Moon Knight, 'Gods and Monsters' - May 4

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the MK season one finale instead – and it is a jumble.

Ok, no, let’s try again: for a show that aimed at talking about the mysteries of the mind on one hand, and that was flipping between the various settings – a mental institution, U.K., Egypt, and so on – MK was remarkably straightforward and controlled: it was yet another hero’s journey, one that MCU kept under tight control…until the twist at the end… which could be seen a mile away.

…When AoS’ S1 had Ward turned traitor, it worked because it was so unexpected… and nothing gave it away. In MK S1, the appearance of a third personality – Jake Lockley (or whoever) – was choreographed several episodes before the S1 finale. Therefore, when the man – or the personality, whatever – did appear in MK and finished ‘the Harrow job’, no one was surprised. Except maybe for Harrow.

Let us elaborate. In the S1 finale, the Spector and Grant personalities of the titular character have reunited with each other and with Khonshu, and defeated Harrow and Ammit. We have discussed Ammit/Ammut before, and the same goes for Tawaret, who bonded with Layla as well. Again, Tawaret is not a warrior goddess; Ammit/Ammut is not much of a deity period, and I, for one, just could not help but to visualize Mr. Riordan’s ‘Kane Chronicles’, especially the second book, where the Kane siblings, Carter and Sadie, have their confrontation with Khonshu.

Again, I proclaim: MK has not ripped-off ‘Kane Chronicles’ directly; the two media are quite different, not to mention that Layla’s character is quite original… in that that she’s a strong, independent woman who lives in MCU, (the viewers of the 2021 ‘Black Widow’ film) will be so impressed… and who is an avatar of an ancient Egyptian goddess, just as Marc/Steven/Jake is an avatar of an Egyptian god. Pause.

…Khonshu appeared to be quite ready and willing to work with the Jake personality of MK, implying that he himself is just as morally shady and ambiguous as Jake himself is? Not surprising, given Khonshu’s re-appearance in the Marvel comics, when he appeared as an enemy of the Avengers, and while he was not as evil as Mephisto was, (the comic version, as we have not seen a live-action one yet), he certainly was a bad piece of work – and MCU’s Khonshu lives-up to that rep, no problem.

…The problem here is that Layla is still legally married to MK, regardless of which personality is in the driver’s seat, and Jake is quite nasty, by all standards; plus, there is Khonshu playing extra interference, and the god’s moral ambiguity and other personality flaws can easily make an already tense situation worse. What is left?

‘Dr. Strange 2’ is coming out in a couple of days, and people are already divided about it – fair enough. In RL – and did I fail to tell you that it sucks, ‘cause it does – the RF has pissed-off the West by trying to use the Holocaust as its’ justification regarding its’ conflict with Ukraine, and it didn’t work, while overseas, the U.S. will try to use the RF to ty to discredit the Donald again. Can’t say that I blame the latter; if the Donald runs in the elections-2024 and wins – and given the current POTUS’ less than stellar performance here, it could happen – if the Donald wins, then the rest of the Western world can freely tell America to shove-off and sort itself, because this sort of political unpredictability gets very tiring very fast – but we digressed.

…The final face-off between Ammit/Ammut and Khonshu is reminiscent of the showdown between Set, (possessed secretly by Apop), and Horus, in the first book of the ‘Kane Chronicles’, and here I have to talk about Ammit again – not only her/their deification by MCU is absolute fiction, their depiction of the ‘new’ deity is highly reminiscent of Sobek instead.

More precisely, Ammit/Ammut was a Chimera: hippo in the back, lion in the front, and a crocodile head to cap it all. Sobek, on the other hand, was depicted as a crocodile-headed human, (or a crocodile), nothing more, and yes, he was a proper god, a warrior and a protector, (among other things). To conflate him and Ammit (Ammut) was, and is, just wrong, it is cultural appropriation at its’ stupidest worst.

…Whereas Layla’s current evolution into Tawaret’s representative smacks of copyright infringement instead: her new duds are just excessively similar to what WW wore in the WW84 film. Tawaret is a hippo goddess of fertility, (among other things), so why the slimming get-up? …Oh, wait; it is Disney/MCU, never mind. When money is not involved, Disney is certain to play it safe; and when it is… well; we will just have to see what, and how, the fight between Disney and the Republicans in the state of Florida will go. Did I not mention that the real life sucks?

…Getting back to the Egyptian myths and mythos… there were several falcon-associated deities in there, but they tended to be male, because they were associated with the pharaoh, (who were overwhelmingly male themselves, cough); the most famous are Ra, Horus, and their fusion, Horus-Ra – the Egyptian myths could be quite confusing on their own right, (which may be why WW84’s creative team tried to go with the Mesoamerican imagery instead), but we digress.

…No, we are not, not really. The final official judgement on the MK S1 is out, but mine is that it is one part reworked Mr. Riordan’s ‘Kane Chronicles’, one part MCU attempt to tackle serious issues, (mental issues in this case), one part MCU sticking to what they know best – i.e. entertaining people, and all of this is wrapped-up into an ‘independent’ MCU series, which takes place separate from the rest of the MCU. The end result is something that you can see for yourself, and I will take my leave of you now.

See you all soon!

Moon Knight, series premiere - March 30

 

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, hence why I kept on down low for several months now. However, I have come back, (and with a new haircut), and I feel like discussing something new for the moment.

The problem is, what do I want to discuss? Given my blog’s latest tendencies, people might assume that I want to talk about MCU’s ‘Moon Knight’ premiere, ‘The Goldfish Problem’. Fair enough, but for the moment there’s nothing to discuss: MCU has made a wide choice by making ‘Moon Knight’ separate from the rest of MCU – for the moment – but it does leave us rather bare-handed and flat-footed as to where to go from here; so far, there’s nothing, except…

Except for Ammit, also known as Ammut, (and Ahemait, apparently). As a matter of fact, she was an Egyptian deity, but the thing is that the ancient Egyptians did not worship her/it; instead, Ammut was an underling of Anubis, who was the divine judge of their afterlife, and if an ancient Egyptian was found to be unworthy, Ammut would it his heart, and the ancient Egyptian would be ‘dead a second time’, according to the official sources. As such, the ancient Egyptians did not worship Ammut, and in the religion of mainly animal-headed deities, Ammut was a completely bestial chimera, with the head of a crocodile, the main and the forequarters of a lion, and the hindquarters of a hippopotamus: whereas the Greek Chimera was just three random animals jumbled together, the Egyptian Ammut personified three of the deadliest animals known to the ancient Egyptian culture and society. Neat, but she/it still was not worshiped… unlike in MCU. That is not a problem, actually, but a while back there was an article about how the team Moon Knight criticized Gal Gadot and Patty Jenkins as to how they handled the Egyptian angle in WW1984, calling their approach… retrograde and backwards, basically. The irony here is that MCU seems to be treating the ancient Egyptian mythology very similarly, especially when you look at the episode’s monster.

Let us roll back. At the episode’s finale, the show’s main villain, Arthur Harrow, have conjured up some sort of a demon creature with a humanoid body and the head-skull of a jackal, (for simplicity’s sake, let’s treat it as such). Well, given the strong influence of the ‘Mummy’ trilogy (of the late 1990s and the early 2000s) in the monster’s depiction and actions, I feel that MCU have repeated the trilogy’s confusion and conflation of Anubis and Set.

…If there are people who are not too versed in the ancient Egyptian myths, then while Anubis was the divine judge of the ancient Egyptian underworld, Set was a god of evil instead; the two are depicted similarly – Anubis has the head of a jackal, whereas Set has the head of… a Set beast or a sha, a creature that hasn’t been fully identified yet, (though some people associate it with the saluki, an ancient dog breed; the fact that Set was also Anubis’ father in the ancient Egyptian canon doesn’t help things either. Still, the ancient Egyptians had no problem in keeping the two gods apart, and they did not consider Set wholly bad; he was one of the strongest lieutenants of Ra, the sun god, and regularly helped Ra with fighting Apep, the chthonic demon-snake of the ancient Egyptian myths. More precisely, Rick Riordan got the facts down flat in his ‘Kane Chronicles’ trilogy, and since Mr. Riordan is associated with Disney just as the MCU is, there’s no reason as to why MCU had to conflate the two gods and throw Ammut/Ammit into the mix as well. I wonder as to how they will treat Khonshu the moon god now…

Did we digress, or rather ramble? Well yes, we have. In my defence, it has been a while since I wrote in my blog and I have a lot under my belt, but an article entry about the ‘Moon Knight’ series’ premiere isn’t it, sadly. Therefore, I am ending my rant for now.

See you all soon (hopefully)!

 

Egyptian myths & etc take 2 - Nov 27

So the second episode of ‘The Librarians’, S3. As I expected, they continue to run amok over the Egyptian mythology – what gives? In the season’s opening, they appeared to have confused Apep with Set; now, as I suspected, they have thrown Anubis into the mix.

First, who was Anubis? Anubis was an Egyptian god of the dead; a gatekeeper and a subordinate of Osiris, who was its’ ruler. Think Charon from the Greeks, but with a good deal more of responsibilities and oomph. Unlike the various monotheists, the pagans – Egyptians and Greco-Romans at least – put their entire afterlife into the underworld, and that was okay. For the Greeks and the Romans most of their dead spent the eternity on the asphodel fields in a limbo of sorts; for the Egyptians, if you were not good enough to live in paradise, Ammut, the devourer of souls, would devour you and that would be the end. Appropriately, Ammut was a creature that was part lion, part crocodile, part hippopotamus – the Egyptians knew just what creatures they feared, and they had very healthy imagination.

…This is all very good, but what did it have to do with werewolves? The short answer is – nothing at all. The Egyptians did not have werewolves, because there are no wolves in Africa, not even in the ancient times. There are so-called ‘Ethiopian wolves’, but these are more like jackals, and jackals are the Old World’s answer to the coyote, not the wolf. They just are not as scary as wolves are, not on the obvious level at least. Basically, when ‘The Librarians’ decided to tie lycanthropy to ancient Egypt and throw good old Anubis into the mix, they had no ties with the real-life Egyptian mythology and just came with something of their own, out of the blue.

Again, this is no problem, it is just strange behavior for a normally professional and precise show – seriously, the folks over ‘The Librarians’ and TNT in general were too lazy to read Rick Riordan’s ‘Kane Chronicles’ trilogy? Who knows…?

In other news, while ‘The Librarians’ appear to be revamping their show in general, possibly for the ratings, ‘River Monsters’ (RM) is coming back in 2017. Sadly, I find much less excited about it than before. For a long while, approximately for the first six or seven seasons, RM was awesome; now, it is still very good, but it has clearly jumped the shark. JW rocks, but he has exhausted his potential in exchange for ratings, and now it shows. S8 of RM has ended with a whimper, and it was focusing on marine life, rather than the freshwater one. RM still works, obviously, but it is equally obvious that it has jumped the shark and no matter what it will do, it will be unable to change this state of affairs.

Finally, AoS is returning this Tuesday, so yay. Of course, Arrowverse is launching its’ own major four-shows ‘crossover’, so Marvel, AoS and MCU are still the underdogs in the realm of television, but perhaps the expanding ‘Defenders’ can do something about this balance…

Therefore, until next week, then!

Egyptian myths & etc - Nov 21

Last Sunday, I began to watch the third season of ‘The Librarians’ (2014). As always, it is a rather enjoyable show – much more friendly and non-conventional than most other shows that I watch on TV; the titular heroes still have to defeat various villains with teamwork, but unlike, say, ‘Blindspot’, they do it not through violence, but through thinking and brainwork, and while there is SOME angst, usually there is more humor instead.

Also, unlike AoS, the cast and crew of ‘The Librarians’ treat their characters with respect and don’t appear to be rewriting the plot on a regular basis – they are as solid as AoS would like to be, (though AoS IS cleaning up its’ act in S4 – somewhat), which is why their treatment of the Egyptian myths is rather surprising.

Or perhaps it is mistreatment instead? (Feel free to make your own pun). Right now, one of the villains that the titular heroes have to defeat is Apophis, a monster from the Egyptian mythology. Surprisingly, the crew and especially the scriptwriters of the show had confused him with Set.

Now, Egyptian mythology IS somewhat confusing: just look at Ra/Re (the archenemy of Apophis or Apep) and Horus (the archenemy of Set). Both of them are falcon-gods, both of them have solar attributes, and both are depicted as either falcons or falcon-headed humans. Both have solar attributes, both had been chief deities of ancient Egypt at some point in time, and at least for some time they formed a single deity – Horus-Re. (Or Ra). Yeah, only professional Egyptologists would be bothered to distinguish between the two gods for real at this point.

Yet, while Set has something similar with another Egyptian god – Anubis, Apep is actually NOT really a part of this confusing imagery problem – he is a giant snake that awaits Ra nightly at the Tenth Hour of the Night and Ra has to defeat him, or else the sun, and the world, is doomed. The first episode of ‘The Librarians’ S3 has a depiction of Set (or Anubis), but it is inappropriate: Apep is a giant snake without any human or humanoid features, (unlike the rest of the Egyptian deities). He cannot really be confused with Set, or Horus, or any other Egyptian god or goddess – in no small part because he was not one, but rather a demon that must be warded and worshipped against instead.

I honestly hope that ‘The Librarians’ will be able to sort this unexpected and strange confusion between Set and Apophis out in the future episode, but don’t count on it, especially as the episode 3x02 promises ‘Egyptian werewolves’ instead, which implies Anubis instead. However, you know what? This sort of Egyptian confusion does not diminish one’s enjoyment of ‘The Librarians’ and their non-standard approach to various challenges.

…Speaking of standards and standardization, this reminds me of ‘Deadliest Warrior’ (DW), and especially the third and final season. Whether we are talking about ‘Teddy Roosevelt vs. Lawrence of Arabia’ or ‘Crazy Horse vs. Pancho Villa’, you are faced with a standard, two-person team for each character – one being the book expert, and the other doing all of the hard physical work.

…This sort of thing had not diminished the enjoyment of watching DW, especially not while the show was not cancelled. However, it might have contributed to the diminished ratings and to the reasons why DW became cancelled after S3. Of course, ‘Vampires vs. Zombies’ might’ve contributed to DW’s downfall as well – but that is another story…

Finally, AoS is returning to TV on Nov 29, so keep up and be ready to enjoy the series again, for as long as it has time to left…