Hello, i stumbled across your webcomic and i have to ask, is Aion a real god? Or was he made up for your own purposes?
oh i LOVE questions like this
aion is very much a real god, specially of the hellenistic era and later roman era though his origins are speculated to go as far as back as zoroastrianism (aka REALLY OLD). we extended his formal name to anthemion both for the joke but also that it’s an old greek name than means “blooming flower” (it’ll come up later in story, don’t worry)
he is specifically a god of time, eternity, and the zodiac, but also rules of life, death, and even the afterlife among various other things depending on who you ask (fertility, wisdom, and history pop up a lot)
i really like the zodiac part, hence the following panel
(you can read that episode HERE)
unlike chronos (aka the ACTUAL god of time ok cronus is the harvest!!!!) who is depicted as old and wise, aion depicted has young and handsome ….. and naked. i don’t know if webtoons will let us get away with that quite yet
one of his appearances in greek myth involves judging aphrodite and athena in a weaving competition because that’s never been a bad idea EVER
another appearance involves zeus asking his for his wise council so obviously there’s a system of respect there
ANOTHER appearance involves him FALLING ASLEEP because the olympians are arguing. is that not a MOOD
my favorite appearance was him going to tend to aphrodite after she has her daughter with adonis (its very sweet!! he brought a baby blanket!!)
he’s often associated with dionysus, persephone, orpheus (he’s VERY popular in orphic mythology), osiris, hades, and sometimes JESUS because of how popular aion is in mystery cults (of which the mentioned deities are also very popular in) so that implies he also has power over fertility, vegetation, ecstasy (nice), life, death, wealth, the earth, rebirth, and like …. theatre maybe? i like dionysus a lot ok
in some ancient sense seems to be implied to be a precursor to baby new year because of him overseeing the change from one year to the next (though again, never depicted as a baby himself) and is often associated with chronos aka father time
he was very popular in roman times as power behind the empire and emperors, implying he was also a god of sovereignty, power, and kings (rather like hera in a way!)
he’s so popular in a deeper religious sense that many early christian and jewish groups considered him THE TOP GOD (see here for more info and notice how many other greek gods and goddesses pop up in this too. hades come collect your daughter)
he also inspired a video game and is the name of a a few unrelated mangas and a japan metal band. fun!
anyway, yes he’s a real god, and specifically we picked him because we designed MR as both a rerelling of myth but also wanted to show history, and it’d be weird for like, athena to be able to jump around time, so it was better to use a proper time god for it (rather like doctor who, but more greek and way less fond of the britiish museum for like …. obvious reasons)
thank you for the question!
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