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World Mythology, Tuesday, 2nd Period.

"Today, we start at the very beginning," Ghanima announced crisply, Trebor on her hip as he chewed on what looked like a toy dragon. "--Or as close to the beginning as such a young planet can get. Mesopotamian mythology is the collective name given to Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, and Babylonian mythologies from parts of the fertile crescent, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq."

."The Sumerians practiced a polytheistic religion, with anthropomorphic gods or goddesses representing forces or presences in the world, in much the same way as the Greek mythology which came later." That was for you, Stewart. "According to said mythology, the gods originally created humans as servant and freed them when they became too much to handle. Many stories in Sumerian religion appear similar to stories in other Middle-Eastern religions. Gods and Goddesses from Sumer have similar representations in the religions of the Akkadians, Canaanites, and others."

"Today we look at one of the first primordial goddesses of this world: Tiamat." Trebor brightened up and waived his dragon around excitedly, narrowly missing bopping his mother on her head. "Trebor, you are getting ahead of yourself, we are not there yet."

"Tiamat is considered the embodiment of primordial chaos. Although there are no early precedents for it, some sources identify her with images of a sea serpent or dragon." She smiled wryly. "Hence Trebor's choice of prop for today. However, it is important to note that these associations first came to light during the late American 1960s, in a journal about oriental society, which then spread to the popular consciousness. Take that particular citation with a grain of salt, and read 'The Battle between Marduk and Tiamat' by Thorkild Jacobsen for yourself to decide."

"In the Enûma Elish, the Babylonian epic of creation, she gives birth to the first generation of deities; she later makes war upon them and is killed by the storm-god Marduk. The heavens and the earth are formed from her divided body."

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"So although Tiamat is often described by modern authors as a sea serpent or dragon, no ancient texts exist in which there is a clear association with those kinds of creatures," Ghanima continued, putting Trebor on her shoulders as she walked around the room so he could waive his toy dragon without (hopefully) smacking her in the face. "The Enûma Elish specifically states that Tiamat did give birth to dragons and serpents, but they are included among a larger and more general list of monsters including scorpion men and merpeople, none of which imply that any of the children resemble the mother or are even limited to aquatic creatures. Within the Enûma Elish her physical description includes a tail, a thigh, 'lower parts' which shake together, a belly, an udder, ribs, a neck, a head, a skull, eyes, nostrils, a mouth, and lips. She has a heart, arteries, and blood."

"Tiamat was the "shining" personification of salt water who roared and smote in the chaos of original creation. She and Apsu filled the cosmic abyss with the primeval waters. She is "Ummu-Hubur who formed all things". In the myth recorded on cuneiform tablets, the deity Enki -- later Ea -- believed correctly that Apsu, upset with the chaos they created, was planning to murder the younger deities; and so slew him. This angered Tiamat, whereupon she fashioned monsters to battle the deities in order to avenge Apsu's death. These were her own offspring: giant sea serpents, storm demons, fish-men, scorpion-men and many others."

"As often happens, she was overcome by a younger god -- Marduk, son of Ea. Slicing Tiamat in half, he made from her ribs the vault of heaven and earth. Her weeping eyes became the source of the Tigris and the Euphrates. With the approval of the elder deities, he took from Kingu the Tablets of Destiny, installing himself as the head of the Babylonian pantheon. Kingu, Tiamat's new, second husband, was captured and later was slain: his red blood mixed with the red clay of the Earth would make the body of humankind, created to act as the servant of the younger Igigi deities."

"I'd like you to talk about your own creation stories today, and then share them with a friend. Either a story you are familiar with from your own homeworld, or how you, personally, think the world came into being. Or, if neither of those suit your fancy, why do you think Tiamat is so often portrayed as a dragon? What sort of connotations do dragons have in your culture? Are they creatures of chaos, creation, or both?"

"Umm, the only real creation story I know is the Garden of Eden," Arden said, half-apologetically.

But that was why she was in this class!

"Then you're in a good place to learn more," Ghanima replied cheerfully. "What do you think about that particular story?"

Arden was quiet for a moment and then said something she'd long thought, but had never articulated out loud. "I think it's unfair," she said. "It feels like a cheap setup. Like, if that god made humanity, then he knew he was giving us curiosity and wonder and free will. Had deliberately put it in us. And then told Adam to go around and name everything in the Garden. But then also expected blind obedience? Like, not even a reason for avoiding it, I think, just a 'because I said so.' It's a trap. Why put the Tree of Knowledge in there if he didn't want it to be a temptation? So he goes out of his way to tempt them, and then gets all pissy when it works? Like, sure, if they had free will, they also had the choice not to, but he still stacked the deck against them, and that's bullshit."

"As I mentioned, the Sumerian gods also essentially kicked the humans to the curb when we got to be too much," Ghanima mused. "I suppose that the argument could be made that without the ejection from the garden, or the separation from godly parents, no further humanity would not have been able to grow... perpetual children in paradise."

"Sure, but was that really what was planned from the start? Because everything that came after sure sounds like he was pissed off about it. It sounds like he just got mad because he didn't have our unthinking obedience anymore, that we'd taken it upon ourselves to learn more than he'd intended. We kicked our way out of the cage he'd put us in with the apple and then he got so pissy about it, he threw us out of the house entirely. He doesn't get credit for the fact that we picked ourselves up and we took hold of our own destiny. He would have been happy to keep us as perpetual children in the garden. If anything, we owe our thanks to the serpent for letting us take the first steps to grow."

Anyway, Arden was feeling very normal about this and it wasn't at all being related to anything personal.

Yeah, so the creation myth Liliana knew best was the one taught by the Forward Order, which was that Serra had created Dominaria. What rot. All Serra - a Planeswalker like any other - had done was introduce the infestation of angels to the plane.

"There is a lot of debate about the origins of planes," Liliana said. "There's a general consensus that most stem from the Blind Eternities themselves, when the right combination of mana, temporal energy, aether, and possibility come together to form one. Other planes were created by Planeswalkers before the Mending." You know, back when they'd had the power to create whole self-contained universes for funsies, not that she was bitter (she was forever bitter). "Another debate is whether Planeswalker-created planes had worldsouls, which is the aware essence of the plane itself. The worldsoul of my home plane is named Gaea."

"Worldsouls sound fascinating," Ghanima said. "Does each non-Planeswalker plane have a worldsoul, or does it require special conditions to form?"

"Uncertain," Liliana said, almost cheerfully. "I know of two - Gaea and Ravnica's Mat'Selesnya - but I'm also the wrong type of mana user to contact one. They tend towards green and white mana users and I'm quite the opposite. There are stories of worldsouls that have lost their plane and can attach themselves to other planes or planeswalkers, but it's impossible to tell fact from fiction sometimes."

Fun fact! Liliana didn't know this, but Serra's Realm did, in fact, have a worldsoul! At least until Urza collapsed it into a powercore to give the Weatherlight the ability to travel to different planes (after leading Phyrexia to their door)!

Remember kids, there's nothing that Urza can't or didn't ruin!

"Ah, so even a worldsoul, like a god, has favorite children," Ghanima said dryly. "Mildly disappointing, I admit."

"Most gods are, I've found," Liliana said, a little bitterly. "At least once you discover their feet of clay."

The thing was, it wasn't really her culture she could talk about, because the closest thing to one she'd grown up with was the Zeniths, and well... they'd kept her so isolated even that was secondhand at best. Tilda had given her a little bit of exposure to concepts of classical mythology through her art collection, but given that context it hadn't been the most concrete information.

"Well," Beta began in an academic tone that was probably more neutral than Aloy would have managed about the subject, "the Nora tribe believes that life comes from a goddess they call All-Mother, who takes the form of a sacred mountain in their tribal lands. The Oseram think the world is a massive elaborate machine, but I don't know if they have any kind of consensus on its origin."

Erend was not the most informative source. "As for the other tribes in the region, I'm not too familiar with their creation stories, but the data I've been able to collate seems to point to a common location of origin that does line up with the All-Mother Mountain of the Nora. And the thing is... they're not wrong, exactly."

She hesitated.

"I don't know if I should explain this, though. It... might be what people call sensitive subject matter."

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World Mythology, Tuesday, 2nd Period.

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