[Hetalia] The Broken Circle Notes
Title: The Broken Circle
Author: Shira Sakura
Character(s) or Pairing(s): Germany, Italia Veneziano, Iceland, China, Egypt, Prussia, Hungary, England, America, Canada, various gods
Rating: G
Warning: SPOILERS for American Gods. These are the longer notes I spoke of.
Summary: Hetalia and American Gods crossover.
All of the poetry used in this as section dividers and cut text is from Margaret Atwood's "The Circle Game.
Part 1: Ludwig and Feleciano meet in the Hall of the Dead Gods, where Shadow went near the beginning of the book. Dresden, for historical background, is an East German city that was carpet bombed by British and American forces in WWII. The first goddess Ludwig comes across is Ixchel, a Mayan goddess. That is one of the only consistent things about her, as, combined, she is the Goddess of fertility, medicine, the moon, war, earth, rain, midwifery, and probably more. The chel part of her name possibly means rainbow, just to add to the confusion. Venus is the Roman goddess associated with love, beauty, and fertility, whose counterpart in Greek mythology is Aphrodite. Interestingly, I was unable to find the equivalent story in Roman mythology for that of Aphrodite and Pygmalion. Hypatia is the name I gave to Ancient Greece, Heracles's mother. I also have Ancient Rome killed instead of disappearing, and I subscribe to the theory that the Holy Roman Empire became Germany.
Part 2: Eiríkur Lóðirsson is the name I gave to Iceland. Icelandic names are Patronymic, so I couldn't just pick names at random, I felt. So his second name translates, roughly, to "son of the earth." Greybeard is another name for Odin, who is not Mr. Wednesday who was him. Roald is the name I gave Norway, after one of his explorers. Iceland is also sick from his financial crisis, and the events they refer to don't make sense unless you've read the book. Sorry. I also found it interesting that although the Vikings landed in Canada, all the gods are in America. There had to be a reason for that. So if America is a bad place for gods, then Canada had to be even worse, somehow.
Part 3: China is meeting with Shā Wùjìng of Journey to the West. This character briefly (and I mean briefly) appears at the almost-battle. There, he appears in his classical form. Here, he appears as Sha Gojyo of Saiyuki, a Japanese manga based loosely on Journey to the West. This part was inspired by the scene in American Gods when Shadow is seeing all the forms of the gods at once. It's all a matter of perspective.
Part 4: A Mr Ibis's storytime section. As the coroner, he was given the bodies of all the dead gods. Anyway, I originally had this part written about Ancient Egypt being Gupta's mother, but a bit more research into both Gupta and Ancient Egypt led me to the theory of a sister. Gupta's birthday is listed around 3000 BC, which was the height of the Ancient Egyptian Empire. The Pharaoh's crown was not actually a single crown, but a double crown, as they ruled over Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt as two distinct areas. Ta-Mehu was Lower Egypt, being further down the Nile, and was killed by Ancient Rome. With her death, Ta-Shemau (Upper Egypt) became the unified nation of Egypt, Kemet. He then took on the human name Gupta, which is not Egyptian at all, after he had become a victim of European imperialism.
Part 5: King of Prussia mall in Pennsylvania was named after a tavern that was named after Old Fritz. And Hungary's national animal is the Turul, a mythological bird. She is the only nation to have only a mythological creature as her national animal. Every other nation has at least one real animal.
Part 6: Eostre is an Anglo-Saxon goddess of dawn, whose name Easter was derived from. I had her head east after Lookout because of who she is. As a magically-inclined nation, England would know who she is, and he would know the rules of the game, namely, Don't bring people back to life. She was also shown to make flowers bloom in the book, hence her new florist profession. And the "She" they refer to is Death of the Endless, whose sister Delerium appeared in Los Angeles.
Part 7: House was, at the time of writing this scene, listed as the most popular show in America. Media abuses this fact; maybe she is trying to garner Alfred's support for the new gods, maybe she is just in it for herself. But she struck me as a sensual goddess, since she did offer to fuck Shadow in American Gods. She is also one of the truly American gods in the book. She quotes Mr. Wednesday's line about what is holding America together as a nation, and America quotes the Tenth Amendment. What a cockblock it is. And again, I would just like to say that I think Olivia Wilde is hot.
Part 8: I have about five different versions of this part. This is Canada, right from the start. First, the Clovis people (who are probably the people Gaiman wrote about with the Mammoth god). The Clovis comet ultimately destroys a lot of stuff but also creates the Great Lakes. The next part is one of the Coming to America scenes, when Odin comes and has a sacrifice of one of Canada's people made to him. Mount Churchill in the Yukon, and the explosion from that deposited about 50x the amount of ash of the Mount St. Helen's explosion across Northeastern Canada. Nanuq is the Inuit master of polar bears, and that is General Winter. Next up is France, and a reference to European diseases helping to wipe out the Laurentian Iroquois. Then England and America, following the Treaty of Paris; England is afraid of Nanuq, and seals him into Kumajirou, to explain the bear's forgetfulness. There is also a small reference as to why the gods are all in America; General Winter likes Canada it seems. Then we get to WWI, for another vocab lesson, with a reference to the many cultures of Canada with origin of the sun stories, and Germany wanting to have his place in the sun, specifically, an empire. And now we get back to America, following the aftermath of his near-rape. And why does Canada remember all that? Because Je me souviens, the Quebec motto.
Author: Shira Sakura
Character(s) or Pairing(s): Germany, Italia Veneziano, Iceland, China, Egypt, Prussia, Hungary, England, America, Canada, various gods
Rating: G
Warning: SPOILERS for American Gods. These are the longer notes I spoke of.
Summary: Hetalia and American Gods crossover.
All of the poetry used in this as section dividers and cut text is from Margaret Atwood's "The Circle Game.
Part 1: Ludwig and Feleciano meet in the Hall of the Dead Gods, where Shadow went near the beginning of the book. Dresden, for historical background, is an East German city that was carpet bombed by British and American forces in WWII. The first goddess Ludwig comes across is Ixchel, a Mayan goddess. That is one of the only consistent things about her, as, combined, she is the Goddess of fertility, medicine, the moon, war, earth, rain, midwifery, and probably more. The chel part of her name possibly means rainbow, just to add to the confusion. Venus is the Roman goddess associated with love, beauty, and fertility, whose counterpart in Greek mythology is Aphrodite. Interestingly, I was unable to find the equivalent story in Roman mythology for that of Aphrodite and Pygmalion. Hypatia is the name I gave to Ancient Greece, Heracles's mother. I also have Ancient Rome killed instead of disappearing, and I subscribe to the theory that the Holy Roman Empire became Germany.
Part 2: Eiríkur Lóðirsson is the name I gave to Iceland. Icelandic names are Patronymic, so I couldn't just pick names at random, I felt. So his second name translates, roughly, to "son of the earth." Greybeard is another name for Odin, who is not Mr. Wednesday who was him. Roald is the name I gave Norway, after one of his explorers. Iceland is also sick from his financial crisis, and the events they refer to don't make sense unless you've read the book. Sorry. I also found it interesting that although the Vikings landed in Canada, all the gods are in America. There had to be a reason for that. So if America is a bad place for gods, then Canada had to be even worse, somehow.
Part 3: China is meeting with Shā Wùjìng of Journey to the West. This character briefly (and I mean briefly) appears at the almost-battle. There, he appears in his classical form. Here, he appears as Sha Gojyo of Saiyuki, a Japanese manga based loosely on Journey to the West. This part was inspired by the scene in American Gods when Shadow is seeing all the forms of the gods at once. It's all a matter of perspective.
Part 4: A Mr Ibis's storytime section. As the coroner, he was given the bodies of all the dead gods. Anyway, I originally had this part written about Ancient Egypt being Gupta's mother, but a bit more research into both Gupta and Ancient Egypt led me to the theory of a sister. Gupta's birthday is listed around 3000 BC, which was the height of the Ancient Egyptian Empire. The Pharaoh's crown was not actually a single crown, but a double crown, as they ruled over Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt as two distinct areas. Ta-Mehu was Lower Egypt, being further down the Nile, and was killed by Ancient Rome. With her death, Ta-Shemau (Upper Egypt) became the unified nation of Egypt, Kemet. He then took on the human name Gupta, which is not Egyptian at all, after he had become a victim of European imperialism.
Part 5: King of Prussia mall in Pennsylvania was named after a tavern that was named after Old Fritz. And Hungary's national animal is the Turul, a mythological bird. She is the only nation to have only a mythological creature as her national animal. Every other nation has at least one real animal.
Part 6: Eostre is an Anglo-Saxon goddess of dawn, whose name Easter was derived from. I had her head east after Lookout because of who she is. As a magically-inclined nation, England would know who she is, and he would know the rules of the game, namely, Don't bring people back to life. She was also shown to make flowers bloom in the book, hence her new florist profession. And the "She" they refer to is Death of the Endless, whose sister Delerium appeared in Los Angeles.
Part 7: House was, at the time of writing this scene, listed as the most popular show in America. Media abuses this fact; maybe she is trying to garner Alfred's support for the new gods, maybe she is just in it for herself. But she struck me as a sensual goddess, since she did offer to fuck Shadow in American Gods. She is also one of the truly American gods in the book. She quotes Mr. Wednesday's line about what is holding America together as a nation, and America quotes the Tenth Amendment. What a cockblock it is. And again, I would just like to say that I think Olivia Wilde is hot.
Part 8: I have about five different versions of this part. This is Canada, right from the start. First, the Clovis people (who are probably the people Gaiman wrote about with the Mammoth god). The Clovis comet ultimately destroys a lot of stuff but also creates the Great Lakes. The next part is one of the Coming to America scenes, when Odin comes and has a sacrifice of one of Canada's people made to him. Mount Churchill in the Yukon, and the explosion from that deposited about 50x the amount of ash of the Mount St. Helen's explosion across Northeastern Canada. Nanuq is the Inuit master of polar bears, and that is General Winter. Next up is France, and a reference to European diseases helping to wipe out the Laurentian Iroquois. Then England and America, following the Treaty of Paris; England is afraid of Nanuq, and seals him into Kumajirou, to explain the bear's forgetfulness. There is also a small reference as to why the gods are all in America; General Winter likes Canada it seems. Then we get to WWI, for another vocab lesson, with a reference to the many cultures of Canada with origin of the sun stories, and Germany wanting to have his place in the sun, specifically, an empire. And now we get back to America, following the aftermath of his near-rape. And why does Canada remember all that? Because Je me souviens, the Quebec motto.