"Release the Kraken"

I know this happened over the summer,† but guys – we need to talk. And you know why.

(*ahrm*, cause of Liam Neeson)

Not content with mere oceanic wizardry, Liam Neeson assumed the mantle of the All-Father this past summer. (i'm not mixing mythological world-views here, either – they made that Greek pantheon ridiculously Nordic – but we'll get to that).

I'm trying to figure the movie out. Yes, STILL trying to figure it out. Not in a qualitative way, so much as an ontologically. I have no idea what the movie was trying to do. I mean yes, in the most obvious way – it was trying to dig up the old, amazing Clash of the Titans, take it out for a spin, dust off those money-makers, let them shine a little bit; throw in some 300-stabbing, punch of the action with a little tres-d. A little weekend fun, shall we say. Not a crime.††

That's all very clear, all very whatever – summer action movie, nostalgia banking / generational tribute, etc etc. But what about all the other stuff? Let's start with the genies:


The Genies

(1) Where the hell did these guys come from??

(2) In the credits, they're not listed as genies; not the main one at least. He's credited as Suleiman. We will ignore how Suleiman was the opposite of a genie; instead let's consider that they're not going into nearly enough detail about this Greco-Genie war one of the Greek soldiers alludes to, and also that Suleiman blows himself up to destroy the Medusa.

If what they're doing with genies is not the most heavy-handed-but-opaque (impasto, digamos) reference to American engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan, I don't know what is. But what are they doing with it?? I have no idea. It's just there. It screams WAR, then it blows itself up, and then you're like, "Wait, did that guy just... blow himself up...?"

See, 'cause it's really confusing. I'm not entirely sure he blew himself up. Wasn't he being turned to stone? Maybe when you're a genie, getting turned to stone makes you blow up? Because you're made out of trees? From the desert? Where all the trees are? Wait, was he being turned to stone? Didn't they just refer to the fact that's he's genderless in the previous scene? Should he even be allowed in there, cause of the curse or whatever?

At least this allows us to return from "undecodable reference to war" to "bad writing," which is easier to cope with – Summer Action Movie. Now we can take that folder out of the cold case file and stamp it: SOLVED. Oh, but this brings us to:


The Pantheon

This is what I mean when I say they've Nordified the Greco-Roman pantheon: The movie is about Ragnarok, and Christianization.

(1) Ragnarok
What are they doing with Hades?? I don't think they even mention him in the first movie, and now he's the guy in charge of the Kraken? Liam Neeson turns around, all deific, ordering the release of the Kraken in the bossest possible way, and he's talking to this crumbly, Iago-Hades? Poseidon's getting totally robbed, I'm not down with that. And this wacko sibling rivalry? The worst Hades ever did was kidnap Persephone, as far as I'm aware. None of this paradigm-shifting chthonic uprising. What is that? They're mapping Loki onto Hades, with his unbinding and assault on Asgard-Olympus. It's ridiculous.

Let's also remember that Liam Neeson is a wizard, so really they're casting him as Odin. In this context a proper and perfectly logical decision.

Now; before I move on. I'm sure some people would prefer to go straight to the monotheistic interpretation – Armageddon, the battle of Heaven and Hell – but trust me, follow the Nordic thread a little bit:

(2) Christianization
Every time you read about Norse myth and folklore, you get people talking about Christianization. Questions of when the sagas were written, by whom, to what end, etc. – like with Beowulf. From my understanding, Christianity pokes the stuff in the tail the whole time, because most of the literature is post-Christian era, and then you get to hear all about Ragnarok, the death of the gods, and humanity's (presumably Christian) persistence.

Oddly enough, the recent Clash of the Titans paints a similar picture to the one above,‡ except instead of describing the triumph of Christianity over the Pagan North it's anarchically Atheist.

I mean, it's not that odd, that's my whole point. What's odd is that it does it. And again, as with WAR, what is it saying about RELIGION?

"RELIGIOOOON!" the movie shouts, imitating Mel Gibson in impassioned exclamation.

It says nothing. Actually, scratch that‡‡ – it at least says more than it does about WAR. What it does say, incessantly, through its bratty Perseus and his whiny "I hate the [G]ods! blah blah," is that he renounces his faith and will live on without it, how about them apples. And then Liam Neeson, in a highly unwizardly act, does not lock him in his secret laboratory to swim around with the weird flesh-devouring tadpoles, but instead gives him a flying black hot-rod and an immortal girlfriend,

Even though he's just renounced this funky pseudo-Christian Greco-Nordic pantheon in favor of Atheism, thus condemning your crazy Christian parallel universe faith to the same fate as its polytheistic forbears!

...
"I think that's a really good point."


Why thank you total stranger, I agree with me, too.




†That said, it does take a long time for news waves to reach the ocean deep, where I live. It's not like outer space – there's all these molecules up in here causing interference.

††Not like what we do to these poor Scandinavian movies. (1a, 1b), (2a, 2b). I'm not even criticizing the caliber of the American versions, (not at the moment), it's just that there's a rankling quality to something so unnecessary. Two years? Five years? After thirty years – then – I'd say a remake is permissible. That is, in principle; I'd still say it's rarely legitimately warranted.

‡Yes, in all its confused, unfounded, 8th-grade essay glory. In just that way. But also in what it's saying.

‡‡A~nd done.

Seal Clubbing

Mermaids are jealous of Selkies, is the bottom line. Selkies don't live in a repressive despotic society that inhibits their sailor harassment, first of all. They're free to lounge about on rocks and bask in the sun all they want, as long as they keep their skins around.

That's the other thing – selkie skins are just so easy. One minute you're a seal, the next you're a person. Nothing simpler, go walk around. And, here it is, as we all know from Disney's timeless classic, The Little Mermaid, mermaids want to be where the people are; furthermore, they want to see them dancing. These are both things selkies can and do do.

Unfortunately for selkies, if they take their furs out to the club they're very easy targets for PETA, and the whole game plays backwards – if they manage to escape with their furs intact then maybe they just look like oil-spill victims, or like someone decided to go around spray-painting seals. Really, though, the sad truth is that they tend to get stuck on land and – really bad scene – sold into white slavery. Like t.A.T.u.. The fact that they are selkies actually ended up being largely to t.A.T.u.'s advantage, as, though not mermaids, they still have some of that siren-song charm. Say what you will about their music, but it saved them from a grim fate.

They initially generated the lesbian romance story as a cover for being seal-people, because they didn't want to draw attention to their past, see. PETA still refuses to issue an apology for coat damages, due to the apparently incredible nature of claims filed by t.A.T.u.

Anatomy and Physiology

It's time to return to the question that gave rise to this project:

How do mermaids do drugs?

Mermaids are pretty laid back, it's clear that they're not into speed or anything; but the question isn't what drugs they do, it's how they do them. Regardless of your moral-ethical stance on drugs (it's ethical for mermaids, you'll see), it's a fact of mermaid society – they don't really have any responsibilities other than to harass sailors (it turns out that's actually their job, like Sirens and Harpies), so mermaids have a lot of free time.

Mermaids can't always go up to bask on rocks and smoke marijuana, because mermaid kings are always issuing jealous and frustrated edicts prohibiting mermaid presence on basking rocks. While generally ignored, there are still plenty of mermaids that don't want to provoke the wrath of the deprived merking. Even if they're not harassing sailors, which is all merkings really want to do, they might get a trident in the eye.

So right, so mermaids need drug alternatives. We can deduce without scientific study that they have a different metabolism than we do. To start, if they live above and below water then clearly their cardiovascular system is amphibious and they don't process oxygen the way we do (take also into account deep-sea mermaids, who exist in oxygen poor environments and must be even more dissimilar to us). Mermaids also need to regulate salinity in their system very differently, since they live in salt water. This makes me wonder how they get their iodine, since they never salt anything. But I digress – we see references in the anatomical writings of Ibn al-Nafis and Mansur ibn Ilyas:

Adaptations both cardiovascular and pertaining to the homeostatic regulation of salinity in the mermaid body indicate that the merorganism behaves differently from that of Homo sapiens with regards to chemical substances.

There are mermaid texts, furthermore, outlining these differences, as seen here in a 15th century work translated by ibn Ilyas. It is evident from the picture that mermaids fail to understand the inner workings of the human body, as they've chosen to depict it full of seaweed.

Now, I'm not going to venture a guess as to whether mermaid bodies are full of seaweed or not (not unlikely though; I mean, if they're made of foam, why not?), but the evidence seems to indicate, irrefutably, that mermaids get high by provoking poisonous fish to sting them.

Much in the same way that human beings sometimes enjoy exposing themselves to the capsaicin in hot peppers, mermaids have grown fond of fish poisons. Stonefish, Blowfish, Lionfish, all are examples of popular intoxicant fishes. Because mermaid bodies metabolize other stuff differently, fish poisons don't kill them the way they kill us.*

Really it's just practice – if they're confined to the watery deep by merking decree, mermaids have to provoke something other than sailors. It's in their nature, they can't help it. So they're not drug addicts or anything; the behavior leading to drug use in mermaids is habitual, not the use of drugs itself.

Mer ministers, viziers, and PETA types object to fish harassment, and this is promoted by ruthless merkings that seek naught but the frustration of their people, that they suffer as their king. Wiser, more forgiving merkings keep fish-harassing restrictions to a minimum, because if mermaids can't harass anything they write petitions to the king and that's annoying. All merkings generally promote the harassment of mermaids by fish-headed mermaids.


* Wikipedia: The large amount needed to kill an adult human and the low concentration of capsaicin in chilies make the risk of accidental poisoning by chili consumption negligible.

same article: Tarantula venom activates the same pathway of pain as is activated by capsaicin.

Can Mermaids get Drunk?

I've been thinking a lot about mermaids lately, possibly on account of this weekend's upcoming Mermaid Parade in Coney Island. I don't think I'll actually make it to the parade, but I'll be there in spirit.

School Spirit!

I personally had a fine high school experience; very little trauma. But I bet if I'd been a merman, it'd have been a lot worse. Maybe it'd all be second nature to me if I actually had been a merman, but at the moment, I'm plagued with a LOT of questions:

Can merpeople drink alcohol? If they try to drink booze, does it get watered-down with sea salt? are their circulatory systems even comparable such that it's metabolized the same way?

Clearly mermaids can't smoke marijuana – it's not even clear to me that they have lungs. If you live most of your life underwater you must have gills, right? If they have both then that makes sense, otherwise why would they bask on rocks in the sun? (mermaids clearly bask on rocks in the sun, it's part of the profile).

Am I suffering from a critical misunderstanding here? Are mermaids and mermen severely sexually dimorphic, such that mermaids are sexy girl-fishes and mermen are ugly fish creatures human from the waist down? (A SICK INVERSION INDEED).

Or is that what all merpeople look like during puberty?

I don't know the answers to all these questions, but that's not going to stop me from making them up.