These
series of articles shall discuss Jackalopes, a story I have been
working on for the past two years and which is finally coming to its
end. Jackalopes concerns Jane, a rabbit living in paradise. This
paradise has more to do with the more earthly paradise of celtic
mythology than the monotheistic concept of Heaven or the
enlightenment of Nirvana. A great inspiration was the Irish Tír na
nÓg, the land of the eternally young. This paradise is ruled over by
a being called The Silvercrowned One and his wife Permeter.
In
this setting, all dead souls must pass through the underworld, a dark
and dangerous place where demons or other dangers can destroy or trap
your soul forever. Souls that pass the underworld can reach the
paradise of The Silvercrowned One or any other realms they chose to
go to. After seeing some new arrival walk into paradise for the first
time, Jane decides to join the elite guards of the underworld, the
eponymous jackalopes. Jackalopes is, in essence, a story about giving
up or temporarily leave a privileged position. I do not necessarily
mean that in the religious sense, either. I also meant this story to
be applicable to for example rescue-workers or similar. Even office
workers fit into the story as Jane has to go through quite a lot of
paperwork, induction and training before becoming a jackalope.
This
article shall discuss designing this paradise, which was
quite fun. Places such as the aforementioned Tír na nÓg is usually
ruled over by some fey creature whose name must not be spoken. The
Silvercrowned One is identical to Tymor the Trickster in my earlier
works. This paradise is located over several planets (which the
spirits within can jump between freely) but centered on two
particular places; the silver city and the smiling moon.
Silver
is the metal of magic, purity, the unconscious and the feminine.
themes I wish to explore in jackalopes. Magic and the unconscious
refers to the underworld and its dreamlike landscapes and buildings
(one of the stories stronger points if I do say so myself). The
female refers to the fact that most of the main characters of the
book, as well as Jane´s companions, are female. As a writer you may
regard yourself as a SJW feminist and still make all
your characters male and the few females you create passive out of
habit and/or genre conventions. (To take an example from my own
writings, Super Power and The mushroom-shaped giga ship has ten main
character with just ONE being female) In order to force myself to
avoid this.
Silver
is also a symbol of the moon, which ties nicely into the smiling
moon. The smiling moon is the abode of The Silvercrowned One and the
symbol of the jackalopes. As you may imagine it is a perpetual
crescent moon with thin dark channels dug into it, making it looks
like a giant grin hangs in the sky. The moon connotes the
subconscious, once again referring to the underworld.
We
never visit the smiling moon in this first book but see a little of
the silver city. It is described as a abnormally large city with
gigantic gates and grand streets with statues of all the mayor
players in lapine mythology. There are shops and little restaurants
coupled with large white mansions. There are also more traditional
dwellings of tunnels just outside the city itself. We hear about two
other paradises as well (but do not visit them); the kingdom of Ray
Firecrowned and the battlefields of Id on Mars. The first one is
vaguely based on the Egyptian afterlife of Aaru and the battlefields
are vaguely Valhalla-ish. We do not actually visit these places
because I want the story to focus on the underworld (paradise is only
briefly seen at the beginning and very end of the book). Naturally we
visit a few places along the way, such as the borderworld of Xibalba
and even a faraway planet, but more about that later.
For
the next article we shall take a closer look at the underworld, the
dangerous land Jane will traverse as a jackalope. Until then, enjoy
reading the second chapter of jackalopes on my website. Chapter two can be found:
http://www.tymorthetrickster.com/Jchapter2.html
Enjoy!
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