Friday, December 11, 2020

Robin Hood

My last post ended with Samson tying firebrands to the tails of foxes, which made me think of the browser Firefox. And this made me think of the other meaning of the word fire.


And that's when I realized that tights are a kind of socks.


I had previously connected Fox in Socks with Joe Biden (see my posts Slow Joe Crow and Lots of new blue goo now), so you can well imagine that it came as something of a shock to suddenly realize that not only is Biden's middle name Robinette, but his two sons are called Beau and Hunter.

Well, shoot! What are the chances of a bull's-eye like that?

All three Biden men are alumni of Archmere Academy. The school's colors are deep ("lincoln"?) green and white, and the school newspaper is called The Green Arch.


Archmere is a Catholic school, and the Bidens are nominally Catholic -- "Mary men," you might say.

Biden's 2020 campaign logo was notable for omitting the letter E, replacing it with speed lines suggesting that the D had zoomed in from somewhere else.


And perhaps Biden thinks of himself as a Robin Hood figure: He knows he's stealing, but he also thinks he's a hero for doing so. I'm referring to the election, of course, but the "Robin Hood" project of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor is also something one associates with the Left.



I have connected Fox in Socks with the Red Sun and with Betelgeuse -- which, it occurred to me, is connected with archery because it is in the constellation Orion the Hunter. It turns out, though, that Orion isn't actually an archer; the part of the constellation that looks like a bow is "officially" either a shield or a lion.

Or both!

However, running a Google image search for betelgeuse archer did turn this up -- from, of all places, the white nationalist site Stormfront.


It's a comment on a thread called "Giant star Betelgeuse (or 'Beetlejuice') is dimming & changing shape." (I have no idea why this astronomical topic was being discussed on a political "hate" site; there is nothing about politics or race or anything in the entire thread.) The comment, posted on February 19 of this year, reads: "If Betelgeuse explodes tomorrow it only means it actually exploded on a day 650 years ago, during the age when England still fought with bows and arrows" -- with, in case the meaning were not clear, a very large picture of some Englishmen doing just that.

It seems a strange thing to zero in on. The point is simply that Betelgeuse is very far away (642.5 light years) and that anything we observe happening to Betelgeuse actually happened hundreds of years ago. Any historical figure or event or outdated technology would have served to make the point, but the poster chose to focus on archery, and specifically archery in England. The 14th century is, of course, around the time the Robin Hood legend began to become popular.

Bringing this all back to the Sun card, note that Robin Hood is classically depicted -- in the Disney film and Men in Tights, for example -- with a large, often red, feather in his cap. The rider on the white horse on the Rider-Waite card wears the same ornament.

Rider, wait!

I have connected this rider with the first horseman of the Apocalypse: "And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer" (Revelation 6:2).

Note added: I'm not sure how I could possibly have missed this before! I've just connected the rider on the white horse with Robin Hood, in part because of the red feather he wears. In my post Red crows of the Sun, I connected that feather with what it says on the tin: legendary red crows associated with the Sun in Chinese folklore. How could it have escaped my notice that there is a Robin Hood movie in which Hood rides a white horse and is played by an actor whose name literally means Red Crow?


Russell means "red." Crowe means "crow." This isn't just a bull's-eye; this is splitting an arrow on the bull's-eye!

(Incidentally, it's really possible to do that. The famed "Robin Hood shot" has been duplicated three times by a kid from South Dakota with the ridiculously appropriate name Mike Merriman.)

9 comments:

Francis Berger said...

This post contains more connections than the London Underground. Quite exhilarating!

Wm Jas Tychonievich said...

Read the added note to have your mind just a little more blown.

Wm Jas Tychonievich said...

Russell Crowe's debut as a movie actor was in a film called Prisoners of the Sun.

Francis Berger said...

No symbologist, not even the much lauded Jonathan Pageau, can hold a candle to you.

Wm Jas Tychonievich said...

I don't know Mr. Pageau's work. Anything to recommend as an intro?

Francis Berger said...

I'm the wrong guy to ask. I browsed a few of his videos on YouTube a couple of years ago, but that's about it. He blends religious symbolism with contemporary pop art/ political events. As far as I know, he mostly does videos, which, if I'm not mistaken, is not your favorite info medium. I only mentioned him because many laud him as a symbolist extraordinaire. I have no opinion myself. Your blogs provide more than enough to satisfy my symbolism fix.

Wm Jas Tychonievich said...

I don't think "symbolism" is really an accurate description of what I'm doing.

Bruce Charlton said...

"I don't think "symbolism" is really an accurate description of what I'm doing."

"Symbology" is what I call it; following Dan Brown's term for his hero Professor Robert Langdon. I see Wm as following a trail of symbolic clues, each leading to the next; and at the end of all the clues... The Holy Grail!

Francis Berger said...

I used "symbolism" to refer to my personal fix, not to what you are doing, Wm.

Sabbatical notice

I'm taking a break from blogging for a bit, exact timetable undetermined. In the meantime, feel free to contact me by email.