Nghịch Tử's Blog: An unexplored mine for fantasy writers: Vietnamese culture, page 4
March 5, 2021
VN02: The She Demon
Quỷ Cái (lit: The She-demon) – Warrior Đam Dông
Eater of men, slayer of god, a shapeshifting fanatic of handsome men, meet the main star of our blog today: the She-Demon.
1. Story summary:
_ Dông and Pha were two equally bright brother who lived in a small village in Tây Nguyên province – central Việt Nam. The village headman framed the two boys for stealing and forced their mother into working for him to pay off their debt. Hatred and hard labour were proven to be too much for the woman and she died shortly after the incident out of exhaustion. With their mother gone, the two now-orphans were expelled and had to lean on each other to get by.
_ One day, when Dông woke up, Pha was nowhere to be seen. An elder, taking pity of the boy’s misfortune, told him that his brother might have been taken away by the She-Demon. Now, with his spear readied and his trustworthy elephant companion by his side, Dông set out on a quest to find his brother. Along the road he met strange people and phenomena alike, such as a lumber jack carrying two heed of wood as big as a grown elephant with his bare hands, a black statue breathing fire, and a seedling growing into a tree so tall it reached the heaven.
_ So yeah, no damsel in distress here. The only two female characters are the ill-fated mother and the She-Demon.
2. Backstory and motivation:
_ She had neither redeemable qualities and relatable motivations. Just your plain old, straight forward, no good, villain of pure evil. But come on, what did you guys expect? She’s the villain of a fairy tale of all thing. That’s like the Disney villain of Disney villains. So cut her some slack.
_ Not much is known about her backstory and past either. Yet, as little as it might seem, what we do know about her is in my opinion pure 100% concentrated badass.
_ Once, she went to the heaven and slain a god name Póc-Gơ-Lây to fetch his magic mirror, then fled to the mortal realm. The fable doesn’t mention any deities chasing after her, but considering the Mountain God Chư-Lây wouldn’t dare take her head on, we can safely assume that she’s too big of a threat for the gods to deal with directly. But why did she take such a risk though? Well, there is one simple answer: men.
_ You see, aside from powerful offensive spells, the magic mirror can also be used in surveillance, much like in Snow White and the seven Dwarves. The limit for this clairvoyance is unknown. With this, she would scan the land from time to time, searching for young, strong and handsome men. Once she found a guy suit her taste, she would then kid... or rather, mannap him back to her cave where the man would serve as her husband for a while, until she grew bored of him and want to divorce. Sadly though, for her the definition of “break-up” is she breaking her exes up and put them on the menu. Yes. You get it folks. She killed a god for Tinder!! That, and also her reverse harem would serve as spare food for the winter. Talk about being resourceful, geez.
3. Abilities;
_ Super strength: according to the elder, the She Demon can rival an army of hundreds of men alone. Well, before you say “that’s nothing”, please not that her origin is that of an ethnic minority, and hundreds of men can very much be the entire men power of a tribe, so this can also be understand metaphorically.
_ Shape shifting: she is a seasoned shape shifter, being able to transform into animal, plant, and element alike. In the fable, she had shifted into three forms total: a phantom steed, a strange flower and a gust of wind. In her steed form she was so fast, that no horses, celestial and mortal alike, could catch up with her without the gods intervene. In her flower form, she showed a very unique and over-powered property: her shapeshifted form and her true form were not interconnected. Which means, the damage she took in while shape shifting has no effect on her. In the fable, her flower form was crushed under the hoof of Dông’s horse, yet she can immediately turn in to a wind to retrieve her mirror she hid elsewhere.
_ The spells of the mirror: if you think the magic mirror is simply a omniscience stalker camera, then you are dreadfully wrong. The magical artifact had four main spells that are highly offensive or supportive, and it’s with this mirror that the She Demon turned into such a formidable threat to Đam Dông. First one: it can plunge the world into darkness. The second: it can flood the forest situated in the highland of Vietnam. Third spell: it can create typhoon. Last one: it can turn all clouds on the sky into falling fire. With that said, it also concluded today post about the She Demon in the story of Đam Dông. But what do you guys think? Find her interesing or just a same old same old demon? Please leave a comment and let me know.
Well, I don’t know how to end the post, so how ‘bout a lame meme?
“You think it was a damsel in distress, but it was I, Dam Dong.”
* Seeing no one get it. Proceed to crying myself to sleep. *
Eater of men, slayer of god, a shapeshifting fanatic of handsome men, meet the main star of our blog today: the She-Demon.
1. Story summary:
_ Dông and Pha were two equally bright brother who lived in a small village in Tây Nguyên province – central Việt Nam. The village headman framed the two boys for stealing and forced their mother into working for him to pay off their debt. Hatred and hard labour were proven to be too much for the woman and she died shortly after the incident out of exhaustion. With their mother gone, the two now-orphans were expelled and had to lean on each other to get by.
_ One day, when Dông woke up, Pha was nowhere to be seen. An elder, taking pity of the boy’s misfortune, told him that his brother might have been taken away by the She-Demon. Now, with his spear readied and his trustworthy elephant companion by his side, Dông set out on a quest to find his brother. Along the road he met strange people and phenomena alike, such as a lumber jack carrying two heed of wood as big as a grown elephant with his bare hands, a black statue breathing fire, and a seedling growing into a tree so tall it reached the heaven.
_ So yeah, no damsel in distress here. The only two female characters are the ill-fated mother and the She-Demon.
2. Backstory and motivation:
_ She had neither redeemable qualities and relatable motivations. Just your plain old, straight forward, no good, villain of pure evil. But come on, what did you guys expect? She’s the villain of a fairy tale of all thing. That’s like the Disney villain of Disney villains. So cut her some slack.
_ Not much is known about her backstory and past either. Yet, as little as it might seem, what we do know about her is in my opinion pure 100% concentrated badass.
_ Once, she went to the heaven and slain a god name Póc-Gơ-Lây to fetch his magic mirror, then fled to the mortal realm. The fable doesn’t mention any deities chasing after her, but considering the Mountain God Chư-Lây wouldn’t dare take her head on, we can safely assume that she’s too big of a threat for the gods to deal with directly. But why did she take such a risk though? Well, there is one simple answer: men.
_ You see, aside from powerful offensive spells, the magic mirror can also be used in surveillance, much like in Snow White and the seven Dwarves. The limit for this clairvoyance is unknown. With this, she would scan the land from time to time, searching for young, strong and handsome men. Once she found a guy suit her taste, she would then kid... or rather, mannap him back to her cave where the man would serve as her husband for a while, until she grew bored of him and want to divorce. Sadly though, for her the definition of “break-up” is she breaking her exes up and put them on the menu. Yes. You get it folks. She killed a god for Tinder!! That, and also her reverse harem would serve as spare food for the winter. Talk about being resourceful, geez.
3. Abilities;
_ Super strength: according to the elder, the She Demon can rival an army of hundreds of men alone. Well, before you say “that’s nothing”, please not that her origin is that of an ethnic minority, and hundreds of men can very much be the entire men power of a tribe, so this can also be understand metaphorically.
_ Shape shifting: she is a seasoned shape shifter, being able to transform into animal, plant, and element alike. In the fable, she had shifted into three forms total: a phantom steed, a strange flower and a gust of wind. In her steed form she was so fast, that no horses, celestial and mortal alike, could catch up with her without the gods intervene. In her flower form, she showed a very unique and over-powered property: her shapeshifted form and her true form were not interconnected. Which means, the damage she took in while shape shifting has no effect on her. In the fable, her flower form was crushed under the hoof of Dông’s horse, yet she can immediately turn in to a wind to retrieve her mirror she hid elsewhere.
_ The spells of the mirror: if you think the magic mirror is simply a omniscience stalker camera, then you are dreadfully wrong. The magical artifact had four main spells that are highly offensive or supportive, and it’s with this mirror that the She Demon turned into such a formidable threat to Đam Dông. First one: it can plunge the world into darkness. The second: it can flood the forest situated in the highland of Vietnam. Third spell: it can create typhoon. Last one: it can turn all clouds on the sky into falling fire. With that said, it also concluded today post about the She Demon in the story of Đam Dông. But what do you guys think? Find her interesing or just a same old same old demon? Please leave a comment and let me know.
Well, I don’t know how to end the post, so how ‘bout a lame meme?
“You think it was a damsel in distress, but it was I, Dam Dong.”
* Seeing no one get it. Proceed to crying myself to sleep. *
VN01: General things
Well, before we begin our journey of exploring my less known Asian culture, there are some things I want to lay down first, so that we can be on the same pace and have the same background understanding of the matter discussed.
1. Our ancestors are extremely, very, super duper lazy in naming things. Most of the time, they follow the ‘magic formular of naming for dummies 101’: “Everything you can think of + ‘Tinh’”, with ‘Tinh’ meaning spirit, deities, demons, both good and bad. So, unless you want to learn about a bazillion different “Snake Demon”, we will refer to the creature not by their name, but by the lore in which they appear in.
2. Vietnamese myths and legends are very human-centric, as in gods are only respected because they help the people instead of being the deity of ultimate goodness, just and all powerful, being feared and obeyed etc. Please note that in Vietnamese myths when the gods turn evil and try to harm human, the men and women alike will rebel against them, and they will win.
3. Like any other cultures, Vietnamese fables have various version. We also home to around 54 ethnic minorities, all have their own fables, sagas, legends, folk tales, etc. I’ll try my best to introduce them, but mistakes and errors are pretty much unavoidable considering such an enormous number of fables, tales to cover.
4. There’s undeniably a huge different between cultures, so there might be things in this post you find disturbing, but pretty much are the norm in my home country. With that said, audiences discretion is adviced.
5. As you can probably tell by the broken English in these posts, I'm not a native English speaker, and my translator doesn't involve much in my blogs. So please pardon the grammar mistakes
1. Our ancestors are extremely, very, super duper lazy in naming things. Most of the time, they follow the ‘magic formular of naming for dummies 101’: “Everything you can think of + ‘Tinh’”, with ‘Tinh’ meaning spirit, deities, demons, both good and bad. So, unless you want to learn about a bazillion different “Snake Demon”, we will refer to the creature not by their name, but by the lore in which they appear in.
2. Vietnamese myths and legends are very human-centric, as in gods are only respected because they help the people instead of being the deity of ultimate goodness, just and all powerful, being feared and obeyed etc. Please note that in Vietnamese myths when the gods turn evil and try to harm human, the men and women alike will rebel against them, and they will win.
3. Like any other cultures, Vietnamese fables have various version. We also home to around 54 ethnic minorities, all have their own fables, sagas, legends, folk tales, etc. I’ll try my best to introduce them, but mistakes and errors are pretty much unavoidable considering such an enormous number of fables, tales to cover.
4. There’s undeniably a huge different between cultures, so there might be things in this post you find disturbing, but pretty much are the norm in my home country. With that said, audiences discretion is adviced.
5. As you can probably tell by the broken English in these posts, I'm not a native English speaker, and my translator doesn't involve much in my blogs. So please pardon the grammar mistakes
An unexplored mine for fantasy writers: Vietnamese culture
I'm quite uncomfortable talking about myself when I don't absolutely need to, so this blog will be dedicated to all the myths, legends, magics abundant in Vietnamese culture, whose translation are alm
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