Angus Stud Bull, Middlemarch, Otago New Zealand
Where do archetypes end and your own created entities begin? Erm... this is a question I don't remember asking myself too many times, to be completely honest. I never got the godhead thing but I hoovered up Classical myth, fables and folklore like they were going out of fashion (they were) as a young person and have poked and scraped beneath that mouldy old monotheistic rug ever since.
As an animist and inveterate feral, I always thought classical, universally-understood pagan deities would be something that would incorporate organically within my work and that I would possibly not be conscious of those inclusions. It hasn't turned out that way. I am somewhat surprised by this lack of overt reference but then again my characters don't really worship, per se. They've either locked themselves into the stationery cupboard or are fighting in the carpark. A shady meta-Mother lurks behind the landmarks and is prophylactically namechecked and perhaps knelt before in dreams, but she is forced into a series of ill-fitting outfits before she garners that much attention, really. If you know what to look out for you might see her more often than is initially obvious.
I think of Sachiin/William and see the Dionysian complex lurking amid the vodka and the strumpets, the accessible romanticism, the magpie laugh. In Edward I see both Gilgamesh and Enkidu, Orpheus and Hades, but perhaps most of all Prometheus (though I always thought him an emo dick and never paid him much attention) in disastrous reverse, gouging out his own internals and gifting ice instead of embers.
Lilian is Shamhat and Lakshmi to Helaine's Isis and Athena, the sacred whore and remote, acetic virgin (in the most nominal sense possible- she's as partial to sullen white meat as they come, obviously). I have always enjoyed the thought of all the furrowed brows and uneasy intimate adjustments this hilarious dichotomy must have generated throughout the ages. Helaine is the worst bogey femme of all, behind her learning and composure; the Kali, the Lilit, possessed of will and alluring vagine and cerebral cortex, whereas Rana is the Lilit sans allure. She is Rangda, dragging the graveyard after her. Writing her engages my salivary response, but I don't enjoy her; I perhaps enjoy Helaine the most. Except for Susan.
In holding the mirror glass to that particular Ms Christabel I'm forced to wipe it with my sleeve and squint really unattractively. While several archetypes seem hyperlinked to the personas already mentioned, she always draws a blank for me. Her gender gives few clues. Is she something freshly de-pantsed, formerly bearded? Something once 'independent of an ounce of rouge' as someone Georgian once implied? Odysseus? We don't share that much beyond our bullshit allergy and grumpy face. Everyone thinks you're writing yourself into your heroes but that's really not the case. Is she a grumpy Persephone? Stuck in a crap job in particularly shitty part of Elysium... didn't fancy doing laundry for extra-human wastrels? Prefers cornchips and Japanese porn to pomegranate seeds?
She may be a modern thing. But I suspect not. The Susans amongst us have always worn the pants, even back when pants were skirts and it was difficult to tell. She tells demigods what the hell to do and when to do it and they just hope they're doing it right by the end of the story. I think that changes in the second book, but we'll see.
Where do archetypes end and your own created entities begin? Erm... this is a question I don't remember asking myself too many times, to be completely honest. I never got the godhead thing but I hoovered up Classical myth, fables and folklore like they were going out of fashion (they were) as a young person and have poked and scraped beneath that mouldy old monotheistic rug ever since.
As an animist and inveterate feral, I always thought classical, universally-understood pagan deities would be something that would incorporate organically within my work and that I would possibly not be conscious of those inclusions. It hasn't turned out that way. I am somewhat surprised by this lack of overt reference but then again my characters don't really worship, per se. They've either locked themselves into the stationery cupboard or are fighting in the carpark. A shady meta-Mother lurks behind the landmarks and is prophylactically namechecked and perhaps knelt before in dreams, but she is forced into a series of ill-fitting outfits before she garners that much attention, really. If you know what to look out for you might see her more often than is initially obvious.
I think of Sachiin/William and see the Dionysian complex lurking amid the vodka and the strumpets, the accessible romanticism, the magpie laugh. In Edward I see both Gilgamesh and Enkidu, Orpheus and Hades, but perhaps most of all Prometheus (though I always thought him an emo dick and never paid him much attention) in disastrous reverse, gouging out his own internals and gifting ice instead of embers.
Lilian is Shamhat and Lakshmi to Helaine's Isis and Athena, the sacred whore and remote, acetic virgin (in the most nominal sense possible- she's as partial to sullen white meat as they come, obviously). I have always enjoyed the thought of all the furrowed brows and uneasy intimate adjustments this hilarious dichotomy must have generated throughout the ages. Helaine is the worst bogey femme of all, behind her learning and composure; the Kali, the Lilit, possessed of will and alluring vagine and cerebral cortex, whereas Rana is the Lilit sans allure. She is Rangda, dragging the graveyard after her. Writing her engages my salivary response, but I don't enjoy her; I perhaps enjoy Helaine the most. Except for Susan.
In holding the mirror glass to that particular Ms Christabel I'm forced to wipe it with my sleeve and squint really unattractively. While several archetypes seem hyperlinked to the personas already mentioned, she always draws a blank for me. Her gender gives few clues. Is she something freshly de-pantsed, formerly bearded? Something once 'independent of an ounce of rouge' as someone Georgian once implied? Odysseus? We don't share that much beyond our bullshit allergy and grumpy face. Everyone thinks you're writing yourself into your heroes but that's really not the case. Is she a grumpy Persephone? Stuck in a crap job in particularly shitty part of Elysium... didn't fancy doing laundry for extra-human wastrels? Prefers cornchips and Japanese porn to pomegranate seeds?
She may be a modern thing. But I suspect not. The Susans amongst us have always worn the pants, even back when pants were skirts and it was difficult to tell. She tells demigods what the hell to do and when to do it and they just hope they're doing it right by the end of the story. I think that changes in the second book, but we'll see.
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