fandomhigh | Myth Into History, Week 9: The British Isles and Beyond [Thurs/1st Period, Danger Shop]

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myth into history

Myth Into History, Week 9: The British Isles and Beyond [Thurs/1st Period, Danger Shop]

The Danger Shop was programmed to look like a temple of some unidentifiable kind today, and Janice was sitting cross-legged atop the altar, smoking the cigar she'd lit off one of the candelabra nearby. "We're backtracking a little today," she told the class once everyone had arrived. "Today's class is going to cover some events from the Scrolls that happened before the assassination of Julius Caesar, during the time when Boadicea, or Boudicca, was leading the Celts' resistance against the Roman occupation."

Hopping off the altar, she gestured around the temple's interior. "You're inside the temple of Dahak," she told everyone. "He's an obscure god, undocumented outside the Scrolls, but he appears to have been the focus of a monotheistic cult with roots in Celtic Britain. We don't know much about him, but he was powerful enough to have Ares worried. Some peripheral sources" -- she gestured to a stack of handouts on the altar -- "hint that Dahak might have destroyed the gods of the Sumerian pantheon, so it's no surprise that Ares was worried, is it? The Scrolls, as a matter of fact, say that Ares went far enough to descrbe Dahak as evil."

Janice ground out her cigar on the side of the altar and tucked it away into a jacket pocket. "Boadicea ultimately failed in defeating Caesar's armies, and that was Dahak's doing. If he hadn't captured Gabrielle, and if Ares hadn't recruited Xena to help stop the cult of Dahak by destroying this temple, Boadicea would have had a powerful ally. But . . ." She shrugged, broadly. "Well, that wasn't to be, was it?"

"Oh, and by the way?" Janice clicked the Danger Shop remote, transforming the room into a giant circle of standing stones that almost all the students would likely have at least seen in pictures before, and grinned. "That's what happened when the temple exploded." She gave the students a few minutes to boggle, stare, or otherwise react, then clicked the remote again to reset the Shop to the temple's interior.

She paced around the classroom, passing out the handouts from the altar as well as three more packets. "I don't have time to go into all of this in detail during class, so for once you get homework. I just got this set of translations from Mel, and they're a different version of the Norse saga of the Rheingold from what you've probably heard before. I don't feel like grading papers so you won't get an essay on it, but do the damn reading at least, got it? Meanwhile, chew on this: we've covered Greece, Rome, Troy, Israel, and Britain so far. Next week is going to cover things that happened in China. The Scrolls we've recovered so far don't give any details on this, but for the rest of the class period why don't you do a little brainstorming on how the hell Xena and Gabrielle got around so fast?"

After class, she hung around for a bit then headed straight for her office to spend the rest of the day ~~playing the new PlayStation 2 game she'd gotten~~ working on future lesson plans.

[OOC:Syllabus and roster. OCD is up; class post, as always, will remain open through the weekend.]

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Collapsey-go-boom, like the temple.

Carmela Rodriguez

Zack Addy

Phoebe Halliwell

Marie D'Ancanto

Joooooooxer

Janet Fraiser

William Kessler

Evie Carnahan

Cedric Diggory

Sam Winchester

D'anna Biers

Talk, take notes, pass notes, sleep, whatever. However, please do not attempt to sacrifice your classmates to Dahak, or to anyone else for that matter. Thank you.

Phoebe wondered if this meant they could sacrifice non-classmates to this Dahak, then?

Evelyn's getting more and more disturbed by the Dahak story. But the mention of the standing stones has her simply nodding along, knowing how Dr. Covington works by now.

Cedric took notes and listened to the lecture, only letting his mind wander two or...five times.

Sam took a lot of notes and tried not to be distracted by the thought of what sorts of sacrifices to gods he'd witnessed over the years.

"And before Stonehenge there was Woodhenge and Strawhenge, and then a big bad wolf came along, and three little piggies were relocated to the projects."

You've got ten minutes to wander around virtual and slightly off-kilter Stonehenge, if you wish.

"Whatever." Janet rolled her eyes. It wasn't as if she didn't already know Stonehenge had been built by aliens. Thank you ~~Erich von Daniken~~, Daniel Jackson.

One of the biggest Henges in the world!

"Huh, maybe Dehak's whole plan was for Rome to take over Britain..."

Zack flipped though his notes.

"Is this even in the right part of England?"

Cedric hadn't ever seen or heard of this part of England. He wandered though and wondered what was so special about a group of rocks.

So how did they get around so fast, anyway? That's kind of like asking "How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?"

Phoebe thought that Janice was either smoking something really good when she told all of these stories about Xena and Gabrielle... or that the two woemn were witches who could orb.

Zack thought about it long and hard. "Tesseracts," he said finally.

If you do, please specify when you establish the thread if it's before or after class.

And don't bring up the Halloween costume.

After Class, having looked over the handouts, Billy stepped forward with some theories. "You think maybe Dehak could have been Satan? Or that kidnapping Gabrielle was a deliberate attempt to distract Xena so the Romans could take over?"

Yes, my canon actually attributes the creation of freaking Stonehenge to Xena. By accident. I know, I know. OMGWTF?!? Don't look at me that way. I didn't write it; I just cherish its random cracked-out-ness.

*giggles* I always did like that explanation.

Your canon is COMPLETELY INSANE and butchers mythology horribly.

I don't know what kind of weirdo would like a show like that.

No idea. None at all. ;)

*will always snicker at that icon*

I'd imagine that shows like that would get cancelled right away, not after, I don't know, multiple seasons on the air.

*snickers*

Peronally I loved the crack that Herc/Xena came up with. confusing, yes, but discussion and giggle worthy. my only beef was with the Vlad The Impaler episode.

Oh, no, I loved Herc/Xena crack! I don't know how much you know about my series' canon, but the basic premise of SG1 is that the "gods" are actually aliens. So I was really snarking Janice *and* myself. (For example, Hathor was the 'goddess' of love and sexuality because of her, I kid you not, alien sex pheromone perfume that made all the men horny.)

Because what fun is it watching a series where the bad guys are alien false gods with really funky hats unless you can snark at yourself about it.

I knew that much about it 'cause of the movie. Have they touched on christianity in that show or are they afraid to?

I wasn't sure how much you'd seen, so I figured more was better than less. :)

They've vaguely touched on it in the earlier seasons, what with SG-1 going to Hell (a volcanic moon used as a prison by Sokar/Satan) to rescue one of the character's dads (long story, such a long story), and a few other incidents, but the past couple seasons, they've very much done a thinly-veiled metaphor on the Crusades, without specifically saying who're which cultural and religious group.

It's all rather interesting, actually. Plus they've brought in a bunch of different kinds of aliens, including the Roswell grays, who've styled themselves after Norse deities. *points to iconage*

Interesting. Greys and Norse Gods are not two things I'd have thought of putting together.

Oh, it gets worse. (Better?) Merlin and Morgan le Fay have recently been revealed as aliens who shed their physical form and 'ascended' to become kind of angelic. Or glowing, incorporeal squid aliens. It all depends on how you want to look at it. (Or which episode you're watching.)

After ten years, I guess there's only so much you can do, or so many mythologies you haven't hit on. *snerk* I love my frakked-up canon.

Ah, but as I learned this past summer, The Doctor is actually Merlin, and so far as I know, not yet squid-like.

~~totally has several of the king arthur charectors in my list of poss. fandom charectors~~

Aha! I see we have dueling cosmologies! *brandishes series bible* En garde!

~~has seriously apping playing Morgan le Fay some time~~

Or perhaps, Aliens are actually Faerie Creatures.

*head.desk* Sorry for missing yesterday (I know, I know, open all weekend but I always think that only applies if you made it to sign on the day of start play), I thought today was Thursday.

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Myth Into History, Week 9: The British Isles and Beyond [Thurs/1st Period, Danger Shop]

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