Three notes on childhood assumptions and sea serpents

[mrissa]

1. From talking to various people, especially yhlee: I always assumed the gods were mortal, because I remember being about 5 years old and certainly no more than 6 when I read the bit of Norse saga that says, "Men die, cattle die, even the gods themselves must someday die." And it stuck with me and warped my brain and here I am before you today.

I also assume that hacking people to bits with axes is an acceptable thing for preschoolers to read about, and to play, because, well, I did, and how else were you to slay sea serpents?

2. Along similar lines and from reading papersky, I never fussed about whether boys were doing something or girls were doing something in a book and what it meant in my life, because I knew that if I was there, I would be in charge of organizing the interesting bits. That was just...that was just how things were. It was an immense relief to run into other people who could sometimes be The Organizer and still have the activity in question be something of interest, but it was a role I was taking for granted before starting kindergarten. One of my best preschool friends was a little boy. I instructed him in the slaying of sea serpents. So there was no question about boys or girls, because boys didn't know that kind of thing and girls were also pretty much impossible. And grown-ups, too, you just couldn't count on them to know anything of value at all. You had to make do with whoever you could find who knew how to do such things or could take instruction. The world was not long enough on sea-serpent-slayers of either sex that gender really came into it much. Nor age, either.

I think this generalizes to other aspects of my friendships than merely slayings and persists to the present day.

3. I have no idea how sea serpents attained such prominence in my child brain. It can't just have been The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and D'Aulaire's Norse Gods and Giants. I think maybe it was, though.

And this doesn't mean I'm writing The Mark of the Sea Serpent at all tonight. But I am writing The Mark of the Sea Serpent eventually.

Comments

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Along similar lines and from reading [info]papersky, I never fussed about whether boys were doing something or girls were doing something in a book and what it meant in my life, because I knew that if I was there, I would be in charge of organizing the interesting bits. That was just...that was just how things were.

Oh, yeah. Me too, completely.

[wilfulcait.livejournal.com]

"So there was no question about boys or girls, because boys didn't know that kind of thing and girls were also pretty much impossible. And grown-ups, too, you just couldn't count on them to know anything of value at all. You had to make do with whoever you could find who knew how to do such things or could take instruction."

This just made me laugh, because it is so much what I was like as a kid. NOBODY knew the important stuff, like how to find the secret passages that I was sure were around somewhere, or how to walk in the woods without making any noise so you could see Interesting Things. I once made the mistake of taking a girl from school with me to the place in the woods where I watched Interesting Things and she wanted to TALK. I was outraged.

[porphyrin.livejournal.com]

Better axes than ray guns, although I have a feeling that Roo does not know what a sea serpent is, and would object to us using the door snake as a standin.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

In sixth grade, I made my first friends who were pretty happy being quiet together. It was such a blessed relief.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

If you want us to hide the ray gun, we certainly can.

I'd rather have Roo shooting me with it than hacking at me with a play axe, however.

[porphyrin.livejournal.com]

For Sea serpent slaying!

Not because I want you to hide the ray gun.

Ah, the limitations of text.

Hee!

[thorintatge.livejournal.com]

I now have double motivation to publish my short story, "Loaam of Many Visages." Its treatment of sea serpent slaying would surely entertain you. ;)

Re: Hee!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Totally. At a bookstore on Tuesday, I found myself staring at a book whose jacket copy looked lame, thinking, "Yes, but there's a sea serpent."