Week 5: Storytelling - Meet the Vanars.

"Where are we?" Penny-Nichole inquired. They had been walking for what seemed like days. After the battle with Khara, everything seemed like it was going smoothly. Until Kellan's brother, Raxus, had come to seek revenge and took over our mothership. All of the crew members were still aboard when he stole it, so now it was up to Penny-Nichole and the Strike Siblings to get them all back. Penny-Nichole had made many friends since joining the Strikes and many of those friends were aboard the mothership, along with many supplies for the sick on the surrounding planets. It made Penny-Nichole's blood boil thinking of all of those who would die because they never received treatment. She couldn't wait to get her hands on Raxus and save all of her friends and all of the people she could with the medicine he had stolen.

"We are in the forest of the Vanars. We are looking for a very powerful Vanar to see if he will help us in the upcoming war." Sarah informed the girl. Penny-Nichole seemed content with the answer.
"Shh, shush ladies. Here comes a vanar now." Gregor slowed their walk to a crawl as a creaky old man made his way up to the three.

"Good morning three travelers, where are you off to on this fine fine day where the sun surely shines bright up in the great sky up above us?" The vanar chattered on to them about many things before the three were able to speak.

"We are Gregor and Sarah Strike and Penny-Nichole. We have come looking for Vedos, do you think you could take us to him?" Gregor spoke calmly to the creature and the more he spoke, the more the creature's face lit up. Once Gregor was finished the vanar jumped in to the air with great ease. His rags fell away and turned into beautiful garments of turquoise and rich purples and when he landed, the old vanar was no longer there. In his place stood a tall, lean man with the face and tail of a monkey.

"I am Lark, close friend to our leader, Vedos, and son of the wind lord Mayu. My people and I have been waiting for many days and many nights for you all to arrive to us and seek out Vedos! We know of your story and have a story of our own that we seek your assistance with as well. Like you, our great ruler has lost one he loves dearly and he, like you, has been cast from his home." Penny-Nichole perked up as the vanar spoke. She wasn't sure what he meant when he spoke of being exiled. She had joined the Strikes on her own terms but she had never heard anything about the Strikes not being able to return home.

The four walked along the winding road and spoke of many things. Well, mostly Lark chattered endlessly to the three about the story of their leader as well as his own lineage.

Authors note: I know this story is short and seemingly meaningless, but I was running very short on time and I felt that it was a good transitional story to introduce some new characters and some new plots. This story is based off of Sugriva and Hanuman. I still have my three bounty hunters as Rama, I am missing the Lakshmana character, but Lark is supposed to be Hanuman and Vedos is representing Sugriva. I tried to provide some recap between the last story and now that went along with the actual story as well.

 

Rama and Hanuman

Bibliography:
Sugriva and Hanuman, written by Geraldine Hodgson

Week 5: Reading Notes B

Part B
Authors: C. A. Kincaid (1, 4, 11)
Donald A. Mackenzie (2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 16, 17, 19, 20)
V. Venkatachellam Iyer (8)
John Mandeville Macfie (14, 15)
Romesh Dutt (18)
Reading Notes:
I think I want to incorporate the image of the bow somewhere into my story. Almost all of the main heros seem to have a celestial bow and I personally like to do archery so I like the feel of bows as well. They are very powerful but also sleek and seemingly harmless. I also like that the five brothers are such a force to be reckoned with. I kind of want to incorporate that group family sense as well. Which I kind of do with the Strikes and Penny-Nichole.

I think it is sweet that the rakshasa and Bhima can be happily in love!

Dhrishtadyumna and Draupadi are two more that could fit into my theme of celestial beings for my stories. I haven't read too much about them but it seems like they are both warriors. I like the idea of brother and sister warriors, as one can tell by my bounty hunter siblings. So if the daughter is actaully a warrior also, then I could easily use these two.

Nalayani is an interesting character because of the amount of sexualization that surrounds her character. And how she is reborn to be the wife of five men. I'm not sure I'd use her as a character, but she is interesting to me.

Iravat, the son of Arjuna and naga princess Ulupi, is another character that could be used as a celestial being. I don't know anything about him yet, except for his lineage. And Arjuna gets a new cool power from having a child with the princess of the nagas. It is a neat little quest that he goes on to turn all the water nymphs back to their original forms. It reminds me a little bit of a video game.

Maya is also an interesting character but that is probably because she/he is a god, or a worker of the gods.

Draupadi and the Pandavas go into exile.

Bibliography: Since each chapter has a different author the links to each chapter are listed with their respected author at the top of the page.

Week 5: Reading Notes A

Part A
Authors: John Mandeville Macfie (1)
Donald A. Mackenzie (2,3,4,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,18,19)
Sister Nivedita (5,6)
Elizabeth Seeger (11,12)
Romesh Dutt (17)
C. A. Kincaid (20)
Reading notes:
I generally like origin stories for this very reason, they are so strange and creative that it couldn't possibly ever be true. I think the idea of a river goddess becoming human so she can save the cursed celestial beings is pretty cool. Even more so neat that the beings then granted her human son an either each of their power. It made me laugh that she agreed to marry the king so long as he treated her well. It makes sense! Thats what anyone wants in a relationship! But I can imagine that after watching your wife drown seven sons, that would be a lot of rage pent up not saying anything. I don't know if the river goddess character will come back into play, but I like that she came, had her story, and then was no longer needed. Unnecessary characters are frustrating.

The story of Satyavati is an interesting one. I like the line, "If ever thou hast need of me, think of me, and I shall come to thine aid.". That idea of her son being so devoted to her even though he wasn't there for very long is sweet to me. I also appreciate that Shantanu didn't disinherit his own son just to wed the other beautiful maiden. Thats pretty noble of Bhishma to basically disinherit himself so that is father could marry the woman he wanted. It was already his destiny to not marry or bear children of his own, but it was still a very noble thing to do for one's father. This is a pretty cool dude. Hes going to fight to seize bride for his younger brother who is on the throne that he should have. He is making such an effort to secure the throne for his half-brother. I think so far he is my favorite character!

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and in this case Amba is the woman scorned and she is going to get her revenge on Bhishma it sounds like. The set up of this plot it very intriguing and I would definitely use it somehow in my stories! It sucks that the younger brother died before he could have any successors. I really liked how they bring back in the slightly forgotten actual first born child to Satyavati. While it is sad that Vyasa was so horrid to behold, I find it interesting how the sons came to be and how their names relate to their characteristics.

The play fight turning deadly is another image that I really like and feel like it would be fun to use in one of my own stories. Arjuna would be another celestial being, seeing as he is the son of the Sun God.

I feel like I could do a cool story with all of the celestial born characters in this epic. So far we have Kunit, who's mother was a nymph, Vyasa, who was gifted an eighth of power from eight celestials, Vidura, who is the reincarnation of the god of justice, and Ganga, who is a river goddess. And any of the sons of Vyasa and any of his son's sons are all technically celestial beings by being related to Vyasa. I also like the idea of having omens surrounding the birth of certain characters, I feel like that is something I could easily add into my stories.

I am not surprised that there is competition between the sons of the two kings. I am excited about the ideas of the nagas though and how they give Bhima supernatural strength. I could use that in a story with the other celestial beings! I like the relationship between the sons and their teacher Drona. Starting with friendship and turning to disdain is an interesting relationship that could lead to many different paths.

 

Amba, Javanese Shadow Puppet

Bibliography: Since each chapter has a different author the links to each chapter are listed with their respected author at the top of the page.