"they do a damn fine job of describing every buddy cop movie ever made."
June 20, 2016 11:53 AM Subscribe
Overthinking It! tackles The One-Eyed Spike and the One-Handed Jet of Cowboy Bebop - "Who knew that Cowboy Bebop was basing its characters on Proto-Indo-European mythology? French philologist Georges Dumezil, that’s who!"
"And if that’s not enough evidence, try this one on for size: over and over again, in every appearances in all the mythologies that Dumezil considers, the Priest-King is marked by a deformity of the hand. And the Magician-King is marked by a corresponding deformity of the eye."
"And if that’s not enough evidence, try this one on for size: over and over again, in every appearances in all the mythologies that Dumezil considers, the Priest-King is marked by a deformity of the hand. And the Magician-King is marked by a corresponding deformity of the eye."
Seems more likely that it's drawing from Norse mythology rather than Proto-Indo-European according to Dumezil, but either way guess I'll have to watch Cowboy Bebop again.
posted by sfenders at 12:19 PM on June 20, 2016
posted by sfenders at 12:19 PM on June 20, 2016
I mean ... Norse probably draws from Proto-Indo-European.
posted by kafziel at 12:34 PM on June 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by kafziel at 12:34 PM on June 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
I really love this. Cowboy Bebop is maybe my favorite TV series, and I just love the amount of depth and thought that went into the narrative design of the show. It is a mashup of space adventure, wild west, jazz, noir detective, gangster, police procedural, etc., but it all comes together as a unity. It strikes me that this impulse towards bringing together these kinds of mythic elements is similar to what George Lucas did for Star Wars, just backwards. Where Lucas looked as Kurasawa films, and was interested in them as an archetype of a kind of foreign, mythic landscape, we see the same here, but from a Japanese perspective towards America. I've read interviews with Yoko Kanna, the composer, talking about approaching the music as a kind of exotica - she didn't grow up with American music, but learned it and studied it visiting America, and the score is her attempt at creating it.
I think the same is true throughout the show's structure, where a kind of version of America is being reflected back through a mythic lens.
posted by MythMaker at 12:40 PM on June 20, 2016 [8 favorites]
I think the same is true throughout the show's structure, where a kind of version of America is being reflected back through a mythic lens.
posted by MythMaker at 12:40 PM on June 20, 2016 [8 favorites]
The first time I saw Cowboy Bebop, it changed my life. (It certainly cemented my first crush on an anime character.)
I haven't watched it in such a long time. That makes me sad.
posted by Kitteh at 12:47 PM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
I haven't watched it in such a long time. That makes me sad.
posted by Kitteh at 12:47 PM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
Stokes (the author) needs a MetaFilter account and a can opener to open up his can of beans. Kudos.
Edit: and a plate. Certainly he needs a plate.
posted by Nanukthedog at 12:50 PM on June 20, 2016
Edit: and a plate. Certainly he needs a plate.
posted by Nanukthedog at 12:50 PM on June 20, 2016
And here I thought it was mainly drawing from Lupin III mythology.
posted by delfin at 1:03 PM on June 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by delfin at 1:03 PM on June 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
"I mean ... Norse probably draws from Proto-Indo-European."
Norse is Indo-European. Indo-European encompasses a lot.
posted by I-baLL at 1:21 PM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
Norse is Indo-European. Indo-European encompasses a lot.
posted by I-baLL at 1:21 PM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
Proto-Indo-European is the largely hypothetical culture from which the Indo-European ones are thought to have descended.
posted by sfenders at 1:49 PM on June 20, 2016
posted by sfenders at 1:49 PM on June 20, 2016
I mean, I don't see a lot of features specific to Indian Vedas, Gaelic tradition, or Roman gods in Bebop. It may just be that I'm completely ignorant of those and over-sensitive to Odin references.
posted by sfenders at 2:05 PM on June 20, 2016
posted by sfenders at 2:05 PM on June 20, 2016
Well if (as is so tiresome to continually point out the obvious) there were only men in the Norse and Greek pantheons, yeah. Oh, you're saying there were women too? Huh. And there were goddesses with their own strengths and injuries and weaknesses and life-giving and life-taking and death-welcoming and wisdom-imparting powers?
Oh, right, yeah, we're not talking about them, we're Post-Indo-Europeans who ascribe power and life only to men and erase all that irksome goddess stuff from history. How silly, to think that birth could be associated with women! After all, if we say it wasn't important, then it definitely wasn't. Women are supporting characters.
On a less sarcastic note, it would be nice if an actual effort were made to have modern mythology-based stories that actually pay attention to the fact that women existed in mythology, in their own right, and with their own powers.
posted by fraula at 2:31 PM on June 20, 2016 [5 favorites]
Oh, right, yeah, we're not talking about them, we're Post-Indo-Europeans who ascribe power and life only to men and erase all that irksome goddess stuff from history. How silly, to think that birth could be associated with women! After all, if we say it wasn't important, then it definitely wasn't. Women are supporting characters.
On a less sarcastic note, it would be nice if an actual effort were made to have modern mythology-based stories that actually pay attention to the fact that women existed in mythology, in their own right, and with their own powers.
posted by fraula at 2:31 PM on June 20, 2016 [5 favorites]
"I mean, I don't see a lot of features specific to Indian Vedas, Gaelic tradition, or Roman gods in Bebop. It may just be that I'm completely ignorant of those and over-sensitive to Odin references."
The article doesn't focus on Odin. It says:
The article doesn't focus on Odin. It says:
"Dumezil’s most famous claim is that Indo-European society had two complementary concepts of political leadership, which are represented in ancient cultures by a linked pair of kings or gods. Mitra and Varuna in India. Tyr and Odin in Scandanavia. Nuada of the Silver Hand and Lugh Samildanach in Ireland. In Rome, there were actually three pairs: the gods Dius Fidius and Jupiter, the legendary kings Numa and Romulus, and the military heroes Gaius Mucius Scaevola and Horatius Cocles. All of these, claims Dumezil, are reflections of an older pair of proto-Indo-European deities, *Tiwaz, the priest-king, and *Wodhanaz, the magician-king."posted by I-baLL at 2:36 PM on June 20, 2016
I will only believe this if the author can provide evidence that Tyr and Odin would share meals of bell peppers and beef. Sans boeuf.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:43 PM on June 20, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:43 PM on June 20, 2016 [7 favorites]
There was a good essay in Slate awhile back using this same text to talk about the movie True Grit.
posted by bleep at 8:34 PM on June 20, 2016
posted by bleep at 8:34 PM on June 20, 2016
The notion of "two complementary concepts of political leadership" puts me in mind of Vader and the Emperor, although the analogy is not particularly close.
I love this essay and I'm just about ready to entertain the theory that the Cowboy Bebop creators self-consciously appealed to the theorized PIE lore in creating their story. (I don't think it's as open-and-shut as this guy does, though. It seems to me there are too many degrees of freedom to be so confident. Each of these figures has a cloud of attributes, none necessary or definitive except perhaps the deformities; each overlaps with a bunch of tropes that are in the air anyway, including but not only from their more proximate sources in known mythologies; and Bebop is a rich pastiche whose consistency is being overstated a little.)
posted by grobstein at 9:08 AM on June 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
I love this essay and I'm just about ready to entertain the theory that the Cowboy Bebop creators self-consciously appealed to the theorized PIE lore in creating their story. (I don't think it's as open-and-shut as this guy does, though. It seems to me there are too many degrees of freedom to be so confident. Each of these figures has a cloud of attributes, none necessary or definitive except perhaps the deformities; each overlaps with a bunch of tropes that are in the air anyway, including but not only from their more proximate sources in known mythologies; and Bebop is a rich pastiche whose consistency is being overstated a little.)
posted by grobstein at 9:08 AM on June 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
On my 2nd rewatch this year. Decided it was finally okay to fully watch the show with the English dub. Still think it is drastically different, and worse, than the original dialogue.
The essay has an interesting take. I wouldn't disagree with it. Thematically there is such an overt Daoist influence that the whole binary thing is already pretty much laid bare through it. And actually Spike's fighting and philosophy are based on Bruce Lee. So this scene -
I will only believe this if the author can provide evidence that Tyr and Odin would share meals of bell peppers and beef
- that opens the whole series was taken from Way of the Dragon . Which was written, directed, and starred Bruce Lee. Lee was very much into Daoism, and Way of the Dragon is a Daoist metaphor.
That of course is just one small aspect of the overall show, but if you watch the show and look for the binaries they exist in a lot of different places; from character to character and even the scenery and settings offer up contrasts. And I don't think it was just a happy mistake or me reading into it. Just like if you just merely listen to the sounds and how they play against each other then sometimes meld into a jazzy riff and play along with the scenes.
There is so much to say about this show, not the least of which is that it is really great. I still like Samurai Champloo better though.
posted by P.o.B. at 5:40 PM on June 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
The essay has an interesting take. I wouldn't disagree with it. Thematically there is such an overt Daoist influence that the whole binary thing is already pretty much laid bare through it. And actually Spike's fighting and philosophy are based on Bruce Lee. So this scene -
I will only believe this if the author can provide evidence that Tyr and Odin would share meals of bell peppers and beef
- that opens the whole series was taken from Way of the Dragon . Which was written, directed, and starred Bruce Lee. Lee was very much into Daoism, and Way of the Dragon is a Daoist metaphor.
That of course is just one small aspect of the overall show, but if you watch the show and look for the binaries they exist in a lot of different places; from character to character and even the scenery and settings offer up contrasts. And I don't think it was just a happy mistake or me reading into it. Just like if you just merely listen to the sounds and how they play against each other then sometimes meld into a jazzy riff and play along with the scenes.
There is so much to say about this show, not the least of which is that it is really great. I still like Samurai Champloo better though.
posted by P.o.B. at 5:40 PM on June 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
I literally can't go a month or two without thinking about how great Cowboy Bebop is. Glad to see it's hitting its quota, but now I think I'm gonna have rewatch it.
posted by DynamiteToast at 8:57 AM on June 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by DynamiteToast at 8:57 AM on June 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
Okay, I can admit Ed is way funnier in the American version. In Seesion 10 I see Fay break the fourth wall by directly looking at the veiwer as Ed swoops through the screen tossing Ein around. At times this show can take itself overly serious, and other times it present itself as if it it just that a show that entertains you.
posted by P.o.B. at 12:31 AM on June 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by P.o.B. at 12:31 AM on June 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
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