"All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them power to pull ours."
--Alduos Huxley.
I gotta say, one reason to love the Persona series is, not all the slashing/pairing potential, but the mythological, literary, and biblical references! Yep. I don't know how many of you reading this know, but I've been interested in Mythology since before the fourth grade. This has a lot to do with it, but it's not soley responsible.
I've been playing Persona 3 for a while now. The story interests me, the characters are entertaining, and the battle system actually doesn't piss me off. <3 Now then, you have no idea how happy I was recalling the myth of Orpheus, and then reading this about how the game handles it:
"Orpheus appears as the main Protagonist's first usable Persona in the video game Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 using his music as attacks and his lyre as a weapon. When the main character first summons Thanatos, Orpheus is killed by him from having his body ripped apart and his head being removed first. Orpheus can't speak through his mouth but uses a speaker to talk. Also, Orpheus' appearance is that of a mechanical body with an organic head placed on top of it and a heavy scarf covering the neck, as though his head was all that remained. "
--"Orpheus in pop culture," Orpheus main article on Wikipedia
For you who don't know, Orpheus is considered the son of Apollo and Calliope, which explains his immense gift at the musical arts, seeing as his father is the god of music and his mother was one of the nine Muses (Homer's Muse, the muse of heroic poetry). Wikipedia says, "The Greeks of the Classical age venerated the legendaryfigure of Orpheus as chief among poets and musicians, and the perfector of the lyre invented by Hermes. Poets like Simonides of Ceos said that, with his music and singing, he could charm birds, fish and wild beasts, coax the trees and rocks into dance,and even divert the course of rivers. He was one of the handful of Greek heroes to visit the Underworld and return; even in Hades his song and lyre did not lose their power."
The rest of the story goes that one day while frolicking with his lover, Eurydice, a snake came up from the grass and bite her on the heel. The wound was fatal, and the broken-hearted Orpheus played such sad songs and sang so mournfully that all the nymphs and gods wept. On their advice, Orpheus traveled to the Underworld and by his music softened the hearts of Hades and persophone (he was the only person ever to do so), who agreed to allow Eurydice to return with him to earth on one condition: he should walk in front of her and not look back until they both had reached the upper world. He set off with Eurydice following and in his anxiety as soon as he reached the upper world he turned to look at her, forgetting that both needed to be in the upper world, and she vanished for the second time, but now forever.
The story of Eurydice may actually be a late addition to the Orpheus myths. In particular, the name Eurudike ("she whose justice extends widely") recalls cult-titles attached to Persephone. The myth may have been mistakenly derived from another Orpheus legend in which he travels to Tartarus and charms the goddess Hecate, the goddess of childbirth, nurturing the young, gates and walls, doorways, crossroads, magic, lunar lore, torches and dogs.
The desecent in to the Underworld of Orpheus is paralleled in other versions of a worldwide theme: the Japanese myth of Izanagi and Izanami, the Akkadian/Sumerian myth of Inanna's Descent to the Underworld, and Mayan myth of Ix Chel and Itzamna, all of which -- if I'm not mistaken -- are referenced one way or another in the Persona series and Megaten in general.
Anyways, regarding his death, Ovid recounts that the Thracian Maenads, Dionysus' followers, spurned by Orpheus who'd forsworn the love of women after the death of Eurydice and had taken only youths as his lovers,first threw sticks and stones at him as he played beneath a tree in mourning, but his music was so beautiful even the rocks and branches refused to hit him. Enraged, the Maenads tore him to pieces during the frenzy of their Bacchic orgies. Medieval folkore put additional spin on the story: in Albrecht Dürer's drawing the ribbon high in the tree is lettered Orfeus der erst puseran, translating to "Orpheus, the first sodomite."
His head and lyre, still singing mournful songs, floated down the swift Hebrus to the Mediterranean shore. There, the winds and waves carried them on to the Lesbos shore, where the inhabitants buried his head and a shrine was built in his honour near Antissa; there his oracle prophesied, until it was silenced by Apollo. The lyre was carried to heaven by the Muses, and was placed among the stars. The Muses also gathered up the fragments of his body and buried them at Leibethra below Mount Olympus, where the nightingales sang over his grave....
And that's why the representation of Orpheus x Thanatos makes me a happy fan girl, as well as everything else in that game regarding mythstory. <3
At a later date I will further dicuss the mythological, biblical, and literary references in P3 -- especially the mythological basis for Junpei/Akihiko -- as well as other games. But for now, I must away and spend my lovely day off playing the game.
Toodles!
--Soupy