One lunatic's love-hate relationship with the Pokémon franchise, and his addled musings on its rights, wrongs, ins and outs. Come one, come all, and indulge my delusions of grandeur as I inflict my opinions on anyone within shouting distance.
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.
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.
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:”
If you were to make a themed team for Cynthia, what would you give her? Feel free to interpret any particular theme you feel is appropriate for her, and you can use Pokémon from any region you want, but you MUST keep her Garchomp.
Ehhhhhhmmmmm. Cynthia likes mythical things and ancient mysteries and such. Garchomp probably isn’t a Pokémon I would have chosen for that theme, given the option, but it is a big dragon, and dragons are magic, so close enough. A lot of her other Pokémon already do have an appropriately mystic feel – Spiritomb, Lucario, Milotic… Roserade doesn’t fit; the Gastrodon she uses on Diamond and Pearl certainly doesn’t fit, though the Togekiss she replaces it with on Platinum is a bit better. I would in principle want to replace them both with Pokémon that exist in Sinnoh. I rather like Bronzong, which has the disadvantage of being Lucian’s signature Pokémon in Diamond and Pearl, but is workable if we just switch it out for Gallade on Lucian’s team (which is actually what happens in Platinum). I’m tempted to go with a second Ghost- or Dark-type for the final slot… maybe Froslass, or Absol.
What book(s) on comparative mythology would you recommend to a beginner?
To be honest, I’ve not read a book on comparative mythology that I’ve liked all that much. It’s a good idea in principle but one that lends itself to overreaching, and making some strange comparisons between cultures that have little in common. Actually, you’ll probably not do yourself a huge disservice by just bingeing a few Wikipedia articles, and as a university teacher I’m not supposed to say that but, well, it has a mix of the actual content of myths and interpretation of them, and can generally point you to respectable books and articles that will tell you more if you’re interested. Just don’t take anything it says on the interpretive side as the gospel truth, and you’ll be fine.
In the Japanese version of Pokemon Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum, there’s a story that references that at one point in history, humans and Pokemon used to intermarry. And, well, we know what usually happens after marriage. Though given the fable-like nature of the Canalave stories, this probably doesn’t mean anything in terms of the game’s canon history, but it is something to think about.
It certainly is something to think about. I think it would be extremely generous to regard these things as being remotely historical without some sort of corroboration (legends about, say, Dialga and Palkia we are compelled to give more credence because of our firsthand exposure to the power of those Pokémon; there’s nothing comparable for this story). We are, after all, talking about what an ancient civilisation believed had happened in their ancient past, so that’s two levels of “ancient past” removed there. Myths of humans marrying animals exist in the real world too and we don’t believe that that means it ever happened. Practically every civilisation has myths of a primordial age when the “rules” were different in some way. I think the existence of those myths says something about the people who told the stories (as all myth does), and the vagueness and offhandedness of what we’re told makes it difficult to say much of that kind. However, I suspect what we’re looking at is an ancient culture that was built (much as the Pokémon world’s modern civilisation is, perhaps more so) around partnership between humans and Pokémon, and had a vested interest in portraying that partnership as equal, regardless of whether that was actually the case.
what do you think about sexualization of pokemon species. Some historical antecedents?
I’m afraid I don’t really know what you mean by “historical antecedents” in this context… do you mean like bestiality in mythology? I’m not by any means well-informed about world mythology generally; I would only consider myself an expert on Greco-Roman myth, and I think what’s going on there is a very different sort of phenomenon. When Pokémon are portrayed in a sexualised manner in fan art and the like, that tends to involve accentuating their human-like traits, particularly feminine ones. The most important cases in Greek mythology involve a male god in the form of an animal (or in the case of Pasiphaë a male animal and a human woman under the power of a god), and make no effort to humanise the animal form in any way. I think the point there is probably something about humans being at the mercy of nature and the divine, ’cause sex is almost always about dominance in Greek culture, and the exemption of deities from human rules and social norms.
A different sort of case again, where a non-human thing does have its human traits emphasised and sexualised, would be creatures like mermaids, and in folklore those tend to be seen as devilish temptresses who are out to kill men, like rusalkas in Slavic myth, so those are about the dangers of temptation and, essentially, a fear of female sexuality. With Pokémon the human is imagined as being emphatically in charge, and the Pokémon are probably in a position where they will habitually seek their trainers’ approval… which makes the whole thing a bit icky the way I see it, in the same way as sexual relationships with children (particularly between teachers and students) are icky.
Pokémaniacal 