Shadow Texts and the Ancient Magus’ Bride
It’s pretty normal for media to refer to older narratives, particularly mythologies. Perhaps it’s just my own interests in pop culture, but a lot of the media I’ve been consuming lately is referential. Most on the top of my mind has been the second season of Ancient Magus Bride, which obviously has it’s references and allusions. In its first season, it had characters stripped from folklore and mythology such as the Wandering Jew. In the second season it now has allusions to esoteric magic teachers from the 1500s. I absolutely love this stuff, and enjoy either recognising references or fervently looking it up to learn more.
When we talk about the intersections of mythology and popular culture, there are two ways we can approach it. The first is looking at how mythology is represented in popular culture, and the second the way popular culture is mythology. Typically here on Incidental Mythology, we talk a lot about the second - the entire name Incidental Mythology is based on this understanding, how our popular culture is our mythology incidentally. But today, we’re going to talk more about the first - the Pop culture narratives that draw on mythology directly and purposefully, whether as direct representation or in allusion.
On my blog, I’ve covered some elements of this in the past. I wrote briefly about the Wild Hunt in both folklore and the Witcher, and also chatted about the representation of the Wendigo in pop culture in comparison to Native American folklore. But on this channel, I haven’t spent a lot of time on this first element, but it’s an important facet of pop culture and mythology that I think we should occasionally touch on. And today, let’s chat about how we can see different sides of this in Ancient Magus Bride as our primary case study.
The first primary question to consider is why contemporary storytellers rely on old narratives and myths in the first place. If people are writing new stories, why dull your creativity with old narratives you didn’t craft? I am, I hope people know, asking the question in the way someone would be annoying, and I do not think that using these narrative is any dulling of creativity, but let’s chat about this.
Sometimes, the use of mythology in popular culture is as a tool of exoticisation. A good example of this from contemporary video games would be the use of the Wendigo and other indigenous stories and beliefs in horror games, and particularly Until Dawn. The use of indigenous stories helped to create a sense of the exotic and an aura of mystique around the primary threat of the game.
In his book Orientalism, Edward Said talked about the exoticisation of the East. Orientalism is the exaggeration of cultural difference, and based on an presumption of Western superiority. An important part of Said’s argument is the way culture is communicated and understood by the one doing the exoticisation. Said points out that often the sources people would raw on when picturing these other cultures would be literature or sources written by Westerners, and continuing to draw on these sources rather than to pull form the culture themselves to help paint the exoticised culture as one which is unable to defend itself or paint their own narratives.
In more nuance categories, we can talk about the use of Norse mythology in popular culture, especially in pieces like God of War. Most knowledge and stories from Norse mythology are drawn from the Prose Edda or Poetic Edda, written down by Snorri Sturluson, a Christian missionary. In other words, the stories of a religion and culture was being written down by someone who was not an adherent.
While it can be fairly simple to see the use of indigenous religions and beliefs being used as a form of exoticisation, which is often the case for the Wendigo in popular culture, it can also happen to older texts and cultures which predate religions and experiences now. I think sometimes mythology can be seen as unproblematic to borrow from because they are assumed that there is no one left to potentially offend. This does, of course, ignore contemporary adherents of pagan traditions.
Something a little different is happening in the case of the Ancient Magus Bride. The original text, the manga series written by Kore Yamazaki is a story that takes place in England. Because of it’s setting, the mythology and folklore that is often being drawn on is inherently Western in nature. She references the Wandering Jew, a Christian piece of folklore, fairy queen and king Titania and Oberon, and a silkie to name a few. The sources being utilised to learn from in order to do the writing is inherently Western, rather than repeated elsewhere and by others. And the interplay of intercultural communication going in the other direction can make things a little more complicated.
In this instance, I think it may be useful to think of the mythology being drawn in Ancient Magus Bride as one which relies on shadow texts. Barry Brummett uses the idea of “shadow texts” to understand the way intertextual communication works, particularly in popular culture. Shadow texts are the texts we bring with us when we experience new texts. These elements that we bring forward with us help us to determine, under-determine or over-determine, the new text we are encountering. Sometimes, our shadow texts are things that the writer or creator of the new text has no control over. When I come to a new video game, for example, I’m immediately going to be comparing it to other games I’ve played, and a designer can’t think about every game that anyone has possibly ever played when designing their game.
Shadow texts can, however, be utilised by writers for two primary purposes; to provide focus, and to provide legitimisation. Let’s talk about focus first.
Shadow texts can be referenced directly and obviously by pieces of popular culture in order to guide the audience to focus on what aspects of the show or piece of media the writer wishes them to focus on. This is most obviously done through the use of allusions and direct references: characters who have names like Oberon, or references directly to folkloric stories of the selkies, for example.
While we still are bringing to the Ancient Magus Bride other shadow texts, like other anime or other urban fantasy stories, we are also focusing in on what shadow texts are being directly referenced, such as fairy stories, folklore and mythology. It means we pay more attention to what these shadow texts bring to the table more than the others, and think about these other elements and how they connect to the cultural knowledge that we already have.
That being said, the writers who utilise shadow texts in this way can’t always rely on cultural knowledge of shadow texts to be the same or equal between audience members. I think of the first Norse God of War for this. Most people I knew outside of mythology research circles were not as knowledgeable about Norse mythology, especially in the way that it was being utilised in that game. While I was able to see elements of the stories coming together, most notably the story of Baldur and the Mistletoe, others were not as aware of this.
The use of these texts without the cultural references being clear is not always necessarily a miss on the side of the writers. For the writers of God of War, for example, they were able to utilise an old story that some may recognise, while also presenting it as a twist to others. This means that the game is helping to replicate original storytelling, while still putting their own spin on a classic tale.
This leads us to the second way that shadow texts can be utilised: as a form of legitimisation. One of the complaints that happens when I’m mention my primary thesis of pop culture as contemporary mythology, is that pop culture doesn’t have the length of time that is given for what we think of mythology. Mythology like the Norse and Greek and Egyptian is all from a very long time ago, and this distance of time gives it a sense of legitimisation. These stories are more important, more impactful, because it’s more old. They’ve stood the test of time, they’ve demonstrated their resilience because we still know them.
Popular culture like the Ancient Magus Bride uses this legitimisation as part of their background. Directly referencing these narratives provides shadow texts which not only provide flavour but also strength, resilience and legitimisation. It backs up the story as one that can situate itself in between these other narratives, and provides a fuller background than what the writer initially provides.
Let’s quickly go back to God of War. While some may think the lack of cultural knowledge in some of the audience as a failure on someone’s part, it actually provided the writers with an ability to situate their game as an opportunity for individuals to be newly experiencing the stories in Norse mythology. They become the new storyteller for an old story, creating a place for their game to exist among the rest of the storytelling experiences of Norse mythology.
For Ancient Magus Bride, the legitimisation is less in the storytelling directly. While this may have been the first instance that some may have encountered selkies or banshees, the show touches on these elements briefly. This means that they move on too fast for them to situate the story in a place of new storyteller. Rather, they are placed as interpreter and relation.
This type is actually quite common in urban fantasy stories more generally. The writers use the shadow texts at their disposal in order to form new interpretations on the old, and present their version as a version that lives amongst other understandings. Rather than being a storyteller themselves, they are more the one who whispers the translations of the story in the ear of the listener.
In either of these instances, the cultural knowledge of the audience provides an interesting relationship between shadow text, primary text, and audience. This intertextual relationship is interesting and complex, and often comes out in the form of fan theories. One of my favourite places to go for fan theories is the Ancient Magus Bride fan subreddit, where people delve into not only the story of the anime, but also the stories which surround the anime as shadow texts. Fans explain aspects of the narrative that are still yet unexplaned through these shadow texts.
There’s a lot that can be said of intertextual relationships, especially ones which are less directly text-based. Anime, as a visual artform, has the ability to show us shdow texts as well - they can provide visual references as well as spoken or written. And each of these can be employed by the writers and artists for very specific purposes. Using shadow texts effectively, and understanding their existence, can be a wonderful tool for the writer. And definitely something a mythographer should be looking out for.