Holy Insecurity, Batman!

You'd think being a god is one of the sweetest jobs out there. Incredible power, tons of perks, the ability to shape the future... a person could feel good about themselves if they were a god, right?

Wrong. Gods are some of the most insecure beings ever created. From Greece to Alaska to Egypt, gods across pantheons just can't stop showing off the extent of their power and control over every other living thing. It's as if, divine and omnipotent as they are, they still have something to prove, either to themselves or to us. I would make a "compensating for something" joke, but I'd probably get turned into rock if I did. Because the one thing gods can't stand is a lowly mortal pointing out their flaws.

Take Arachne. Granted, she was a moron for willfully engaging a goddess in a contest of skill; the barometer of stupid probably shattered when she challenged Athena. But her prideful idiocy doesn't change the fact that she was also right. Athena's entry into their weaving contest is a complacent pat-on-the-back to herself and her entire extended family; Arachne had the guts to depict the gods' ignoble moments and reveal how ridiculous and petty they often are. And sometimes the narrator even admits that Arachne's work, if blasphemous, is also better than Athena's.

What does she get for shining an irreverent but honest light on the less-than-glorious lives of the gods, via a contest she technically won? Turned into a spider. Athena is so embarrassed that she throws an appalling and uncharacteristic hissy fit: she rips up Arachne's superior tapestry and erases all evidence of the crime by disposing of the accuser. Clearly the mob missed out on a fantastic hit woman. But even in high dudgeon, Athena remains sensible enough to phrase her anger in terms that no other potentially challenging mortal could mistake: this is Arachne's punishment, not for being humiliatingly right, but for her arrogance. The message is clear: do not piss off the gods. Even if you're better. Just don't do it. We don't want to know.

Sedna, Antony Galbraith

Sedna, in comparison, gets a much better deal. But her story is still very troubling in what it says about the capricious willfulness of gods. Sedna starts out as a beautiful mortal who refuses all her suitors, until a mysterious and skilled hunter comes to town. She's interested; more importantly, her father wants her off his hands. He drugs Sedna and hands her over to the hunter, who takes her back to his "home" - an enormous nest on a clifftop. Surprise - your new husband is actually Raven, turned into a human because he spotted Sedna and fancied her!

Sedna, Tara Borger

In a shocking twist, this freaks Sedna out. (I have to wonder if Leda had a similar reaction when she was accosted and assaulted by a damn swan. What is it with randy gods and birds?) Sedna escapes from the nest, which in turn offends her putative husband's pride and dignity. Determined not to let his new bride escape - whether he's more concerned about having his disguise revealed, or losing face by losing Sedna, is rarely clear - Raven whips up a storm to drown the girl he went to such lengths to obtain. In hopes of making amends, Sedna's father kayaks over to rescue her, but only until his own life is threatened. When the storm nearly flips his boat over, Sedna's father pitches her straight into the god-sent waves, sacrificing his daughter again for his own sake. And when the poor girl, probably now thoroughly pissed at men in general, clings to the side of the kayak, her paragon of a dad cuts her fingers off so she can't hold on. Luckily karma takes a hand at this point; Sedna's severed fingers become whales and seals and fish, the creatures of the as-yet-unpopulated sea, and Sedna herself becomes a sea goddess. It's a much-deserved reward for her seriously crappy run of luck.

But having been the firsthand victim of a god's fickle pride, Sedna has a hard time learning the lesson of good behavior. She throws temper tantrums when her hair gets tangled underwater, requiring tribal shamans to travel to her ocean home to comb out the knots (since they, after all, have fingers). Only when she is appeased will she release the sea creatures for humans to catch. On one hand, yes, the lack of fingers and the inability to attend to her own personal grooming would get on someone's nerves; on the other, you'd think someone so shabbily treated would know to be helpful rather than coercive. The only lesson Sedna seems to have learned about divine-human relations is the one that led Raven to kidnap her: humans exist to serve the will of gods.

And lest you think this is just a hormonal female thing, we haven't even gotten to the most appalling divine exhibition of power.

Back in the bad old days before the Ten Commandments, Yahweh was a Mesopotamian thunder god with a lot to prove. His chosen people go nomad for a couple generations, essentially run the richest country in the known world, and then promptly get enslaved when a trigger-happy Pharaoh thinks they've gone too far. When Yahweh finally wakes up to the less-than-ideal state of his worshipers - and the affront to him implied in the subjugation of his chosen ones - he seriously loses his cool. He snags a passing Moses and makes him a divine mouthpiece for Yahweh's over-the-top display of vindictive power.

Who does he unleash this power on? The Pharaoh who enslaved his people? The overseers and taskmasters who make their lives hell? The priests who deemed him so helpless?

How about everyone?

The Plagues of Egypt, John Martin

Yahweh's reputation and career are on the line. He's up against the far more experienced and entrenched might of the Egyptian pantheon. And he is not happy with being ignored. So he makes damn sure that no one will ever forget what happens when you make him angry. He systematically ravages the entire country, forcing every single Egyptian to pay literally in blood for the insult to his prowess. His opening act is to turn Egypt's only source of potable water into blood. Once dehydration sets in, Pharaoh relents and calls Moses back. "Okay, I'm sorry, you guys can go now, but for the love of Hapi, can you get me a freaking drink of water?"

The Plague of Locusts, James Tissot

To recap: Yahweh has brought a country to its knees with one stroke. The most powerful king in the world is begging with his chosen spokesman, acknowledging Yahweh's superior might. But this is not enough. Yahweh's just getting started on his revenge. Exodus explicitly states that "God hardened Pharaoh's heart," and proceeded to unleash the other nine Plagues on the population of an entire country, just to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that he was awesome. He does it again and again, bringing Pharaoh to desperation and then refusing to let the king's own admission of Yahweh's power stand. He kills all the cattle; he withers all the crops; he plunges the entire country into permanent darkness. And ultimately, as his master stroke, Yahweh slaughters the firstborn of every single Egyptian family. When this is depicted, the dead firstborn are nearly always children. Innocents. Noncombatants. Some of whom had probably never met an Israelite in the whole of their short life.

Death of the Pharaoh's Firstborn Son, Lawrence Alma-Tadema

They die to prove a point. They die to show that Yahweh is not a god to ignore. They die because of a god's authority crisis. They are collateral damage in a war of divine attrition, because a couple of powerful humans wondered what would happen if they poked a sleeping dragon.

Gods are not nice people. Gods are primordial creatures, wearing a sheen of civilization over the basest impulses known to man. They exist to be worshiped. And if you forget, they will be more than happy to remind you - brutally, savagely, in a triumph of self-conscious insecurity - what happens when you don't give them their due.

How the Trickster Won His Spurs

Pretty much everyone agrees that honor and glory are nice things. We like them. We like people who have them. We especially like ourselves when we have them. Most of legend's "good guys" are honorable men. But sooner or later, every culture gets fed up with unblemished golden boys. There comes a time when we all just want to hear about someone who can think.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... the trickster!

The Theft of Apollo's Cattle, Elizabeth Phillips

We've all got one. Talk about a universal character. He fits into any story; he can get away with anything; he's the life of the party, the funniest guy around. There are tons of tricksters, from Anansi to Raven to Loki, and the second they appear onstage they steal everyone else's thunder. Nobody cares that Apollo just lost all his best cows; all we care about is how Hermes will get out of this one.

So yes, you've got to have a trickster. But that doesn't mean that everyone has to like him.

The trickster may be the most morally complicated character in any pantheon. He's the undeniable audience favorite, but he also screws everyone else over like it's going out of style. Poor stupid Tiger trusts Anansi once and gets his balls stolen forever. Puss in Boots gleefully murders a passing ogre to secure a comfortable life for himself and his master. When the Norse gods call on Loki to fix a crappy situation, it's even money that Loki himself created it. Just try telling these guys that crime doesn't pay. They'll laugh in your face, ruin your life, and saunter on back to their paradises.

Brer Rabbit and the Briar Patch, Disney

And then you start asking questions about the tricksters' companions. How can they be so blind? If Odin knows everything, why doesn't he cop to Loki's double-dealing? If Raven comes to court your daughter, why don't you just shut the door and hide the valuables? No matter what Brer Rabbit tells you, why would anyone with sense ever believe him? Honor, glory, and even plain old goodness undergo a very disconcerting alchemy in the presence of a trickster; they blend together into one single, unappealing, trait: stupidity.

Loki's Punishment, Tudor Humphries

Which may be why some cultures go out of their way to tell stories in which the trickster is humbled. When Raven, who wants lots of delicious dead eyeballs to eat, forbids humans from having more than one life, his furious subjects kill his son and daughter to make him understand their pain. Coyote once courts a beautiful girl who tries to commit suicide when their liaison becomes public knowledge; he finds her in the nick of time, but the two of them are turned into ducks and can never return to her people. Loki reaps the worst punishment: when his mischief turns to malice in the killing of Balder, he's bound in a cave with a serpent dripping venom on his face until Ragnarok, when he dies in battle against the Aesir. Mess with the higher powers one too many times, and they'll have something to say about it. No one likes being made to look a fool.

Coyote Went up the River, Frederick N. Wilson

But plenty of cultures let the trickster get away scot-free. The one time Hermes gets caught (and taken to court) by Hera, he pleads his own case so eloquently and hilariously that everyone votes not to punish him. Robin Goodfellow wreaks endless household havoc and never gets called to account; instead, he gets a whole ballad in which he boasts of his exploits. Seasoned tricksters even have get-out-of-jail-free cards. All it takes to resurrect Coyote is for his friend Fox (another notable trickster) to walk over his bones.

Audience sympathy is a powerful thing. When your creator can't bear even to punish you, let alone kill you off, it's a good sign that you're here to stay.

It makes the trickster the oldest outsider in the book. He exists to upset the status quo. Having him around makes life dangerous and unpredictable; it's no wonder that he has to con his way into good fortune, since most of his fellows avoid him and the chaos he brings. It's hard to say whether he's outcast because of his tricks, or whether his tricks created a scenario in which he had to be cast out.

And it's that trait, more than any other, that makes him the popular character audiences identify with. Of all the characters in any given pantheon, fixed and steadfast in what they represent, the trickster is the only one who can change.

No wonder we like him so much. We see most of ourselves in him. He's the one who not only adapts to a new world, but shapes that world to his liking. Who wants to be a boring paragon when you could be a dynamic change-maker? Who wants to sit still when you could have fun?