Creating Pop Culture Pantheons
Part 2 of my Pop Culture Pagan series. (Part 1)
Disclaimer: This is only one of MANY ways to go about constructing your own pantheon. Please feel free to offer up your own methods in the reblogs, I look forward to hearing from everyone!
Since the last post went over so well I’ve decided to continue it by talking specifically about creating PC Pantheons. Generally speaking, beings who are not deities are not commonly a part of pantheons, so this can get a bit tricky.
As I discussed in the last post, not every character would want to be raised to deity status. You may decide to worship them as lesser spirits, angels, sometimes even just as a human being. In this case, if you follow the belief that only deities are a direct part of a pantheon, where do the non-deities fit in?
Sometimes the easiest thing to do is break them up into categories based on what kind of being you’d classify them. Deities can go in one category and non-deities in another. You can even break the non-deity category down even further if you wish. If you still want the non-deities to be a part of the pantheon you can give titles to each category. For example, the deity group could be the Major Pantheon while the non-deity group could be the Minor Pantheon. In naming them, be sure to make a good enough distinction between the groups so that there is no confusion about which group represents the deity group.
It’s very important when developing a pantheon to understand that not every character you wish to worship would want to be a deity, hence why group distinctions are so important. They’ll reaffirm for both you and the being that you have taken their wishes into consideration and do not see them as a deity. They’ll appreciation that, and you’ll sleep better knowing you’re not actively going against their wishes. Similarly, you may wish to make a separate group for beings who aren’t comfortable being worshiped at all. These beings can be honored and respected, but not worshiped.
The point of making groups is, in the beginning, mostly to allow you to make distinctions between the beings so you don’t get them mixed up. The higher number of beings you’re working with, the more important these distinctions become. The Pantheon from the show White Collar will require significantly less groundwork than that of Harry Potter, for example, given the much higher number of significant characters in Harry Potter. If you know them well enough to not get mixed up groups may not be necessary, but they can still be fun and add an interesting touch to your craft.
Simple steps for pantheon building:
Separate your beings into groups based on deities, non-deities who are comfortable being worshiped, and non-deities who don’t want to be worshiped.
Come up with group names. Have fun with this step!
Write down what you know about each being before any kind of worship or offerings are given. Make sure you understand them. Canon is ridiculously helpful with this step; if you can’t remember a specific aspect of their character find the source and refresh your memory!
If you’re pulling characters from different sources to build a pantheon understand that this will require more groundwork and essentially more work when you begin honoring the beings. Having a pantheon predominantly of Supernatural characters but then throwing Jack Harkness into the mix will cause some instability at first, given that they’re from two different sources and their back stories don’t align at all. Be prepared to do a lot of listening and writing.
Ah yes, did I mention writing? As your pantheon develops you may notice the interactions of the beings changing (especially when pulling from multiple sources). Write everything down. Keep it firmly in mind. These interactions will shape the pantheon.
Split Souls: Beings who sometimes want to be worshiped as deities and sometimes do not. This can be for a variety of reasons and can sometimes be as simple as the character just changing their mind often, but the most common you’ll see are characters with Split Personality Disorder. For these beings you’ll need to pay close attention to what mood or personality they’re in and act accordingly.
Again, this is not in any way a comprehensive guide to creating pc pantheons; there are so many ways you can go about doing it, and this is merely the way I chose for my own practice. I’d love to hear how others have gone about the process!
Happy building!
~Wanderings
