The Wicked + The Divine. Ongoing Spoilers, Theories, and Fan Feels.

[JKtheMac]

My grand theory of Wikdiv.
Or how Persephone changed the rules.

Rule Two is clearly that there have to be 12 gods. It is added to by a third of the gods having to be used to create the ritual making four heads. (A wasted move because it wasn’t really part of the rules, it was an existing ritual). This thirds division has apparently created a more general rule of four (12 divided by three) that is still being explored in the story.

The factions that appear in the pantheon appear to line up with the Maiden/Mother/Crone idea, with Mother being more than just creation but also creativity and youth culture. The rules divide the gods into three and present three generations.

The three factions roughly align with the Strauss–Howe generational theory. It is approximately three generations of adults with a fourth being the children of the new cycle. The pantheon is on that cusp of this transition to a fourth generation. They are defining what the fourth generation will be. They are the influencers. The potential cultural heroes of the next age.

Strauss–Howe theory is very post-modern as historical theories go, and IMO is probably more useful as general observation than a predictor of events, making it pretty redundant as a theory. As a story seed in a post-modern comic it is perfect.

In this theory we have four generations in an 80 year cycle of Prophet/Nomad/Hero/Artist. But a generation technically combines a mixture of all four at various stages of life which is where it gets more complex.

The Artists in Wikdiv seem to be those with the younger and more modern outlook. Post-Millennials by whatever the current name is. They represent the generation currently coming of age or younger. They suit the Anarchy group.

The Heroes are the fighters. The millennials. Optimistic and energetic. Grew up sheltered. They suit the Fight group and represent the generation currently in Young Adulthood.

Nomads are the Generation Xers. Currently middle-aged and pragmatic. They watched their parents attack the social order and were given a lot of freedom as children. They question things. They suit the Learn group.

Prophets are the baby boomers. A generation protected by the previous generation. They were literally given the world. They are self-entitled.

We can’t easily map four generations onto Maiden/Mother/Crone. Three into four won’t go.

The Maid/Mother/Crone idea is actually an artefact of a particular strand of classicism. Usually attributed to Jane Ellen Harrison but championed most clearly by one of Gillen’s stated sources Robert Graves. Oh we could say so much about Graves!

Let’s just say Gillen is probably nodding to Graves ironically. He doubtless knows as much as anyone how contentious Graves is, and yet how inspirational he is to adolescents looking for mythology to make sense. Gillen occasionally makes reference to The White Goddess in interviews and I believe his tongue is firmly in his cheek. Almost daring people to read it as a way of making sense of Wikdiv.

Comics got stuck with this lovely mental image of Maiden/Mother/Crone during the Gaiman / Ellis era. It’s a beautiful thing but it isn’t necessarily real. It should be treated as a model and one way of looking at certain myths, not a key to making sense of mythology. With stories on the other hand, all bets are off. This lovely summary is all anyone really needs to see how Gillen is probably both using and playing with the idea. Note especially the Crowley section.

The mother archetype in this traditional trinity is sometimes over-simplified to being literally about being a mother, when it is better referred to as Nubile, or of child-baring age. Part of the thrust of the narrative seems to be about the very real phenomenon of creativity in popular music being born of young adults / adolescents. It is not something we notice when we are in our early teens, but when we get older and look back, the true geniuses of pop culture are all so young! They exist at the transition between maiden and mother.

This transition is best personified in myth by Persephone. Her myth is very much about becoming an adult. It is also so much more. See the modern Graves in Roberto Calasso, who I sincerely hope Gillen has read because The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony is utterly gorgeous, and so much more convincing than Graves that it would almost be an insult to compare them.

(Graves is also a master of prose and a twisted genius so I don’t compare them with malice.)

In The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, Calasso delves deeply into the meaning of the Persephone myth, as well as a number of other related myths, as a central tenet of western culture.

--

How exactly we are supposed to divide the factions is a big question. In the story we have three divisions. Anarchy/Study/Fight with an unspoken fourth being Manipulate because nobody knows at this stage that Minerva is Ananke and still on course for her plan to divide and conquer.

Anarchy: Crowley’s “do as thou wilt.”
Study: Cass describes this as “Find all the truths” and conveniently lines up with Robert Graves. As if finding all the truths would actually be possible.
Fight: Includes finding out things but only where relevant.
Manipulate: Technically playing all of these off against each other instead of allowing them to act in concert.

I tentatively think we can map them onto the Strauss–Howe model:

Prophet/Manipulate
Nomad/Study
Hero/Fight
Artist/Anarchy

However the Maiden/Mother/Crone model lacks a generation, and Persephone seems to sit strangely. Anarchy was her choice but it is not quite representative of Persephone’s stated role of Mother. Perhaps because the proposed fight was not the right one? As The Destroyer she was fighting. We know she occasionally gets to fight back against Ananke over the course of history. Maybe she is still on the cusp? Indeed Persephone as a mythic archetype is always on this cusp. She is forever defined by the moment of her abduction. She brings the secret of life and death. She is a transitional deity.

Demeter is the missing piece of the puzzle. Demeter breaks the MMC model open and exposes it as wrong. She is the mother of the maiden become nubile. Persephone/Demeter/Hekate always missed the obvious. Before her abduction Persephone is just called Girl. Girl is the Maid not Persephone. Persephone is the cusp between childhood and adulthood. Persephone is Nubile but she isn’t Mother. This brief cusp is what the modern world would call the young adult or teenager. This was but a moment in much of history but the modern world has turned it into something much longer.

The rules in Wikdiv were made when there were only three roles, but the myth of Persephone was an innovation that occurred during ancient history and that role has only expanded since.

In Wikdiv terms, the Eleusinian Mysteries (Persephone myth cycle) are generally considered to have been created somewhere on the page of #36 that starts in 1657BC in North America and ends in Hattusa in 1197BC. Perhaps around this period Persephone created them and turned her single role into a potential two. But this new cuspid role only really became an actual role in modern times. Leaving us with:

Prophet/Manipulate/Crone/Baby Boomers/Ananke
Nomad/Study/Mother/Persephone
Hero/Fight/Teenager-Young Adult/Millennials/Persephone
Artist/Anarchy/Maiden/Post-Millennials/Minerva

Suddenly the contest is even for the first time in history. Persephone gets to be Mother and Nubile. Persephone choosing anarchy could be a potential winning move, encroaching upon the only remaining battlefront now that Ananke is dead. A battle for the future. A battle to break the cycle and claim the youth.

[JKtheMac]

I have occasionally said Mckelvie has seemed rushed on this book (about twice I think) so it is only fair to mention that he just levelled up this week. His expressions are phenomenal in #37. The fight interspersed with the club meeting is just phenomenal.

Also, I named this thread with the ending 'and fan feels' for a reason! Gillan actually made me feel for that f*$*ed-up relationship.

[FeniSam]

This thing. This GODFORSAKEN (pun most decidedly inteded) thing. This was painful to read, but in a nice, masochistic kind of way.

I did feel slightly cheated at the middle of the beginning, though I commend Gillen + McKelvie's ballsiness in doing that kind of stuff. The parallel of awful reactions between Crete-Minervananke (right after "Nothingness") and 2015-Morrigan was extremely unsettling, but also extremely effective.

The infodump at the Tube station almost didn't register until my 2nd reading, due to the sheer intensity of everything else. It's SO very WicDiv to use Luci, Inanna and Tara as meta commentary/audience surrogates and have it taken away at the end in the most horrible manner possible (and with a callback, too.)

That fight in the end was supremely well choreographed, heartbreakingly juxtaposed and astoundingly drawn. Jamie is clearly not of this world. The sheer self-destructiveness every single one of these characters exhibit is just heartbreaking.

I can't believe how emotionally invested I am in this, but I love it. Can't believe there is 1 1/2 month between this and the next issue, it'll feel like forever.

Due to how the Norns thing didn't really land (even though that could be mostly me, but whatever) and the cheating (IMO) in the first part, I give this 8/10. Still can't wait to read further.

[LeonardEugenius]

I feel like we’ve been getting dicked around the last three or four issues

[CRaymond]

I feel like we’ve been getting dicked around the last three or four issues

Go on. I feel like we've done nothing but learn more and more about Ananke, the Pantheon, and the spell.

[Nick Miller]

Is there in end in sight?

I’ve always been intrigued by this series, but I want to read it all after it finishes!

[CRaymond]

Is there in end in sight?

I’ve always been intrigued by this series, but I want to read it all after it finishes!

Wellllll

The only gods left are

(spoiler)
Persephone, Baphomet, the Norns, Mimir/Woden, Baal and Ananke
(/spoiler)

So it's certainly winding down and heading toward an ending.

[FeniSam]

Is there in end in sight?

I’ve always been intrigued by this series, but I want to read it all after it finishes!

If my memory serves, there's the end of Mothering Invention, the Special, a trade and the last arc, so it wraps around May/June 2019. It may change. Gillen has said so in the letters page, I think.

[seismic-2]

So what's up with the Norns? Just what did Cas finally come out and do or say, more than she's been doing or saying all along? No matter what she told the crowds, it didn't seem to make any difference. Did she finally get fed up with that?

[JKtheMac]

I love the way this book feels like it is pivoting towards a final act. I am genuinely not sure where it is going even though I have an inkling that the finale will be what I was thinking from day one.

The character assassination video is a kind of stealth recap page that hints at things to come.

One immediate prediction. Laura has thrown off Persephone, hence why Persephone has gone.

[JKtheMac]

Because Cass often seems to be a mouthpiece for Gillen’s anxieties about this book, I wonder if the character assassination video was partly a self reflection of the comments Gillen has made over the course of this book. Being very open about his creative process must make it easy for his critics.

[Jinjonator]

So... do we have any idea what those opening pages were about? Quite confused there.

[CRaymond]

So... do we have any idea what those opening pages were about? Quite confused there.

Ananke was drinking and rambling.

[JKtheMac]

So... do we have any idea what those opening pages were about? Quite confused there.

Gillen has often cited The White Goddess by Robert Graves as one of his inspirations. Here we see Ananke tell him some secrets and he uses them to write his book and give a lecture. Ananke realises he has used her secrets to fashion his own mythological ideas.

It is the kind of theory that would be euphemistically described as 'original research' nowadays.

By way of illustration of how Graves is partly an inspiration upon this story I give you an excerpt from his introduction to The Greek Myths where he draws upon E. Meyrowitz’s 'Akan Cosmological Drama'. (He summarises this book but I have never read it and just about everything Graves ever wrote about myth is suspect in my eyes, so it may not be a true reflection of that book)

"In the third cult-type, the queen-mother’s lover becomes a king; and is venerated as
the male aspect of the Moon, corresponding with the Phoenician god Baal Haman; and a boy
dies vicariously for him every year as a mock-king. The queen-mother now delegates the
chief executive powers to a vizier, and concentrates on her ritual fertilizing functions."

A mirror of this 'cult type' (compatible with Grave's attempts to turn all 'true myth' into a pseudo history charting the way matriarchy gave way to patriarchy) can be seen in Wicdiv only as a reversed plot point. Whereby, Baal is given leadership and sacred task of sacrifice and guardianship against the Great Darkness at least partly to distract him from Ananke's plans.

(To say there is any evidence that there was ever an age of matriarchy in prehistory, reflected in a carefully selected collection of true myths that leaves out anything that might contradict Grave's thesis, like for example all myths that contain historical accounts, is fanciful to say the least.)

[JKtheMac]

I know it is easy to make shapes in the sky but I was wondering if I could make Ananke's star pattern from #20 into one matching Ophiuchus (the so called 13th sign of the zodiac):

wd20.jpg

The answer is 'kind of'.

What does this suggest? Not a lot. A few people have been tying Ophiuchus to Persephone. Some point out that Ananke has a snake motif on her pendant on the cover of #38.

Perhaps the battle between Ananke and Persephone represents the often depicted deity wrestling with a snake:

erpens.jpg

This constellation has been linked to the Roman myth of Asclepius, learning the secrets of long life by observing the serpent. Or maybe the association with Ouroboros. The reason I was on this path of thinking is the way Graves insisted upon 13 Celtic months and not 12, based on his whole tree calendar idea.

By necklaces (#36) and star shapes in that first picture this would suggest Persephone's star shape is an open six petal pomegranate flower, or perhaps the more star like seed pod that turns into the fruit. Good luck finding one of those in the night sky.

Persephone and her six pomegranate seeds representing her six months in the underworld would perhaps line up with March probably being the crunch point for Minerva (before or on the Vernal Equinox perhaps).

As if to prove that you can make shapes easily the next (by old classifications) constellation across from Ophiuchus is Taurus Poniatovii (the bull in that second picture which is not the star sign Taurus) which one could just about squint and form a six pointed star from:

six-stars.jpg