User:Erik the Appreciator/Erik's own sandbox

''This is a page I've been considering making. It pretty much is meant to gather together all mythological names and tell about them in a different context from the individual articles on Golden Sun things.''

=Cultural and mythological references in Golden Sun=

This is an arrangement of info about the various dieties and mythological concepts whose names are used in Golden Sun games.

Greek / Roman mythology
The legends held by the Ancient Greeks were essentially absorbed into the more expansive religion of Roman mythology when Ancient Rome conquered and colonized essentially the entire region of Europe surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. This has the effect of all the mythological figures told of in Greek mythology to reappear in Roman mythology, each one with a new name. For this reason, both mythologies are covered here as one entity, with Greek and Roman counterparts both named wherever applicable.

The creation myth starts with a yawning nothingness named "Chaos", and out of this abyss spawns primary divine beings: the earthen embodiment Gaia (Terra), the Abyss realm Tartarus, and the personification of all darkness, Erebus. Gaia gave birth to the embodiment of the sky, Uranus (Ouranos), who then fertilized his mother to produce twelve immortal Titans. One titan was named Themis, while another, the wily Cronus, became the ruler of the gods with his sister/wife Rhea as his consort and the other Titans became his court. Cronus feared an uprising from his offspring, so whenever a child was born he ate it without killing it. But then Cronus' son, Zeus (Jupiter) the god of thunder and lightning, challenged Cronus for kingship of the Gods and won, and after Zeus castrated his father and freed his brothers and sisters from Cronus' stomach, Cronus and the rest of the Titans were imprisoned in Tartarus.

Zeus had five siblings, several of which he fertilized to produce lesser dieties, and all of which were part of his circle of principal gods named the Twelve Olympians. His siblings were the goddess of marriage Hera (Juno), the goddess of the hearth Hestia (Vesta), the goddess of grain and fertility Demeter (Ceres), the god of the dead Hades (Pluto), and the god of the sea, horses, and earthquakes Poseidon (Neptune). The other six Olympians are as follows: The god of war Area (Mars), the god of travel and invention Hermes (Mercury) who is also the messenger of the gods, the god of technology and craftsmanship Hephaestus (Vulcan), the goddess of love and beauty Aphrodite (Venus), the goddess of wisdom and philosophy Athena (Minerva), the god of the Sun, truth, medicine, and arts Apollo, and the goddess of forests and hills Artemis (Diana).

Tartarus and Gaia are among the various pairs of mythological figures believed to have parented the serpentine nymph Echidna, who is quite literally the mother of all horrible monsters featured in Greek mythology. With the monsterous Typhon, she parented the monstrous hybrid beast Chimera, the multi-headed serpent Lernaeon Hydra, and the three-headed hound Cerberus, among at least five others.

Other details about mythical figures to be pointed are that Erebus had a sister named Nyx whom he fertilized to produce many offspring as well; Among these were twins, the Daemon personification of death and mortality Thanatos, the personification of sleep Hypnos, and the boatsman Charon. One of several fertility goddess of flowers and springtime, Chloris (Flora), was a companion of the son of Zeus, Heracles (Hercules). Four wind gods were told of to have existed, named the Anemoi, and each one was ascribed with a cardinal direction. Among these were the North Wind and bringer of cold Boreas (Aquilo) and the West Wind and bringer of calm Spring wind Zephyrus (Favonius). Iris is the personification of the rainbow and a messenger of the gods. And Poseidon was accompanied by fifty daughters of Nereus and Doris, the Nereids, who were sea nymphs that are always friendly and helpful towards sailors fighting perilous storms.

Greek and Roman mythology holds that the realm known as the Underworld was believed to be where the spirits of the recently dead would go to reside for eternity. The underworld had several regions: The great pit Tartarus where damned souls would reside along with the Titans, the Elysian lands where virtuous souls dwell, and the neutral land of the dead Hades presided over by the god of the same name. It had five rivers: Acheron (the river of lamentation), Cocytus (lamentation), Phlegethon (fire), Lethe (forgetfulness) and Styx (hate). The river Styx, in particular, formed the boundary between the lower world and the upper world, and the river Acheron was believed to connect from the underworld to the real world river Acheron located northwest of Greece. For both these rivers, Charon ferried dead souls to the realm they were intended for (for a monetary fee of a coin), and stationed at the front of Hades itself was Cerberus whom Hades owned. The hound allowed the newly dead to enter Hades while preventing the dead from escaping within and preventing the living outside from invading.

A son of the titans Hyperion and Theia was the sun-god Helios, whose daily routine was to ride the sun-chariot (as the Greeks believed the Sun in the sky was) across the sky and give warmth and light to the lands below. His young son Phaëton asked to ride the chariot for one day, but his lack of experience in handling the solar horses caused a wild ride that made the earth chill when the sun was too high, and then scorched the lands below when the sun was too low. (It getting close to the continent of Africa in this regard is the originally supposed reason why that is very desert-like and why the skins of the Ethiopians there were charred black.) His ride and his life were ended when Zeus had to intervene by striking the chariot with a lightning bolt.

Mortals of great ability and historical importance feature in Greek mythology as well. The mythical king of the Greek periphery island of Crete, Minos, was given a white bull by Poseidon so that Minos could sacrifice the bull to him, but Minos kept the bull for himself and sacrificed another. Poseidon became enraged and cursed Minos' wife Pasiphaë so that she would lust for a bull; this union bore a half-man, half-bull named the Minotaur. Minos went to the master craftsman Daedalus (who had already constructed a giant animate stone statue named Talos as a defense measure for Crete) and had him build a maze-without-exits named the Labyrinth for the Minotaur to be trapped within.

A young woman and expert huntress, Atalanta, after the death of her first husband Meleager, would only accept as a new suitor one who could win against her in a foot race - impossible under normal circumstances, as she could run extremely fast. Nonetleless, the man Melanion won the race and her heart.

Procne was a daughter of rulers of Athens named Pandion and Zeuxippe. She was turned into a bird by the Olympian gods after her husband Tereus' attempt to kill her and her sister Philomela.

In a tale widely known as The Odyssey, a king named Ulysses participated in the Trojan War.

Germanic/Norse mythology
The world according to this mythological mindset is eventually destined to succumb to a series of cataclysmic events known together as the Ragnarok, during which natural disasters would submerge the world and battles among major mythical figures and dieties would result in their mutual deaths. Among these combatants would be the god of lightning, Thor, who would be killed in battle along with his opponent, the world serpent Jormungandr.

Demonology
In demonology, there exists the realm of Hell of which its numerous demonic armies are presided over and led by especially powerful demonic figures. Among these are Zagan, a Great King and President of Hell commanding over thirty-three legions of demons and having the power of transmutation, and Haures (traditionaly Flauros), a powerful Great Duke of Hell commanding thirty-six legions of demons and able to tell facts about past, present, and future.