Shield Magic! Is That Why Darth Maul's Face Was Red?

It was Beltane two days ago. I've done enough research to carry off an intelligent interview with a Wiccan, but not enough to write about Beltane with any degree of originality.

Here are two fabulous links for anyone interested:

Beltane -- Holiday Details and History

Author: Christina Aubin [a WitchVox Sponsor]
http://www.witchvox.com/va/dt_va.html?a=usma&c=holidays&id=2765


Pagan Celebrations of Beltane and May Day
http://blog.beliefnet.com/apagansblog/2009/04/pagan-celebrations-of-beltane-and-may-day-1.html

There's another very cool link I followed from one of these sites: "In Praise Of Pagan Men" with a discussion of The Green Man.

In Praise Of Pagan Men

However, The Red-Faced Man interests me a great deal more!

(Pun, by the way, very much intended.)

I watch television, often alone in the kitchen, while I am cooking, and some meal or other was just about at critical mass when I glimpsed The History Channel, which was discussing a great native American warrior named Roman Nose, also his warpaint, also his vision quest, and the fatal mishap that befell him because a squaw (not knowing of one component of his shield magic) used a metal kitchen implement in preparing his final meal before battle.

I'd seen warpaint in Westerns, and I've seen it used by modern warriors... did Donald Sutherland use it, or just frighteningly loud music, from his hippie tank in Kelly's Heroes?

However, I'd never thought much about the designs. Roman Nose's vision quest (I think it was Roman Nose, but I was multi-tasking) was inspired by red jagged lightning, and white blobs of large hail.

War paint seems to have something in common with the Viking Berserkers bearskin shirts: frighteningly recognizable to the enemy, fearsome brand character, part of getting a warrior "into the zone" and motivated.

Having --reluctantly-- missed the rest of the show, I came back later to my computer and looked up a word that the narrator had used to describe the warriors' beliefs in the power of his rituals and in the application of his war paint.

Shield Magic.

"Shield Magic. Shield makes you turn red and halves the damage you take (I think) until you leave the room. I always use it whenever I see a hard enemy..."

The top Shield Magic searches lead me to a popular game or six. Dragonquest. Warhammer. Nero.... Also, I found a few literary references, and mentions of the Uruk-hai who wore the white hand of Saruman as warpaint.

Giving the impression of being blood-soaked, maybe with bits of white bone showing through cut skin, and still fighting ferociously... well, that would be daunting to the enemy.

Hence, Darth Maul would have two powerful reasons for his red complexion, although I assume it was natural, along with his horns, and was --presumably-- deliberately supplemented by his rune-like tattoos.

My own Viz-Igerd from "Knight's Fork" turned red on occasion, and his enemy, The Saurian Dragon, mockingly compared the effect to the Red Uakari (unfortunately, my copy editor made it "red uakari").

Did you perceive Darth Maul as a potential love interest? How about a sex interest? If so, why?

What about a Native American warrior in his war bonnet and war paint?

What about a Knight of old, mounted on his huge destrier (the computer tells me I've misspelled that), with a jupon over his chainmail, and his face completely hidden by his helmet?

What about Darth Vader?


Footnote:
On Tuesday May 5th 2009, my CRAZY TUESDAY radio show will be about "MAGICAL BEINGS" and I will be taking a two-hour long whirlwind tour of the Magical World, discussing World-building and magical characterization with Kellyann Zuzulo, and Joy Nash, with a flyby appearance from L.S. Cauldwell.

Disparate things and unfinished business

This image has absolutely nothing to do with Cindy's sagging middle, or Jacqueline's evolutionary preferences... it has to do with mine, perhaps.

Also with unfinished business.

On reading Jacqueline's fascinating blog about world-building, the two books I thought of were H.G. Wells's The Time Machine (I confess... it was not so much the book as the movie with Jeremy Irons as the troglodite-predator branch of homo sapiens) and The Sparrow.

Both books had a predator and a prey species who looked similar. In the case of The Sparrow, it was a matter of convergent evolution. The predator evolved to look like its prey, so that hunting would be less strenuous.

If I'm going to have a predator and prey species in my books, I'd like the predatory males to be attractive, and to have a limited interest in eating prey females.

I can say that. In both The Sparrow and the Jeremy Irons movie, a predator wanted to have intercourse with a female member of the prey species. Now, the female prey wasn't keen on the idea, in one case because it was dangerous... like a deer going to bed with a lion, in the other, because Jeremy looked and acted a bit like an Uruk-Hai.

Now, the Uruk-Hai were buff and ripped, a bit too ripped in some cases, really, but they had terrible dentition and I'm sure their breath was unimaginably bad.

The problem with all this for mainstream literature is human taboos. If we were lion-men, as a society we'd probably imprison any lion-man who indulged his attraction to a deer-lady.

Our culture has fewer issues when the predator is, or claims to be, a god. At least when I was a schoolgirl, we studied Greek and Roman literature in school. We didn't bat an eyelid when a honking great male swan (who was the king of all gods in disguise) gave Leda a couple of double-yolked eggs. Or when he turned a girlfriend into a cow so he could continue the affaire without upsetting his wife.

OK. His wife was upset anyway.

Zeus's other disguises included being a bull (now that is scary, and impractical, you'd think) and a golden shower (!).

For the last fifteen or so years, I've chosen to write alien romances about "gods from outer space" which allows me to cherry-pick items from our culture that I'd like to claim the gods gave us... like chess and fortune-telling. It's rather like the point Margaret made about our language stealing choice words from other nationalities, only --perhaps-- in reverse.

As for the picture, it's concept art from a work in progress and I put it up here simply for a bit of visual interest. I've gone back to Ed Traxler who created my Insufficient Mating Material slideshow to produce a slide show for the e-book Mating Net (a short story).

Best wishes,

Rowena Cherry
rowenacherry.com