Reading Diary A: Japanese Mythology

For my first reading diary this week, I read the first half of the Japanese Mythology unit.  I loved reading about Amaterasu, especially because one of my favorite video games, Okami, is based partly around Amaterasu's interaction of the Eight-Forked snake (called Orochi in the game).

A lot of the game mirrors the legends around Amaterasu.

In the game, she is in the form of a wolf and carries a sun disk, a weapon, on her back.  The disk can also be changed out for a chain of beads (resembling the precious stones of the necklace Amaterasu is given by her father in the legends) or a sword.

The legends describe Amaterasu as sitting at a loom with her handmaidens and weaving people's fates; in the game - Amaterasu uses the Celestial Brush, in her wolf form this is her tail, which she uses to control the various natural forces around her (making the sun or moon rise, making flowers or trees bloom, controlling wind and fire and water, and even slowing time).

One of the main plots of the game is to defeat Orochi, the eight-headed demon whose arrow marks the house of the young girl who's to be sacrificed to him.  Amaterasu, with the help of a cast of characters, defeats Orochi by getting each of the eight heads drunk off of a specially brewed sake - just like in the legends.  Also just like the legends, on Orochi's back, is a large garden with a temple bell; each of Orochi's heads has control over an element: dark, earth, fire, light, lightning, poison, water, and wind.

Amaterasu vs. Orochi [x]

Thoughts about Comments

The most useful types of comments are comments that are unique.  For my storytelling posts, I prefer comments with some critique because I want to be a better writer.  For my introduction post, I like comments that let me know if we have something in common.

As for my own comments, it's easy to leave these kinda formulaic comments - "you did this and this really well" - that aren't always unique.  It's a habit that I'm trying to break; I'm trying to put more time into what I say about an author's work.

Extra Reading Diary: Ancient Egypt

For this reading diary, I wanted to concentrate on the story about the two brothers.  I loved the story – it’s intricate and it seems like it was just one thing after another for poor Bata. I wish there was more detail about exactly what kind of markings a sacred bull had.  So I did some research.

The markings of an Apis bull – a bull who represented Ptah – had a black body with a white triangle on his forehead, a white vulture wing outline on his back, a scarab mark under his tongue, a white crescent moon on his right flank, and double the amount of hairs on his tail.

I thought that something with this high of a level of importance to Egyptians would mean that there would be more artwork featuring these types of markings.  But there are only two – one shows the white triangle and the other shows the vulture wing outline.

Adorning the Apis bull for the ceremony by Jean Baptiste Coene [x]

 

Procession of the Apis Bull by Frederick Bridgman [x]

Considering the amount of time people put into reviving nearly extinct horse breeds (the Przewalski’s horse, for example) or even all of the attempts to bring back the Woolly mammoth and Pyrenean ibex, I’m surprised someone hasn’t tried to re-create these markings so that they resemble one breed.  Then again, that would cheapen the significance of the markings – which served as a sign of Ptah’s presence.

Reading Diary A: Ancient Egypt

One of the fun things about this week’s reading section – Egyptian mythology – is that it is something that is so familiar.  I’m always fascinated to read how all the different takes there are on these same tales.

For example, one of my favorite television shows, Supernatural, showcased the god Osiris.  In the show, the god is portrayed by Faran Tahir.  After meeting Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles) and sensing Dean’s guilt for recent events of the show, he kidnaps Dean to judge him.  If Dean’s conscious weighs more than feather – Osiris will kill him.

Osiris, God of the Dead [x]

However, at the last minute, Sam – Dean’s brother, portrayed by Jared Padalecki – shows up and demands a trial.  Osiris allows it on the condition that he gets to call three witnesses and the brothers can’t know who those witness are.  Sam, drawing on the few years of law school he had under his belt, acted as Dean’s defense attorney – even formally objecting to some Osiris’s actions (which Osiris promptly overrules).

In the show, Osiris is shown as having power of the spirits of the dead – able to control them and force them to do his bidding.  He finds those who are guilty of causing the death of another – either intentionally or unintentionally, the main focus is on if they feel guilty, kidnaps and brings them to “court”, and judges them.  If he finds them to be guilty, he kills them with the spirit of their victim.

With Dean, who feels guilty over a lot of things, his “trial” is quick and Osiris sentences him to death.  In the end, Sam finds a bit of lore that says that Osiris can be put into a centuries-long hibernation if he is stabbed with a ram’s horn.

Sam stabbing Osiris and saving his brother [x]

Tech Tip Website

I am doing a storybook for my project.  It is based on the Aesop animals and I'm having some of them go to therapy via Dr. Phil and Jerry Springer.  It's called: The Trouble With Aesop's Animals.

Reading Diary B: Turkish Fairy Tales

The story I most enjoyed from the second half of this unit was The Wizard and his Pupil.  It reminded me of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice – the Nicolas Cage movie – except I don’t think the apprentice kills the sorcerer.

Throughout this unit, dervishes are mention.  I was surprised to hear that they were actually holy men – the first time I had heard about them was in the movie Meet Joe Black.  Sir Anthony Hopkins’s character is telling his daughter that he wants to see her happy, to see her “dancing like a dervish.”  From this context, and because of the premise of the movie, I had assumed that a dervish was a type of devil – though why he would want his daughter to be dancing like a devil, I don’t know, that’s just what I thought.

Starting at 1:01, William Parrish (Sir Anthony Hopkins) tells his daughter how happy he wants her to be in her relationship

So I thought a dervish was a devil because in this movie, Hopkins is playing William Parrish – a businessman on the verge of retirement when, after having a heart attack, makes a deal with Death: show Death around in order to buy himself just a little more time.  Death, portrayed by Brad Pitt, takes the name Joe Black as he accompanies Parrish to work, a media company Parrish has built from the ground up.  It was Parrish’s passion for life and his love for his family that had attracted Death to him in the first place – it was how he had lived his life so fully.

Through Parrish, Death learns more about life – and love.  Eventually falling for Parrish’s daughter.  He comes to care about Parrish himself, too, even helping him expose someone who was trying to steal Parrish’s company from under his feet.

 Best scene of the movie - Death is visiting Parrish's daughter, a doctor at a local hospital, when an older Jamaican woman sees him for what he is.

Reading Diary A: Turkish Fairy Tales

For my reading diary, I read the Turkish Fairy Tales unit and my favorite story by a mile was The Crow-Peri.  Maybe because I’ve always been partial to crows in mythology and folktales.  And while they normally get the short end of the stick by being portrayed as wicked or harbingers of death – I like that this story shows the crow-peri as a helper to the hero.  And when it’s revealed that the crow was making up for a past crime – I loved her even more.  Of course, it’s always nice when there’s a happy ending – she gets married to the bird catcher after proving herself changed to the fairy queen.

One of my favorite movies is The Crow, starring Brandon Lee – the son of Bruce Lee.  Lee’s character, Eric Draven, is brought back to life by a crow a year after he and his fiancé were brutally murdered on Devil’s Night.  The crow is a source of power for Eric, making him impervious to injury until he has gotten his revenge. 

After killing someone who was responsible for his and his fiancé's murder, Eric would leave behind a crow. [x]

Unfortunately, Brandon Lee was killed on set while filming a scene in which his character is shot with a .44 magnum.  The weapon had been used a few days prior with a dummy round that had a projectile and primer, but no gun powder – after a test fire the projectile stayed inside the barrel of the gun.  Later, the weapon was loaded with blanks – bullets that have primer and gunpowder, but no projectile – and when the gun was fired, the projectile was pushed out of the barrel as if it were a normal bullet. [x]

Week 3 in Style

Topic

My Storybook will be an anthology centering around Aesop animal characters on shows like Jerry Springer and Dr. Phil, and on twitter. 

Stories I will be using for Jerry Springer Show will be two or three of these (I haven't narrowed it down yet): The Dog, The Cock, and the Fox, The Farmer and the Stork, The Travelers and the Purse, The Wolf and the Lion, and The Wolf and the Lean Dog.  Maybe one episode could be “What to Do When a Friend Is In Need” and use the characters from The Dog, The Cock, and the Fox, The Travelers and the Purse, and The Wolf and the Lean Dog.

(Note: while the characters will continue to go by their animal names, I still think of them looking human - so perhaps it's a universe where some people have second forms and, if they do, they go by the name of that form.  That second form won't give them any special powers beyond transformation or influencing their human forms just a little.)

Shea Weber (#6) and Seth Jones (#3) as Big Dog and Lean Dog respectively. [x]

Stories I will be using for Dr. Phil are The Boy and the Filberts and The Mice and the Weasels.  The boy’s mother from The Boy and the Filberts is trying to get help for her son, who won’t take his hand out of the filbert jar; meanwhile, the mice from The Mice and the Weasels come on to talk about their PTSD and try to rally the rest of animal kind to their defense.

The social media outlet I was thinking about using was twitter and the stories I will use are The Lion and the Ass and The Wolf and his Shadow.  In both of these cases I’ll be working along the theme of animal A calling out animal B, or A bragging and B calling them out, and, say, if either of them were famous, what kind of reaction there would be from various news outlets or gossip columns.  Will the boxer, Wolf, who keeps boasting about how big and tough he is, finally be successful in getting a fight with renowned heavy weight champ Lion?  Will Ass, who keeps sending vaguely threatening tweets to Lion, finally get a response?  There’s a lot that can happen on Twitter…

Bibliography

1. The Aesop for Children, with illustrations by Milo Winter (1919).

Styles

Interview.  I believe this style will fit wonderfully with either of the talk shows, especially Dr. Phil because there is much more of an interview – a lot of give and take – going on during his show.  Certainly more than there is with Jerry Springer.

Story told in a bar and Outsider POV.  For this style, I was going to tell it from the third person point of view of an audience member during the taping of Jerry Springer.  The story I want to use is The Wolf and the Lean Dog, so this audience member, Jackdaw, is talking about how he was SO SURPRISED when the Lean Dog brought out his friend, Big Dog, and how Big Dog wasted no time in tackling Wolf and beating him up. 

Now since Jackdaw isn’t in this story himself, and is looking in on the plight of the three main characters, he has the outsider’s point of view which lends a new perspective to the overall feel of the story.  Does Jackdaw pity Wolf for not getting his meal?  Does he think Lean Dog is cunning for how he tricks Wolf?  Does he marvel at Big Dog’s strength and loyalty?

Video Note: Edward Kenway, the guy in the white hood, is a character from Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, and if you're curious as to why I chose him as Jackdaw, read this reading diary and this storytelling post.  (I put up this video because I couldn't choose which screencap to use.)

Social Media.  I’ve written fictionalized twitter interactions before and it was a lot of fun – especially trying to stick to the 140 character limit.  So I think it will be a great challenge to see if I can nail down the characterizations of Aesop’s animals within such a limited space.  Which animal would be most likely to post Instagram photos to their account?  Do they use Twitlonger to go on rants about social injustices?  How is their grammar?  How often do they change their avatar and name or do they ever change either?

Storytelling for Week 3: Of Mothers and Sons

Author's Note:  What I did with this story was I wrote it in drabbles, in 100-word snippets, in different point of views.  Two of them are from Aible's POV and two of them are in Wolf-Mother's POV. The story I used is The Wolf Mother of Saint Aible, the story of an infant who is abandoned in the woods before being adopted by a wolf. The boy spends a few years with the wolf and her cubs, but he is soon chanced upon by a hunter who scoops him up, "rescuing" him, and bring the boy home to his wife - the wolf and her cubs (who are mostly grown) chase after the rider, but can't quite catch him.  The boy, named Aible, grows up to become a holy man.  One day, he hears hunting dogs barking and runs outside - and immediately recognizes his now old wolf mother as the dogs' prey.  She recognizes him, too, and runs into his arms.

Of Mothers and Sons

-

Wolf-Mother

-

The moment the hunter scoops up her fur-less son, Wolf-Mother feels rage spreading through chest like winter ice – unforgiving, deadly.

Mama! Aible cries, screaming and reaching over the hunter’s shoulder.

She stretches her long body over the earth – praying to Wolf Moon for speed and endurance.  For if she and her sons could take down the mighty stags of the forest, surely this horse and its wicked rider would be easy enough to pull to ground.

But then one of her wolf sons begins to slow. And then the others.  And then herself.

And then her fur-less cub is gone.

-

Aible

-

Aible dreams of the woods sometimes. 

He dreams of sunlight dappling the forest floor and fresh flowers beginning to bud.

He dreams of the wolves he called elder brother, big brother, small brother, and young brother.  He dreams of playing their games and learning bird songs.

He dreams of cuddling into warmth and softness, of whispering mama with a low growl as an answer.  He dreams of big golden eyes and long fangs that always offered protection and the rare rebuke.

Aible dreams of the woods sometimes – and, when he wakes up, wishes only to return there.  To return home.

-

“What did you say, sir?” asks a priest.

“Nothing,” Aible says, turning away pointedly to stare out of the window.  The people around him were harder to deal with than usual today – Aible’s patience was already nearing its end despite the earliness of the day.

Aible turns and walks down to the gardens – the only place in the town that made any sense to him.  The birds would often come to see him, to laugh at his stories and give him encouragements.

He knows it frightens some when they find him talking in the language of animals – he doesn’t care. 

-

Wolf-Mother

-

It is only because of her old age that she didn’t hear the hounds before they were nearly upon her.  She snarls viciously at the dogs, and runs – she twists and winds her way through the forest, but she’s cut off.

Then a crow screams, Head for the town – there is someone there who will protect you.

She doesn’t know why she listens, but she does.  And it’s not until she is near, when she sees a man much like the others, that she feels her heart sing.  Her fur-less cub falls to his knees and opens his arms wide.

This is who I pictured as Wolf-Mother. [x]

Bibliography:

The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts by Abbie Farwell Brown (1900).

Reading Diary B: Saints and Animals

You would almost think that because of the superstitious nature of early Christians, that anyone with the kind of power over animals that these saints  have, that they would be accused of witchcraft. Well, maybe if they were using the animals to kill people or to steal, instead of getting those animals to stop killing and stealing.

Saint Athracta’s Stags was a ballad I thoroughly enjoyed. There were just so many different things I could focus on. Two old chargers plowing a tiny field is wonderful to try to imagine. (But what happened to their previous owners? Was it common practice for knights to just get rid of old horses who had been with them in war? Seems a bit callous.)

The stags coming along to help pull the lumber is another awesome picture (I tried to find a picture of deer pulling a cart and couldn’t find anything that wasn’t Christmas related; there were some interesting ones featuring elk, moose, bison, and dogs). But I can’t really see Bambi’s dad subjecting himself to hard labor outside of running away from a forest fire. He’s too majestic.

So much majesty. [x]

Nearly as majestic as Thorin Oakenshield of The Hobbit, portrayed by Richard Armitage in Peter Jackson’s trilogy of the same name.

Majestic Thorin is majestic. [x]

The other story I loved was The Wolf-Mother of Saint Ailbe – which may be the one I do for my storytelling post, but I’m not sure. I may take it and see if I can put a twist to it, set it against the backdrop of Assassin’s Creed or perhaps The Hobbit.  It would be interesting to see the story from the wolf's point of view and I think it would be a fun challenge to take that story and set it in a different universe.

Reading Diary A: Saints and Animals

While reading this unit, all I could think about was the Doctor, the titular character from Doctor Who.  Doctor Who is a British television show that ran during the sixties to late eighties before being rebooted in 2005, and is still running today. 

It follows the story of a Time Lord, an alien species from Gallifrey.  The Doctor is able to regenerate – change forms – if he is severely injured, so there have been several actors who have portrayed him in in the series.  The Doctor can travel throughout time and space in his TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension in Space), which due to a malfunction, looks like a blue police box (but don’t worry, it’s bigger on the inside).  The Doctor usually travels with companions – usually women who he has no romantic inclinations towards (though there have been exceptions to this).

All of the Doctors.  The bottom row is from the reboot, sometimes called New Who.

Since the series’ reboot, there have been four new Doctors – in fandom they are referenced by their regeneration number as Nine, Ten, Eleven, and Twelve.  In the 50^th anniversary special, The War Doctor was introduced as the Doctor between Eight and Nine, who fought during the Time War.  The War was between the Daleks and the Time Lords over control of the universe or time itself, I’m not sure.

Though the Doctor isn’t a saint by any stretch of the imagination – he is still a good person, he still wants to help people, but he would still never see himself as such.  And it takes a lot to get him angry – something his antagonists soon come to realize was a horrible idea.

All four of the saints in the first half of the unit show flashes of anger after varying levels of abuse, particularly Saint Comgall.  There’s a line in the Doctor Who episode “A Good Man Goes to War” when the big bad says that “the anger of a good man is not a problem.  Good men have too many rules.”  Eleven had simply responded with, “Good men don’t need rules.  Today is not the day to find out why I have so many.”

Eleven, portrayed by Matt Smith. [x]

So while the Doctor doesn’t seem himself as a good man, he has proven throughout the series that he will go out of his way to help – not only people he cares about – but also total strangers, often changing lives wherever he goes.

   

Twelve (Peter Capaldi) and his companion, Clara (Jenna Coleman)

Topics Brainstorm

Topic #1: Bun-Vengers (bunny Avengers) + Tejas Legends

• Comments:  The comment you made, Laura, about super hero rabbits is what got me to thinking about this.  What I would like to do is take a few of the Tejas tales and replace some of the characters with bunny Avengers.
• Possible Stories: Tejas Legends (I have loose plotlines for The Plant That Grows in Trees, Why the Woodpecker Pecks, Old Woolly Bird’s Sacrifice, The Swift Blue One, Why Hummingbirds Drink Only Dew, and How Sickness Entered the World)
• Sample Story:  For Why Hummingbirds Drink Only Dew – that could be changed to something like Captain Bun-merica and Iron Rabbit racing across an apple orchard and the loser is never able to eat apples again.  (My rabbits like apples more than they like carrots which is why I would prefer to use an apple orchard as opposed to a carrot field.)
• Bibliography: When the Storm God Rides: Tejas and Other Indian Legends retold by Florence Stratton and illustrated by Berniece Burrough (1936).

I just found this after I had the idea and I'm so happy the internet exists. [x]

Topic #2: Aesop animals on Jerry Springer, Dr. Phil, and Twitter

• Comments: Not to totally date myself, but I really enjoy the idea of someone like the Fox sitting on a chair trying to get Jerry and the audience to feel bad for him (“I’m just a hungry fox”). Before the Dog comes out and beats him up for trying to eat his friend, Rooster.
• Possible stories:
• Jerry Springer: The Dog, the Cock, and the Fox; The Farmer and the Stork; The Travelers and the Purse; The Wolf and the Lion; and The Wolf and the Lean Dog.
• Dr. Phil: The Wolf and the Kid; The Boy and the Filberts; The Plane Tree; and The Mice and the Weasels 
• Twitter: The Lion and the Ass and The Wolf and His Shadow 
• Sample Story: (The Wolf and the Lean Dog) The Wolf comes on the show, thinking that this is when the Lean Dog will make good on his word – instead, the Lean Dog brings out his big dog friend. Whose name is Steve Wilkos.
• Bibliography: The Aesop for Children, with illustrations by Milo Winter (1919).

Lean Dog and Big Dog [x]

Topic #3: Spirits/mystical creatures as hockey players

• Comments: Hockey season is still a month out, but players are starting to return to the cities they play in for training camp and to get ready for the pre-season.
• Possible Stories: I’ve been reading the stories from the Pacific Northwest and British North America units and I think that it would be awesome to treat characters such as Beaver (from How Beaver Stole Fire) as immortal spirits. Do they their own magic? After people were created, did they learn how to shape shift? (Yes, I’m going to say yes. And then they played with humans and learned their games – lacrosse, ball games, and eventually hockey.)
• Sample Story:
• Pacific Northwest: How Silver-Fox Created the World (player I pictured: Willie Mitchell); How Coyote Got His Cunning (Beau Bennett); How Beaver Stole Fire (Chris Pronger because of this)
• British North America: Origin of Rivers in Queen Charlotte (Carey Price, pictured below); Creation of Light (Evander Kane); Grizzly Bear and Coyote (Shea Weber and Brent Seabrook respectively).
• Bibliography: Myths and Legends of the Pacific Northwest, especially of Washington and Oregon, by Katharine Berry Judson (1910).; Myths and Legends of British North America by Katharine Berry Judson (1917).

Carey Price is the clear choice for Raven.

Topic #4: Historical Figures As Mythical Creatures

• Comments: Imagine Abraham Lincoln as a vampire (this is my shout out to Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith), George Washington as literally a bald eagle (shout out to my Assassin’s Creed fixation and partially inspired by the video below; warning: the video contains mild violence), and Obama as a unicorn. 
• Possible Stories: I just really enjoy the idea of Vampire Abraham Lincoln being involved in the civil rights movement of the 60s.
• Sample Story: The Lion and The Unicorn
• Bibliography: The Nursery Rhyme Book, edited by Andrew Lang and illustrated by L. Leslie Brooke (1897).

Extra Reading Diary: Tejas Legends

I really loved all of the Tejas Legends.  Especially Old Quanah's Gift since it's a story about Indian Blanket – Oklahoma's state flower! And now the name Indian Blanket makes sense.  Speaking of names – the name “Quanah” is shared with the prominent Comanche chief: Quanah Parker; he was the first mixed race chief of the Comanche and the last free chief.  The film Dances with Wolves is loosely based off of Parker’s mother, Cynthia Ann Parker.

Cynthia was captured by a Comanche raiding party when she was very young, and held for ransom, however her extended family couldn’t find her so she stayed with the tribe.  The woman whose job it was to look after Cynthia used to beat her until finally, Cynthia had had enough and finally stood up for herself. 

After that, the Comanche – who value strength – named her “Stands with a Fist” and fully accepted her into the tribe.  She married the chief’s son and they had three children together.   The chief’s son loved her so much that he didn’t take another wife which was the custom – Quanah himself would have up to eight wives (most of his descendants seem to live in Lawton) (which is also the location of the Comanche Museum).

Quana Parker by my mom (Rhonda Milia), done with oils on canvas.

The other story that I really loved was The Cottonwood Remembers.  Cottonwood trees are my favorite tree because I love how their fluffy seeds just cover everything (you just have to remember to stay away from them during lightning storms).  Plus one of my favorite songs talks about “Cottonwood fallin’ like snow in July” by the great bard, Luke Bryan.

Storytelling for Week 2: The Jackdaw who would be an Eagle

Author’s note: This is my storytelling project for The Eagle and the Jackdaw from Aesop's Winter Fables and I’m putting an Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag twist to it (well, it kinda turned out to be a Black Flag  retelling with the fable twist to it).  My reading diary post may help you understand more what is going on if you’re not familiar with the Assassin’s Creed mythos.  Another thing to note is that I’m treating Edward as a jackdaw and Duncan Walpole, the Assassin, as the eagle.

The Jackdaw who would be an Eagle

Edward was a jackdaw with eagle’s eyes – for he lusted after gold and infamy, yet had the ability to see the intentions of those around him (those colored red were enemies, blue were allies, and gold – well, gold was the target, they were the one who had what he wanted).  But, even with the skill, a jackdaw is still a jackdaw.

Cape Bonavista, 1715

The eagle waits. [x]

Cannon blasts ring around him, men were screaming and most were dying, and the pre-dawn thunderstorm does nothing to drown out the sounds of battle.

There’s a fire burning at Edward’s back and his captain shouting out orders, but Edward can’t look away when, as if in slow motion, an eagle dressed as a man descends from the sky and sinks his talons into Edward’s captain.  His cold, dark eyes, shadowed by night and a hood, look up at him – then he’s stepping towards Edward.

They stare at each other, the eagle, with the white hood glowing a brilliant red in the night fog, and the jackdaw.  And just as Edward goes to fly forward, the fire reaches the magazine, the gunpowder stores – and the ship beneath his feet explodes and sends him into the water.

The jackdaw faces down the eagle. [x]

Moonlight dances in the water above him, reflecting and mixing with the orange glow of fires.  He comes back to himself, just as his back hits the sea floor, and panic and adrenaline sends him swimming desperately towards the surface.

Edward makes it to shore, swimming through the wreckage of his still burning ship, as the sun begins to rise.

Then the eagle, too, is crawling ashore.  A glance at him and Edward can’t help but smile – the eagle’s wings had been damaged in the explosion and the red about him was slowly beginning to fade.  The eagle had an hour, maybe two.

“Havana,” the eagle says, “I must get to Havana.”

“I don’t think you have that long,” Edward says, standing and walking over to the injured eagle. 

But he gets too close and the eagle lashes out, kicking Edward’s legs out from under him and pulling a pistol.  Edward sneers when, after pulling the trigger, there’s nothing a click.

Edward doesn’t hesitate as he draws the swords that had managed to stay with him through the explosion.  The eagle fights hard at first, but he’s losing blood quickly and his movements become slower and slower.

The killing blow is quick.

"Mr. Walpole... let's collect your Reward." [screenshot from x]

In the eagle’s clothing Edward finds a letter and a cubed vial.  The words “If you truly possess the information we desire, we have the means to reward you handsomely” and “Though I will not know your face by sight, I believe I can recognize the costume made infamous by your secret order.”

Reward, is the word that Edward focuses on.  So he takes the eagle’s robes, who the letter had identified as Duncan Walpole, and puts them on.

Edward feels a rush of power – feels himself becoming an eagle.

It’s not until later, when he’s on his knees surrounded by the men who call themselves Templars, that he realizes that he wasn’t an eagle – simply a jackdaw dressed as one.

Just a jackdaw after all. [screenshot from x]

Bibliography

Aesop. 2006. The Aesop for Children. Chicago: Rand McNally & Co.

IZUNIY. 2014. Assassin's Creed 4 Black Flag All Cutscenes Movie.

Keane, Mark. n.d. Tumblr. Accessed September 02, 2015.

Reading Dairy B: Aesop's Fables (Winter)

So the fable, The Mischievous Dog, from Aesop's Winter Fables, kinda reminds me of hockey goons. A goon is a type of player who may not necessarily be great at hockey – but is most definitely great at fighting. He is there as a deterrent to opposing players to keep them from messing with star players, usually stars who are very young.

The 2005-06 NHL season, is the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Sidney Crosby’s rookie season. Crosby was known as “The Next One” – a reference to Wayne Gretzky.

Wayne Gretzky, the only player to have his number retired league-wide, and Sidney Crosby, arguably the best player in the game today.

[Sidebar: Gretzky a.k.a. “The Great One” whose 20 year hockey career had been spent setting impossible records. Gretzky is the only player to ever accumulate 200 points in one season. And he did it twice. The only other player who ever came close was Mario Lemieux (Crosby’s future mentor) who, during the 1988-1989 season, finished the season with 199 points (this is the same season in which he became the only player to score five goals in all five ways possible during a single game).]

The ‘05-‘06 and ‘06-‘07 season were difficult for Crosby. He had developed the unfortunate reputation as a whiner – something common to many of the very young players who break into the NHL early. He has since outgrown this, but the cause is simple: Crosby and his fellow superstar rookie, Evgeni Malkin (who had just made a daring escape from the RSL), were often the victims of brutal hits that were mostly ignored by the linesmen (referees).

So, during the summer of 2007, the Penguins acquired Georges Laraque – who, standing at 6’3”, weighing 240 lbs, and with more than 100 fights under his belt, he was given one task: protect the young stars. And he did an excellent job. According to HockeyFights, Laraque was in 13 fights during the ’07-’08 season – winning all but three (one loss and two draws according to voters on the site). Laraque would only stay for one season, not uncommon for goons – often signing only 1-3 year contracts with as many as four, five, or even six different teams.

Georges Laraque isn't an easy guy to knock over. [source]

The thing about goons is this: in order to stay on a team, they have to win fights. This can lead to insecurities and increasingly erratic behavior as seen with Marty McSorley’s slash on Donald Brashear and Steve Downie’s dangerous hit on Sidney Crosby.  The effects of an entire career spent as a goon is shown in the documentary The Last Gladiators.  Many nights spent fighting result can result in concussions and sub-concussions, leading to CTE (or Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy), depression, alcohol and drug abuse, and suicide (2011 alone saw the deaths of three enforcers).

The dog in The Mischievous Dog, is “ill-natured” and had to be restrained by a clog. Goons who go overboard are restrained not by clogs, but through their reputations proceeding them which in turn leads to unfair treatment by game officials.  For example, when Steve Downie was elbowed in the face by Ryan Suter, there was no call on the ice.