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General Disclaimer
Jun. 11th, 2014 09:14 pmFor the purposes of playing with/exploring the various connections between Ancient Egypt and Greece, Callie's history blends and plays with various myths. This is done with love and research, but there are bound to be flaws. In the same respect, she's generally being used as a way to explore the intersection between the divine and the monsters in ancient myths.
Callie's Parentage
Jun. 11th, 2014 03:36 amTwo Possible Dads
There are two different candidates for Callie's father as her mother only ever said he was of the Nile. It gets a bit murky when further complicated by the fact cultural exchange between Greece and Egypt of the era means they could be the same god in different aspects, especially considering that the Egyptian candidate was frequently depicted as having two bodies at one point in time. Neilos (Nilus) is the Greek god of the Nile, depicted as a beautiful, dark skinned man who embodies everything the Nile has offered to its people and civilization and married Io after giving her shelter from both Zeus and Hera. His importance varied greatly and was more likely to be acknowledged in areas of high Ptolemaic
The truly Egyptian option is Hapi, who is one of multiple Egyptian river gods who primarily represents the fertility provided by the flooding of the Nile and how it united Upper and Lower Egypt. His fertility is depicted with large breasts and a belly, and his skin varies from that of a native Egyptian, blue, or green as part of his connection with the river. He has two different physical incarnations, one upper and one lower Egypt, and each married to Nekhbet and Wadjet respectively.
The problem lies in the fact that given the timeline and certain aspects of Callie's nature, it's very unlikely that Neilos is her father unless being born in Egypt during a height of the religion altered some part of her nature. If Nilus is her father, it's not such a big deal, but generally speaking she isn't much like him. If Hapi is her father, she might represent his infidelity from the marriages with ceremonial importance, which could be an issue in an old and very established pantheon. As such, neither can or would acknowledge her. They are still pleasant enough to her.
Egyptian Influences
Callie is subject to a blending and blurring of the two religions to a degree. Specifically, in regards to what happened when Demeter gave the Sirens wings in the hopes of finding her daughter Persephone. Callie was not simply given wings, she was given the ability to tap into a part of her soul and identity as a goddess, called the Ba. Ba, specifically, is a part of the Egyptian religion's concept of the soul that represented the purest essence of what makes that person unique.This essense is found in the form of a bird with a human head, which is remarkably similar to early depictions of sirens. Powerful gods were often shown as being able to manifest this either as their actual form and independently from themselves. Lesser gods were often depicted as only being able to take this form. Callie, when she was Ligeia, was able to tap into the transformation to various degrees.
Because of this, when she lost her wings, she lost a lot more than just her wings. She lost a part of her soul and identity as something divine, and when that was broken, something monstrous came out of her. The consequences of that break have never gone away, but time has allowed her to recover and build new parts of herself. That is where the identities of Callie and the ones before that allow her to move through the human without being dissected or destroyed get their depth and vigor. Given enough time or actual worshipers, she might be able to entirely recover as a slightly different goddess than she would have been.
There are two different candidates for Callie's father as her mother only ever said he was of the Nile. It gets a bit murky when further complicated by the fact cultural exchange between Greece and Egypt of the era means they could be the same god in different aspects, especially considering that the Egyptian candidate was frequently depicted as having two bodies at one point in time. Neilos (Nilus) is the Greek god of the Nile, depicted as a beautiful, dark skinned man who embodies everything the Nile has offered to its people and civilization and married Io after giving her shelter from both Zeus and Hera. His importance varied greatly and was more likely to be acknowledged in areas of high Ptolemaic
The truly Egyptian option is Hapi, who is one of multiple Egyptian river gods who primarily represents the fertility provided by the flooding of the Nile and how it united Upper and Lower Egypt. His fertility is depicted with large breasts and a belly, and his skin varies from that of a native Egyptian, blue, or green as part of his connection with the river. He has two different physical incarnations, one upper and one lower Egypt, and each married to Nekhbet and Wadjet respectively.
The problem lies in the fact that given the timeline and certain aspects of Callie's nature, it's very unlikely that Neilos is her father unless being born in Egypt during a height of the religion altered some part of her nature. If Nilus is her father, it's not such a big deal, but generally speaking she isn't much like him. If Hapi is her father, she might represent his infidelity from the marriages with ceremonial importance, which could be an issue in an old and very established pantheon. As such, neither can or would acknowledge her. They are still pleasant enough to her.
Egyptian Influences
Callie is subject to a blending and blurring of the two religions to a degree. Specifically, in regards to what happened when Demeter gave the Sirens wings in the hopes of finding her daughter Persephone. Callie was not simply given wings, she was given the ability to tap into a part of her soul and identity as a goddess, called the Ba. Ba, specifically, is a part of the Egyptian religion's concept of the soul that represented the purest essence of what makes that person unique.This essense is found in the form of a bird with a human head, which is remarkably similar to early depictions of sirens. Powerful gods were often shown as being able to manifest this either as their actual form and independently from themselves. Lesser gods were often depicted as only being able to take this form. Callie, when she was Ligeia, was able to tap into the transformation to various degrees.
Because of this, when she lost her wings, she lost a lot more than just her wings. She lost a part of her soul and identity as something divine, and when that was broken, something monstrous came out of her. The consequences of that break have never gone away, but time has allowed her to recover and build new parts of herself. That is where the identities of Callie and the ones before that allow her to move through the human without being dissected or destroyed get their depth and vigor. Given enough time or actual worshipers, she might be able to entirely recover as a slightly different goddess than she would have been.
