How’s that for a mouthful of a title? I’m rather proud of it.
So, my book Shards, coming out in December, has a lot of mythology mixed into it. The main mythology is Biblical, specifically relating to angels, so I got to do a whole bunch of research before I started my initial draft.
Here’s the thing about mythology. It’s super interesting but nothing is set in stone. You can very rarely make any sort of absolutes, because someone out there has found some version of a myth where what you were thinking is absolutely true is not true. That’s even true if you look at Arthurian legend, which, in the great scheme of mythology, isn’t very old. Morgan le Fay is Arthur’s sister. No, she’s not. She’s a sorceress. She’s not. Etc., etc., et al.
Angel mythology is especially non-cohesive because of the many different types of people who believe in angels. Besides Christians, Jews, and Muslims, you have people who are not religious at all, people who think of them as some sort of nature spirits, even people who see them as some sort of cosmic energy manifest.
And even if you stick within a single belief system, the mythology varies between time periods and subgroups.
I think perhaps the most telling of how insane angel mythology can get is the Archangels vs archangels madness. You see, there’s a hierarchy of angels (well, several, depending on who you’re talking to, which really just proves my point), and one of the tiers is “archangel.” Yet the Archangels–Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, etc. (more on this in a moment)–don’t belong to the archangel choir. Generally, Michael and Gabriel are considered to be Seraphim, which is the highest angelic order. (There’s more leeway with Raphael, but he’s generally portrayed as at least a Throne.) It’s like somewhere along the way whomever was in charge of sticking angels in the hierarchy felt like the angels that actually dealt with humans needed to be bumped up a few notches.
And the Archangels themselves–there seems to be no agreement on how many there are, though it does seem to be split between four and seven. And there’s about 20 different angels that fit into that four/seven depending on who you ask, which names such as Chamuel, Zadkiel, Jophiel, Jeremiel, Salathiel, Phaltiel…you get the point.
And various angels, such as Sammael or Azrael, have positive or negative connotations based on who you talk to as well.
If you try to make everything agree with everything else, you’re going to have a major headache.
So, what do you do when your mythology is all over the place? You pick what works for the story at hand, and you run with it.
And then you save the rest for other stories later on.
What’s your favorite mythologies, Squiders? What discrepancies have you noticed within them?
