#yamayuandadu

[zenosanalytic]

#and the worst part is…#sometimes you don’t have a choice(via@a-book-of-creatures) Yeah (:T

Hi, sorry if this has been asked before, but do you have any reliable sources that talk about Ashtar? I'm also looking for articles that talk about El/Ilu; and Shalim and Shahar as well. I appreciate any form of help.

I've answered a similar Ashtar question a few months ago, refer to the bibliography here. I do not have much to offer when it comes to Shahar and Shalim because as far as I can tell most scholarship focuses on exegesis of the Bible, which is something I have next to no interest in. I've answered a question about them here; the main source to depend on is Pardee's Ritual and Cult in Ugarit. When it comes to El, the basic selection of sources dealing with Ugaritic religion should obviously be the start: Smith's Baal Cycle commentaries, Pardee's aforementioned book, Rahmouni's Divine Epithets in the Ugaritic Alphabetic Texts, Handbook of Ugaritic Studies, etc. For more specialized information I recommend: a) Il in Personal Names by Alfonso Archi (early history, and why names with the element il and its cognates do not necessarily refer to a specific deity in pre-Ugaritic sources) b) West Semitic god El in Anatolian Hieroglyphic Transmission by Ilya Yakubovich for the first millennium BCE c) The God Eltara and the Theogony by Anna Maria Polvani for El's Hurro-Hittite career (there's also the Elkunirsa myth but I do not think there's any recent treatment of it, so your best bet is to just read the translation in Hoffner's Hittite Myths from the 1990s) d) The Dwelling of ˀIlu in Baˁlu and ˀAqhatu by Madadh Richey for some lexical considerations regarding El's residence e) God (Ilu) and King in KTU 1.23 by Theodore J. Lewis for El's role as the king of the gods

Also, it's worth checking out Wiggins' monograph A reassessment of Asherah: with further considerations of the goddess since while hardly focused on El, it does discuss Athirat's relationship with him in the Ugarit section. Similarly, might be worth looking into this author's Shapash article.

[dailydemonspotlight]

Kinmamon - Day 65

Race: Enigma

Alignment: Light-Neutral

July 5th, 2024

Among the scores of demons in the SMT series, the Enigma race is one of the most curious. Made up entirely of demons whose origins are wholly unknown, or otherwise hard to track, the race as a whole is incredibly difficult to even parse, and unfortunately, today's Demon of the Day is one of those that belong to this accursed collection. Welcome Kinmamon, an incredibly strange god of Okinawa with a notable lack of sources. Yep, we have another one of these.

Kinmamom is a purported Okinawan deity originating from Ryukyuan religion, but almost everything surrounding it is vague and murky before its eventual co-opting into the Ijun religion of Ryukyu. While basically everything regarding it seems to paint it as a recent development, a god created for Ijun to be the cosmic deity above all others, there are many other sources that contest this.

Ijun, a Shinto offshoot religion native to Okinawa, is a modern religion created in 1972 to worship Kinmamom, yet there are many other things relating to this deity that make it difficult to parse- for one, a 19th century play called "Strange Tales of the Bow Moon" purportedly references Kinmamom, as this tumblr post by @yamayuandadu goes over, referenced in the Japanese wikipedia page about Kinmamom. However, of course, Wikipedia is far from a reliable source, but something else which almost ensures that this god didn't originate from Ijun is a vintage article in German that references the god by name, despite originating from over 100 years ago.

Past that, though, a good source comes from... hey, they reblogged my Backbeard post! Holy shit! Wow, I didn't expect things to come full circle like this. Anyway, one of the few sources I can work off of for this outside of several deep insights into Ijun itself is this post by @eirikrjs which talks about his role as a god of the sea who brought 'life' to the Okinawan islands. To quote,

Also known as “the God from Beyond the Sea, Marebito”, Kinmamon is an enigmatic and mysterious deity of Ryukyu Shinto, a branch of Shinto obviously practiced in the Ryukyu islands. His/her connections with sea travel and the implication that he/she brought “life” to the Ryukyu islands are thought to imply it was an introduced figure and was quite possibly Amaterasu who was introduced and then changed through lack of continual contact at the time. The kanji used for Kinmamon’s name, “  君真物 ” literally meaning “the true one”, are also thought to have been used as an honorific title for miko (shrine maidens); consequently, there is also a belief that perhaps Kinmamon is simply the evolution of the deification of miko. In addition, the kanji “ 君” is often used to write “ 神女”, megami or “goddess”, in the local Ryukyu dialect which causes even further gender confusion!Bibliography:   『琉球神道記』  袋中著    宜野座嗣剛  訳  東洋図書出版   “Records of Ryukyu Shinto” by  Hiroshi Azuma.  Orient Books Publications/Shorin Ronshu, 2001.  ISBN-10: 4947667737

But, well, you know the lack of sources is bad when almost everything out there has to be choppily translated. In Ijun, Kinmamon is an all-powerful deity who visited the founder of the religion, Takayasu Rokuro, and instructed him to seek out an ancient book called the Ryukyu Shinto-ki, as gone over in this paper by Christopher A. Reichl. As the paper goes into, Takayasu speaks of Kinmamon as a deity who was once worshipped in the very early ages, though was forgotten about after Satsuma rose to power, phasing out the religion in 1609. Of course, I cannot find any source for this, but it could possibly explain why Kinmamon is so obscure, yet still referenced in ages-old articles predating Ijun itself. A lot of the things relating to this deity are obscure, and it's very fitting for its race being, well, that of an Enigma.

Hilariously, almost all of the sources I could find for this were also confused SMT fans trying to figure out the source for this demon. We really are just an ouroboros of hyperfixated nerds, huh. I haven't played Strange Journey, so I can't give much of a take on Kinmamon's portrayal in the series, but I do find the design very cool and unique- I especially love the symbols on its head and arms, though I'm not sure what they could ultimately mean? Overall, though, I'd recommend digging deep yourselves into this demon's backstory. Maybe you all could uncover something I couldn't!

[a-gnosis]

I’ve been a big fan for years and your work was a big inspiration to my studies.

I am currently doing my masters on Mesopotamic Underworld myths and how they may have informed the Greek underworld, and I was wondering if you had any recommendations for texts concerning “Nergal and the Underworld”, I have tons on “Inanna’s Descent” but Nergal has been harder to find.

No worries is you’re busy or enjoying holidays, it is summer after all, and i hope you are having a good time, and that you know your art is always stunning and writing is brilliant.

What an interesting subject for a master's thesis! Mesopotamian mythology deserves more love. I wish I could help you, but besides the ancient texts themselves I haven't read much literature on this (and the little I have read is mostly about Inanna's Descent). There's a book by Dina Katz, The Image of the Netherworld in the Sumerian Sources, that I've wanted to read for some time, but it's unfortunately quite expensive and I don't know how much it actually talks about Nergal.

Maybe @yamayuandadu can recommend something?

Thank you so much! <3

[occasionaltouhou]

Fun Fact: Mythologically speaking, The Buddhists would get along well with the Tengu if it wasn't for Aya (and the Casteism), no, seriously: yamayuandadu(.)tumblr(.)com/post/738257513688989696/a-god-of-tengu-warding-uncovering-the

i feel like this is arguing the opposite, since the tengu are, y'know, the enemies of buddhists. they are Obstructions. fallen monks trying to lead people astray with their own twisted version of enlightenment. unless you're implying that the buddhists are also fallen monks which like. i mean they arguably are but they absolutely don't see themselves that way

i also like singling out aya. i regret to inform you that every single crow tengu is exactly the same she's just the only one who isn't an insular bastard

[purseowner4thequalityanimation]

Bai Ze here (called "Hakutaku" in game) is a recolor of Kirin/Qilin.

Traditional Hakutaku are funnier looking, like oxes with human faces. Paintings of them were believed to ward off disease. This article on Japanese epidemic deities by @yamayuandadu goes into them in more detail.

[ace-of-anunnaki]

Having set light to a torch and [lifted it] in his hand, Having Invoked the name of Hendursaga, A person passes with ease along the silent streets of nighttime -Fragment from hymn to Hendursaga, from "The Gods Ishum and Hendursanga: Night Watchmen and Street-lighting in Babylonia" By Andrew George.

While Ishum and Hendursaga are equated with each other in various god lists, they cannot be considered strictly identical. (my version of Hendursaga just happens to be Ishum in incognito.) Both had similar functions, acting as night watchmen, ensuring that people could safely travel through the city after dark.

The statue of him is referenced in a white-magic ritual where he would be placed in the bedroom, (probably) painted red, as was typical for statues of gods. (Thanks for helping me find it Antonia! @yamayuandadu)

[askdacast]

Academic history is not boring, people!!!!

It is a joy to learn and to know more! Pop history is not nearly as exciting when you realize they give only a smidge or extremely simplified view of real events/cultures and people. The human experience is diverse, and that's why it's beautiful.

And to fellow academics, we should not be angry or smug when people don't know better. Every misconception is a chance to educate people, not just on what "real history" is, but how to interpret it.

Anyway shout out to folks like @yamayuandadu (mostly Mesopotamian/Japanese religious history) who constantly compile easily accessible academic sources on their subject and also the folks down at r/badhistory. Check them out.

I've spent too long criticizing humanities people

It's now time for me to fight to the death for academic history

Once you read a lot of academic history books you discover that these people are operating on an entirely different level than the textbooks you read in grade school or the pop history books that get shit out for general consumption and we absolutely should continue to subsidize their production

[elendsessor]

hi welcome back to me talking about megaten demon designs and if you follow me or have went through the megaten tags you probably noticed i’ve been on a dsrk kick, specifically with the lone marebito since i unintentionally gave it a reread. i’m sorry if you’ve seen nothing but that shit from me i swear i’m almost done rambling about it.

first time i read it was before i finished dsrk2 so i held off on talking about different designs of reappearing demons since i thought maybe they’d appear in 2 but. nah they didn’t.

a lot of these designs are really cool, redesigns or otherwise.

BRW THIS POST IS LONG I’M SORRY-

i’m gonna toss out a spoiler warning since it’s not likely many people in the megaten community has given the lone marebito a read. there’s an english fan translation here if you’re interested!

quick shoutout to @/eirikrjs since they and @/yamayuandadu made a couple of posts a few years back about the origins of jatou ouhanshin aka this badass motherfucker.

i love giant reptiles in any media and goddamn i love this and yes i want ouhanshin to be included in a future megaten game :D

of course there’s likely some demons i missed/forgot to include so don’t expect every instance.

first up are some redesigns since they mostly appear at the beginning.

now with gremlins! they’re definitely a lot different than any of the previous variations, being a lot more goblin-like + a fat fuck one for good measure. it does more closely represent the pre-soul hackers gremlin design (which is a lot better in my opinion). as silly goofy as they are they do much better fit the general idea of what a gremlin is. this was likely a choice based on the overall tone of the manga, which gets really fucking depressing and a bit more body horror-y/gory than most megaten material, but the smaller gremlins should’ve been the silly goofy with the big boi being the gross monstrosity. idk gremlins are popular enough that having such a vast deviation used in this way doesn’t work.

i think the manticore is actually a complete upgrade from the og designs and is a prime example of the more horror part of tlm improving the original.

idk man i really do not like the og manticore designs. given how the beast itself’s name means man-eater and the fact that it has the body of a lion, the thinner body doesn’t really give that same fear (and the sickly green kinda worsens it). nor does the head??? yeah it’s supposed to be ugly but it looks like a last minute decision and not part of the beast itself. the second one is a bit better but neither of them look that good or scary. (i think they’re more heavily based around a certain latin bestiary depiction but that one sucks too sorry 13th century latin guy.)

even if the manga manticore’s body wasn’t buffer the face is fucking amazing. first it has an actual mane like a couple other depictions do, but turning the normally “ugly” face into a skull is sick as hell. oh and the teeth help it a lot. fantastic demon design all around.

this one is less of a total redesign since it’s character specific. there have been minor alterations made to demons throughout the devil summoner franchise especially with dsrk in order to fit that imperial japan vibe, such as high pixie basically being a pixie wearing a kimono. shiragiku’s design is more based in the soul hackers nekomata design though without being a calico. i wanted to give her a bit of attention on the design part for at least one thing because it’s pretty interesting to me and that’s having a normal cat form. yes because of shiragiku’s backstory it makes sense that she regained her pre-furryfication body. however, when it comes to looking at it from a folklore angle it’s pretty interesting.

all nekomata start off as bakeneko, aka monster cats. they can shape-shift to look either more house cat-like, human-like, and everything in-between. they can also mimic voices. nekomata are basically just stronger bakeneko, symbolized by the split tail (which is how they get their name). in megaten, we don’t really see that often, some of which is understandable. what i find so interesting is that it’s kinda defied in some ways? as in, normal bakeneko are glossed over, unless morgana counts since he pretty much is one. the most commonly used nekomata design in smt is the one from nocturne who only has one tail despite being in a non normal cat state. i’m guessing for the sake of simplicity both bakeneko and nekomata are one in the same due to the heavy similarities. idk it’s pretty confusing but basically this was all an excuse to include cat girls and shiragiku is the closest we’re getting to a truly accurate nekomata.

what if i told you though that behemoth is technically original.

gonna be quick about this since basically aside from devil children behemoth has no original design. it’s mostly just recolors of other demons, mainly elephant/hippo/rhino-like ones. in fairness, behemoth is a warped shouten but it’s so different it’s basically its own demon that goes bye bye before getting any real action. still looks cool af but i’m sorry behemoth.

here’s a weird one. despite maintaining the horn, yato no kami is completely different from the game counterpart and is another much better design (wasted on a character that was pretty underutilized despite the potential). in actual japanese folklore, yato no kami are snake deities (and also some hot anime dude from a game i never heard of thanks google). pointing that out because, while cool on its own, yeah looks too much like a parasite and not what it’s supposed to be.

now for a side note on a couple more demons exclusive to the manga

clarion is interesting to me for one reason and one reason only: it heavily resembles the great will aka the universal will aka existence itself.

this one’s a bit of a stretch but i still find it interesting.

this guy was only in last bible, specifically the game gear version, but is referenced and named dropped a ton. every yhvh avatar is something this thing popped into existence. an equivalent exists in the 4 duology aka the axiom but since both games were a bit of a soft reboot of the traditional mainline style plus is pretty much the exact same thing this counts the axiom. it’s important to note that, as it’s technically a concept and not a physical being, it relies on avatars to get shit done. aside from that, there’s not much info on the great will but it’s considered either equal to or potentially the creator of yhvh.

most of the big time avatars that relate to the great will and yhvh, including yhvh himself, are either a big human face or a circle. while it’s stated in the manga that clarion is a goddamn alien the fact that it keeps so many of the design motifs of the great will, yhvh, and all their ocs, i honestly think it just might be another avatar. i mean it also knows shit like god’s wrath so that has to count for something. it’s just so fucking interesting i love it.

on a final, simpler note, touda is cool. i’m 99% sure it just morphs into ouhanshin but still i love snakes. there are so many serpents n noodly things in tlm it’s cool they’re attached to badass imagery even if they’ll likely never show up in any other official material ever again.

[chireikiden]

Wouldn't it make the most sense if the FS Necronomicon was exactly what it is irl, eg. a fictional book rather than a genuine occult object, and Marisa and Kosuzu only thought of it as such thanks to s/t like a misinterpreted press article or item from Kourindou or w/e? For all I know the reason why it was weird might be because it's a prop which beloned to a reallly dedicated Call of Cthulhu rpg larper

Yeah, I’d agree. A genuine youma book of that level would probably be her greatest treasure, not just lying in a pile somewhere. She says it’s “the original manuscript of the kanji edition”, so it’s definitely a copy in any case, but that does leave it open whether the real Necronomicon somewhere out there is... well, real.

[turbobyakuren]

Akyuu for the character ask?

wee yoo woo wee yee

A ship I have with said character:

A Q S Z ! A Q S Z ! A Q S Z !

AQSZ is LOVE AQSZ is LIFE AQSZ HEALS AND RESTORES YOUR CROPS!!!!! IT CLEANSES YOUR LAKES!!!! AND BRING FORTUNE AND GOOD HEALTH TO YOUR HOUSES!

(IT DOES?)

NO...... BUT HOW LONG WILL WE WAIT UNTIL IT DOES

A BROTP I have with said character:

While i don’t think “BROTP” is the appropriate term, i’d say her and Keine would hold a pretty amical relationship. Women with duties unite. Maybe Keine helps Akyuu on stuff. Maybe.

A NOTP I have with said character:

Mmmmmhm i can’t think of any. She doesn’t seem to go outside very often.

A random headcanon:

This one reply i left on a post of Tumblr User Amemenojaku (kudos to them for yanking my arm into the AQSZ. Like you didn’t ruin my soul already) still stuck to me. More of an AQSZ headcanon but a headcanon regardless.

Aside from that, since Akyuu is pretty much confirmed to like Choujuu Gigaku’s music. So my headcanon is that she likes all kind of genres of music, but she also especially love music that’s from outside the status quo of what she listens to. Jarring to her prim & proper lady attires. Reminds me of how Mousse Arknights listens to rap music, and this in spite of her being basically a fancy goth lolita afficionada.

I also headcanon that this outfit is very neat and that she got the elbow gloves idea from looking at Yukari and going “wow.... she’s so cool... i want her looks” and buddy you pull it off very well

General Opinion over said character:

I used to think Akyuu was kinda cool but too empty of a character for me to like her. And good gosh golly, did ZUN give her even more material. It’s so SICK it’s so GOOD. I absolutely adore the articles she writes in the books, her sassy attitude, her overall design and character. The child of miare thing is a very very interesting.... “curse”? idk how i’d call it. It’s super neat and it’s really inspiring me in how i write my characters.

My love for Akyuu went from “ok i think she’s neat” to “ok she’s VERY neat. i love her” in Forbidden Scrollery to “YOU FUCKING MANIACS!!!!! YOU DID IT!!!!!!!!” in Gensokyo of Humans.

All in all

The conclusion is

LOVE IS STORED IN THE AQ

[askdacast]

(apologies for my haphazard highlighting)

Again, I refer back to yamayuandadu's Shuten-douji article if you haven't read it yet, as well as the works of Noriko T. Reider, because that one tale has so many variants and so many interpretations of that one tale. And for good reason.

I just realized this very article is in yamayuandadu's reference list, this is very new to me, pls no bulli

Besides this one tale though, the piece seems to point at linking oni to the pretas (sk.) or gaki (jp.) ("hungry ghosts" is a common translation) of Buddhism; one of the realms of desire (i.e. non-enlightenment) and the suffering ghosts of those who were particularly greedy in life. Obviously, there were many pre-Buddhist beliefs about the spirits of dead people that influenced later oni portrayals too, but this stands as a significant one come Heian.

The asuras too, but that seems to be more in iconography rather than thematic?

What's this, an article laser-targeted towards my interests? Don't mind if I do!

[dailydemonspotlight]

Arahabaki - Day 75

Race: Kunitsu

Arcana: Hermit

Alignment: Light-Chaos

July 19th, 2024

I'm sure that, when one thinks of the SMT or Persona franchise, one of the first demons/personas to pop up in their mind is that of a towering clay figure who reflects physical. A lot of Arahabaki is famously shrouded in mystery, and the clouds over this deity paint it in a confusing, albeit fascinating, light. First of all, for this DDS, I'd like to point you all to @yamayuandadu's fantastic breakdown of this demon. While I'm going to be using my own sources for the most part, a lot of the stuff in this is based roughly on her analysis. Feel free to give her a follow, even though me shouting her out is like a drop in the ocean.

Now, on to Arahabaki itself. Almost everything about this god is unknown- even its design, taken directly from a clay figurine known as a Dogū, seems only vaguely connected to the idea of Arahabaki itself through a book known as Tsugaru Soto Sangunshi, as discovered by the blog above. As described in the post, most of everything related to Tsugaru Soto Sangunshi is heavily fictionalized, as it was a series of forgeries from 'ancient Japanese history' that seems... mostly to connect to a conspiracy of ancient aliens, at least from what I can understand? That might just be the blog post I've linked, though, as information on these forgeries is scant; there are very few translations, and, in fact, as gone over in the post above, there was only one at the time of writing, and it wasn't very reliable.

According to Tsugaru Soto Sangunshi, and recanted by @yamayuandadu, Dogū were purported to represent an 'outlawed god' worshipped by the people of Tohoku, though, of course, this all comes down to nothing but a set of forgeries. A lot of information on Arahabaki can be hard to sift through, and while there are some sources, most of them are of questionable reliability. Sorry, Fandom wiki. As a matter of fact, it's believed that Arahabaki may not even exist, and after reading the aforementioned post, I'm starting to think that may be the case. Unfortunately, as someone who can't even read Japanese, many of the sources mentioned have been hard to definitely state and/or translate. It's times like this I wish I was bilingual... still, even if Arahabaki was a fake god, where did its concept originate from past TSS, and what even was it? As I said during my Alice DDS, I believe that everything must have a concretely traceable source, and besides, even if this god was just some guy's creative writing project, I still think it'd be worthwhile to look into.

A lot can be derived from Arahabaki's name- a theory purported in this article states that, as Habaki is based on the root Haha, meaning snake, Arahabaki may be based on some sort of snake deity, fitting in with its inherently rebellious nature. Other theories purported in the article state that it may have been enshrined for protection, to it possibly being a hitherto unknown god of iron production.

Needless to say, a lot is unknown about this deity, but I believe that, if it's truly a fictionalized god, it may be based on 'Amatsu-Mikaboshi,' a rebel god identified with the Pole Star of Venus and who struck out against the gods. However, this is a very far reach, and I genuinely think that one could identify Arahabaki with any sort of rebellious god.

The outlawing of worship is also of note, but from all of my research, I can't find anything about a deity in particular being outlawed- instead, almost everything I can find about it comes down to a general fear of foreigners, which wouldn't make any sense for a god who was apparently home-grown in Japan. Expanding on this point, it connects to the concept of sakoku, the isolationism of Edo period Japan that locked itself off from the rest of the world.

This brings me to, eventually, as all things do, Bungo Stray Dogs. I'm not kidding. To my knowledge, the manga references Arahabaki as a character in it, and this blog post that unfortunately uses a dead link as a source seems to paint a picture of Arahabaki as a god who was worshipped in 300 AD, but was eventually outlawed, as he represented rebellion. If this sounds like I'm talking in circles, it's because I am. To quote,

Arahabaki was worshipped all along Japan’s northern regions. He was the god of defiance and prowess and he was even used a figure for wars that would erupt. He soon began to become an evil figure in 300 AD, when a prince, Nagasunehiko started to worship him to the point where he became crazy, thinking the god was forever by his side. Being an enemy of the Emperor Jimmu, most of Japans’ people say this as a bad sign and started to think of Nagasunehiko and his god Arahabaki as a symbol of deceit and marked the god more of a devil than a sign of good luck. The god was said to look more like a creature than a human form. With large alien like eyes and a sturdy body made of strong iron, he looked more like a rock had come to life than one of flesh and blood.

I genuinely don't know if this source can be trusted, and I'll above all take the word of the blog post I keep referencing back to of it likely being a false god made up for a forgery so some guy could make millions quick, but it's a shame. I was so close to getting some sort of lead, and it ended up being a dead link... agony is the only word to describe it. I don't feel like I got much out of this, as my curiosity is still piqued... but alas, I've come to a dead end.

If any more of you have any possible sources or leads, please don't hesitate to come out with them. Unfortunately, given the relative obscurity of the god itself, and how infamous its own mystery is... I doubt I'll get any major breakthroughs any time soon. Huge thank you to @yamayuandadu and @bsd-bibliophile for the work that went into this god. Alas, I get out with only empty pockets. As for how it's portrayed in SMT, it's an incredibly accurate depiction of a Dogū- given the purported connection between Arahabaki and Dogū's, it makes sense that they would take inspiration from the clay figures representing Japanese deities, to say the least.

Overall, though, I wish I had more to go over here, but the lack of primary sources and revelations of fraud give light only to disappointment. Alas. At least it was fun to research!

[amicablestone]

Kosuzu?

Ship: Akyu is sort of the default, but I do think the relationship works well, especially in human gensokyo

BROTP: It's fun to think of Mamizou still hanging around the store being a spooky grandma 

NOTP: I read Kosuzu as a kid (comic book time in full effect) so that definitely limits the number of ships that aren't objectively gross 

Random Headcanon: When she was first learning to walk, she had a habit of just wandering into the street, so her parents started tying bells in her hair to keep track of her.

Opinion: FS was pretty much the first touhou thing I ever read start to finish, so she definitely has a special place in my heart. On top of that, she's just a fun character who interacts with the world in an interesting way. 

[purenguyening]

Hecatia for the character ask?

character: hate them | don’t really care | like them | LOVE them | THEY ARE MY PRECIOUS

ship with:  Junko

friendship them with: Clownpiece (although it’s more familial; more closer to Mother-Daughter relationship), I kind of wonder what kind of havoc Hecatia and Seiga would reap together... 

general opinions: Panoramic Planet always gets stuck in my head whenever I think about her. I’d really like to see her meet Shiki Eiki just because I just want to know what kind of relationship they’d have as boss-subordinate. Her fight looks like fun, but I keep getting my ass handed to me by Clownpiece, so....it’ll be a while before I can like, fight her for real. :’]

[greatwyrmgold]

This is true, but a bigger distinction between fantasy pantheons and most real-life ones is that fantasy religions make a clean distinction between gods and not-gods.

(I'm going to focus on Greek and Roman gods, in part because those are the European/Mediterranean religions we have the most evidence for, but my understanding is that the same patterns repeat across other ancient religions and some that survive to the modern day.)

List of Examples

The obvious place to start is demigods. When they show up in fantasy, demigods are seen as a third category, as distinct from humans and gods as cats are from lizards. But mythology was fuzzier. Humans and demigods were closer; demigods didn't always get cool powers, and sometimes humans had cool powers without divine heritage. And demigods were often worshiped like other gods. Oh, they weren't as powerful or important as the Olympians, but they were divine nonetheless.

In fantasy, brownies are just spirits or fae or something, certainly not divine, but the Romans thought of Lares and Penates as gods. Small gods, nowhere near the Olympians in power or importance, but divine nonetheless.

yamayuandadu made one big error: Every polytheistic religion we have solid evidence for has way more than half a dozen known minor deities. Some are deities of specific places, with bodies of water being particularly common. You might well ask whether these are really gods and not, like, nymphs or nereids or whatever...but that question would be incoherent to the ancient Greeks or Romans, who considered them gods. Not as big as the Olympians, divine nonetheless, you get the idea.

The same goes for gods like Forculus, Janus, Limentinus, and Cardea, the gods of (respectively) doors, thresholds, also thresholds, and hinges. They have very specific domains, but they are still gods. They don't command the same respect or scale of worship as the Olympians, but they were divine nonetheless.

Fantasy sometimes includes gods with such petty domains, but they are almost always distinct from nature spirits, hearth guardians, heroes, and so on. And sure, the Romans would probably agree that Janus, Romulus, and the Penates were different kinds of gods, but they're still divine.

And even ordinary humans can be divine, in a sense. Obviously some kings claimed to be descended from or incarnations of gods, but that's not (all of) what I'm talking about. Even kings who didn't claim divinity in life were often deified after death. And it wasn't just kings who were deified. Non-demigod heroes could get hero cults as easily as demigod heroes, for instance, especially if they were founder-figures for a polis or other institution. And ancestor worship is common, even alongside well-developed polytheistic practice. All of these mortals are, in a sense, divine.

Some kind of conclusion

The important thing—at least in the Greek and Roman traditions—wasn't any kind of inherent Divinity, but instead power. In a sense, Neptune is divine in power not because he is descended from Saturn, but because he can command the seas. Lares and Penates have such power within the household, so they are divine. Nereids had power over rivers, Cardea over hinges, and so on. These gods, great and small, shape the world by their will. This power commands respect and reverence—Neptune more than the others, but you still don't want to offend Cardea.

That's part of why humans so often shade into divinity. The actions of heroes and founder figures echo through the ages almost by definition. Your ancestors might not be as prominent as those great mythic/historic figures, but collectively they have great influence on your life. And of course, the power that kings wield is its own kind of divinity, commanding much the same respect and reverence. A Roman emperor demonstrably has more power than your hearth guardian; he deserves the same reverence as they do, if not more.

This all sounds bizarre to modern readers, I'm sure. Fantasy is written by modern people, whose worldviews are shaped by (in the West) Christianity and science. This is, incidentally, true even for atheists who reject science—they grew up in the same world as the rest of us, with the same influences. Obviously, our scientific worldview makes it seem natural to try and classify the beings within our fantasy worlds, and fantasy authors don't always realize how arbitrary the boundaries between scientific classifications are. But this isn't a post about taxonomy or whatever, so I'm not going to get into that.

Christianity elevates divinity to a unique status, distinct from the other supernatural entities that Christians believe/believed in. Obviously, this worldview makes innate, binary divinity seem natural and obvious.

But an arguably more important difference between Christianity and the polytheistic religions it displaced was a focus on proper doctrine (orthodoxy) over proper practice (orthopraxy). To Christians, religious ritual matters because of Jesus and God and stuff; to most polytheists, the gods matter because they're the focus of religious rituals.

To the extent that ancient people were able to observe, those rituals seemed to have a real effect on the world, which implies the existence of a god, but the ritual was the important part. It's a very pragmatic sort of spirituality, where the gods are more like powerful benefactors you can make contracts with than abstract forces of nature you can talk to.

I'm telling you all of this not because I think it's cool trivia—okay, not just because it's cool trivia. I also bring it up because this kind of foreign perspective, so different from our own, can inspire some interestingly different worldbuilding. There are countless thousands of fantasy worlds which practice D&D-style henotheism, with distinct and nigh-omnipotent gods, with each individual worshiping one god. But there are so many possibilities for other kinds of religion, right at your fingertips if you know what to read.

Speaking of which...

Caveats

I am not an expert. I have read stuff written by experts, but I am not one. Errors in this post are almost certainly caused by me misunderstanding something.

If you want to read more, I'd like to recommend Bret Devereaux's Practical Polytheism posts—I reread the last one in the series before/while writing this post, which is another reason that I focused so much on the Roman tradition.

 Pantheons in fantasy will almost always be something like “fire deity, water deity, light deity, EVIL deity, GREAT MOTHER” while an average bronze age city’s pantheon was s/t like “deity personifying the city, god everyone has to treat as the main one because his city got geopolitically lucky, three or so personifications of main local sources of income, a nearby mountain, half a dozen incoherent minor deities (at least one is the result of some misspelling a name), deified branding iron”

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yamayuandadu replied to your post: im going to do a uni assignment on touhou...

do you need help with looking for sources or s/t?

honestly your blog is already a library for this kind of stuff i may as well get all my resources from your archive