So there's a fair bit to touch upon with Ho-oh in regard to its inspiration, its mythology, and its implications within the world.
The obvious place to start with Ho-oh is its namesake; the Chinese phoenix or Fenghuang (鳳凰 read "hōō" in Japanese) is the cultural counterpart to the Chinese dragon, with the dragon being traditionally regarded as male and the fenghuang as its female counterpart, yet another reflection of the balance of yin and yang in the natural world. That's one inspiration, but much like its counterpart Lugia, Ho-oh is a whole smorgasboard of ideas, and one unassuming yet extremely interesting aspect is the Iranian Persian Huma Bird which not only bestows good fortune and foretells great prosperity, much like the Fenghuang, but also has one trait the Fenghuang used to share. That is, it is both male and female in one body. Or rather, historically both male and female Fenghuang used to exist in myth before gradually being consolidated down to a single, feminine-aspected, archetype. One other notable trait of the Huma bird that appears in Ho-oh is that it spends its whole life flying high above the earth, never resting, never returning to roost. It is mentioned here and there that Ho-oh used to roost upon Suzu Tower long ago, but ever since Kane Tower burned down, it has taken wing and never returned until the player character comes along; a worthy soul bearing the Rainbow Wing of legend.
Another possible inspiration that shares the Fenghuang's female coding is the Simurgh, similarly Iranian in origin. Like all the rest of Ho-oh's origins, the Simurgh is described as a clash of wildly disparate animal features, including feathers of copper, a peacock's body, and a lion's claws. And once again we see the association with greatness, as the creature was said to represent the divine mandate of rulership. Much more interesting, however, is the Simurgh's appearance in the Shahnameh, wherein she adopted a young prince who later begged her to save his wife when she suffered in childbirth. The Simurgh purportedly showed Prince Zal how to cut the child out of his wife's belly, being an explanation for one origin of what we now call a Ceasarean section today. It's not really bringing dead pokemon back to life but it's still pretty dang interesting right?
However, there is a Kurdish tale of a great hero saving the Simurgh's eggs from a snake, and in return she grants him three of her feathers, telling him to burn them in his time of need. Now that sure sounds like an uncanny coincidence to me.
I think the most noticeable thing about Ho-oh however is just how little two of its most obvious inspirations really have in common. The Fenghuang basically bears zero resemblance at all to the ubiquitous Greek mythological Phoenix. In its earliest surviving appearance way back in the 700s BCE, one poem claims that a phoenix lives for over 900 human lifetimes. Frustratingly, Greek scholars couldn't seem to agree on what the heck it looked like besides a vague outline, contradicting each other on even its basic size. Everything from peacock colouration, to sapphire eyes, to one description closely resembling (ironically) the Golden Pheasant, native to east asia. This one is the bird that specifically renews itself through fire and rebirth, becoming functionally immortal through a cycle of life and death. Funnily enough there doesn't seem to be much actual mythological activity for the poor phoenix in Greece, and it almost seems that the bird's supernatural traits are simply wild fantasies that greek scholars slapped onto one or more otherwise mundane but real species of exotic wild foul, such as the aforementioned golden pheasant. The phoenix doesn't really get any stories until after the rise of Christianity and its adoption into early Christian myth as a cultural motif.
Ho-oh's influences are certainly a microcosm of the "smorgasbord of mythical references" approach that Pokémon tends to take with so many things. Likewise the stories told about it within the fiction of Pokémon are varied, and sometimes even contradictory. Did Ho-oh really bring Entei, Raikou and Suicune back to life? Is it in fact the immortal lord of the skies? Is it just a really big grumpy bird? While there's certainly ambiguity about the way the myths are presented, we definitely seem to be leaning on the side of the supernatural more often than not, weaving a strong component of myth and folklore into the world. Perhaps fitting, then, that Ho-oh has been waiting for us all this time, waiting for a mythical protagonist to appear and step into the hero's role in this story.
Much like the Phoenix, we have risen from the embers of what once was. And like the Simurgh, Ho-oh's appearance marks only a turning point in our journey, for there is still a long road ahead.
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branchandroot
Right. Ho-oh. Or Ho-o. Whichever.
Date: 2022-06-30 03:47 am (UTC)The obvious place to start with Ho-oh is its namesake; the Chinese phoenix or Fenghuang (鳳凰 read "hōō" in Japanese) is the cultural counterpart to the Chinese dragon, with the dragon being traditionally regarded as male and the fenghuang as its female counterpart, yet another reflection of the balance of yin and yang in the natural world. That's one inspiration, but much like its counterpart Lugia, Ho-oh is a whole smorgasboard of ideas, and one unassuming yet extremely interesting aspect is the Iranian Persian Huma Bird which not only bestows good fortune and foretells great prosperity, much like the Fenghuang, but also has one trait the Fenghuang used to share. That is, it is both male and female in one body. Or rather, historically both male and female Fenghuang used to exist in myth before gradually being consolidated down to a single, feminine-aspected, archetype. One other notable trait of the Huma bird that appears in Ho-oh is that it spends its whole life flying high above the earth, never resting, never returning to roost. It is mentioned here and there that Ho-oh used to roost upon Suzu Tower long ago, but ever since Kane Tower burned down, it has taken wing and never returned until the player character comes along; a worthy soul bearing the Rainbow Wing of legend.
Another possible inspiration that shares the Fenghuang's female coding is the Simurgh, similarly Iranian in origin. Like all the rest of Ho-oh's origins, the Simurgh is described as a clash of wildly disparate animal features, including feathers of copper, a peacock's body, and a lion's claws. And once again we see the association with greatness, as the creature was said to represent the divine mandate of rulership. Much more interesting, however, is the Simurgh's appearance in the Shahnameh, wherein she adopted a young prince who later begged her to save his wife when she suffered in childbirth. The Simurgh purportedly showed Prince Zal how to cut the child out of his wife's belly, being an explanation for one origin of what we now call a Ceasarean section today. It's not really bringing dead pokemon back to life but it's still pretty dang interesting right?
However, there is a Kurdish tale of a great hero saving the Simurgh's eggs from a snake, and in return she grants him three of her feathers, telling him to burn them in his time of need. Now that sure sounds like an uncanny coincidence to me.
I think the most noticeable thing about Ho-oh however is just how little two of its most obvious inspirations really have in common. The Fenghuang basically bears zero resemblance at all to the ubiquitous Greek mythological Phoenix. In its earliest surviving appearance way back in the 700s BCE, one poem claims that a phoenix lives for over 900 human lifetimes. Frustratingly, Greek scholars couldn't seem to agree on what the heck it looked like besides a vague outline, contradicting each other on even its basic size. Everything from peacock colouration, to sapphire eyes, to one description closely resembling (ironically) the Golden Pheasant, native to east asia. This one is the bird that specifically renews itself through fire and rebirth, becoming functionally immortal through a cycle of life and death. Funnily enough there doesn't seem to be much actual mythological activity for the poor phoenix in Greece, and it almost seems that the bird's supernatural traits are simply wild fantasies that greek scholars slapped onto one or more otherwise mundane but real species of exotic wild foul, such as the aforementioned golden pheasant. The phoenix doesn't really get any stories until after the rise of Christianity and its adoption into early Christian myth as a cultural motif.
Ho-oh's influences are certainly a microcosm of the "smorgasbord of mythical references" approach that Pokémon tends to take with so many things. Likewise the stories told about it within the fiction of Pokémon are varied, and sometimes even contradictory. Did Ho-oh really bring Entei, Raikou and Suicune back to life? Is it in fact the immortal lord of the skies? Is it just a really big grumpy bird? While there's certainly ambiguity about the way the myths are presented, we definitely seem to be leaning on the side of the supernatural more often than not, weaving a strong component of myth and folklore into the world. Perhaps fitting, then, that Ho-oh has been waiting for us all this time, waiting for a mythical protagonist to appear and step into the hero's role in this story.
Much like the Phoenix, we have risen from the embers of what once was. And like the Simurgh, Ho-oh's appearance marks only a turning point in our journey, for there is still a long road ahead.