Today, I finished reading The High King, the last book of the original Prydain Chronicles. It was definitely an epic conclusion, bringing in most of the characters from earlier books to play roles in the final battle against Arawn. It was kind of melancholy, though, what with all of the characters either dying or making other sacrifices. And many of the people who survived ended up sailing to the Summer Lands, and since they're described as a place of eternal life from which none of them can return, that's really not a whole lot different from dying, at least from Taran's perspective.

I had heard beforehand that the series ended with all of the magic departing from Prydain, and while this worked better than I feared it would, that's still not a trope that I particularly like. I think part of it ties into my distaste for the dismissal of the whimsical and imaginative as childish, and hence magic as incompatible with a civilized society. But the departure of magic is sometimes also used without the coming-of-age bit, like in Final Fantasy VI, with the disappearance of the magic-producing Espers. Another component is that I prefer when magic is something that operates on scientific principles, and that can be studied like any other academic discipline. Obviously, fantasy series differ in their treatment of magic. The Harry Potter books, for instance, make magic something learned, but it's only available to those who are genetically predisposed to be wizards. The Oz books largely operate on the idea that, as the Shaggy Man sings in Patchwork Girl, "magic is a science." The Wizard of Oz studies under Glinda, and grows from a humbug to a quite skilled magician. On the other hand, there are also cases of someone's ability or knowledge of magic being removed, and suggestions that magic is either less effective or flat-out ineffective in civilized places. I suppose that, if magic didn't have aspects that weren't explained, it wouldn't really BE magic. But I tend to prefer fictional takes that make it a natural part of the world, rather than an unnatural by-product of something, or a force tied in with religion. That doesn't mean a story involving magic HAS to work that way for me to enjoy it; it's just my general preference.

Everyone knows what an elf is, right? Well, you probably think you do, but in truth you could have a very different idea from someone else. As I mentioned here, the traditional elves of Scandinavian mythology, the Elves of Middle-Earth, and Santa's diminutive and industrious helpers are actually pretty different. Traditionally, elves were essentially regarded as demigods, human in form but more attractive than normal people, and with connections to nature. Really, they probably aren't too different from nature spirits from other traditions. As with other mythological elements, it's probably a case of similar stories originating in different parts of the world, then being combined when the cultures come into contact with each other, and later fantasists picking and choosing from both the older and newer myths. If you're going for mythological authenticity, it appears that J.K. Rowling's house-elves are really more like hobgoblins or kobolds than traditional Scandinavian elves, and Santa's staff has more in common with dwarves than elves. Then again, the Norse dwarves, or dvergar, are often pretty much interchangeable with dark elves. They mine and forge (jobs that trolls and gnomes are also sometimes given), while the light elves are associated more closely with fertility. Really, it seems that the old Norse records are too contradictory and incomplete to really paint a clear picture of the earliest concepts of elves or dwarves. What we know comes more from later folklore, which portrays elves as mischievous and nasty. To writers like Spencer and Shakespeare, the terms "elf" and "fairy" were basically synonymous, and they were thought of as tiny creatures with human shapes.



While the concept of elves as miniature people with magic powers still lives on today in such forms as the Keebler Elves and Rice Krispies' tiny mascots, much of their role in modern fantasy literature derives, not surprisingly, from Tolkien. His elves reflected, in some ways, those of the earliest known Scandinavian sources, being noble, beautiful, human-sized, functionally immortal, and in tune with nature. They aren't petty and vindictive like the elves of folklore, but instead basically have an Übermensch role in Middle-Earth. Despite Tolkien's obvious prejudice in favor of his Elves, they do have their flaws, like their long-standing enmity with the Dwarves (and it's Tolkien who popularized that plural, although he didn't invent it; I personally prefer it to "dwarfs"). Was Middle-Earth the first fantasy world to show elves and dwarves as traditional enemies? If it was, it might have been based on the references to dwarves as "dark elves," and it's carried over into other universes that include both races. It's not always the case, however. In Dragon Quest III, it's necessary to give yourself the form of a dwarf in able to conduct business with the elves, as the two peoples are friendly. In the Discworld series, it's the dwarfs and trolls who are traditional enemies, although both groups also hate elves, who are glamorous but malicious beings in Terry Pratchett's world. Their glamor allows them a lot of power in harming humans, but dwarfs and trolls can see right through it.



I think Tolkien was also the first to devise the idea that male and female dwarves look the same to non-dwarves, which implies that the women also have beards. Pratchett ran with this concept in the Discworld books, using it for both humor and social commentary. Other fantasy worlds have made female dwarves more traditionally feminine in appearance, without the beards. Come to think of it, Disney's Dopey doesn't have a beard, so is he actually a woman? {g}

Hey, guess what I came across! It's another fundamentalist author about how fantasy is turning kids to Satanism! A large portion of the article focuses on Twilight, and from what I've heard of that series, it DESERVES to be bashed. Not in the way Pastor Joe does it, though. Harry Potter is another target, but what particularly caught my attention is that there's some stuff about The Wizard of Oz.

Are you at all surprised to find that Pastor Joe is willing to accept any source that goes along with what he already believed? If you are, you haven't read very many articles by fundamentalists. He starts out with a quote from MTV News, of all places, about the popularity of Wicca. Did Iann Robinson tell you that, Pastor? :P He also includes a fair amount of quotes from Anton LaVey, because why WOULDN'T a fundamentalist Christian accept the word of the founder of the Church of Satan as valid? It's not like Satan is the Father of Lies or anything, after all! Really, from what I've heard about LaVey's variety of Satanism, most of its rituals are parodies anyway, so Pastor Joe is accepting information on magic (which he apparently DOES believe in) from a group that quite likely doesn't. Really convincing, Joe!

Speaking of Satan, don't fundamentalists typically believe that most people are bound for Hell anyway? Then why would the Devil play all these games and influence all these fantasy authors and Hollywood filmmakers if he doesn't get any more out of it than he would have by default? Yet, in Pastor Joe's mind, imagination itself is the work of the Devil. Seriously. Because Stephenie Meyer and J.K. Rowling refer to the characters and situations as having sprung into their heads, Joe thinks they must have been put there by evil spirits. I'd have to suspect that an evil spirit would be able to come up with something better than Meyer's poorly written abstinence porn, but maybe Satan got one of his lesser agents for her. ("We don't need the Lord of the Flies for this one. How about the Lord of the Dust Mites?") But not only is emotion bad, but knowledge in general. The pastor criticizes the Gnostic notion, apparently shared by the Mormons, that Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit was ultimately a good thing. But if that was the fruit that gave knowledge of good and evil, then is Joe saying that this knowledge is a bad thing, and we SHOULDN'T be aware of the difference between good and evil? Then what the hell are you trying to do with this article, Joey? Maybe YOU'RE the one who's actually on Satan's side! {g}

While the Oz part is fairly short, my fandom makes it pretty much necessary for me to address it. Not surprisingly, the pastor mentions Baum's membership in the Theosophical Society. From what I've gathered, Theosophy was basically one of those New Age systems of belief that mixes in elements from a whole bunch of different religions and philosophies, often with no regard for their original context. While Theosophy includes some rather offensive beliefs, like the idea of the root races, I haven't heard anything about their thinking Satan was good. How much of Theosophy Baum actually accepted isn't really clear. I know he used the idea of elementals that Blavatsky apparently got from Paracelsus (which is one of Button-Bright's many middle names, by the way) in his writings, but did he actually BELIEVE that there were fairy-like creatures inhabiting the air? I'm not sure there's any way to know. Pastor Joe points out that, in Wizard, "Baum’s channeled message doesn’t only teach children that there are 'good' witches, but the message of Glinda (the 'good' witch) to Dorothy was that she didn’t have to look outside herself for answers. 'You've always had the power…' Glinda reveals to Dorothy." Except that line was from the movie, not the book. Did the pastor ever actually READ Wizard? Probably not, since he seems pretty unfamiliar with all of the books he's bashing. He also writes, "Harry Potter seduces young people into Wicca and other neo-pagan worldviews and practices through the lure of occult power and the lie that you, too, can become like God." Yeah, remember when Harry made his own world, populated it with living beings, judged them for their deeds, and sent a forty-day rain to kill most of them? Because I don't. Rowling herself has stated that she believes in God, not magic, but the problem is that people like our pastor here believe in BOTH.

And I've addressed this topic before, but from what I know of Wicca, anyone turning to that because of the way magic works in the Harry Potter or Oz books (or many other fantasies, for that matter) would probably be severely disappointed. Oddly enough, storybook magic strikes me as working much more scientifically.

I've read a few rather critical articles on Harry Potter recently. This one (for which I got the link from sailorptah) discusses how much of the story is steeped in somewhat misunderstood Calvinist doctrine. I think the author has some good points, especially on how, despite Rowling's constant insistence that Harry's choices are the most important thing, much of what happens really is predestined. I kind of get the impression that Rowling was trying to come up with a plot NOT centered around destiny, but ended up falling into that sort of thinking anyway. One thing I did think was interesting was how a lot of fans were speculating that Harry would turn out to be the descendant of Godric Gryffindor, and Rowling never actually told us one way or the other, presumably because the Gryffindors weren't obsessed with bloodlines in the way that Slytherins are (and Chamber of Secrets did make a big deal out of Voldemort being Salazar Slytherin's only remaining descendant). While Rowling de-emphasizes the importance of bloodlines, however, she clearly does play favorites with her Houses. As some of the comments on the article mention, this isn't as pronounced in the earlier books, which seem to focus on Gryffindor mostly just because it's the house of the protagonist. Some of the books have the Sorting Hat urging the houses to pull together. The way the series ends, however, we're pretty much told that, with a few minor exceptions, Gryffindors are good, Slytherins are bad, and members of the other two houses can only ever aspire to be supporting characters. (I'll bet Ravenclaw is viewed with the same kind of disdain as the Honors College I was in during my undergraduate years.) Granted, it's not really always that simple, but there's a clear Gryffindor bias at work. Rowling has even said that she would have wanted to be in Gryffindor, even though what I've seen of her doesn't suggest that bravery is her primary trait. I was also somewhat surprised by how, in the last book, it's Voldemort who wants to abolish the house system, and he's totally unsuccessful, with the four houses still being in place in the afterword. I suppose that, to wizards who aren't evil masterminds, cliques are just that awesome.

I found this other article through a link from John Bell (although his direct link was actually to this other Potter-related article by the same author)), and its major idea is that Rowling's wizards are, despite the etymology of the word "wizard," actually somewhat anti-intellectual. As Ms. Abrahams writes, "Magic culture in Great Britain appears to be entirely comprised of team sports, tabloid journalism, and government bureaucracy." There are a few mistakes in the article, like how Abrahams claims that there are no math classes at Hogwarts, when the books mention Arithmancy (although it's never significant enough for us to actually see a class). I have to wonder if part of this is because we see most of the wizarding world through the eyes of kids with jock tendencies (well, except for Hermione, who's a nerd who hangs out with jocks). There might well be more intellectual parts of wizarding society that we generally don't see. But I do think Abrahams has a point about how clueless the wizards are about Muggles. I mean, it's funny, and that's worth a lot to readers, but it kind of doesn't make sense. For the most part, wizards seem to live in hidden parts of the Muggle world, which means that, unless they apparate everywhere, they pretty much have to walk through Muggle neighborhoods to get to their places of magical work and leisure. Are they so unobservant that they don't even notice what anyone is wearing? And do the wizards have any, say, carpenters or plumbers, or do they rely on magical creatures to perform those menial jobs for them?

I'd been meaning to say something about The 40-Year-Old Virgin, which I'd watched last week, but I didn't get around to it until now. The movie wasn't terrible, but like bethje mentioned, I didn't care for Steve Carell's character selling his toys as a metaphor for growing up. Sure, if you play with toys instead of working, that's one thing, but this character did his job, even getting a few promotions during the course of the film. So why can't he indulge his youthful side while at home? I have to say I'm a fan of C.S. Lewis' take on 1 Corinthians 13:11: "When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." I know a lot of adults who play with toys and video games, and they're hardly all irresponsible. I was also reminded of this by a recent episode of Real Time, in which Bill Maher said something about American society being immature because we consider Harry Potter to be literature, and Batman movies to be...well, I forget his wording, but the gist was that we think they're deeply philosophical. But really, why ISN'T Harry Potter literature? No, they're not the greatest books in existence, but that's largely subjective anyway. Just because the main characters are kids and they're written so kids can understand them doesn't mean only kids can read them. Besides, Danielle Steele novels and Farrelly Brothers movies are allegedly made for adults, but are they really more sophisticated than J.K. Rowling or DC Comics? Hey, the previous episode of Real Time had Maher chatting with Ron Howard about Angels and Demons, and telling Cameron Diaz that he liked her in The Mask. Not to mention that, as my wife mentioned, he's a guy in his fifties who still identifies himself as a pothead. But, you know, he's too mature to enjoy superhero movies. I guess that, just like everyone, Maher has his own blind and hypocritical spots. And getting back to the movie industry, if they're selling the idea that adults being interested in toys and games is incompatible with growing up and having serious relationships, then why do they keep cranking out films based on stuff like the Transformers and G.I. Joe?

Speaking of stuff made for children that adults have also enjoyed, we also watched Monsters, Inc. for the first time. I think it was still relatively recent when we put it on the Netflix queue, but there are a LOT of items on there. Anyway, I enjoyed it. I thought it did a good job of creating the monster world in an hour-and-a-half movie, complete with complex but cute designs and an explanation as to WHY monsters would hang out in closets and scare children.

All right, I guess that's all for now.

So, I've now seen the film version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I honestly hadn't been thinking much about Harry Potter recently, except sometimes in the context of comparing aspects of it to other fantasy universes. I guess part of the problem is that so much of the promotion for the books involved mysteries about what would happen in the next book that, once the last book came out, there wasn't really that much more to think about. So when I started seeing advertisements for the new movie, it had me thinking, "Oh, that's right! They still haven't finished making those movies!" Anyway, I watched it tonight with bethje and Uncle John, and here are some of my thoughts on it:

( Spoilers! Not that it really matters, since I'm sure anyone who cares has already seen the movie, or at least read the book, but just in case. )

And, well, that's probably about all for Harry Potter until the next movie comes out.

This week's featured mythological figure is the kappa, a Japanese water spirit about the size of a child. I believe the most popular depiction of these creatures has them looking somewhat like turtles, although they're sometimes also shown with faces more like that of a monkey or a duck. A kappa has a water-filled hollow in the top of its head, and this water gives it supernatural strength and abilities. If a person can trick it into bowing (which, being well-versed in matters of etiquette, it will generally do), the water will spill out, leaving it very weak, and possibly even killing it. Why they don't think to wear something over top of the hollow is not clear, but that's an idea I'm thinking of incorporating into my own writing. Another known trait of kappa is that they smell really bad, something which is only augmented by their serious gas problems. Some people say that they've been known to fart out of three anuses at once. They're said to love cucumbers, which I guess could explain the flatulence, but they'll also eat human entrails. While often mischievous and malevolent, kappa can be tricked or shamed into helping humans, including teaching them from their vast store of medicinal knowledge.



Kappa seem to show up quite a bit in popular culture, or at least the small sliver of popular culture with which I am familiar. While I can't recall any of them actually appearing in the Harry Potter books, they did make it to the tie-in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Final Fantasy VI has a spell that will turn enemies into kappa, and apparently kappa without water on top of their heads, as they're quite weak. In the Super Nintendo version (haven't played any of the others yet), the creatures are usually just called "imps," but the one who teaches about Gau's monster-imitating techniques is identified as a kappa.

I've also seen some suggestions that Mario's enemies, the Koopas, have a name that's a play on "kappa." After all, they're also malevolent turtle-like animals. Actually, I understand that the more likely reference is to "kuppa," a kind of Korean soup, but maybe it's a play on both of them at once. Speaking of which, the Super Mario Bros. 3 referred to Kuribo's Shoe ("Kuribo" simply being the original Japanese name for a Goomba) as a Karubi Shoe. In the episode "Super Koopa," Bowser uses the shoe to try to crush the Mario Brothers, causing Mario to exclaim, "I don't believe it! Karubi Koopa!" And just today, I learned that karubi-kuppa is beef soup with rice, so what I thought was just sloppy writing might have actually been sloppy writing for the sake of a pun. Anyway, there is a clear reference to kappa in the Mario series, in Kappa Mountain on Yoshi's Island, given that name because the lake on the lower summit is similar to the water-filled hollow on a kappa's head.

By the way, thanks to vilajunkie for the link to the Obakemono Project, which provided a good source of information on kappa. Other sources consulted were Wikipedia and the Super Mario Wiki.

As you can probably guess from the title, I watched the Inkheart movie today. It's been forever since I last saw a movie in the theater. Okay, I think it might have been October, which is hardly forever, but still kind of a long time. As usual, most of the previews were pretty annoying. Hey, there's a movie about some guy becoming young again! What an original concept! And a live-action Dragon Ball movie? It's not like I care that much, since I never liked the show [1] (my brother used to watch it, and it seemed pretty dumb), but the general cartoon-to-live-action thing has been done to death, and pretty much always badly. There wasn't a preview for the latest generically-titled spoof movie, Dance Flick, but I did see a poster for it. As someone who takes parody seriously, I have a particular distaste for the recent spoof films where even the titles scream out, "We didn't put any effort whatsoever into this! But we reference stuff, so that's funny, right?" I'm sure the producers who green-light these things will be first against the wall when the revolution comes. It WAS cool to get a glimpse at the next Harry Potter movie, though. [2]

And now for our feature presentation. Like the book, it wasn't one of my absolute favorites among recent fantasies, but it was definitely engaging and well-crafted. It's interesting that they started right in with the stuff about reading things out of books, when the original story took a while to build up to it. That makes sense, though, as the book had a lot of starting and stopping that wouldn't have really worked on the screen. I'm not really sure why Fenoglio's family was omitted, but I get the impression that this, like most of the changes at the end, were due to the fact that the book was leaving room for a sequel (which I still need to read, but I have several things on my list ahead of it). And these days, I get the impression that it's generally easier to get a book-sequel published than a movie-sequel produced, especially when it comes to fantasy. [3] Not surprisingly, I did enjoy the multiple references to The Wizard of Oz (and most of them were to the book, not the movie), which weren't in Cornelia Funke's book. I don't know whether Oz features in either of the sequels, but I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't, as the books are even more obscure in Europe than in the States. Also, the appearance of the ticking crocodile led me to check Peter Pan out from the library. It's never been one of my favorite stories, but it's referenced so much in other places that I feel kind of obligated to actually read it.

[1] I do, however, like Akira Toriyama's work on Dragon Quest and Chrono Trigger, as I'm sure you could have gathered.
[2] SPOILER: Michael Gambon kills Dumbledore! No, wait, that already happened a few movies ago.
[3] Hey, Hollywood! Where's The Subtle Knife, huh?

Today, in my weekly mythology post, I'm going to take a look at a symbol of rebirth. You're free to join me if you'd like, but I guess you don't have to. Anyway, the phoenix quite possibly originated in Egypt, but was often associated with India, because of its similarity to the bird-god Garuda. After 500 years of life, the bird would burn itself up, leaving behind an egg. It was often associated with the Sun, and not surprisingly, Christians came to use it as a symbol of Jesus' resurrection. It's also been commonly used in relatively modern fantasy, a few examples that immediately come to my mind being Edith Nesbit's The Phoenix and the Carpet, Dumbledore's pet Fawkes in the Harry Potter series, the life-restoring Phoenix Down in the Final Fantasy games, and the shape-shifting phoenix in Terry Pratchett's Carpe Jugulum.

What a phoenix looks like is never totally clear. Apparently, the Egyptians portrayed it as a stork-like bennu, and the Greeks and Romans as more eagle-like. Here are a few pictures that I found on the Internet:



The phoenix is also associated with the Persian Simurgh (also a character in the Xanth books) and two birds from Chinese mythology, namely the rooster-beaked Fenghuang and the Vermilion Bird of the South.



The former is the ruler of all birds, and the latter one of the Four Symbols found in Chinese astrology. The other three are the Dragon, the Tiger, and the Tortoise. And since I can't seem to get through a post these days without mentioning Oz, The Mysterious Chronicles of Oz gives the Original Dragon (who is introduced but not viewed onstage in Tik-Tok of Oz) the other sorts of animals as companions, only with a unicorn instead of a tiger. And that's a good transition into what I hope to talk about next week, which is the unicorn.

The three most recent books I've read:

Doctor Dolittle's Post Office, by Hugh Lofting - I believe this was the third book to be written for the series, although it actually takes place before the second one. (I think all of the ones after that do as well, for that matter.) It involves the Doctor setting up a post office in a small African kingdom, using birds to deliver the mail. I appreciate how the Doctor really only has one unusual ability, but can use it to get out of pretty much any situation.

The Atlas of Legendary Places, by James Hardur and Jennifer Westwood - A coffee table sort of book featuring both mythical locations (like Camelot and the Garden of Eden) and real places of legendary significance (the Taj Mahal, the Himalayas, King Tut's tomb, etc.). Unfortunately, the library copy that I read was missing some pages, but I found it interesting, and it had some great pictures. One of the mythical places mentioned was Avalon, which I hope to feature in one of my mythology posts in the near future.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard, by J.K. Rowling - Of all of the books mentioned in the Harry Potter series, I'm not sure why this is the one that Rowling would actually produce, but I liked it. The stories themselves, written in a traditional fairy tale style but with plots of particular interest to wizards, are pretty good. The real highlight, however, are the notes, written in character as Dumbledore, and explaining the morals and history behind each story. One problem with the book was, as zaph pointed out, the stories were supposed to have been written in fifteenth-century Europe, yet had to be translated from "ancient runes." There could be an explanation for this, like a secret language used by wizards of the time, but there's certainly no indication of such a thing in this book or the main series. It seems like Rowling wasn't quite sure how old she wanted these stories to be, and so gave us contradicting references. One footnote that particularly interested me gave us a tantalizing glimpse at the history of Nearly Headless Nick, although it didn't explain why he was executed. Maybe Rowling is saving that for her encyclopedia, if she ever writes it.

Speaking of books and authors, this utility says, "http://vovat.livejournal.com has a slight similarity with the works of Edgar Allen Poe." I'm not quite sure how, and suspect it might just be random. I mean, I can't expect too much from a site that doesn't even know how to spell Poe's middle name. (It's actually "Allan.")

Movie Reviews

The idea that St. Nicholas had helpers in his annual mission to spread joy to children seems to be a relatively recent one, although it's hard to tell. Wikipedia says that the earliest known helper for Nick was a captive devil, who presumably evolved in the nineteenth-century Netherlands to Zwarte Piet, or Black Peter. He was commonly portrayed as a Moor, and people portraying him even today do so in blackface. I've heard one version of the story in which Pete goes down the chimneys prior to St. Nick, since he's already black, and hence the soot wouldn't show on him. He's sometimes portrayed as assisting the saint in distributing gifts, but sometimes is also seen as Nick's dark counterpart, stealing away the bad kids, or giving them switches in place of treats. While Peter was originally one guy, it's said that the Canadians decided there should be several of them, and perhaps this was the origin of Santa having a staff. Nowadays, we typically know his helpers as elves, which is a little weird, as I get the impression that the original elves of Teutonic folklore were typically portrayed as rather nasty, rather than helpful. But words evolve, and popular culture these days generally portrays elves as cute little guys with pointed ears, unless they're following Tolkien's take on Elves as tall, skinny, and stuck-up (but still with pointed ears). Some sources from the early part of the twentieth century, however, refer to the helpers by different names, including brownies, fairies, and gnomes. Perhaps the idea of elves as workers is related to that of tiny magical creatures who do household work unless they're given clothing, as in the Grimms' story of the shoemaker and the elves, and the house-elves in the Harry Potter series. In The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, Santa receives four helpers: a Fairy, and Pixie, a Ryl, and a Knook (the latter two being types of immortals that Baum invented himself). In what was probably a nod to tradition, the Knook's name is Peter, but there's no indication as to whether he's black. When Santa shows up again in The Road to Oz, he has an entire staff of Ryls and Knooks helping him. The Rankin-Bass television adaptation of Life and Adventures also brings in a Sound Imp named Tingler as an assistant to Claus.

Santa's main animal helpers are the reindeer, and they also don't date back all that far, their first known appearance being in "A Visit from St. Nicholas." The poem also established their names, although I understand that the earliest versions refer to the last two as Dunder and Blixem. I'm not sure whether the reindeer or Santa's Arctic home came first, but I know some sources referred to his home as being in Finland, before his residence at the North Pole was established. Baum placed Santa in the Laughing Valley of Hohaho, rather than at the Pole, but kept the reindeer. In his version, there are ten, and their names are different from the ones we all know today.

That Santa is married is also a pretty new idea, which makes sense, because why WOULD a Catholic bishop be married? Besides, the popular name "Mrs. Claus" is kind of absurd, as "Claus" wasn't intended to be a surname. At least according to Wikipedia, Katherine Lee Bates introduced "Goody Santa Claus" in a poem that she wrote in the late nineteenth century. Some European countries have traditions of women who fulfill the same basic role as Santa, like St. Lucy and La Befana, but a female counterpart is hardly the same as a spouse. Mrs. Claus's role in popular culture is probably largely due to her appearance in several of the Rankin-Bass specials. In Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, her name is Jessica, and she has a psychedelic freak-out upon realizing she's in love with Kris Kringle.

I'm hoping to focus on Jack Frost and Father Winter next weekend, and then the Saturnalia after that. Stay tuned!

Alcohol is pretty much a mainstay of generic fantasy stories, probably because a lot of them hearken back to the Middle Ages, before bottling and water purification had been invented. But what about in children's fantasy? I've heard tell that are some tales with kids anachronistically drinking lemonade back before such a beverage was common. The Harry Potter series has kids drinking non-alcoholic butterbeer, and adults occasionally indulging in firewhiskey. The Narnia series had an appearance by the perpetually drunken Bacchus. And didn't the Mad Hatter offer Alice some wine, even though there turned out not to be any? Of course, these were all British fantasies, and European attitudes toward alcohol (especially involving kids) are quite different. I think the Oz series reflects its time period by its lack of references to alcohol. I believe that Baum might have even been a prohibitionist himself (this was back in the days before that was tried and failed by the country at large), although I can't remember for sure. One possible exception is in the very first Oz book, when the Wizard gives the Cowardly Lion a drink that he claims is courage. It's been speculated, and I tend to agree, that this was actually an intoxicating beverage. But throughout the works of Baum and his successors, we don't see any hard liquors, and even the gang of robbers in Ojo in Oz drinks root beer. Eloise Jarvis McGraw also works a reference to Rolly's adoptive father getting drunk on Gillikin plum wine into her semi-canonical The Rundelstone of Oz.

Smoking, on the other hand, shows up quite frequently in the series. Cap'n Bill smokes a pipe, but at least he admits in The Sea Fairies that it's a bad habit. Ruth Plumly Thompson doesn't even provide such minor condemnations for her smokers. She describes the old soldier Grampa's use of snuff as a bad habit, but doesn't do the same for his frequent pipe-smoking. Thompson also introduced Herby, a medicine man who has pills that can cure bad tempers, loss of sleep, boredom, etc. They're described as medicine (which I, at least, regarded as something different from drugs as a kid, even when I knew the one group was a subset as the other), and might possibly not have any harmful side effects, but I'm inclined to think a character encouraging the use of mind-altering pills wouldn't fly in a modern children's book. And just for the sake of completeness, I'll say that I don't consider the deadly poppy field to be a drug reference. I guess it's because of opium that poppies are associated with sleep, but the association was so well-established by Baum's time that he might well not have even been considering the intermediate step. I don't know that for sure, but it's not like Dorothy and her friends were snorting the poppies anyway.

I've mentioned the monstrous Typhon before on this journal, but I think a hundred-headed, snake-covered giant deserves more than one reference. He and his consort Echidna (no relation to the species of egg-laying mammal of the same name) gave birth to several of the worst monsters in Greek mythology, including:

• Cerberus, the original dog from Hell, and guardian of the dead. He's usually shown as having three heads, but he's occasionally been represented with as few as two and as many as fifty. I'm inclined to think that L. Frank Baum had Cerberus in mind when writing The Emerald City of Oz, which had the Nome King having those who displeased him cut into pieces and fed to seven-headed dogs. And he's obviously the model for Fluffy in the first Harry Potter book, although I think the idea of music to put him to sleep came from other Greek myths, unless there were versions of the Orpheus story in which his lyre lured the canine into a dog-nap. Cerberus allows the spirits of the dead into Hades, but won't let them back out.
  
• Orthus, the two-headed dog who herded the cattle belonging to the three-bodied giant Geryon.
  
• The Chimera, a fire-breathing beast that was part goat, part lion, and part serpent. He was killed by Belerephon, riding on Pegasus.
  
• The Sphinx, a creature with the head and breasts of a woman, the body of a lion, eagle's wings, and a serpent tail. She was based on the Egyptian sphinxes, which were placed outside temples. I don't think any of them had wings, though (if so, it was rare). Of course, lions and eagles are popular components for mixed-up monsters, like the later griffins, and the cherubim of the Bible. The Sphinx had a habit of asking riddles, and then killing anyone who couldn't answer properly. Since Batman wasn't around to solve the riddle, the task instead fell to that literal motherfucker Oedipus.
  
• The Lernaean Hydra, a monster that I covered back when mythological snakes were the subject of the week. If you ever end up fighting a hydra, remember to cauterize the necks after cutting off the heads, so they won't grow back.
  
• Ladon, a dragon who guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides by coiling around the tree on which they grew. As with several of these other monsters, it was Hercules who ended his life. I wouldn't be too surprised if this serpent guarding an apple tree was the reason why the forbidden fruit of the Garden of Eden (which grew on a tree that had its own serpent, although he tried to lure people TO the fruit instead of keeping them away) is often identified as apples.
  
• And finally, the Nemean Lion, whose skin was impenetrable to weapons, but who couldn't prevail against Hercules' bare hands. He wore the lion's skin, which maintained its protective properties, after this. There's actually some debate about the lion's origins, as some versions of the myth claim that he fell from the Moon.
  

So, let's see. We have two dogs, two weird composite monsters, a snake, a dragon, and a lion, all apparently siblings. But that seems to have often been the way with mythological monsters. I believe Tiamat's offspring included a lot of different sorts of creatures, as did Loki's. I guess monster genetics doesn't exactly work like ours, as anyone who's played Dragon Warrior Monsters would know.

One famous mythological witch I didn't mention in yesterday's post is Circe, Medea's aunt, who appears in the Odyssey. Her shtick was turning people into animals, as when she turned all of Odysseus' men except Eurylochus into pigs. Western culture commonly views pigs as filthy, uncouth animals, so turning a person into one would have to be a serious insult. I've never found that entirely fair, though. I mean, don't pigs roll around in mud and eat slop because that's all they're given? I mean, that's like New York dumping garbage in New Jersey, and then insisting that New Jersey is a dump. And despite the expression "chauvinist pig," I haven't heard that swine are particularly disrespectful to women. Besides, people say that pigs are smart. I'm not saying that you should allow a piglet to suckle at your teat, but they probably have a worse reputation than they deserve.

Wow, between this and the snake post, I think I'm fast becoming a defender of maligned animals. Just don't expect me to do the same thing for cockroaches, because those little buggers are disgusting.

Anyway, the theme of people being turned into pigs strikes me as a remarkably common one. In addition to Circe, here are some other examples I can think of off the top of my head (which means that I'm sure I've leaving out a lot, and would welcome any other examples you lovely readers might have):

• The Duchess' baby boy in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland turns into a pig while Alice is holding him. According to The Annotated Alice, Lewis Carroll loved little girls, but wasn't so keen on little boys, which might explain why it was specifically a boy baby who underwent the transformation. What I want to know is, if the Duchess dies, does the pig become a Duke?
  
• In "The Mandarin and the Butterfly," one of L. Frank Baum's American Fairy Tales, a mandarin who hates children uses a spell from a book he stole from the Chinese magician Haot-sai (a character I might like to explore in a future story) to turn them into pigs. He recruits a butterfly to help him, and when the butterfly tries out the magic formula on an actual pig, it turns into a badly-behaved human boy.
  
• Speaking of Baum, in Ozma of Oz, one of the Nome King's many transformations is that of the Tin Woodman into a tin whistle shaped like a pig.
  
• In another Oz book, Glinda of Oz, Queen Coo-ee-oh of the Skeezers turns her rival Rora Flathead into a golden pig, in which form she is unable to work her own witchcraft. (I'll get back to these two in a future post in my "Witches of Oz" series.)
  
• Ruth Plumly Thompson's first foray into Oz, The Royal Book of Oz, has a potion that was intended to make the Scarecrow human instead transform the three scheming Princes of the Silver Island into two pigs and a weasel.
  
• In the first Harry Potter book (the title of which depends on what country you live in), Hagrid tries to turn Dudley Dursley into a pig. He only succeeds in giving him a pig's tail, though, which the Dursleys have to get surgically removed.
  
• One of the spells in Final Fantasy IV is Pig (or "Piggy" in the NES version), which, as you might expect, turns its victim into a pig. In this form, a character has a very weak attack, and is unable to use magic or other special abilities.
  
• Ganon, the main villain in the Zelda series, resembles a pig, although not exactly. In Ocarina of Time, for instance, he has a long tail that isn't at all porcine. Still, since he's a human who essentially took the form of a pig (or, more accurately, a pig-like demon), I might as well include him in the list.
  

As I'm sure you can tell, I enjoy fantasy, and fantasy books tend to be full of magic-workers. I tend to prefer the books where magic is more of a practical thing than a spiritual one. For instance, I always thought it was stupid when people criticized the Harry Potter books for promoting non-Christian religions, when magic in that world doesn't really appear to have a religious component. In the Discworld books, there are a few statements that say that witches and wizards are well aware that gods exist, but they don't see the need in actually BELIEVING in them. Of course, all fantasy universes are different, which is why, for instance, gnomes can be garden pests in one series, tiny warriors with Scottish accents in another, metal-and-jewel-mining rock fairies (and spelled without the G) in a third, and inhabitants of a land deep underground where you can get juice out of a ruby in a fourth. Overall, though, I get a picture of witches being largely homespun magicians who work with herbs and such, while wizards are book-learned and scientific in their approach to magic. Traditional gender roles dictate that the former is usually female and the latter typically male, but I don't see why this would be strictly necessary. Terry Pratchett's Equal Rites deals with a girl's challenges in enrolling in a school for wizards, although The Colour of Magic suggested that countries elsewhere on the Disc already had female wizards. I believe there's some historical precedent for "witch" and "wizard" being gender-specific terms for the same sort of person, but it doesn't really seem right to me.

So what IS the appropriate term for a male witch? Maybe there doesn't need to be one, as both men and women were accused of witchcraft in the past. As a kid, I asked my dad what a male witch was called, and he said they were warlocks. That largely works, although there's more of a negative connotation for that word (it literally means "oath-breaker" or "liar"). As for female wizards, I've seen the term "wizardess" used before, most notably at the beginning of The Land of Oz: "Mombi was not exactly a Witch, because the Good Witch who ruled that part of the Land of Oz had forbidden any other Witch to exist in her dominions. So Tip's guardian, however much she might aspire to working magic, realized it was unlawful to be more than a Sorceress, or at most a Wizardess." This seems to imply that a wizard/wizardess is more powerful than a sorcerer/sorceress, which is kind of odd. It seems to be the general rule (at least in what I've seen, which admittedly is only a small fraction of all the stuff written about magicians) that, if a wizard and sorcerer are being ranked, the latter is the more powerful one. That even seems to hold true for Oz, where the most powerful magic-worker is the Sorceress Glinda. But then, Glinda was originally called a witch, so we can see that L. Frank Baum was pretty loose with these terms. I think the point of that passage isn't so much to rank magic-workers as it is Mombi trying to find a loophole in order to practice her witchcraft. We see much the same thing in Ruth Plumly Thompson's The Purple Prince of Oz, in which Ozwoz claims that the laws of Oz don't address his form of magic, wozardry. Anyway, while "wizardess" seems valid enough to me, -ess endings to denote femininity have been falling out of favor as of late (actress, waitress, stewardess, etc.). So I don't see why a magician like the book-smart, scientifically-minded, modern-thinking Hermione Granger wouldn't just go ahead and call herself a wizard, instead of a witch. But I guess it's mostly just semantics.

I finally got around to actually reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, as well as its sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. They were very quick reads, and I enjoyed them. It does seem like some of the kids' sins in the original book are a little out of date nowadays. It's not as common for people to object to gum-chewing in general (although, admittedly, Violet Beauregarde was pretty gross about it), and the fact that the Oompa-Loompas' song about Mike Teavee implies that the main problem with kids watching a lot of TV is that they don't read books anymore suggests that there might have been some professional jealousy involved on Roald Dahl's part.

One thing I noticed about Great Glass Elevator was the advanced technology in it. In Chocolate Factory, the world seemed to be pretty normal aside from the factory itself. In the sequel, however, the United States has just launched its own space hotel. Near the beginning of the book, Dahl writes, "Newspapers and television had been shouting about almost nothing else for the past six months. Operation Space Hotel was the event of the century." But since Elevator is an immediate follow-up to the first book, does that mean the space hotel and the golden tickets were Big News at the same time? Anyway, perhaps when this book came out, a space hotel really seemed like something that would be built pretty soon. I know I had a book as a kid that said the Hiltons planned to build a space hotel if the cost of space travel dropped to a certain level, and Dahl has the United States government consider "Mr. Hilton" as a possible saboteur of the Space Hotel. Anyway, the book had a lot of clever ideas, but a much looser plot than Chocolate Factory, which might explain why it's never been filmed.

On a related topic, if Willy Wonka is supposed to make the best candy in the world, how come the actual company called "Willy Wonka" makes kinda crappy candy? I think there's a general difficulty associated with using fictional product names for real-life things. I mean, I guess making a Muggle approximation of Bertie Bott's Every-Flavour Beans was all right (and yes, I did eat a small box of them, including the gross flavors), but it's possible to take the idea too far. Incidentally, on the commentary for The Beast with a Billion Backs, someone mentioned that Fox copyrighted the name "Slurm" for a drink. If they decide to market Slurm and it doesn't actually come out of a colossal worm heinie, I'm not interested. :P

Finally, I saw a link to this list of the top 50 children's books on the Oz Club forums some time ago. I thought it would make a good meme, but I forgot about it at the time. Reading Chocolate Factory reminded me of it, though, so here it is in meme form. I'm bolding the ones I've read all the way through, and italicizing the ones I've read part of. (There aren't quite as many of those as usual, since these are mostly fairly short books, but it's the case for some of the story collections.) Also, I'm underlining my favorites.
( Read more... )

I'm sure that anyone who cares (and probably many of you who don't) know that J.K. Rowling has brought Dumbledore out of the closet. And, of course, there's been some negative reaction to this. I don't, as a general rule, read Harry Potter fan forums, but the one Yahoo list I'm on has had people saying that it was a bad idea for Rowling to bring sex into things. Except, well, she hasn't. She said Dumbledore was in love with Grindelwald, not "Dumbledore did Grindelwald up the butt while jerking him off with his wand." And people never seem to have the same objections to characters being "outed" as STRAIGHT. I mean, Harry himself had a crush on one girl, fell in love with another, and eventually got married and had children. I'd say we have a pretty clear indication as to HIS sexual orientation, but I guess that's okay, since it's the good one, right? It reminds me of when Eric Shanower wrote his short story "Abby," featuring the twins from The Shaggy Man of Oz. There's no hint in that book as to their sexual orientation, but Eric had Twink (the girl) get married and have kids, while Tom (the boy) had an unsuccessful relationship with another man. People complained that Eric made Tom gay, but didn't seem to have the same objection to his making Twink straight. The implication seems to be that anything even hinting at same-sex relationships is dirty and should be avoided (especially by kids), even if it's no more (or even less) explicit than something involving a heterosexual relationship. Why? Apparently primarily because some people follow religions that forbid homosexuality, and not only do they insist on enforcing their principles on people who don't hold the same beliefs, but also think that kids are going to want to imitate Dumbledore and fall in love with an evil wizard of the same sex. Or something like that.

I'm way behind on updating this thing, but I doubt anyone cares. There really isn't that much worth mentioning, but I will say that bethje and I went Clementon Park on Monday. We didn't end up staying long at all, though. It was really hot and muggy, and I'm annoyed that they got rid of the Tilt-A-Whirl. That was one of the best rides there, so I have no idea why they'd take it out. The train wasn't running, nor was the roller coaster (although we wouldn't have ridden it after it had been, as it's incredibly rough). Maybe I'm getting bored of amusement parks anyway, although there have been times in the past when I thought that but still enjoyed future park visits. So I don't know.

On Tuesday, we met my mom, brother, and sister at the Harrison House Diner in Mullica Hill, and, well, had dinner there. I had the pizza steak, which was okay, but I've had better. Usually at a diner, I'll either get that or an omelette, and I'll probably try the latter if I ever go back there again. My mom gave me two more boxes of stuff, but I still haven't found places for everything she brought over last time. Actually, the two boxes she gave me are still in the car. I need to do some cleaning at some point, but can you blame me for not wanting to?

The Ditty Bops have a new EP out, and I got my copy the other day. It's pretty cool, especially "Dead And Gone" and "Pack Rat" (the first and last songs on it, respectively).

And I did that long survey from travspence that I mentioned in the last post, so ( here it is. )

The top two posts on my friends page (which might not actually be the two newest at this point, since it's been a while since I last refreshed it) reveal that Futurama will be back in November and Dragon Quest IV, V, and VI are being remade for the DS. The latter is really only good news for me if they decide to bring them out here as well as in Japan, but at least it's a step in the right direction. I've been wanting to try the fifth and sixth game in that series for years, and occasionally have dreams about doing so.

Also, J. K. Rowling addressed some fan questions about Harry Potter in an online chat. She mentions a few things that I've discussed with my LJ-friends recently, including ( stuff I won't mention outside a cut because of spoilers. )

There's some more stuff I want to say, but I think I'll save it for tomorrow, since I'm running out of time before I have to leave for work.

This post includes some more thoughts on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, as well as on the series in general. ( And once again, it's full of spoilers. )