söndag 10 maj 2015

Jackalope chapter 2 is up!

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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