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Hey there. I'm Mike Rugnetta. This is Crash Course Mythology and hey, Thoth, can we talk man-to-man?
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Man-to-God? Man-to-Ibis-and-sometimes-Baboon because today's episode is about
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Mythological men and what unites them among different cultures. We've been talking about gods for months
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But now we're going to look at them more theoretically and divide them into groups based on their
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archetypal functions in myth. Grab your Papyrus, Thoth, so you can take notes. I promise it won't be rote.
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We examined female divinity archetypes in the last two episodes and
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mythologists have categorized male divinities into a similar set of archetypes. Across countless myths when male gods appear
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It's usually in one of six
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forms. Fathers and/or sons, kings and judges, saviors and sages, Shamans, Tricksters, and the lords of
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destruction and just if you got excited about finally figuring out the name of your new death metal band,
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I've got some bad news,
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it's already taken so. So let's begin at the beginning with fathers and sons. We've talked about creation myths and divine families,
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so you already know that in a lot of cases a son
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overthrows his father to usurp his spot.
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This can get pretty bloody and, as is the case with Uranus and Cronus and Zeus, can even involve
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castration. One reason god-sons might be eager to topple their divine fathers is that these fathers are often
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aloof
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Especially in creation myths, it's common for all-Powerful father figures to live in the sky being all unapproachable
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for their children. According to Scott Leonard and Michael McClure in patrifocal myths, all seek the father's love
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and approval; all long for even a glimpse of his face;
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and all live in terror of his wrath. You can just picture Apollo asking Zeus
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if he'll come outside to like kick the soccer ball around - "Come on dad, please?"
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Meanwhile Zeus is just lightning-bolting things - he's busy working. In other myths, sons become symbols of their fathers attributes or
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conduits for their father's knowledge and abilities. Take Odin and his sons Tyr and Balder;
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they epitomize their father's bravery and wisdom respectively and Thor is a distillation of Odin's military and
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reproductive power. We see something similar in a Korean myth about the heavenly ruler Hwaning.
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Before any people exist on Earth, Hwaning teaches his son Hwanung the secrets of the heavenly kingdom and allows him to descend to Earth
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to create a new society. The advice allows Hwanung to rule more effectively over the earth, and later
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he passes the same wisdom on to the first man, Dangun, so that he can recreate the heavenly order
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himself. Gods hate weeding,
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but they love order. in Hwanung's transition from archetypal son to father,
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marked by passing on knowledge to humans, he also embodies another male archetype: God as king or judge.
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There's no clear reason why pantheons of gods would need to be organized like terrestrial governments
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but there are countless myths where gods are in human leadership roles. For instance, sky gods like Zeus are often described as
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reigning like Kings and also partying like kings, if you ask Leticia,
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Roman goddess of festivity. Historically, myths featuring gods as kings have helped justify monarchical power on Earth. They create an
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equivalence between the
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terrestrial kings' ability to provide security and the gods' ability to do the same. In some traditions male divinities also act as judges; often
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judges of human souls. In Egyptian myths, Osiris and
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42 other gods test the souls of the dead to see if they were Maat Kheru, or true of voice. At times
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Osiris and Anubis are pictured weighing a soul in the form of a heart against a feather and Thoth would record the results.
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Nice work, pal. No matter how well a human has learned from their father figure, sometimes things get out of hand.
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Mythology is brimming with stories of bailouts in the form of a savior god.
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This salvation can be a
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sacrifice like the Aztec myth of Nanahuatl who throws himself onto a fire to become the sun that will nourish
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humanity - more on that in our episode about dying gods.
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More often though gods act as saviors by providing knowledge and guidance that humans need to thrive spiritually and
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survive actually.
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Usually these saviors don't die, but instead impart some important, often sacred, knowledge that if followed leads to salvation.
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We can make a case for
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Prometheus, who gives people fire, as a kind of sage and maybe we can read the biblical story of Jesus as a
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combination of savior and sage; just two great tastes that taste great together.
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According to William Doty,
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the Shaman is a figure who can enter the world of spirits easily because of the powers granted to her or him
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by such beings. Often a Shaman will travel to spiritual realms,
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journeying on a road that puts him in contact with supernatural
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forces that most people cannot see. It can be tricky to see shamans as gods rather than human heroes because
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human Shamans exists in many cultures, both historically and
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currently. It may be more helpful to think of some gods as having the skills or attributes of Shamans,
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specifically the use of
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supernatural power to provide or find the answers to
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pressing questions. For example, the Celtic deity the Dagda has a magic cauldron from which he draws special items;
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messenger gods like Hermes sprint between the Earth, the Heavens and the Underworld.
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Hermes himself was the God of alchemists and
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magicians and, functionally similar to Hermes, is our good friend Thoth. Thoth was also a heavenly messenger, often credited with special if not
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mystical knowledge about things like
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mathematics, astronomy, the alphabet and writing: that's why Thoth here is the patron god of Crash Course; not because his name is fun to say,
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but because he's awesome. High five, pal.
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Another important archetypal role for male gods is the trickster. This one is so fun that we're going to be devoting a few episodes to
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it in the future. We've already seen tricksters like Eshu,
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who you may remember from our episode on Orishas, and of course our old friend
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Loki, who you may remember from him being the worst.
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Trickster gods remind us that life's can be chaotic, and not just the creation from the void kind of chaotic.
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There's plenty of mischief that we're going to talk about; you're going to have to wait. Our last
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archetype of male divinity is the Lord of Destruction, or Lord of the Underworld.
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We've met this type before: Hades, Osiris looking at y'all's. Often they have dogs or dog-headed
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gods as helpers, like Cerberus and Anubis, and sometimes lords of the underworld are connected with greed:
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Pluto gives us the word plutocrat: someone who derives their power from their wealth; possibly because kings of the underworld never give up a soul
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once they get one. Another possible explanation for the strange connection between death and abundance
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is that some of these gods are linked with seasonal renewal and thus
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fertility, and it's not surprising that many gods of battle are archetypically male. A good example of a battle
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god who combines many masculine divine attributes is Perune, the chief Slavic deity. He sometimes pictured as a huge man with a
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silver face, a golden moustache and who wields an enormous club, a battle ax, a bow and arrow and
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thunderbolts; basically, you name it, he is going to stab someone with it. And then there's Balor,
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the celtic war god of the Fomorians.
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His single eye has a lid so heavy that it required
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servants to hoist it open which is probably a good thing because anyone who fell under
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Balor of the stout blow's gaze was crushed in an instant.
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Talk about a death stare. So as you've probably figured out, there's a lot of overlap among these archetypes. A male
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god can be a king and a sage and a father and a warrior all at the same time
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or he can fulfill different roles in different stories. A great example of this is the god Krishna in the
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Bhagavad-Gita. The Bhagavad-Gita is the sixth book in the Indian epic poem the Mahabharata; in the West,
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it's probably the most well known section of the poem. It tells the story of the Prince Arjuna and his
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charioteer, who happens to be Krishna, deciding what to do on the battlefield of Kuruksetra.
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Thought bubble's is going to help us out. In the middle of battle, Prince Arjuna is torn between his duty as a warrior and
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family loyalty. He has family on the opposite side, so he might harm them if he fulfilled his warrior Dharma.
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He's deciding whether to be a warrior or renounce his role as a Kshatriya: a member of the Hindu military caste.
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He says to Krishna, "Krishna,
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I see my kinsmen gathered here, wanting war. My limbs sink, my mouth is parched,
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my body trembles, the hair bristles on my flesh, the magic bow slips from my hand, my skin burns,
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I cannot stand still, my mind reels. I see omens of chaos, Krishna;
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I see no good in killing my kinsmen in battle." Krishna acts as a sage;
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he answers Arjuna's question then gives him the secret to living a good life,
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achieving immortality, and even becoming a sage himself.
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He says, "You must learn to endure fleeting things - they come and go!
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When these cannot torment a man, when suffering and joy are equal for him
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and he has courage, he is fit for immortality." Then Arjuna asks to see Krishna in his true form. He is
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duly
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terrified and amazed. He says, "You are the gods of wind, death, fire and water; the moon; the lord of life; the great
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ancestor... You are father of the world of animate and inanimate things, its venerable teacher, most worthy of worship...
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I bow to you." Arjuna realizes
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he must fulfill his destiny to be a warrior.
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Krishna, by embodying various archetypes, helps Arjuna to become the best and most destructive
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version of himself. Thanks
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Thought bubble. So it's interesting that even while Krishna is ultimately encouraging Arjuna to rejoin the battle,
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he's also offering a way to achieve peace and salvation within the religious tradition of Hinduism.
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Krishna even provides more than one path, inspiring Arjuna to follow his dharma,
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practice the disciplines of Yoga and worship Krishna himself, a devotion called Bhakti. When Krishna reveals himself to Arjuna,
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he is both creator and lord of destruction, glorious and terrible to behold.
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He represents the multiplicity and complexity of
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divinity, common in Indian religious texts and
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myths.
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He is
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lord and father,
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but also provides comfort like a friend or a lover, and he's a sage too when he provides a path to salvation.
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So really Krishna's pretty much the full God package. The fact that Krishna occupies almost every archetype
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we've talked about helps illustrate
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what's useful about
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identifying
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archetypes in the first place. Knowing about these categories allows us to see patterns in stories and even whole traditions. Realizing that father
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figures take different forms in different cultures or often take the same form helps us ground the connections between myth,
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culture and our beliefs about everyday life and what it means to be a dude. Thanks for watching we'll see you next week.
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Check out our Crash Course Mythology Thoth tote bag and poster, available now at dftba.com
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Crash course Mythology is filmed in the Chad and Stacey Emigholz studio in Indianapolis,
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Indiana and is produced with the help of all of these nice people. Our animation team is Thought Cafe. Crash Course exists
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thanks to the generous support of our patrons at Patreon.
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Patreon is a voluntary subscription service where you can support the content you love through a monthly donation to help keep Crash Course free for everyone for ever.
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Crash course is made with Adobe Creative Cloud; check the description for a link to a free trial. Thanks for watching. Don't worry -
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You're going to find a name for your metal band. It's out there.
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Probably in an episode about
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Egyptian Mythology.
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