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offscreen-scream — Dasein
#actaeon #cernunnos #dasein #depression #epiphany #familiar #leshy #metaphysics #mythology #oc #philosophy #sketches #symbolism #wwii #deuteragonist #horned_god #martin_heidegger #concept_work #forest_god #the_naked_man_strikes_again #deer_aesthetic #leshy_monster #epic_faith_no_more #lit_theory #stupid_eyes #dasein_heidegger #semiotics_of_masculinity #das_eine #bereavement #enlightenment #herne #concept_art #leszy #nikolai_ackermann
Published: 2019-07-04 23:01:16 +0000 UTC; Views: 1380; Favourites: 34; Downloads: 1
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"Why would the hunter so heavily embrace an association with creatures most typically deemed as prey?""Because now, that is where he knows that he is strongest".
Weird sketches, arpeggi, fishes. Again, thank you for your idea; it cleared up many obstinate plot holes, and just looks damn cool. And primarily" looks" at that, as the stupid antlers are more of a mythical status symbol than practical appendage. Doesn't mean I'm not dying from the visual of him ramming headfirst into a world of physical pain, stupidity, and eternal migraine
Nikolai (Reductio Ad Absurdum) © DarkLordRinku
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Comments: 23
I LOVE the weathered paper aesthetic. It kind of reminds me of a treasure map, or the Gravity Falls journals.
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Haha, yeah, it's kind of nice 
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Those antlers are epic (I mean they’re the correct size in relation to a Nikolai’s physique). I love how dangerous yet elegant they look, but there’s also something kind of unnatural about an antlered person, (I think it’s the danger, I mean that person could really gore you if they wanted to) but it’s also a strangeness which I think perhaps a lot of ancient peoples touched on with all their horned gods of raw, animal violence and instinct. (Though I wonder if that strangeness was bred into us via those assiciations, or if it would still be there had we no knowledge of that)
(imagine trying to get through a particularly narrow doorway)
Or negotiating a crowd of people with open umbrellas (though I expect he’d just go through them all, umbrella carnage and everything)
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It's totally unnatural! I'm an absolute sucker for this old, feral wildness and "otherness", largely because its so innately recognizable as powerful and weird. It's a great, if not cliched, contrast with Nikolai's typically refined and well-mannered approach to running extortion schemes and investigations. I don't know how far back it goes, if the knowledge of how strange it is is innate or a gradually learned societal trait, but I suspect that it ultimately comes down to the human love of cleanly and systematically categorizing things: wildlife goes here, the well-kempt or slovenly human species goes there - but not typically together.
If he's going through our umbrella-wielding throng, they're probably toast. Carnage guaranteed. He doesn't like to be around people when he looks like a Chernobyl Rudolph, so its a mad dash - doorways be damned no matter how narrow.
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Our modern culture has kept it alive with things like the design of the wendigo in Hannibal (the deer was creepy af - actually the whole thing gave me nightmares, especially the 'blood angels' (a take on the viking blood eagle, but places at the foot of a bed, as if it wasn't bad enough already) - I slept with the light on, I'm ashamed to say). There's something more unsettling about antlers than say, ram horns (it's just not the same). In the same vein, you know how representations of the Devil always give him goat horns - I never found that terrifying - if he had antlers it might be a different matter, but i suppose it might be too close to the antlered god...
Well you could look at it as the notion that we are all capable of being that creature of raw destruction and anger that stags in rut are - they're more than capable of killing a man or each other, and some have even gotten stuck with their antlers locked and just died from the exhaustion of continuing to fight) - but society and civilisation demands we cover that with less obvious means of getting what we want, so the contrast with Nikolai is much more powerful simply BECAUSE he's more controlled.
I believe it comes from the time when people believed in animism - where everything had a soul which could impart power on others, including animals. Back then humans were just a part of that 'whole' and still subject to being overwhelmed by something else stronger, like a stag. (it's probably where gods like Hurn came from). Now that we're 'top of the food chain' we think we're untouchable, but seeing, say, an antlered man, a personification of the feral wild, destruction of nature, we're reminded that we're not as far removed from that past as we thought and it scares us because it's shattering the illusion (and reminding us how base we really are).
I mean, if you really think about it, and have seen humans fight - for real - without weapons, it's brutal, what then really separates us from beasts? We don't like thinking about that and have even gone so far as to believe ourselves a 'higher species created 'in his image' by a god' (if you believe in creationism) - isn't that arrogant? We've tried so hard to distance ourselves from, as you rightly say, the systematically categorised things. I think we do it just so we can compare how much better we are. Humans like doing that, even inter-species.
I would almost feel sorry for those people if I didn't know how annoying umbrellas in crowds are! He needs to smash majestically through plate glass just for the sake of it. (Speaking of Chernobyl, have you seen the mini-series? If not, you have to.)
Also sorry for the long response! (I keep saying I'm not going to type so much, but then I do)
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Pathetically enough (to some extent since I have never actually watched the show), I never actually made the connection of the deer/stag symbolism with Dr. Lecter being a cannibal (thus, the Wendigo) until very, very recently. (Any sort of blood eagle, or *having looked up photos from the show* any variations are difficult for me to handle? fathom? ugh...) But from what I have seen from the Internet artwork, this is a very good, if not profound example of our modern culture's contribution and sustainment of the fascination. I never found the goat horns to be particularly provocative either, if I am to be honest! Thing is, I suspect a connection between those representations and ancient antlered gods - primarily through a tentative tracing of witchcraft/wiccan styles of worldview to druidism and eventually down to Celtic and pagan notions of Hurn/herne or Cernunnos. I don't know enough about it though (shameful! I need to do more research if I want to write on any related topics).
That is a good way of putting it. I've always found the idea of something being stupid levels of dangerous and exercising the control of not letting it run amok as being highly provocative. It's intriguing, as you say, largely because the capacity of danger never leaves or is "locked up", except by conscious choice - which could easily be the distinguishing factor between raging hormonal stags and the rampant human species.
Ooh! You sent chills down my spine with that analysis. I agree very much, and it reminds me of my Zen Buddhist mentor/philosophy prof. who stressed over and over again, the importance of studying worldviews and myths that respect intuition, emotion, and the natural; which is very much in conflict with the cold, rational illusion we humans have established of ourselves and our relation to the world we live in. To deny our interconnectedness with the world and the things living in it simply because we have Reason, is to metaphorically fly to close to the sun. I think, on a subconscious level, seeing something such as, say, an antlered man, appeals to the subconscious knowledge that we have and know that we are denying a fundamental part of ourselves that will and does have dangerous repercussions.
T'would be a sight to behold! (I haven't! Weirdly enough considering. I'll get on it while the summer is hot).
Haha, no need to apologize. I am equally guilty (but sometimes, it is difficult to stem a good line of thinking or a conversation).
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It was a good show in my opinion - the first season more so, the second one was a bit 'bleh' but I guess it was necessary to see the 'latent effects' of the first.
I think if the show hadn't presented the connection, it probably wouldn't have been made by a lot of us, as I think the entire Wendigo fad has only just emerged, despite the creature having been in the folk psyche for centuries.
That show was the first time I heard of the 'blood eagle' and it really horrified me - considering a human can remain alive through all that is a bit sickening - and then they went ahead and showed it in 'Vikings' and it just got worse. But then again I may be bias as I've never been a great fan of the Vikings as a people (don't get me wrong, they were fascinating and a culture shaped by their harsh environment, but I never liked the way they dealt with others (despite a lot probably having been largely exaggerated to make them more ungodly) or found it inspiring in the same way their popularity has boomed with people now appreciating that 'warrior culture').
Off topic there a little...
Actually I think you're right. I mean beforehand, wasn't Lucifer just another angel? Then he went through a disfigurement to make him more horrific - what better way to do that, and vilify the people clinging to their pagan beliefs, than merging their god with your prince of darkness! Instant distrust.
You just need to look at riots and you can see the animal side running rampant - and what is worse is that humans are the only creature to purposefully consider violence as a means to self gain or simply for the sake of it. Other animals do it out of instinct to survive, humans consciously consider it. (although killer whales play with their food and that's kind of a bastard move - but human actions out-bastardise that one)
I guess you could say that the higher the intellect, the more controlled that tamed urge is - or at least, better hidden.
I mean if you really consider it, the concept of humans being a higher species only really came about when atheism did, which is very recently in terms of earth's life and human history - even when the Romans or other multi-goded religions were around (Hinudism still being relevant) - humans were not superior to anything else, in fact they were subject to the same will of the gods as animals were. I think that believing we're above everything else is arrogant, but then again, religion as a whole is a human invention.
Have you heard the theory which presents humans as aliens from another planet? (it sounds ridiculous ok, but when I looked further in to it, it kiiiind of could be feasible - not that I believe it, but on a theoretical level it's interesting)
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That seems to be the case, at least according to the rather weak and formerly uninvested observations of my younger mind. I think that there's certainly been shifts in how it is conceptualized too - as the handling of the Wendigo from the film Ravenous differs somewhat from the imagery I see stemming from Hannibal.
It's interesting timing that this topic should come up as I just very recently had a coworker express her interest in gore, torture and the like (blood eagles especially). She's well-educated, funny, and mature: just with a dash of proclivity towards film and other media entertaining such practices. There are things about the vikings which are fascinating, although I think, what really draws my interest is how much of their mythology (or how some understand it) is re-appropriated by white supremacists and other socio-political extremists. Alas! The same goes for much of medieval lit as well (looking at you Nibelungenlied)....
Precisely! It's an easy and powerful way of re-affirming the "rightness" of one's ideology while re-establishing the non-believer(s) as a dangerous and malicious "Other".
Oh yes! It is wholly disturbing. I've always found that moment right when one "gives up" their reason/intelligence to embrace an emotional reaction interesting (I've a bit of a horrid temper). Even when pursued as a means to an end, or to uphold the passions of an ideology of any kind, when the animal side is let loose completely, absolutely anything can happen or go wrong in an instant. Multiply that by a large crowd and you only add pervasive social pressures. It's the perfect combination for large-scale disaster.
Absolutely: perhaps the moment Thales, or some earlier thinker, decided that there were rational explanations for everything outside of religious dogma, the embracing of humans as "special" and distinguished by their access to reason (Logos) really began to take root. The reasoning holds some bite - if a species has the capacity to understanding and/or recognize the mechanics and reason behind everything, than they are naturally closer to reality or the infinite; but that logic pre-supposes that there is reason for everything. Something which is difficult to prove or support deductively. Religion should act as a bridge to allow one to come in contact with ultimate reality (and is by necessity, a personal and private affair with one's intuition) but it is more often than not, used as a club on a social level instead.
Oh! It sounds familiar, though I'm not sure I know of a clean, specific theory or source that posits that. What I like about that is that it cannot with assurance be disproven. (I actually don't think it sounds ridiculous, though I'm sure a rigid textbook evolutionary reading would certainly scoff at the idea.)
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Glad to hear it! thanks.
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Beautiful! I love your antler guy!
(and it would be the best thing ever to see them ramming heads for dominance)
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Yay thanks!!!
(It totally would XD I might have to draw that sometime. I know Kaden already did)
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man this is beautiful! also read his character bio and its so interesting!
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Omigosh!! Thank you On both accounts!
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You're most welcome! hate to steal your words, but your work is amazing!!
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That means a lot, thank you!!
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Glad you think so! I'm still trying to decide whether it looks even slightly regal or just stupidly disturbing
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Thanks man! It's been quite the hassle getting myself to stop being lazy and try to figure this out
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haha I know what you mean man, been there
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Yeah
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Oh absolutely, outside perspectives always help you move forward
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