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nicksgal:
So PBox&Co is a treasure trove of mythology, both its own and actual mythology. Most of this is just based on the fact that I love mythology and find it fascinating; in general, PBox&Co has a lot of author appeal what with “write the story you want to write” and all at play. If you enjoy PBox, you probably also enjoy mythology or enjoy the clever way it’s weaved into the story. Or maybe you don’t and you’re here for the shonen manga/anime and sentai series influences (it’s cool, that’s fun too). But there’s definitely things that are more blatant and things that are less so. That being said, I thought it might be fun to talk about some of the mythology in PBox since I’ve spent a lot of time in the writing threads talking about my love of mythology and that I’ve also been writing some heavily mythology/lore stuff here recently as we near the end of the entire tale. There’s some I can’t quite get into yet, but I think I’ll start at the beginning of PBox with something a little less blatant for now.

In the beginning of PBox, Nick says:


--- Quote ---“Pandora… the priestess… she knows… knows my name… Maybe not… on the surface… But… but… her heart… will react to it…”
--- End quote ---

He says it’s “Nickolas,” and Minako responds with “Nick. ”This “Nick” vs “Nickolas” is here for the Backstreet Boys connection more than anything else. In a world where they’re really the Backstreet Boys, people who knew that in their heart would clearly think “Oh, we know him as ‘Nick’, not ‘Nickolas’.” As it becomes OF, this becomes a little more muddled as the difference between “Nick” vs “Nickolas” is less clear cut and more of a familiarity thing, honestly. It’s something I’m working on adjusting or giving more of a reason outside of “these are really the Backstreet Boys.” Later in the story, we see Renee not calling the emerald demons by their generally accepted names (e.g., “JC” remains “Joshua”) and it’s really to highlight the difference between accepting our favorite little demons and not accepting them. It gets more complicated when there’s not a “standard nickname” for Brian or Kevin. And this was always an aspect of the difference between the dichotomy of their interactions that I liked, so I’m trying to keep the spirit of it. In case you were curious, the line in the OF version is this instead:


--- Quote ---“They never… responded to… my name… Pandora knows… knows my name… Not without… hearing it, but... but… her heart… is supposed to... react to it…”
--- End quote ---

Well then, knowing all of that, what’s in a name and why is knowing someone’s name so important? (Shakespeare posed a similar question to us once.) Fun fact, this isn’t Classical Mythology based like many of the other things in PBox (or Asiatic), it’s Ancient Egyptian Mythology. In general, PBox is an amalgamation of all the best and most interesting mythology out there, in your favorite gal pal’s humble opinion. So, let’s take a little stroll back to Ancient Egypt!

Basically, in the beginning of everything (supposedly), Re/Ra was the first pharaoh of all of Egypt/the whole world (because Egypt is obviously most important to Egypt, nevermind that cultures were all over and thriving at this point) and he often liked to stroll around his two kingdoms (upper and lower in elevation compared to the mouth of the Nile) and check everything out. Creation myths involving Re allege that he created everything on his own through spit or some… more fun means (except for people, who come from tears, so good for us), whether that’s water, fire, animals, deserts, other gods, whatever. And as the creator of everything, he has many names, but one that he kept secret to himself that would unlock his magic to anyone who knew it. Now Isis, a powerful goddess, magician, and healer, wanted that magic. For one of two reasons (mythology is fun): the older is that Re’s power was terrorizing the two kingdoms from the heat of the sun’s rays and she could give people respite by asking him to leave if she knew it or the slightly newer one where she needed the magic to re-create a certain missing body part for her dead husband after Set played a game of “Whoever fits in this sarcophagus wins!” “Oh no, our pharaoh Osiris is dead! And chopped into tiny pieces! And now we need a new pharaoh of all of Egypt?! Who could have possibly seen this coming?! Guess it’s me unless some more legitimate heir miraculously comes along! (Good luck procreating with your dead and dis-membered husband.)” (As I said, mythology is fun, but often snarled. How can Osiris be pharaoh when Re is pharaoh? However, this has nothing to do with PBox, it’s just extraneous background information that is also hilarious -- I’m hoping you caught my great pun.)

So Re spit one day to create something else and Isis collected it, then made a clay snake out of dirt and the spit. Re goes on his daily stroll and gets bitten by the snake. And since it was made from his magic, he can’t heal himself despite ordering the poison to leave his body (as creator of all things, you don’t need a doctor for this kind of thing). The poison makes him really feverish/sweaty and it’s difficult to speak (Huh… wasn’t there some other time someone got poisoned in PBox and couldn’t speak? Can’t recall! ;)), so he calls on the other gods/goddesses to help and they’re just as confused as he is. Then Isis comes and says she can probably do it with her magic and healing abilities, but she won’t be strong enough without knowing his true name. Not the ones everyone knows (his lesser names) or his epithets, but his real name that only he knows. He tells her, but none of the myths say what it is, so we don’t know. However, I wouldn’t put it past there being some secret mystery cult that made it integral to their worship/initiation/what have you (this is just me making up theories, this part is not fact or anything I can provide you with references for). Presumably, in addition to healing Re, Isis used the magic for one of the two reasons (depending on the age of the version) she’d wanted it originally.

So, there you go! Knowing someone’s true name gives you power over their magic, apparently. I wonder when that will come up again. Could be that it has something to do with “why Pandora?” :shrug:

I suppose this is your edition of “Dee is extremely facetious while talking to you about mythology and her magnum opus.” Hope you enjoyed it! Let me know if there’s anything specific you want to hear mythology information about or if you’re good with me talking for as long as I like about whatever.

nicksgal:
If you would still like to read PBox, I will include both location links below. While all fifty chapters of PBox are complete, it is still undergoing the tiniest cursory edit where I change the paragraph alignment of the "~*~" and fix a couple errant commas, but otherwise it's all there. Feedback is always appreciated. :)

Pandora's Box on Absolute Chaos

Pandora's Box on AO3

Please find updates as follows (links included in titles):

Chapter Eighteen ("Centered") of Pandora's Necklace on Absolute Chaos

Chapter Eleven ("Truth") of Pandora's Necklace on AO3 (You've been able to read this chapter here at AC since February, but if you had wanted to comment on it back then and didn't, now's a great time to do so. I will now stop being shameless in my updates thread.)

Enjoy! Continue to feel free to ask me anything and get answers! Thank you again to everyone reading! I would love to hear from some of you. :)

nicksgal:
We’re going to keep going with Ancient Egyptian mythology this week in our talks, because I’m not quite ready to move on to Classical Mythology aspects yet.

This week, I wanted to talk about the “Eye of Re.” You probably noticed last week that I wrote “Re/Ra” the first time I mentioned his name. The reason for this is because Ancient Egyptian is only written with consonant sounds represented by hieroglyphs, so any vowel sounds are our best approximation based on current language plus comparisons to Greek and Roman written translations. The Ptolomeys were good for something! “Ra” was the transliteratio n that was used earlier, but it’s pretty commonly accepted that it’s probably actually “Re.” Other fun facts about other Ancient Egyptian gods I mentioned last week, Set used to be called “Seth,” but we’ve pretty handidly switched that one. “Isis” is actually likely to be closer to “Iset” and “Osiris” is probably closer to “Usir.” Ancient linguistics is fun. I’ve now gotten to nerd out at you about three things I find fascinating: mythology, linguistics, and history.

Alright, so the “Eye of Re” has a few different myths attached to it, but I want to discuss it in terms of some goddess legends. So any of the “daughters of Re” can take on the eye roll as a defender of Re and/or the pharaoh. The most prevalent myth about the Eye is Sekhmet’s. So Re grew old and people stopped preserving the balance and justice he had upheld them to and he grew angry and sent Sekhmet (Hathor in the form of a lion) to defend him. This defense quickly turned into a rampage and she slaughtered many people (so much so that there were new rivers in Egypt, made from blood. Yum!). Re decided this was bad (there’s no one to worship you if all your worshipers die) and he ordered her to stop. But… she really liked killing people, so she didn’t. The gods eventually dyed some beer red, so it looked like blood, she drank it all up, fell asleep for three days, and was cured! Heck of a hangover, right?

This crazy from power aspect was the inspiration for Nick trying to use his powers without knowing them. Among other things with the Eye of Re, which you know if you know your mythology, but I’m not quite ready to discuss those. It’s also a little of the blind prophet type thing from Greece, at Delphi, I think? Anyway, blind prophets are the best since anything they tell you must be true because they can’t see anything.

This week’s chat was short. Happy Wednesday!

nicksgal:
If you would still like to read PBox, I will include both location links below. While all fifty chapters of PBox are complete, it is still undergoing the tiniest cursory edit where I change the paragraph alignment of the "~*~" and fix a couple errant commas, but otherwise it's all there. Feedback is always appreciated. :)

Pandora's Box on Absolute Chaos

Pandora's Box on AO3

Please find updates as follows (links included in titles):

Chapter Nineteen ("Weaknesses") of Pandora's Necklace on Absolute Chaos

Chapter Twelve ("Onward") of Pandora's Necklace on AO3 (You've been able to read this chapter here at AC since March.)

Enjoy! Continue to feel free to ask me anything and get answers! Thank you again to everyone reading! Please chat with me, lol.

nicksgal:
There’s two more things that stick out to me as “PBox&Co lore/mythology” that should be discussed earlier than anything else. And since we’re on a roll with Ancient Egyptian mythology, I thought this one would be fitting.

So Kevin has healing powers, but he’s originally introduced to us in the role of Gate Guardian. He weighs the hearts of women and determines whether they’re pure enough to pass through the gate. So says PBox anyway; it gets slightly more complicated in PNecklace… soon, but not yet. Though near the beginning of PNecklace, Howie does say:


--- Quote ---“We originally gave Kevin the scale in the hopes that he would be able to find Pandora of the Sapphires and bring her to us and the country. That was its main purpose.”
--- End quote ---

The symbol of the scale was originally going to be fairly important for our dearest friends from Safaiananpou, but I’ll talk about that more next week when I have a little more time to prepare my author talk. This week’s topic though, is one I have memorized, so I can talk about it pretty quickly. This aspect of the scale was one that was in the story from my first plans, I just wasn’t sure where to put it or how to use it as I was beginning to write and didn’t really figure it out until I had chosen Kevin’s powers. And then it all kind of fell into place.

I do want to remind you of the PBox scene specifically before I talk mythology because it’s more a general explanation than a specific story. So, here’s some PBox:


--- Quote ---“This is the crossroads between the kingdoms, the corners where they intersect. All who appear here must let their heart be judged. I felt you approach.” [The gate guardian] held the scale toward Minako. “You first maiden!”

Minako nodded, stepping forward.

“You face me without fear, Maiden? Interesting.” The gate guardian reached out his hand toward Minako’s chest. Minako opened her mouth to protest, but his hand was like silver lightning. He tore her heart from inside her chest and set it on the scale.

Nick and Brian gasped as Minako struggled to breathe and sank to her knees.

“Minako!” Nick exclaimed, rushing toward her with his arms outstretched, ready to pull her into his embrace.

The gate guardian put out his hand.“No. No one may touch her until her heart has been weighed. It may become corrupted with your heart’s contents.”

Nick held his hands toward her for a moment, then stepped back and clenched his hands into fists. He put a fist to his chest. I love you, but… can my heart of darkness corrupt you? What can I do?

The gate guardian stared intently at the scale. Minako’s heart began to glow with pure blue light. The gate guardian smiled as the scale began shining brightly and tipping. The side containing Minako’s heart rose as the empty side of the scale dropped drastically. “It has been a long time since I have weighed the heart of a priestess.” The gate guardian smiled. “Sapphire Pandora… You finally exist in this world?” He nodded and removed the heart from the scale, leaned down, and gently placed it back into Minako’s chest. A brief glow of blue light emanated from his fingertips. “Forgive me for my intrusion, Pandora. You are pure and may cross my gate…”
--- End quote ---

It’s nice that Kevin has healing powers and can just pull peoples’ hearts out all willy-nilly like that, no? I think of every myth I’ve ever mentioned, this is one you’re likely familiar with. So, here we go!

The weighing of the heart is probably one of the better known myths from Ancient Egypt, since unlike Classical Mythology, what we have preserved most of their rites and rituals are from tombs and thus funerary in nature. In route to the afterlife, the soul passes many trials from supernatural entities at several different gates (and these supernatural entities were pretty scary, one of them was called “he who dances in blood,” for instance). At the final gate (the Hall of Two Truths), the heart weighing is presented by Anubis for the judge Osiris (and sometimes other gods, it varies, but Osiris is constant, being god of the underworld and all). After the negative confession (an oath that the deceased had not committed any of the 42 sins, all based in everyday morality, rather than divine edict), the feather of Ma’at is placed on one side of the scale and then the deceased’s heart is placed on the other. Ma’at is both a goddess and the concept (and the word, all very convoluted) for “truth” or “justice,” but overall the ideal of truth, order, justice, good will, and stuff like that (I’m Howie today). So the mythology surmises that if the deceased was an upholder of these concepts, the side of the scale with their heart will rise and the side with Ma’at’s feather will fall, proving that as a good person in life (even if they weren’t necessarily perfect), they deserve a peaceful and just afterlife. You may or may not be wondering what happens if a heart is heavier (which could mean they were very bad or that they lied in the negative confession). Well, in that case, there is no afterlife, the deceased doesn’t even get to go back to one of the punishment gates. Instead, Ammit the devourer pops out of the ground and devours their heart and then they’re just... nothing. Yum. Now, Ammit is a composite beast with the head of a crocodile (but not wonderful crocodiles wearing pink boas), the mane/torso/front legs of a lion, and the back legs/tail of a hippo (the most fearsome creatures in all of Ancient Egypt, basically), so you know she’s especially scary.

This is one of my favorite myths in general, so that’s a lot of its inclusion in PBox. There are other reasons that I won’t get into quite yet, but if you are paying attention to the myths I have been sharing or keep careful track of everything I say or won’t say, then you may be on the path to discovering the biggest secrets in PBox&Co’s history and mythology. If anyone is dying to be spoiled, PM me and ask. I probably won’t say one way or the other, but I just want to know if anyone’s right or if I’ve done a good enough job giving just enough hints without making it super obvious.

See you next Wednesday!

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