#the st Nicholas parallels !!

[secretmellowblog]

Woah some Les Mis genius just made a tiktok diving into the canonical parallels between Jean Valjean and St Nicholas:

Or watch on tiktok to boost this excellent person in the algorithm! They are clearly trying very hard to produce quality analysis about extremely important Les mis things like “Jean Valjean breaking into people’s houses to secretly give them money,” but do not have a lot of followers yet! :

[homomenhommes]

Giant malachite vase, Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

This vase ranks as one of the most attractive piece of polished stone that I have ever seen. Malachite is a beautiful mineral, deep green and generally exhibiting parallel bands or circles of different shades. It is relatively soft and takes a beautiful polish. Russia possesses some of the world's largest high-quality malachite deposits near the city of Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains (this is also the place where Tsar Nicholas II and his family were murdered in 1918). The mines no longer operate, but they did in the 18th century when the Winter Palace was being built in St. Petersburg. That Palace, which today is the Hermitage Museum, has a large number of exceptionally fine malachite pieces, such as the one shown here. Some of the structural elements in the palace, like columns, are made of malachite, but these can only be decorative because malachite is fragile and cannot support much weight. One room in the palace is called malachite room. It served as the drawing room for Princess Alexandra Fiodorovna, the wife of Nicholas I. It contains 16 malachite columns and several vases and pieces of furniture made of malachite. Unfortunately, my half-day free time did not permit a visit to that room.

🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[nepentheisms]

Trigun Bookclub Archive

Many thanks go out to everyone who enjoyed my reactions and meta. I've compiled them here for easier access.

I discuss the religious themes and imagery in the manga quite a bit, and the posts that specifically delve into Christian tradition and religious texts are tagged under #Guns&God meta.

Trigun Volume 1:

On those salmon sandwiches

Trigun Volume 2:

Legato and his accessories

Wolfwood's intro + potential reference to St Nicholas

TriMax Volume 1:

Visual similarities in the way Wolfwood and Milly make their entrances in this fight

TriMax Volume 2:

Wolfwood and his big ol' death flag

TriMax Volume 3:

Leonof/Knives parallels

Brief bit on Geof Darrow

TriMax Volume 4:

Tidbits (don't pay too much attention to this one. I done goofed a lot)

Knives vs Vash on how they obtained their "followers" + fun with the murder music concept

TriMax Volume 5:

Beginning the crucifixion-adjacent injuries tally

Night-blooming cereus

Possible inspiration behind Elendira's name

TriMax Volume 6:

Me being sad about that moment Vash reaches out to comfort Meryl

TriMax Volume 7:

Crucifixion-adjacent injuries tally update

TriMax Volume 8:

Applying some Buddhist concepts to the conversation between Vash and Knives

Knives as the dragon of Revelation 12

TriMax Volume 9:

Goddammit Nicholas

TriMax Volume 10:

Peter and the Wolfwood

Post by gaelachros with additions from pancake-breakfast and myself on the Christian imagery and themes in this volume

TriMax Volume 11:

Reflecting on Juneora Rock - a possible reference to the biblical empty tomb narratives

TriMax Volume 12:

More on Revelation 12 + Knives/Leonof visual parallels

TriMax Volume 13:

Livio vs Elendira

TriMax Volume 14:

Meryl comes in clutch, discussing Mary Magdalene parallels

Final tally on crucifixion-adjacent injuries

Thinking about that Genesis symbolism

Final Thoughts:

Trigun and averting apocalypticism

[twdmusicboxmystery]

This whole Christmas/Piglet parallel was a big one. Christmas is always associated with Beth, and remember that the legend of the actual St. Nicholas includes him resurrecting 3 deceased boys.

[sylphidine]

[ROTG] Help Me To Dream

Happy holidays to the RISE OF THE GUARDIANS fandom!

This is my ROTG Stocking Stuffer fill for prompt#38... Sandy's Christmas eve rounds

@rotgsecretsanta

____________

Rowan Castillo loved her job. 

As one of the volunteer coordinators for the “NORAD Tracks Santa” operations center, once a year she got to gently wrangle people, changing a ragtag group of strangers into a lean, [not] mean, answering-phones-and-email machine.

She had been managing a twelve-hour shift of six two-hour volunteer slots for the past ten years. Starting at 4AM Mountain Time, the Santa trackers answering phone calls and emails would cover “Santa landings” in the Pacific Rim and Japan; the midday to mid-afternoon shifts would track “Santa stops” in Asia and Africa; and the night shifts would cover “Santa sightings” in Europe and the Americas. 

This year Rowan planned to stagger her own slots so that she would be on four hours, off four hours, and so on. That meant she could have her metaphorical finger on every continent on her watch, including the various research stations in Antarctica, not to mention the International Space Station. She intended to take full advantage of the breakroom, in order to catch catnaps and eat snacks to keep herself going. It meant a long, long workday at NORAD, spanning the full eighteen hours that the Santa Tracking Team operated, but she loved it and looked forward to it every year.

All volunteers had been coached with answers to frequently asked questions, including those about the International Date Line and whether Santa Claus could time-travel.  Under Rowan’s supervision, each 2-hour shift involved between twenty and twenty-five people each, equally divided between phone banks and laptop stations.  

Some of the returning volunteers on Rowan’s crews wore special red ribbons embroidered with the words “I BELIEVE” in gold thread.  These volunteers were extra-well-prepared for the burning question that had sprung up in 2012 during Rowan’s very first Christmas at NORAD. 

A question repeated every year since, by many, many children around the world.

“Is the Sandman following Santa?”

The answer to that, of course, was “No, Santa is following HIM.”

_________________________

Sanderson Mansnoozie woke up with a belligerent starfish plastered to his face. It wriggled impatiently to get his attention.

All right, all right. I know what day it is.  And what time it is, too.

One last yawn, one last stretch, and then he was ready for this night’s work. 

He shaped his dreamsand into his oft-favored biplane, weaving himself a pair of goggles and a jaunty aviator’s scarf in the process.

Sandy’s route every Christmas Eve both paralleled that of Nicholas St. North and surpassed it. The Sandman had the job of granting dreams to every soul on Earth who *could* dream; he paid no real attention to mankind’s imaginary borders, and he bestowed dreams on adults as well as children.  But on this night he enjoyed sharing his own gift with his fellow Guardian.  He made sure that those who believed in an immortal gift-giver who traversed the world in one night would be asleep and dreaming sweet dreams while North spread his wonder and good cheer.

It tickled North’s fancy that among his first stops each year were two places that some humans had dubbed Christmas Island, and thus it tickled Sandy’s fancy to give the sleepers of Flying Fish Cove and Tabwakea visions of swooping bats and playful goats, all crafted in golden dreamsand. 

The dreamweaver’s biplane left golden swirls and curlicues in his wake at each stop in the Pacific Rim… Auckland, Cairns, Port Moresby, Denpasar, Manila, Singapore, Bandar Seri Begawan, Bengaluru, and so, so many more places, both populous and not.

As both Sandy and North started making their respective magic over Tokyo, they started to attract notice from the mortal world.

_______________________

“There are going to be kids who will tell you ‘I believe, I believe, I believe’, like some kind of mantra,” Rowan had told her newest trainees last week. “All our callers are special, but these ones need particular focus from you in their answers. If they tell you that they can see someone called ‘Sandy’ or ‘the Sandman’, don’t be surprised if you start seeing a special glow on your NORAD chart. It’s not an optical illusion. What it *is*… well, you’ll have to make your mind up about that for yourself.”

The twinkle in Rowan’s eyes became more pronounced as she concluded, “Also, don’t be surprised even you see a glow over spots where traditionally Santa Claus is NOT believed in, like Afghanistan, Algeria, Bhutan, North Korea, Libya, Mauritania, Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Yemen. There’s a good reason for that. See you all on the 24th!” ___________________________

There were many, many would-be sleepers requiring Sandy’s special skill on this particular Christmas Eve. With equal care he wrapped populous cities like Urumqi, Helsinki and Chicago in shining dreams, as well as scattering his glittering gifts in remote places like Khatanga, Pape’ete, and Babeldaob.

He left dream images of many, many hopeful and soul-cheering things in the minds of those dreamers touched by his tendrils of dreamsand. 

Bottles made of rainbow glass, a comfortable quilt, an unexpected bouquet of flowers, bales and bales of hay that would save one’s cattle from starving. 

A spatula held in a loved one’s hand in a cherished and remembered kitchen, long ago.  

A plush rabbit and a toy top perched on the shelves of a newborn child’s nursery. 

A never-ending bag of popcorn, and all the bananas one could eat. 

A familiar umbrella on a crowded city street, held up by an arm bedecked with bangle bracelets.

A chocolate bar and a comic book, both savored while perched on the wide branch of a gnarled yet sturdy tree.

A worn-out stuffed animal that could have been a hamster, a lion, or a shark at one point in the past, but had been sculpted into a shape that was now unique, with a purpose that made it indispensable, at least in the mind of the child that loved it and couldn’t go to sleep without it.

All these dreams, and many, many millions more.

The Sandman flew on through the night, sometimes beside North’s sleigh as they conversed, but more often ahead of the Guardian of Wonder. 

And below their conjoined and separate flight paths, the world slept more peacefully.

Back at NORAD, Rowan Castillo answered her last “Santa tracker” phone call at ten minutes before midnight. She told a breathlessly giggling child in Denmark, where it was already Christmas morning, that Santa was currently flying over Adak Island on his way back to the North Pole. 

She removed her headset, stretched her back, and rubbed her tired eyes.  She grinned to see the faintest traces of gold on her fingertips.

I believe, I believe, I believe.

[alicedrawslesmis]

#Catherinette can still become synonymous with Lesbian#also I need to know what you've discovered in regards to Saint Nick and Saint Catherine#are there any connections????? via @shitpostingfromthebarricade

I really want to be a catherinette. But I guess I'd have to become catholic first and tbh I've been to church (for certain family events) unbaptized a couple of times and it's super funny cause the priest always talks like everyone there is baptized and I feel like a spy. It's great and I don't wanna lose that

Also I hate the catholic church but I will admit they did kinda go off with the saints. I love saints and I wish they had nothing to do with catholicism. Saint Catherine (of Alexandria, not to be confused with st Catherine of Siena) specifically I recommend people look up because she's awesome, although the historical figure probably didn't exist the story itself is great, and as far as saints go she probably had a big following given how many things she is the patron saint of. The wheel? Children? Unmarried women? I wanted to know if she had anything to do with Fantine or Cosette or parallels but as far as I can tell, not really? She is known as a great scholar who is pure and also incredibly good at rhetoric. So she was the one probably in charge of protecting Cosette and Fantine, and that's it as far as I can tell.

The thing about Saint Nick and Valjean: I think it's clear that Valjean has a lot of catholic associations with jesus and etc but the fact that he meets cosette on christmas, and when he was mayor he broke into people's houses to leave them money and was an unmarried recluse, who was generally beloved by all, and made dolls for children and gave coins away to all the little boys who he met. Leaving a coin in Cosette's shoe. That's all Saint Nicholas. And in my research to find out more about the Saint Catherine feast I discovered there are some events that merge the two together and call it 'the feast of Catherine and Nicholas' and they allow unmarried young men to wear silly hats as well. Also in all the photos in color I found the hats were yellow and green, just to make it clear. Idk if this is a Thing or if it was just that one event that did that.

So no, I don't think it's a coincidence that Cosette leaves Montfermeuil with Catherine in one hand and Saint Nicholas on the other. They're the saint of unmarried men and the saint of unmarried women and girls, and they are definitely widespread enough that any catholics reading the book would probably see that right away in 1862, these are some of the most popular saints there are.

Ok last thing, St Catherine is the patron saint of: Unmarried girls; apologists; craftsmen who work with a wheel (potters, spinners); archivists; dying people; educators; girls; jurists; knife sharpeners; lawyers; librarians; libraries; maidens; mechanics; millers; milliners; nurses; philosophers; preachers; scholars; schoolchildren; scribes; secretaries; spinsters; stenographers; students; tanners; theologians; University of Paris; haberdashers; wheelwrights; a couple of colleges and a lot of places in the Philippines, Brazil, Malta, Germany etc you get the idea

[aemiron-main]

4:35 into Tommy and i’ve already written down parallels to henry/alice, what that could mean for peter, and also the lady at the train immediately reminded me of Nina from brenner’s story

em how the fuck did you find the movie ever. Jesus Christ

asdfgHGVFGH I JUST GOT POWER BACK TO CHECK TUMBLR A LITTLE BIT AGO AND IM WISHING YOU LUCK WIBBLE BECAUSE THE PARALLELS (AND THE MOVIE AS A WHOLE) JUST GETS MORE INSANE FROM THERE. hope you’re ready for the beans hallucination scene. it has like nothing to do with st but it’s definitely a Ride. AND THATS SUCH A GREAT POINT ABOUT BRENNERS STORY YES OH MY GOD I DIDNT THINK OF THAT!! ADFBJDJSFBHDFHB i didnt find tommy, tommy found me. i can’t believe it ties into st, it’s one of those strange movies that’s fascinated me for years (especially being an avid fan of the who), specifically because of how weird it is AND because of how it approaches very dark themes in a very weird way to the point where the scenes are still very uncomfortable because of how weird/played up/absolutely absurd they are. it’s like they somehow managed to make it worse than just showing the actual abuse on screen because it’s played so almost comically but in a dark way and its just?? it baffles me especially because it’s not meant to be mocking survivors of abuse (esp since it’s literally written by a victim based on some of his own experiences) but it approaches the topics in a way that’s so bizarre that the bizarreness often adds to the horror of it rather than taking away from it?? anyway that’s a rant but tommy is one of those movies that like. it just fascinates me. its not even about whether its a good or a bad movie its just like being unable to look away from it because im wondering what the fuck is going on every 2 seconds. it just baffles me because its like. not only are the scenes about dark topics done in an absurd way but they’re also juxtaposed with some banger songs (although imo every album version of the songs is better EXCEPT for cousin kevin’s song. paul nicholas as cousin kevin is great casting as awful as kevin is), and so then it sort of makes you sit there and realize that ‘oh im jamming out to a song about horrible abuse’ and really hammers home the way that people ignore abuse because they’re so distracted by other things.  god i have a lot of thoughts about tommy. it baffles me every time. and it makes SO Much Sense for st to parallel it considering all the themes of tommy vs st and the who’s music as a whole and teenage angst and even though tommy may seem like a niche movie now, it was NOT a niche movie at its time, so i have zero doubt in my mind that the duffers are aware of it. like if i was writing a show set in the 80s that had csa allegories? tommy would be my first stop for parallels.  and like. now im thinking about tommy and the cousin kevin scene and how tommy reacts to being burned but not to anything else and how possessed will reacts to being burnt and how henry gets killed by fire and AGHHHHHHH

[maypoleman1]

25th December

Christmas Day

Merry Old Santa Claus by Thomas Nast. Sources: Harper’s Weekly (1881) and The German Way website

Today is Christmas Day, a day that held spiritual significance long before it was designated Jesus Christ’s birthday by the early Church. Christianity’s chief rival to become the official religion of the Roman Empire was Mithraism. The Persian sun-god Mithras, worshipped by large numbers of soldiers in the Roman army, was allegedly born of a virgin in lowly circumstances; rose from the dead; promoted fraternalism and good works amongst his devotees and was born on December 25th. Although the Church eventually decreed Mithraism to be a satanic cult, they first adopted many of the tenets of Mithras’ own character and rituals and incorporated them into their own, new, religion.

The modern Christmas also borrows from other, darker and northern roots. At the heart of this is the ambiguous figure of Father Christmas, who more recently became conflated with the Dutch gift-giving winter spirit, Santa Claus, who was himself a distant descendant of the Anatolian bishop, Saint Nicholas. Father Christmas was originally a character in the British Christmas medieval mumming plays, and with his crimson robe and long white beard, was the embodiment of a winter season that appeared completely dominant in late December. The parallel figure of Saint Nicholas, who via Dutch setters, became established in North America, fused with a much older pagan tradition of sky-travelling beneficence associated with the Germanic god Wotan, who rode the night sky during the feast of Yule, rewarding the good with gifts and good fortune on his six legged steed Sleipnir, and punishing the wicked. Followed by hordes of malevolent elves who visited ill on the undeserving, Wotan and St Nicholas merged into the slightly sinister chimney-descending gift giver, Santa Claus, in Northern Europe. Eventually, the homegrown figure of the British Father Christmas fused with his European cousin making all three characters almost indistinguishable. However formative nineteenth century contributions such as A Visit From St Nicholas (which portrayed the saint as a nocturnal elfin visitor, riding a small sleigh pulled by reindeer and entering houses via their chimneys) by Clement Clarke Moore in 1823; the Bacchus-like Father Christmas figure of the Ghost of Christmas Present in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, published in 1843, and the illustrations of Santa Claus in the 1860s by Thomas Nast all pulled together the essential elements of this rotund representation of seasonal jollity.

Festive greenery, originally a wish to remind people of the lost vegetation of summer, became ritualised within the Roman winter festival of Saturnalia. This household greenery later formed the basis of many Christmas decorations. These evergreens, who refused to die off in the winter, were thought to be endowed with magical powers, holly and ivy being viewed as particularly potent. Holly tended to be associated with male characteristics and ivy with the female: both were locked in timeless combat. The winter plant of greatest significance to the ancients was mistletoe, held by the Celts to hold the essence of the woodland gods in its berries. Mistletoe, unafraid of winter, was believed to be a cure-all, particularly if harvested at the time of the winter solstice. In the U.K., the most prevalent piece of greenery to be erected in family homes is the Christmas Tree - a relatively recent import from Germany thanks to Prince Albert, but which can probably trace its origins to the pagan Yule Log and the Norse Tree of Life, Yggdrasil.

[drosera-nepenthes]

Alexandra's sister Dagmar paralleled the more recent romance of Princess May of Teck. Almost immediately after her engagement to the Czarevitch Nicholas, eldest son and heir of Alexander II of Russia, her betrothed died. It is said that on his deathbed he expressed a wish that his brother should fill his place. At any rate, that is what happened. Three years after her father's accession to the Danish throne, Dagmar was married to the prince who is now Alexander III of Russia.

Dagmar shares the amiable qualities of her sister. At the Antichkof palace in St. Petersburg, which was her home as crown princess of Russia, she used to entertain, every Christmas, not only the children of the nobles, but a great gathering of the poor boys and girls of the capital on the Neva. As consort of a sovereign who is probably the wealthiest in Europe, and whose rule over a hundred million subjects is absolutely despotic, her home life at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, and at the Gatchina or the Peterhof in the country has always been as domestic and unpretentious as she could make it. Alexander is a devoted husband and is seldom absent from his queen and her children. The eldest son, the Czarevitch Nicholas, is now a young man of twenty-five, well educated, well traveled, and intelligent. Next comes the Grand Duchess Xenia and then three younger children.

The only shadow on the married life of the Czarina was cast upon it by the terrible death of her father in law, twelve years ago. The ever present dread lest her husband might share his father's fate made the early years of his reign gloomy ones indeed; and not even yet has that dread wholly departed.

[reflectingiridescent]

I'm nearly through watching The Librarians for the first time, and given the amount of sheer and blatant crossover between the two shows' tropes (Jacob & Sophie becoming their masks! Sophie & Eliot and Cassandra & Jacob parallels with trust! Eve & Tara with their microexpressions! St. Nicholas as the patron saint of thieves! The Gardner heist! The list goes on and on!), I'm 99% sure Tara's scar we find out about in The Future Job is from a tumor, and that tumor very likely contributed to her turn from government intelligence into grifting/intelligence mercenary. And I am obsessed.

[helpagirlout-lander]

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

If this slight pause in regularly scheduled programing offends you -- there's the door and the unfollow button. I will immediately block anyone who complains about it not being Outlander related. Claire was a WWII Combat Nurse. Do you know how many hidden Jewish children there were in France? Have you never heard of Drancy or the name Klaus Barbie? Check yourself before @’ing me please.  

As per my usual content, tho, here’s a list of things to watch in honor of IHRD. 

Thinking of watching Prime’s Hunters? Don’t. Educate yourself about Simon Wiesenthal or Serge and Beate Klarsfeld, who the married couple in the Prime show were based on. They’re bad ass. They tracked down and brought to justice MAJOR Nazis... OR you want the intense fighting and/or gore that Hunters’ has?

Watch Defiance on Netflix. Based accurately on a true story, this R-rated film follows the Bielski brothers as they form and protect a band of Jewish partisans in the forests of what is now Belarus. It’s rated R for a reason. They fought back.

Thinking of watching The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas? Don’t. Educate yourself about Witold Pilecki, who actually did sneak into Auschwitz in order to gain intelligence and report on its horrors... OR you want a film that depicts the average German citizen’s POV while juxtaposing that of the plight of the Jewish people?

Watch the tv miniseries Holocaust. It’s better... just so. much. better. Historians joke that it had more of an effect on the American public than the ACTUAL Holocaust. It’s long and not available to stream, but so worth the extra effort.

Thinking of watching Schindler’s List? You should. You really should.

BUT HERES THE LIST.

A lil note: I’ve watched 85-90% of these. They’re listed in roughly “what I’d recommend” order per viewing platform.

Before we get started, here’s a bunch that are on YouTube AS WELL as a streaming platform:

Documentaries: Prosecuting Evil: Full Film, Trailer / #AnneFrank Parallel Stories: Full Film, Trailer  (also available on Netflix) // Defiant Requiem: Full Film, Trailer / We Shall Not Die Now: Full Film / Spell Your Name: Full Film / Forgiving Dr Mengele: Full Film / Memory After Belsen: Full Film / The Long Way Home: Full Film / A Generation Apart: Full Film (also available on Amazon Prime)

FeatureFilm: Lena: My 100 Children: Full Film (also available on Amazon Prime)

Available on Netflix: 

Documentaries: The Accountant of Auschwitz (Trailer) / The Devil Next Door (Trailer) / Steal A Pencil For Me (Trailer) /  Hitler’s Circle of Evil, Series (Trailer)

FeatureFilms: The Eichmann Show (Trailer) / The Resistance Banker (Trailer) / Riphagen / Sarah’s Key (Trailer) / The Photographer of Mauthausen (Trailer) 

Available on Prime:

Documentaries: Big Sonia: Trailer, In Conversation / Hostages of the SS / Swimming In Auschwitz / Nicky’s Family (Trailer) /  Goodbye Holland / No. 4 St of Our Lady (Trailer) / The Lady in Number 6 (Trailer) / Eva A-7063 / A Promise to my Father (Trailer) / Oma and Bella (Trailer) / Condemned to Remember (Trailer) / 2 or 3 Things I Know About Him (Trailer) / The Lion of Judah (Trailer) / A Journey Into The Holocaust (2015) / Exodus 1947 (Trailer) / Diary of the Last Heros /  Voyage of the St Louis /  Liberation, Dignity, Resilience Compassion (2018) / Le Chemin des Juifs: A Survivor's Journey (Trailer) / March of the Living (Trailer) /  Lives Restarted (trailer) 

FeatureFilms:  Operation Finale (Trailer) / La Rafle (Trailer) / Süskind (Trailer) (No Subtitles, Full Film) / Sobibor (Trailer) / The Testament (2019) / Run Boy Run (Trailer) / Another Mother’s Son (Trailer) / Rosenstrasse (Trailer)

Available on YouTube:

Documentaries: Memory Of The Camps (PBS) / Prisoner Number A26188 / Children Saved From The Nazis: Sir Nicholas Winton /  One Survivor Remembers / War Orphans Find A Home / The Bielski Brothers / Caring Corrupted: The Killing Nurses of the Third Reich / Against The Tide / Echos that Remain / What It’s Like To Be Related To Hitler 

March of the Living: Return to Auschwitz /  Each Of Us Has A Name / Never Forget

Hitler’s Holocaust: Invasion, Resistance, Ghetto, Mass Murder, The Final Toll 

Hitler’s Henchmen: Goering / Goebbles / Hess / Speer / Doenitz

Interviews: The Story of Terezin / Interview w/ Alice Sommer / w/ Tovah Friedman

Feature Films: The Pianist: Full Movie / The Last Survivors (Full Film)

[dramoor]

“In saving our souls, what two things must be known?  One is to know God, and the other is to know ourselves.  The two are learned in parallel.  If you learn only of God, you will be filled with pride, and your soul will be paralyzed.  If you know only about your sins and your unworthiness and know little about God, you will be filled with despondency and fear, or escapism, and your soul will also be paralyzed, unable to do good.

But if you learn of yourself and God at the same time, God will reveal Himself and self-knowledge also, within you.  Then you will believe in the depths of your soul that you are a great sinner, but you will nonetheless say to yourself with confidence, ‘God will receive my repentance!’ and you will see the situation you are in, and you will want to be better, and you will know that you CAN become better!”

~From He Came to Himself, homily on the Prodigal Son - St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church, McKinney, Texas

(Icon: The Prodigal Son, written by Tatiana Grant)

[themousefromfantasyland]

St. George and the Myth of the Dragon Slayers

So, today is St George's Day in my country, and St. George, along with St. Michael the Archangel and St. Nicholas are probably my favorite saint figures out there.

St. George and St. Michael are particularly special because they embody what's one of my favorites tropes in myth and folklore, the Dragon Slayer.

The Dragon Slayer is a male figure standing proudly over a dead reptile-like monster. I'm madly in love with these representations in western art, the triumph of good versus evil, or just order versus chaos.

This is a very ancient motif, appearing much early than Christianity itself and over many different cultures.

In Greek Mythology, you have Zeus against Typhon, Apollo against Python, Perseus against Cetus.

In Judeo-Christianity you have God, our dear Jehovah, or Yahweh, destined to slay Leviathan in the end of times.

"In that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea."

Isaiah 27:1

In Christianity we have St. Michael against the Serpent, which is now identified as the same who tempted Eve back in Eden, Satan.

"And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels [going forth] to war with the dragon; and the dragon warred and his angels; And they prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast down, the old serpent, he that is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world; he was cast down to the earth, and his angels were cast down with him."

Revelation 12:7–9

Many scholars see parallels between these stories to the tales of Tiamat and Marduk.

In Mesopotamia, Tiamat was the primordial goddess of the sea, and she and her husband Apsu, were the origin of the first generation of gods. Assuming they were planning to kill him to usurp his throne, Apsu attacks his children and is killed by them. Enraged, upon her husband's murder, Tiamat takes the form of a massive sea dragon and is killed by Marduk, the god of storms, who forms the heavens and the Earth from her divided body.

(Observe how eerily this story is similar to Zeus and Cronos. Notice that Typhon, Zeus serpent-like rival, was created by Gaia as revenge against the imprisonment of Cronos and the others Titans in Tartarus. The only difference is that in Greece, the vengeful primordial goddess releases the "dragon", while in Mesopotamia she is the dragon herself)

In Ancient Egypt, Apep or Apophis was the dragon, and Ra was his slayer. During the day Apophis laid bellow the horizon, in the underworld, just waiting. Every night he and his demons would attack and try to swallow Ra and his sun boat, in atempt to purge the whole world in darkness. With the help of the other gods, Ra managed to always overcome Apophis and bring the light of the day once again.

There's various other stories where this motiff appears, thunder god Thor slaying Jörmungandr, the Midgard serpent, sky and lightning god Indra slaying water serpent Vritra, storm god Baal Hadad slaying the sea serpent, Lotan.

The serpent-slaying myth appears all over through the Indo-european world. It represents the eternal struggle between civilization and savagery, chaos and order, good and evil. During my research, I found there's even a name for it in the area, Chaoskampf, from the german, meaning, struggle against chaos.

In a way the hero represents everything we strive for as a culture, and the dragon represents every vice that we try to overcome.

I know that's not always the case, but I choose to believe, for my own mental health, that in the end good wins. That's why I love the St George/St Michael imagery, of him standing proudly against the Dragon/Satan. It's a symbol of the belief that in the end, the forces of good will triumph against the forces of evil. So I choose to believe that justice wins over oppression, that peace wins over war, and that freedom wins over tyranny. That's what we should believe, and what we should strive for as a society

[alicedrawslesmis]

More Santa Valjean parallels: St. Nicholas is the patron saint of repented thieves

oh

is he

WAIT.

VALJEAN LITERALLY MAKES DOLLS FOR THE KIDS AND BREAKS INTO PEOPLE'S HOUSES TO GIVE THEM GIFTS

and he gives Cosette a coin in her shoe cause that's what santa claus did back then I guess

is Valjean simply just. Santa. Is that why they put santa in the movie.

IS JAVERT OBSESSED WITH ARRESTING SANTA FOR TRESPASSING AND TAKING FOOD FROM AN INHABITED HOUSE

[twdmusicboxmystery]

Eugene/Beth Entanglement, Part 2: S5-S8

Here’s the next installment of the Eugene and Beth similarities. Once more, @wdway​ dug most of this stuff up, so credits and kudos to her!

READ PART 1 HERE

5x05: Self-Help

I want to mention 5x05 briefly, as I neglected to that in part 1. We’ve long seen the short bus crashing as a parallel to Beth. They literally use dialogue about “killing” the bus at one point. Eugene said he put crushed glass in the fuel line.

Because of Rick’s broken windows theory, broken glass = the downfall of society in some way. Lack of fuel = not being able to get home. Because the cars won’t work. And they often then resort to bikes for travel. Bikes = how the harvest gets home, or just going to home to family. So you can see how all these symbols work together.

Furthermore, after the bus crashes, they exit the back door of the bus. (Something we also saw in 4x09 after the prison fell. Maggie went looking for Glenn in the yellow bus, and they let all the walkers out through the back door.) @wdway and @frangipanilove​ have been working on this since the Leah episode, because we see Daryl using the back door to her cabin in weird ways there, too. We believe escaping through the back door = an unexpected means of survival. Kind of a play on the  phrase “back door deal.” It’s not something obvious or expected. It can also be secret/unseen.

Anyway, we see the same license plate from coda on the white bus, and they live and escape via “back door” means, just as we believe Beth did.

Then they go to a bookstore. That’s a whole other theory as well. We saw the Librarians in S6 and Carol and Morgan went to a library. Books are always major clues for us. So this is another TD symbol.

So, I think you get the idea. That storyline in 5x05 leads directly to Eugene being hurt by Abraham, which I discussed last week is another parallel to Beth in Coda.

We also saw Eugene and Abraham meet in this episode, via flashback. In that scene, we see that they are in Texas (I’ll talk about that more later in the week). We see a BBQ sign (pig reference) train tracks signs, a star (cuz Texas), a water tower, and Eugene dressed in black and white.

Now, I’ve come to believe that the black and white them foreshadows the CRM war. But the point is that we’ve seen it heavily around Daryl and Beth, so it just shows that all these characters will be involved in that war.

Eugene at the Sanctuary (S7/S8)

First, let’s appreciate that for a time, Eugene was tasked with creating a single bullet by Rosita. Total Beth vibes. Plus, we saw some interesting parallels at the bullet factory with Abraham, not the least of which was him wanting to become stronger and kill walkers himself.

In 7x08 (chalk full of TD symbolism), Eugene was taken prisoner by Negan and spent the next season and a half at the Sanctuary.

There were SO many symbols around him while there, it got to be downright ridiculous.

This was where we first associated pickles with him (Pickle Theories). And clearly I need to do a whole forecasting post for his time at the Sanctuary (in time, my friends) but I’ve believed for a LONG time that pickles = resurrection because of the St. Nicholas story (see Pickle theories). So to me, this clearly makes him a proxy to Beth. So it’s super interesting that he’s hanging out with Negan here. And I do think the Saviors were often used as proxies for the future CRM.

Eugene’s room at the Sanctuary also had a ridiculous number of symbols in it. From the blue coolers on top of the green cabinets to the dartboard on the wall. Eugene listening to the song Easy Street nodding his head to the singer that sounded remarkably like Emily/Beth.

A refrigerator with lots of eggs on the inside of the door (I'm sure the writers chuckled over that one). Beer, water, green and red apples.

I could go on and on about the background symbols, but I won’t. Let’s get more into his arc at the Sanctuary.

First is the fact that he’s with a “bad” group, though not necessarily of his own free will. Yes, he ends up helping them because he thinks it will help TF, but he’s taken from Rosita and the rest of TF and held somewhere he isn’t allowed to leave. That screams Beth to me.

While trying to impress Negan’s wives, he puts together some chemistry experiments for them, and when he sets them off, the 1812 Overture plays.

Not only is that music, its music about a famous war. I’ve recently talked about how they’re using the American Revolutionary War as a template for the CRM war, right? I believe this is similar. Perhaps the template of this particular war will inform Eugene’s specific arc. I haven’t researched that overly much, yet. But either way, I think this ties him to Beth because it’s music and it’s a war template.

We also had the situation where he created a musical device, made it fly, and wanted to use it to lead walkers away from the Sanctuary. 

Those are all hugely related to Beth symbolism. Something that sings, obviously. Birds, helicopters, and planes are all huge symbolism for her. Things that fly. And of course then there’s the Pied Piper/Lead the Walkers Away symbolism. We believe a horde of walkers was responsible for Beth getting left behind. And let’s not forget that Glenn’s death fake out (which he survived) happened during S6 and Operation Lead the Walkers Away. Just saying.

When Daryl and Rosita went to rescue Eugene, we had a scene where he literally rose from the ashes. He actually hid there to get away from them, lol. But this was resurrection/phoenix symbolism at its finest. 

In terms of Eugene’s arc, it meant he would redeem himself to TF and turn the tide of the war. Which he did by making sure all the Saviors’ guns would jam and backfire. But it also ties him to Beth.

And of course, after that time away of imprisonment, he does make it safely back to TF.

I said this in Part 1 but I want to reiterate that his being much stronger after the time jump, and actually engaging in a romance (with Stephanie) only after that time jump, is also a parallel to Beth.

Okay, I’m gonna call it there for the day. I have at least two, if not three, more parts to this. Stay tuned.

[96thdayofrage]

“It’s very clear that they’re trying to make him their mascot. Any time that your mascot is someone who thought that it was an acceptable form of protest to show up at a political event with an AR-15, that is glorifying violence. And that’s a very dangerous thing to prop up and promote.”

In the week of Rittenhouse’s acquittal, all but two House Republicans refused to censure Gosar for posting an animated video that depicted him killing Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking Biden.

Bardella, a former Republican congressional aide and spokesperson for rightwing Breitbart News, added: “It is a pattern. These aren’t isolated incidents. One is following the other and it’s not an accident and it’s not a coincidence. It’s a deliberate strategy.”

The sanctification of Rittenhouse, who was photographed in a bar before his trial with apparent members of the far-right Proud Boys, fits a tried and trusted playbook. Mark and Patricia McCloskey, a white couple in St Louis who pointed guns at Black Lives Matter protesters marching past their house, addressed last year’s RNC a day before Rittenhouse opened fire in Kenosha.

Mark McCloskey is now running for the US Senate in Missouri and welcomed Rittenhouse’s acquittal by stating: “Liberals want to defund the police and prevent you from defending yourself, your family, your home, and your businesses. I will never stand for that. I stood for Kyle Rittenhouse and his right to self-defense.”

Nicholas Sandmann, a high school student from Kentucky who sued media outlets for their depiction of his interaction – wearing a Maga cap – with a Native American activist on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington also came to personify grievances on the right.

And the pro-Trump mob that stormed the US Capitol on 6 January in an attempt to block certification of Joe Biden’s election has received similar treatment. Taylor Greene visited accused insurrectionists in what she called the “patriot wing” of a Washington prison, condemning its conditions as she tweeted: “I have never seen human suffering like I witnessed last night.”

Trump himself has praised Ashli Babbitt, a Capitol rioter fatally shot by police, as “a truly incredible person” and recorded a video to mark what would have been her 36th birthday in what many regard as an effort to turn her into a martyr.

Each cause célèbre is typically magnified by conservative media. On Monday more than 5m viewers watched Rittenhouse interviewed by Tucker Carlson, the Fox News opinion host’s biggest audience since the night of the 6 January attack.

Carlson told viewers: “During the course of our long conversation, Kyle Rittenhouse struck us as bright, decent, sincere, dutiful and hardworking … exactly the kind of person you would want many more of in your country. He’s not especially political. He never wanted to be the symbol of anything.” He also described Rittenhouse as a “sweet kid”.

In the interview, Rittenhouse claimed that he had been “extremely defamed” during the case, fuelling speculation that he will take legal action against the media and politicians. Sandmann urged him to do so, writing in the Daily Mail: “The parallels between me and Kyle Rittenhouse are impossible not to draw … The attacks on Kyle came from the national news media, just as they came for me.”

“The challenge for Republicans who are running in competitive seats is, is that who you want?” Larry Jacobs, director, Center for the Study of Politics and Governance

Other Fox News presenters have revelled in an opportunity to “own the libs”. Laura Ingraham tweeted: “The Left is going wild. Enjoy,” ahead of a show captioned: “Kyle and the liberal mind.” Sean Hannity interviewed Trump, who after meeting Rittenhouse made the provocative claim: “He should not have had to suffer through a trial. He should never have been put through that.”

Such comments imply resistance to a leftwing tyranny that assails individual rights, such as the right to bear arms. Dan Cassino, a political scientist at Fairleigh Dickinson University and author of Fox News and American Politics: How One Channel Shapes American Politics and Society, said: “This is where the energy in the party is.

“If you ask people on the right or look at rightwing media, they’ll tell you all the people Kyle Rittenhouse shot were criminals, they were terrible, they were going to kill everybody and these people are heroes for standing up, especially for using their second amendment rights.

“That’s a big part of this narrative, that having guns allows you to stand up to disorder and is a necessary thing to do in order to protect your community. It’s not Kyle Rittenhouse himself: he was protecting his community, and that’s what the second amendment is about as far as they’re concerned.”

But the normalisation of violence represented by Trump’s remarks at rallies, Gosar’s tweet and Rittenhouse’s valorisation is likely to be politically polarising, firing up the Maga base but turning off certain constituencies in elections.

Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said: “The challenge for Republicans who are running in competitive seats is, is that who you want? He’s a guy who is not cheered by a lot of people, including suburban and better educated women. The idea of people running around with automatic weapons in street? That doesn’t really excite them.

“I expect the Trumpians to grab on to him, bring him out, have him smile and wave and say a few things. But I think the candidates may be more selective.”