What his place and role in the Roman pantheon was, what things made him happy/sad/angry, general personality traits he favoured, that sort of thing. Thanks in advance, Doctor-to-be!

Janus is the god of doorways, keys, beginnings and endings, change, and the New Year.  He is always depicted with two faces, on the front and back of his head, so he can look through a door in both directions at once, and images of his faces could be set above either side of a doorway to invoke his protection.  The month of January, the beginning of the year, is named after him, and his name is related to the Latin word for door, ianua.  It’s not clear where he comes from, or whether he represents a standard Indo-European mythological archetype, but he seems to have been a very ancient Italian god whose role in the pantheon may once have been extremely important, though most of his functions are vestigial by the time of the late Republic.  Continue reading “Anonymous asks:” →

Check out this thing; I command it

My BFF, Jim the Editor, who proofreads everything on this blog and helps me think over most of the questions I receive, has a new podcast, starting in a few days.  He calls it Nearly Experts, and it is a series of interviews with PhD students from around the world and in different fields about their research, their lives, and academia (I do not feature in season 1, because Jim and his recording studio are at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, whereas I normally live in Ohio and am currently spending a year in Greece, but the stars may yet align for me to make an appearance in season 2).  If that sounds like the sort of thing you might be interested in, check out the introductory episode below!

https://soundcloud.com/nearlyexperts

https://www.facebook.com/NearlyExperts/

Anonymous asks:

Do you have a favourite animal? An extant one, that is.

That’s a tough one… I had a conversation about this with Jim the Editor, whose first reaction is that my favourite animal must be cats.  My response to that was that I have friends who are cats, but that’s not the same thing as cats being my favourite animal (otherwise I’d just pick humans), and that just confused the hell out of him because Jim doesn’t really “get” pets.  I think I might go with the tuatara, which is a reptile we have in New Zealand that isn’t a lizard but looks like it should be, lives for over a hundred years, and has a secret third eye (I am not making any of this up).