M_Tootles Posted August 22, 2016 Author Share Posted August 22, 2016 7 minutes ago, sweetsunray said: And of course Robb and Bran have other mythological figures than Egyptian Horus going on. But very obviously I can't do it all in one essay can I. Pish posh. ;D Sounds cool, glad to see I misunderstood the solidity of Demeter going forward. As I said a few posts ago, the Isis thing resonated way more for me. At least I know that if you ever read my non-RLJ foil you won't do the lazy "they're just words, it's not a code" critique, since you do SUCH a close analysis and assume, as I do, that GRRM selects every word carefully and doesn't just "happen" to write ambiguity or put something awkwardly or use a certain word/phrase without purpose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetsunray Posted August 22, 2016 Share Posted August 22, 2016 49 minutes ago, M_Tootles said: Pish posh. ;D Sounds cool, glad to see I misunderstood the solidity of Demeter going forward. As I said a few posts ago, the Isis thing resonated way more for me. At least I know that if you ever read my non-RLJ foil you won't do the lazy "they're just words, it's not a code" critique, since you do SUCH a close analysis and assume, as I do, that GRRM selects every word carefully and doesn't just "happen" to write ambiguity or put something awkwardly or use a certain word/phrase without purpose. Sure, Isis resonates very clearly with the golden phallus, because you have a very clear motif. And for a large part of Catelyn's arc we see her with her sons. We never actually see her in relation to her daughters. She thinks of them, she increasingly worries and desires them, but there exists no action interaction scene on page with her daughters at all. Not until they're missing and the eldest son is off-age and the other sons are believed to be dead does her yearning to get them increase, until she sends Brienne to KL to get her daughter back. When the last son dies, and is resurrected by the BwB from who she learns that Arya was alive and in the RL, she is completely Nixed, Demeter Fury, Norse Hel and the Morrigan. Demeter is a very complex Mother Goddess though, and there are constant links to her starting from Catelyn's 2nd chapter. The Eleusian mysteries with the message in a box, Pandora, Poppy Goddess in chapter 3 (the wounded hands and the hair torn from her scalp). The reason why chapter 2 fertility symbolism is more Demeter to me than Persephone is because Persephone would not have had a "life haven" for herself in Hades. When Persephone was in Hades she was a formidable fully chthonic queen. Every legend with a hero or even Psyche journeying to the underworld for a mission meets a Persephone who has no qualms whatsoever with the underworld. Demeter though dislikes the underworld and much of her mystery and legends have to do with coming to terms that without the underworld there would be no crop and no life. Persephone would regard her daughters as having the underworld for their home. She doesn't want her daughter to become a celestial queen on Mount Olympus (KL). Demeter though wants Persephone to have the most divine husband on Mount Olympus. She rejects several suitors for Persephone, before Hades abducts her daughter. And Hades is as high ranked as Zeus, but she looks down on the realm. This is what we see emerge in Catelyn's hot scalding bedroom with its hot waters in the walls that manages to keep winter out and hardly ever requires even a fire to be warm. Anyhow Catelyn's "oh, she'll be queeeeeeeeeen!" is Demeter like (well if we're going for Greek chthonic characters). As for "choosing words"... Well yes and no. I've recently been writing a fic myself that uses Aphrodite, morningstar, evening star, Aurora, 12th Night, Tempest, Otello, Cupid & Psyche (with several chthonic elements), Paradise Lost and things related as well as time period history. If you know what you're writing on, the writing can flow spontaneous, but then you go back and check whether you can "spruce" it up and add changes, some phrases, etc. Yes, it's "code", but you don't need to think "hmmm, how am I going to write the next sentence, word by word." But yeah, I'll write a scene and make sure to include the word "like feathered wings", or "arrow", or "butterfly", or "pearl", bloody waves of hatred, sea-change, etc, etc? I make sure to differentiate between a sunset/west and sunrise/east phase. Have a character eat strawberries, or mention roses (or rose colored hands), put myrtle in a dish, have a saffron scarf lying around for Aurora use. And I think George writes it liek that too: first plot and scene with symbolical ideas in the back of his head already, then goes over it again to tweak stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetsunray Posted August 22, 2016 Share Posted August 22, 2016 Read your liar, liar essay... so reminds me of the ToJ parallel with Ned's-Jaime's battle in KL and of course the hey lookie here Myrish looking glass got a secret Eleusinian Mystery to reveal (supposed "truth"), but turns out to be a big bad Pandora box that leads Ned to his Osiris coffin. Or the presentatien of Lyanna as an abducted Persephone (apparent), but actually if you think about it Lyanna was an underworld daughter already. She wasn't abducted by a Hades, but more an Orpheus (whose wife was still alive; you know the harp and singing). And then "everything goes South" (horribly wrong). Sounds like a Terry Pratchet dream scenario: Orpheus's wife still alive, but Orhpeus journeys to the underworld anyhow and abducts Persephone and plays harp for her in a Tower of Joy. Both Demeter and Hades livid over this of course. You'd have an army of walking dead and war+famine all in one over that insult. Oh wait, sounds like aSoIaF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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