The+Not+So+Monstrous+Monster

Not so Monstrous Monster

Think back, to your childhood, when you would hear fairytales of brave knights, who would slay and evil dragon and rescue the princess, and then live happily ever after would set in, a beautiful ending, or is it. When we’re young, we were told stories of flat characters and we knew the knight was good, monsters bad, there was never a back-story or any real emotion, but we still ate it up. But like society, we’ve changed, we’ve grown up, and perhaps wiser, and we begin to question, were the knights so pure, were the monsters so evil. These questions gave birth to the archetype, the not so monstrous-monster, a creature who could fit into most other archetype, and sheds the skin of the stereotypical monster and makes us think.

While these creatures are becoming more popular today, that doesn’t mean that the ancient world lacked them, in the ancient mythical island called Japan was fill of these creatures. One of these creatures in particularly seems to straddle the fence between my archetype and the classic monster, the Kappa, a Japanese water demon that resembles a turtle. [] In legends, Kappa’s would inhabit rivers or ponds near where people live, they were known to pull people into the water to drown them, and when there victim was dead, they would drink their blood, in fact, their second favorite food were baby blood, very monstrous. While they do kill humans, the kappa have incredible ways of differing from monsters, one is the fact that they can be bargained with, as if you give them a cucumber, their favorite food, with the names of your family or their future victims names carved into them, they will take this as a payment or bargaining chip and let them go. Another is the fact that they are very polite and very intelligent, which is actually what leads them to their down fall in certain stories, if on land it can be seen that they have a hallow basin in their heads fill of magic water, if this gets poured out, it will weaken them and basically suffocate them, at this time, they are vulnerable and must answer any questions asked in hopes of being put back in the water. (__**the Book: One-Hundred-and-One Asian Read-Aloud Myths and Legends)**__ One of the greatest differences between the kappa and other monsters is that if questioned, they always tell the truth, as well as being very loyal if befriended. In fact, in some stories, they are credited with teaching one of the first doctors how to set bones and other medical secrets. So perhaps, they may be beastly and far from human, but the world isn’t black and white enough to label them a monster because of this.

Separated by a country and years in the country of Greece there was more of a firm line between humans and monsters, but in a land of petty gods, and demi-gods heroes the line is still not completely fallible. http://www.monstropedia.org/index.php?title=Chiron Born the son of Kronus and in the form of a man-beast centaur, was Chiron, one of the greatest figures in Greek mythology. In Greek myths, centaurs were half man, half horse creatures who would get drunk and raid human villages to abduct their women. Yet Chiron turned from his beastly brethren and instead of choosing the path of the barbarian warrior, choose the path of a kind healer and teacher. While he choose this path this didn’t mean he wasn’t a warrior, as he was the one who taught the great heroes of myth like Hercules, Jason, and Achilles to name a few. In one of the noblest moments in Greek myth was Chiron’s sacrifice to forfeit his immortality to save Prometheus, the Titan who gave fire to man, from his eternal punishment. In doing this he became mortal and in many stories accidentally hit with a hydra blooded arrow, which was poisoned, instead of choosing to use his remarkable gift for healing to save himself, he choose to die instead of living. And to honor his noble sacrifice, the gods of Olympus put his image up in the stars so he would be forever remembered in the constellation of Sagittarius. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiron

Today we have embraced the ideal of monsters, not being as beastly on the inside as the out, and one of the best examples of this is in the representation of Frankenstein in the film, __**//Van Helsing//**__. In the original interpretations, Frankenstein was basically an innocent gentle giant who cannot understand society and is later destroyed because of this. In this version, Frankenstein is instead, someone who realizes what he is, understands that people see him as a monster, and just wants to be able to exist. He is shown instead of being purely innocent, rather as intelligent, and while being shown innocent of crimes and by virtue, instead he lacks innocence by living in a corrupt society that will consider him a monster, and in turn his innocence was ripped out of him. [] The movie, Van Helsing, is a great movie for this archetype, because not only does it show the characters humanity, it also shows that humans as monsters as well as the monsters and it shows that the only human that doesn’t immediately judge him as a monster by just the outside, is in fact one of the few good people in the movie, is the amnesic monster hunter, Gabriel Van Helsing. The monster later proves himself after Van Helsing is transformed into a monster of his own by telling him where the cure is and helping to battle the other monsters of the castle while Van Helsing and Dracula end their feud.

The archetype has survived for so long, because it make people think about more that just who the character is, but who you are on the inside. On the more pessimistic side of the argument, it shows that humans aren’t as clean as we pretend to be, as in the stories, the not so monstrous monster is usually hunted by someone or something, most normally a single man who is insane with hunting and collecting who is normally more beastly than any of the creature he hunts. This tends to philosophically take people up on the fact that there are things like racism and hatred based on physical features; it makes these ideas seem rather stupid. It also questions the idea of what is human, is it the fact that they have human blood running through their veins and were born by human parents, no matter what they act like. Or is our humanity based on our actions instead of what we were born as. On the other hand, the more optimistic side, this archetype is an anthropomorphic version of the ideal of not judging a book by it’s cover, it shows that we are becoming more conscious that we aren’t the only beings that feel on the planet, and so we are trying to change the world so that no one has to be ashamed of being different on the outside, just what they hold on the inside. Whichever of these paths you take, remember that not every hero has to be a knight clad in armor and a sword, it may very well be the dragon who wants to escape the hunters that chase him and cause him so much pain. Don’t weep for the dragon, admire it for living its life without fear of being judged, and saying that it’s existence isn’t a crime against nature and it deserves to exist. Instead of weep for the fact that we live in a world where we chose our heroes based on the fact that they look the part instead of playing the part. === Websites: Kappa: http://www.monstropedia.org/index.php?title=Kappa [|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kappa_(folklore)] The Book: One-Hundred-and-One Asian Read-Aloud Myths and Legends Chiron: http://www.mythicalcreaturesguide.com/page/Centaur http://www.monstropedia.org/index.php?title=Chiron http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiron Frankenstein: [|www.monstropedia.org/index.php?title=Frankenstein] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338526/plotsummary [|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Helsing_(film)] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein_in_popular_culture#1990s_.26_2000s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein%27s_monster http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040507/REVIEWS/405070306/1023 http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Van_Helsing http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ptitletxowvywhdbcy?from=Main.Frankenstein [|Tvtropes.org] ===