#helios was jealous of the monarchs and threatened to bring eternal night so the humans sacrificed the monarchs

[givethetwinkaflamethrower]

Review of Monarch Lore + Musing on Pygmalion

Come Back Home Concept Film

Human world ruled by monarchs

Monarchs were jealous of Helios (I think the translation is supposed to be Helios was jealous of the monarchs but the English v/o says it this way)

Ppl worship monarchs instead of Helios

Helios threatens to take away the sun

The humans sacrifice the monarchs to Helios

Helios exiled the monarchs and their servants

Helios makes them vampires

Monarchs only drink from evildoers, continue to protect humans

Cursed servants bitter about their curse/humans betraying them, so they massacre any humans they find

Servants worship moon and wait for child to be born on day of eclipse

Use child for ceremony to bring eternal night

Child is born

War between monarchs and servants to protect child lasts 10 yrs

In final battle, monarchs win

When killing last leader of the servants, he tells monarchs “when red moon comes back, i will too for the kid”

Then night sky turned red

TBONTB Story Film #1

Souls of defeated servants sealed inside necklace

Monarchs realize that as long as they exist together, humans could “never escape the bridle of pain”

“Call Us Ishmael”* monarchs also put their souls in the necklace

* = in Islamic theology, Ishmael (among being a prophet and patriarch) is the son of Ibrahim (Abraham) who Ibrahim almost sacrifices to show his devotion to God--only stopping when God tells him that he's shown his devotion to God.

monarchs consider their sacrifice a sign of devotion to humans?

TBONTB Story Film #2

Helios grieves Phaethon

Helios turns grief to anger, directs anger toward monarchs

Helios takes away monarch’s powers, imprisoned them in shattered remains of sun chariot*, puts them in endless slumber

Only way to escape is to get blood of prophetic child’s descendants

Hundreds of years pass

* = In Greek mythology, Phaethon dies after attempting to control his father Helios's sun chariot. After many complaints "from the stars in the sky to the earth itself," Zeus strikes Phaethon down with a lightning bolt and his corpse falls back to earth.

Pygmalion

In the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Pygmalion is a sculptor who, upon finding faults with human women, sculpts an ivory woman so perfect he falls in love with it. After treating the statue like a romantic partner (kissing it, buying it gifts, making a bed for it), Pygmalion makes offerings to Aphrodite’s altar on the goddess’s festival day. He wishes for a bride who would be “the living likeness” of his ivory statue. He returns home, kisses the statue once–finds the lips warm–twice–the ivory is no longer hard. Pygmalion ends up marrying the statue-turned-woman, and they have at least one child. 

Logo motion shows ivory background turning to black

Suggests corruption? Or perhaps a dark side? Perhaps the monochrome palette, like the yin and yang of Chinese philosophy, represents the balance of natural dualities (e.g. winter vs summer, disorder vs order)

Track list

Intro: Lethe

In Greek mythology, Lethe is one of the rivers in the underworld. Whoever drinks of the river “experiences complete forgetfulness”

According to Ovid, the Lethe flows through the cave of the Greek god of sleep, Hypnos, and the river’s murmuring “induces drowsiness”

Connection to monarchs’ endless slumber?

Erase Me (title track)

Unforgettable

Counter-track to first two tracks?

Echo

Lyrical and compositional contributions by Leedo woop woop

In Greek mythology, Echo is a mountain nymph. The king of the gods, Zeus, often visits nymphs on Earth, and Hera, his wife, becomes suspicious of these visits and sneaks to Earth to attempt to catch Zeus with the nymphs. Zeus orders Echo to protect him from his wife, so she endures Hera’s rage and Hera curses her to “only be able to speak the last words spoken to her”. 

In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Echo, after being cursed, spots a man hunting deer with his friends. Echo falls in love with the man, Narcissus, at first sight and follows him. Narcissus becomes separated from his friends. He calls out, “is anybody there?” and Echo repeats his words back to him. He calls out “come here” and once again, Echo repeats his words back to him. Given that nobody has come out of their hiding spot so Narcissus can see them, Narcissus believes the person he’s talking to is running away from him. He yells, “this way, we must come together!”--which has Echo, believing his words to be a confession of reciprocal love, say “we must come together!” Echo runs out to Narcissus and attempts to embrace him, but he scorns her and she runs away humiliated. Despite the rejection, Echo only continues to love Narcissus more and more. Narcissus falls in love with his reflection and wastes away in front of it, and Echo mourns over his body. When Narcissus says his final words, “Oh marvelous boy, I loved you in vain, farewell”, Echo says, “farewell”. Echo herself begins to waste away. Her beauty fades, her skin shrivels, and her bones become stone. All that remains of her is her voice. 

Halley’s Comet

A comet visible from Earth every 75-79 yrs

The only known short-period comet that is regularly visible to the naked eye from Earth

Will next appear in 2061

Miscellaneous

In the track list, Intro: Lethe is superimposed over what appears to be a white statue

In track list, Erase Me has modern theatre masks below the song’s title

In ancient Greek theatre, actors wore masks to more immerse themselves into their characters–since they weren’t showing their face, they could ‘melt’ into the mask’s face and “vanish” into the role

Said masks often wore exaggerated expressions intended to inform audiences about the character’s disposition/characteristics (e.g. social status, sex, etc.)

The masks also allowed actors to portray multiple distinct characters without the audience knowing

As such, masks also aided in transitioning from one character to another

In the track list, Unforgettable has what appears to be a television beneath the title

In the track list, Echo has what appears to be a water ripple beneath the song’s title

In the track list, Halley’s Comet is superimposed over what appears to be flowers

[simonsvys]

XION’S COME BACK HOME VERSE. long ago a group of monarchs ruled, the monarchs overtime becoming jealous of the god helios. what the monarchs were unaware of was the fact helios was jealous of them as well, he hated the way that the humans worshiped the monarchs and had forgotten about him. so in a fit of jealous rage, helios threatened to make the sun disappear forever. the humans were terrified by this grim prospect and decided to sacrifice the monarchs to appease helios. in death, helios sent the monarchs into exile and created a world of eternal night. on top of this, helios cursed them with a thirst for blood from the humans that they cherished so much. despite this fact, the monarchs only drank blood from humans who carried out evil deeds and continued to protect the humans that they loved. though there was part of the monarchs that was disgusted by the betrayal that had been carried out on the behalf of humans. so every night, they slaughtered humans without mercy. they worshiped the moon and waited for a child to be born on the eclipse. a child that would be used to help them bring eternal night to earth. on the day of the eclipse, that’s when xion was brought into this world to fulfill the prophecy. the humans turned against the monarchs once more and sought out to kill the child. a long war between humans and the monarchs raged on as they protected the boy that was their only hope. they thought the battle had been won and things were peaceful for a while as they lived in their world of eternal night. but one night, the moon turned red and suddenly all the humans who had been slain were coming back to life. the undead were rising to finish what they couldn’t. if xion is killed, the day will return to earth and the monarchs will fade away.