Friday, September 24, 2010

You Little Demon!


I used lots of Persian mythology in Quest for the Simurgh. If you’d like to know more about the three boys and Faiza standing up to the gods and demons, you can get any of the ebook flavors at Smashwords for a paltry buck using coupon KX55D while the Buck a Book Sale continues until 9/27.

Encyclopedia Mythica has plenty to say about Persian mythology. The three demons in Quest are minions of Dev, the war god.

Aesma Aesma is the demon of lust and anger, wrath and revenge. His wrath is mainly directed towards the cow (go figure). He is the personification of violence, a lover of conflict and war. He's resting on his laurels these days since war just seems to keep going from inertia. Nine years and counting!
Buyasta An ancient Persian demon of laziness who tries to prevent people from working. He's even lazier than usual lately since plenty of people are out of work without his help.

Nanghaithya
An archfiend, which is a demonic upgrade. Nanghaithya is the personification of discontentment. It seems that this guy has plenty of work in this downturn economy.

My Mashup

Dev (the little devil) wants war to usher in Armageddon. Why? Because war is his thing and wiping out all humankind is on his to-do list.

To that end, he sends three daevas (demons, if you will) to turn Faiza’s companions on the quest to the dark side (sort of a Darth Vader thing).

Aesma appears to Parviz in the form of a bear with a serpent’s tail. Parviz was a slave and has a mile-wide chip on his shoulder. Aesma fuels that anger and convinces Parviz that the others are his enemies, not his friends. He’s told to wait for Dev to call him into battle. And, of course, keep his mouth shut about the little meeting.

He sends Buyasta in the form of a giant spider to Bahar, who has always dreamt of becoming a warrior. The demon takes advantage of that dream to make Bahar fall asleep (laziness) and dream of himself as a mighty fighter in a huge battle. The good part: Bahar is kicking major butt. The bad part: The butts he’s kicking are those of his best friends.

Nanghaithya has a little un-pep talk (he’s a voice-over character) with Harib claiming that his friends all laugh at him and only keep his company because his father is rich. The demon attempts to make Harib discontented with his relationship with the others. Harib, however, is having none of it. He’s the only of the three boys who stays true to Faiza.

Who's your personal demon? For writers, it seems Buyasta and Nanghaithya have alternating work schedules.
 

No comments:

Post a Comment