quarterturn (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
quarterturn) wrote2007-02-11 11:56 am
quarterturn) wrote2007-02-11 11:56 am
(no subject)
Question: What's the hell mythology on Supernatural, anyone? Have we heard specifically what goes on down there/who's in charge/what everything looks like? I have a story in mind and I'm swiss cheese when it comes to remembering details, so if anyone remembers anything, even just a smidgen of detail, will you let me know?
I specifically would like to know if there's ever been anything about what the demons look like in their true form, and if that's any different than what they look like when they're in hell. All I can recall about them is that fast-acting smoke that skips out as soon as someone possessed is exorcised, but is that all they are? Does that smoke hightail it somewhere and reform into something else? Do they have traditionally male/female bodies with genitalia? Are they androgynous physically but identify with a specific gender emotionally/psychologically? I suppose they'd have to have genitalia to reproduce, but then again, do they reproduce like humans? Or are they all spawned out of some larger thing and have different familial ties than we do?
I've heard some people say that there have been references that make it seem like their hell is close to the biblical one, so if it is, I'm gonna need some details on that, too. I peaced out of Sunday school pretty young. I'll do some research on my own, of course, but you guys are the smart kids and I definitely want a seat next to you on test day, so give me some good starting points.
Oh, and also, what's the deal with the demons knowing/remembering things from the people they possess? Do they just automatically gain all the stored information from their host, or do they come by it slowly, like the shapeshifter did?
I specifically would like to know if there's ever been anything about what the demons look like in their true form, and if that's any different than what they look like when they're in hell. All I can recall about them is that fast-acting smoke that skips out as soon as someone possessed is exorcised, but is that all they are? Does that smoke hightail it somewhere and reform into something else? Do they have traditionally male/female bodies with genitalia? Are they androgynous physically but identify with a specific gender emotionally/psychologically? I suppose they'd have to have genitalia to reproduce, but then again, do they reproduce like humans? Or are they all spawned out of some larger thing and have different familial ties than we do?
I've heard some people say that there have been references that make it seem like their hell is close to the biblical one, so if it is, I'm gonna need some details on that, too. I peaced out of Sunday school pretty young. I'll do some research on my own, of course, but you guys are the smart kids and I definitely want a seat next to you on test day, so give me some good starting points.
Oh, and also, what's the deal with the demons knowing/remembering things from the people they possess? Do they just automatically gain all the stored information from their host, or do they come by it slowly, like the shapeshifter did?
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In Judaeo-Christian mythology at least, demons don't have gender or sex except when they are succubi or incubi and those are not actually gendered or sexed necessarily, just that they've evolved to take on a specific type of prey and so have sex characteristics. In the JC mythology there's nothing to suggest that demons reproduce sexually.
And yet, we have at least Notmeg saying that YED is her "father" and YED saying that Notmeg was "dear to him" or something of that nature. I think it's fair to say in SPNverse that demons do reproduce in some fashion, and do have some kind of filial piety if not exactly love.
The only real evidence we have that this hell might be Christian (there's no hell in Judaism until very late in the game and the concept is imported from Zoroastrianism and quite different from what is usually interpreted as hell) is that Christian rituals work on it. But as others have said far better than I can, those rituals are based on far older magical traditions, and probably do not depend for their efficacy on the exist of God/Christ. Even Sam says that his seance is "based on early Christian rites".
It appears to me that SPNverse is a syncretistic panreligious system, in which faith works as magic regardless of the faith. We know that they fought a tulpa at one point, which was a Tibetan thought-form, no God/Heaven/Hell there. Reapers apparently have a place/connection with the demons, but Reapers don't exist in the Biblical traditions. The closest I can come up with for a Reaper is the Angel of Death (Michael, I think?) but we know there is more than one (plus we know from Tessa the girl!Reaper that she could take any form; she just chose that one because Dean would stop to talk to her), so we're talking about an entire class of beings.
Many traditions have the idea of "demon", Sam told us in I think it was Phantom Traveller. It's my thought we're dealing with "Dark" or "Evil" entities that manifest as those from the Judaeo-Christian version to Sam and Dean because that's what will be most comprehensible to them?
*hands* That's what I've got. I'll poke Kassie to see if she wants to write some of this up. I'm sure there are arguments the other way, but this is what I'm going with. :D
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I am so lucky to have such a smarty pants on my friends list. *squish*
I will go see if I can gain admittance to
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I'm thinking possibly father is simply "progenitor", ie, Christ calls God his "father", even though we're later glossed that God has no sex. OTOH, the mythology behind the mythology is that Yahweh was the tribal household god of a small group and was in fact gendered male. He was said to be a jealous god who gained power by the conquering of other peoples and destroying their idols of their gods. Two of his primary enemies were Ba'al, now often associated with Satan but at that time a powerful bull deity, and Astarte (or some other permutation of her name) the Queen of Heaven.
Um... I don't really know where I'm going with that, so I'll drop it and leave it there. Hee. Oh, I know. I've been pondering "Hell" in SPNverse and elsewise as rather more like Tartarus in the Greek mythology where the Olympian gods locked the Titans when they overthrew them. So that, the demons aren't necessarily *evil* but wilder and more chaotic, and having come before the "good gods" are now locked away and kind of want out to reform the world in their own image. Hm. Maybe I should write this as a big bang fic. *sighs*
♥ I emailed Kassie, so hopefully she'll catch you and add you right away!
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My degree is actually comp religion and finished! *laughs*
I really don't know what ot add to what you say here since you actually have it all down. I would say t hat maybe the sexing of god and use of the term father regarding both the gospels and Supernatural might be something we should introduce in a metasunday thing.
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Even if you don't write it as a big bang fic, I'd be pretty much orgasmic if you wrote anything about it at all. ♥
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Thanks, sugar. ♥
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