Godhood as Disability
For @leebrontide
There are many gods, and many settings in my world, but for today we will look at those for whom godhood is the least natural: the Demons and Paragons of Olympus, in Elise’s home megaverse.
This world is an alternate history version of ours. While in our past Christianity took some influence from Greek myth, and the Gospels were first written in Greek, in theirs the Bible was entirely rewritten to appeal to a Greek audience. The stories are mostly the same, the names are not. As such, very little about the course of history changed. The lessons were the same, Constantine still converted (though Roman Catholics use the Romanized names of Greek figures) the Reformation had all the same gripes plus a demand to return to the “original” Greek names for the Paragons…
These Paragons (and Demons) are the new gods of this setting. Theologically they are not gods (thou shalt have no gods before me) but functionally, they are. The shells of the Greek gods, possessed by a cadre of fallen angels and human disciples, then afflicted by the concepts of Deadly Sins and Heavenly Virtues.
We will take a few examples. Ares, who carries the Sin of Wrath. The soul within him is that of Spariel, a fallen angel (fallen Titan in their parlance). Cié’s experience is thus: Cié came into being on Olympus, with memories of a war cié never fought. Memories of the Garden, of Pandora (Eve), of one of the Sins of the World settling into cier flesh irrevocably. The body cié inhabits now is not the one cié remembers, though in truth it is the only one cié has ever actually lived in. Ares is here too, though fainter every day, as believers come to mean Spariel when they say his name. Other gods get used to this, the two become one. Spariel never can, and Ares comes to live a shadow of a life, his name stolen by the Titan that controls his body. As time marches on, the Sin that Spariel carries is given a name. Ares was always known to be wrathful, now Catholics fear Mars, known to embody the sin of Wrath. Spariel finds ciemself angry, lashing out at things cié had previously been able to leave be. When David, the first child of Olympus since Persephone (Jesus) comes to ciem with tears in his eyes, cié can offer no true comfort, only rage and demands for vengeance.
Those tears are for good reason. The Paragon Apollo, who had been the human disciple James, carries the Heavenly Virtue of Temperance. He is also the only doctor on Olympus. His treatments are tempered his Virtue, and so David must live with gender dysphoria, headaches, and fevers for much longer than humans not raised by deities would advise as doses rise by minuscule amounts.
David’s father is the disciple Peter, who has integrated even less will into his godly life than Spariel. The human Peter was real, and the quality of his memories as a human differ from those constructed by faith, those of Athena, Minerva, Logos, the names by which he is now known. The differences confound them, and their experience matches that of a person with Dissociative Identity Disorder more so than a singlet. Each, however, is equally affected by the virtue Prudence, leading to a closed off life of memory loss and quiet confusion. The banal requests David makes, as any son might to his father, are often lost, to amnesia barriers, or to strident internal debates of how to proceed, until it is too late.
The Paragon Hestia (Vesta to the Catholics) sees this and cannot speak. Her human experience tells her this is not right, but the Virtue Humility and the stories yet remembered by the masses of Mary Magdalene force her to sit silent and rapturous, offering only encouraging smiles and none of her own advice as David tells her of plans that will surely destroy him. The life of Persephone swims before her eyes but she cannot presume to tell this boy that he has erred.
Gods are made of faith. It keeps them alive when others would dwindle, die or cease to exist, crushed by the non-reality of the Shadowless into nothing. It also shapes who they are. When Catholic children are taught to be like Vesta, to listen to the Good Word without doubting, it lashes at Hestia’s own doubts, and dries the words of protest on her tongue. When addicts pray to Apollo for aid as they follow a 12 step program, he loses more of his human disdain for asceticism, and with it his empathy for David’s pleas to have the second half of the children’s Tylenol now.
These are not the only creatures for whom the faith of others has marred their life, but this post is long enough.
P.S. @squarebracket-trickster I like to think I already have written a fairly interesting theology. This isn’t even the only one.
