Magna Mater (Latin, Great Mother): the Redanian Goddess of Light and Motherhood. She’s a lioness with the shiniest mane you’ve ever seen! Her eyes are sunstones. She had to spend her last life fighting not only for her life, but also for her womanhood, and her right to be a mom.
She’s a mom now whether transmisogynoirists like it or not [1] [2]! This mom fights demons, devils, angels, gods, ghosts, and anything else it takes to get people out of whatever afterlife they’re trapped in.
“If that’s not where they want to go, they’re coming with me! ‘If the enemy leaves a door open, you must rush in.’ Sun Tzu, The Art of War. Christian God the Father’s angels may be afraid to tread, but my angels are confident and fearless!”
One thing she wanted to do in her last life was go to outer space. Now she lives in a space station, Gratitude, orbiting Redania with her angels.
She’s having a lot of fun reading about the time Jacob beat Christian God the Father in a wrestling match, as well as Jewish readings of the text: [1] [2] [3] [4]. “That’s what a mere mortal did, I can take him just fine! ‘The general who is skilled in defense hides in the most secret recesses of the earth; [the general] who is skilled in attack flashes forth from the topmost heights of heaven.’ – Sun Tzu, The Art of War.”
“It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.”
Star Wars the Clone Wars, Season 1, Episode 19: Storm Over Ryloth.
Apparently, she and Bast are in lesbian.
“She’s a wild cat. I gave her something to hunt: a mate!” she said about the matter. “Besides, which god’s kids tried to enslave all her kids?”
The story of the hunt only favors the hunter, until the lion tells the truth!
African proverb.
What Bast had to say is this, “Hating love, advanced genders, and advanced biologies is a colonizer thing [1] [2] [3]. Wakanda is safe for my mate! Thranduil’s Elk may be a Champion of Cool, but I’m a Champion of Tough! I have to be. Some of my children have decided to worship a silly little monkey god named Hanuman. After everything the rest of my babies have been doing to get people to stop comparing my babies to monkeys and other primates! I don’t care if they don’t worship me in life. They’re my babies too whether they or anybody else in Wakanda likes it or not! Hanuman has plenty of other worshipers, the Wakandans are mine! I’m not letting any potentially anti-Black, anti-African gods decide if they’re enlightened or not. As their mother, I say my babies are very enlightened! Their souls are the stars that shine over the Wakandan afterlife. There, they may have all the reincarnating adventures that they like―safely! Mama is greedy and stubborn, too. I greedily and stubbornly guard my babies very fiercely! I don’t appreciate custody battles. Alternate arrangements for the family members of Wakandans who had terrible priorities in life, that, I appreciate. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m getting ready to go on a vacation. I’ve booked it under the name Qaqamba” (isiXhosa) one who shines bright. In her case, she’s shining with the colors of an aurora. And her eyes are sparkling like stars. She’s on vacation! She can let her fur down, play with cat toys, and wear pretty things such as an emerald collar.
To say this announcement caused commotion in Wakanda would be an understantment.
“Stop whining! You’ll be just fine,” she said. “I gave you the heart-shaped herb and taught you how to defend yourselves, after all. You don’t need me hand-holding you through everything. Magna Mater needs me more at the moment. She is never going to fix up her place without proper motivation. I’m proper motivation. She’s got the power to be a mom, now she needs the power to Vusumzi” (isiXhosa) rebuild the home.
When death comes to find you, may it find you alive.
African proverb.
The Wakandan afterlife is the best afterlife ever (that I know about)! It’s dark, it’s colorful, it’s starry, and everybody’s a bunch of cats!
Everybody wants to be a cat.
Because a cat’s the only cat
Who knows where it’s at.Tell me, everybody’s pickin’ up on that feline beat
Everybody Wants to Be a Cat by Al Rinker and Floyd Huddleston.
‘Cause everything else is obsolete.
Another thing Bast and Magna Mater have bonded over is how much both of them hate leaving their house! They’re wild cats. They don’t like leaving their dens. Can you blame them? It’s the only place where they feel safe. They may be well positioned, but they’re not well settled―yet!
- Anozie: Igbo. A male name of Nigerian origin.
- We are now settled or well positioned [source link].
- To find one’s footing or become better positioned [source link].
They’re also terrible at sharing―justifiably so, mind you. They’re used to others stealing everything from them, including people! Who would want to share after that? It’s going to take very dedicated effort to convince them to open up to outsiders after that.
You think Christian God the Father is a jealous god? Oh no! We all need to be renamed Daluchi (Igbo. thank god). We all need to thank god if they ever let their angels meet any of the other Redanian gods, never mind any outside gods!
Bast’s views on Hanuman do not reflect the author’s views on Hanuman. Besides, studying Hanuman is the reason I learned about the concept of gods having aspects. Even with just the cursory research on Hinduism I’ve been able to do, I’m pretty sure Hanuman’s not the god who’s in charge of deciding who’s enlightened or not, if there is such a god in charge of that matter. I’ll study Hinduism more thoroughly later. Bast needs a vacation! And when Bast calls, I answer!
Besides, these aren’t my communities to speak to or about anyway. What my fellow white people should take away from this is: non-white people aren’t a monolith.
Hell, even all Black people aren’t a monolith. Think about it. Would you ever say white Americans and white Africans are the same? “There’s white people in Africa???” Exactly! You know who can tell you all about it: Trevor Noah’s brother! So just remember, fellow white people, even if you are marginalized in one way, remember to 1) not conflate / compare your own people’s sufferings with other people’s sufferings (not all evils are created equal), 2) stay in your lane (stay out of conversations that aren’t yours to join as speakers / writers / whatever), and 3) everybody’s just like Americans (nobody unites for anything even though you’re all Black to us. You know how I know this? First of all, my own damn white fragility and ignorance. Second of all, my extended family uses both versions of the n-word. Shamelessly. Like you’ll learn later on in this piece, we have not done enough, nor in my opinion, could we ever do enough for Black people).
The first verse means:
“Here comes a lion, father.
“Oh yes, it’s a lion. A lion.
“We’re going to conquer.
“A lion and a leopard come to this open place.”
Apparently, that word for lion is also the Zulu word for “king” [1] [2].
There was no leopard in that story, but there is in this one! Sort of. Panthers are melanistic leopards.
This is why, going forward, I’ve decided to talk about fictional peoples rather than real peoples. If I get something wrong about real peoples, I am further contributing to a world that is wealthy in lies and half-truths. If I get something wrong about fictional peoples, as long as they’re white fictional peoples, it’s harmless. The only people who are gonna get pissed off are nerds. And nerdy lives do not matter.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what Redania ought to be besides a fantasy garden. A lot of people’s dreams, especially marginalized and multiply marginalized people’s dreams, get squandered because the people in power in this world refuse to use their power wisely. I’ve decided that if your dreams don’t come true in your first life, they’ll come true in your next one.
If you don’t trust the royal family, trust the healer; oh look, the healer is royalty, too. Sure, in Middle-Earth, that means Lord Elrond, but I first developed that thought while thinking about an AU where Jesus or Archangel Michael tells Killmonger to stay in Wakanda.
“You have every right to be here, I don’t. You are the son of N’Jobu. He was so obsessed with freeing slaves that he didn’t guide anyone in your family home, and you’ve made the same mistake he has, haven’t you? Your mother and your girlfriend are safe with me. T’Chaka may have the voice of Darth Vader and the voice of Mufasa, but he is the Scar of your story. He killed your father! You have every right to be an angry little boy after everything that’s happened to you, but there’s going to be a better target to take that anger out on: Thanos. You’ve been fighting all your life. You need healing. You need the best healing possible. If you don’t trust your blood family, trust King M’Baku. He may be traditional, but he is a healer and a father, and he hates the other royal family, too! His whole tribe does! I’m sure you’ll get along just fine. Do you want to meet your ancestors as an angry little boy, or do you want to meet them as a warrior who helped to protect all of Wakanda? You need to remember who you are: Erik Stevens and Prince N’Jadaka, not just Killmonger.”
If we’re gonna have a white savior complex, might as well send in the white savior to do it. Jewishness and whiteness are a complicated subject, but suffice it to say, the actual historical Jesus wasn’t white!
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