Vivian Asimos's Blog: Incidental Mythology, page 4

Thinking About Things

I’ve recently been thinking about things. I don’t mean thinking about general concepts of life, I mean things. Stuff. The objects and things that we surround ourselves with. Part of this started, admittedly, with playing the game Unpacking. I did a video essay where I explored the real characters of Unpacking, the things we are unpacking. It had made me continue to think about the ways that things impact our lives, and have lives of their own.

When it comes to the research project on TTRPGs, there’s a lot of stuff to be thinking about. While playing a role playing game doesn’t necessitate small figurines and maps, many people do utilise these things in order to play. People like to even make their own figurines which look similar to their character, self-painted to look even more like what they imagine. These figurines can be sat on maps to help to illustrate distances between players, and how a dungeon is set up.

But there are some items that are more functionally needed. Dice, for example, are a requirement for role playing games. They decide what happens in the game. Anything that could possible result in a different answer, players roll a dice. Trying to see if you spot a trap? Roll. Swinging a sword to see if you hit an enemy? Roll.

For me, as someone who studies mythology and storytelling, what makes table top role playing games so interesting is the way stories are told. I’m used to very traditional structures, where there is a storyteller who is communicating their story to an audience. This can look like old school myths or folklore tellings, with someone speaking around a fire or in front of their community. But it can also look like a movie, where the creators of the movie are the storytellers, and the audience sit in cinemas. Or it can look like a video game, with the developers being the storytellers and the audience playing out the narrative.

But for table top role playing games, who fits what role? We have the Dungeon Master or Game Master (DM or GM) that has organised the game. The GM has all the information regarding enemies, has planned out who the players will run into and in what order. In some respects, we can think of the GM as being the storyteller. But that discounts the role of the players

The players also fit into the storytelling structure. The players can sometimes make decisions that the GM didn’t plan for. They can even choose a path that goes in the opposite direction of the plan, and the GM has to suddenly shift everything they’ve planned in order accommodate this new change of plans. The actions taken by the characters are in the hands of the players, which is a huge part of the story itself. Despite this, the players are also, in some respect, the audience who is also receiving the narrative. They consume the narrative and create the narrative simultaneously.

But there’s a third dynamic that creates narratives, and this is where our things start coming into play. The dice. Often, the course the narrative takes is in the hands of the dice, not in the GM or the players. The dice are what determines what happens and how things happen. The dice are a form of storyteller, one that has an equal hand in the way things unfold.

So let’s think about the things we engage with, the items that make up an important part of our lives. Mary Douglas and Isherwood, in the book the World of Goods: Toward an Anthropology of Consumption, encourage anthropologists to think about items in a different way. Typically, anthropologists and others think about objects from the perspective of more capitilistic endeavours: about their use or their value. How expensive is it? What other types of values do we ascribe to it? How do we use it? But Douglas and Isherwood encourage us to think about objects different. We should, instead, think about how objects fit into life. For example, we can think about a book as something that is read, or that has information within it we want to glean. Or, we can think about a book as a book. One that we connect to, or enjoy touching.

I have a copy of The Fade by Chris Wooding. Chris Wooding was one of my favourite authors when I was younger, and despite having to give up many of my books when I moved countries, I still clung to that book. I haven’t read it since my first read through of the book, which wasn’t even that copy, but I have such a love and connection to that story, to that author, that I couldn't let go of my copy.

That’s because there’s something greater in that book than just the book. It’s not about the information, but the emotions and connections and memories forged with it that it comes to hold.

We can think about dice as functioning similarly. Dice are more than just their economic value, or their functional role in storytelling. We also connect to these various things in table top role playing. The little figurines that are hand-painted to connected to our character is more than its functional role on the map. It’s a representation of us, an emotional element that we connect to and think about as more than the figurine itself.

In many ways, we should do what Douglas and Isherwood encourage us to do: to study objects like people. We should think about them in relation to hierarchies, social connections, and relationships. We should think about things a lot.

No Face: Disconnection and Consumption

Miyazaki’s Spirited Away continues to be one of the most beautiful animated movies ever made. It tells the story of a young girl, Chihiro, who gets unwillingly whisked off to a spiritual world where she has to work at a bathhouse for the spirits in order to try and find a way to save her parents and return to her world. Its a movie filled with strange creatures, scary moments, but also moments of peace and beauty.

One of the most interesting characters encountered in this movie is No Face - a creature who, at first, is a silent figure standing on the bridge. Originally, this was going to be the only time Chihiro saw this figure, but during production Miyazaki needed a figure to fulfil some plot points, so decided to use the bridge figure in this fashion. No Face is quite a simple design - just a black figure that drifts into nothingness. Unlike the other creatures in Spirited Away, No Face is not based on any pre-existing Japanese figure. He’s purely from Miyazaki’s mind. But No Face is also a perfect examination of the main themes in the movie, and so today we’re going to do a deep dive into No Face and Spirited Away more generally, specifically it’s representation of the issues of disconnection and consumption.

Let’s start with disconnection. I’ve read some stuides on Spirited Away using the idea of liminality in their discussion of Spirited Away’s characters and locations. Liminality was made more popular in usage by anthropologist Victor Turner, and it’s a designation of a position between positions. It’s the bit where you’re no longer in one category, but not quite yet in the other one. For Turner, this was mostly used in relation to rituals, where at the start of the ritual you are no longer of your previous identity, but not quite finished the ritual where you are recongised as your changed state.

In this sense, Spirited Away’s liminality is seen primarily in location and setting. The fantasy world of the spirits is a world between worlds, one which is both like and unlike the world before. It’s also placed in an abandoned theme park. This is fair, but I think most of the movie makes more sense if you think of things in terms of connections rather than positions. The locations are not markers of liminality but of disconnection.

We start the movie with Chihiro and her family in the middle of a move. They are no longer living in their old house, but not quite yet at their new residence. They aren’t connected to place yet. They are new to the area they are moving to, but no longer connected to their old location. The abandoned theme park is also a place that once served a purpose, and was a location in which connections were made and fostered, but now is disconnected from the community it once served.

Disconnection extends to the characters as well. The way Chihiro’s parents act at both the beginning of the movie and at the end shows a disconnect between generations. The parents don’t seem to pay attention to how Chihiro feels about the situation they are in, and the mom even comments that Chihiro is clinging too hard when her parents are finally back.

After Chihiro’s parents are turned into pigs, Chihiro is unable to connect to them anymore entirely - they can’t communicate with her, nor her with them. According to Haku, they are also disconnected from themselves, having forgotten their human form. Chihiro being forced to work at the bathhouse and find a way to solve her parents puts her in a lonely position. She is the only human at the bathhouse, and clings to the characters she recognition in desperate hopes to create new connections in her environment.

No Face is similar to Chihiro in this regard. No Face is quiet, and unable to communicate verbally with people at the beginning. His whole form is also a demonstration of his lack of place and connection. His body fades, not even connecting to the ground. I think this is a reason for No Face’s attachment to Chihiro. He recognises that she, like him, is disconnected and lonely. However, the two deal with their disconnections in two distinctly different ways.

This is where the second theme comes in: consumption. In fact, for most of the characters in the movie, their experiences of disconnection is what leads them to consumption. Haku has lost his name, and when Chihiro remembers that he’s the spirit of the Kohaku river, she explains that the river was filled in and is no longer a river. Earlier in the movie, someone says that Haku just “showed up” one day, and no one knows his origins. Like other figures, Haku is disconnected and lonely. He no longer has his river to return to, and even for most of the movie is unaware of who he is - disconnected from his sense of self. In response, Haku turned to greed. Zeniba points this out to Chihiro when she is trying to save Haku, that Haku got into the whole mess with Yababa due to his greed.

Greed and consumption are highlighted throughout the movie. When Haku tells Yababa that she hasn’t noticed that something dear to her has changed, she instantly is concerned about her gold, not her child. The parents at the beginning of the movie also highlight consumerism and consumption. When they begin to eat the food and Chihiro begins to object, her father insists its fine because they have “credit cards and cash”.

Sometimes, consumption and disconnection is forced upon a character. This is most present in the River Spirit who is first mistaken as a stink spirit. When Chihiro finds the thorn in its side, and finally manages to get it out, a large amount of pollution and waste comes pouring out of him. The consumption and disconnection to environment felt by the humans who polluted the river directly caused a disconnection to self from the River Spirit.

No Face is an embodiment of the consumption and greed in the movie. No Face is unable to connect to others, and so tries to connect to Chihiro and others through greed and items. First, he sees Chihiro needing a bath token but being refused due to being different and disliked by the other workers of the bathhouse. No Face helps Chihiro by getting her one of the tokens she needs. He comes to her again later, with a whole basket of tokens, but Chihiro refuses them saying she only needed the one.

And this sets up some of the issues No Face deals with in his relationship to Chihiro. He tries to give her things, but Chihiro’s lack of greed and consumption means that she is not brought in by the items. Chihiro is solving her problem of disconnection by forming new connections and friendships. She clings to the need to help others, sometimes sacrificing items she was saving to help her parents (her own quest) for the sake of those around her.

No Face’s embodiment of consumption is pretty literal, and this consumption does lead to him being able to communicate with others. His first consumption is a frog worker of the bathhouse, whose voice he then borrows in order to be able to speak to others. He continuously produces gold, which encourages the workers to cater to him and do what he wants. He sees the greed in others as a way to communicate and gather what he wants, though the connections garnered are not as deep or meaningful as No Face may actually want.

We see No Face gorge on huge platters of food, a direct comparison to the way Chihiro’s parents consumed large amounts of food. Even when at a feast, surrounded by others, No Face is needing to buy their presence and attention through producing large quantities of gold.

As No Face continues to gorge, his form changes. A body within the nothingness is made more directly obvious. The figure that started as emptiness and absence became large, dominating and overwhelming. In the bathhouse, No Face becomes grotesque and over the top.

When he finally sees Chihiro again, he tries to offer her more gold than he had offered the other workers, but Chihiro once again (like with the bath tokens) refuses to accept. This angers him, and he begins to devour everything in a fit of rage, turning the workers against him.

This is not to say that consumption more generally is considered bad in Spirited Away. Food is an important part of the relationships between people. While it is eating and food that changes Chihiro’s parents, and also changes No Face, it is also eating and food that connects Chihiro to her new friends. Haku gives Chihiro a piece of food to keep her from fading away when she first came to the spiritual world. After saving the River Spirit, he gives Chihiro a small piece of food. Haku also gives Chihiro rice balls that are to give her strength. These aspects of food giving and food consumption connected Chihiro to these figures in positive ways. Haku was there for Chihiro to make her feel stronger and to comfort her as she cried. The River Spirit gave Chihiro a way to save her parents, though this food source is also how Chihiro returns the food gift to Haku, and to save and connect finally to No Face.

To save No Face from his consumption, it’s not a lack of eating that saves him but eating. The small ball of bitter seaweed is consumed, and purges No Face of everything he consumed, returning him to the absent and empty figure he was at the beginning.

In fact, after his purge, we still see No Face eat. While he once sat at a huge banquet table with platters of food served to him by people who cared more about his gold than him, at Zeniba’s he is once again sat at a table with people. Instead of large platters of food, he has, instead, cake and tea and is surrounded by people who care for him and do not need his gold to love him. In contrast to his frantic large consumption, here, at Zeniba’s, he partakes in soft and quiet consumption.

In other words, consumption done in the service of filling one’s own void, or in the need to gain others to do what you wish them to do, is seen as something to be avoided. In contrast, consumption in the service to either create or foster the connections formed between yourself and others is something to be privileged and cared for.

In fact, it’s Zeniba’s where No Face finally finds a place to be. He finds connection, purpose and care that is focused on the quiet and humble life Zeniba lives, in contrast to the highly opulent bathhouse. Even when redeemed, it’s clear No Face’s place is not at the bathhouse, but in a life if quiet existence. Of eating cake and drinking tea and spinning yarn.

While consumption and greed are sometimes used to fill voids, it’s healing our disconnect that truly leads to a happy life. This is what Spirited Away teaches us. It’s what Chihiro shows the bathhouse workers through her actions to serve others. It’s what Chihiro taught No Face by refusing his gifts, and despite his actions allowing him to travel with her to Zeniba’s. And yet consumption is what connects us to others, what fills us with hope when there is none. Its what can fill us with strength when we have little left, and it’s what connects us to others. Not in large opulent feasts, but in quiet moments on a train, and in soft bites of cake.

Clifford Geertz Meets the Triforce

So, today I want to do something a little different. As may already be obvious by the catalogue of video essays I’ve created so far, I’m a fan of the Legend of Zelda games. They’re really an inherent part of my growing up - my mother played the original game on the NES before I was old enough to get my hands on it. So of course I want to always talk about these games, but there’s always something to reflect on and think about. The Zelda games prevalence in popular culture and contemporary society means its always a good example piece to grab and use to understand contemporary storytelling and the role of mythology and meaning.

This time, I want to approach things in a slightly different way. I want to reflect on the symbol of the Triforce, and use it to critique a very important anthropologist: Clifford Geertz. Clifford Geertz is one of the foundational thinkers when getting into social anthropology or anthropology of religion, and so I think he may be a fun figure to take into the world of Hyrule. But before we get into the meat and potatoes of Geertz, lets first remind ourselves of the Triforce.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was first released in 1998, and was the first of many types of Zelda games. Ocarina of Time was the first of the 3D Zelda games and the first game that really spelled out the linear narrative progression that came to define almost every Zelda game that came after, until the release of Breath of the Wild. Ocarina of Time provided players with the most detailed rendering of the game world of Hyrule up until this point, in narrative and in the ability to engage with it in more than a top-down level.

Part of this was also the background mythology and narrative given to the Triforce. The Triforce as a symbol had been around in Zelda games from the very first game, but Ocarina of Time was the first to give a detailed history and understanding of the symbol within the actual game, rather than hidden in manuals. After defeating the evil spirit in the Great Deku Tree, he tells our playable character Link about the Triforce.

In the beginning, the world was created by three goddesses. Once their labours in creating the world was finished, the three goddesses departed for the heavens. Three golden sacred triangles remained at the point where the goddesses left the world. These three triangles are the Triforce, and became the basis of Hyrule’s destiny and religion, and the place where the triangles rest became the Sacred Realm - a place away from place.

The story of the Triforce underpins the religious mythology of the world of Hyrule. Its centrality to the world’s religion is demonstrated by its presence in the various temples in the games. The Triforce is not just a symbol, however, it’s a physical object that literally exists. It’s the war and fighting over this object that makes up the narratives of the games themselves. Ganon or Ganondorf, depending on the game, wants to access the Triforce, and the consequence of this is what underpins the narratives of the games.

Before we dig into the nature of this physicality, we should switch tracks real quick to talk about Clifford Geertz. Clifford Geertz was an American Anthropologist, and considered one of the most influential cultural anthropologists. He helped to carve ideas of symbolic anthropology - or the anthropology focused around the study of symbols. He’s known for what’s called “thick description”, which basically just means overly describing every single little detail of everything.

Geertz’s definition of religion is a reflection of this thick description. His definition of religion is: “(1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the mods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.”

Yes, this is a very detailed definition, and quite frankly its a bit much to dig into every bit of this. But one of the important factors for our purposes today is the importance put on symbols. Symbols are the first thing Geertz mentions in his definition because its the symbols that carry the importance.

So let’s look into this system of symbols. Its not just that one symbol must be present, but a complex interlacing of various symbols that all interact with one another in different ways. In Zelda, we got many symbols, not just the Triforce. In Ocarina of Time, there are three symbols that are embedded in gem stones that must be assembled in order to gain access to the Triforce. These symbols represent different aspects of the world, as we see the symbol of the forest being replicated in the gem, in the symbol on shields, and painted on doors. There is also something symbolic about bringing these things together, and only through bringing the symbols that represent different people that make up Hyrule that we gain access to the ultimate treasure.

According to Geertz, these symbols must bring about important and influential moods and motivations. The everyday moods and the independent motivations of the people of Hyrule are complicated to determine, as most often we’re interacting with non-playable characters. However, there are signs of the extreme lengths people would go through to protect and maintain the order of the symbols of the world of Hyrule. In the case of Ocarina of Time, we have the seven sages who sacrifice their future livelihoods to become sages to protect the Triforce. Even in future games, we have other sages, other characters who fight for the protection of Hyrule and its Triforce. This willingness to sacrifice yourself for the sake of the Triforce gives us a hint to the powerful moods and motivations underpinning the world, brought about by the Triforce.

The third element of Geertz’s definition is the conception of an order of existence. This order, for Hyrule, is demonstrated in the cosmology, the creation of Hyrule by the three goddesses. Of greatest interest is the importance given to lawfulness. To return to the Great Deku Tree: “Nayru poured her wisdom onto the earth and gave the spirit of law to the world.” We’ll come back to this in a second, but for the purposes of right now, we see that following and upholding laws are considered a kind of divine action.

Order is not only cosmic but also human. The three triangles of the Triforce can be subdivided for the meaning of each triangle individually. They represent characteristics: power, wisdom and courage. The Triforce, the physical Triforce that exists, is said to grant the wish of anyone who touches it. However, this is prefaced that the person needs to be “pure of heart” or else the Triforce will break - both physically and metaphorically - into its separate three triangle component parts. Someone who is “pure of heart” is described as someone who has a balance of power, wisdom and courage. Therefore, this is a particular order of existence for the perfect form of human approach to the world - one that is in balance between wisdom, power and courage.

So far, so good for ol’ Geertz. In this initial understanding of the Triforce, we have Geertz’s view of religion and symbol as all kinda of matching up. However, symbols can be very complicated, and this is where Geertz starts to fall apart. In order to demonstrate this, let’s look at the Triforce again.

The Triforce is not present only in religious statues or architecture. In fact, the way we see the Triforce the most is in relation to the Hylian royal family. This means that a symbol that we’ve already established as being inherently part of the religious dynamics of the world is also tied to the primary seat of political power.

The Triforce is more than just symbolically linked to Hylian religion. In future games, the narrative unfolds that the goddess Hylia took physical form and became the princess, founding the Hylian royal family. But even when this narrative isn’t present in the game, the royal family is inherently connected. Even in Ocarina of Time, the royal family holds secrets about the religious worlds. Zelda says she knows how to gain access to the Triforce due to the information being a “secret… that has been passed down by the Royal Family of Hyrule.” The family’s holding of a secret about the Triforce demonstrates their possession of not only political power, but also religious power. Not only that, but they also hold the ability to influence the way that their people can experience religious truth.

One of Geertz primary critics was British social anthropologist Talal Asad. Asad’s work primarily focused on the interplay between power and religion. According to Asad: “It is not the mind that moved spontaneously to religious truth, but power that created the conditions for experiencing that truth… the patterns of religious moods and motivations, the possibilities for religious knowledge and truth, have all varied with them and been conditioned by them.” In other words, we shouldn’t think that religious experiences are inherently separate from systems of power. Not only that, but people who hold power can also influence the ways through which those without power can have access to both knowledge and experience. This is something we see in the Hylian Royal Family.

And here we start to have a strong disconnect between Geertz and the way that symbols function, particularly in our case study here of the Triforce. We should first review what Geertz actually thought of symbols themselves. Geertz sees a symbol as “any object, act, event, quality, or relation which serves as a vehicle for a conception - the conception is the symbol’s ‘meaning’”. Symbols are therefore focused on meaning. Geertz sees symbols as giving form to social and psychological realities, and also shaping these realities into the symbol. But there’s an important element here: the two are remaining somewhat separate.

Asad also picks up on this separation, and notes that focusing on symbols as meaning-carrying objects in the way Geertz does it also keeps objects away from the social conditions that the symbols live in. It’s not just us that are impacted by our social conditions, but everything that we create and experience - like our symbols. We can’t remove these from their social contexts, and to study them we need to also focus on these aspects. Like their political or social realities.

But so far, we’ve only looked at the Triforce from the game world itself. But the Triforce also has an important life outside of the games.

What happens when the Triforce is supplanted into a different world context is dependent on the human ability to assign multiple meanings to the same symbol or image. Anthropologist Michael Taussig makes this point in this book The Corn Wolf. The Corn Wolf is a field spirit in the shape of a wolf from German folklore. Taussig uses the Corn Wolf because of its multiplicity of meanings. He points out how the Corn Wolf is hidden in the last sheaf of corn harvested, but is also the last sheaf itself, and also the man who binds the last sheaf. But Taussig continues to provide a fourth meaning of the Corn Wolf: the human being or animal that stands in for the corn spirit for sacrifice.

It is not that we are confused by what exactly the Corn Wolf is. But rather, it is all of these things all at once. We are capable of understanding that a symbol can hold multiple meanings at once, and understand the different contexts in which different meanings can come about.

Outside of the game, the Triforce has come to represent the game series of the Legend of Zelda itself. Despite there being many symbols in the game, and some of which are just as wonderfully complex as the Triforce - such as the Sheikah eye symbol - the Triforce is the constant. None of the other symbols have come to hold the same amount of meanings attached to the Triforce. The Triforce represents the cosmology of the world of Hyrule, the ideal types of a person, the political force of the Hylian royal family, and now, on a larger scale, the series of games called the Legend of Zelda.

The Triforce thus is similar in structure to other religious symbols outside of game worlds. For example, we can think of a the cross as a representation of Christianity, in the way that the Triforce represents the games. In a similar manner to the Triforce, the cross represents not just Christianity more generally, but also several other elements that underlie Christianity, such as the death of Jesus and sacrifice, the notion of redemption, and the idea of ever lasting life in Heaven. All of these concepts can be understood at once in just one symbol. We can apply similar conceptions to other symbols, such as the Om, or the Hand of Fatima, or even the One Ring in the Lord of the Rings.

Clifford Geertz’s view of cultural patterns gives little leeway for the meaning of the symbols to be shaped by the viewer’s sociological, psychological, economic or political context. This is in direct contrast to material culture scholar David Morgan. Morgan speaks of the act of gazing as a “social act of looking”, which involves several parts: the viewer, the context or setting of the viewing, and the rules that govern the relationship between the viewers and the subject. This means that two people from two very different contexts can view the same object and have a different meaning or experience gathered. For example, we talked about the multiple meanings that are embedded in the Christian Cross, but someone who has had a traumatic experience in the Church may have added meanings to the Cross that someone who has only had positive experience may not have, and vice-versa.

The power the Triforce holds as a symbol is dependent on the relationship the viewer has with it - both in game and outside of game. Someone who has never heard of the Legend of Zelda games before may have no relationship or understanding of the symbol. Meanings of symbols are not inherent to the symbols themselves, but rather are gifted to them by their social context, it’s present in the mind of the viewer who ascribes meaning to it. Those players who have fond memories of the games, or who played the games with their siblings, or remember sitting on the couch with their mother who also loved the games, are going to have a different understanding and relationship with the Triforce.

Clifford Geertz Meets the Triforce

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So, today I want to do something a little different. As may already be obvious by the catalogue of video essays I’ve created so far, I’m a fan of the Legend of Zelda games. They’re really an inherent part of my growing up - my mother played the original game on the NES before I was old enough to get my hands on it. So of course I want to always talk about these games, but there’s always something to reflect on and think about. The Zelda games prevalence in popular culture and contemporary society means its always a good example piece to grab and use to understand contemporary storytelling and the role of mythology and meaning.

This time, I want to approach things in a slightly different way. I want to reflect on the symbol of the Triforce, and use it to critique a very important anthropologist: Clifford Geertz. Clifford Geertz is one of the foundational thinkers when getting into social anthropology or anthropology of religion, and so I think he may be a fun figure to take into the world of Hyrule. But before we get into the meat and potatoes of Geertz, lets first remind ourselves of the Triforce.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was first released in 1998, and was the first of many types of Zelda games. Ocarina of Time was the first of the 3D Zelda games and the first game that really spelled out the linear narrative progression that came to define almost every Zelda game that came after, until the release of Breath of the Wild. Ocarina of Time provided players with the most detailed rendering of the game world of Hyrule up until this point, in narrative and in the ability to engage with it in more than a top-down level.

Part of this was also the background mythology and narrative given to the Triforce. The Triforce as a symbol had been around in Zelda games from the very first game, but Ocarina of Time was the first to give a detailed history and understanding of the symbol within the actual game, rather than hidden in manuals. After defeating the evil spirit in the Great Deku Tree, he tells our playable character Link about the Triforce.

In the beginning, the world was created by three goddesses. Once their labours in creating the world was finished, the three goddesses departed for the heavens. Three golden sacred triangles remained at the point where the goddesses left the world. These three triangles are the Triforce, and became the basis of Hyrule’s destiny and religion, and the place where the triangles rest became the Sacred Realm - a place away from place.

The story of the Triforce underpins the religious mythology of the world of Hyrule. Its centrality to the world’s religion is demonstrated by its presence in the various temples in the games. The Triforce is not just a symbol, however, it’s a physical object that literally exists. It’s the war and fighting over this object that makes up the narratives of the games themselves. Ganon or Ganondorf, depending on the game, wants to access the Triforce, and the consequence of this is what underpins the narratives of the games.

Before we dig into the nature of this physicality, we should switch tracks real quick to talk about Clifford Geertz. Clifford Geertz was an American Anthropologist, and considered one of the most influential cultural anthropologists. He helped to carve ideas of symbolic anthropology - or the anthropology focused around the study of symbols. He’s known for what’s called “thick description”, which basically just means overly describing every single little detail of everything.

Geertz’s definition of religion is a reflection of this thick description. His definition of religion is: “(1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the mods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.”

Yes, this is a very detailed definition, and quite frankly its a bit much to dig into every bit of this. But one of the important factors for our purposes today is the importance put on symbols. Symbols are the first thing Geertz mentions in his definition because its the symbols that carry the importance.

So let’s look into this system of symbols. Its not just that one symbol must be present, but a complex interlacing of various symbols that all interact with one another in different ways. In Zelda, we got many symbols, not just the Triforce. In Ocarina of Time, there are three symbols that are embedded in gem stones that must be assembled in order to gain access to the Triforce. These symbols represent different aspects of the world, as we see the symbol of the forest being replicated in the gem, in the symbol on shields, and painted on doors. There is also something symbolic about bringing these things together, and only through bringing the symbols that represent different people that make up Hyrule that we gain access to the ultimate treasure.

According to Geertz, these symbols must bring about important and influential moods and motivations. The everyday moods and the independent motivations of the people of Hyrule are complicated to determine, as most often we’re interacting with non-playable characters. However, there are signs of the extreme lengths people would go through to protect and maintain the order of the symbols of the world of Hyrule. In the case of Ocarina of Time, we have the seven sages who sacrifice their future livelihoods to become sages to protect the Triforce. Even in future games, we have other sages, other characters who fight for the protection of Hyrule and its Triforce. This willingness to sacrifice yourself for the sake of the Triforce gives us a hint to the powerful moods and motivations underpinning the world, brought about by the Triforce.

The third element of Geertz’s definition is the conception of an order of existence. This order, for Hyrule, is demonstrated in the cosmology, the creation of Hyrule by the three goddesses. Of greatest interest is the importance given to lawfulness. To return to the Great Deku Tree: “Nayru poured her wisdom onto the earth and gave the spirit of law to the world.” We’ll come back to this in a second, but for the purposes of right now, we see that following and upholding laws are considered a kind of divine action.

Order is not only cosmic but also human. The three triangles of the Triforce can be subdivided for the meaning of each triangle individually. They represent characteristics: power, wisdom and courage. The Triforce, the physical Triforce that exists, is said to grant the wish of anyone who touches it. However, this is prefaced that the person needs to be “pure of heart” or else the Triforce will break - both physically and metaphorically - into its separate three triangle component parts. Someone who is “pure of heart” is described as someone who has a balance of power, wisdom and courage. Therefore, this is a particular order of existence for the perfect form of human approach to the world - one that is in balance between wisdom, power and courage.

So far, so good for ol’ Geertz. In this initial understanding of the Triforce, we have Geertz’s view of religion and symbol as all kinda of matching up. However, symbols can be very complicated, and this is where Geertz starts to fall apart. In order to demonstrate this, let’s look at the Triforce again.

The Triforce is not present only in religious statues or architecture. In fact, the way we see the Triforce the most is in relation to the Hylian royal family. This means that a symbol that we’ve already established as being inherently part of the religious dynamics of the world is also tied to the primary seat of political power.

The Triforce is more than just symbolically linked to Hylian religion. In future games, the narrative unfolds that the goddess Hylia took physical form and became the princess, founding the Hylian royal family. But even when this narrative isn’t present in the game, the royal family is inherently connected. Even in Ocarina of Time, the royal family holds secrets about the religious worlds. Zelda says she knows how to gain access to the Triforce due to the information being a “secret… that has been passed down by the Royal Family of Hyrule.” The family’s holding of a secret about the Triforce demonstrates their possession of not only political power, but also religious power. Not only that, but they also hold the ability to influence the way that their people can experience religious truth.

One of Geertz primary critics was British social anthropologist Talal Asad. Asad’s work primarily focused on the interplay between power and religion. According to Asad: “It is not the mind that moved spontaneously to religious truth, but power that created the conditions for experiencing that truth… the patterns of religious moods and motivations, the possibilities for religious knowledge and truth, have all varied with them and been conditioned by them.” In other words, we shouldn’t think that religious experiences are inherently separate from systems of power. Not only that, but people who hold power can also influence the ways through which those without power can have access to both knowledge and experience. This is something we see in the Hylian Royal Family.

And here we start to have a strong disconnect between Geertz and the way that symbols function, particularly in our case study here of the Triforce. We should first review what Geertz actually thought of symbols themselves. Geertz sees a symbol as “any object, act, event, quality, or relation which serves as a vehicle for a conception - the conception is the symbol’s ‘meaning’”. Symbols are therefore focused on meaning. Geertz sees symbols as giving form to social and psychological realities, and also shaping these realities into the symbol. But there’s an important element here: the two are remaining somewhat separate.

Asad also picks up on this separation, and notes that focusing on symbols as meaning-carrying objects in the way Geertz does it also keeps objects away from the social conditions that the symbols live in. It’s not just us that are impacted by our social conditions, but everything that we create and experience - like our symbols. We can’t remove these from their social contexts, and to study them we need to also focus on these aspects. Like their political or social realities.

But so far, we’ve only looked at the Triforce from the game world itself. But the Triforce also has an important life outside of the games.

What happens when the Triforce is supplanted into a different world context is dependent on the human ability to assign multiple meanings to the same symbol or image. Anthropologist Michael Taussig makes this point in this book The Corn Wolf. The Corn Wolf is a field spirit in the shape of a wolf from German folklore. Taussig uses the Corn Wolf because of its multiplicity of meanings. He points out how the Corn Wolf is hidden in the last sheaf of corn harvested, but is also the last sheaf itself, and also the man who binds the last sheaf. But Taussig continues to provide a fourth meaning of the Corn Wolf: the human being or animal that stands in for the corn spirit for sacrifice.

It is not that we are confused by what exactly the Corn Wolf is. But rather, it is all of these things all at once. We are capable of understanding that a symbol can hold multiple meanings at once, and understand the different contexts in which different meanings can come about.

Outside of the game, the Triforce has come to represent the game series of the Legend of Zelda itself. Despite there being many symbols in the game, and some of which are just as wonderfully complex as the Triforce - such as the Sheikah eye symbol - the Triforce is the constant. None of the other symbols have come to hold the same amount of meanings attached to the Triforce. The Triforce represents the cosmology of the world of Hyrule, the ideal types of a person, the political force of the Hylian royal family, and now, on a larger scale, the series of games called the Legend of Zelda.

The Triforce thus is similar in structure to other religious symbols outside of game worlds. For example, we can think of a the cross as a representation of Christianity, in the way that the Triforce represents the games. In a similar manner to the Triforce, the cross represents not just Christianity more generally, but also several other elements that underlie Christianity, such as the death of Jesus and sacrifice, the notion of redemption, and the idea of ever lasting life in Heaven. All of these concepts can be understood at once in just one symbol. We can apply similar conceptions to other symbols, such as the Om, or the Hand of Fatima, or even the One Ring in the Lord of the Rings.

Clifford Geertz’s view of cultural patterns gives little leeway for the meaning of the symbols to be shaped by the viewer’s sociological, psychological, economic or political context. This is in direct contrast to material culture scholar David Morgan. Morgan speaks of the act of gazing as a “social act of looking”, which involves several parts: the viewer, the context or setting of the viewing, and the rules that govern the relationship between the viewers and the subject. This means that two people from two very different contexts can view the same object and have a different meaning or experience gathered. For example, we talked about the multiple meanings that are embedded in the Christian Cross, but someone who has had a traumatic experience in the Church may have added meanings to the Cross that someone who has only had positive experience may not have, and vice-versa.

The power the Triforce holds as a symbol is dependent on the relationship the viewer has with it - both in game and outside of game. Someone who has never heard of the Legend of Zelda games before may have no relationship or understanding of the symbol. Meanings of symbols are not inherent to the symbols themselves, but rather are gifted to them by their social context, it’s present in the mind of the viewer who ascribes meaning to it. Those players who have fond memories of the games, or who played the games with their siblings, or remember sitting on the couch with their mother who also loved the games, are going to have a different understanding and relationship with the Triforce.

The Ineffable Quality of Mythology

There’s an inherent problem with studying mythology and pop culture narratives in the way that I do. I focus so much on he structure of it all. I think about how things are constructed, how they are then experienced, and how this then comes out the other end. Essentially, everything is looking at the science of it all. I’m consumed with thinking about things in ways that can be repeated and make sense.

Essentially, I look for the same patterns. I look for elements that are repeated from story to story, that can capture the essence of what makes something work more than something else. This is also a fundamental part of literary studies - we look for the structure of a narrative, how characters are constructed and read. We look at how dialogue is written, or how a sentence is structured. This is the science behind it, the construction of everything that can be equated to looking at how bricks are placed together. If all the bricks are there, and in their right place, then the buildings will all be just as good.

But the other problem with studying people is that there are elements of difference that goes without explanation. This is an important reason why the method of participant-observation is so important - it’s not just about seeing what’s happening and fitting into a category. It’s about experiencing it directly, feeling what it feels like. It’s the difference between looking at the building’s blueprint, and living in the building and feeling the protection it gives from the storm outside.

Let’s take a second to look outside of pop culture narratives to provide more examples. At the university I used to teach at, we used to have students practice fieldwork by going to a local place of religious practice and then writing a little fieldwork report on it. A lot of students ended up going to the local Spiritualist Church - a church which specialises in contacting the dead. Students picked this often because they thought it was silly and would be a good laugh. However, one of the reasons we had to stop doing this practice was several students had existential breakdowns when they experienced things they couldn’t explain.

A picture of my desk on a research day - coffee and notebooks.

There’s a wonderful article by Edith Turner, one of the early female anthropologists, called “The Reality of Spirits”. In this article, Turner reflects on the problem of anthropology with its need to find reasons and explanations for everything and every experience. Turner discusses that, during fieldwork with spiritual healers, she witnessed spirits in such a way that she couldn’t explain. But she felt she couldn't report on this because it didn’t fit into the dynamics of structural or categorical explanations that anthropology likes.

I do realise that these examples are much more firmly in the religion/spiritual dynamics of life, which is a little more complicated than discussions of popular culture, but I think there are still important elements of popular culture that can be immensely important. I mean, that’s the entire basis of this website and of my work more generally. But I think these more extreme examples can point at an important aspect of pop culture narratives: the ineffable quality of mythology.

There’s always something extra to myths, especially the really good ones. There’s something in them that’s hard to explain, hard to pin down. We can see something else making all the same structural moves, but it doesn’t quite read the same way.

I’ve been reading a lot of mystery novels recently. I think I’ve ready roughly seventeen mystery novels this year, give or take a few depending on how you would qualify some of the books. After struggling through one that was one of the worst books I’ve read in a long time, not even finishing another, and then absolutely loving a few, I started trying to figure out what made some books work more than others.

Part of this exegesis was the basis of my video essay on the Detective as a character, which came out in November. I still think everything in that essay stands, but I was missing a discussion about this ineffable quality. Sometimes, a detective works just because they do. That’s it. You can see two detective characters, both look the same on paper, the structure of them is the same, the way they flow is the same, but one of them is just way more compelling and interesting. It may not have to do with the writing quality, or the mysteries themselves, or anything else. It’s just something you can’t put your finger on, something that makes something just work.

Which means that there’s also this other element to these mystery novels. There’s one author in particular whose work I always struggle with (I won’t name because I don’t want to upset anyone). The author is actually very good at their mystery structure. Their characters are interesting, and fit the way I think detectives or other characters in a mystery should work. The mystery itself is paced well, and interesting. I’m always continuing to read the book because I want to know the answer - a mark of a good mystery. But when I finish the book, there’s always something that keeps me from feeling like I loved the book. I vary from three to four stars on them. I’ve been struggling to figure out what it is that keeps me from giving them more, and I think it comes down to the fact that I’ve also read Agatha Christie.

The lady herself: Agatha Christie.

Christie has her problems, but I often overlook the problems in the writing, or chalk some of it up to a different time, and still love every single one of them. Meanwhile, this newer author I struggle to give five stars to, despite not having the same problems. Why? Because there’s just something about Christie. There’s something about her writing that makes it more. It’s that ineffable quality that pushes it from a good book to a part of contemporary mythology.

I’m sorry I don’t have some deep insight on the structural element or the social relationship that reveals exactly how to tap into this. But I think that’s the point of this - there’s no such thing. There’s nothing that can be pointed at and replicated from Christie, because it’s not in the way the story is constructed or the way the characters are formed. It’s not even about the mystery and the way it draws the reader in and makes us question everything and everyone we encounter. It’s something else, something inexplicable.

Engaging with a pop culture myth that has this quality is like trying to explain the spirit Edith Turner saw, or experiencing what those previous students experienced. It’s something you can’t explain in these ways, or you can’t find anything to grasp onto in something that’s more firmly set. It’s just something that you feel in your chest. And its what makes a myth a myth.

Detectives as Tricksters

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At the beginning of this year, I put out a video essay on Knives Out and the structure of the whodunnit. In it, I analysed how whodunnit narratives are constructed, and how Knives Out plays with that structure in interesting and innovative ways.

The thing is, I have a lot more to say about that. Since then, I’ve read quite a few more detective stories. Not just the classic Agatha Christie’s, but also contemporary detective fiction like those from Vaseem Khan and Richard Osman. I’ve done a lot of thinking about the detective and the role of the detective in detective fiction. The detective must be interesting enough to get us coming back each instalment, but uninteresting enough they don’t take over the narrative for themselves. So today, I want to just spend some time thinking about detectives.

Now, I should stress here, that not all whodunnits nor all mystery novels are inherently detective stories. Detective stories are somehow something else. For example, Columbo is definitely a detective story, but not a whodunnit - mostly because the audience already knows who gone and dun it. So I’m not talking about whodunnits, I’ve already done that in my analysis of Knives Out and Glass Onion. I’m talking about the detective, and not necessarily their stories, but rather them as an individual character.

In my previous video on Baccano, I talked a little openly about my dislike for Jungian archetypes. So what I’m about to say may seem to go against this, but I’ll explain. I think the detective is like a structural archetype for narratives. Now this is not to be compared to a Jungian archetype. My idea is more of a structural element. My problem with Jungian archetypes is based on two objects that are interrelated: for one, I fundamentally disagree with the theories that underlie Jung’s approach to mythology. The idea of some kind of fundamental human way of thinking strips what makes us human: the social element. Cultures in different parts of the world have different ways of interacting with the world, with each other, and with their own conception of thoughts. The way we think is different than how they think, but neither one of us is wrong. Our own cultural background, and the social worlds we move in, impact the way we understand the world around us and the symbols that literature and life gives us. Not to mention that even within the same society, two people can have two vastly different relationships to the same cultural symbol based on different social positions, such as sexual orientation, economic status, race, or gender - to name just a few ways that things can be varied.

The second is that these archetypes are also not typically varied in the way that people can interpret them. The focus on the unconscious means that there is little room for agency. But the thing is, people and storytellers know they have agency of narratives, and will often actively change elements of things to make important political or social points. This is one of the fundamental ways change can be enacted - by changing the narratives we have. And hugely important facets or character types can also be incredibly different when looking at two different examples.

This is why I think looking at it less as archetype and more as structural element is important. Character types are less set in stone from a surface level perspective and more from a structural perspective. Characters need to fill a role and purpose in the narrative, and two characters can fulfil the same role but look, on the surface, as two vastly different types of character.

The hero, for example, is our main character we follow, someone who does extremely legendary actions and often for virtuous reasons. This does not mean, however, that Harry Potter is exactly the same as Frodo. Both are heroes in their own right, but are also incredibly different from one another. They demonstrate different types of heroes, while both fulfilling the role of hero.

In the case of the detective, we can have two detective characters who both fulfil the role of detective in detective fiction but their appearance, demeanour, and way of interacting with the mystery can be vastly different. Miss Marple, for instance, is absolutely not a Poirot. These two detective act in two vastly different ways, despite both being detectives, and both written by the same author. Despite that, they both fulfil the role completely.

So we should talk about what the role of the detective actually is. The importance of the Detective is not so much as an archetype, because detectives can differ wildly in their interactions, but rather in their role and interaction with narrative. It’s a structural role to the story. The detective is the conduit of narrative. It’s through the detective that the central narrative - the question of what happened and who did it - is told to the reader, as well as to the other characters in the narrative. The detective possesses secret knowledge, knowledge that is revealed to the reader when the time is right. In some cases, this is in the classic large reveal scene, but can also be in more quiet scenes. The importance is not the drama for the other characters, but in drama and release of tension for the audience.

There’s a particular structural character that comes up in many myths, legends and folktales throughout many societies and cultures: the trickster. Tricksters have many primary identifying elements: they are often known for being skilled in disguise and of being cunning. Trickster figures are also structurally in-between. They are frequently of both the inside and the outside simultaneously. They are boundary-crossers, figures that flip between and outside of categories as whim. It’s through tricksters that we often see our cultural categories, and through them that we either see how important they are, or how flimsy they are. Or, in most cases, both.

I think the Detective is often the trickster figure. Trickster characters are known for their cunning. The detective is able to see small things and point them out as important clues. A small thing out of place would possibly not alert the average viewer, but does alert the detective to something being amiss.

One of the defined elements of the trickster is in their transformative nature. They play with disguises and roles in order to gain whatever information is necessary. Sherlock Holmes is famous for his many disguises, for example. Some detectives use their entire persona as a type of disguise, one that fools their sources of information into senses of disquiet. Colombo is the most famous for this. Colombo used the role of the dishelved and inept detective, who seems so scatter-brained that he would frequenlty forget to ask something, resulting in a “one more thing”. But this appears to be an act, one that lulls the culprits into a false sense of security.

This plays into the detective’s ability to cross boundaries and play with our senses of categories and cultural definitions. The detective plays with stereotypes, but purposely shows us how false we are with these. Their sense of self becomes the point of malleability. Like Columbo, detectives play with their appearance not just to throw people off, but to play with the categories and cultural conceptions. Columbo does more than just lull the culprit into a false sense of security. He also demonstrates to us that we have our own expectations, and we can often act similarly to the culprit when faced with similar characters.

Miss Marple is another who plays with stereotypes. She’s the little old lady who makes people feel as if she is simply a harmless figure only concerned with gossip and knitting. And while she is concerned with knitting, she is also incredibly shrewd and cunning. Benoit Blanc plays with the expectation of a specific cultural category as well. He’s thick southern drawl and stranger mannerisms make people think he isn’t as shrewd as he is. Poirot does not typically play in this same manner, but will shift his interactions depending on what is necessary. He is calm and caring when that would best get information out of an informant, or strict and angry when that is needed.

But detectives can also be boundary-crossers in other ways. In some detective stories, the detective is not always necessarily one who sticks to incredibly necessary rules and regulations of investigation as you would if you’re traditional police. Richard Osman’s more recent cohort of detectives - a collection of four people, and sometimes more, instead of the traditional one - often plays with the roles of legality for the sake of finding truth. And often, finding truth is more important than inherent justice. In Psych, Shawn is openly lying to the police, and often breaking and entering in order to gather information. Again, they play with the boundaries of society and the rules and regulations for their own sense. Sometimes, this is meant to be funny. But sometimes, this also points out to us how restrictive traditional methods can be, and how this can sometimes allow murderers to roam free.

The detective, in my opinion anyway, is the contemporary trickster figure. They are the ones that cross boundaries, that live in the strange uncomfortable middle, but hold such important cunning that it unveils hidden knowledge, often tied to justice - though not always. The hidden knowledge is what the detective has a key to, and through them we connect. We love the detective the way we love the Raven, or we love Loki. We love figures who seem to walk in-between. And when we watch the next Columbo, or pick up the next Poiroit book, we don’t do so for any other character than the detective.

Musings on History and Mythology

So on this website we talk a lot about the role of mythology, mostly in and around pop culture but also in a more general sense. In order to understand how contemporary pop culture is contemporary mythology, it makes sense that we have to understand mythology more generally: the structures of it, the definition of it, and why it matters.

One of the colloquial uses of the word myth is a sense that something is untrue. Someone may ask if something has happened, but then the response will be “oh, that’s just a myth” - meaning it’s not real, not accurate, not true. However, the idea of truth and reality are a lot more complicated than that. We’ve already talked a little about that in terms of other elements of storytelling, like monsters and even mythology more generally. Reality and truth are not always as clear-cut as people like to think it is.

One example of this is in the relationship between history and mythology. Again, we think of mythology, typically colloquially, as things that are not true. On this website, we spend a lot of time thinking about mythology in relation to fiction, which doesn’t help to continue the argument that mythology isn’t necessarily tied to untruth. But we should think, again, about our base definition of mythology.

As is important to remind ourselves every so often, our definition of mythology is as follows: a myth is a narrative, or something akin to a narrative, that a community or an individual uses to understand ourselves and the world around them. This means that truth or untruth isn’t always necessarily tied to what a myth actually is. Truth can be many things - historical accuracy isn’t always one of them.

But then we have this question of what historical accuracy actually means. Things happen, or they don’t happen, but I guess it can also come down to the cliché thought game: if a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? If something happens in this world and there is no documentation for it, is it actually history?

Because history isn’t what has actually happened, its what’s recorded as actually happening. And these are not necessarily the same thing. History being recorded by the victors is definitely a very real thing. And these words are often used by a society to better understand themselves in relation to their world. When other histories are presented to us, we strongly want to reject it, to fight against it, because these stories are not necessarily what happened, but what we think of as the basis of us.

History is in itself a type of mythology, a form of storytelling and narratives that are woven around self and communal definitions and understandings. History and mythology are not opposed to one another, but intimately connected. Because, like mythology, history is always not necessarily true, but it can be true in other ways. This makes things really difficult when it comes to the interactions of different cultural or social groups. Different groups of people can have different histories - not because different things happened, but because perspective can completely alter a narrative.

Momo: Anatomy of a Monster

Momo became widely known in July of 2018 but rose to particular prominence in the early months of 2019. A string-haired demon girl, Momo, is said to entrance children when she suddenly appears in the middle of child-geared media. She possesses them, speaking to them to give morbid instructions, which culminates in the child’s suicide.

The story started with the character Momo beginning to target teenagers on WhatsApp messages. The messages were typically challenges for the player to perform a series of tasks, and when there was refusal the player was met with threats. Messages were sometimes accompanied with gory or scary images. After there was some calming over the WhatsApp messages, fear in Momo rose again in early 2019, when there were claims that Momo was beginning to appear in the middle of YouTube videos.

There were no actual reports of children who had been influenced by the Momo Challenge, or even ones driven to suicide by it appearing in the middle of a video. Despite this, police, schools and media around the world continued to report on the Momo Challenge as something verified and firmly present. Often, the media reports relied on several separated accounts, mostly through parents. The Momo Challenge reveals a certain level of fear to those who were spreading the story, but it is not children who are spreading and revealing their fears – its parents.

For more technologically indifferent or illiterate parents, the internet can seem like an incredibly scary place to be. It’s something that their kids can readily pick up and understand that they don’t, a place full of different types of locations, different ways of speaking and communicating, and a way of coding language that can be hard for outsiders like parents to understand. It can very easily feel like the internet I stealing children away. When the story of Momo first appeared, it was very easy to accept on face value. The internet is already scary, so the idea of the monster prowling around it was justifiable.

What was interesting was that concerned parents actually were the ones proliferating the story by warning others about it through other media outlets. The narrative spreading led to some taking advantage of the sheer rise of searches for the monsters by creating new content so theirs becomes more visible. So in many ways, the fear around Momo actually led to more Momo, like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This is mostly because Momo only existed through the present fears of the internet. We can think of the internet as a place of unknown - a forest or wilderness where children enter and then become transformed by the unknown that resides there.

But what Momo shows us that the fear of the online wilderness shifts from a place that can hide monsters, to a monster itself. The internet isn’t just a place that harbours monsters, but something that is a monstrous form on its own - one that children cannot navigate without their parents.

The Mandalorian, Religion and Nationalism

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I think one of the reasons I found the Mandalorian such an interesting show, other than its space cowboy vibes, was the fact that the show focused on what felt like normal people. Strong people, sure, but for one this entry into the Star Wars canon, the focus was not on the supernaturally strong Jedi, but on just a guy who can fight good. It also showed us a bit more of the Mandalorian culture, particularly the community Din Djarin is from simply known as the Tribe. Today, I want to talk a little about how the Mandalorian society has been pictured throughout the Star Wars franchise, and how it helps to demonstrates certain aspects of the connections between nationalism and religion.

We should first start with the Mandalorians. Initially, Mandalorians were only given small references here and there, but overtime the community and culture grew. The background of the society was painted as far bigger than originally conceived, demonstrating a growth of what was called “Mandalorian Space”. Like many of the cultures in Star Wars, Mandalorians were a colonialist force which spread to mutliple areas of the galaxy and expanded the growth of their culture.

Historically, Mandalorians were prized warriors. They were known as a strong military force, which contributed to the growth of their reach through colonies. As time continued, though, the needs shifted from expansion to retention. In the Clone Wars, we see Mandalorians as also being political and involved in delegation. This shift in culture had resistance.

Also in the Clone Wars, we are introduced to the Death Watch, a nationalistic resistance group who wanted to “return” to the greater ways of Mandalore, particularly focused on the typical folk practices of Mandalorians. This included a warrior-like way of life.

This infighting, as well as the war happening with the Empire, led to a complete dismantlement of the Mandalorian empire, including a complete wiping of the surface of the planet. This complete dismantlement of the empire lead to a Mandalorian diaspora. Mandalorians had no home to return to, and so either drifted from planet to planet, or were forced to find a home somewhere else.

So now that we’ve painted a very brief picture of the history and development of Mandalorians, leading to the Mandalorian diaspora, let’s talk a bit about theories of nationalism. Like most things, there are many different theorists to focus on, but we’re going to be primarily focusing on Anthony Smith. Anthony D. Smith was a British historical sociologist who is one of the founders of the studies of nationalism, so seems like a solid place to start.

Smith defines nationalism as “an ideological movement for attaining and maintaining autonomy, unity and identity on behalf of a population deemed by some of its members to constitute an actual or potential ‘nation’”. For Smith, nations and nationalism is predicated on ideas of ethnic connection, focusing on a fundamental group of people he called ethnies. He understands these groups as necessarily having a common word for themselves or their group, common historical memories, and a common historic homeland.

Note that the need for the homeland can be historic, not necessarily currently present. This is important to keep in mind for Mandalorians who felt unable to return to their homeland.

But before we return to the Mandalorian, we should talk about one more dimension of Smith’s ideas. There are different kinds of ethnies, which result in different types of nations. Essentially, the civic type of nation prioritises allegiance to the state above the ethnicity, while ethnic group type nations focus on the ethnic and folk ties. In other worlds, in the first one, the exact geographical borders of the nation is the more important separation of us and them, while in the second the culture and the ethnicity becomes the more important borders between the us and them.

Religion is important in both of these. I often see Britain, for example, in that first one, but anyone whose been to Wales sees that sometimes ethnicity is also more important than geographical boundaries and allegiance to the state. But even if we only think of it as “England” instead of Britain, we can see an importance on religion. I once heard a story from a friend who talked about seeing a filled out census form for the family his dad had filled out. It had them marked as Christian. This confused him, because as far as he was aware they weren’t Christian. Never went to church, didn’t really even talk about it at home. So he asked his dad, why did you mark us as Christian? And the dad responded with “Well, we are English.”

That being said, religion is seen as even more important in the ethnic ties type of nation. This is because the focus is on ethnicity and ethnic performances of culture, meaning that the religion one connects to and relates to is also a marker of your alliance to your nation/ethnic group.

According to Smith, the ethnic groupings types of nations are actually more durable than the civic ones because they carry with them connections to one another in their folk traditions and their culture artefacts and cultural memories, as opposed to civic ones which have more of an emphasis on state.

So let’s get back to our Mandalorians. In the show the Mandalorian, we see a remaining connection to the historic homeland. They still call themselves Mandalorian, even if the planet of Mandalore is thought to be no longer habitable. We see cultural memories also still being passed down, especially in the Mandalorian. All Mandalorians, even when being a part of different diasporic groups, all still wear the beskar armour, and also understand their connection to a warrior cultural past.

When we first sit down to watch the Mandalorian, we are given a particular understanding of the cultural practices of Mandalorians, as practised through our main character Din Djarin - who for actually quite a bit of the first season is only really known as “the Mandalorian”. Din Djarin is heavily practised in fighting and takes pride in his ability to fight due to his Mandalorian nature. He also has a rule that he must not remove his helmet in front of anyone.

We learn, when Din Djarin meets Bo-Katan Kryze, that the Tribe Din Djarin finds connection in was an off shoot of the Death Watch. We see similarities in the Tribe as in Death Watch - a focus on the traditions of Mandalorians, and the return to the warrior way of life. The emphasis is not on Mandalore as a planetary nation bounded through their geography, but rather as a people bounded to each other through their vernacular tradition.

There’s an important aspect to the Tribe that we see through the Mandalorian. The focus is so much on the traditions and folk practices of their people, that this is what holds importance. The important thing is not the blood connection to ethnicity, but the connection to the culture. Culture is therefore not genetic, but adopted and carried. We see the Tribe welcome Grogu, despite Grogu clearly not being genetically Mandalorian. The importance is that Grogu is a loving member of the community willing to carry the traditions onward.

From the point of view of an anthropologist of religion, I do have to add quickly here that the depiction of “religion” from the Tribe and Mandalore, and really in all of Star Wars, leaves a lot to be desired. Its very surface level and kind of relies on kitchy catch-rituals that may seem weird but isn’t really lived out in the full sense or explained through more realistic means. But that’s probably more of a discussion for another time. Given what I have, this is considered a more religious and ritualistic way of living, which I will treat as such.

In the third season of the Mandalorian, we have a much clearer view of the nationalism within the diasporic Mandalorians. We end up running into three different groups of Mandalorains: the Tribe, the followers of Bo-Katan, and a group of Mandalorains who have been abandoned on the surface of the planet. Each of these groups have clung to different ideas about their folk traditions, and how they embody them. However, each of these have the same fundamentals of what makes a ethnic grouping nation: a name for themselves (Mandalorains), a shared cultural history (the history of the people of Mandalore) and the connection to their homeland of Mandalore. It is this shared ethnic identity that gives them the strength and durability to re-take their homeland together.

While in their separate groups, in the middle of their Mandalorian diaspora, we see how important it is for them to connect to their shared cultural heritage. Bo-Katan, for example, is unable to lead her group without the Dark Saber. Her ability to rule is not really all that different before and after obtaining it, but its an important cultural symbol - an artefact of Mandalorian ethnic heritage that is important to claim their historic homeland. For those left on the planet, their shared memory of the destruction of Mandalore keeps them moving forward, knowing through the cultural knowledge of their people that this is what their whole community will be doing across the galaxy in their separate groups, and clinging to a story that Bo-Katan will be back for them. The Tribe cling to the ways of life of the Mandalorians tied to the folk practices - the importance of their armour, their ability to fight, and the inability to remove the helmet.

In al these groups, it’s the cultural heritage that becomes the ultimate means of survival, and through it Mandalorains are able to retain their cultural heritage as Mandalorians and not be assimilated to other nations.

One of the interesting elements is the storytelling that is then shared on what it is that constitutes someone to be Mandalorian. We see this when Din Djarin is confronted with Bo-Katan’s contingent who questions whether he really is Mandalorian. Din Djarin’s actual genetic ties to Mandalorains are hazy - we know he was living on one of the moons when the purge of Mandalore happened. But we also know the Tribe is not as concerned about genetic ties. Their connection to ethnicity and nation is in folk practices. For others, though, the focus seems to be more on the role of genetics. However, as the show goes on, it’s both Din Djarin and Grogu that proves that being Mandalorian is a way of moving through the world, rather than in any blood.

The Mandalorian shows us a little bit of insight into how communities survive through cultural trauma and diaspora. Through connections to their ethnic group, through acknowledgement of blood relations, cultural practice, and tradition, the Mandalorian people were able to survive as recognisably Mandalorian, even if each faction of Mandalorains had a different way of going about it.

Siren Head: Anatomy of a Monster

I do love some digital monsters, if that’s not been made clear already. A favourite of mine I haven’t been able to take the time to explore yet is Siren Head.

Siren Head was created by Trevor Henderson in 2018. It’s a 12 meter tall humanoid, but where there should be a head there’s big sirens instead. The skin of the creature looks like rusted metal, but is actually dried mummified skin. Siren Head stalks wildernesses, like forests and desolate areas, playing sounds from its head-sirens that play fake radio reports, distorted music, or even human voices. It works to disorient the prey, to bring confused or concerned parties closer - bringing the prey closer to it.

Siren Head has some connections to sirens more generally. Sirens function similarly. Sirens are mythological creatures who call to sailors with beautiful singing voices, and when the men are drawn to them, they drawn the men. In the Odyssey, Odysseus wants to hear the songs of the sirens, while his men get their ears stopped up with wax. He orders his men to strap him to the mast of the boat. The songs enchant him, and he fights against his restraints, eager to join the sirens.

While Siren Head does not necessarily enchant in quite the same way, it does lure people to it and confuse its listeners.

One of the interesting aspects of Siren head is it’s connection to some of the problems associated with contemporary life, especially in more recent years. Its brings up important questions about information and how we interpret or understand it. It makes us wonder: can you trust what you hear?

In terms of the monster, it brings up questions of whether or not when you hear radio signals or the sounds of people, is it something you should actually investigate? Is it a radio, or is it a monster looking for prey?

This is obviously connected to misinformation. Just because you see something, or read something, doesn’t necessarily mean that its true. It could luring you to something different. The wrong bit of info can make you fall prey to larger and scarier forces. But it can also be strangely alluring.