Benjamin Cavallaro, Period 6, 03/25/24

 Benjamin Cavallaro, Period 6, 3/25/24

Modern Mythology 2024

Blog #3

     Something that’s stuck with me since the start of the school year from mythology class was learning the definition of folklore, and what that means in the modern day. We discussed that folklore is work created and contributed to by a large group of people and disseminated amongst them. Discussing that made me realize that I’ve always been drawn to folklore in my life. Of course I started taking the class because of my interest in mythology, but my interests go even further. One of the things we discussed that day in class was memes, which I’m sure pretty much everyone my age enjoys, but the concept extends to other interests of mine. I’ve always enjoyed reading fanfiction, something that we’ve essentially read in class through books like Grendel and Stone Blind, as well as did ourselves in the Norse Mythology Project which I really enjoyed. Maybe the most prominent example of folklore I’m interested in, though, is tabletop games. 

     Ever since I was a kid I’ve loved playing Dungeons and Dragons. Coming together with a group of people in order to tell a collective story captures the joys of creativity and socialization, combining them into one fun package. Like all kinds of folklore it’s a great way to express yourself, see the expression of others, and communicate with the people around you. A natural extension of this is the Warhammer 40,000 setting. Initially created as a tabletop war game, Warhammer 40,000 is a massive scale science fiction setting that’s been built on since 1987. Throughout its history the setting has been designed to maintain its scale so that theoretically any story that a fan could come up with or match of the game you could play would be possible somewhere in the galaxy, and many fan stories are believed and propagated throughout the community. This extends to the books written for the setting, written by a plethora of different authors and showcases a similar amount of differing perspectives. I think this makes it a perfect example of folklore in the modern day, and the perfect thing to capture my interest and imagination. One book in the setting that I’ve been reading is The Twice-Dead King: Ruin, by Nate Crowley, which provides a unique perspective that lends itself to a reading through conjunctive post-colonial, queer, and disability theory lenses. 

     The Twice-Dead King: Ruin is about the Necron, an alien species that were coerced into transferring their consciousnesses to robotic bodies during their ancient past. Their population is completely stagnant as they are immune to aging and are completely unable to create more of themselves. That stagnation is one of the primary fears that the Necron represent as monsters, and is a prominent motif in the novel. More specifically, though, The Twice-Dead King: Ruin is about the monsters within Necron society, the outcasts and “diseased” that the exiled prince Oltyx is forced to lead. These outcasts of the Necron’s stagnation reflect the struggles of queer and disabled people, as well as the institutions that cause those struggles. 

     Throughout the novel one of the greatest possible stigmas in Necron society, and greatest struggles for the protagonist Oltyx, described is the “flayer virus.” As described in Necron horror stories the so called flayer virus is a computer virus adjacent condition that causes Necron to become obsessed with their previous organic lives to the point of murderous insanity. Those that are infected, called flayed ones, eventually only prioritize finding living things to take the skin from and cover themselves with in an attempt to feel alive again. But when Oltyx actually experiences the virus it isn’t spread from some plague carrier, and it doesn’t endlessly reproduce violent urges in his mind; what Oltyx experiences is just a feeling, a feeling he describes with the Necron word “dysphorak.” Clearly in parallel with real world dysphoria, Oltyx describes the feeling as an intense discomfort with his robotic body, and that he’s missing certain organic parts that should be there. This can be viewed through the lens of queer theory analysis, as this description is a parallel to the gender dysphoria experienced by transgender people. Furthermore, the stigmatization of the Necron’s dysphorak as a dangerous and spreading disease is analogous to similar methods of stigmatization that transgender people face, like when it is alleged that kids will wrongfully think they are transgender in mass if they are shown transgender people exist. Oltyx’s character continues to parallel elements of the transgender experience. He struggles to follow the traditional societal roles expected of him by his father, which eventually leads to him being disowned from his family and exiled from his home. This kind of familial conflict and rejection of traditional roles is common across many queer people’s lives, as their very identity often disrupts traditional ideas. Finally, during a particularly powerful scene near the end of the novel where Oltyx is overcome with dysphorak after heavy injury he resolves to change himself for the better and maintain the compassion that the robotic Necron shun. As part of this he goes through his mind, and after one last look through, purges his old memories to buy time and space for his recovery. This sorrowful yet necessary destruction of his old self and how he was raised in order to change is Oltyx’s final metaphorical transition. 

     The themes of queer theory present in the protagonist’s perspective also combine with the narrative’s themes on disability and colonialism. Many of the characters that surround Oltyx in his exile can be understood through the lens of disability theory. Neth, a military leader stationed alongside Oltyx, is on this exile planet because he struggles with what the Necrons call pattern ataxia. Because of his condition he has difficulties with mental processing and speaking. This is fairly similar in description to dementia. The way Oltyx responds to this with a mix of pity for Neth and what was lost of him, as well as anger at the condition itself and the way it affects Neth, is reflective of how the family of dementia patients often react. This is likely a reflection of the author’s personal experience, as he has stated online that his writing is influenced by his experience with dementia in the family. That motif is repeated again and again as the people Oltyx care about lose themselves around him, culminating in the immense sorrow he feels when he finally gets to reunite with his father only to see him come to a similar fate to the rest of the people around him. But the different perspectives of the novel culminate in a question; why are these people who are already struggling facing exile, isolation, and demonization from the rest of their society? The answer to that question can be seen through post-colonialist theory. 

     The Necron are, at least in their largest civilizations, imperialist. Their empires seek out wealth, land, and power through intergalactic colonization and conquest. The pervading ideology of these empires is that they are superior to other species, largely because of their massive history and immortality. Of course this is similar to the way empires work in our history, and this informs the nature of the struggles faced by the outcasts of the Necron as well as the real world outcasts they represent. Oltyx and his fellow exiles through their conditions, ideas, and identities go against the ideologies of the Necron that propagate imperialism. The Necron suffering from pattern ataxia don’t have the supposed immortality that makes the Necron fit to rule others, so they are thrown aside and forgotten about. Oltyx and the other Necron suffering from dysphorahk fit even less because of their rejection to their supposed physical superiority outright. As a result they are villainized as the diseased and left to become the monsters the empires say they are. Finally, Oltyx himself threatens the esteemed Necron tradition, even more so because he was supposed to be born into a seat at the head of imperial power. This idea is true for historical empires as well. For example, many western empires, especially the early U.S., argued through pseudo-science that non-white races were genetically inferior to white people. Naturally if people could be deemed better than others because of genetic traits it would lead to genetic outliers and those with disabilities becoming marginalized alongside the marginalized races. The glorification of tradition can easily be seen in the empire of Nazi Germany, whose adherence to traditional roles of gender and sexuality led to the inclusion of queer people among the victims of the violence of the holocaust. Continually we can see that for the sake, or as part, of colonialism different races, queer people, and the disabled are marginalized alongside each other. 

     The main external conflict of The Twice-Dead King: Ruin is also from an empire, the human empire. The humans, victims of violence themselves a long time ago, have become an empire just like the Necron, and Oltyx sees the violence of his own people reflected back at him and his exiles in mankind’s crusade. He attempts to break his exile and contact his father, but upon his return finds his dynasty in shambles. His father has developed the same condition as him, and with no understanding of the conditions the Necron empire continually shunned, Oltyx’s father succumbed to it. The kingdom’s colonialism had destroyed itself. Through the lenses of post-colonial, queer, and disability theories, I view the message of The Twice-Dead King: Ruin to be; colonial tradition and ideology is self destructive and creates the conditions for the marginalization of queer and disabled people among others, so it must be rejected to grow past these social problems.