300: rise of an empire - i try not to hope too much

300: Rise of an Empire

Okay, if this is just at the purely oiled twelve-pack abs level of goodness that 300 was, I'll be ecstatic. I say this not from plot or believability or wtf was going on with Xerxes army--I say this because I don't actually have many clear memories of anything that wasn't hot men in loincloths running and leaping (and running. And leaping. Christ, the leaping. With a spear). And Gorgo spearing Theron like the squealing pig he is.

However, second character listed? Artemisia. Satrap of Caria in her own right and the only female general in Xerxes army. Right after Queen Gorgo.

Fine, I'm in for the oiled musculature and to see two very powerful women make war. I'm very okay with myself right now.



I'm also deeply curious if they mean they really will cover how Xerxes became the god-king. I have a thing for ancient history, and while god-rulers were thick uponthe ground (and hell, even non-sovereigns got into the act, see Julius Caesar before he was deified by Augustus, Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi) there is such a blurry line between those who used it and those who believed in their own deification and it's hard to look back from now and try to decide which were which or if there was any difference to be had, mostly because the definition of a god is so very different to many of them and has so little shared context with most of the major monotheistic or polytheistic religions going on today.

There's also this: I want Mithridates, Tigranes, Queen Alexandra of Judea (the only female sovereign ruler of ancient Jerusalem), hell Republican and early Imperial Rome are depressingly unexplored territory in film and fiction unless it's Cleopatra, whom they fetishize disturbingly but problem is, they fetishize it all wrong.

It's not like I object to the fact she banged the two most powerful men in the world at the time (You are Pharaoh of a tiny country that half of which hates you and is living on the edge of destruction by Rome and you have to hire armies that can't possibly compete with what Rome and it's allies could put up against you; what do you do? Also, Caesar rules the world and is ungodly hot. This is not a difficult choice.)

(I also deeply believe if Antony hadn't been an idiot, she would have ruled the world while he drank himself to death).)

But she was pharaoh and I wish that part was explored more deeply and what that meant and how much that informed her choices both political and personal. When you're raised to be and anointed God on earth--raised by your priests, even to make you fit for it--you think about the world in very different terms than I think a lot of what I've read seems to skim over. Especially since in Egyptian terms, being Pharaoh was something she had to be trained to become and earn, not simply given as birthright.

God-rulers are interesting, is what I'm saying.

I have feelings on this, yes.

Comments

[out_there]

When you're raised to be and anointed God on earth--raised by your priests, even to make you fit for it--you think about the world in very different terms than I think a lot of what I've read seems to skim over.

That's interesting. Whenever I think of Cleopatra, she's very much presented as woman-with-power rather than someone who'd been raised to believe she was an incarnation of gods. Hmmm.

[seperis]

Yeah, and I wish there was more about that. Pharaoh wasn't exactly something born; it was something you became and not all Ptolemaic Egyptian kings and queens became Pharaoh. There was an entire religious education controlled by the Egyptian priests themselves, which makes me think that's why it's overlooked so often. How much they believed it I don't know, but considering how it probably happened, I can't see how she wouldn't because of that training.

I think it's harder to understand now, but I also have to keep in mind that the way they thought of gods, or being born of gods, is so different and what we think of mythology they either lived during or studied in school. Christianity really isn't very good for context, even with reference to the old Testament; the direct intervention of God on earth after the death of Christ isn't part of our canon, so I think we underestimate how that played out in ancient history. It's easy to overlook that their beliefs had gods directly intervening like a lot and not take that into consideration instead of assuming a more cynical idea that they didn't believe. I mean, Roman contract law covered their relationship with their gods, which kind of bends the mind when you think about it too much; on one hand, it makes it seem less like faith until you sit down and consider the fact they drew up literal contracts with gods like they would with each other because they knew they were there and went about it in a very business-oriented frame of mind.