Daily Archives: April 10, 2024

Top Tens – Miscellany: Top 10 Youtube (1) Despot of Antrim

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Youtube channel banner as at 10 April 2024

 

(1) DESPOT OF ANTRIM (SOUTH KOREA 2019)

 

“You will hear my thoughts on movies, TV shows, media companies and the cultural and political influences that go into them.”

Shortened to the Despot, just as my previous entry is shortened to the Drinker, his accent reveals him as the Irish member of my holy trinity of caustic critics hailing from the British Isles, although his Youtube bio has his location as South Korea. That – and the reference in one of his videos to Taiwan – might well originate from his former life as a teacher, to which he also has referred.

I can’t help but feel that his former life as a teacher is also revealed in the analytical style and sequence of his video content, such that you can almost see his video scripts in the same style as lesson plans. I’m a sucker for a systematic logical sequence, although the downside is that his video content tends to be by far the longest of my holy trinity. And I’m a sucker for a black sense of humor with an Irish accent – both of which you get in spades in his videos, or “taking the p*ss” as he puts it.

I’m obviously not the only one – as at April 2024, he released videos for the milestone of 10 and 1,000 subscribers respectively only a year previously but his channel subsequently ballooned to 86,800 subscribers.

His epic takedowns of film or TV are things of beauty to behold, often released with subtitles “Anatomy of a Disaster” or “So Much Worse than You Think” – my absolute favorite was his annihilation of Rings of Power, but other highlights include his videos savaging Bros and the Netflix Cleopatra documentary.

Oh and I looked it up – Antrim is actually a town (and district) in Ireland. So there you go.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD-TIER – OR SHOULD THAT BE DESPOT-TIER?)

 

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Mancy (1) Oneiromancy

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Art from Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman graphic novel series – one of the best depictions of what is essentially oneiromancy

 

(1) ONEIROMANCY

 

“Your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams”.

Oneiromancy, or divination by dreams, may not have the brand recognition of necromancy in second top spot, but it takes out the top spot all the same.

That’s somewhat like Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series, where Dream gets top billing as the titular protagonist. In fairness, Death remains his older and more powerful sister, but she’s also nice and not at all necromantic.

On the subject of fantasy in popular culture, one of my favorite depictions of oneiromancy as the core for a fantasy or SF series is that of Robert Silverberg’s Majipoor series, particularly in the first book Lord Valentine’s Castle.

However, its top spot here goes beyond my enjoyment of Sandman or Silverberg, and for that matter a preference for dreams over death or the undead.

It can be argued – and effectively has been by anthropologist Pascal Boyer – that oneiromancy probably was the original source of all divination, not least of necromancy, or indeed, of magic and religion in general, and for much the same reason as for necromancy. That is, that we see dead people in our dreams – prompting us to believe that they live on or have some continuity in a spirit realm or supernatural reality.

As Joseph Campbell famously opined, mythology overlaps with dream – “myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths”.

Prophetic dreams and their interpretation recur surprisingly frequently in the Bible, from Genesis to the Gospels and arguably to Apocalypse. And when they are not actual dreams, it is striking how often God or angels reveal themselves by night rather than day – in divine dream-like revelations. Unlike other methods of divination, oneiromancy seems respectable or even ordained in the Bible, to the point that God himself might be styled the god of dreams.

Biblical oneiromancy is only one of many throughout world mythology – with written or literary records including manuals of dream interpretation dating back to the beginning of recorded history in Mesopotamia.

And one might say we’re still at it – with modern psychology originating as a form of oneiromancy, not least with that landmark work The Interpretation of Dreams by that leading modern (sexual) oneiromancer, Freud.

In turn, this originates with the raw and vivid emotional power of dreams for each of us. Who among us does not secretly believe that our dreams are true or meaningful in some transcendent way? Although, I always recall a quip that dreams can mean everything and nothing – or that dreams are the bowel movements of the brain.

It does not seem an exaggeration to suggest that all divination is ultimately a form of oneiromancy, whether by way of using dreams and visions as a focus for divination, or by similar means of symbolic interpretation.

Nor does it seem an exaggeration to suggest that all magic is also ultimately a form of oneiromancy – essentially acts of lucid dreaming to shape reality to our imagination, or to impose dream-logic on reality to make it fluid like dreams.

At very least, oneiromancy would seem to be a straightforward one-on-one correspondence to the schools of enchantment and illusion in Dungeons and Dragons, but readily also adapts every other school of magic, perhaps most vividly conjuration and transmutation by dream-logic. Also abjuration – necromancy too if one counts nightmares.

Nor does it seem exaggeration to style all supernatural reality as the Dreaming, as in indigenous Australian culture, which has been widely adopted by popular culture well beyond its original context.

The versatility and power of oneiromancy was perhaps best stated in the Sandman, where the titular personification of dream confronts the powers of hell, mocking him that he has no power there. He replies simply what power would hell have if those in it could not dream of heaven? And of course one might say that heaven and hell are but themselves dreams, albeit fever dreams for the latter.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD-TIER – OR IS THAT DREAM-TIER?)

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Mythologies (1) Biblical

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The Creation of Adam – Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo. Probably the most famous painting of Biblical imagery – “reproduced in countless imitations and parodies” as “one of the most replicated religious paintings of all time”

 

(1) BIBLICAL

 

Or as I like to call it – Babylon and the Beast (featured here in art from a Christian website, which only succeeded in making these two Biblical supervillains look awesome).

This is it. This is the big one – genesis and apocalypse, alpha and omega, allelujah and amen!

Of course, Biblical mythology is helped into top spot in that for many people it is not just mythology but religion, in contrast to classical mythology or other ‘pagan’ mythologies it largely replaced. Although as one historian quipped, from a historical point of view, Christianity is a Greek hero cult devoted to a Jewish messiah.

However, I read the Bible as mythology rather than religion – or as poetry rather than history. That is, as literature for its literary quality. Or in other words, like virtually everyone reads classical mythology or any other mythology shorn of religious belief. And as mythology, it has an enduring resonance – of symbolic narratives that ring true at an emotional level or with the power of story, characters that resonate with us as flawed human protagonists (and that’s including God, who is all too human in his characterization) and language that in its best passages has an enduring lyrical or poetic quality.

And when you look at the mythology under the religious hood, that’s when things become much more interesting with layers of subtext, sex and violence as well as hints or insinuations of competing mythologies

Born again in Babylon and torn apart in Jerusalem…

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD-TIER – WHAT ELSE?)

 

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Books (1) Bible

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The title page to the 1611 first edition of the King James Bible

 

 

(1) BIBLE

 

The Hebrew dreaming and the great messianic ghost dance.

The holy book of smiting and begetting.

Chosen people and only son.

 

This is the big one – genesis and apocalypse, alpha and omega, allelujah and amen!

Readers of my top tens will be familiar with me playfully classifying the highest tier (or god-tier) entries as my Old Testament or New Testament – a tribute to the influence of the Bible. I do that in a few ways with my Top 10 Mythology Books (or Top 10 Mythologies), but of course at a fundamental level the Bible is itself my Old Testament and New Testament.

Of course, the Bible is helped into top spot in that for many people it is not just mythology but religion, in contrast to classical mythology or other ‘pagan’ mythologies it largely replaced . The Bible is also the heart, still beating in many ways, of ‘Judeo-Christian’ culture that is one of the two predominant cultural influences in what is often termed as Western civilization, along with the ‘Greco-Roman’ culture that vies with it as the other predominant cultural influence – sometimes in alignment and sometimes as rivals. Athens versus Jerusalem and all that – filtered through Rome. It is as the source for religion rather than mythology that most people come to it, as I did, even if I have lapsed from any religious belief in it.

However, it is the book that doesn’t stop giving, even after you stop believing. That is because of its enduring mythic resonance or narratives and language that in its best passages has an enduring lyrical or poetic quality.

In other words, I read the Bible as mythology rather than religion or in short, as poetry rather than history. Don’t get me wrong – my own hot take, to antagonize both believers and skeptics, is that the Bible is of course a lot less historical than fundamentalist believers usually maintain, but has more history than skeptics usually credit. This is a view influenced by Manfred Barthel’s What The Bible Really Says, which among other things proposes more naturalistic explanations of apparently supernatural miracles – even such things as the burning bush, and not in terms of what Moses was smoking. And also don’t get me wrong as to its literary quality – the Bible is an anthology after all, and one of uneven quality. It may be described by believers as the word of God but he could have used an editor. Or for that matter, better writers of a more modern novelistic style even for its better narrative parts, which tend to resonate more when adapted into more modern style – or screenplays.

I mean seriously, the Bible is the original Game of Thrones – people are often surprised just how much sex and violence is in it (or just how much sheer pagan enjoyment it can provide). It is the book of smiting and begetting after all. And as opposed to Game of Thrones, it finishes with a bang rather than a whimper with a much more sensational, if much trippier, finale, at least in the New Testament and the Book of Apocalypse, my personal favorite book in the Bible.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD TIER – WHAT ELSE?)