A Perverse Sense Of Humor--And Of Myth

National Dog Day
Women's Equality Day
Heroes' Day (Namibia)
National Heroes' Day (Philippines)
Family Day (Tennessee)

 

Last night, instead of doing something constructive, I spent half an hour or so writing a myth about a prominent comet in the arhodes’ star system. It’s going to be a translation exercise for me.

 

And I giggled the whole time I was writing it.

 

See, I have this tendency, when making up myths and religions for my concultures, to take my inspiration not so much from Jungian archetypes or Campbell’s hero of a thousand faces, but rather from daffy pop culture items, which I then try to make sound Jungian, and arrange according to the culture itself.

 

It started one day when I got an extra life in a Super Mario game, and—as is my geeky wont—I started wondering what sort of conceptualizations video game characters would have of what they were doing, and if it made any sense to them. (“Oh my god, he ate Fry! Fry’s dead!” “It’s okay! I had another guy!” “Hooray!”) Somehow, that morphed into a complex, polytheistic religion based on the concept of extra lives—not just reincarnation, but revival from the dead to try again, attempts at earning extra lives, and the constant threat of Game Over. It was way too much fun, trying to mythologize a silly scenario.

 

I suppose I could say that this is some kind of statement springing from my views on religion—that all the myths and archetypes we make religion out of hold about as much water and make about as much sense as a religion based on a Bruce Coville novel. But the truth is, I just find it funny. It’s a good way to make a new, different religion, but mostly I just get a kick out of sticking a disguised X-Man into a pantheon, or making one of the Hero’s adventures sound suspiciously like the plot of Treasure Island.  It’s just fun.

 

So what, you ask, is this one?  I ain’t sayin’.  But once I get it edited and formatted tonight, I’ll post the Rredir myth (not the translation yet) and let you at least read it.  And see if you giggle as much as I do.

 

Damn, I love what I do.

In a related story, some of my geek friends might be amused at this website, dedicated to figuring out the religious affiliations of comic book characters. But really, I figure that if you lived in the main DC or Marvel universes and had even a scintilla of sense in your head, you’d have to be a pantheist. I mean, over in DC you’ve got Wonder Woman chilling with the Greek gods and Zatanna using pagan powers, and in the Marvel world Thor’s whomping away at things and Ghost Rider makes a deal with the devil, and then of course there’s shit like this. Makes being an atheist in a comic universe seem just a wee bit silly. Comics seem to employ what I call the Lancre Principle, from Terry Pratchett’s tiny country in Discworld of the same name: according to Pratchett, in Lancre all the folklore is true—even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff. Makes it more fun!