There's a blog called Face to Face, formerly Dusk in Autumn, which was part of the Steveosphere back when that was a thing. It used to have interesting posts on such things as the history of architecture and repeating cycles in the cultural zeitgeist, but then it devolved into a fan site for cutesy anime girls on YouTube. Since I find cutesy anime girls hard to stomach (gross, you might say), I stopped checking it years ago.
Today, accidentally clicking the wrong thing in an old bookmarks folder took me to a 2011 post from that blog, and I figured I'd check the latest post, too, just to see if it was still weebsville or if he had returned to more appealing topics.
The latest post -- published April 30, the day before my "Gross Gaur" post (or quite possibly the same day, given the time-zone difference) -- is called "Gawr Gura memorial song: 'In the Real World' by the Little Vir-maid." So, yeah, still an anime "virtual YouTuber" fan site. However, if the sync stream leads me through weebsville, through weebsville I must go. The GG name, with one of the names being Gawr, is pretty hard to ignore, given the proximity in time to "Gross Gaur."
The post is lyrics for a song, to the tune of something from the Little Mermaid soundtrack, written in honor of Gawr Gura, who is apparently a virtual YouTuber who is retiring -- or, as he frames it, "graduating" to the real world.
Before presenting the lyrics themselves, the blogger notes that they include "atypical stress patterns" such as "CARE-ee-oh-KEY" -- a spelling that suggests Cary Yale, since Yale, besides being a university and a mythical beast, is a company that makes locks and keys. Keys appear in the lyrics, too, juxtaposed with a hands-touching-hands theme (see "Caroline, times never had the effect you'd expect"):
Clicking your keys, you don't bond too hardHands are required for shaking, plantingClimbing your way through a -- what's that word again?Tree
Wondering what exactly the name Gawr Gura was supposed to mean led me to -- remember only God can judge me -- that entity's article on the Virtual YouTuber Wiki. According to that site,
She gives her surname first, Japanese style, even when speaking in English. . . . Her surname Gawr comes from the gar, an ancient holosteian order of ray-finned fish. Her first name Gura comes from the Latin gula, meaning "gluttony."
So in the English order her name would be Gura Gawr, with the first name meaning "gluttony." Gross Gaur was a big fat man, and I understood Gross to be a reference to his size. Gluttony is of course closely associated with being big and fat.
Just under the bit about her name is the "Lore" section, where this jumped out at me:
Gura comes from Atlantis, an ancient lost underwater city appearing in legend. . . . Atlantis does not have many laws in the same manner as modern land nations. However, punishments are more severe, including public executions at a colosseum. Gura described once seeing a person eaten alive by a megalodon.
As noted above, Gross Gaur was also potentially associated with Atlantis. And the megalodon recently resurfaced in "Maglodan, 'Immigrant Song,' and the Page of Chips."
1 comment:
The public executions in relation to Atlantis caught my eye in that Lore section, and I immediately thought specifically of Amandil and his execution on Numenor (along with many other executions, but that is the one that first came to mind).
In Tolkien's stories, Amandil, who was leader of the Faithful, broke the Ban and sailed to the West before Pharazon in order to try and get help from Valinor (like Earendel). His fate in Tolkien's writings was left open, but Pengolodh/ Daymon suggest he was captured on his boat and brought back to Numenor.
There he was condemned to death by Pharazon, and Sauron himself carried out the execution. This was all done in the Temple, where Nimloth was still burning. This was also part of a larger series of executions in which people were brought in by the Kingsmen and punished for supposed sins of their house by being sacrificed in the temple.
The Temple would be a good link to the Colosseum, which means something along the lines of "Gigantic". The Temple on Numenor was certainly that, noted for its tremendous size, with walls said to be 500 feet high and 50 feet thick at the base. And it helps makes sense of the strange tie in that Lore excerpt between executions at a colosseum and a megalodon, tying the megalodon to Pharazon, Sauron, or otherwise.. You wouldn't normally think of a water-living animal like a giant shark associated with the mention of executions in a colosseum.
Adding to the tragedy of Amandil's execution is that he and Pharazon were childhood friends. In Pharazon's words spoken when they captured Amandil I get the impression at that time that Pharazon really thought i) what he was doing was right and ii) that he was the fulfillment of some prophecy as the "Last King":
"Ours is the land Undying, once-friend, and by your tack against the will of the Dark Eru, almost you subverted the fate long ago decreed upon the House of Earendel that ever in the West would they look, without hope of arriving thereto, until the Last King; to whom should come a messenger of Wisdom and Might."
Post a Comment