#I see why ancient cultures thought periods were a curse from god they were so fucking right

[spineless-lobster]

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggggggghhhhhhhhh just woke up from a nap to ease period cramps and it didn’t work and now I feel worse I had FOUR advils today I’m gonna have to use a heating pad even though that barely works someone please just wring me out like a wet cloth and beat me against a rock it would make me feel betterrrrrr

[catofadifferentcolor]

Terrible Fic Idea #61: The Old Guard, but make it Stargate

One of the very few things I dislike about the 2020 TOG movie is how little forethought the escape from Merrick's headquarters appears to show. We see dozens of samples taken... and as far as I can tell, all those samples and the doctor who took them survived the firefight. And if her results were being pushed to the cloud? That's one big problem left unresolved. Not to mention a firefight in the middle of London's business district - inside a business that does dealings with the US military at that - is bound to be thoroughly investigated regardless of the strings Copley pulls to cover it up.

All of which came together in my head to ask: What if, six months post-Merrick, The Old Guard gets picked up by Stargate Command?

Just imagine it:

One of the things I love best the Stargate universe is that it takes place so very definitively in the 90s. It's settled in its time period, not some hopeful, impossible future. But for that sake of this AU let's push everything forward 20 years make it so the events of SG1 S4's "The Curse" happen in the same week as the escape from Merrick.

From the outside looking in, there's a lot about the Old Guards' flavor of immortality that looks like having a goa'uld symbiote. This means when the SGC goes looking for other possible goa'uld on Earth after Osiris' escape, they think they find five in the shape of the immortals, with Nile possibly being the latest host for the symbiote that Quỳnh once carried.

The more the SGC looks, however, the less clear it becomes. Daniel is able to recreate most of Copley's research and then some, stretching as far back as written records will allow. Their next thought is tok'ra, but those haven't been around long enough to account for Andy. Maybe she's the queen of a similar group that's been stuck on Earth for a long time and the others are her surviving offspring? There are records of a god matching her description on the Western Steppes in ages past...

With that assumption in mind, six months post-Merrick SG-1 is sent to make contact with the guard, hoping to gain more allies against Apophis.

The meeting itself is both extremely tense and a comedy of errors. Both groups are on completely different pages as to why they're meeting and what's at stake, and it very nearly ends in a firefight before Daniel goes into an impassioned speech (at gunpoint) as to why the guard should help humanity fight the goa'uld... to which Andy goes what the fuck are you talking about?

Once every gets on the same page and assurances are made that there will be no human experimentation whatsoever, the guard end up joining the SGC as independent contractors. Officially they are SG-21, assigned to search and rescue/covert ops, but mostly they continue to fight for what we think is right, just on a galactic scale. They nominally check in every few weeks, but are largely left to their own devices. This makes the rare occasions any of them are in the Mountain memorable.

A selection of those memorable visits include: 1) Daniel being hogtied, left in a closet, and not found for 15 hours after asking Andy one too many questions about ancient cultures; 2) Sam stumbling upon Joe and Nicky having a deep conversation in a patois of languages in the middle of the cafeteria about how much the Earth and their place in it has changed in their lifetimes, from Jerusalem being the center of ancient world maps to an ever expanding galaxy inhabited by people just like them. It should take vaguely the same tone as Sagan's Cosmos before being completely derailed by one of them asking so, do you think endlessly asphyxiating in the vacuum of space is better or worse than endlessly drowning at the bottom of the ocean? This too should be discussed at macabre length, possibly going into their personal ten worst ways to die lists - but in mostly English, throughly disturbing their fellow diners; and 3) Nile encountering someone she once knew in the Marines for the first time during the events of "Heroes" and having to do the say, I can get killed but don't stay dead speech for the first time herself after dying midway through the mission and coming back to save the day.

Once again, that's all I really have - just lots of scenes of the characters of both fandoms interacting but very little change to the plot lines of either.

Bonuses include: 1) The guard initially being offered commissions in the US Marines for their work at the SGC. These are turned down for a variety of reasons, the last one jokingly being that Joe and Nicky have never gone longer than a week without saying something unbearably romantic to each other and it'll save them the trouble of having to immediately cashier them both out. Extra bonus points if this leads Nicky on overwatch to send a warning shot past the speaker's ear before anyone can bring up the DADT repeal. 2) Booker having been grounded rather than exiled. This should be paired with Nile occasionally slipping into an exasperated yes, Mom whenever Joe and Nicky get overprotective, leading to much confusion as to the guards' family dynamics when they first join the SGC. Some Marines convinced for years that the immortals are, in fact, like the tok'ra and that one of the men is the host for their queen; and 3) The base quartermaster having absolutely no fear of any of them and publicly chewing them out on multiple occasions for the sheer amount of clothes they go through.

Honestly, I have tons of little scenes of this crossover in my head and no coherent storyline to it all, so it may end up as a drabble collection if the bunny stays around long enough. Otherwise, feel free to adopt this bun. As always, link back if you do anything with it.

More Terrible Fic Ideas

[rudjedet]

(I hate asking questions on mobile but my options are limited right now, please forgive poor word choices or strange typos)

So a very VERY common thought that still exists despite being inaccurate as all hell was that Egyptian royalty was super inbred. We KNOW that’s not accurate (I mean. Besides the ptolemys. I’m not talking abt them. The inbred ones were primarily Greek anyway)

It’s an outright pervasive misconception most people still cling to, and I wonder why that is? Is it a language thing, like how some cultures don’t have words for Cousin and thus use terms for sibling in its place? Is it based primarily off of horrible dated racist misinfo from the same era of “mummy’s curse”? A misunderstanding about how the gods were both siblings and married, leading to beliefs the Egyptian “worshippers” were the same? Some other factor I’m not aware of, like children of the concubine of the pharaoh? How did this misconception even get off the ground? What’s its origin and base?

(Note: worshippers is in quotations because iirc you’ve stated that while gods and belief were part of day to day life, it was by no means the fanaticism that a lot of misinfo acts like it was? I’m hoping that’s accurate. Aaa.)

You're correct about the nature of worship in ancient Egypt, yes! While personal piety was definitely an important part of life (although some people might be less “into it” than others, but that’s just human nature), the regular Egyptian people worshipped smaller local gods and household gods. But even if they had worshipped e.g. the Ennead, fanaticism certainly isn’t how we’d describe that.

I’m not sure there’s much of a point of origin other than that Egyptologists back in the day translated Greek and Roman accounts first and took their word for it. When we started translating Egyptian we realised that things were different, to put it mildly. But because most lay people can only get their hands on those older texts written based on those accounts, and they keep using those, that’s the info that ends up in popular culture, that’s how we get stuck in “all of them only ever married their full siblings ew”.

Now we’re here I’m going to take the time to put some proper info out there, though, so. Usual suspect for incestuous marriages that people bring up as proof is definitely the Ptolemaeic Dynasty (but even they sometimes - albeit rarely - married outside of their family). People tend to transpose a lot of Ptolemaeic Egyptian aspects onto the rest of Dynastic Egypt when Ptolemaeic Egypt is more like ancient Greece with some Egyptian scenery. Really not indicative of every other period of ancient Egypt.

The Egyptians used the words sister/brother as endearment terms for their spouses, which you will see cited as somehow incontrovertible proof that royals exclusively married their full siblings - usually while ignoring that non-royal Egyptians used the same terms and no one ever claims everyone in ancient Egypt was inbred to fuck.

There’s also the divine precedent of brother-sister marriages that folk love to throw out there. But even in the realm of the divine, not every deity married their full sibling, and neither did the term “marriage” always mean the same thing it did in the mortal world. Seth and Nephthys, for example, were spouses more to complete the cycle than out of a genuine concept of marriage even to Egyptian standards. And while Osiris and Isis had a more traditional kind of marriage pre-Osirian death, for the most part they are actually separate with Osiris in the West and Isis in the realm of the gods. Geb and Nut? Kept apart by Shu. So point there being, divine sibling marriage does not proof of an incestuous royal marriage precedent make.

However, royal inter-family marriage did sometimes happen. Certainly not the extent that certain people like to claim, and neither does its existence mean that these marriages were definitively consummated in every single case - quite like the sibling marriages in the realm of the gods, actually. In a lot of cases these marriages (including those where certain pharaohs married their daughters) were ritualistic more than anything else. And these marriages could be between cousins of half-siblings just as easily. People also tend to forget that the king’s extended family was, in most cases, enormous. Even if a king did marry his full sister and consummated that marriage, it wasn’t a given that the offspring of that particular coupling would end up on the throne. And let’s not forget that there are plenty of royal/non-royal marriages either. Not to grind to fine an edge on Amenhotep III’s love for Tiye, but... yeah.

So yeah, super inbred? No.

[peirates]

‘Did the Romans and ancient Greeks ... ?’

Google autocomplete is a gem and a curse. Inspired by @todayintokyo’s post on questions about Japan, I thought I’d have a look at what people are asking about Rome and classical Greece and, wow...

Christmas holidays leave a lot of time for milling around, so I’ll answer them in case anyone’s interested. (Please forgive me if any of this is incorrect/incoherent, it’s nearly 11pm as I’m writing this lol)

Did the Romans speak Latin?

Yes, Latin was Rome’s (and the Roman Empire’s) official language! Of course, many Romans or foreigners in Rome spoke other languages for the sake of communication, trade and education - Greek was particularly popular among the nobility - but Latin was what they all had in common.

Did the Romans invade Scotland?

Long story short, no. They tried, failed, and built Hadrian’s Wall to keep the ‘barbarian’ Gaels out - southern Britain was already too cold and muddy for the temperate Romans, not much point in losing more lives over more mud. 

(Hadrian’s Wall was what inspired Game of Thrones’ The Wall, as confirmed by G.R.R. Martin himself, but Hadrian’s was nowhere near as high, thick or long.)

Did the Romans have glass?

Absolutely! In fact, their skill with it was much more artistic and masterful than the average glassmaker today, just search ‘roman glassware’ here on Tumblr or on Google images to see what I mean.

Did the Romans invent concrete?

Yep! It’s famed for its durability, which is due to its contents of volcanic ash (Pompeii flashbacks), lime and seawater. The seawater reacted with the ash over time to give it its strength and anti-cracking nature.

In fact, the Roman method was so effective that it lasts for far longer than modern concrete (modernity/Westernisation =/= progression, it seems) and scientists today are trying to find ways to revitalise it.

Did the Romans eat pizza? / Did the Romans eat pasta?

Sadly not, only later Italians did. Their empire deserved to crumble for not inventing either smh.

Did the Romans invade Britain? / Did the Romans invade England?

They did indeed in AD 43 under Emperor Claudius, and they only began to withdraw in the late 300s when the city of Rome was being threatened by a Germanic tribe called the Visigoths.

Did the Romans invade Ireland?

No. Even now, archaeologists have no idea to what extent they communicated or even knew of each other.

Did the Romans celebrate Christmas?

Emperor Constantine only began converting the empire to Christianity from AD 313 (they had been pagan previously), and the earliest evidence we have of Romans celebrating Christmas was in 336 AD, very late in Roman history. Throughout most of Roman history, therefore, no they did not celebrate Christmas.

(They did have a festival which was similarly important and similarly timed (mid-December) called the Saturnalia. It also involved communal partying, gift exchanges and a general spirit of liberty (e.g. slaves could order around and punish their masters) - it was one of the most anticipated festivals of the Roman calendar. However, the purpose was very different: it was to worship the pagan god Saturn, the father of god-king Jupiter and the previous ruler of the world before its occupation by humanity. Namely, the festival marked a return to the ancient ‘Golden Age’ in which nature was dominant, peaceful and uncorrupted.)

Did ancient Greece have emperors? / Did ancient Greece have kings?

No emperors, traditionally Greece was comprised of city-states ruled by kings (or theoretically by the dēmos, the people, if you were Athens). Under Roman occupation it did answer to Rome’s leaders (consuls, then later emperors), but the idea of emperors was much more late-Roman than Greek.

Did ancient Greece celebrate Christmas?

Nope. It was originally pagan and did not celebrate any Christian holidays until a) it was conquered by Rome b) Rome later converted to Christianity, thus enforcing it on the rest of the empire. However, this conversion point was so long after the ‘heroic’ and ‘classical’ periods of Greece that by the time it did become mostly Christian, it was no longer ‘ancient Greece’ in the same sense.

Did ancient Greece have electricity?

Y’all are asking the real questions out here, that’s for sure lmao. 

Nope, electricity wasn’t used anywhere as a power source until Thomas Edison’s studies about two thousand years later.

God though, a good ol’ GPS would have saved Odysseus a lot of trouble.

Did ancient Greece and Rome overlap?

Oh, nelly...

Greece predated Rome by at nearly a thousand years, but Greece’s and Rome’s histories together lasted for centuries, even before the latter conquered the former. It’s why they are studied together as one field of academia. Many Italian settlements were in fact Greek colonies. Classical Greek helped shape Latin. Much of Roman religion was inspired by that of the Greeks. Many Greeks could speak Latin and many Romans could speak Greek. Roman art, philosophy and architecture was particularly fascinated by that which was Greek - to put it in meme format, the crab is Roman culture and the crocodile is Greek culture. And these are just the absolute basics, entire tomes have been written on Greece’s and Rome’s somewhat symbiotic relationship.

TLDR hell yes they did.

Did ancient Greece have a flag? / Did ancient Greece have a constitution?

Nah. Although history often refers to Greece as one country, one culture, it was more a collection of independent city-states with their own identities and constitutions. 

They all had three things in common: religion (+ the moral/social codes which came along with it), language, and (in most cases) enemies from abroad -  therefore in later centuries, as well as their city-based nationalities, they did all call themselves the Hellenes. If you were a fellow Hellenic, you’d be able to work and live in other Greek cities with less trouble than if you were to try, say, in a ‘barbarian’ land such as Persia. Greeks were civilised; everyone else was an uncultured brute. Hence, their sense of unity was more from fear of the outside, from xenophobia, than from internal harmony.

Because of this, there was never an altogether complete sense of assimilation. Different cities had distinct dialects, favoured different gods/cults within the wider Pantheon, often warred against each other (especially Athens and Sparta, whew), fed their own specific cultures and law-sets and reputations. Nationality and citizenship in that age were not really about country or region, the world was just too small for that. You wouldn’t say ‘Hi I’m Phoebe and I’m Greek’, you’d say ‘Hi I’m Phoebe and I’m from the city of Halicarnassus.’ The closest analogy I can really think of is the cities in the dystopian series, Mortal Engines.

So no, they didn’t have a single flag or constitution. There was just not enough unity between them all.

Did ancient Greece trade?

Initially I was going to wave this off as a silly question because ‘hurr durr everyone trades’ but ACTUALLY. 

Along with the rest of the eastern Mediterranean, Greece had its own Dark Ages between the fall of its early society (aka Mycenaean Greece) and the rise of Homeric-style poetry and culture, i.e. between the 1100s and 700s BC. Communication in general was absolutely awful: there were no great armies, no great cultural progressions, and yes, no substantial trade. The fact that Greece was then feeling down in the dumps also discouraged foreign trade. 

It took the bard Homer’s influence to get people to start thinking, creating, travelling and thus mass-trading again - this sudden surge in activity eventually led to Greece’s Classical Period, i.e. 4th century BC, you’ll probably imagine gleaming Athenian pillars. Increased thinking and culture led to increased politics/nationalism, increased p/n led to increased warring and military action, increased warring improved transport and communication, and WHOOSH suddenly trade took off.

So basically, Mycenaean Greek trade was good (as far as we can tell), Dark Ages Greek trade was shocking, Classical Greek trade was quite literally revolutionary.

Did ancient Greece have lions?

Yep! However, they weren’t like the sub-Saharan lions you’re probably imagining right now - those are Panthera leo, but the Eurasian lions that would have been in Greece were Panthera spelaea.

Nevertheless there were indeed lions and they played a huge role in Greek mythology and literature. The Nemean Lion was the first of Hercules’ Twelve Labours; Homer, the trendsetting legendary lad that he was, created a trope of comparing something innocent and vulnerable to something vicious and savage and desperate by using the analogy of a lamb and a hungry lion.

Did ancient Greece have a democracy?

Nope, only one city named Athens did. Don’t get me wrong, it was at the time and still is a big deal considering it hadn’t been done before, BUT there are three important things to note:

It was ONLY Athens which had a democracy - every other Greek city kept their kingships.

The Athenian democracy wasn’t what we’d call democracy. Only free, Athenian-on-both-sides men could vote and participate in local politics - this left out all slaves, all women (even if they were Athenian), and all foreigners or residents of foreign descent (no longer how long you and your family had lived in and worked in and contributed to the city and community).

It wasn’t foolproof considering it eventually got overthrown by power-seeking tyrants.

i.e. a part of ancient Greece had a democracy.

[lilpee-pee]

Hilda is even more obscure than I initially thought; a mythological masterpiece!

I’m not sure how many other people have noticed this, but here’s the list I’ve made from lots of research! This post will consist of no specific spoiler. But if you don’t want to know about anything yet, DO NOT READ THIS!!!

So after re watching the entire show, I noticed something rather interesting. Each episode features a creature or culture derived from ancient mythology. 

Episode 1;

The Elves: At first, I assumed this was about fairies. The tiny civilizations they must have. But after looking at the landscaping of the backgrounds, it hit me. These are based off of Iceland’s Huldufolk. This translates directly to hidden people. Said to be protectors of their good fortune, the government of Iceland made completely illegal any construction or interference with what is supposedly land that belongs to these small, invisible elves, who live in miniature houses called alfhols. Wait. Alf? Alfur? Coincidence? I think not. 

Episode 2;

Giants: The giants of Hilda are solely based off of Norse mythology. Legend tells of a tribe of beautiful giants, who once lived between the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains. There were hundreds of species, living in hundreds of habitats. The Great Spirit, however, grew tired of their aloof and mighty behaviors toward each other, so he allowed their enemies to conquer them; the humans. Only two giants survived: Paiute and his wife. Sounds about right. 

The Woodman: This monotone cryptic of Hilda’s assorted friends took me quite a bit of research to track down the origins to. But finally, I found him. Based on Greek culture, he’s actually a dryad, or “oak nymph”. These walking, wooden creatures exist to look after the oak tree they were forged from. So let’s suspend some disbelief and assume Hilda’s ancestor used the Woodman’s tree in order to build the cabin Hilda lives in. Why else would he have stuck around, since he’s always minorly annoyed and yet indubitably shows up in many of Hilda’s childhood crayon drawings? Just a thought.

Episode 3;

Thunderbird: These birds originate from Native American beliefs. By flapping its gigantic wings, it creates thunder and lightning, controlling the storm season and bringing excellent harvest. With storms, come rain, so the arrival of the thunderbird was always a promising sign. Present in their dances, tattoos, and carvings, he protected them from the great horned serpent and it’s destructive tendencies, bringing whoever favored him good luck and prosperity. Slides right in with Trolberg’s annual parade, don’t you think? And it brings a whole new connotation to the city’s “statue”, when the Great Raven explains how he had sat on top of it; his symbol was always present at the very top of a totem pole. 

Episode 4;

Vittra: These stinky little onions are more than they seem to be. From Northern Sweden, these underground dwelling nature spirits are very aggressive, territorial, and hated humans. They’re also known to have invisible cattle, which they milk for food and commonly steal from mortals who have wronged them. Really explains the cows, huh? They’re known to make humans’ lives miserable, especially when they meddle with their tunnels, lifestyle, or even cross their borders. Even in modern day, people have moved their homes away from any nearby “vittraställe”, or vittra way, just in case. 

Episode 5;

Trolls: Another Icelandic folktale, trolls are said to have been dim witted, man eating creatures that turned to stone upon contact with sunlight. Even in Lord of the Rings, they used these concepts. So why wouldn’t Hilda? If you visit the beaches of Iceland, it is said that the huge boulders scattered about the shores, and in the water, were once trolls. They were caught by the dawn as they attempted to crush the ships returning to their homes, carrying fishermen finding food for their families. These “troll rocks” are their bodies, reaching out to the sea, now forever entrapped in stone. 

Episode 6; 

Marra: Originally known as mare, which eventually attributes to the word “nightmare”, the Hungarian marra are malicious entities that possess humans with certain amounts of negative energy. Teenagers with depression, mostly, which also helped create the possessed, creepy kid trope in horror movies. While you sleep, they perch on your chest, and expose your mind to its deepest fear. Eventually, the marra evolved into the legend of the boogey man, so in retrospect, they never actually disappeared. 

Episode 7;

The Bragga: These outcasted group of elves, who made a failed contract with the Aldric family over “No Elf’s Land”, aren’t just coincidentally donning beard braids and helmets, obsessed with fighting physically, drinking ale, spitting, and riding rabbits like they’re jousting horses. They’re based off of Nordic Vikings, their separation from Scandinavia, and the culture that they eventually developed. Their tendencies to favor combat over reason is made evident, too, however stereotypical it may be. This is pretty much the only example the show has used so far to allude to a historical period of time. 

Episode 8;

Tide Mice: Taken from Mapuche mythology, these voodoo rodents are actually supposed to be colo colos. Evil, rat-like creatures, they hide in your house to feed on your saliva while you sleep, eventually bringing about comatose states and long term memory loss. Once all of your life juice has been depleted, your soul is completely sucked from your body and the colo colo consumes it in order to go on living. Despite their complete irrelevance with wicca, the way the show manages to assimilate the two is genius. 

Episode 9;

Ghosts: I feel like this speaks for itself. They’re very commonly used, but the show does a good, unique job of connecting a ghostly presence not with a negative haunting that needs to be handled or else everyone will die, but with a helpful spirit, just hanging around a house because it’s linked to a specific item or object. 

Episode 10;

Wind Spirits: The wind spirits, which were based off of Roman Anemoi, minor wind gods that each represented a cardinal direction, are shown in Hilda as debaters who couldn’t come to a conclusion. Their fighting is what makes gigantic natural disasters. This is mocking a bit of fun of Roman philosophers, who were known to sit around in their forums, arguing until the entire town couldn’t stand it. The irritated citizens would call these prolonged discussions, “storms of the intellect”. 

Episode 11;

Cursed Cottage: I have no clue where this myth derives from, and I couldn’t find much else except Into the Woods songs, but this is basically adopting the enchanted cottage trope. The gingerbread house that actually houses a wicked witch, the lone hut that holds everything Goldilocks longs for except for its occupants; so many fairy tales center their setting around a manipulative house that tries to snatch you up and never let you go. So this one is probably just a primal usage of that timeless idea, combined with a cool twist of inter dimensional neurotics. Pretty cool!

Episode 11;

Nisse: Also fondly known as house brownies, nisse are Norweigian dwarves, living inside of your home. Sometimes known to mischievously steal your things, like socks, car keys, old toys, jewelry, etc, they make nests in your walls or your abandoned, most frequently forgotten to check spots. If you are kind to them, leave them food, and treat them well, they will go out of their way to do good things for you, like wash your dishes, dust your desk, or, yknow, purge evil energies from your body. But if you anger them, they can be quite a hassle; breaking things is a usual reaction. Either way, if you ever catch them, you have the right to forcefully evict them from your home. 

Episode 12;

Black Hounds: Black hounds, throughout the history of mythology, are always seen as a dark, ominous omen, warning you of potential suffering, struggle, pain, turmoil, chaos and death. So pretty darn bad. Seeing a black hound, or even owning one, is still a superstition, today. They’re literally called the “accumulation of everything that is evil on this plane of existence.” But, if you haven’t already watched Hilda, keep Sirius Black in mind, and his patronus, which reminds us, “don’t read a book by it’s cover.” 

That’s all I’ve got to say, gamers! There are some that I skipped, like the lindworm, water spirits, stuff like that. But all in all, Hilda is a mythological masterpiece. Watch it whenever you can if you appreciate lore in any way, because it’s not just a beautiful, naturally diversified show about a socially anxious girl assimilating into a new culture. It’s taking incredibly interesting and obscure pieces of mythological history and braiding it into a perfectly constructed storyline. Whether or not it’s educational is up to you. Not even including here how breath takingly gorgeous the animation, use of color, and backgrounds are. Just... please. Don’t sleep on it! 

[twelvedreamsfortheredqueen]

Vampyr’s Vampires and Their Connections to Previous Vampiric Figures in History: An Analysis

When Outermode interviewed Stéphane Beauverger, narrative director, and Grégory Szucs, art director, of Dontnod, they both spoke of the sexual elements of the vampire as a creature itself, it’s history and mythological roots, and why that within Vampyr, the player is always damned to misfortune no matter their choices. Above all, however, they spoke about their vision for what kind of vampire that Vampyr was meant to represent:

“We wanted to go back to the roots of the vampire figure. The Victorian, tragic, romantic, and adult vampire. Who is very sexual. Who is a very erotic creature, always seducing his prey. I wanted to go back to this gothic vision of that particular character...The vampire is seductive. He knows what he was, who he was, and he’s always trying to remember his love. He’s a quite erotic and sentimental figure, a romantic figure actually.” 

I wanted to dig deeper into this aspect, of exactly what the developers were trying to accomplish with the vampires they presented to us within the game, and most importantly, what type of vampire Jonathan is as well as other characters in the game, and how we got to those kinds of vampires. This will be a pretty long essay, and will only be covering vampire works that I believe Dontnod may have taken some inspiration from (since Vampyr’s inspirations as a whole branch much farther than only vampiric literature), but I will do my best to split it into sections so you can skip around. I also don’t have any kind of formal training in writing essays, so I apologize if anything seems messy or hard to follow! Just send me a PM/ask if anything is off or strange to read. And of course, please message me if you feel there’s something inaccurate or want to share any thoughts! Feel free to respond and add to this essay as you wish!

Be wary of unmarked spoilers! Most of the sections in this essay will discuss Vampyr in length and will be chock-full with them, so do not read the essay if you don’t want the game spoiled or ruined for you (there will also be spoilers of other vampire works, but they will be marked)!

Tagging you, @cursedbethechoice as asked! And a big thank you for helping me with sources and editing!

Here are the sections to skip through with CTRL + F/Scroll to in order: 

I. The History of the Vampire: Background II. The Dichotomies of Vampyr’s Species: Ekon, Skal, Vulkod, Nimrod, Ichor (Ikor), and Disasters III. Credits, Extra Comments, and Sources

I. The History of the Vampire: Background

Before we start any discussion on how Vampyr connects to other vampire works, we first need to establish what a vampire was and most importantly, what it has become in our era and the era during Vampyr‘s  time, which was 1918, and just generally answer the questions: What is a vampire? What were they known as before present times? And what has remained throughout all the years of their interpretation? This section will mostly be re-iterating the history, and will have a little bit of analysis here and there, but it’ll mostly be to help give a general understanding of how the vampire came to be! (*Also note, that vampire works and history are INCREDIBLY long and require their own anthologies to truly go through them all, so I only picked and discussed notable ones, but many more works in vampire history have changed the way we view vampires!). The vampire that we know of is actually very modern compared to the whole history of vampires. Vampires in ancient times were not even referred to as vampires. Ancient vampires were always associated with some sort of ruin, unholy aspects, and said to be the work of Evil or the Devil itself. Vampires are stories of humans, and we as humans are made of blood, so something that rids of that life force, is something that invites death to our door. The majority of cultures in the world have some sort of vampiric variation of a mythological creature: shtriga in Albania, garkains in Australia, jiangshi in China, lamia in Libya.  Many figures or creatures that already existed became vampires in a variation of these myths or shifted into one, the same applied to religious figures. Lilith (or Lilītu)  is the most famous example in Abrahamic religions (Islam, Christianity, Judaism), seen as a dangerous woman and demon of the night for denying Adam subservience before Eve, and has existed since the Old Testament in the Bible, from Genesis 1:27, where it was stated that she was born from the same soil Adam was in. Away from Jerusalem, were the kumiho (gumiho) in Korea; wicked, nine-tailed fox spirits that could freely transform, often as beautiful women, in order to seduce men and eat their livers or their hearts.  In the interview I linked above, Beauverger mentions his own ancient vampiric creature, the Greek creature known as a “vrykolakas”  (or vorvolakas or vourdoulakas), which is an example of an ancient vampire creature that spanned to ancient Greece. It is a word derived from the Slavic word “vǎrkolak”, and was known ultimately known as a creature of blood. The Greeks believed that a person would become a vrykolakas if they lived in an unholy manner, were excommunicated from their communities, left buried in unconsecrated (unblessed) ground, or by eating the meat of a sheep that was harmed by a wolf or even a werewolf. This legend spanned from Ancient Greece to the Ottoman Greece periods, the earliest recorded being the Neolithic period at Cyrpus, or circa. 4500–3900/3800 BCE. Vampyr itself actually mentions these creatures within the game:

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But throughout the eras between ancient times to our modern beliefs, what did these creatures look like, and what abilities did they develop that stuck with us today? Given how unholy they were and believed to be, many of them did not take the shapes of humans, and instead took the shape of monstrous, grotesque beasts. Many creatures could even be compared more to werewolves, and some took shapes that were incomparable altogether. The most modern example of this monstrous look before the evolution to the more humane, walking corpse that we know of, was the old German horror film Nosferatu in 1922, who looked like this. 

Chupacabras, or literally “goat-suckers”, are creatures famously known in parts of the Americas and were first have said to be seen in Puerto Rico, and expanded to Chile and Mexico. “Chupar” means “to suck”, “cabra” means goat, and this refers to how they would often attack and suck the blood of livestock. They’re described in a variety of ways, but all of them remain quite monstrous. 

Jeff Carter, Flickr, 2001.

Some interpretations are much more dog-like, and is one of the many examples of how vampiric creatures have been compared to werewolf or canine-like mythological creatures (many legends often considered the two synonymous, as werewolves were known to have a craving for flesh, and were also seen as damned or cursed).

“Chupacabra” by 000Fesbra000 on Deviantart.

The abilities denoted by these creatures, be they humane or monstrous in appearance, have remained rather consistent throughout folklore. The main key ability would of course, be the ability to consume blood or at least, have their main source of sustenance be from blood. The majority of their abilities came from some malicious and profane force, often victimizing the poor soul through means of brute force, seduction, or by haunting their own bodies. Vampires are creatures of physical and spiritual violation (in the act that they both violate the body by ripping it of its life force, and by spiritually “corrupting” the soul and shaping the victim to a vampire, in many legends). Many succubi and incubi, for instance, are synonymous with vampires due to their legendary notoriety for preying on those in slumber, and because sexuality in many religious was deemed impious outside of marriage. Many ancient cultures considered sleeping to be a moment where one’s dreams held a greater meaning to the Gods (Ancient Egyptians), or that it was reaching a state of pure consciousness (Hinduism). Thus, anything that disrupted such pureness and piety would be something that one could easily deem as demonic and evil. 

The Nightmare, 1781, Johann Heinrich Füssli 

Incubus, c. 1870 - 1879 

To further expand on how incubi and succubi were seen as bastardizations of religious faith, notice the pose the incubus takes in the second image. It is similar to the pose Jesus took during his crucifixion. There is also fire in his right hand and a dagger in his left. The right hand is often associated with salvation and fortune, yet it is being burnt, much like the infinite flames that occur in Hell. The left hand is the sinister hand due to it’s association with evil in the Classical Latin era because of translations; the word “sinister” during this era was synonymous with outright malignancy. It was seen as the hand touched by the Devil. Estries of Jewish mythology were specifically female vampires that were considered identical to succubi. The name is a derivation from the French word “strix” or lit. “night owl”; blessed with haunting beauty and a craving for blood, they were seen as mistresses of the night that fed on the living. Specific legends tell of succubi that would kill pregnant women or babes out of spite and envy, and some would seduce (or rape) men as they slept. Much like many other vampiric creatures, they could take the shape of various animals that are still symbolically associated with vampires—cats, bats, and birds. This seductive and beguiling quality of the vampire we know today came due to the nigh-synonymous association with sexually demonic creatures. The ability of mesmerization we see in modern vampires is also due to this association. From these monstrous depictions, however, as time moved forward along with science, the vampire transitioned into a much more humane form (while the succubi and incubi I mentioned above could take a humane shape, they were rarely depicted as such and were more commonly depicted as eerie beings that simply took the flesh of a human as their skeleton of sorts). This is where the most modern examples start beginning to take shape. European folklore (Western and Eastern) had an intense craze and mass hysteria in the 18th century due to the fear that the dead were now rising from their graves to haunt their loved ones and cause mischief. This craze fascinated and feared many, spreading all across Europe and causing the mass desecration of graves, stalking, and accusing very healthy people as vampiric in this hysteria. Why the hysteria at all? And why was the dead during this time associated with vampires in the first place? Without becoming too grisly in details, this was due to ignorance about the process of human decomposition. Our image of the modern vampire being pale with translucent veins, and lack of breath or heartbeat, is due to this old belief. Early folk beliefs around this time believed that the “swelling” that occurred during the process of death was proof that the corpse was indeed, undead, believing that the swelling was their stomach after feeding on the blood of the living. Remember the ancient vrykolakas that I mentioned? Their features, when not described as lupine, fit this obsession with corpses perfectly.

“They do not decay; instead, they swell and may even attain a "drum-like" form, being very large, they have a ruddy complexion, and are, according to one account, "fresh and gorged with new blood". People with red hair and gray eyes at this time in history were thought to be vampires according to accounts near the region of modern Serbia.“

Corpses that still did not decay were seen as vampires for appearing “healthier” than expected, and holes near the grave, for whatever reason, was seen as a sign of the vampire leaving their coffin and returning. Some even said the corpses had fresh blood on their faces (this is due to that gases that build up in the body, which causes blood to ooze from the mouth and the eyes, and other orifices), or that they felt that throughout the night if they lived near a graveyard with a vampire, that they were being pressed on in their sleep (another allusion to succubi and incubi), or that the work of a poltergeist occurred nearby in malicious ways (vampires were commonly also seen as disturbed spirits; to be technical, the creature did not have to be physical to be considered a vampire—it merely had to feed on blood and be seen as “evil” in some aspect). In reality, this was the result of decomposition either being slowed or naturally occurring at a different rate than expected due to either the condition of the soil or the temperature of the land. The pathology of this presumably unimaginable dilemma in pre-industrial society was explained perfectly through Paul Barber’s work in “Vampires, Burial, and Death”:

This causes the body to look "plump", "well-fed", and "ruddy"—changes that are all the more striking if the person was pale or thin in life. In the Arnold Paole case, an old woman's exhumed corpse was judged by her neighbours to look more plump and healthy than she had ever looked in life. The exuding blood gave the impression that the corpse had recently been engaging in vampiric activity... After death, the skin and gums lose fluids and contract, exposing the roots of the hair, nails, and teeth, even teeth that were concealed in the jaw. This can produce the illusion that the hair, nails, and teeth have grown. At a certain stage, the nails fall off and the skin peels away, as reported in the Blagojevich case—the dermis and nail beds emerging underneath were interpreted as "new skin" and "new nails"...

Even multiple diseases were presumed to be the work of vampires. There is even such a thing as “Clinical vampirism”, which is an obsession with drinking blood (poor Mr. Renfield)! Porphyria was linked with vampiric legends as modern as 1985. Rabies also shared a common connection, because vampires throughout this time period of European hysteria were seen to be weak to garlic and light. Rabies also caused an animal (or person) to have neurological disturbances in their brain that caused them to become hyper-sexual, nocturnal, feral, and most of all: bite others and froth at the mouth with blood; all common traits of a vampire. Bats and wolves also carried Rabies as a disease. Not to also mention real Vampire Bats do exist! Three species specifically exist, the Desmodus rotundus native to the Americas, Diphylla ecaudata native to South America, Central America, and Southern Mexico, and lastly, the Diaemus youngi native to Argentina and Trinidad. These kinds of occurrences truly show how superstition originates from the environment around us and that, in our ignorance, we seek ways to explain what was otherwise seen as fantastical and more importantly: impossible.  With impossibility, comes infatuation.

Now, instead of monsters written in books and told through word of mouth as bedtime stories to haunt us, we were starting to see vampires as something very real through this hysteria. Our own loved ones, reanimated to haunt us and cause mischief, corrupted by the Devil himself. The vampire of this era was now inevitably human, yet horrifically inhuman, but what was once human, is often left behind as something romanticised and mourned over. Romanticism in Europe spanned from the 1800s to the end of the 1850s, alongside it came the revival of the Gothic Era, architecture, and literature, a juxtaposition of movements that focused on what it means to be human, and what it means to face death. We see here the birth of the Penny Dreadful, serial tales of horror that costed you a penny, telling the stories of the supernatural, the underworld, and other thrillers. Here is where we finally get to the modern vampire that we know of and is seen in Vampyr. The modern, romantic, charming, and heartrendingly melancholic vampire of our age originated itself in the work of The Vampyre by John William Polidori in 1819, just 99 years before the events of Vampyr in 1918. Lord Ruthven makes his iconic appearance as one of the first vampires in English literature; a suave, charismatic, and seductive gentleman who is both amorist and deceiver. (THE FOLLOWING BLOCKQUOTE SPOILS THE ENTIRE PLOT OF THE STORY):

“In the story, a young Englishman Aubrey meets Lord Ruthven, a man of mysterious origins who has entered London society. Aubrey accompanies Ruthven to Rome, but leaves him after Ruthven seduces the daughter of a mutual acquaintance. Aubrey travels to Greece where he becomes attracted to Ianthe, an innkeeper's daughter. Ianthe tells Aubrey about the legends of the vampire. Ruthven arrives at the scene and shortly thereafter Ianthe is killed by a vampire. Aubrey does not connect Ruthven with the murder and rejoins him in his travels. The pair are attacked by bandits and Ruthven is mortally wounded. Before he dies, Ruthven makes Aubrey swear an oath that he will not mention his death or anything else he knows about Ruthven for a year and a day. Looking back, Aubrey realizes that everyone who Ruthven met ended up suffering. Aubrey returns to London and is amazed when Ruthven appears shortly thereafter, once again alive. Ruthven reminds Aubrey of his oath to keep his death a secret. Ruthven then begins to seduce Aubrey's sister while Aubrey, helpless to protect his sister, has a nervous breakdown. Ruthven and Aubrey's sister are engaged to marry on the day the oath ends. Aubrey writes a letter to his sister revealing Ruthven's history and dies. The letter does not arrive in time. Ruthven marries Aubrey's sister, kills her on their wedding night, and escapes.”

The short story became immensely popular, due to the clear connections to Lord Byron’s works and the work of a Byronic Hero, arguably the titular character of the Romantic age. Lord Ruthven came decades before Dracula, and was the character who transformed the once atrocious creature of the Devil to a suave man or woman of the night, whom stalks and dotes on his prey before consuming them to their ultimate demise. The vampire from thereon was now a creature of sole temptation, of a now very humane lust and representation of our sins. It held so much influence to the public’s perception of vampirism that the story itself has become a citation when discussing the development of vampiric folklore. It led to an even further vampiric craze all the way to just before the Edwardian Era (Georgian and Regency eras, from 1714 - 1837 and 1811 - 1820 respectively, to the most infamously known Victorian Era 1837 - 1901 of where vampire works were the most prominent, all the way up to the Edwardian Era of 1901 - 1914. Vampyr takes place just at the end of the First World War Era of 1914 - 1918), with works such as the play Le Vampyre in 1820, the opera Der Vampyr  in 1828, Varney the Vampire: Feast of Blood from 1845 - 1847, and the ever famous Dracula in 1897.  Varney the Vampire may seem unknown and foreign compared to the legacy of Dracula, but the 876 page epic itself deserves mention. Many of the major tropes of the vampire we now see was even passed onto Dracula from Sir Francis Varney himself. The image of the vampire with fangs to leave the trademark punctured flesh wound on the neck, attacking a sleeping maiden through a window in the dead of night, hypnotizing others with a mere glance, and of course—bearing unnatural, inhumane strength and prowess. Most importantly, he defines the sympathetic vampire of the Romantic era and ours. One whom despises his condition yet cannot help but succumb and stay slave to it; it is virtually its own archetype and a definitive trait of the Romantic vampire. Several times through the series, Varney attempts suicide only to return in another kind of origin story, immortal and undying, suffering evermore. His vampirism, unlike works that succeed this one, was not granted to him, but rather it was cursed onto him. Only after betraying Oliver Cromwell, a royalist of the English military, and murdering his own son by accident in a fit of rage, the curse was then put upon him. 

This idea that vampirism is a “sin” and only placed upon those who lived an unholy life or committed a great crime is not new, but Varney brought this sympathy and sin to the modern age, and its legacy has remained with us since. The archetype of the sympathetic, self-deprecating vampire finally saw its natal day with Varney.  Of course, Dracula would forever change the face of vampires as we know it, expanding onto the Romanticised image that Lord Ruthven’s and Sir Francis Varney’s legacies left behind with the archetypal vampire of Count Dracula. A charming foreigner from Romania, Transylvania, seeking refuge in London, situated in a decaying castle near the Borgo Pass of the Carpathian Mountains. Unlike the typical depiction of Eastern European folklore of vampires which was that of decaying corpse or spirit that ravaged the lands (strigoi) Dracula was more like Ruthven, boding the proud, aristocratic charm so commonly shared with vampires in modern times. He is nostalgic with Jonathan Harker about his travels, seducing with his knowledge and kindness towards his guests whilst hiding his deep plots of terror beneath the castle walls, three brides, and unbeknownst to Jonathan, begins to haunt the women he holds dearest to him. All of these figures associated vampires with traditionalism, old spirits in youthful forms, and most of all, aristocracy and human gentry (Ekons). 

Dracula also began to make vampires a representation of the greatest sexual sin or forbidden desire of that era, and some saw vampires as downright sexual predators, given their relation to sexual demons (for Dracula, it was a hint to Invasion Literature, of Eastern European men coming to the West to ravage their pure, demure women. For Carmilla (1871), it became a representation for the sexual fear of lesbianism. However, it’s good to note that, overall, the majority of the works from the Victorian Era had a very looming theme regarding vampires and sexuality: that female sexuality above all was seen as forbidden and dangerous. To have them as victims and victims alone is the most purest form of representing them, which is why male vampires are much more popular). 

This archetype that Dracula shaped from both Varney and Ruthven is arguably the most well-known, and now the most shared around the world for our haunting, mysterious image of the vampire. Lord Ruthven birthed the ideal image of the Romantic vampire, Sir Francis Varney expanded upon it, with Count Dracula finalizing its full form, its influence still grasping us today.  For Vampyr, 1897 is not a far cry from 1918, being a mere 21 years after publication; the first edition covers were still being sold during this time period. A copy of the book can actually be seen outside of a bench at Pembroke. Ashbury’s manor also contains an original, signed copy with the same cover.

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Full screenshot

There is one last thing worth noting about vampires, and I believe this aspect is one of the most prevalent in Vampyr, that being, the psychological and psychiatric aspects of a vampire. Vampires are naturally creatures of death, or rather, undeath, and the hysteria that came before and during the Romantic era was very reflective of the psychology of the people at the time concerning this so-called “horror”. That, in some way, the concept of a vampire was a way of seeing a loved one once again with the mourning projecting their loss onto the dead believing that they, too, did not want to die at any cost. This is where the correlation of how a vampire is often seen as a curse or a deal with the Devil; immortality at the price of another life, or immortality at the price of being seen as something accursed for your unworthy and unnatural life, comes to play. This ideal, that the dead do or did not wish to be dead, is where the idea of how vampires come to haunt their loved ones stems from. 

Some even speculate a sexual connotation with this aspect of death, or a “morbid dread” of sorts—desire replaces fear; sadism replaces love; loved people and objects are replaced with strange entities to escape the dread. Some hold a much more simple idea; that the idea of being with a loved one who can never die, allows them to escape their inevitable thanatophobia (fear of death), hoping that their loved ones may turn them to be the same (a scenario which is exactly described by Lady Ashbury, who deems it to be extremely painful to consider). 

The dichotomy of being haunted, cursed, and ultimately damned for all your eternal life, entwined with the Romantic, Gothic ideal of living on forever with those whom you love, to live one’s eternal life with the possibility of eternal solitude and happiness, is the concept which has us all entranced by the horror and love of the modern vampire: To live eternally, you must take the lives of those mortal for eternity. The modern vampire has become the ultimate, Romantic idea of selfishness that we cannot help but become enthralled with, for we feel pity, envy, and love for the vampire.

II. The Dichotomies of Vampyr’s Species: Ekon, Skal, Vulkod, Nimrod, Ichor (Ikor), and Disasters

The species presented in Vampyr are all rather archetypal, but still have their own intricacies when looking at them individually verses looking at them all as just a collective of vampires. So I’m going to try and match them to a specific kind of vampire, overall analyze their influences, themes, and how they are presented within the game!

1. Ekon

The Ekon are the most easy to distinguish, given the characters that represent them and what kind of abilities they have. With their ability to manipulate shadows, hemomancy (blood magic), mesmerization, and perform overall supernatural feats combined with the ability to sense things no mortal can sense and yet, to be able to appear as mortal as ever. The Ekon are, without a doubt, a representation of the Gothic, Romantic vampire, or what we by now consider as the “traditional vampire”. This is easily shown with the characters that inhabit this kind of vampire, both sympathetic and unsympathetic. 

Jonathan struggles with his vampirism throughout the entirety of the game and suffers several moral dilemmas with himself. Even when you play him as evil, one cannot help but feel sympathy for him, as it can easily be seen as him being unable to cope with what he has now become. A good playthrough plays the sympathetic vampire archetype straight, with how he despises his condition and does his best to not succumb to its temptations. He also seeks to heal the people he is meant to feast upon. 

Lady Ashbury is a mentor figure within the game, wise and old in spirit but not in charm or appearance, abstaining from feeding on the living and only gives herself a chance to feed to grant the dying their merciful deaths. Her curse through the Blood of Hate, implanted into her through William Marshal, makes her realize that she is the walking epitome of death and despises herself further, feeling that true death from there is the only key to salvation.

Lower on the moral compass, we get the Ascalon Club, with Lord Redgrave acting as leader of of it in his haughty, blue-blooded manner. Believing himself to be above the “lesser” vampiric races stating Ekon supremacy, (though, he interestingly detests the idea of “purebloods”) intensely stubborn and Gothic, as well as holding onto his antediluvian values. He represents the archetype of the “vampire lord”, and most of all, an eternal struggle between vampires and the world around them, that being—the world around them changes, but the vampire often can never change, let alone escape their origins. Aloyisus also represents this with his bitterness and hatred towards those who are not like him (the wealthy gentry, and most likely later on, mortals). 

Edgar Swansea is arguably one of the most morally ambiguous, as he fully embraces his condition, much like Redgrave does, but for very different reasons. To me, he appears to be a “mad scientist” archetype mixed with an all-too-eager vampire. 

McCullum is an even more ambiguous character. He mentions how he can possibly be the greatest vampire hunter there ever was with his newfound power, but there also appears to be doubt and guilt within him, despite knowing that his vampirism was forced upon him by Jonathan (once more, a circumstantial victim of “sin”). He was also begging for death just before his Turning. Because of this, interpretations can either lead to him becoming Nimrod OR Ekon.

Mary takes a completely darker turn morally, being a representation of how low one can go; a remorseless killer who sees no point any longer in attempting to remain human. Yet, she seeks the most human thing of all—death. Morrigan bearing another scorned woman’s flesh, scarred by grief and now a corrupt soul of what was once an embodiment of empathy and compassion. Mary represents how, for some, the monstrous nature of the vampire cannot come to terms with the kind heart of a human. She represents how quickly this immortal gift turns to a curse.

It appears that Jonathan himself is considered to be of a power lineage because he can efficiently use Blood and Shadow abilities; the Rogue Ekons you begin to see in West End are either solely Blood focused or solely Shadow focused. Blood Ekons are also unable to see you in Shadow Veil, unlike Skals or other mobs that can with their indicating white eyes. This correlates with Jonathan once again, being a chosen figure, even if it comes at the cost of tragedy. 

To inspect deeper, the word “Ekon” has it’s origins in the Greek word, “εἰκών”, and is defined as:

 “An object shaped to resemble the form or appearance of something; likeness, portrait; that which has the same form as something else; that which represents something else in terms of basic forms and features.”

The word itself comes from the word “εικόνα”, or “eikóna”, which means a picture, image, illustration, or some form of portrait. Further back in the etymology leads you to the word “εἰκών”, or “eikṓn”. It also has a second definition, which refers to a religious icon or a religious painting, with synonyms such as:

αγιογραφία (agiografía, “religious painting”) εικόνισμα (eikónisma, “religious icon”) ίνδαλμα (índalma, “cultural icon”)

In English, we have an eerily similar word known as “Eikon”, which is most known specifically for a religious being or figure that is idolized, or at the very least, stands as a representation of something sacred or holy. From all of this, I believe that the was chosen to specifically represent how Ekon walk freely with mortals. As Lord Redgrave himself stated; the Ekon are the only race he knows that is able to blend in and take not only take the shape of a human, but to also mimic the presence of one. @cursedbethechoice summed this idea up nicely:

“In Vampyr’s world, Ekons are simulacra of humans. They look like, talk like, walk like, sound like humans but are are not actually humans themselves.”

Beauverger wanted to go back to the more Gothic roots of the vampire, as well as the seductive, romantic, and particularly erotic charm that the vampire has from the Romantic era. The Gothic roots Vampyr took with it’s presentation (among many other aspects across all the vampires) have to do with the biting itself. In the present day, the most popular type of vampire works involve being able to feed partially from the victim while still keeping them alive. Vampyr most certainly does not have that. The concept itself is actually much younger than Dracula (anything bitten by the Count was instantly turned or became very ill), and the presentation Vampyr gives when it comes to how vampire bites someone, it is to the death, it is actually much more accurate to Gothic vampire works. However, this applies to all species in the game. 

What I want to discuss are the “erotic” aspects presented through Ekons, which both the Ascalon Club and Jonathan himself have perfect examples of to talk about.  In the E3 2017 trailer for Vampyr, there is a scene where a woman (who uses Venus’ NPC model, for... some reason) is being fed upon by Redgrave, surrounded by the other members of the Ascalon Club, all of which are male. 

This image, of a delicate, pure woman being fed on by a male vampire (or multiple, in this case) is an erotic staple of the vampire, seen in multiple works all across vampire media and has existed since even the ancient interpretations of the vampire. For the Ascalon Club specifically, Redgrave states that victims are brought in only for “special occasions”, which could mean many things and could be theorized in quite the variety of ways (either incredibly explicit, or just truly sharing a meal. Another essay topic, maybe?).

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Naturally, since vampires are seen as sexual predators and women are meant to be seen as a virginal, demure maidens, there was nothing more perverse in the Victorian Era than the perversion of the Victorian woman. Even in Carmilla, which is the origin work of the lesbian vampire, she, too, was feeding on a woman that was seen as chaste and unsullied, which was seen as the greater sin than the lesbianism itself. This image also usually invoked the “Death and the Maiden” trope, an erotic trope involving a figure representative of death, often cradling an innocent, youthful woman. Some examples of this would be:

(SOME OF THE FOLLOWING IMAGES ARE NSFW)

“Interview with the Vampire" (1994 film, 1976 book), Anne Rice

“Dracula”, 2010, Anne Yvonne Gilbert

The next example of Vampyr’s Ekons invoking this trope, and being representative of the erotic and seductive outlook Dontnod wanted to share, has to do with a detail I noticed in Jonathan’s worst/most evil ending and in the second worst ending. Specifically, how in the both bad endings you can get, all of his victims shown in the cutscenes are women. Let’s start with the monstrous/most evil one. 

These endings alone deserve their own in-depth essays as to why the only victims we are shown are women. It could have to do with him losing Elisabeth and filling to the void, it could be preference, something much darker, or something else entirely. I believe that this choice to make all of his victims thereon to be women (or at least, appear to be women), is to directly go back to not only the seductive qualities of the vampire, but also to present another theme Beauverger wished to share—the quality of a vampire that seeks to remember what he loves. An image that reeks of decadence and hatred, but also telling of a hollowness that is unyielding and undying as the creature that holds it. Vampires are victim to the world around them changing, for they themselves lie in still, never-changing bodies. Jonathan in this moment, no matter what, is succumbing to his thirst because of his loss. The ending makes you believe there is the slightest bit of chance to the player’s heinous actions, only to tear it away from both you and Jonathan. The woman he loved denied his attempts to accept his own monstrosity, and in retaliation, he shall deny himself love and only seek pleasure, yet forever continue to remember that lost love (alongside that; the first shot of him that we are shown shows him in Paris, the country of love. Hmm...).

This image, of remembering what one has loved and lost, is also present in the second worst ending you can get. Redemption is even more tantalizing in the beginning, but instead of accepting Elisabeth’s choice to put herself to the pyre (in a rather haunting, almost emotionless way), Jonathan is mad with remorse and instead begs for Elisabeth to reconsider. She casts him aside, yet states that she forgives him in the end. We are left with this image:

Rather than this:

This ending is for the most morally ambiguous Reid played throughout the game; it involves him burning the castle down much like the first ending, yet here, a tear is shed a tear for what is lost. He loses Elisabeth in agony and grief, but does not retaliate with hedonism or rage like the most monstrous interpretation of him—he instead retaliates by condemning himself to eternal solitude, feasting still, but instead of filling him with pleasure, it fills him with an even greater void. 

This ending actually feels much more sympathetic to me, as well as much more bittersweet. Notice how he took a painting of Ashbury for himself before burning the castle to nothing. The same sihiloute seen in the worst bad ending is also shown here, which leads me to further believe that no matter which bad ending you get—it is ultimately about the loss of love and condemnation to eternal isolation. Dontnod truly shows us in these endings, what it is like to be an immortal creature with mortal emotions. Eternal suffering piled on by the cost of consuming mortal life that share the same emotions as thee.  Jonathan himself, however, only represents one kind of vampire that I have described, that being the sympathetic, self-deprecating one. A inhumane creature wearing humane flesh. Ekons, according to Dontnod, are considered to be the most “fertile” of vampires, fertile in both emotion and in the physical. The primary target for considering the human condition. They also claim benevolence in vampires, are an “exception”. How true that claim is, depends on how one views it.

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“In Vampyr, Ekons are the most fertile of the blood drinkers, closest to the traditional Vampire figure. Unlike most vampires, Ekons are still able to feel human emotion. Some of them even appear to show benevolence to humanity… but they are the exception...”

What of the others I mentioned above? How do they represent the image that Dontnod wished to show us with the presentation of the Ekon?

Given how Ashbury is Jonathan’s love interest, I feel as if she and him are of the same ilk (putting aside all the complaints of how forced their romance is, anyway). They only become polar opposites if Jonathan takes the completely evil route through the means of the player, where he is much like Mary instead. In that, his own kind soul becomes corrupted because he can no longer cope with the fantastical, yet monstrous being he has become and gives in to his more primal desires as an Ekon. Ashbury is one thing that Jonathan is not, however, and that would be the mentor figure and a message about gender and symbolism within vampire history.

We learn either in the middle or the end of the game that Ashbury was born in 1551; the specific details being these:

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For some context, only very recently have minority groups gained equal social power and standing compared to previous generations in the vast scope of history involving such events. Even in Vampyr’s 1918, women were still fighting for their right to keep their suffrage amongst a variety of other class issues that still plagued Europe and other developed nations. Ashbury, by design, almost appears to outright ignore these things for this era, presumably due to her vast experience throughout each generation and watching women slowly progress. Yet, she’s still self-aware to realize from all this experience that Lord Redgrave’s ideals are backwards and as she says, antediluvian. 

The role of women in the Victorian Era, even under the role of a Queen at the time, was still incredibly kept to the cult of domesticity even, arguably more so than ever as Europe approached it’s industrial, modern age. Anti-sexual ideals ran rampant at the time. The concept of chastity, purity, and the myth of the Victorian woman being the demure “Angel of the House” and nothing more, had made such an impact in such a short amount of time that parts of its influence have lasted well into the First World War Era. Remember, a female vampire is already seen as a corrupt version of a woman, and thus, no longer the perfectly pure Victorian ideal, because vampires are corruptions of sexuality, something that the Victorian era was very keen on scrutinizing to the fullest extent (even if none would dare to admit it).  Here is where Ashbury presents us with another kind of vampire as well, one that is not only a branch into history (akin to Dracula who woo’d guests with tales of bygone ages), but she is also something else; an ironic form of progress for a creature that never grows itself, which is what makes her the perfect mentor figure for Jonathan. She has learned something that Redgrave and other vampires like him have not; she has learned how to change. Something very distinct for the Romantic vampire, where one of the main attractions to such a character, is their haunting love and connection with their past, and due to it, never change. A walking relic in the flesh. We see it when she actively mocks such propositions even when showing her affections for Jonathan:

Sexuality as a concept for vampires has and will forever exist, from the idea of gender roles throughout the eras (as we see with Ashbury and to an extent, Redgrave with his sexist views), as well as various implications, but those deserve it’s own analysis and history section. However, staying on the topic of gender, we veer to another female figure that is much different than the rather pure Ashbury—the tragic figure that is Mary.  Mary is many things. Other than a possible allusion to Bloody Mary, she is, without a doubt, a figure of tragedy, and yet, resembles her older brother very much. After the loss of her son and husband, she seeks Jonathan in a mass grave hoping that he, too, has no succumbed to the insurmountable loss she has been facing, only to face loss herself. We see her full of hatred, anger, and above all, a fatal sadness. She attempts to murder her own brother for what he did to her, even while knowing he was remorseful and attempted to his own life. She releases their mother if Jonathan is played as a moral soul, or slaughters her before Jonathan if she feels that he is now as irredeemable as she.  She represents what Jonathan’s evil end represents and is much like a twin in this way. A compassionate soul twisted into a nightmarish version of what she once was because she cannot believe what sort of monstrosity she has become. Even after Mary goes mad, there is a moment of clarity. A moment of peace, where she contemplates her immortality.

“Don’t you see? This is not me. Flesh that never ages... All nightmare, no dream. Bring it to a close. Let me sleep.”

In that moment, we once again face the very mortal crisis of a vampire. The crisis of living only by killing another. Denied refugee to God’s holy palace. Faced with death all around you, whilst becoming death yourself. A symbolism for insanity, perhaps. That those who are mad now see a very real aspect of the world that Jonathan himself cannot describe nor see. It is quite Lovecraftian—madness through witnessing the reality, be it of one’s world or condition. Vampirism has always been linked with illness, so it would not be unwise to consider the idea that Vampyr is using a very Lovecraftian about it—that madness beseeches enlightenment.

Mary herself is most likely afflicted by the Blood of Hate that once afflicted Ashbury, and simply has succumbed to her immortal vs. mortal crisis—she cannot bare to understand how one could live as a metaphor of death whilst attempting to still remain a symbol of love, hope, and kindness which is why she finds Jonathan’s words useless no matter how he is played. They are no longer humane, they are the inhumane and thus, the evils of the Earth. This is why she only forgives him when he kills her, because she sees only a fragment of kindness from Jonathan when he commits murder because it is now, in her eyes, their true nature. Ekons are merely simulacra of humans, so can one still consider them human at all?

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The vampire is nothing but a symbol of death, no matter how humane their understanding and flesh, and Dontnod tells us well that through the character of Mary, and with the fact that we are able to play Jonathan as a complete monster. Even a moral Jonathan still struggles between his urge to kill, and his duty to heal. Ekons are Romantic, aristocratic, and above all, symbolism for how one’s morality can shift as quickly as their mortality does. 

They must, above all, decide as to how they shall live their immortal lives—decide as to whether they shall become savior, or stalker. 

2. Skal

Skals are curious creatures to place, given how much they vary with behaviour and the capacity to communicate. We have the mobs that are akin to mindless ghouls and mobs, but then there are places like the Skal sewer hideout where we get creatures that, while deformed, are able to communicate and understand who they are. Curiously, too; unlike the Ekon, they are said to feast on vampire blood much more than human blood. According to Ashbury, they are the deformed versions of their makers, the result of carelessness. With the ability to also produce claws, canines, manipulate the shadows, and their own unique ability of producing acidic clouds and blood, they are undoubtedly representatives to how vampirism throughout all mythology had been seen as an illness or pure corruption. However, Ashbury states they are lesser beings, from their abilities to controlling their hunger, so they are not as powerful as Ekons. A calling to the more monstrous interpretations of the vampire before it took the flesh of an alluring, humane visage. Various characters and types represent this dynamic about them, as well as... interesting in-game issues as to their creation.

The most obvious examples are the Rouge Skals and other variations of the mob we hunt and maim endlessly throughout the night. They seem to be lacking any resemblance of their former selves, with the only connection to Ekons being that they have similar abilities. They are mindless ghouls that spread the Skal Epidemic.

Old Bridget is an example of a Skal that is not only somewhat more human in appearance, but has retained her personality and has not succumbed to becoming a mindless ghoul. She was created by an Ekon, curiously, that being Redgrave, but it is unclear as to how. Ashbury states that it is because Redgrave comes from a bloodline that can only produce Skals, but how can this be, then, if Redgrave himself is an Ekon? It was not implied that it was done as an accident since we are told that he intended to have Old Bridget as his immortal wife; that would have fit the theory Ashbury states that Skals are simply the result of careless Turnings (and really, should have instead happened to Mary, in that case). Does the bloodline dilute and produce decayed vampires that are Skals? But Old Bridget is not mindless nor rouge; is she something in between? An Ekon gone wrong, perhaps? 

Sean inevitably goes mad if you leave him be and do not decide to Turn him, which implies that Skals, depending on what they are turned by, do decay mentally. Which may also indicate that a lot of the rouge Skals both outside and in the Sewers Skal sanctuary, all share the same fate because of the Skal Epidemic. There seems to be a sort of “advancement” in the vampire species within the game, however. A Skal can become an Ekon with their blood, but can an Ekon decay to a Skal? He interestingly, also vowed to following the Lord’s way, but we see with Jonathan that one can be attacked by their faith. Yet, Sean easily opens a shrine filled with religious figures which has little effect on him. Are Skals immune to the faith, or is it simply an exception to him?  

Elza Mullaney and the McPhersons are both mini-bosses, but are quite decayed and are considered to be part of the spread of the Skal contagion in the West End. However, the amount of mutation we see still doesn’t detract from the fact they can still talk, and are actually aware of their condition despite becoming completely fueled by rage. They also suggest that Ikors are a mutation of Skals (see more below), alongside all the Ill-Formed Skal mobs you begin to see starting with the West End. 

We can tell that Dontnod clearly wanted them to be the game’s version of a ghoul through the concept art (which also portrayed them as very eldritch), which is an that is not foreign to modern vampire works. A human corrupted through vampire blood is also not new to vampire history at all, given their older depictions representing them as monsters and symbols of disease. Remember my comparison to Rabies? Skals are a good application of such a comparison, with their rabid, mindless flailing, as well their primal thirst for blood and flesh above all else. Even Jonathan himself in his 2015 concept art has a suspiciously Skal-like look. 

Florent Auguy

Some examples of Skals in their earlier works, still appearing very similar as they do in-game:

Adrian Meriabault

We are told that the word Skal means “slave” by various characters and notes, but the etymology of the word goes quite a lot deeper than that. Here is what the game tells us of them:

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The word “slave” has etymology in the Old French word “esclave”, which comes from the Medieval and Late Latin variations of “sclāvus”, Medieval Latin standing for “slave” while Late Latin having the word standing for “Slav” (often due to Slavs being forced into slavery throughout the Middle Ages). While slaves have the first, and most known definition, that being: 

a. (n.1 and adj.): One who is property of, and entirely subject to, another person, whether by capture, purchase, or birth; a servant completely divested of freedom and personal rights. 

This is fitting for the position of the Skal in Vampyr, mentioned above with how they are kept as literal servants and overall, akin to slaves in reality, are seen as lesser by both humans and vampires. However, another interesting definition can be put to a slave, a much more symbolic one of desire, which fits all vampires:

adj. One who has lost the power of resistance; one who surrenders to something.

Beyond the connections to their bloodlust as well as social positions, comes their physical forms. Skals are connected to disease as they are representatives of ghouls, which are often seen in folklore as hulks of decaying flesh that still somehow walk the Earth. Skal, as a word, is incredibly similar to the word “scall”, which is a word to describe a disease of the skin, and “skal“ is actually a variation of this word. Alongside versions such as “scalle”, “skalle”, “skall”, and “scal,” this word (presumably) rooted in Old Norse etymology has much to share about the very visual deformities of the Skal in Vampyr.

adj. A scaly or scabby disease of the skin, esp. of the scalp. dry scall: psoriasis. humid or moist scall: eczema.

This is a clear reference to how they often lose hair on their scalp, as well as the various skin blemishes that plague their skin and are unable to be hidden. An extreme form of eczema, in a way. They are the centerpiece of the epidemic, a plague to be rid of, which all connects to how they are perceived by both humans (the Guard of Priwen in the West End hunt them furiously; leading Skal mobs to them also causes their A.I to attack them over Jonathan; they can also hurt one another), but Dontnod, with the inclusion of characters such as Old Bridget and Sean and all the conscious figures within the sanctuary, clearly wish to tell us that not all who seem monstrous are monstrous, while those who often appear the most human are often more likely to be the most evil, due to how fate likes to play its ironic game. 

Speaking of evil, the origins and etymology of the word “ghoul” also bring up an interesting connections. Ghouls themselves actually originated from Arabic folklore, and became very popular once Arabian Nights, or, One Thousands and One Nights (أَلْف لَيْلَة وَلَيْلَة‎) was translated for the rest of the world to experience. Stemming from the words “غُول - “ghūl”, which comes from from غَالَ - “ghāla”, which means “to seize”, as a reference as to how they take the shape of human bodies. Persian folklore also has a reference to ghouls, named “غول”. A good, historical definition of a Ghoul would be this.

n. or adj. late 18th century: from Arabic ġūl, ‘a desert demon believed to rob graves and devour corpses.’

Skals are said to only feed from the dead, while Ekons must feed from the living; even Nimrods only feed from live vampires. The robbing graves part, however, could be a connection to many things. Ghoul is sometimes seem as a way to mock someone with an intense interest in corpses, mortality, and death. Graverobbers and gravediggers were said to be such. It would also not be too out of the ordinary to imagine that Skals dig through graves in a cemetery to feast on the recent, and decaying, dead. We see an example of this in the game’s art after Mary’s death in a cutscene. 

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One connection to Ekons, strangely enough, is the aspect of disease, but in a venereal (sexual) sense. Given how vampires were not only seen as corrupt vessels that plagued the Earth, but also as the darker half of human sexuality, it isn’t too far too imagine that the very physical skin lesions on Skals are symbolic to venereal diseases. A stretch, perhaps, but the hand lesions shown in the concept art above are very similar to many types of rashes one can get from those types of diseases (given how a lot of images on these things are essentially for shock value, I won’t put up any in this essay out of respect, but if you are curious, here is a link to the Healthline Newsletter showcasing some). They are also unflinchingly similar to the famous 1346 to 1353 Black Death/Bubonic Plague that consumed 1/3rd of the world’s population, crippled Eurasia for the following centuries regarding health, and has continued to stand as the most famous, widespread epidemic up until the Spanish Flu.

With the presence of Skals like Old Bridget, Sean, and the lucid ones we see in the Sewers, it feel as if Skals themselves lie on a scale. Given their canon, humanoid-esque appear, the only inhumane aspect is their decay, but that too varies almost on their lucidity. Sean still looks like Sean, but is beginning to experience a slight necrosis on his face. Old Bridget also has necrosis and has lost her hair, but she looks very humane otherwise. Redgrave is an Ekon that can only produce Skals, Skals that behave more like unfinished Ekons, than Skals. Skals can also become Ekons with enough Ekon blood, “finishing” the process, so to speak. We know that something like this is true due to Dontnod’s cards about Skals and Ashbury’s descriptions of them, of how they are victims by surprise, or that they are somehow “failed” attempts at completing the process into an Ekon (Redgrave also remarks that many willing Turns lead to death because the human body could not survive the process).

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As Usher Talltree states, however, Skals, no matter how humane they are or could be, stand as the lesser, decayed half of the very much undead species of vampire. 

3. Vulkod

Now here is where things get rather dark... on information, that is. We do not know much about the Vulkod other than the accounts of research done by Carl Eldritch and the statements from Lord Redgrave. At this point, we can generally conclude that all vampires appear to share the ability of manipulating blood, having canines, shadow magic, and other dark forces at their disposal. Unlike the Skal, however, they do not appear to be capable of making acidic substances. They do, however, have the ability to appear as large, canine beasts, as well as harbour immense physical strength. They are primal and territorial (much like a wolf), and also unlike the Skal, they still seem to be relatively conscious and capable of speech and intelligence. 

Fergal is the most obvious example, as well as the Sewer Beast. Similar examples are also the Rouge Vulkods you find roaming around in the West End alongside with various other rogue vampire species beyond the Skal.

Large Beasts are most likely the reason why Redgrave states that humans often confuse them for werewolves. However, in the game, we never see a large beast capable of speech or intelligence. Given how Vulkod seem to also be a kind of “decayed” version of vampires alongside the vampiric/bloodline ladder, perhaps this is the most irredeemable version or the most primal version of Vulkod? Newton takes the (blond) shape of one in the sewers, and I believe Oswald does as well, and neither of them seem capable of speaking, but...

If Thelma is murdered, Thomas goes missing and takes the shape of a Large Beast too, yet he also speaks to you during the encounter with him. This could simply be mere consequence of the ludo-narrative nature of Vampyr (in that, the game mechanics often don’t line up with established narrative ones; I blame this on the game’s budget), or perhaps something else entirely about how vampires work, depending on how they are Turned?

Here are the notes Lord Redgrave writes on Vulkod.

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This “exotic”, yet bestial nature of the Vulkod is further emphasized in Carl Eldritch’s notes.

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So what can be garnered from these creatures? They are clearly meant to be an allusion as to how commonly vampires were compared to werewolves due to their similar thirst for blood and flesh. They are arguably described as the most primitive of all the vampire species in the game, but I would argue that such a title would better suit a Skal or Ikor. Their personalities appear to take quite a shift into primal rage, fury, and an increase an aggression. However, they do not appear to be completely red-eyed with rage and are still capable of enough intelligence to utilize their other vampiric abilities, be they in hulking human shape or in their more wolfish, beast shapes. Vulkod as a word, though... appears to be the most fictional, as I cannot personally find any connections to the word. Perhaps due to a misunderstanding of what they were known and confused for? Talltree makes note of such a common mistake, as does Redgrave. What they are confused for, a “Werewolf”, that is, is indeed something we can analyze and begin connections with. 

The etymology of “werewolf” comes from the Old English word “werewulf” (think the Old English tale of Beowulf), with “wer” standing for “man” and “wulf” standing for “wolf”, hence, “man-wolf” or “wolf-man”. The Ancient Greeks had a word for them too: “λυκάνθρωπος lukánthrōpos, or, "wolf-person", as did many other languages (The old, West German Franks had “wariwulf”. Norse figures had multiple words and analogies for wolves and “wolf-men”, but the most popular would be “varúlfur”. Also; like vampires, they, to, have a clinical condition named after lycanthropy). Associated heavily with witchcraft, the Medieval Era, curses, death, cannibalism, Therianthropy (shape-shifting humans in folklore), and symbolism for another primordial sin of the human condition (vampires being primal Lust, werewolves being primal Wrath), the werewolf was very popular throughout the 13th - 17th centuries, but subsided just before the vampire boom of the 18th century (most likely due to the rise of Victorianism, and I suppose necrophilia was more alluring than bestiality). What do all these have to do with Vulkod?  Quite a bit of connections can be made. The most obvious would be their highly aggressive, territorial nature that they develop upon turning. Another obvious connection would be their appearance, their dark, pitch-black skin resembling more the tone of fur given the rest of their physiques, and the Large Beasts are essentially just bi-pedal wolves, the exact definition of what a werewolf looks like in folklore. 

Gabriel Lemaire

Adrian Meribault

The Werewolf or the Cannibal, Lucas Cranach der Ältere, 1512

Lyacon Changed into a Wolf, Hendrick Goltzius, 1589

Werewolves, once bitten, have the exact same personality change—as symbols for primordial wrath and a deep, humane rage, it could be said that Vulkod are turned through their own kind of Blood of Hate. Being wronged and dying in anger at some point in their life leads them to becoming a beast, rather than a decayed version of what they are, since Skals are a symbolism of disease, which takes victims unknowingly. Anger is something that is very noticed, and perhaps may BE the only thing they can feel or process anymore.

The Facebook reveals of each species by Dontnod, reveal that the Vulkod can no longer feel emotion. This implies that their primal, irritable nature stems from the fact that they can only feel the most baseless of emotions. Husks of what they are emotionally, but certainly not physically.

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Yet, this still begs the question of what decides the fate of those who are Turned. Is your vampire species forced through bloodline, or is there a more symbolic, emotional bond that occurs in the blood? Vulkod appear to be part of the epidemic, given how we have NPCs that are able to be turned into them rather than mindless Skals, but some become Skals and some do not in this supposed Skal Epidemic. Vulkod, in all their beastly mannerisms, bring forth quite human questions about what true changes occur when one is forced to turn.

4. Nimrod

Nimrod are more fictional concepts in Vampyr, frankly because we never see one until the very end. Much like the Vulkod and the following species I will be speaking about, we have little to go on in terms of in-game lore as to what these things were and are, and if anyone we see is afflicted. However, we do have some historical accounts in the game for Nimrod, as their general premise is that of the self-hating vampire. A vampire hunter that feasts on vampires alone, hunts them actively as their immortal goal, and much like the Ekon, is able to blend in with mortals easily. 

William Marshal is very likely a Nimrod. We see him starve himself, only sustaining himself on Ashbury’s blood, and speaks of how he was touched by the Archangel Gabriel for his “immortal” gift so that he may slay all other impurities in the world. However, the Blood of Hate that consumed him and later Ashbury leads him to becoming a true hunter of his own kind, mourn for what he did to Ashbury, and symbolically die at the hands of another vampire. 

The founder of the Brotherhood of Saint Paul’s Stole, Pawl, is revealed to be a Nimrod after completing the True Dragonbane puzzle, which, of course, is both blissfully ironic and incredibly fitting. A self-hating vampire creates a group fully centered on these immortal beings and nothing else. 

McCullum deserves his own place here again. As I said above, he can be either Ekon OR Nimrod depending on how one takes his character down the line. He seems rather accepting of his condition, or at least it’s benefits, at the beginning of his change as we see with Jonathan but who knows how quickly that may change. 

All of these men also imply that, given how Nimrods can blend in with mortals, that Nimrods can only descend from an Ekon, as they are the only species we know of that can mimic human beings the most. Nimrods could essentially just be considered Ekons that commit cannibalization instead. Nothing ingame indicates that their physiology is different from that of an Ekon’s.

No discussions on Nimrods could start without the most sacred letter about them in the game. The note, “Recollection of Paulus Aurelianus”, tells of Pawl, the original founder of the Brotherhood of Saint Paul’s Stole.

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This is also another thing in the game that very much deserves it’s own essay, but for Nimrods and vampires as whole, it provides us with some rich information. The story we see here of Pawl is an engaging one, because not only does it give us an idea of just how far back the true history of Vampyr goes and some knowledge into what the original Brotherhood was like. It also shows us a glimpse as to why the Brotherhood of Saint Paul’s Stole was birthed in the first place. Usher Talltree speaks of a schism that occurred in the Brotherhood that gave birth to both the Brotherhood of Saint Paul’s Stole and the Guard of Priwen. 

If you have Jonathan ask Talltree who the founder of the original Brotherhood was, he will respond like this.

Jonathan will then ask a question about whether or not the Brotherhood of Saint Paul’s Stole act as much than just the scholars and academics they claim to be, which leads to this interesting dialogue.

Upon completing his sidequest, “Pandora’s Box”, he gives you a note that speaks about the Brotherhood’s origins which also shed some more light.

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1801 puts us at exactly 117 years ago from 1918. Ashbury makes mention of the first Great Hunt that the Guard of Priwen launched to be about a half a century before the current game’s events; she specifically states 75 years ago. 

This means the first Great Hunt occurred roughly around 1843 (1918 - 75 = 1843). Knowing this and Talltree’s explanation of events, this most likely means that Pawl’s Recollection note was made in 1801 because he mentions one of the split factions of the Brotherhood. This may indicate that Pawl, as one of the first Nimrods to exist, is alive, and since the Brotherhood still hunted at this time, those hunters would of course be outraged to know that one of the founders of the old, original Brotherhood was a vampire. 

There’s a kind of irony in the idea of Nimrods, given the definition of what a Nimrod is in a Biblical sense and how ironically see them as sympathetic. A hunter of his own kind, using his eternity not to feed on the flesh of the living, but to smite the corpses of the undead. Their origins in Vampyr all come from them trying to either eradicate or co-exist with said creatures, but never trying to follow the “true” nature of a vampire. Such extreme ideologies on how vampires should be treated, of course, only lead to the schism we see today. 

It also brings forth McCullum’s conflict and what I believe exemplifies the Nimrod Vampyr means to share, if we were to ever get one in the flesh (because sadly, you do not get to see much of Turned McCullum since it is at the very end of the game). His first instinct when you force him to Turn is to beg for his death, for the one thing that defines an immortal from a mortal, their ability to die and leave this world. We learn that he most likely joined the Guard due to the tragedies that struck his family regarding vampires (interestingly, this is also very telling of his character. Swansea adores his vampirism and sees it as a gift, yet his own family faced the same kind of fate; McCullum uses his immortality to continue hunting vampires, Swansea uses his immortality to continue experimenting with them, and to keep peace).

If you have Jonathan ask him how he is doing with his new immortality, his first answer is how he could imagine himself becoming the greatest vampire hunter there ever was. But he also expresses the realistic concern of the Guard of Priwen; trained hunters who can discern a mortal from an immortal by a mere glimpse, yet his first suggestion is to still consider attempting deceit to remain the leader. Not unlike Pawl, no?

As mentioned prior, the word “Nimrod” has religious connotations; referring to the Hunter Nimrod, a grand king who was reknown for his hunting abilities by Christ, as well as being the great-grandson of Noah, the man who sailed his vessel that is now known as “Noah’s Ark”, during the Book of Genesis’ Great Flood. Nimrod also has connections to the Tower of Babel.

Genesis 10:8-10, King James Version (KJV)

“And Cush begat Nimrod, who began to be mighty in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Wherefore it is said, As Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord.”  

“And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.”

Usher Talltree’s notes also talk of the Nimrod in this fashion, referencing the mythical nature of the hunter.

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Nimrod’s etymology is not very different; stemming from the late 16th century Hebrew word “Nīmrōḏ” or “נִמְרוֹדֿ”. Nimrods in vampire represent the same fervor that the Biblical Nimrod did, becoming mighty hunters of the same evils that Nimrod saw himself face, yet unlike their Biblical counterpart, they are the embodiment of the evils they so wish to defeat, encapsulating these vampire hunters into their own twisted fate and irony. 

The Nimrod also remind me of another figure that you cannot mention vampire hunters without referencing, the character of Professor Abraham Hellsing from Dracula, the vampire’s sworn enemy and, in many interpretations of the doctor, a vampire hunter turned hunter himself. McCullum is very much the Van Helsing to Jonathan’s Dracula. Not only that, Nimrods are defined in that, they deny the supposed natural instincts of the vampire, using their dark abilities instead to cleanse the world of the evil that vampires represent and spread. Van Helsing’s personality is described in Dracula very thoroughly, and in it, there is a particular line that shares (what I believe) the same ideology and true goal that Nimrods seek.

“...This, with an iron nerve, a temper of the ice-brook, and indomitable resolution, self-command, and toleration exalted from virtues to blessings, and the kindliest and truest heart that beats, these form his equipment for the noble work that he is doing for mankind, work both in theory and practice, for his views are as wide as his all-embracing sympathy.”

— Letter From Dr Seward to Arthur Holmwood, chapter 9,

Nimrods deny their nature by hunting what they are to ensure the betterment and continuing kindness of mankind. In their conquest to deny all that they are, they forever hunt what they have become and what they now hate, never foregoing that cause and perhaps even hoping that, through this endless hunt which they have made themselves slaves too, they may find redemption for themselves and their sins.

5. Ichor (Ikor)

We don’t really see any mobs that are outright labeled as Ichor, and the only real  information we have of them are from Dontnod’s introduction to vampires on Facebook, and one note from Carl Eldritch about their threat. However, I have some theories, given the one thing that discerns them. They appear to be indistinguishable from Skal and otherwise share all their abilities but they have one key difference. That difference being, that they attack with the intent to spread disease, rather than to outright kill. 

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“Meet the Ichors! In Vampyr, Ichors are putrid monstrosities carrying sickness and spreading epidemics, and among the most feared of all blood drinkers. Instead of killing their prey, Ichors seem to prefer infecting their target by bite or touch – turning them into contagious carriers of disease.”

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I believed the Ill-Formed mobs that we see are the Ichor, as they are a mutation that now spreads the contagion through means of touch rather than by direct biting, which is what the Ichor are said to be. Skals may have picked up the mutation from Ichor, the Ichor themselves may just be the Ill-Formed prefix mobs and only kill because the ludo-narrative of the game requires it. Jonathan himself expresses shock as you investigate West End’s source of plague of these creatures after you kill Elza Mullaney, as he believed the epidemic was only transmitted through biting.

There is not much to say on Ichor, other than their curious choice of name. We do know that they are always female, according to reports from Friar Tobias Whittaker, which could mean they are the precursor to Disasters. They represent as much symbolism as the Skals do with their grotesque appearance and as symbols of plague and contagion that haunted all vampires in past generations. Lore-wise, they also appear and act the same, for the most part (even if they prefer not to kill directly, they are still rather violent and just seek death through means of plague regardless). However, The word “ichor” is a far cry from plague, if you look at mythology. “Ichor” is most known for being the name of the fluid that flowed in the veins of Greek Gods. Some comparisons would see it akin to the Precious Blood, or the Blood of Christ, from which one drank at communion. A fluid that was not mortal blood like our own, but rather something of an immortal fluid, and it is often why Communion has us “drink” the Blood of Christ so that we may be blessed by him.

An Iliad verse tells us of this supposed, ethereal fluid.

Iliad V. 339–342[2]    “Blood follow'd, but immortal; ichor pure,    Such as the blest inhabitants of heav'n    May bleed, nectareous; for the Gods eat not    Man's food, nor slake as he with sable wine    Their thirst, thence bloodless and from death exempt.” 

“Ichor” as a concept originated in Classical mythology and the word itself comes from an Ancient Greek, but it’s exact etymology is said to be unknown and lacks a concise theory as to how it was created. Fitting since the word is used to describe something that is already unknown and otherworldly to begin with.  

n. ˈaɪkər/ or /ˈɪkər/; Ancient Greek: ἰχώρ. also mid 17th century “ikhōr“ - The fluid that flows like blood in the veins of the gods.

Of course, “ichor” has another meaning as well; a medical one involving pathology, even if it’s considered archaic. It is the more fitting connection as it is a direct reference to the plague they carry and how they walk around as decaying corpses with deep mutations and acidic blemishes.

n. pathology - a foul-smelling watery discharge from a wound or ulcer. fetid discharge.

“Fetid” meaning an extremely unpleasant scent, originating from the Latin word “fetidus” or (erroneously) “foetidus”, with “fetid” having its arrival in Late Middle English. This is an obvious correlation to the bleeding ulcers found on the Ill-Formed Skals and even Large Beasts that you encounter much later in the game when the epidemic begins to take a deep hold onto London as the contagion progresses. 

Given the supposed rarity of these creatures according to Carl Eldritch, and Jonathan’s shock when he first begins to encounter them throughout the West End much later in the game, Ichor only appear when plague has spread so rapidly and only after a very long time has passed for mutations to start appearing. This implies that Ichor are a type of “advanced” form of Skal almost, that not only can they have the potential to kill directly with their strength, they also have the potential to cause an epidemic or worsen an epidemic, like we see with the Skal Epidemic, where the plague begins to start spreading by touch alongside the violent biting. 

6. Disasters

Disasters are the ultimate form of the contagion in Vampyr, the embodiment of the Red Queen’s rage and the final result of the Blood of Hate’s influence. They exemplify the eldritch horror of the Red Queen’s influence, only targeting women who have been wronged and have become creatures of ultimate hatred, while Myrddin counters this by Turning men who have a purpose, as champions to resist the utter, perpetual cycle of hatred. Very much real, biblical, and mythological all at once in the Vampyr universe, Disasters are not exactly vampires in their own right, but much like the Ichor, are meant to represent the hatred and the chaos that consumes many vampires. As the sole source of the Skal Epidemic and other tragedies, as well as the main fear of the Guard of Priwen and their reason for commencing Great Hunts to avoid their existence coming into fruition, Disasters act as boogeymen to both vampire and hunters alike. With their eldritch, grotesque appearances and the ability to plague any land or person they touch, much like Brood-mothers, Disasters are Hells that haunt the Earth wearing female flesh. 

Doris Fletcher is the first Disaster you encounter right before you encounter her mother who is also a Disaster, a sad tale of both mother and daughter being scorned. As the greatest actress of her time, her dreams wore torn asunder when she caught the plague from the original Disaster in London, that being her own mother. The infection became a greater, grotesque beast that began to infect the West End. A scorned starlet that was doomed by her own mother’s hatred and bitterness, that being...

Harriet Jones, the original Disaster and start of the Skal Epidemic, caused by Edgar’s experiments and furthered developed her own bitterness and acrid hatred against the world, as well as her own daughter for not visiting her anymore. Jones wanted everyone to suffer for what they did for her, for abandoning her as a sad old woman, and this tragedy developed into London’s Skal Epidemic, all planned by the Red Queen.

Lady Ashbury was the original source of both of these predicaments, however. William Marshall infected Ashbury with the Blood of Hate, and while she believed herself to be cured thereafter with the Tear of Angels, the Blood of Hate’s influence still coursed through her veins and caused her to be what Jonathan described as the “healthy carrier” and true origin of the Skal Epidemic. The Tear only cured the outward symptoms of her hatred and rage, but the condition in her blood never left, which is what made Edgar’s experiment so deadly, unbeknownst to both of them.

Disasters remind me very much about the Biblical “Day of Judgement” told throughout all Abrahamic religions, where the soul is judged based on their sins and virtues, and are chosen for Hell, Purgatory, or Heaven. The variations vary between religions, but overall it is generally a judge of character, of the soul, and how much that soul has escaped their Original Sin at birth. Usually, Judgement Day occurs at death, but what of the creatures of blood like we see? Of immortal beings who now represent death and the Reaper, rather than it’s victims?  Getting into the religious symbolism of Vampyr as well as the mythological concepts behind the Red Queen and Myrddin would require their own book, let alone an essay, so I will focus on the connection I feel matches: the cyclic nature of Disasters. We know that in the past, Disasters have plagued England as well as neighboring nations, with Carl Eldritch telling us of how William Marshall brought one of the first Disasters (due to his Blood of Hate), and how McCullum accuses Swansea and Jonathan of attempting to recreate another Disaster to start a plague of vampires during his boss fight at Pembroke.

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This kind of “Day of Judgement” seems to be something that the Red Queen always brings down upon the land from Stonehenge once her avatar awakens, and Myrddin attempts to fight against his mother’s hatred by making “champions” of his own to protect the land from her wrath. Jonathan succeeds in saving the Red Queen from destruction and kills the Disasters of London, but Myrddin has mentioned that his champions have not always succeeded in their cause, or fail somehow in other ways. such as being unable to even accept their own immortality, or causing their own self-destruction through other means (take Jonathan’s bad endings). 

It seems that Disasters are always inevitable, because hatred and evil within humans are always inevitable, but Myrddin seeks to also show that benevolence and the will to fight are also inevitable parts of the human condition. It is a balance, a Yin-Yang of sorts, with the Red Queen’s Disasters being the much more evil half whilst the Champions of Myrddin being the more benevolent half (to various, ambiguous moral degrees. ‘Good’ in this sense is simply being Turned to save the land, but how they go about it, is the moral ambiguity of it. For instance, no matter how much of a monster you play Jonathan to be, London is going to be saved, but at what cost? In the end, he can save London, but if all the districts are Hostile, overrun, and more mausoleum than city, does that not make him no more greater than a savior to a dead Empire?).

The Blood of Hate was the original “sin” that caused all of this so to speak, but even further back than that, is Pawl’s existence. Is it not impossible to think that a self-hating vampire from 500 A.D, could not already be a precursor to how far and how deep this bloodline follows to William Marshall’s era? Nimrods could arguably be considered the first kinds of Ekons we can actually hold any recollection of, so would it not make sense for the culmination of such hatred in vampires to be a Disaster? The cycle of life, death, and undeath that brings forth nothing but more death and inevitable hatred towards all involved; even if it is a mere cycle contained by Myrddin and the Red Queen’s existence. 

Disasters, much like all vampires, are victim to an ancient, biblical, and mythological circumstance of the human condition, almost as if vampires themselves, are akin to the Original Sin from the Bible—much like Adam during the Fall of man, plaguing all humans thereon with the capacity to sin, vampires represent the ancestral sins of Myrddin and the Red Queen; that all mortals from birth have the capacity to become corrupted, immortal versions of themselves.

Yet, we only see Disasters as scorned women, she-devils in the flesh, and the only mention of Champions are men, be they victorious or as flawed as the Disasters they were born to face. This could be mere preference on both Myrddin and the Red Queen as a just another addition to their long lists of dichotomies between them, or could there be anything deeper with this? Eve was seen as the sinner for speaking to the serpent, as was Lilith when she denied Adam subservience—cursed, scorned women are not new in Biblical verses. Mórrígan, the female figure from Celtic mythology that the Red Queen has been referred as, is a symbol of both war and fate (the Red Queen incites wars with her Disasters, and the fate she produces is cyclic; fate is often something described as everlasting and primordial), as well as a symbol for the Earth and guardian of the people (Myrddin could be this, rather than the Red Queen herself—she incites war, but Myrddin, as a part of “she”, guards the Earth by creating Champions. A metaphor to the hypocritical nature of a vampire that seeks to save others or themselves, perhaps?). 

Many natural disasters are seen to be the work of fate and otherworldly creations as well. Friar Tobias Whitaker, in all his insane ramblings, does hold some truth when he speaks of the Skal Epidemic as the work of the Devil, or as a sort of Armageddon for London’s sins (the earliesr Disaster also occured in 1666; 666 is the trademark number of the Devil. Coincidence?).

An Armageddon is a sort of prophesied “battle of the end times”, and nowadays is used describe a sort of end-of-the-world scenario, not far off the Skal Epidemic’s influence given how much it can take over. Several comparisons of this sort of “primordial” belief about disasters can be made to the Red Queen’s cycle of her own Disasters and the various plagues that come with it.

Isaiah 45:7, English Standard Version (ESV)

7 I form light and create darkness;    I make well-being and create calamity;    I am the Lord, who does all these things.

Chronicles 7:13 - 7:14, King James Version (KJV) 13 If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people;

14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Disasters, above all, are prophecies, a true representation of how vampires plague the hearts of man, of how vampires shall always be seen as nothing more than a courage that must be vanquished by a scourge of equal deadliness. A traditional view of the vampire, but also a very human one—for Disasters do not become Disasters solely due to being infected, they become Disasters once their hearts and souls pass the point of no return. Once more, the vampire lies bare in it’s true form, as a victim of a primordial, circumstantial “sin”, at the behest of the Red Queen. 

After losing all hope for their own humanity, their redemption, their happiness, their love—they plague the Earth, haunting the land as slaves yearning for the most human thing that they, and all vampires, have lost—the gift of mortality. 

III. Credits, Extra Comments, and Sources

CREDITS:

I would first off like to thank @cursedbethechoice for all their help and advice in writing this essay, as well as allowing me to use some of their work for this project. They also helped me access sources I otherwise would not have access too that were incredibly valuable and academic. A lot of this couldn’t have been done without them! Their essays cannot also go without notice, and I really recommend you checking out their blog for their own analysis on the game!

I’d also like to give a shout-out for @orionali, as they helped me with datamining the game and it’s assets, which came in handy multiple times while creating this essay.

EXTRA COMMENTS:

This essay is a whooping 14,293 words long! It took roughly 2 - 3 weeks to complete between my own life busy-ness, procrastination, and research. I assure you, I did not expect it to become this big.

This section is mostly for extra tidbits and comments I wanted to share, as well as some other interesting parts of the game that I feel have some relevance to the essay, but didn’t warrant enough of a reason to be elaborated upon. I ALSO APOLOGIZE to mobile users. sadly, Read Mores don’t block off the content... which sucks.

It is not mentioned in the Ekon section, but they can detect disease according to Edgar’s note in Jonathan’s office. This is why Jonathan is able to see what kind of illnesses people have, and to what degree it has decayed to! (I also imagine he’s able to clearly identify and name them because he’s a doctor). 

Most of the music I listened to while writing this was the official soundtrack.

A vampire can Shadow Jump with a human (or anything) without them falling out of their grasp. 

Vampires really dislike natural substances (because they’re unnatural beings, I suppose?), which explains this, I imagine.

Vampires have obtusely large fangs if this texture is anything to go by.

Pembroke Hospital was overcapacity by hosting more than 300 patients, as revealed if you send the district to Hostility Status. Is this due to Jonathan Embracing the hospital staff, or something else?

The Ascalon Club is wary about the Brotherhood’s traditions.

While writing, I felt like this sometimes.

ALL SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY (in no particular order):

Oxford English Dictionary DONTNOD’s Facebook Page Ernest Jones’ “The Pathology of Morbid Anxiety” - The Journal of Abnormal Psychology (1911) Dr. Elizabeth Miller’s Dracula Homepage "Greek Accounts of the Vrykolakas" by D. Demetracopoulou Leefrom The Journal of American Folklore, No. 54 (1941) "May the Ground Not Receive Thee" An Exploration of the Greek Vrykolakas and His Originsby Inanna Arthen (1998) Bible Gateway’s Versions of the Bible Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality, Paul Barber (1998) Staking Claims: The Vampires of Folklore and Fiction, Paul Barber (1996) Prest, Thomas Preskett. Varney the Vampire; or, The feast of blood. Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library Bramstoker.org’s resources The Bryon Society’s resources Dracula (1897), by Bram Stoker Dracula’s Guest and other Weird Stories (1914), by Bram Stoker Deities or Vampires? Hecate and other Blood-Drinking Spirits of Ancient Times, by Ancient-origins.net John Polidori, "The Vampyre" Created by Keffer, Jeremy L, last modified by Goodmundson, Scott D on Dec 17, 2010 The Vampire in Literature - Old and New, University of Iceland, Elísabet Erla Kristjánsdóttir (2014) Did Vampires Not Have Fangs in Movies Until the 1950s?, Brian Cronin, Huffington Post (2015) The Vampire Goes to College: Essays on Teaching with the Undead, Lisa A.Nevárez, Editor. Jefferson: McFarland, 2014. The Vampyre, a Tale by John William Polidori (1819) - Arizona State University Merriam-Webster’s Online Dicitionary Wiktionary Catechism of the Catholic Church, The Holy See THE MYTHS OF THE VICTORIAN WOMAN - NY Times WOMAN AND THE DEMON, The Life of a Victorian Myth. By Nina Auerbach. Illustrated. 255 pp. Cambridge, Mass.: JSTOR - Harvard University Press "Penny Dreadful: From True Crime to Fiction > Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in Concert”, PBS.org JSTOR’S Open Academic Resources Adam and Eve, Genesis 2 - 3, Christian Bible Reference Site Adam and Eve, New World Encylopedia The Word "vampire": Its Slavonic Form and Origin, Brian Cooper (2005) The Soul, Evil Spirits, and the Undead: Vampires, Death, and Burial in Jewish Folklore and Law, Penn State University, Saul Epstein and Sara Libby Robinson (2012) The Vampire Myth, Johns Hopkins University Press, James Twitchell (1980) Vampire bats have been caught sucking human blood for the first time, Helena Horton, Telegraph Press (2017) Vampire bat, ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA Biblica.com’s bible references Vampires of Capital: Gothic Reflections between Horror and Hope, Amedeo Policante (2010) From Demons to Dracula: The Creation of the Modern Vampire Myth By Matthew Beresford (2008) Re-masculating the Vampire: Conceptions of Sexuality and the Undead from Rossetti's Proserpine to Meyer's Cullen, Emily Schuck (2013) "Every age has the vampire it needs": Octavia Butler's Vampiric Vision in Fledgling (2008) Coitus Interruptus: Sex, Bram Stoker, and Dracula, Elizabeth Miller, Professor Emerita, Memorial University (2006) Werewolf Legends from Germany, University of Pittsburgh, translated by D.L. Ashlimann (1997 - 2010)  British Library’s list of Penny Dreadfuls, Judith Flanders (2014) The Book of Were-Wolves, by Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine), 1834-1924 “Ghoul” - Arabic Mythology, ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA The Mythical Ghoul in Arabic Culture, Ahmed Al-Rawi, Rustaq College of Applied Sciences, Sultanate of Oman The White Devil: The Werewolf in European Culture, By Matthew Beresford (2013)  Death and the Maiden - La Mort dans l’Art The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3 rev. ed.)  Edited by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (2009) “Original Sin” in the Cambridge Online Dicitionary “Armageddon” in the Oxford English Dictionary Pslam 51:5 - Biblegateway Porphyria and vampirism: another myth in the making, A. M. Cox (1995) Slayers and Their Vampires: A Cultural History of Killing the Dead, Bruce A. McClelland (2006)  Porphyria - Mayo Clinic Rabies - Mayo Clinic The Iliad of Homer, Volume 1, translated by William Cowper, ESQ., (1809) The Black Death: Bubonic Plague - Themiddleages.net De-coding the Black Death, BBC.co.uk The etymology of εἰκών in Wikitionary Summary of “The Vampyre” from Wikipedia’s Article The etymology of “Nimrod” in Wikitionary

[abzzz3]

Let Me Prove You Wrong (Part 7)

Pairing: Loki x Reader

Warnings: Small amounts of swearing

Word Count: 1,492

Summary: The reader and Loki have to go and collect a very rare book in Bulgaria.

_____________________________________

“Don’t cock this up (Y/N), we need this” Tony reminded you for the hundredth time as you pulled on your blazer and got into the Quinjet.

“Tony, it’s fine. I’ve heard this all morning, I’m pretty sure I know how important this is.” You replied, rolling your eyes and putting your harness on as they turned on the Quinjet.

“I know, but you’ve got a plus one who hasn’t spoken to the outside world in a while” He added

Suddenly you saw Loki walk out and onto the jet, sitting across from you with a smile on his face. You shot Tony a dirty look and he just raised his hands and backed away, as the doors all closed and you took off, into the sky. You looked over at Loki, smiling back at him but suddenly tense and noticing that your heartrate had suddenly increased.

“Hi, long time no see” Loki greeted

“Yeah, I’ve been really busy as you can see” You replied, you never got to do work that involved being out of the office so when you did you welcomed it

It had taken the last month but you had finally found where a specific book was being kept and your office needed it badly, even just until you could copy down and study it back to front. This book could accelerate your work more than you could imagine, so much so that you’d be able to write multiple papers on the subject.

“So where are we going?” Loki asked, getting comfortable

“We’re heading to Bulgaria where we are hoping to at least borrow a thousand year old, first edition book which will help us learn more about a specific source of power the early Norse people believed in” You explained “Why are you here anyway?”

“Stark is finally letting me go on missions but he’s still starting me off with the more mundane things. You know you can come to Thor and I about anything Norse” He explained

“Yes, but we need it all in writing to have physical writings about it and references to it. Besides going for the actual material it’s self it what we do, nothing less is good enough for some people I’ve worked with” You explained

You nodded and proceeded to go through your briefcase to ensure you had everything you needed, including a cheque book, contract, notes, pens and anything else that might be of need, including an easily concealable gun for some reason. Jesus Christ Stark, you thought to yourself, shaking your head and closing it all up again. He was always expecting the absolute worst of every scenario, when in actual fact it was probably a frail old man who loves his ancient history and folklore that had this book.

You suddenly saw what Loki was wearing and it probably wasn’t the best choice of outfit for this venture. He was wearing a pair of suit pants, collared shirt and leather jacket and all in all he didn’t look too bad, you even caught yourself biting your lip as you looked him up and down. For today’s work though it was a bit too rough so you unbuckled your harness and stood up to reach into one of the overhead compartments which usually held some spare changes of clothes. You reached in and pulled out a plain knit sweater before throwing it at Loki without looking.

“Switch the leather out for this, we don’t want to scare the poor man” You commented, secretly not wanting him to take the jacket off. It seemed to be somewhat of a turn on for you which surprised you a little.

“But you don’t mind it” Loki replied, cheekily

This caused you to blush and hide your face from his view as you closed the compartment up.

“Well it’s definitely not a bad look” You admitted, not able to look at him as you spoke

You heard him chuckle and cursed yourself for being so attracted to him, even though things always felt comfortable with him. At least they used to, before you starting hiding from him. The rest of the flight was in silence as you continued working on your laptop which was communicating with the office at the Avengers facility. You arrived in Bulgaria and were driven to the address you had been provided, being greeted by a grand building which looked as though it was both the home of Mr Aleksandur Dobrev and a public viewing gallery of old works. You both walked inside, the bell on the door notifying those that could hear that you had just entered. In front of and around you was collections of old books, tapestries, paintings and sculptures. All of which were Bulgarian, with a select few other cultures scattered around the place.

From behind a curtain, out walked a plump old lady with strands of hair falling out of her crocheted hairnet which sat high up on her head. She looked a little out of breath but still very composed and by her posture it seemed as though she was the person to speak to if you had any questions.

“Zdraveĭte, kak moga da vi pomogna?” She asked in Bulgarian

You cleared your throat and spoke slowly so as not to botch up what you were trying to say “Zdraveĭte, imam sreshta s Aleksandŭr Dobrev. Az sŭm (Y/N) (Y/L/N)” You tried to say, asking for Mr Dobrev

She looked you both up and down before nodding and scurrying back behind the large curtain and obviously down a hall somewhere to collect the man. You looked over your shoulder at Loki and just shrugged before heading over to look at the old books that were on display. They were all in glass display cabinets and in surprisingly good condition for how old they looked, but you were looking for a specific book.

“Miss (Y/L/N), it is wonderful to meet you at last”

You looked up and saw a middle aged man walking towards you, cheerily. He was considerably younger than you had expected and it did catch you off guard as from your research this man should be about to turn 87.

“Mr Dobrev?” You asked, cautiously and he nodded, taking your hand and shaking it gently

“By the look on your face I believe you were expecting my father, also Aleksandur Dobrev” He said, voicing my curiosity

You nodded chuckling a little, shaking his hand

“It would seem so, either way it is lovely to meet you too. This is my colleague Loki” You introduced Loki and the pair shook hands, locking eyes for a brief moment before releasing their grips

“Loki? Like the Norse God?” Aleksandur asked and you held your breath, waiting for Loki’s reply

“Yes, my parents were very into their folklore and legends. They are who gave me my love for the legends” Loki confirmed and you let out a silent breath, grateful he didn’t decide to voice that he was the one and only Loki that all the stories were about.

The pleasantries continued as you were both guided by Aleksandur to a back room which was much smaller but it’s contents was much more valuable. Inside were books you had only heard about, and spoke of things you had never heard of before or ever seen in such detail. You were lost of words and couldn’t help but just look around the room in awe.

“Here is the book we have been talking about together” Aleksandur announced, snapping you out of your haze and you looked over to where he was standing in front of the very book you were looking for.

“It’s amazing, and in such good condition” You commented, going and standing in front of it “How much?” You asked, eager to take it with you and study every word of it

“More than you have. My father spent his life building up this collection, this book specifically” Aleksandur said and your heart sunk

“There must be something we can give you, even just to study it for a period of time and return it” You pushed, there was no way you were going to have come out here for nothing

“Well you could do this one favor for me and I will let you hold onto it for one month” He hesitated, looking over at you

“What is it?” You offered

“It’s quite trivial . . .” Aleksandur evaded but there was no way I was leaving here without this book

“There is this secret society who have invited me to an initiation test but it’s frowned upon if you show up without a partner. I just need a date for the night and it will cement my placement within them” He explained

That was it? This grown ass man needed a date to prove he was worthy to hang with the cool kids?

“It’s a deal” You agreed, what’s the worst that could happen?

________________________________________

@staringmoony @thricethechrises @marvel-fan-queen @fire-in-her-veinz @lokilvrr @arielletheavenger

[olboypacman]

3. A Story to Tell (Trigon, the Benevolent)

A/N: This one’s going to be a bit of a divergence. It’s background on this version of Trigon. Still don’t own Teen Titans. Or Batman. Or Doctor Fate. Or Zatanna.

“Mr. Nelson!” a secretary calls out.

The older gentleman, answering the call makes his to the receptionist’s area. “I imagine he’s ready for me?”

“Yes sir! Mr. Wayne will see you now.”

Taking that as his cue he makes his way around the reception’s area to the automatic glass doors. Just before they part for him he sees in white bold lettering:

BRUCE WAYNE

OWNER & CHAIRMAN OF THE BORAD

OF WAYNE ENTERPRISES, INC.

Passing the threshold, he makes his way toward the ordinate, expansive desk made of some indiscriminate wood. Behind the desk he sees Bruce Wayne, alter ego of the Batman, leaning back into a large black leather chair. He’s wrapped in a black suit some with a white shirt and a black tie. Likely of some designer ‘s or another’s brand. Tailored exactly for him I bet.

Bruce has his eyes trained intently on a dark-haired woman leisurely sitting on the desk, who’s speaking to him. She’s wearing a dark blue suit jacket with a similarly colored pencil skirt. Her look his completed with nylon stockings and black flats.

“Kent.” Bruce says now training his eyes to The Sorcerer Supreme.

Upon acknowledging their new guest, the woman turns to face Kent. Zatanna.

“Oh Zatanna, I didn’t expect you to be here.”

“That makes two of us.” Say Bruce, cracking a smirk.

“Oh, shut up!” She responds to Bruce as she leaves the perch of the desk to greet Kent Nelson properly. “Call me curious. I wanted to know what exactly we could be dealing with.”

“Well, we might not be having to deal with anything.” Says Kent.

“How can you say that!? This is Trigon, the Terrible we’re dealing with! I don’t…”

“Zee,” Bruce interjects, “We’re not here to argue, Kent just tell us what we need to know. Just how powerful are they?”

“Well I guess I’ll start with the weakest of the bunch, though to call Arella Roth weak would be gross underestimation of her abilities.”

“She’s just a human, right?” Asks Zatanna.

“Yes, though her proficiency for the arcane leaves me questioning her lineage. According to Trigon, who was her first instructor, she took to the mystical arts faster than any being he’s ever seen.”

“Trigon taught Arella?” Inquired Bruce.

“Well, yes. He mated her and as powerful as Trigon is even he can’t be everywhere at once to protect his love and his progeny.”

“Love? Don’t make me laugh!” Zatanna said indignantly. “Demons aren’t capable of love.”

You’d be wrong I’m afraid, my dear.

“You’d be surprised what love can do.” He looks to both Bruce and Zatanna knowingly. “Anyway, Trigon had mostly taught Arella spells and magics designed to protect herself from the members of The Church of Blood. While not the most mystically inclined of people, outside of the Bloods of course, they would be a handful for any regular human. But her second teacher taught her most of what she knows now. Her second instructor was none other than last high priestess of Azarath, Azar.”

“Hmm, so that’s where he took her after she left my protection.” Says Bruce.

“That would be correct. Under Azar’s tutelage Arella developed into quite the little sorceress, I’d she can rival your abilities.” He finishes, gesturing to Zatanna.

“OK,” says Bruce, “tell me about Raven.”

“Ah, the apple of her father’s eye that one. Gods help anyone foolish enough to threaten her. The one even more fool hardy to lay a hand on her,” Kent shutters, “I wouldn’t wish such fate on the worst of people. Raven’s curse is her gift. Much of her abilities are tied to her soul-self and/or her emotions, and her level of calmness or emotional distress can dampen or amplify her already potent abilities. Her soul-self, as its name implies the physical manifestation of her soul. Once manifested it can appear physically as a black raven in an energetic state, incredibly cold to the touch. It can also project itself from her body as a blast of dark light, she can use it for short range teleportation, shield generation for herself or others, flight/levitation, and she can completely separate the soul-self from her physical body for as using it for astral projection, possession and for scouting if necessary. I’ve also seen it encompass objects as large as an eighteen-wheeler yet concentrated enough to cover a penny. Furthermore, she’s an empath, able to sense and consume the emotions of others. Plus, she’s got a healing factor, expected of one of demonic heritage and she’s also able to heal others by taking a bit of the damage unto herself. I currently don’t know the limit to her healing or any of her abilities for that matter. Not too mention her competence has a sorceress, she has the potential to surpass her mother. Azar even. She may even surpass Trigon one day.”

“I shutter to think of two demons that powerful running around.” Said Zatanna.

“Empathy…” Mutters Bruce. “Isn’t that a genetic trait? An Azarathian trait?” he inquires.

“Exactly. Which is another reason why I’m skeptical of Arella’s parentage. To build on your point Bruce, empathy is an Azarathian genetic trait passed on maternally most of the time.” Answers Kent.

“Hmm… Tell me about Trigon. What is he exactly?”

“A simple yet, complicated answer. Let me preface by telling you: the path to hell is paved with good intentions. Trigon was once an Azarathian who’s name has been lost to history. He was the progeny of an Azarathian man and the Arch Demoness Lilith, the Impious.”

“Self-proclaimed goddess of lust and seduction, I’m familiar.” Says Zatanna.

“Yes, well that aside, the first Azarathians* had the arrogant notion that they can purge all the negative emotions from themselves. Being a pacifist society, certain emotions can be interpreted as aggressive. Anger, hatred, jealousy, etc. were practically thought of as atrocities among the ancient culture.”

“But it’s impossible to permanently remove emotions from yourself!” Cried Zatanna.

“A lesson ancient Azarathians learned the hard way.”

“Where did the man that became Trigon play into all of this?” Asked Bruce.

“He volunteered to be the vessel where all the purged emotions would be contained. And when emotion is given physical form it basically becomes energy, in this case of negative sepctrum. It also exacerbated the situation that those Azarathians are as mystically inclined as they are today. It was said that when all the negative emotions where given corporal from, it resembled a great roaring inferno. Suffice to say, when the unnamed Azarathian was bestowed the emotions it amplified his already demonic heritage. It tore his physical body apart in a hellish firestorm. His skin, bones, muscle and sinew became atomized dust scattering to the winds. But, oddly enough where his body once was, that inferno still raged on. The Azarathians acted quickly though, banishing the burning hatred personified to a dimension between not exactly this one, but not the next either. It was an infinitely dark and abyssal dimension Trigon has since claimed as his own.”

“Do you know how he eventually gained the physical form he has today.” Inquired Zatanna.

“That I’m not sure. I theorize that the soul of the nameless Azarathian remained bound to the personified flaming emotions when they were ejected from Azarath. I’d imagine there was a period where eventually the soul regained sentience and using it’s demonic power and the magically infused influence of thousands of Azarathians to gain or create a physical form.”

“How powerful is he?” Requested Bruce.

“Incredibly.” Kent simply responds. “Raven inherited his healing factor and like I said I don’t know the limits of hers. He has a soul-self much like Raven’s, but it’s not hindered by his emotions. Though carrying much of the same abilities as Raven's, Trigon's soul-self manifests itself in the form of a serpent when released from his body. It can be deathly black like Raven’s and cold as the most frigid of tundra; to as blue and hot as the hottest stars in the universe. It can amplify gravity in a given amount of space, can manifest solidly as any object Trigon desires and can even project copies of other beings, though the copies themselves are under Trigon's control. The soul-self can also connect any two points in existence, making interdimensional travel child’s play. Also, much like Raven's it can envelop objects, however Trigon's has the potential to envelop in his own words ‘anything my senses can encompass’, leaving its potential for destruction completely up to the imagination. And let’s not forget the mystical influence of the emotions that led to his origins. That left him with enough magically capcity to make the spirt of Nabu’s brow sweat.”

“Do you know type of spells he prefers?” Zatanna asks quietly.

“He prefers his own demonic power, but I’ve known him to use spells that summon familiars and pyro- kinetic spells.”

“Any weaknesses?” Requests Bruce.

“Being a demon, he’s subject to spells, objects and weapons designed to counter-act his kind. But unless created by an incredibly powerful sorceress or sorcerer, I doubt those would slow him down for long.”

“Would you be able to stop him if it came down to it?” Asked Zatanna.

“I wouldn’t,” said Kent. “Nabu has been bound to much more powerful sorcerers than me, and at those times only managed to fight him to a standstill. And at no great consequence to my far-flung predecessors. Trigon’s the main reason why it was decided a lord of order such as Nabu was commissioned to take action.”

Bruce and Zatanna stare ahead at nothing, dumbfounded by this info dump.

Breaking the stupor, Bruce asks, “What I don’t get is what caused him to abandon his destructive ways?”

“It’s like I said Bruce, you’d be surprised what love can do.” Kent answers.

“You don’t mean, Arella do you? I heard he stopped conquering centuries ago you don’t mean…”

“He does love Arella, no doubt. But it wasn’t her who changed him.” Kent stands reaching inside his coat pocket, pulling out a picture. He throws it on the desk. He takes his leave, heading toward the automatic glass doors of the office. “Bruce, Zatanna, you have my best,” he waves lazily as the doors open.

On the desk sits the photo, the image of a woman. Thought that’s not quite right. It’s a picture of a painting of young woman. A woman that looks scarily similar to Arella…

Check out this and my other writings at: https://www.fanfiction.net/~olboypacman

[dailyaudiobible]

01/03/2018 DAB Transcript

Genesis 5:1-7:24, Matthew 3:7-4:11, Psalms 3:1-8, Proverbs 1:10-19

Today is the 3rd day of January. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and it's, of course, wonderful to be here with you today from the rolling hills of Tennessee, where it is a cold. Not as cold as many of you further up in the north. I get it. I know that. But cold for us nonetheless. But, thankfully, we have a nice, warm, global campfire burning that is this community and we can all come in out of the cold and warm ourselves with some time in God's word as it opens up its stories and wisdom and inspiration to us. So, today we’ll do what we do every day, pick up where we left off yesterday and continue the story forward. So, we’re reading from the New International version this week. Genesis chapter 5 through chapter 7.

Psalms:

Okay. So, we have talked about the book of Genesis as we began this year. And then the next day, which was yesterday, we talked about the book of Matthew. Now let’s talk about the book of Psalms. So, the Hebrew word for Psalms is Tehillim, which means, praises. And that's what this book is. It's a collection of 150 songs, hymns, congregational and responsive singings, and individual songs and poems of worship. It’s basically five books in one. And they’re classified by who wrote them or there theme or purpose. Some of them give praise to God, others speak of his character or actions. Some are songs of lament or repentance, while others are songs of thanksgiving. In other words, they’re songs about life and the life of faith. And no matter the circumstances of life, the book of Psalms is meant to bring praise, glory, adoration, reverence, and honor to God in all circumstances and for all purposes. Psalms is a beautiful book containing some of the most heartfelt musical poetry ever written. And every conceivable human emotion is explored in the Psalms. There are heart cries that are so passionate and broken that you can feel them across the boundaries of time. And yet, there are also some exalted mountaintop experiences where the glory of the Lord is tangible and present. David, who we haven't met yet, but we will, he was the second king of Israel and he was a master musician and he composed most of the Psalms. And, although we have a large amount of information about David throughout the rest of the Bible, the Psalms reveal his heart. And what we find is that he is completely human and the ebb and flow of his humanity is ever present in his compositions. But David didn’t write all the Psalms. Other writers include Solomon, who is David's son, the sons of Cora- Asaph, Ethan - and then there are a number of them whose authors unknown or they were anonymously written. But ultimately, the purpose of this Psalms was to rally the people and to enrich the worship experience of Israel. And the songs would have been sung in public and private homes as people went about their daily lives. And these songs have stood the test of time because we sing and quote them now. Their power and enduring beauty is unmatched and they’re absolutely unrivaled in terms of literary and spiritual value. Scholars believe that the Psalms were written over a long period of time, between roughly 950 BC until about 165 maybe 170 BC. Three major periods in Israel are covered in the Psalms. The first would be during the reign of David and Solomon. The second would contain songs written when the children of Israel were taken into exile in Babylon, a story that we’ll get to later. The third would contain writings from when they were freed to go back and re-create their land after the exile. Also, a story that we’ll get to later. We have a long time span and various culture points that are represented here in the Psalms, but the Psalms are very cohesive in their purpose of bringing glory and honor to God in a very authentic and beautiful way. And today we’ll read Psalm 3, a Psalm of David when he fled from his son Absalom.

Commentary:

Okay, so in the book of Genesis we’ve traveled many generations from Adam and Eve and we've begun to see the wickedness that is happening in the world because humanity was separated from divinity. And all of that is leading us to the man, Noah, and an ark, and a flood. But just before we got to Noah and basically right in between some genealogy and Noah, we come across this strange passage. ‘The sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.’ Then we were told the Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, ‘when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.’ And we reach passages like this throughout the Bible where you go, wait, what is going…what is being said, what is happening? And every year as we go through the Bible, we dive into some of these. So, who are the sons of God that saw the daughters of Eve were beautiful and took them? And who were the Nephilim, who were apparently their children? Well believe it or not, we’re not the first people to ask this question on the face of the earth. This has been being pondered for millennia. So, from a biblical scholarship perspective there’s basically three interpretations here, three ways of looking at this. The first would be that the sons of God or the Nephilim, these are angelic beings but they’re part of the spiritual realm. The second way of looking at it is that these were the rulers, they were tyrannical people, but kind of smaller kings of clans that would roam about trying to conquer and build up their kingdom. And then the third way of interpreting this would be that these are the descendants of Adam and Eve's son, Seth. So, two of these ideas are humanly based and one of them is rooted in the supernatural. And they each have their own challenges to overcome, which is why there's different ways of looking at this. So, let's look at the Seth idea first. Basically, the thought is, Adam and Eve had three sons - Cain, Abel and later Seth. Cain killed his brother Abel and then was cursed and sent away by God. Abel had died. He had been murdered by his brother. And then Adam any of had Seth. So, when we get to today's reading and we’re moving ourselves through how the world became more and more wicked, leading to a massive flood, we read of Adams family line. But it's Adams family line through Seth. So, the idea here then, is that Seth's offspring would've been similar to Abel's offspring. They weren’t murderous and tyrannical people, they weren’t cursed and sent away, and they weren't supposed to mix in with those who were. So, the Sethites weren't supposed to be mixing in with the Caneites, but they found them beautiful and did. And we’ll find that later on as we get further into the Bible that this idea of mixture is kind of a big deal. It causes massive amounts of problems for the Israelites. And, so with that explanation, then the Nephilim are the offspring between Seth's family line and Cane’s line and then being heroes of old and men of renown is just ancient memory, legend, and myth that everybody knew at the time of this writing. The problem is that the Nephilim get referenced later, when the 12 spies go to spy out the promised land, which would mean that they survived the flood. So, those following, then, this Seth model would say that that was just a reference, when the 12 spies spied out the land. The legend of the Nephilim as a species of Giants was still well-established in the culture. And, so, they weren’t really the Nephilim, they were just being referred to that way because the spies likened themselves to grasshoppers in in their midst, which is figurative language. Okay, the other human option here is that these were the judges and rulers and kind of kings of the time that they just attacked each other and were trying to build kingdoms and they would rape and pillage and do what they did. So, they were referred to as sons of God because they were part of the human family. And their bloodline was thought of as powerful because they came from powerful people even though they were evil. And a lot of that thought comes from the fact that what Genesis is doing is leading us toward the flood. So, it’s going through some genealogy, showing generations have passed, with the intent of showing how each generation became more and more evil. So, immediately following the passage about the sons of God and the daughters of man and the Nephilim, we read, ‘the Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time’, which led God to regret that he had made people and the earth was flooded. So, in light of that, these were just powerful but evil people who became legendary. And then the third way is to look at them as spiritual beings, which would make us become acutely aware that there is much more going on in the cosmos than what we can perceive with our five physical human senses. And this would've been the common worldview of ancient readers. This is how they would've understood their existence. And it is, in fact, how we as believers view our existence, that we are, in fact, spiritual beings wrapped in human flesh. But we have a much more difficult time absorbing that a spiritual being, an angelic being of some sort, could take on human form, or even human flesh, and participate in the world. But from this way of thinking we would have to acknowledge the incarnation, we would have to acknowledge that God came in human flesh in the person of Jesus and transformed the world by participating in the world. So, the idea here is that God has a spiritual family and although not tethered to physicality, is nonetheless at work in the world or wherever it is that God's work needs to be done. And they can interact with humanity. So, for example, a little later in the book of Genesis when we meet Abraham, we’ll see that he interacts with two divine beings in the physical flesh and they eat a meal together. And then they go down to Sodom and Gomorrah and they physically rescue Lott, Abraham's nephew. And even later, when we meet Jacob, he's going to have a wrestling match. And it appears that he's a wrestling with a spiritual being, or even God. It's after this wrestling match that Jacob gets a name change, and his name changes to Israel. So, this is a divine experience that affects the world after this. Or Jesus, when he’s tempted by the devil in the wilderness, once those 40 days are over angels come and minister to Him, which probably means more than just floating around Him invisibly. And the apostle Peter escapes from jail because an angel comes and unlocks the door, setting him free. So, then, if you’re following along with this, then these are spiritual, angelic beings that have become infatuated with the beauty of the women of earth. So, the extrabiblical book of Enoch talks some about this. So, we read about Enoch, I think it was yesterday. Enoch was one of people that didn't live to be like most of thousand years old. He lived like less than 400 years and then he was no more, because God took him. And the only other person mentioned in this way is the prophet Elijah who was taken up in a whirlwind and chariots of fire, which is just another example of the divine realm interacting with the physical realm here on earth. So, the book of Enoch isn't in the Bible but it is ancient and it’s within the context of the Bible. And, so, in it, Enoch talks about, after his translation, going to some of these angels, warning these angels, and even angels that are under God's judgment and restrained. So, that's not like, hey, run out and find the book of Enoch and start digesting that, although it's very interesting. It’s just that through ancient writings you can begin to tell what people were thinking in a certain period of time, how it was they understood their existence. And if this kind of stuff intrigues you, another good resource would be to read The Unseen Realm by Michael Heiser, who is a very decorated scholar. And he moves through the Bible and the ancient cultures showing how the spiritual realm is very, very much at work in our existence. So, there's some thoughts on the sons of God and the daughters of Eve and the Nephilim. But one thing that we can say for certain is that the book of Genesis is leading us toward Noah. And we see that after Eden, as things spread out upon the earth, it became more and more and more wicked. Mankind was trying to use the knowledge of good and evil to achieve what it had lost. But what it had lost was true penetrating intimacy with God and that could not be restored by the power of human ingenuity. And mankind became like animals. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord, and a redemptive thread emerges, one that we’ll be seen throughout the entirety of the Bible.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. And here we are at day three and already it is opening up to us, awakening our spirits, awakening our minds. And we invite Your Holy Spirit to continue that work throughout every single day of this year. We want to be awake and aware. We want to partner with You and participate in Your work in this world. So, we invite the transformation, the transformative power of Your word to wash over us. And we invite Your Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.  

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, its home base, its where you find out what's going on around here.

So, a few things to talk about today.

January 14th, which is a week from this Sunday, we’ll be back out on the road and will be speaking in Louisville, Kentucky. So, if you are in the area, we would love to meet you, shake your hand, hug your neck, hear a little bit of your story. I’ll be speaking at new song Christian Fellowship, Louisville and you can get the information for that at dailyaudiobible.com. Just go to the events section and you can get all the details, even a map, websites, phone numbers, all of that. So, if you are in the area, come say hello. We’ll look forward to seeing you.

We’re also talking a little bit each day about how the Daily Audio Bible works. So, we’ve talked about the website. One of the things that you will notice at the website is the Daily Bible Shop. There are a number of resources there that kind of let you wear your colors as you go through the year, but also resources to help you move your way through the year and not forget the year. We have Daily Audio Bible journals in the Daily Audio Bible shop as well as a lot of writing utensils that can accompany you through. I mean, if God's speaking to you, take notes. Journal your way through this year. One of the themes that we’ll find emerging through the Bible is not forgetting where you have come from. So, as you take the journey through the Bible and as you Journal your life as your interacting with the Bible and are able to talk about the things that are going on in your life, those will become invaluable as you go back to previous years and are able to read through what was going on and how God was faithful. And then this emerging theme of redemption that we find in the Bible, we begin to see it in our own lives. So, we’re big on journaling around here, which is why we’ve put a journal in the new Daily Audio Bible app, so you can just kind of write some thoughts down as you think of them, things you don't want to forget. But if you want to kind of Journal your way through your life, then we have a perfectly…I mean we worked really hard to come up with the perfect pairing, the perfect things to take you through that journey and you can find them in the Daily Audio Bible Shop.

Another thing to point out is our Tumblr account. Every day, the things that are said on the Daily Audio Bible are transcribed and uploaded there. So, you can go back and read what was said. And you can find that link by going to dailyaudiobible.com and you'll see some tabs up at the top to help you navigate, like a lot of websites. One of those tabs is called Community, and in the Community tab you'll see Social Media, which will show you all the social media channels that we’re on, but one of those is Tumblr, and that will take you to the transcripts.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There's a link that’s right on the homepage. If you're using the new Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, 877-942-4253 is the number to dial.

And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Well hello from beautiful Cincinnati, Ohio, and happy New Year. This Daniel J. Jr. and I want to give a special shout out to all of my fellow Cincinnatians and those that live around the greater Cincinnati, northern Kentucky area. We need to meet up in the new year some time. Reach out to me on social media, just look for Daniel Johnson Jr. But that’s not why I'm calling. I want to wish everybody in the Daily Audio Bible community a Happy new year, especially those of you that are listening for the first time. What a trip this is going to be for you as it has been for me. I’ve been listening for quite a number of years now and I never wind up being the same at the end of the year as I was at the beginning of the year. And I'm so grateful that we have this new Daily Audio Bible app, the new Daily Audio Bible mobile app, and great functionality. I can Journal right there, to read along with the passages there, even mark that I've been or started an episode. What a phenomenal thing and I’m just really excited about the new year. My word…my new three words for the new year for me it's, joy, write, I’m going to do a lot more writing in the coming year, and dream. And that kind of correlates to the word for the Daily Audio Bible, a community of hope. So, I praise God for all the work he’s been able to do in 2017, but I'm excited about what's going to happen in 2018. Come, let’s celebrate all that God has done and let’s celebrate all that God is about to do. From beautiful Cincinnati, Ohio. This is Daniel J. Jr. Make it a great day.

Hi. My name is Derek from Vancouver, BC. This is my third time calling. And I just want to ask you, my DAB friends, to pray along with me and agree with me on this request. Heavenly father, I want to start a new year by surrendering to You completely. I have procrastinated so much in the past and I have lived in regret. I’ve complained and moaned about everything and I want to just start fresh. I’ve been tied up with doing so much stuff, getting busy doing things that do not matter, and I want to give those up. Father, I ask for Your help. There are addictions in my life that I want to break free from and just the guilt and shame that then goes along with it. So, Father, I ask you in Jesus's name to help me to recover what the locusts have taken from me. I ask You this Father in the name of Jesus. My brothers and sisters, I ask you to pray and agree with me on this. Okay. Thank you so much. And the Lord bless you. Happy new year to you all. Bye-bye.

Happy New Year Daily Audio Bible family. It’s Jubilant Perseverance from Indonesia. Today, I am blessed and really happy to be calling you from Thailand. I have left Indonesia for my winter break and spent the last few days in a healing center shedding 2017 and preparing to walk into 2018 with clear vision, clear sight, and ready to see what God is up to and how I can be a part of it. So, I just wanted to call in and pray for that to be a part of all of our perspectives as we cross over into a new year and ask that the Father give us wisdom, and that He continue to guide us as we surrender ourselves to Him. And just pray for the blood of Jesus to cover all of His people who have just surrendered to Him and given our lives over to Him and confessed that He is Lord. It’s been a really, really difficult year, but I am excited about what’s to come as the old passes away and the new is finally here, literally a brand-new year. Thank you all so much for continuing to be a part of this and support one another and Brian and your family, thank you for your work that the team is doing there to make this community possible. I’ve been very blessed listening to the word and listening to your commentary on it as well as the prayers. Have a wonderful 2018 everyone. By-bye.

God Your so faithful that I’m forced to confess That I’m wonderfully made and abundantly blessed And as we draw closer to the end of another year Some things in my blindness have become abundantly clear Two months ago I had anguish every single day Blisters and excruciating pain that never went away Now two months later I’m sending up praise Halleluiah, thank you Jesus and my spirit just stays and replays Over and over I can't thank him enough Things seemed so hopeless excruciatingly tough Now I’m ebullient like a bottle of uncorked Champaign Free from anxiety free from all pain We can endure for a moment, a minute, a night But when that joy comes in the morning it's an incredibly welcome wonderful sight Halleluiah, thank you Jesus I have to say it again Like I told you before his praises within me don’t end I know there’ll be other problems other ailments and fights Other days filled with anxiety as well as other sleepless nights But I know that the Father has given me the power to win Jesus and the Holy Spirit advocate, healer, and friend blindtony1016@gmail.com. Happy New Year's everybody. I’d like to give a shout out to Walter. Hope everything’s going good with your mother. Keep burning girl. Keep burning. Haven’t heard from Blessed Like Me. You still there brother? And Shannon, with the spiritual nuggets. Where you all at? And Gigi, haven’t heard from you either. And, also like to give a shout out to Slave of Jesus. Alright, love you all. You’re in my prayers every day. And, once again, Brian, thank you for this won…

[livefromtheloam]

Whatever Happened to Kamigawa?

So, I’ve noticed the Kamigawa discussion happening a bit more often these days, so I wanted to give my take on the original block and whether or not it’s feasible for Wizards to return to the plane in a Standard set.

This wound up being much longer than I had anticipated so I’ll throw in a jump so as not to take up all of your dash.

Intro

Magic the Gathering is a franchise that serves two purposes. It is a deep strategy card game which adds onto itself annually. It is also a rich, setting-driven collection of stories which explores different fantasy worlds. Magic is at its best when these two factors are both strong (the original Innistrad merged flavor with game play better than any other block), but is also excellent when it’s light in one (Kaladesh was light on mechanics but had amazing story) or the other (the original Zendikar was light on story but had amazing mechanics). Additionally, when a world is heavily inspired by a real-world source, the flavor has to match expectations. Innistrad truly felt like you were playing a role in the battle between a struggling human race and hordes of different things that go bump in the night. Even leaving aside the ancient Egyptian theme, Amonkhet was able to marry its flavor (idyllic city in a harsh cursed world owned by Nicol Bolas) with its gameplay (powerful spells and abilities that hurt your own creatures, cause you to discard, etc) with the added bonus of having a sunny, beautiful art direction.

While all those sets did their things right, I can’t help but feel as if Kamigawa had to get both sides of the equation wrong for us to get them.

Mechanics

Gameplay wise, Kamigawa was a mess. While samurai/bushido and ninjas/ninjutsu were home runs, the rest of the block felt like a frustrating puzzle with no solution. Spirits and Arcane were supposed to play off each other, but in reality there were only a few combos that were useful. Flip cards were messy and difficult to grok. Too many Legendary cards, made the best abilities less consistently playable and deckbuilding was made much trickier thanks to it (not to mention mirror matches using the Legendary rule of the time). Uncommon Legendary cards felt almost like a cheat. Epic spells, while a neat idea, were underwhelming. Offerings made it seem like the block was considering being tribal, but there were too many creature types and not enough support for most of them. Even equipment, which had been introduced in the previous block, was struggling to find its identity in a non-artifact world.

Entrenched players found themselves almost fighting against the game itself, while newcomers were confused and frustrated by a game that already had a reputation for being confusing and frustrating.

Flavor

Creative wise, Kamigawa was a bigger mess. I’ll get into what I think their motives for creating a Japanese-inspired world were later, but there were many issues for non-Japanese fans. Ostensibly, the setting is based on Sengoku Period Japan, and even if you don’t know it by name, you probably know the general idea of warring clans forging what would become the Empire. Since this is a fantasy setting, they also included their take on the kami, spirits and gods based on Japanese folktales and religion.

On paper this sounds good, but in reality it was incredibly difficult to keep up. As there was a Legendary theme, a huge number of cards had names that were unfamiliar to the vast majority of non-Japanese players. (As someone with a big "foreign” last name from a big "foreign” family, I can sympathize.) And to make matters worse, very few of those Legendary creatures (items, locations, etc.) featured in the main storyline of the set! The kami themselves were designed to be representations of their respective domains (kind of like Elementals, now that I think about it), but wound up being kind of incomprehensible and difficult to parse. Even though they took on many different kinds of forms, the kami artwork was extremely weird, even for fantasy. 

What Went Wrong

Everything changed in 1997. This was the year Pokémon left Japan and conquered the rest of the world. It was a vast multimedia phenomenon and it brought with it the idea that cartoons from Japan were really cool. While we had anime in the States previously, Pokémon introduced it to a far wider audience than ever before. By 2000, a large portion of animated shows that aired in the United States were made in Japan. The audiences couldn’t get enough and distributors had no problem with selling a product for which only the voicework and minimal editing needed to be done. Champions of Kamigawa was released in 2004, which means production started in 2002, still in the middle of the anime boom. While I can’t find anything stating that this craze wasn’t a driving factor in setting a Magic block in a world influenced by Japanese culture, I wouldn’t bet against it (as evidenced by this paragraph that’s already gone on too long).

The problem is that design did their homework too well. They based it on real world history and mythology, which bucked Western expectations of what Japanese culture was in regards to many elements. Non-Japanese fans didn’t have the cultural foundation or vocabulary for many of these new characters and fantasy creatures and the most foreign ones still stuck out and used more brainspace than the things players already got, like samurai and ninja. There was little resonance with anything that wasn’t already a trope.

I should note here that this was their first modern attempt at creating a Magic setting inspired by a real world one. Arabian Nights and Portal: Three Kingdoms were adaptations of the 1001 Nights and Romance of the Three Kingdoms settings, respectively, while Ice Age and the Dark were made in a completely different era of design. Of course there would be hiccups.

This was also the first time they had told a story that didn’t tie into Urza’s epic saga in years. It was completely new. And while I’m not sure if this were added later on, Kamigawa is mentioned as being very far away from Dominaria and other known planes, giving it an excuse to be stranger.

That still doesn’t excuse the curveball that players got thrown when it came to the subpar mechanics. As stated earlier, bushido and ninjutsu were great. Players grokked them immediately and many remember them fondly. However, the mechanics that didn’t play nicely outside the block, as well as the overall frustrating gameplay, made many people reconsider their hobby of choice.

Which brings me to the final nail in Kamigawa’s coffin. The Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game hit American shores in 2002. This was a direct result of a Western obsession with all things anime. Yu-Gi-Oh was able to hit all the anime tropes that Magic couldn’t, even in their Japan-inspired set. And while Magic had been able to weather the competition that was the Pokémon TCG, it couldn’t deal with a third contender.

Finally, I want to address a nagging thought. Normally, one would expect “the names were confusing for most people, but not me,” or something similar. I can’t in good conscience say that. Since I was a child, I’ve been interested in Japanese culture and mythology (as well as others - I did choose to study anthropology after all), but without having been immersed in it, I was just a fan at the time, not a scholar and certainly not Japanese. As I mentioned earlier, I bear no ill will towards those who can’t keep a glut of new unfamiliar words and names straight as I’ve seen how confused other people get when they’re introduced to my family all at once. This extends past the names, of course, and into many of the bits and pieces of Japanese folklore they did use.

Is there Hope?

Honestly, not a lot. Kamigawa had its chance at being a featured plane in a Standard set and failed. As Mark Rosewater has repeated ad nauseam, it’s almost disingenuous to try to convince the powers that be to approve it thanks to poor sales and abysmal player reaction to both the mechanics and creative direction. It’s not like bringing back a risky mechanic here and there - this is a whole setting, with everything that goes into it. Every set that comes out has an incredible amount of work and resources behind it, and there’s always a risk that it won’t sell. If you want a plane with gods (that aren’t mostly dead) and too many Legendaries, there’s Theros. If you want a plane with Asian influence, there’s Tarkir. If you want a plane with wacky spells, hey we’re finally going back to Dominaria next year. Why would a company that’s in the business of making money take a risk on losing when there are much safer gambles?

That being said, with the right pitch and a lot of work (and possibly the total destruction of all the collected market research and sales data) a Return to Kamigawa could be made. The fact that we’re going to three worlds a year now improves the chances of going back, and a decade and a half of experience with their modern design sensibilities definitely help. Realistically though, we’re only likely to see bits of Kamigawa in core sets and supplementary products.

But could it be GOOD?

Absolutely! Everyone’s got an opinion on how this could be done, but you’ve read this far so why not consider mine? These are just ideas for one to two Standard sets, not supplementary products or an old-fashioned block.

To start, it’s a great thing that the Champions of Kamigawa block took place thousands of years in the Multiverse’s past. It makes it easier to justify massive changes to everything.

The kami need to be dialed back, but present. I think a good case could be made for the kami being enchantment creatures, but there need to be far fewer, and they need to serve the story and an in-game purpose. Perhaps they could all be lords for their respective things, but they shouldn’t be normal creatures with freaky art. They also shouldn’t have freaky art. They shouldn’t be a rehash of the gods and Nyxborn creatures from Theros, but that’s a good starting point. I could see a mythic cycle of god-like kami and a rare cycle of concept-like or element-like kami. Give them the creature type Kami and abandon spirits altogether (unless the actual ghost of Toshiro Umezawa plays a role). Have no more than three other cards interact with this creature type.

The tribal component needs to be tightened up. There were so many cool new races in the Kamigawa block, but ultimately we only need five races of people (including humans), two classes, and then an assortment of other creature types. More on this in a bit.

Do away with the Legendary theme altogether. It never works and only sounds cool for about five minutes. Quality over quantity. (That being said, a Legendary theme for a Commander-focused product would work out very well I think.) Likewise, do away with the parasitic mechanics. Splice onto Arcane only works if there are Arcane cards outside the set and only if you want to actually play those cards.

It would be better to stick with a tried and true theme for limited - either Samurai vs. Ninja or five faction turf war. You could even have watermarks for the different clans. Everyone loves those, and clan emblems were used in real life too. Either way, it’s best not to deviate too much from what other sets and blocks have proven to work and it helps dictate the design of the set.

Speaking of design, there’s still a lot of great stuff going on in the original block. I haven’t mentioned the Soratami (moon people), Orochi (snake people), Nezumi (rat people), or Akki (goblin people), but they serve the set perfectly. Tribal is always a popular mechanic, and as a subtheme or even a major theme, players always want a team to join. Again, there are other creature types that could be utilized, but I think these are perfect to be the main races, along with humans. The Soratami are especially cool because they’re a Magic-specific race, much like the Aetherborn, and we’ve got a fan-favorite, story-driving moonfolk Planeswalker in Tamiyo.

There should absolutely be Japanese cultural and mythological inspired creatures, but they should be based on a modern idea of Japanese fantasy. Kappa, tengu, oni, and other assorted yokai fill in these spots pretty well, not to mention dragons. There’s also a good amount of things that can be done with locations, like shrines and castles, which wouldn’t necessitate them being Legendary.

If I had my way, the feel of a Return to Kamigawa would have a theme of journeying (a theme in a lot of old Japanese stories), much as original Zendikar had the feel of adventuring or Kaladesh had the theme of inventing. Lands with the type Road could lead you to places represented by other lands or artifacts with the type Shrine or Castle. These could help you play spells of a specific type, say, samurai or snake. In turn, those cards synergize with other spells. In practice I don’t know how this would play out, but as a midrange kind of limited environment, I can see it being enjoyable.

Final Thoughts

Despite its checkered past, the original Kamigawa block was very important. It was a first for a lot of modern Magic design sensibility, but wound up being more like a mistake to learn from than a model to base future sets off of. Additionally, it strayed when it should have stayed faithful to the source material and vice-versa. And while there were some very cool, very resonant elements that were introduced, the strange and unfamiliar elements are what dominated many players’ perception of the world. Combined with increased competition and a failed attempt at appealing to a certain type of fan, the block was doomed from the very start. 

Knowing what they know now, I think that the Magic team can put together an amazing Japanese-inspired set and keep it on Kamigawa, rather than having to create a new plane. They need to define what they want Japanese-inspired to mean, however, and keep it more in line with audience expectations. They need to focus on what people still love about the plane and bring it in line with what a Magic set is now.

[kabane52]

The Justice of the Judgment of God?

I received a very thoughtful question the other day, and I want to use it to take the opportunity to address this issue more broadly:

I really hope you will answer this for me. One of the reasons I rejected creationism and embraced evolutionism was that is allowed me to disregard the notion that God would drown millions of people, which of course would include children, and simple say that the flood story was allegory only with no basis in reality. But now that I have re-embraced creationism, what am I to do? And how do you handle verses where God commands the killing of entire peoples and the smashing of babies onto rocks?

I appreciate your question and the spirit in which it was written. I won’t be able to provide you with a knock-down open-and-shut answer. But I hope I can make some notes which assist in thinking about the problem. I will begin by questioning the capacity of theistic evolution to truly deal with this problem, and then I will close by commenting on the problem itself.

1. In some ways, I don’t know how the theistic evolutionist has any advantage over the creationist here. After all, even if one believes that every instance of judgment in the Bible is pure allegory, it remains a fact that there are many who suffer and die today, including those who suffer and die unjustly. Unless one wishes to radically transform one’s doctrine of God, one is going to have to account for this reality whether or not one thinks the biblical instances of judgment are historical. The Bible provides a complex picture of suffering, one which is in many cases an instance of judgment and in other cases is not. That complex picture remains in force today. God continues to judge the world.

2. Moreover, in some ways the theistic evolutionist makes the problem worse, in that there are millions of years of intense animal suffering and death even prior to the coming of man- thus, human responsibility cannot be appealed to, even indirectly. So while it might help to solve a problem one has over divine judgment in Scripture, it ultimately can provide no more absolute answers to the problem, and even worsens it in key respects.

3. Most theistic evolutionists limit their conception of pure allegory to Genesis 1-11, while acknowledging the basic historicity of the rest of the Bible. Even if the entire OT is dismissed, as is done by liberal evangelicals such as Peter Enns and Kenton Sparks, one still has to deal with the NT. As I have studied OT and NT together, it has impressed me how little of a gap there actually is. We often perceive a gap because we expect to perceive one. But there are many words of love, forgiveness, and loving one’s enemies throughout the OT, especially in the prophets and Proverbs. It is a myth that Gentiles are left out of the OT story- not only does one find righteous Gentiles and witness to the Gentiles at every point along the biblical story, but the conversion of the nations is a major aspect of the prophetic hope.

By the same token, the NT is filled with words of judgment. The Lord Jesus prophesied against Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, and in prophesying against Jerusalem, He drew upon the rich treasure of such language found in the OT- including language found in the Pentateuch and Joshua against the Canaanites. Jesus warned that Jerusalem would be destroyed like Jericho was destroyed. Not one stone left upon another. St. Paul repeats this warning throughout his epistles, and in my view, the Revelation of St. John (chapters 1-19) is about this as well, with Babylon the Great being Jerusalem, which is symbolically called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. (Revelation 11:8). So when we read historical accounts of what happened in AD 70, we understand from the New Testament that what occurred was brought by Jesus against those who had rebelled against Him. Over a million people came into Jerusalem for Passover, and then the Romans surrounded the city, locked them in, and torched the whole thing. Hundreds of thousands died, including women and children.

Now, my point in saying all this is not to say that the problem is also solved by its presence in the NT, but that it is impossible to isolate the problem and target small portions for allegorization. This is part of the biblical vision of God.

We do understand, however, that God is not wrathful in the same way that He is love. These are not ontologically equal. There is a sense in which judgment, not mercy, is God’s “strange work.” This is because everything of who and what God is has been eternally manifested within the life of the Trinity. The creation of the world is so that this world might be incorporated into the eternal life of the Trinity. And God has certainly not been wrathful towards the other Divine Persons. So what, theologically, does one say about God’s wrath? We say that God’s wrath is not a timeless energy of God in the sense that God’s love, faithfulness and mercy are timeless energies. Instead, we understand that the wrath of God is a real, but contingent expression of the divine energies that is always and everywhere directed towards love of the creation. Even the eternal exile of Satan and the damned from the kingdom of God is for the sake of the perfection and beauty of the creation- no unclean thing may enter it.

Now, as far as the problem itself goes. Again, I do not claim to have neatly solved the issue. It is an issue I continue to meditate on. And it’s important to keep in mind that while we must affirm that every action of God in Scripture is just, we do not have to assert that we know in what way every action of God in Scripture is just. There is no shame in saying “I don’t know how to understand this action of God, but I trust that there is a reason. This is part of the biblical understanding of faith- faith not understood as blind belief in the face of evidence, but faith in the sense that God has established Himself as trustworthy by His faithfulness to us and to the world in His Son, so that we trust His goodness even when we do not fully understand it. While I do not claim to have perfectly solved this problem, I believe we can make notes that lessen its force and point us to a solution.

1. To begin with the conquest of Canaan. We have to understand what Ezekiel said: Israel is in the center of the world. This was true in both a symbolic, liturgical sense (the temple is the joy of the whole earth) but also in a literal, cultural sense: the land of Israel was at the commercial center of the ancient world, and trade routes from across the international order would converge there. This was done so that Israel might function as light of the world. And while Israel was unfaithful for much of its history, Israel did fulfill that calling in important ways. The alliances of David and Solomon with the surrounding nations seeded them with cultural knowledge and developments which were essential for creating the world as it stood at the time of Christ. I have discussed this in more detail in my article here. What this means is that the culture existing in the land of Israel is the culture which would flow out and impact the rest of the world. What God told Noah in Genesis 9 is that He would never again destroy the world by flood, but He would cut the sin of man off from its youth. He then gives Noah the authority to carry out the death penalty in order to preserve the social order from widespread decay, and Noah prophesies the death penalty for the Canaanites at the end of Genesis 9- but in Genesis 15, we are told that the Canaanites have not yet reached the full measure of their iniquity. Not yet, God says. I will say more about this aspect below.

When God does carry out the death penalty against Canaan, it is even then for the sake of the world. Because Canaan was at the center of the world, its culture would flow out to the rest of the world. In other words, the disease is contagious, as it was before the Flood. And if the contagion was left in Canaan, the entire world would have been corrupted and cursed- perpetuating the creation-destroying impact of sin. Instead of leaving Canaan be, God annihilated Canaan and put Israel there instead. In so doing, God pushed blessing into the world rather than curse, molding and shaping the nations so that they would be fully prepared and primed for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

2. God not only announced what He was going to do to Canaan, but offered a chance for salvation. This is a major part of the story of the patriarchal narratives. When we are told that Abram set up altars and “called out the Name of the Lord”, this includes a prophetic ministry of evangelization. Indeed, the patriarchal period is the third, prophetic stage of the Noahic world- just as the period after the return from Babylon is the third, prophetic stage of the Mosaic world. This is why there are so many similarities between the two periods- for example, Daniel is a New Joseph who is cast into a pit but elevated to the right hand of the king. Umberto Cassuto points out that Genesis 12 does not refer to people whom Abram purchased in Haran- but rather refers to souls whom Abram “made” in Haran. Thus, in Genesis 14, Abram has 318 fighting men, probably around 3,000 men total. That is why, after all, the king of Egypt asked to see Abram when he entered. Abram was no wandering nomad. He was a prince. And he was carrying out missionary work in the land- God reveals Himself to Philistines in Genesis 20, and the Philistines convert and are blessed. The same is true of Jacob in Shechem. The Shechemites decide to become circumcised and part of the family- that is why Simeon and Levi’s murder of Shechem is so utterly wicked. Jacob tells them it made him a “stench” to the people of the land, destroying his effort to minister to the Gentiles.

But that’s not the last word in Genesis: Jacob had become a stench, but Joseph is taken to Egypt in an incense caravan. And Pharaoh makes him his right-hand man and proclaims that the “Spirit of Holy God” is in him- not “the spirit of the holy gods” as some translations falsely render it. All the nations flow to Egypt to receive food from Joseph. So when we hear that the iniquities of the Canaanites were not yet full in Genesis 15, that doesn’t mean that God is sitting, waiting for them to make enough rope to hang themselves with. Rather, there are loads of Canaanites who are still righteous and attach themselves to Abraham’s family. The same happens at the exodus- God says to Pharaoh that He brings plagues so that “my name might be made known in all the Earth”, and when the exodus happens, a “mixed multitude” comes out with Israel- all are circumcised together in Joshua 5. And then in Joshua itself, we still see some Canaanites converting. The story of Rahab the Canaanite is linked with the story of Achan the Israelite- Rahab, a prostitute, is given restored tokens of virginity in the scarlet thread (this isn’t just a guess, this is a big theme which I will explain another time) and given an inheritance in Israel- a lifetime of sins are washed away by one act of repentance. This is the merciful God. And Achan is punished the same way the Canaanites are. It shows that God is no respecter of persons. The Gibeonites craftily avoid the herem by deception- but this is not wicked. This is how far they were willing to go to become part of the covenant- compare how the Canaanite woman craftily debated Jesus about food from the master’s table, and was blessed. The Gibeonites were given the high honor of serving the Lord’s house.

I know you asked about the flood. So why am I going on about this? I’m going on about it is because I feel that part of the problem people have with this issue is that they perceive that the God of the Old Testament is acting arbitrarily and nationalistically. That is, He kills the Canaanites because they are Canaanites and not Israelites. They never had a chance. But the OT teaches the opposite throughout. God gave them chance after chance. When Rahab saves the spies, she does so because she has heard of the mighty works of God in Egypt. Everybody had heard what happened to Egypt. It had utterly collapsed. They knew, as Pharaoh’s counselors did, that this was the finger of God. And they still raised their blade against Him. What the story of Rahab shows is that they could have been blessed and brought into the family with a moment’s repentance. Throughout the Scriptures, repentance is signified by dust and ashes- symbolic death. So indeed, all Canaanites would have to die. But some would die by repentance. Others by the sword. I suspect that there were other Canaanites, whose stories are not told, who converted as well.

3. One thing which unites the story of the Flood and the story of the conquest of Canaan is the theme of the Nephilim giants. In the Scriptures as I understand them, a Nephilim is a human being ritually consecrated to the service of Satan- Satan possesses them through his demons and grants them superhuman strength. Such strength is a feature of demonic possession in Scripture and in the modern world. Genesis 6 calls them “mighty men”, a word which refers to conquest in Scripture. The house of Seth feared the military might of the sons of Cain, and they became even worse by allying with the Devil. They gained the world, but lost their soul. In 1 Samuel 16-17, David first fights off an evil spirit tormenting Saul with his harp, then fights off the Nephilim Goliath- according to Joshua 11:22, there were Nephilim-giants in Gath. David’s fight is not merely against flesh and blood- but against the rulers and authorities, against the cosmic powers of that dark age. This links closely demonic torment with the Nephilim.

Likewise, when Israel fears entering the land, whom do they fear? They fear the Nephilim:

(Numbers 13:33)  And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them."

Michael Heiser has made a very interesting point. He has pointed out that if you track the places where Israel is commanded to destroy all people- men, women, and children, it is only in those places where there are Nephilim. See his book The Unseen Realm for the detailed proof of this. I believe this goes some way in helping to illumine this problem. Those people whom Israel destroyed were those who were ritually consecrated to the Devil. I am not claiming that this solves entirely the problem, but that it sheds critical light on what precisely was going on. The same narrative of the coming of the Nephilim immediately precedes the annunciation of the Flood in Genesis 6:1-4.

4. We are told in Exodus 23:28 that God sent swarms of hornets ahead of Israel into Canaan. Now, if you lived in an ancient house, there wasn’t any closing of your windows. If there were swarms of hornets ravaging the land, you leave. This is especially so if you actually care about your family. We can conclude from this that the vast majority of people who were left were those who were there solely to attack the God of Israel and His people- or who were there because they were kept there by others. We simply are not told enough about the world before the flood to know precisely what did happen. We do know that Enoch carried out a prophetic ministry, one that is compared to Elijah’s- and one thing Elijah did is to gather a righteous remnant from an apostate culture- a remnant which was viciously persecuted by the apostates. Understanding that God works typologically, I strongly suspect that this happened before the Flood.

5. As Peter Leithart points out, when the typology of the conquest is used in Isaiah, it is a typology of liberation. The Second Joshua enters the land proclaiming liberty for the captives- He comes to destroy their oppressors. When we come to the Book of Joshua, we find, as noted above, that the real targets are those places with Nephilim- and also that most or all of the cities targeted are military fortress cities. The swarms of hornets that had been buzzing about for forty years undoubtedly would have driven much of the civilian population out as well, leaving a largely military presence and culture. And then we do find Gentiles converting in Joshua itself! Moreover, Gentile conversion is a major theme of the Book of Judges. The story of Judges opens with the Kenite Gentiles acquiring an inheritance through the Tribe of Judah, after which we are told that Othniel won a spring of water for his bride- and then we hear about the city of palms. That is an allusion to Exodus 15, where Israel comes to a place with twelve springs and seventy palms- twelve tribes of Israel water the seventy nations of the world. So the entire goal of the conquest of Canaan is to create a priestly nation at the heart of the ancient world who will provide light to the Gentiles.

I understand that your question was principally about the Flood, and I apologize if you feel that I did not deal with that directly enough. But the reason I focused so much energy on Joshua was because Genesis 1-11 is written in highly condensed narrative. There are many details that we are not told. But the language and context of the flood is applied extensively to the conquest of Canaan- for example, God’s decision to wipe out everything “in which is the breath of life” becomes God’s command to Israel to destroy “everything that breathes.” We ought to therefore understand that the way in which God fought against the Canaanites reveals the way He judges in general- including that supreme judgment on the “world that then was” in the Flood. The principal lesson I want people to understand about all of this is that whatever ethical problems one might have with the God of the Bible, He is not a respecter of persons. Not in the New Testament. And not in the Old Testament. God judges and blesses without regard to their nationality- if Israel behaved like Canaan, they would be destroyed just as Canaan.

As an addendum, I have found this article stimulating as well, and I appreciate its understanding of the depth and complexity of the problem:

https://alastairadversaria.com/2012/02/09/is-yhwh-a-war-criminal/

[evartandadam]

Hey do you know how come that in japanese folk art/stories there isn't a lot about wolves? Always dragons and foxes. Do you know some myths/legends with wolves?😮

omg I am so freaking happy you asked me about Japanese folklore, it is a big interest of mine!

I noticed this as well when I first got interested in Japanese folklore- so why?

Real Wolves in Japan:

Firstly, the Honshuu wolf has been supposedly extinct in Japan since 1905- they were hunted and killed since 1732.

The Honshuu wolf, also known as the Japanese wolf, is, quoted in this article, “the smallest species in the world and one which is relatively unknown even among the Japanese. These wolves experienced a long fall from its status as a divine entity, to become hunted fugitives slaughtered by the hundreds only to turn into a forgotten footnote of Japanese natural history and a sought after cryptid said to still exist in the wilds.”

“Many Japanese once revered the wolf as Oguchi no Magami, or Large-Mouthed Pure God, but as Japan began its modern transformation wolves lost their otherworldly status and became noxious animals that needed to be killed. By 1905 they had disappeared from the country.” Quoted from this article.

The Hokkaido wolf is another sub-species of Grey wolf that was hunted and made extinct during the Meiji restoration period.

This may have an impact on the current popularity of wolves in literature, but there are still wolves Japanese pop culture and shows like Inuyasha and Princess Mononoke.

Wolves in Folklore:

There are wolves in Japanese folklore! As mentioned above, in ancient Japan, wolves were once revered as gods.

“In Japanese mythology, grain farmers once worshiped wolves at shrines and left food offerings near their dens, beseeching them to protect their crops from wild boars and deer. Talismans and charms adorned with images of wolves were thought to protect against fire, disease, and other calamities and brought fertility to agrarian communities and to couples hoping to have children. The Ainu people believed that they were born from the union of a wolf like creature and a goddess.” - from this wiki

“Wolves traditionally appeared in Japanese folklore as Shinto gods (ookami) and divine messengers who occupied a world where sacred nature hadn’t been tamed by civilization. “ from this.

Okami:

(photo source)

“Ôkami is the Japanese name for the creature commonly called the Japanese wolf (Canus lupus hodophylax), which became extinct in 1905, though there have been many sightings since, mostly concentrating around the Kii Peninsula. Because of its small size and stature, there is some dispute as to whether it was an actual wolf, the term “wolf-dog” being given as a possible alternate. In fact, the term yama inu (山犬, “mountain dog”) is a common Japanese term for the wolf.” from this article. You should read this whole article if you want to know more about the Ookami. Here is another article you can read about them.

Ookami folklore stories:

In “Leaky Roof in an Old House”, a wolf is listening outside of a house, where a man and a woman are discussing what they feel is the most eerie, spooky thing in the world. The man says “a leaky roof in an old house is something to fear more than a [wolf].” Meanwhile, a thief is also outside, about to break into the house. The wolf, remembering what the man said, thinks that the thief is the thing called “leaky roof in an old house”, and runs away. While this story is more about comic misunderstanding than the wolf itself, it is telling that the man uses a wolf to describe just how fearful a leaky roof was to him. (A leaky roof in a ruined house was thought to create a spooky, otherworldly atmosphere.)

In “The Wolf’s Eyebrows”, a suicidal man goes into the mountains in order to find a wolf to devour him. When he meets one, he falls to his knees, and, shortly after, demands to know why the wolf does not eat him. The wolf replies that they do not eat just anyone; only those who are actually animals disguised as humans. When asked how the wolf distinguishes the two groups when they both look like men, the wolf replies that his eyebrows show him a man’s true form, and lends the man an eyebrow hair. The man goes off, and toward nightfall begs for shelter at the nearest house. The old man there is kind, but his old wife refuses. Remembering the eyebrow hair, the man decides to test it, and holds it to his eye: instead of two people, he sees the old man standing next to an old cow. This folktale expresses the notion, again, that wolves are judges of character, and can somehow tell who is a good person and who is a bad person (an animal).

These are two stories listed from this article.

Okuri Inu:

(photo source)

I featured this yokai in my monster project here. Read about the okuri inu on yokai.com! Everything below is from that site:

The story:

The okuri inu follows lone travelers late on the road at night. It stalks them, keeping a safe distance, but following footstep for footstep, as long as they keep walking. If the traveler should trip or stumble, the okuri inu will pounce on them and rip them to shreds. The “sending-off” part of its name comes from the fact that this yokai follows closely behind travelers, trailing behind them as if it were a friend sending them off on their way.

The okuri inu is somewhat of a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, if one should trip and fall, it will pounce with supernatural speed and gobble him or her up. On the other hand, they are so ferocious that while they are following someone, no other dangerous yokai or wild animals will come close. As long as one keeps his footing, he is safe… but traveling in the dark over root-infested, rocky mountain footpaths, especially for merchants carrying large packs of whatever it is they are going to sell does not make for easy footing!

In the unfortunate case that one should stumble on the road, there is one chance for survival: if you fake it so it looks like you did it on purpose, the okuri inu will be tricked into thinking you were just taking a short rest, and it won’t pursue. You do this by saying, “Dokkoisho!” (“Heave-ho!”) or, “Shindoi wa!” (“This is exhausting!”) and quickly fixing yourself into a sitting position. Sigh, sit for a bit, then continue on your way. The okuri inu will wait patiently for you.

If you should make it out of the mountains safely, you should turn around and call out, “Thanks for seeing me off!” Afterwards, that okuri inu will never follow you again. Further, when you get home, you should wash your feet and leave out a dish of something for the okuri inu to show your gratitude for it watching over you.

Superstition related to the okuri inu are extremely old, and are found in all parts of Japan. Wolves and wild dogs have existed on the Japanese isles for as long as humans have, and the legend of the okuri inu must have originated in the mists of pre-history.

In modern Japanese, the word okuri ōkami also applies to predatory men who go after young women, pretending to be sweet and helpful but with ulterior motives. That word comes straight from this yokai.

There are many other dog yokai- read about them here.

Here is a large article about wolf mythology in Japan.

Hope this helped!

[xoxardnekoxo]

Movie Review: The Mummy Trilogy

WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD!

When the first of these three movies first came out, I was in eighth grade. I thought it would be very scary, so I didn’t watch it at first. I heard some kids at school talking about certain parts of it and thought, “Ew, that sounds horrible.”

But I finally caved and guess what? I loved it!

This isn’t a movie that has to be watched just at Halloween. I watch it year-round.

Let’s start with some plots.

The Mummy: The first movie in the series follows Rick O’Connell and siblings Evie and Jonathan as they explore Hamunaptra, the City of the Dead, in where a pharaoh of ancient Egypt resided centuries ago. Upon discovering the city, they also accidentally bring the mummified version of the pharaoh’s high priest, Imhotep, back to life. Imhotep was cursed upon death, so he brings the seven plagues of Egypt back with him (plus he sucks the life out of anyone who opened a cursed chest to regenerate), and he has one goal in mind - to resurrect his lover, the pharaoh’s mistress, Anck Su Namun. Now it’s up to Rick, Evie, and Jonathan to stop Imhotep before he succeeds and wipes out the world.

The Mummy Returns: Imhotep is back, and this time he’s got the reincarnated version of his girlfriend in tow. Rick and Evie are now married and they have a son, Alex, who gets kidnapped due to wearing the bracelet of Anubis, which Imhotep needs to unlock the god’s army. Imhotep’s goal this time is to awaken and kill the infamous Scorpion King and take over his army. It’s up to the O’Connells to stop him, and save their son.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor: The O’Connell family is back, with Alex fully grown and going on his own tomb excavations. He unearths the Dragon Emperor, who used to rule ancient China and had control over all elements. Once again, the family and Jonathan have to stop a killer mummy before the world is destroyed.

So, my reviews. Like I said, I thought the first movie would be scary, but it turned out to have a lot of humor in it. Come on, who doesn’t love this scene:

Yeah, imitate the mummy’s weird ass scream and then shoot him. I’m cracking up just watching that gif over and over!

The special effects were great, and creators said they wanted the mummy to look more zombie-like and less like a person wrapped in toilet paper. I think they achieved that very well.

I’ve also always loved ancient Egypt, so that’s a big bonus as well.

Apparently this movie is a remake of one made in the 30s, and I suspect that’s why this version takes place in that time period. I haven’t seen the old one, but I’m very content with this one.

Like I said, this movie is full of humor as well as action. Come on, an immortal corpse with the seven plagues of Egypt having a fear of cats? Good thing I have one of those in case a mummy shows up at my house!

The second movie was equally good. I’ll admit, the reincarnation part was confusing to me until I saw InuYasha. I didn’t know what reincarnation was, but now I find it interesting. Very neat angle, how Evie is the reincarnation of the pharaoh’s daughter - the same pharaoh whose mistress was having an affair with Imhotep.

Behold the pretties! :D

Then we get The Rock (now known as Dwayne Johnson) as the Scorpion King, which generated its own spinoff movies (though I haven’t seen them). Nice effects there, that’s for sure. And seeing Imhotep and Rick fighting each other and then the Scorpion King... there were some funny sound effects flying around!

Quick! Someone get a giant can of bug spray! Still, I feel bad for Imhotep. Everything he did was for that woman, and in the end, the bitch left him to die at the end of the second movie. At least she got her just desserts too.

The third movie, in my opinion, wasn’t as good as the first two. I think it’s because the original Evie was replaced (I believe the actress was pregnant in real life at the time, so she couldn’t play the part). It’s a new mummy and a new story, not even taking place in Egypt, but in China. But considering I also love Asian culture, I was okay with that.

Jonathan now owns his own bar in China, humorously named Imhotep’s, and even featuring ladies dancing in Egyptian attire. Alex also returns, and I must say, he aged very well!

Yes, that is the same kid from the second movie. I checked. Yum! :D

The comedy from the first two movies is still there, but a lot more sexual innuendos are in this one. I guess because the kid grew up, so too did the original audience of the first two movies. I don’t know, but hearing how a woman is a “tomb in which many pharaohs have lain” was pretty amusing. And then the mummy horse with a hot fire body burning the rider’s crotch... nice.

Jet Li did a great job in his role as the Dragon Emperor, and if I’m not mistaken, he did all his own stunts for the martial arts scenes. And I always enjoyed Brendan Fraser as Rick.

Overall, great series. Can’t think of anything I don’t like, not even the scarabs literally getting under everyone’s skin. Well, that one ugly and annoying ex-friend of Rick’s, but he got what he deserved.

So yeah, in conclusion, I have to give the first two movies 10/10, and I’ll give the third one 8/10. Now I’m in the mood to watch them all!