Legends Summarized: Underworld Myths

All right, everybody, listen up, because today we're talking about the Underworld. So the first question is, what is the Underworld? I promise this gets smarter from here on out. Traditionally, it's a place where all the dead dudes hang out. And this concept is very old, which makes sense, because it's answering a very old question. What happens when we die? Now, most cultures have their own flavor of the afterlife. Eternal rewards of various kinds, an extension of living existence based on maintenance by still-living relatives, etc. But despite this wild variation in tone, there's only one real reason the Underworld ever appears as a major location in popular culture and mythology. And that's when someone goes down there to get someone back. Now, this is a story that plays out in tons of cultures all over the world, with varying degrees of success for all parties involved. In general, it follows the formula of person A likes person B, person B dies or otherwise ends up in the Underworld, and person A scoots down there in order to rescue them. So today, we're going to be looking at some of these stories and comparing how well it worked out for everybody. So we'll start off with a very old myth, maybe 4,000 years old, about the Babylonian goddess Ishtar. Now, Ishtar is a four-star badass, goddess of a variety of subjects, but most notably love, fertility, and war. So, long story short, she had this husband, Tammuz, and he ended up dead. She tried to have a rebound romance with Gilgamesh, but he rejected her. So Ishtar is feeling pretty down about everything and decides, screw it, she's heading to the Underworld to hang out with her dead husband. So she basically busts her way into the afterlife, going through seven gates, and in each gate, she has to give up a personal accoutrement in the form of her clothing. It's like Strip Dying, the ultimate party game. Play it with your friends! But when she gets there, she learns that she can't see her husband because the Underworld is, you know, for dead people. You don't just get to hang out there and party it up like you do in, well, a lot of other mythologies. I guess the Babylonians were a little more depressed about the whole thing. So upon learning that she can't see her husband, Ishtar tries to leave. But lesson number one of the Underworld is that it's a lot easier to get in than out, and even Ishtar can't just bash her way back to the land of the living. So Ereshkigal, the queen of the dead, thoroughly unhappy with Ishtar crashing her pad, unleashes 60 diseases on her and imprisons her in her palace. But wait, you might say, I thought she was gonna rescue her boyfriend. What about the formula? Well, joke's on you, this story doesn't quite follow the formula I established. I'm such a reliable narrator. No, see, now that Ishtar's gotten herself locked up in the Underworld, she's the one who needs to be rescued. Girl power? So Ea, a big smart ocean god, sometimes known as Enki, catches wind of the fact that Ishtar's gotten herself stuck in the Underworld, and as a result, because she's a goddess of fertility, nothing, uh, fertile is happening on Earth. This is obviously bad. So he constructs this gender-ambiguous individual, Asushu Namir, to go down there and rescue her. So Asushu Namir pops down into the Underworld, and after charming Ereshkigal with their ambiguously gendered wiles, asks her to show them some of the water of life, which she does. So Asushu Namir casually sprinkles some of that magic life water on Ishtar, who is immediately restored to full HP and starts sprinting for the exit. Unfortunately, Ereshkigal finds this highly offensive, and curses Asushu Namir and everyone like them to live in the shadows and be outcast from society. So when they reach the surface and Ishtar learns about this curse, she's like, Wow, that bites. Uh, I don't know. Have the gift of healing and prophecy, I guess? Does that- does that help? Okay. So the lesson of this particular legend is, if you're gender non-binary, your magic, Ishtar loves you, and even the Queen of Hell thinks you're hot. Uh, side note, is anyone else finding it a little sketchy that this 4,000-year-old legend has more queer representation than most modern television? So next up is a pretty well-known Egyptian myth. If you've ever studied Egyptian mythology, you already know this one. Now, Egyptian mythology is very convoluted. But this story is pretty simple by mythological standards. Also, bear in mind that this is only one version of this myth, and the timeline of events in the story is highly variable from version to version. So, sorry if you know a different one and think I'm wrong. Feel free to complain about it in the comments. So Osiris, right? He's the main god of the Egyptian pantheon, oldest son of the sky goddess Nut, and he's married to his sister Isis. Don't worry, that's fine. All the cool pharaohs do it. Similarly, Osiris' younger brother Set is married to their sister Nephthys. So Osiris rules Egypt as the first pharaoh, and is basically the best dude ever. But Set catches a big old case of the Claudiuses and decides to murder him and take his place as pharaoh. So Set hosts a big party for Osiris, and when everyone's good and drunk, he whips out a big fancy sarcophagus and says he'll give it to whoever fits inside it the best. Wow. Okay, sorry, Osiris, but at this point you kind of deserve this. So Osiris gets sarcophagused to death, unsurprisingly, and tossed down the Nile, while Isis takes this as an omen of things to come and runs away with her infant son Horus, so that neither of them get a similar treatment. So Isis starts trying to track down Osiris' corpse to give him a proper burial, but this proves unnecessarily complex, because somewhere along the line, Set decided to tear Osiris' body into 14 pieces to make things even more difficult for everybody. So Isis and Nephthys, who's decided her husband's kind of an asshole, manage to reconstitute Osiris little by little, inventing the mummification process as they do. But, unfortunately, Osiris ends up missing a, um... ...very important piece. So Isis manages to make a temporary replacement, and as a result, Osiris is resurrected. Sort of. Unfortunately, although he's sort of alive, he's stuck being the lord of the underworld since he's still technically kind of dead. But it's still a pretty sweet gig, and the Egyptian underworld is basically like being alive anyway. And then later, Horus grows up to be a big ol' badass, and he and Set have an awesome fight, and it kicks ass. Important organs are lost on all sides. So in Japanese mythology, Japan had two creator gods, Izanagi and Izanami. They married, created an island to live on, then started cranking out more gods. So anyway, Izanagi and Izanami have a ton of kids, but unfortunately, one of the kids turns out to be a little too hot to handle. He really warms the heart, really lights up my life. He's positively radiant. What? But I'm just warming up! Wow, come on, where's the fire? So anyway, yeah, Izanami is horribly burned as a result of giving birth to Kagetsuchi, the fire god, and ends up dying. This understandably sucks, but Izanagi is a god, and just goes down to Yomi, the underworld, to get her back. So he pops down to Yomi, and Izanami tells him she'll try and figure something out with the gods of Yomi, but he has to not look at her in the meantime, at least not until she figures something out. Izanagi's like, Sorry, what's that? It's too dark in here, I can't hear a thing. And immediately busts out a torch, whereupon he sees that Izanami's all corpsified and gross. So Izanami's pissed he didn't listen to her, and sends a bunch of monsters after him in retribution, whereupon he blocks the entrance to the underworld with a huge boulder, and they break off their marriage. Till death do us part, am I right? Now, there are two traditional Greek myths about the underworld, and let's face it, you probably already know both of them. But whatever, let's talk about them anyway. Now, the first and better-known one is the story of Hades and Persephone, and that one boils down to, Hades is lonely and kidnaps Persephone to be his wife, Persephone's mom tomato objects and refuses to let anything grow until she's returned, something-something pomegranate, something-something six months of winter. It's a little bit like the Osiris thing, in that Persephone becomes a goddess of the underworld, because by eating the food of the dead, she becomes something of the dead. She didn't actually die, but the concept is the same. Now, I really only like this story in its more modern interpretation, where Persephone had a modicum of agency in the story, and actually likes Hades, willingly becoming the queen of the underworld, rather than just being kidnapped and getting the munchies. But forget all that, because now that that's done, let's talk about Orpheus and Eurydice. So Orpheus is one of Apollo's kids, and he's a damn good musician, as you would expect if someone related to the god of music. In fact, he's the best musician in the world. And to top off this perfection, he's in love with this really cute girl named Eurydice, and they're about to get married. But unfortunately, shenanigans happen, and Eurydice ends up getting bitten by a snake and dying. So Orpheus is totally heartbroken and starts playing his little heart out, which has the result of bumming everyone else out, too. So eventually, Apollo's like, Apollo's like, I can't take it anymore! Apollo's like, I can't take it anymore! These proxy feels are terrible! Apollo's like, I can't take it anymore! These proxy feels are terrible! Son, I OR you to go visit your dead girlfriend. Apollo's like, I can't take it anymore! These proxy feels are terrible! Son, I OR you to go visit your dead girlfriend. Get some damn closure before you make all the rest of us suicidal. So Orpheus meanders sorrowfully down to the Underworld and serenades Hades and Persephone with his lyre. And, of course, his music is so beautiful that they're immediately moved to help him. Hades agrees to return Eurydice to life. But, while Orpheus is leading her out of the Underworld, he absolutely cannot look at her until they get to the surface. Otherwise, she'll have to go back, this time for good. It's kinda like the Izanami thing, actually. So Orpheus starts leading Eurydice out of the Underworld, but he can't hear her footsteps and starts thinking that maybe Hades tricked him. So, like an idiot, he turns around and sees that, yep, guess what? His beloved Eurydice was behind him all along and, yep, he has officially ruined everything. So Orpheus' heart broken again and somehow ends up dead. But don't worry, the muses decide to hang on to his severed head so that he'll be able to sing forever. That's... more f***ed up than I remember.