Egyptian Mythology: Difference between revisions

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* [[Bitch in Sheep's Clothing]]: Even though she still is a benevolent goddess, Isis convinced Ra to tell her his secret name by ''poisoning'' him. She's also well known to be clever and deceptive.

* [[Bottle Fairy]]: Hathor, at times.

* [[Brother Sister Incest]]: A lot. Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys were all siblings, who fell in love while still in the womb. This aspect of Egyptian mythology reflected on the marriage habits of the Pharaohs.

* [[Brother-Sister Incest]]: A lot. Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys were all siblings, who fell in love while still in the womb. This aspect of Egyptian mythology reflected on the marriage habits of the Pharaohs.

** Also, Nut and Geb were so much in love with other, that their children decided to put a stop to it by keeping them apart. ([[Just So Story|And this is why the sky is far enough from the ground that plants, animals, and people can live between the two.]])

* [[Canon Foreigner]]: Aten, the disc-shape sun god.

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* [[Depending On the Writer]]: There was little uniformity in Egyptian mythology, and several different versions of the legends and tales of the gods. The most prominent example is the backstory of Anubis. Originally he was just another of Ra's spontaneously birthed children. Then he became the son of Set and Nepthys. Then later myths tried to degrade Set by implying he was impotent, so Anubis became the secret child of Nepthys and Osiris. Who said soap operas weren't high art?

* [[Did Not Do the Research]]: Many works of fiction revolving around Egyptian mythology tend to get the role of Anubis ''way off''. He's usually referred to as "the Lord of the Dead" or as "the God of Death," when that title in fact refers to his father, Osiris. Anubis ''was'' a deity whose role revolved around the dead, but he was actually more of a guardian of the dead than the [[Grim Reaper]] type figure often shown. More [[Egregious|egregiously]], he is often, in addition to being referred to as a god akin to Hades from [[Greek Mythology]], misconstrued as being [[Everybody Hates Hades|an evil or malevolent god]], sometimes even serving as the Egpytian stand in for Satan. In reality, the Egyptians considered him to be an all-around pretty cool guy.

* [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu]]: Ra (or Aten, sometimes) fights Apep every single night. However, Apep eats souls, so he's dangerous to humans as well. The solution? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apep#Worship Guides to fighting Apep], with such tactics as ''Spitting Upon Apep'', ''Defiling Apep with the Left Foot'', ''Taking a Lance to Smite Apep'', ''Fettering Apep'', ''Taking a Knife to Smite Apep'' and ''[[Kill It With Fire|Laying Fire Upon Apep]]''.

* [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?]]: Ra (or Aten, sometimes) fights Apep every single night. However, Apep eats souls, so he's dangerous to humans as well. The solution? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apep#Worship Guides to fighting Apep], with such tactics as ''Spitting Upon Apep'', ''Defiling Apep with the Left Foot'', ''Taking a Lance to Smite Apep'', ''Fettering Apep'', ''Taking a Knife to Smite Apep'' and ''[[Kill It With Fire|Laying Fire Upon Apep]]''.

* [[Eldritch Abomination]]: Apep, or Apophis, a gigantic serpent-demon that embodied chaos and darkness. Every night it tried to eat Ra as he passed through the underworld. Prior to the demonization of Set, Apep was considered the ultimate evil. Set's punishment for murdering Osiris is to guard Ra's sun barge from Apophis and kill him twice a day until his punishment is fulfilled.

* [[Ensemble Darkhorse]]: Anubis, in more modern times. For the common layman he may be the only Egyptian god they can name. This is despite the fact that although he was always among the major gods in ancient Egypt he was by no means the most widely worshipped.

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* [[Eye Scream]]: During their battle Set plucked out one of Horus' eyes. Additionally, after Horus decapitated Isis and escaped, Seth found him and did it again, but with both eyes.

* [[Face Heel Turn]]: Set.

* [[Foe Yay]]: In the original version of the myth, Set asserts his dominance over Horus by seducing him, getting him drunk, and then [[Murderers Are Rapists|raping]] [[Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil|him]]. Egyptian attitudes to this story varied ''wildly'', some using it as a justification for homophobia (since clearly only a [[Depraved Homosexual]] would do such a thing), and others telling a different version where Horus is [[Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today|totally not gay]] [[Rape and Switch|from the experience]] because he actually received Set's semen in his hands and not in his...you know.

* [[Foe Yay]]: In the original version of the myth, Set asserts his dominance over Horus by seducing him, getting him drunk, and then [[Murderers Are Rapists|raping]] [[Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil|him]]. Egyptian attitudes to this story varied ''wildly'', some using it as a justification for homophobia (since clearly only a [[Depraved Homosexual]] would do such a thing), and others telling a different version where Horus is [[Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?|totally not gay]] [[Rape and Switch|from the experience]] because he actually received Set's semen in his hands and not in his...you know.

** And then there's the addition that Horus put some of his own semen on some of Set's favorite vegetables and invited him over for a snack. When Set tried to tell the other gods about last night's events, Horus told him to prove it by "calling" their respective ejaculate. Set's answered from wherever Horus wiped his hand off, and Horus's answered from Set's stomach.

** Another interpretation of the myth is simply that Set and Horus were simply trying to outsmart each other, as this myth predates the demonization of Set, and that Horus let Set have sex with him as part of a [[Xanatos Gambit]]. The series of myths this story comes from includes several different contests that Set and Horus had with each other, the point of them being to see who was superior in order to decide who had claim to rule over both Lower and Upper Egypt. Set lost most of the contests due to his [[Chaotic Stupid]] nature, whereas Horus won most of them by outsmarting Set and making him look like an idiot.

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* [[Going to Give It More Energy]]: Sekhmet is let loose (in the form of a lioness) upon a sinful population. She gets out of control and the gods, taking pity on the humans, show them the way to stop her: they exploit her insatiable thirst for blood by flooding a nearby field with bloodred wine. When the crazed goddess passes by on her way to eat more people, she pounced on the lake of "blood" and drank it all. This results in the most severe hangover ever -- Sekhmet passes out and wakes up as a cow. This peaceful form of her is named Hathor.

* [[Hell Hound]]: Egypt was in ''love'' with these: Anubis is the most well-known, but there were also [[Added Alliterative Appeal|Wepwawet, a white wolf war god]] that got associated with Anubis; Duamutef, a jackal-headed god and one of Horus' children who guards the canopic jars, also has ties with Anubis; Khenti-Amentiu, a jackal god of the dead that's even more ancient than Anubis and Osiris, likely connected to the former; and Sed, a jackal god with a ritual named after him celebrating the anniversary of the current Pharaoh's rule, closely connected to Wepwawet. Oh, and Hermanubis, a [[Fusion Dance]] between Anubis and Hermes created after the Greeks invaded.

* [[~~I Ate What|~~I Ate What?]]: During the battle between Horus and Set, Horus does something [[A Date With Rosie Palms|very naughty]] over Set's salad at one point...

* [[I Ate What?]]: During the battle between Horus and Set, Horus does something [[A Date With Rosie Palms|very naughty]] over Set's salad at one point...

* [[I Love the Dead]]: Isis and the corpse of Osiris.

* [[Kill All Humans]]: In one myth Ra becomes angry with humanity for disrespecting him, so he turns Hathor into Sekhmet (depending on which version of the myth you're reading) and sends her on a bloody rampage. She nearly wipes humanity out before Ra decides she's over-doing it and sends Thoth to lull her with tales and blood-colored wine. When she becomes drunk she reverts back to Hathor again, and the Egyptians celebrated this every year during the Festival of Hathor by getting really drunk.

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* [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]]: In some versions, Seth murdered Osiris as revenge for having slept with his wife.

* [[Shapeshifting]]: Nearly all the gods and goddesses could do it.

* [[Spell My Name With an S]]: Most of the names in Ancient Egyptian. Because Egyptians didn't write vowels in their language, Egyptologists generally use an arbitrary transcription where certain vowels (usually "e") are inserted to make pronunciation easier. This results in a god's name being spelled in several different ways, most of which have little to do with how it was pronounced in the actual language. <ref>For example, Anubis's name is variously transliterated as ''Anpu'', ''Anup'', ''Inpu'', or using the Greek name Anubis. His actual name is thought to have been pronounced ''*Yanāpaw'' and later ''*’Anūbə'', though nobody seems to use actual reconstructed names.</ref>

* [[Spell My Name With an "S"]]: Most of the names in Ancient Egyptian. Because Egyptians didn't write vowels in their language, Egyptologists generally use an arbitrary transcription where certain vowels (usually "e") are inserted to make pronunciation easier. This results in a god's name being spelled in several different ways, most of which have little to do with how it was pronounced in the actual language. <ref>For example, Anubis's name is variously transliterated as ''Anpu'', ''Anup'', ''Inpu'', or using the Greek name Anubis. His actual name is thought to have been pronounced ''*Yanāpaw'' and later ''*’Anūbə'', though nobody seems to use actual reconstructed names.</ref>

* [[Twincest]]

* [[Twin Switch]]: Apparently this is how Anubis was conceived; Nephthys disguised herself as Isis and slept with Osiris. Though after everyone found out Isis and Osiris never seemed to hold it against her. Indeed, Osiris treated Anubis as a second son and co-ruler of the Underworld. Set, however, disowned Anubis.

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[[Category:Oral Tradition]]

[[Category:Egyptian Mythology]]

[[Category:Trope]]