Dharma is going through life by making good choices. We develop karma by going through dharma. Dharma orders the universe. It’s very powerful and is also very well known in other religions and does resemble many other mythologies that have a deity that controls our destiny, such as the Fates in Greek mythology or God in the Hebrew myths.
Many others discussed this story, but I think it’s a story that really does show dharma. In the story of Viswarmithra (p.7), we see a man choose to change the world for the better good and teach others the good they could do by stopping creatures that were hurting holy ground. If he didn’t stop these creatures, dharma would make sure that, eventually, this would hurt you (karma).
Rama is also a story that dharma is involved in. Rama is perfect (p. 4) and is the son of King Dasharatha. Rama is in all the chapters that we read this week and he’s who dharma is involved with the most throughout our readings, but the person I think also is involved in dharma is Sita. Sita is Rama’s wife (Chap. 2), and her dharma is being by his side. She is with him throughout his adventures even when he is banished, she accompanies him to the forest and is with him.
Dharma is involved in many of the myths we read this week and I really loved reading about her instead of karma, which is what most people think about.
Ordinary World: Lexa from the 100 is the leader of Grounders, which is people that have stayed on Earth during an apocalypse. She hasn’t been leader long, but is enjoying being a leader and not having any problems during her leadership.
Call to Adventure: Lexa hears that one of her towns within her tribe is slaughtered by a man named Finn, who is a part of the Sky People that have been tormenting her ever since they showed up out of the blue. Then, two men of the Sky People are taken hostage.
Refusal of the Call: Lexa knows what to do and actually doesn’t refuse the call, she embraces it. She wants to be a hero and helhelp her people.
Meeting with the Mentor: Lexa’s mentor is her leader before her. Women are the leaders of the Grounders, while men simply just guard the leader, and the woman (Anya) before her, had died.
Crossing the Threshold: Lexa’s innocent looks work amazingly as her guards put her in rags and make her look as if she is just a normal Grounder. She decides to step into unknown territory with only a knife and is thrown into the cage with the two Sky People so that she may gather information about the slaughter of her tribe.
Tests, Allies and Enemies: The two people don’t know Lexa is a skilled leader, and think that she is just an innocent girl that they sent into the cage with them because they wanted someone to watch them but that’s all. She is threatened to be killed by one Sky person, while the other defends her. She decides who her ally is and who the enemy is.
Approach: She disarms the Sky Person who threatened her and throws him out, but keeps the one who protected her to discuss peace between the two people. The peace she offers isn’t as good as what people wanted, but its peace.
The Ordeal: Clark (Leader of the Sky People) tells Lexa of a new danger, that people within a mountain are taking both of their people and holding them hostage while doing awful things to them. Clark asks for Lexa’s help, an alliance, so that they can storm into the mountain and rescue their people. Lexa agrees, but wants the Sky Person that killed her 18 people. “Blood must have Blood”. After long fighting over the matter, Clark hands the person over (someone she loves) and he is killed. This death has made an alliance.
The Reward: The alliance will bring the people back to Lexa, but Lexa finds something else within it. Lexa falls in love with Clark, and Clark has developed feelings for Lexa. There are missiles that Lexa protects Clark from, and many other things that make it so Lexa has difficulty with the possibility of losing Clark and the alliance.
The Road Back: After a missile kills many of Clark and Lexa’s people, they decide they must rescue their people now and stop celebrations and such. That they need to get their people back.
The Resurrection: Lexa makes a difficult decision. She makes a deal with the Mountain Men that all her people will be given back to her and they will retreat without a battle, but Clark’s people will not be returned. Lexa takes her entire army, leaving Clark alone and scared, not knowing what to do because her people will die.
The Elixir: Lexa is a new person, she just betrayed the person she loves, but is a herhero to her people because she got so many back. She is changed, but has succeeded in bringing her people back. If it wasn’t for her innocent appearance in the very beginning of the story, she would have never known that peace could have occurred in the first place, and because of the “faulty” alliance, the Mountain Men made a deal with her.
I wanted to do a hero who could also be seen as an enemy. Lexa is a hero to her people, even if she isn’t to others. Here is the scene of which she uses her innocent charm as a strength. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuKMVccJ_GQ
1. Ordinary World: Hercules: Hercules ordinary world is he grew up with like any other child except for he is an attractive and popular local hero, but nothing extraordinary as of yet.
Theseus: When Theseus was young, he didn’t have any special-ness about him except a famous father, but it didn’t necessarily affect him.
2. Call to Adventure: Hercules– Hercules comes across Minyans (people who invaded Thebes) and kills them, the King of Thebes is proud, and Hercules marries his daughter, Megara. Hercules is already on an adventure, but this will be destroyed soon enough.
Theseus- His mother tells him he must join his father in Athens and must take the sword and sandals from under a rock.
3. Refusal: Hercules- Hera hates Hercules and decides to pay him back for even living. She makes Hercules insane and he kills his children and wife. He refuses his hero quality (in my opinion) from doing this.
Theseus- He doesn’t refuse, he actually decides to go.
4. Meeting with the Mentor: Hercules- Goes to the Oracle of Delphi and she tells him that she can atone for his sins by serving the King Eurystheus.
Theseus- His mentor, at most, could be his mother.
5. Crossing the Threshhold: Hercules- Goes the the King to atone for what he has done, King gives him 10 labors that he must complete.
Theseus- He lifts the rock and takes the sword and sandals.
6. Tests, Allies and Enemies: Hercules– Hercules does 9 of the labors easily with the help of friends as well.
Theseus- He wants to prove himself so he walks to Athens
7. Approach to Inmost Cave: Hercules- Hercules does the last labor that is near the edge of the world, and many were scared to go but Hercules does it easily.
Theseus- His step mother convinces his father that he’s a threat and because of this his father (unknowing that this is his son) sends him to fight a Bull.
8. Ordeal: Hercules– Apparently, Hercules didn’t do 2 of the labors correctly so he is sent out to do two more, even though they are difficult, he succedds.
Theseus- He conquers the giant bull and returns to Athens.
9. Reward: Hercules– He is atoned for his crimes (killing his family). His guilt is gone.
Theseus– He is loved by all for this.
10. The Road Back: Hercules: Nothing really happens for Hercules on his road back, except he achieves glory and is guilt free and is honored even more so.
Theseus– Reveals himself to his father, but his wine is poisoned by his step mother and father.
11. Resurrection/ 12. Elixir:
Hercules is made immortal and becomes a God eventually. The myth is different with each story, but in the end he is immortal.
Stephen Cave starts off with his speech discussing death and what we, as people, think about it and what we tell ourselves to cope with it. The four categories of stories that he states we tell ourselves are:
Elixirs: In almost every myth/story there is some type of elixir, whether it be the elixir for life or the fountain of youth. People believe there is some elixir that will give them immortality. We even have this in science, some people believe we will eventually achieve immortality scientifically.
Resurrection: A belief that states we will be resurrected like Jesus Christ, or that we will be resurrected in some way or another. People also rely on science for this, saying we can freeze our body than unfreeze it later in life.
Soul: The belief that we have souls and will live on through our soul forever, even after death. People also believe science can do this as well by putting our memories into a computer that lives on forever.
Legacy: Legacy is leaving behind something of yours or making an impact on others. Social media makes this incredibly easy, but people can also do this through making an actual impact on the world or having children carry on their legacy.
Resurrection, when I think of it, I think of the Biblical resurrection. That if we believe in God/Jesus we will be resurrected in the coming of Jesus. I believe that this is the most common resurrection story but we also see a minus of it in today’s society (zombies, for example) so this story has always freaked me out a bit.
In Egyptian myth, the Egyptians would wrap their most powerful leaders in linen to preserve them for their eternal afterlife. They believed that the soul would carry over. This was so that their body wouldn’t perish and they would be able to have it with them in the afterlife. They also had important items and food buried/offered to them so they could also have that as well.
Legacy is a very important attribute in today’s society, and we seem to have many who believe in legacy. Many people have children so their last name is carried or, kind of like Zeus who slept with many women and had many children to carry on his legacy.
I loved Cave’s speech and agreed with him that our life is a book, and that we should make it great. That we need to make the middle amazing. I thought this was one of the best assignments we have had, because death is inevitable and seeing the coping mechanisms was incredibly interesting.
Jareth, the Goblin King, is a trickster from the 80’s movie, Labyrinth. Jareth is a modern day trickster because people in our culture could relate to him. He would do anything for love and wants to give a girl her fairy tale dream, and many people can relate to that. Even though he has a motive that a lot of people can relate to, he is everything that a trickster should be. He knows what he is and bathes in his tricky ways. Jareth is a trickster that meets almost all of the requirements. He is ambiguous and anomalous, a shape-shifter, a situation-invertor, a deceiver and a trick player, and he’s a sacred and lewd bricoleur. He embraces it and, like Loki, will trick someone whenever he sees the opportunity.
The Labyrinth’s premise is that Sarah (the main character) needs to rescue her brother from the Goblin King after she accidentally asks the King to take her baby brother away. The Goblin King takes her brother to his castle, which is in the middle of the Labyrinth. The Goblin King says she can have her brother back if she gets through the massive Labyrinth within 13 hours, which looking at it seems impossible.
Jareth is ambiguous and anomalous because he is without normativity. He does outrageous and out-of-bounds things to Sarah and during her time in the Labyrinth. At one point in the movie, he gives one of the people helping Sarah, a goblin named Hoggle, a poisoned peach to give to Sarah that will make her sleep through the rest of the hours she has left, which seems a little cruel, but like Loki, he wants her to fail just as Loki wanted the Giant who agreed to build the wall in exchange for Freya to fail. He also seems to be able to move through the air, to just appear anywhere he would like. He seems to be able to travel through different realms, like a God. He changes Sarah’s bedroom into the goblin world, and there will be a scene where he is sitting in his castle, but then is suddenly in the Labyrinth, with Sarah, speaking to her.
Jareth is a shape-shifter, shifting from an owl and sometimes into a goblin to trick and to scare Sarah. He can even shape-shift other objects. Within a couple of minutes of the movie, we see Jareth turn from owl to man, then turn a crystal ball into a snake then he turns the snake into a scarf, scaring and showing his power to Sarah. He is in owl in the beginning of the movie, and he seems to be watching her in his owl form, but turns into a Goblin in the middle of the movie, to intimidate her and to speak to her. He seems to use his shape-shifting to his advantage and uses it at just the right times.
The Goblin King is, by far, one of the best situation-invertors and you see it throughout the entire movie. Sarah will be on the right path in the Labyrinth, and suddenly she’s in a forest where there are goblins that want to take off her head. She will be close to death, and then Jareth makes it so she isn’t close to it at all. He plays many mind games and those mind games affect Sarah in the Labyrinth.
The one characteristic that I believe every trickster should have is the ability to trick and deceive, and that is what Jareth does best. The goblins he places in the Labyrinth, what he has the goblins do, is all ways to play tricks and deceive Sarah. When he appears to Sarah in the Labyrinth, he asks her how he likes it, and if it’s hard. She tells him it’s a piece of cake and so he shortens her time by 3 hours. After that scene, he gives Hoggle the peach to make it so she will sleep the rest of the time (which ultimately fails). Then, when Sarah finally reaches her brother, he changes the dimension they are in, and they are in a realm filled with stairs upon stairs, another maze for her to get through to reach her brother. But, the biggest deceiving and trick of all is the Labyrinth itself. There are many scenes throughout the movie where the Labyrinth is constantly changing, where goblins are moving things around and where Sarah’s choices don’t make a difference but Jareth makes her think they do.
Every trickster has a reason for their tricks, and this is why Jareth is bricoleur. Jareth is hungry for passion, he violates all taboos to achieve this. He wants Sarah. He loves her, which is an incredible surprise. Sarah hates her realistic life, and you see this in the beginning of the movie with her pretending to be in the goblin world (not knowing it exists). He wants her to stay forever, that she could be his queen. He thought she would be impressed with the goblin world and with his tricks, but he’s wrong. Like many tricksters before him, Jareth fails and Sarah gets her brother, and her world, back.
I wanted to add this video, to show one of the realms he makes for Sarah, it’s one of the few scenes where she sees his feelings for her and also sees his deception.
I don’t know how to shorten it much, because there is a lot of detail. I will be adding more detail to the kind of tricks he plays, but there are so many that I didn’t want to make this even more longer. Also, should I add the imitator of the Gods characteristic since he changes realms at will and can be anywhere at any time? Thank you!
Tricksters are considered tricksters if only they have certain characteristics.There are 6 characteristics of a trickster. These characteristics include:
Ambiguous and anomalous
Deceiving and being a trick-player
Shape-shifting
Situation-invertor
Messenger and Imitator of the Gods
Sacred and Lewd Bricoleur Many tricksters we see in many different mythologies and in stories have some of these characteristics. Loki, for example, has many of these and we see them throughout every myth, but the biggest trickster characteristic that he is known for is shape-shifting. We see it in action when Loki turns into a salmon to fool Odin, but this trick doesn’t work. He is captured any way, but his trick was quite clever, if only Odin wasn’t as clever.
The trickster, Prometheus, is a situation-invertor. You see this when him, Zeus and the gods, and mortals have dinner together to discuss the matter of how sacrifices would be made. Prometheus tricks Zeus for mankind’s benefit. He slew a large ox and divided it, making one pile full of meat and fat and the other a pile of bones with shining fat. Zeus picked the bones (knowingly) and whichever one he picked he was what mankind had to sacrifice. In anger, Zeus punished mankind for the trick, but the trick still worked in Prometheus’s eyes. This trick caused a good situation (a negotiation) to become bad, then when Zeus punishes mankind, it becomes worse. Prometheus does make it great though by tricking Zeus once again and stealing fire (which Zeus takes away as the punishment) to give back to mankind. In the end, like Loki, his story ends badly though, which means the situation ended up being bad once again.
One trickster that we see in many different Native American myths is Coyote. Coyote has many myths involving playing tricks and deceiving others for his own benefit. One myth that coyote benefits himself from is when he makes a fish trap and a salmon is caught in it, not knowing that it’s a trap. Coyote uses his intelligence to deceive creatures, another example of this is when Coyote traps two buffalo by leading them to the sun, where they are blinded, and then he pushes them over a cliff. Coyote invents traps and discovers ways of trapping animals and men alike.
The person I am going to do for my essay is Jareth, The Goblin King, from the movie Labyrinth. I wanted to do a trickster who truly means well, but is also kind of a jerk and he fits this role perfectly. He reminds me of Loki and Prometheus mixed. He really does mean well, like Prometheus, but is as unstable and chaotic as Loki. He’s cunning and his tricks are always different and filled with new surprises. Also, out of all the tricksters I have read about, he makes the biggest trap of all, which is the Labyrinth. The entire Labyrinth is massive and filled with mischief. He is also modernized as it is, and I believe I could discuss why he would be great as a modern day trickster.
Apocalypse myths are my favorite type of myths. Almost every mythological story has an Apocalypse, but my personal favorite have to be the ones about a creatures destroying the planet in whatever way possible. Many Apocalypse stories end this way in many different mythologies. American stories about the Apocalypse, Greek myths and Native American myths all end this way.
The United States releases many movies about an infection turning people into a cannibalistic creature with no sense of self, called zombies. Zombies end up destroying the world, or come close to destroying our world because of how destructive and mindless they are. We also see this with other creatures, such as Aliens or Demons (two different things but many movies about them and their love for destruction).
In Native American myth, terrifying creatures destroy the world (like witches changing into these creatures), just like in Zombie stories. You see this at the end of the Tribal myth “The Creation of the Animal People.” When Coyote is sent to kill the monsters eating people. The Ancients did not know anything about the world, except that they needed to eat to survive, very much like the Zombie apocalypse stories we see on TV every day.
We see this in Pandora’s Box (or jar), but she is also sent down to punish mankind for Prometheus stealing fire for mankind, so Pandora was set up to fail, so some could argue that she is the apocalypse creature but then she releases mindless creatures, like the Zombies in American stories and the Ancients in Native American myth.
The one common trait though with these myths that are very different than other myths (like Ragnarok being a series of events and the world ends. The same way the world ends in Revelations) is that they don’t really end the world. In the Zombie stories, there are still some people left alive that are trying to find a cure for these mindless and cannibalistic creatures. Native American myths show that Coyote kill the Ancients before they kill all the humans. In Greek myth, there have been many apocalypses and the world will just start anew like it did before and the flood happens. Also, creatures destroying the world is something many people fear today, but it’s one of the most unlikely ways the world will end.
Vine Deloria sees a lot of differences between Native-American and Christianity in God is Red: A Native View of Religion. One of her examples is that in the Native American religions, “man and the rest of creation are cooperative and respectful of the task set for them by the Great Spirit” but in Christian religion both are immediately doomed right after the creation process happens and it will be like this forever. You see this with Adam and Eve and how that is how shame came into the world. This happens in many other religions too. There are many Great Floods, like in Greek mythology and in Genesis, where they tried to restart the world because of how terrible it is. In the chapter Creation of the Animal People, you see the opposite of this. He realizes that people won’t be in existence if Old One doesn’t do something about the ancients, but he doesn’t cause a flood, instead, he sends Coyote to kill the evil ones so that the rest of the people can thrive.
Vine Deloria also describes the difference of how men feel about the rest of the creation. In Christianity, men control everything. They are the masters of animals, while in Native American myth, this is not true whatsoever. In the chapter Rabbit Boy they talk about how people gossiped to butterflies, that the tiniest insect was equal, that they were a brother or sister, the only ones who were not people were deer, but everything else was an equal to men, even plants and rocks. Men in Christianity establish dominance to animals, while in Native American myth, they do not. It’s remarkable how they can change from men to animal and speak to each other in myths, and in Christianity this is considered satanic (Eve talking to a snake, for example). This part in Native American myth is truly showing the equality of everyone.
One big thing I did notice and Vine mentions this as well has to do with that men think they are superior. Eve is the one that brings shame right? She ate the apple, but Adam is fine. Eve is punished with the pain of childbearing. In Native American myth, women are equal and compliment men. Women are just as powerful. In the chapter Creation of the Animal People they described Earth as being a woman and how she has changed over time and the beauty she brings, and in the chapter How Men and Women Got Together you see that they are both equal and bring many things to the table to make the world better, there isn’t disagreement whatsoever on who is superior because no one is. Everyone is equal. In the Corn Mother you watch a woman sacrifice herself to save her children and because of her we have corn and tobacco, she is praised for this. In Native American Myth, you really do see everyone as equals and how women were a big part of creation as well.
Greek, Norse and Hebrew myths have a lot of differences and similarities. I do find that Norse and Greek myth have a lot more in common than they do with Hebrew myth, but still, they all do have similarities and differences.
The first big difference from Norse and Greek myths to Hebrew is that Hebrew is a ex nihilo myth, which means that the world started from one deity in a universe of nothingness, and then the deity simply made everything. “He made earth, he made heaven, he made humans, he made light, etc” which is what you see in the Hebrew creation. This type of creation is incredibly confusing, since you don’t know how this deity came to be, especially how he came to be before time itself.
Norse and Greek myths are both world parent creations, which means a relationship has to break in order for the universe to be created. In Norse, Odin and his brothers kill Ymir, then create parts of the world with his body parts. In Greek, Earth and Sky have children and Gaia’s children marry each other but also kill each other, and actually, in the Greek myths, this is a constant occurrence. Zeus’s father killing his father and Zeus killing his father. Without these deaths, there wouldn’t be gods and goddesses that keep creating the world and tend to it (Demeter, Poseidon, Hades, etc). In Greek, though, Sky and Earth are born through Chaos, so you could say that the myth started from chaos creation type mythology but evolved into parent creation.
One common theme in all the myths is a Great Flood and how it is used by the creator for the purpose of a do-over for themselves (except in Norse mythology, even though it still is a redo). In Greek mythology, the Great Flood is brought on because Zeus decides that men were a mistake, but Prometheus saves the human race. In Hebrew, the Great Flood happens because God sees the evil of mankind. In Norse, the Great Flood seems to be accidental and is from the blood of Yimir, but it still sets up the redo for the Gods, since mostly everyone dies except the frost giant Bergelmir and his wife. I believe that there are more similarities between Norse and Greek mythology (like how there’s multiple gods, for example, unlike Hebrew) than there is in Hebrew, but the Flood is definitely a common theme.
The Norse myths and Greek myths have so many differences and how they see things are incredibly different. It is like comparing an apple to an orange. They are both fruits, but taste very differently. Brutality. If I had to describe the Norse myths in one word, this would be the word. The flood is one big example I must give when it comes to the brutal part of Norse mythology, which you see in the very first chapter. In the Greek mythology, the flood happened and it was from Zeus thinking that men were a bad idea, and he flooded the world. The flood in Norse mythology is very opposite, and it’s a flood of pure gore. In the chapter, “The Creation”, Bergelmir and his wife have a boat made out of hollowed tree trunk, and ride a tide of gore when Ymir is killed. Also, Ymir’s body parts are used to make parts of the world. In Greek mythology, most of the world is created by the beautiful elegance of Gaia after she is born from Chaos.
When thinking of the Norse myths, I think of who followed Norse myths, the Vikings. In the introduction we are told how they destroyed others, raped women and took what they felt was theirs and also took what they wanted just for the sake of wanting it, as Odin and his two other brothers did when killing Ymir. Greeks were brutal, don’t get me wrong, but there is something about Odin trying to steal mead from Suttung in “The Mead of Poetry” and killing nine farmers in one swift motion, then smiling, that gets to me.
Their beliefs ranged as well. Odin simply did things his way and he did it himself. Zeus only left Olympus to have sexual relations with women most of the time. Yes, he was in battles, but he would have considered getting mead from a poet to be a job for a hero or demi-god, while Odin volunteered for the job. While the Greeks seem to have a sort of elegance to them, with the beautiful nymphs and Aphrodite, as well as the many goddesses that represented women. All you feel in Norse myth is pure brutality. The Greeks have one “world” the Norse have nine. Zeus is sly, but Odin certainly has him beat with being the God of many other things unlike Zeus, and also with many stories we see throughout this book (Him turning into a Giant and tricking farmers, for example). Many gods don’t travel freely to the human world as much as the Norse, which you have to in the Norse mythology to get to any place while Zeus simply could choose to be somewhere and he’s there.
The biggest difference I see though is that the gods are more vulnerable in Norse mythology. You see this in the beginning of the chapter of “The Theft of Idun’s Apples” where Odin, Loki, and Honir are cutting up an ox and cooking it for themselves and are starving. Immortality is not present in Norse, God’s die, as we see when Odin dies then is reborn in “Lord of the Gallows”. Zeus never cooked his own meal, nor did he need to. He was immortal. Every god on Olympus was immortal, and being mortal was weak. It makes me connect to the gods more in Norse, because they can die. There is a chance of death, and that makes them even more powerful when they cheat death. Both mythologies have similarities as well, but the differences are too obvious to see as many similarities.
Wanted to add this picture I posted on my facebook a long time ago thinking it was hilarious! Hope it doesn’t offend anyone, and if so I’ll delete it 🙂
Hum 115: World Mythology 