The Golden Boy: Dean-as-Mithras Meta
ETA pictures here and additional resouces to support this cracked-out theory here.
A few folks have asked me about the Dean-as-Mithras connection I've mentioned. Be warned, O Gentle Readers, this is purely Crack!Research. Will this spoil you for anything upcoming this season? Nope, although it's vaguely spoilerly for "In My Time of Dying." Mostly, it's just another example of the places my brain goes in its free time. *is very sad for brain*
First, lemme introduce y'all to Mithras and my understanding of him. I'll start by putting Mithras in context, time-wise. So. I figure most everyone has heard the term "Aquarian Age" by now, if only through song lyrics. In case not everyone is familiar with what that actually means, here we go.
Because of the earth's rotation, the constellations seem to move very, very slowly backwards across the elliptic. This is what gets called the Precession of Equinoxes. (The link I provided is one of the few I've come across that doesn't wallow in crackpot, lameass woo-woo crap. And? Pretty pictures!) The short version is that each astrological age is roughly 2000 years long. The age gets named after whichever sign the sun appears in at the vernal equinox. Each age is also considered to be defined by certain figures and elements.
So, like, during the first age, Gemini (6000BCE to 4000BCE), early Hinduism flourished with the belief that Rama (the seventh incarnation of Vishnu) was manifested by the birth of two pairs of brothers. Zoroastrianism is also believed by its conservative followers to have kicked off around now, too, and is notable for being the first monotheistic religion that had the dualistic good/evil - heaven/hell stuff going for it.
Finally, note that 6000BCE is also when the Church originally declared that the Earth, along with Adam and Eve, came into existence. The timing on this? Not coincidence. It's all from the same math. If you'll notice, this being the Age of Gemini, everything emphasized duality: two sets of brother; good and evil; female and male. (Notably from an archaeological perspective, this is also when folks began to set up city states and the foundations of human society.)
Anyway. Next up, from 4000BCE to 2000BCE, we had the Age of Taurus. Krishna, lord of the cows, was a major player. Ditto the Fertility Goddess in a number of forms, including Hathor (Egyptian cow goddess), Astarte, Diana of Ephesus, Inanna...you get the idea. Preceding Judaic monotheism was Ba'al, who had a counterpart in the Egyptian pantheon as Apis.
IOW, in all ways, the bull dominated this time period. (You'll see why we care about this in a sec.) For now, just to satisfy the generally curious, I'll mention that we had the Age of Aries from roughly 2000BCE to 0CE. This age kicked off in the heyday of warrior ram gods. However, over the next two millennia, that's when the myth of the Golden Fleece started, when the ram (or Passover lamb) became a symbol of sacrifice rather than worship, and the original concept of the "scapegoat" came into play. (SEE A TREND ANYONE? *g*)
From 0CE to about nowish has been the Age of Pisces. Jesus is totally represented with that little fish symbol, what with it having been the secret sign that the earliest Christians made to identify each other. For that matter, the Greek word ichtus ("fish") was made up of the following initial caps: Iesous Christos Theou Uios Soter ("Jesus Christ Son of God, the Savior.") Not coincidentally, the fish is also the sign of the Hindu Savior. This is also the age of sacrificed gods (who got popular as the whole lamb-sacrificing bit did.): Jesus, Odin/Wotan, Quetzalcoatl, all those guys.
But before you all stab me in the head for not getting to the good stuff (or yourselves to spare yourself boredom), I'll swing this on around to Mithras. Our boy had his start as an Indo-Iranian sun god, back in the day when the Hindus and Persians were still one people. This would be right around 4000 years ago. Note that this marked the end of the Age of Taurus and the start of the Age of Aries. This also explains why Mithras is depicted all over the damned place as slaying a bull. He's one of the sun god/ram warrior gods...y'all get why I gave you the long-ass intro into the ages now?
I mean, besides the part where I'm mortifyingly anal quite thorough. :P
Okay, so check this out. Prior to the tauroctony (totally a real word! and also something we'll also come back to!), Mithras' early life was all hardship and painful triumph. Associated with fire, Mithras totally had a partner, Apam Nepat. His partner was the elemental connection of water to Mithras' fire -- dude's name even means Grandson of Waters. (FWIW, Apam Nepat is the cognate of Rome's Neptune and Ireland's Nechtan.)
Back to our guy, though. Mirthras was a moral god whose primary responsibility was to the rightness of action. Contracts were made in front of fires to ensure their integrity, even if they were made with asshats who were so totally going to break them. In fact, Mithras was the first such moral god in the midst of entire pantheons who didn't do all that much besides watch out for the state and its wealthiest members.
As such, once the Romans rolled on through Persia, Mithras wound up being wicked popular amongst the Roman slaves and freedmen. He started out as being worshipped in one of the mystery cults. (FYI, that link leads to a page made of AWESOME because of the other pages it links to.) He eventually wound up being the god of soldiers, with a major emphasis on brotherliness.
Like, seriously. If you're not starting to see the connection between Dean and Mithras yet a) check out this next bit and b) WHAT SHOW ARE YOU WATCHING OMG.
Central to Mithraism is that whole bull-slaying bit I mentioned earlier. Why? Because it was done to fulfill his highest function: serving as the great mediator between the heavens and earth.
Allow me to spell this out for strictly squee-related purposes: Mediator! Between an overwhelming Sun! And the Earth that the Sun was totally pissing off burning! *flails*
See, Mithras came into his own as a Big Damned Hero not as a solider, although he ultimately represented truth, honor, and courage for the warriors and soldiers. Yeah, his first great feat was to conquer the Sun, who in turn became both his double and his father. (Thus Mithras' title of Sol Invictus, btw.) However, his Sun/Father wound up asking him to slay the Great Bull in order to protect and replenish the Earth.
Mithras? So was not feelin' this. He eventually was persuaded, though. Still reluctant, he hunted the Bull with his father's guidance. He tracked that fucker down, shouldered its weight, and hauled it into the very cave Mithras was born in to slaughter it. In killing the Bull, there's all this great symbolism representing the way its death allowed life to return to the Earth. A beautiful and (to me, anyway) not insignificant quote about this I found here is The Tauroctony demonstrates literally that Love moves the Universe, because damned if that ain't the way Dean Winchester rolls.
For real, y'all. If you're not seeing the Winchesters in this story, I'm clearly telling it all damned wrong, yo. I mean, come on. Sam is a Taurus, which is the fixed earth and (I should know) most jackass-stubborn sign. While Dean's sign is Aquarius and not a fire sign, that is the sign that represents the water-bearer, who nourishes and cares for the Earth.
Do I think Kripke and co dug this deeply into the story of Mithras? Nah. Do I think Kripke and co are deliberately breathing whispers of Mithraism into how Dean has been characterized? I dunno but probably. The pendant Dean wears suggests, yeah, they do know a little somethin' somethin'. Am I pulling this connection totally out of my dorktastic ass? I don't think so. The fit, as with what I noted about John here and here, is too close for me not to think that someone knows enough about alchemy and astrology to be making reasonably informed decisions about the elements they introduce into the mytharc and characterizations.
If nothing else, though, this was a hell of a fun excuse to dig up some cool links and get my geek on again. :D Cheers!
ETA that marinarusalka passed along this link to Kipling's poem, Mithras, when I mentioned my intent to write this meta.
A few folks have asked me about the Dean-as-Mithras connection I've mentioned. Be warned, O Gentle Readers, this is purely Crack!Research. Will this spoil you for anything upcoming this season? Nope, although it's vaguely spoilerly for "In My Time of Dying." Mostly, it's just another example of the places my brain goes in its free time. *is very sad for brain*
First, lemme introduce y'all to Mithras and my understanding of him. I'll start by putting Mithras in context, time-wise. So. I figure most everyone has heard the term "Aquarian Age" by now, if only through song lyrics. In case not everyone is familiar with what that actually means, here we go.
Because of the earth's rotation, the constellations seem to move very, very slowly backwards across the elliptic. This is what gets called the Precession of Equinoxes. (The link I provided is one of the few I've come across that doesn't wallow in crackpot, lameass woo-woo crap. And? Pretty pictures!) The short version is that each astrological age is roughly 2000 years long. The age gets named after whichever sign the sun appears in at the vernal equinox. Each age is also considered to be defined by certain figures and elements.
So, like, during the first age, Gemini (6000BCE to 4000BCE), early Hinduism flourished with the belief that Rama (the seventh incarnation of Vishnu) was manifested by the birth of two pairs of brothers. Zoroastrianism is also believed by its conservative followers to have kicked off around now, too, and is notable for being the first monotheistic religion that had the dualistic good/evil - heaven/hell stuff going for it.
Finally, note that 6000BCE is also when the Church originally declared that the Earth, along with Adam and Eve, came into existence. The timing on this? Not coincidence. It's all from the same math. If you'll notice, this being the Age of Gemini, everything emphasized duality: two sets of brother; good and evil; female and male. (Notably from an archaeological perspective, this is also when folks began to set up city states and the foundations of human society.)
Anyway. Next up, from 4000BCE to 2000BCE, we had the Age of Taurus. Krishna, lord of the cows, was a major player. Ditto the Fertility Goddess in a number of forms, including Hathor (Egyptian cow goddess), Astarte, Diana of Ephesus, Inanna...you get the idea. Preceding Judaic monotheism was Ba'al, who had a counterpart in the Egyptian pantheon as Apis.
IOW, in all ways, the bull dominated this time period. (You'll see why we care about this in a sec.) For now, just to satisfy the generally curious, I'll mention that we had the Age of Aries from roughly 2000BCE to 0CE. This age kicked off in the heyday of warrior ram gods. However, over the next two millennia, that's when the myth of the Golden Fleece started, when the ram (or Passover lamb) became a symbol of sacrifice rather than worship, and the original concept of the "scapegoat" came into play. (SEE A TREND ANYONE? *g*)
From 0CE to about nowish has been the Age of Pisces. Jesus is totally represented with that little fish symbol, what with it having been the secret sign that the earliest Christians made to identify each other. For that matter, the Greek word ichtus ("fish") was made up of the following initial caps: Iesous Christos Theou Uios Soter ("Jesus Christ Son of God, the Savior.") Not coincidentally, the fish is also the sign of the Hindu Savior. This is also the age of sacrificed gods (who got popular as the whole lamb-sacrificing bit did.): Jesus, Odin/Wotan, Quetzalcoatl, all those guys.
But before you all stab me in the head for not getting to the good stuff (or yourselves to spare yourself boredom), I'll swing this on around to Mithras. Our boy had his start as an Indo-Iranian sun god, back in the day when the Hindus and Persians were still one people. This would be right around 4000 years ago. Note that this marked the end of the Age of Taurus and the start of the Age of Aries. This also explains why Mithras is depicted all over the damned place as slaying a bull. He's one of the sun god/ram warrior gods...y'all get why I gave you the long-ass intro into the ages now?
I mean, besides the part where I'm mortifyingly anal quite thorough. :P
Okay, so check this out. Prior to the tauroctony (totally a real word! and also something we'll also come back to!), Mithras' early life was all hardship and painful triumph. Associated with fire, Mithras totally had a partner, Apam Nepat. His partner was the elemental connection of water to Mithras' fire -- dude's name even means Grandson of Waters. (FWIW, Apam Nepat is the cognate of Rome's Neptune and Ireland's Nechtan.)
Back to our guy, though. Mirthras was a moral god whose primary responsibility was to the rightness of action. Contracts were made in front of fires to ensure their integrity, even if they were made with asshats who were so totally going to break them. In fact, Mithras was the first such moral god in the midst of entire pantheons who didn't do all that much besides watch out for the state and its wealthiest members.
As such, once the Romans rolled on through Persia, Mithras wound up being wicked popular amongst the Roman slaves and freedmen. He started out as being worshipped in one of the mystery cults. (FYI, that link leads to a page made of AWESOME because of the other pages it links to.) He eventually wound up being the god of soldiers, with a major emphasis on brotherliness.
Like, seriously. If you're not starting to see the connection between Dean and Mithras yet a) check out this next bit and b) WHAT SHOW ARE YOU WATCHING OMG.
Central to Mithraism is that whole bull-slaying bit I mentioned earlier. Why? Because it was done to fulfill his highest function: serving as the great mediator between the heavens and earth.
Allow me to spell this out for strictly squee-related purposes: Mediator! Between an overwhelming Sun! And the Earth that the Sun was totally pissing off burning! *flails*
See, Mithras came into his own as a Big Damned Hero not as a solider, although he ultimately represented truth, honor, and courage for the warriors and soldiers. Yeah, his first great feat was to conquer the Sun, who in turn became both his double and his father. (Thus Mithras' title of Sol Invictus, btw.) However, his Sun/Father wound up asking him to slay the Great Bull in order to protect and replenish the Earth.
Mithras? So was not feelin' this. He eventually was persuaded, though. Still reluctant, he hunted the Bull with his father's guidance. He tracked that fucker down, shouldered its weight, and hauled it into the very cave Mithras was born in to slaughter it. In killing the Bull, there's all this great symbolism representing the way its death allowed life to return to the Earth. A beautiful and (to me, anyway) not insignificant quote about this I found here is The Tauroctony demonstrates literally that Love moves the Universe, because damned if that ain't the way Dean Winchester rolls.
For real, y'all. If you're not seeing the Winchesters in this story, I'm clearly telling it all damned wrong, yo. I mean, come on. Sam is a Taurus, which is the fixed earth and (I should know) most jackass-stubborn sign. While Dean's sign is Aquarius and not a fire sign, that is the sign that represents the water-bearer, who nourishes and cares for the Earth.
Do I think Kripke and co dug this deeply into the story of Mithras? Nah. Do I think Kripke and co are deliberately breathing whispers of Mithraism into how Dean has been characterized? I dunno but probably. The pendant Dean wears suggests, yeah, they do know a little somethin' somethin'. Am I pulling this connection totally out of my dorktastic ass? I don't think so. The fit, as with what I noted about John here and here, is too close for me not to think that someone knows enough about alchemy and astrology to be making reasonably informed decisions about the elements they introduce into the mytharc and characterizations.
If nothing else, though, this was a hell of a fun excuse to dig up some cool links and get my geek on again. :D Cheers!
ETA that marinarusalka passed along this link to Kipling's poem, Mithras, when I mentioned my intent to write this meta.