Fantasy Creatures Part 3 - The Angels

So beautiful, the angels probably embody man’s greatest desire, to fly. Looking as people with the gift of flying, the angels are so revered that even the church uses them as part of the Christianity (and other religions) legends. They are probably the ‘creatures’ that look closer to us (though apparently only in appearance) even more so than elves, though winged. Usually portrayed as calm, creatures, blissful and understanding beyond our capacity to understand angels represent virtue, righteousness, benevolence and love. Even in other legends, they are known to serve – or rather be part of – a higher power that oversees the whole world, though that is not always to mankind’s best interests. An interesting concept about them is that beyond the giant, beautiful, feathered wings on their backs (their signature) angels are also known in many cases to possess no gender and be ethereal being some sort of benevolent spirits, very much like ghosts. However, being popular and all, angels have been used for millions of stuff, from naming places, people, and of course, creating new legends with them. Let us discuss two of those as usual:


Weeping Angels

From the popular TV series Doctor Who, come the aliens known as Weeping Angels. Looking mostly as statues of angels, they take their name because of the habit to conceal their eyes using both of their hands, looking as if they’re about to cry. One of the most dangerous enemies the Doctor had to face, the Weeping Angels have the power to send someone to the past before his own birth, with a single touch, thus feeding off the "potential energy" of the years their victims would have lived in the present. Along with that, they also seem to feed off other energy sources such as electric energy. Their only weakness seems to be when they are observed, which turns them to stone and cuts off their movements and they literally cease to exist hence the fact they try to conceal their eyes all the time. However even that seems inadvisable as that which holds the image of an angel becomes itself an angel. Scary and powerful, only beaten through wit and not through power, they are “the only psychopaths in the universe to kill you nicely” as the Doctor himself commented.


Angel of the X-men

Another form of “Angel”, from the popular Marvel comic books, this case appears to have the image of an angel through mutation. One of the many mutants in the Marvel world, Warren Worthington III, was born with wings and adopted the nickname Angel, changing it to Archangel and then to Angel again in the many stories. His whole body seems to be made especially for use of these magnificent wings, as having two big lumps of feather on its back and flying at great speed, would surely impair an otherwise normal human body with wings. He also has the power to heal others using his blood (probably taken from the fact that the well-known angels have a soothing aura which makes us feel better etc) being able to even raise the dead in some cases and of course making himself nearly immortal as that same blood is inside him and heals him almost immediately no matter the wound.


Angels in general are usually portrayed as species you can count to, and will offer help, knowledge and more but as with all legends; you can easily find stories of them being monstrosities that hunt and kill and many other variations. Flying on our own, has been almost any person’s dream at least once as we would be able to do so many things that are denied to us, being “imprisoned” on earth as we are. Many believe that the art of flying is locked inside us, others that when we die, some of us become angels and so forth. All in all, angels are one of the most magnificent fantasy races that is known, both for their beauty and the fact that they seem beyond us. Lots of popular companies have used them in video games, novels and so forth, gaining many supporters and fans due to the angels’ unending fan-base.

                                 

Fantasy Creatures Part 2 The Undead – The ones who defy death

Quite different from the gracious and beautiful elves, the Undead usually represent a form of corruption, decay, evil and obviously death. Corpses of dead men/animals raised from their eternal rest with only one mission in their usually mindless heads; to eat and kill – which usually means the same thing. Fearsome creatures not only because they do not possess the weaknesses of the living like danger of dying of blood loss, heart attacks etc. but mostly because once they kill someone, he becomes one of their own. Shady dark creatures with an infinite number of varieties, from malicious skeletons and zombies to lovely vampires, the Undead are probably the most dangerous ‘monsters’ of legend. Like with the elves, I’d like to discuss two of these varieties a bit, so;

Ghosts

In itself, the concept of a ghost, can be different depending on the legend/culture/fiction etc. But they usually share some traits like all of us already know. They can usually fly (or at least float, meaning their legs do not touch the ground as they move) they can pass through anything as if it wasn’t there, like walls, and other inanimate objects – even through other ghosts and can usually become invisible. Interesting is the fact that even though they can do all that, they somehow CAN touch people, paralyze them, even kill them, which makes them extremely fearsome as people CANNOT actually touch them. But the most dangerous of their powers is that they can make their essence go inside a dead or living body, possess it and control it as if it were their own. I like in particular the legend that states that every ghost is actually some part of the soul/spirit of someone who had deep regrets upon dying, and thus the ghost will move on to real death if someone solves their problem. However not all ghosts in literature are used to scare us, as there are many ghost stories who are actually funny and popular, like Casper. Many different aspects of ghosts can be discovered with a small research, like wraiths and revenants, but as they are also popular themselves, they have varied aspects of their own, meaning that (for example) not all wraiths are ghost-like creatures and some have a body of their own, and do not need to possess one like ghosts do. In general, ghosts are one of the most popular kinds of the undead along with zombies and vampires having many small tales being created for them every day from haunted mansions to people spotting weird apparitions, earning them a special place to the hearts of the occult fans.

Liches

Probably the most powerful undead creature and the most dangerous. A lich is a powerful mage who transformed into an undead aspect of himself thus becoming almost immortal. Unlike most of the undead creatures, a lich retains all of his intelligence and thoughts from when he was alive making him even more dangerous than the regular undead. Usually they practice various necromantic spells allowing them to build immense undead armies of lesser undead such as skeletons and zombies. Not only are they powerful and immortal, but these two facts combined along with their intelligence create the single most dangerous aspect of the liches. Since they will not die, they have immeasurable time to achieve their schemes. Meaning that if a lich wants to control a town from behind the scenes but the current ruler is a powerful threat to the lich that it could cost him his eternal life, the lich can simply wait until his enemy dies from old age, and take the town from a weaker ruler, making as simple and easy as possible. Interesting (and scary) is the fact that even if you destroy the lich, it still will not cease to exist. Liches contain a piece of their soul (or several pieces of their soul) in secret places called phylacteries allowing them to continue to exist even after their undead bodies are destroyed, giving them the opportunity to find a way to get a new body, and revenge to their enemies. Only if both the body and the phylactery(-ies) are destroyed will the lich finally cease to exist. Liches are favoured as enemies in popular fantasy video games and literature as important bosses of immense power and great armies, as the fact that they are powerful, smart and almost indestructible make them awesome villain quality.

In general, Undead whether they are spirits or walking dead bodies are probably the most frequently used concept for scary stories. Stories like The Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire, Count Dracula or games like World of Warcraft, Dungeons & Dragons etc. all use their different types of undead creatures as fearsome and powerful entities. Interesting is the concept of Death itself, as literature often provides us with different Gods of Death, or ‘The’ Death like Hades from Greek Mythology and Death from Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman. I find all of this, one of the most interesting topics of discussion regarding fantasy stuff, as you can begin a conversation about funny skeletons from movies like Corpse Bride and end up discussing serious topics about life and death. Definitely awesome!

Fantasy Creatures

Throughout history, men are known to be fascinated by beings that were close to what we are, yet entirely different. Creatures that resemble us or animals yet possess great mystical attributes like magic, wings, horns and so many others. We delight into watching these magnificent creatures in stories, games or movies almost as much as the people who create them. It is incredibly fortunate that we live in this modern technological world in which one’s fantasy can be given form with drawing, animation, graphics and so forth, to actually bring it to life, right before our very eyes.
And I’m glad to be here and present and talk about some of those marvellous creatures because I can.

Part One: Elves

Perhaps the closest to us humans in appearance, the elves distinct characteristic which defines them from humans is their long ears. Other than that, they are usually incredibly beautiful, with a grand lifespan far surpassing that of an average human, able to communicate with nature, whether we talk about animals or trees or just the very elements that shape our world like water and air. Elves are also known to possess a talent of doing things quite impossible to us, things that we call magic. These things can be anything, from creating fire from nothing or just being able to fly. It is interesting how many different kinds of elves have been created through the years. Goes to show how popular elves are, with their incredible beauty, and graceful manner.

Apart from the usual elves, that live hidden deep inside woods and caves, always close to nature with which they are so much associated, we can find lots of quite different kinds, which develop a different behaviour and lifestyle. Two of them are:

Dark Elves

Surely the most popular variation of the normal elves, the dark elves are evil elves that live deep underground. Instead of being associated with nature, they are closest to dark magic and an innate feeling for bloodlust and destruction. Stronger than the usual elves, more cunning, and bonded with dark magic that allows them to create darkness out of nowhere amongst other things, and feet stealthy enough to assassinate entire villages without anyone taking notice, the dark elves are a formidable threat to anyone.
Dark skin and red eyes is kind of a trademark for them, along with a vicious, cunning nature that makes even a weak dark elf, dangerous enough when it can’t really fight. Incredibly beautiful like their cousins, and graceful like cold aristocrats, they are probably the most dangerous variation of the usual elves.

House Elves

J.K.Rowling presented us with quite a different kind of elves than the ones above, inspired perhaps from the well-known Christmas Elves who work tirelessly for Santa Claus according to legend. Having almost NO resemblance than the pointy ears, house elves are short, big-headed creatures with wide eyes and a long nose. House elves are, the elves in the world of Harry Potter, as J.K.Rowling describes it. They are bonded servants to wizards, bound to serve their every command no matter how unreasonable or cruel that might be. Raised so that this almost slave-like life is their duty, house elves are even proud to be servants, and are glad to remain so for the rest of their lives. Like the usual elves, they possess their own unique magic powers, allowing them to perform feats that even wizards could not, which actually played an important role to the story as well. Kind, ready to serve and having an over-zealous commitment to their bonded masters, house elves are probably the weirdest variation of elves so far. And weird, is good in my book ;)

In general, we can possibly find an enormous amount of information about different kinds of elves with different history and different powers. In my research, I found elves who live in the water, winged elves, elves that can transform into wolves (and are not werewolves), a legend that says that elves are not actually a different race, but a rank in which men can be elevated into after death and so on. Incredibly charming, beautiful, and popular, elves are almost everywhere in modern fantasy, and frankly why shouldn’t they?