The original Evil Queen

[seneschal]

Here's another Bronze Age character to spice up your campaign.  King Ahab is a greedy, gluttonous fool.  Unfortunately, he's not the one your player-characters will be dealing with.

Jezebel of Sidonia -- Snow White's stepmom got nothin' on this bad girl

Bitter clingers vs. progressives!  The culture wars!  Raucous public debate!  Sounds very contemporary, doesn't it?  But it has all happened before, and it can be laid at the feet of a ruthless Phoenician princess.

Elijah, a prophet of the One God, assures us that King Ahab of ancient Israel was a very bad man.  But not all villains are created equal.  You have your Ernst Stavro Blofelds, and then you have your Wile E. Coyotes.  And although he managed to reign for 22 years, Ahab was ... a doofus.  He threw temper tantrums and pouted like a sulky 6-year-old.  He whined when he didn't get his way.  He was generally incompetent.  Or he would have been but for the malign influence of his clever, calculating wife.

Jezebel was a woman with an agenda.  She planned to radically transform her husband's backward kingdom into a proper modern state like that of her father, King Ethbaal of Sidon.  First, she had to correct the thinking of those boorish rubes who were her subjects.  Jezebel forcibly promoted the worship of her two favorite fertility deities, Baal and Asherah.  So what if the Jewish clergy and prophets didn't like it?  That's what a well-trained military is for.

What's not to love about The Agenda (tm)?  Instead of attempting to obey those annoying Commandments it is your sacred duty to have no-commitment sex with Baal's slinky temple prostitutes.  (Wowzers!). Asherah's devotional poles, where you offer your oat cakes, are surrounded by pleasant groves where you can soak up plenty of fresh air and sunshine (Eco-friendly, and we even have cookies!). Get with it, you Hebrew hicks!

The queen's re-education program proved highly successful.  Orthodox seminaries and synagogues emptied while the ranks of official state-sponsored priesthood swelled into the hundreds.  Jezebel's economic policies were thwarted, however, when that loudmouthed nutcase Elijah commanded that no rain fall upon Israel.  The nation slid into drought, then famine as the big dry-out stretched into its third year.

Edited October 21, 2019 by seneschal
Correct formatting

[Thalaba]

Sounds like a ready-made campaign scenario, and straight outta the bible! The real story and real character were no doubt way more nuanced - her story didn't come to us via her sister, after all. Ancient history is a trove of juicy characters and situations. The forthcoming Mythic Babylon for Mythras is full of interesting stories like this, most of which were teased out of baked clay letters found in the Mari archives.

[Qizilbashwoman]

yeah i mean irl Jezebel didn't deserve this despite being a queen (eat the rich); Israel was a completely landlocked, inbred hole of illiterate savages howling at the moon. It's not even clear why her father married her off to Ahav, like, what exactly was the advantage for him here? It's not like Israel had anything to contribute: it was poor in crops, herds, settlements, population, water, and arable land and it was desert-y and hill-y. It didn't even have anything like a decent army.

meanwhile Israel basically was like a tiny region of angry, isolated fundamentalists that suddenly got access to New York City and its harbors, wealth, and prestige.

Of course Jezebel was like "please kill these incompetent bible-thumpers trying to insist on destroying our culture and religion", like, Israel was a bunch of shepherds and dirt-poor farmers whose capital had no trade, defensive or agricultural advantage. (We still have no idea why Jerusalem was built, it's literally the worst-placed city ever, there's no reason for a city to be there.)

Also they called her a whore for dressing wealthy. ??!??? Elijah had some issues with women.

[seneschal]

Tut, tut.  It is obvious that Ethbaal had perfectly rational reasons for wanting to keep a smart, unscrupulous and ambitious heir as far away as possible from his capitol.  😉

[Qizilbashwoman]

4 hours ago, seneschal said:

Tut, tut.  It is obvious that Ethbaal had perfectly rational reasons for wanting to keep a smart, unscrupulous and ambitious heir as far away as possible from his capitol.  😉

... He would have sent her away anyway because she's a daughter to be married, the real puzzler is why he thought Israel was a good investment.

Perhaps Ahab's leadership of the local military alliance of smaller states qualified him, although they got their asses handed to them by Shalmaneser III.

[seneschal]

You know, I tried that with my parents but ultimately had to hunt down my own princess.

She would bitch-slap old Shalmaneser and send him crying all the way back to Assyria.  "What was that?  Gulp, why yes, Dear..". 😉. 😱

Edited October 22, 2019 by seneschal

[Qizilbashwoman]

1 hour ago, seneschal said:

You know, I tried that with my parents but ultimately had to hunt down my own princess.

She would bitch-slap old Shalmaneser and send him crying all the way back to Assyria.  "What was that?  Gulp, why yes, Dear..". 😉. 😱

girl these modern heroes make the old-timey ones look bad, I would commit utuma to be worth one (1) Rey girlfriend

she is so terrifying and so kind *fans self*

[seneschal]

Naaah!  Star Wars heroes, male or female, haven't been worth the batteries in their lightsabers since Return of the Jedi.  Qui-Gon Jinn was the best character from Phantom Menace and could easily have supported a franchise of his own -- so they promptly killed him off,  Darth Maul looked terrifying but he never actually did anything.  All scowl and no action.  And that has been the problem with the franchise ever since.  Rey & Company look good and are backed by glorious special effects -- but they haven't done anything to earn their place in the spotlight.  Somewhere after Rogue One I said to myself, "Disney just doesn't get what made Star Wars great.  I'm done with it, at least for now."

To really get it, you need to sit down with a giant tub of popcorn and a stack of DVDs that includes Metropolis, Things to Come, Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, the Filmation Flash Gordon cartoon series, and old sci-fi B movies such as Rocketship X-M, It: Terror From Space, or Angry Red Planet:  Whatever you think of them, even if you consider these films compost, that's the fertile soil from which Star Wars grew.

Fanboy rant mode off!  I am guilty of derailing my own thread . Let's get back to jazzy Jezzy and her bronzesaber-wielding henchmen.  You do realize that the next chapter in her saga is the confrontation between Elijah and the prophets of Baal?  A lone man against hundreds.  Whatever you think of old Eli, that took some guts.  And then Jezebel send her corps of assassins after him.

[soltakss]

I'm not an expert, by any means, but the Iron Age in the Levant began at c1200BCE and Jezebel seems to have died around 842 BCE, so seems to be Iron Age. Even Saul, the first king of Israel, was around 1000 BCE, so still Iron Age.

For me, the Judges start at the very start of the Iron Age, just because it is nice to have a cultural break alongside a break in leadership. Some sites date the first Judge at around 1300 BCE, but what's a hundred years between friends? So, Bronze Age is anyone before the Judges, for me.

However, having said that, given that Gloranthan culture is as similar to our Iron Age as our Bronze Age, Jezebel is a perfect Villainous Queen, far worse than the Queen of Sheba, for example.

 

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

I'm not an expert, by any means, but the Iron Age in the Levant began at c1200BCE and Jezebel seems to have died around 842 BCE, so seems to be Iron Age. Even Saul, the first king of Israel, was around 1000 BCE, so still Iron Age.

For me, the Judges start at the very start of the Iron Age, just because it is nice to have a cultural break alongside a break in leadership. Some sites date the first Judge at around 1300 BCE, but what's a hundred years between friends? So, Bronze Age is anyone before the Judges, for me.

Simson is to me from a Bronze Age environment, and David's confrontation with Goliath is beginning multiplication of Iron similar to the Iliad. The kings of Israel inherited Philistine iron mass production.

The transition phases don't necessarily mean an immediate change of cultural outlook. The end of the Bronze Age ending Darkness might as well be timed to the distribution of alphabetic script beyond the priestly caste. The earliest kings of Israel would have fallen into this transition period, and are sufficiently within the broader stroke Bronze Age that Glorantha invokes.

 

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

However, having said that, given that Gloranthan culture is as similar to our Iron Age as our Bronze Age, Jezebel is a perfect Villainous Queen, far worse than the Queen of Sheba, for example.

There are always two stories if both parties have historians. Rastagar's wife is the perfect Villainous Queen to those Orlanthi holding their Vingkotling ancestry in esteem, and the perfect heroine for the Grandmothers.

Ancient times have few women in a ruler's role, and the more successful of them were either re-defined as males (Hatshepsut) or vilified by later patriarchalist chroniclers (who were almost exclusively male).

[Qizilbashwoman]

2 hours ago, soltakss said:

far worse than the Queen of Sheba

who

who thinks the Queen of Sheba is a villain

[Thalaba]

26 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Ancient times have few women in a ruler's role, and the more successful of them were either re-defined as males (Hatshepsut) or vilified by later patriarchalist chroniclers (who were almost exclusively male).

Or, like Kubaba, become a goddess. 🙂

[soltakss]

15 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

who thinks the Queen of Sheba is a villain

Well, she seduces Solomon and tries to persuade him not to follow correct worship (Well, to be fair, he didn't need much persuading), the Kabbalah seems to have her as a demon, she is said to have been half-Djinn, Nebuchadnezzar is said to be their son, who conquers Israel, but the dates don't really match, so there are aspects that could be villainous.

[Qizilbashwoman]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

Well, she seduces Solomon and tries to persuade him not to follow correct worship (Well, to be fair, he didn't need much persuading), the Kabbalah seems to have her as a demon, she is said to have been half-Djinn, Nebuchadnezzar is said to be their son, who conquers Israel, but the dates don't really match, so there are aspects that could be villainous.

That's ... kind of late medieval Kabbala weirdness, it's not Torah! That's Alef-beys leBen Sire.

I'm old enough to be reading that, I'm not sure you are!

In the Torah she comes to Solomon, tests his wisdom, and when he shows it is accurate, gives him many gifts as a reward and returns to Yemen. In the Qur'an she is the queen of a pagan people who convert to monotheism when Solomon shows her his wisdom through tricks.

And jinn are people. As a Muslim, I can say: as we are "people of earth" (that's what Adam means in Hebrew, "earth-ling"), so they are people of "colorless fire". Being a jinn doesn't mean you can't be an observant monotheist! Jinn in Islam are just people from a parallel kind of world. Jinn in Judeo-Arabic are like sheydim, but not to Muslims, where they are potentially dangerous but still people.

Edited October 22, 2019 by Qizilbashwoman

[soltakss]

31 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

That's ... kind of late medieval Kabbala weirdness, it's not Torah! That's Alef-beys leBen Sire.

I like to use a lot of sources for RPG fun.

32 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

I'm old enough to be reading that, I'm not sure you are!

You would be surprised.

I might come across as a fresh-faced teenager with boundless enthusiasm, but in real life I am older than the Old Men Who Play RuneQuest.

34 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

In the Torah she comes to Solomon, tests his wisdom, and when he shows it is accurate, gives him many gifts as a reward and returns to Yemen. In the Qur'an she is the queen of a pagan people who convert to monotheism when Solomon shows her his wisdom through tricks.

The thing about Solomon is that he was a monotheist, all well and good, he even converts the Queen of Sheba to monotheism, but he also accepts the worship of idols and has several wives who, I believe, are pagans. Some people blame the Queen of Sheba for his relapse into allowing paganism to be worshipped.

[Qizilbashwoman]

39 minutes ago, soltakss said:

The thing about Solomon is that he was a monotheist, all well and good, he even converts the Queen of Sheba to monotheism, but he also accepts the worship of idols and has several wives who, I believe, are pagans. Some people blame the Queen of Sheba for his relapse into allowing paganism to be worshipped.

Well it was a Very Long Time Ago; it's unclear how much actual Monotheism there was at that date.

39 minutes ago, soltakss said:

I like to use a lot of sources for RPG fun.

There was some confusion between the Queen of Sheba in living faith and in the wild imaginings of RPGs. I enthusiastically endorse the latter, I was merely misreading the context. I come from a scholarly background (as you might have noticed) so I'm used to people actually discussing things like "the Queen of Sheba" in conversation. Maybe it'd be clearer if I show you that this is what my twitter friends cry laughing about:

[seneschal]

King David was a ladies' man and the sins of the father tend to carry over to the kids unless they work very hard to overcome their natural tendencies.  Despite his supernatural wisdom, Solomon failed to control his gonads and ultimately had 3,000 wives/concubines/surrogate mothers.  Many of these were political marriages to strengthen international alliances.  The Bible says it was these foreign wives that eventually turned his heart in his old age.  The formerly wise, devout king not only worshipped idols but became an expert in the occult.  Because Solomon never did anything by halves.

That's why both Rudyard Kipling (The Butterfly Who Stamped) and some of the 1001 Nights tales depict a Solomon who can summon djinn to do his bidding or seal them in bottles or lamps if they are uncooperative.  Could he really?  Don't know.  That's up to you as GM.

[Qizilbashwoman]

2 hours ago, seneschal said:

King David was a ladies' man

... not just ladies, there's a reason queer organisations in Catholic countries are often called "David and Jonathan"

[seneschal]

Nah, that's our twisted modern interpretation.  He and Jonathan were what we would call BFFs.  Not all genuine love has to be sexual.  You love your wife differently than you love your parents or kids, and you love all of them differently than you love your bowling buddies that you've hung with for years.

Besides, even if you think the Bible is a book of fairy stories, you have to have to admit that it never sugar-coats the people it describes.  Noah saved mankind and a representative selection of the animals -- but became a boozer after the ark was parked on a mountain. Abraham, founder of the faith, slept with the maid and then left her and Ishmael high and dry when wifey complained. Lot, his nephew, modeled morality for Sodom; after its destruction his adult daughters -- fearing they would never find suitable husbands -- got Daddy blind stinking drunk so they could get pregnant by him.  Simon Peter, macho man and Vicar of Christ, proved a coward in the end.  Even Jesus of Nazareth Himself sassed his mother as a 12-year-old at the temple -- and we hear nothing more of him until he turned 30.  You just don't mess with Mom!

If David had had boyfriends as well as girlfriends the Bible would tell us plainly and with embarrassing bluntness.

[Qizilbashwoman]

2 hours ago, seneschal said:

Nah, that's our twisted modern interpretation.

... I assure you this is not a modern interpretation

[seneschal]

Modern or not, it is incorrect and a slander on two brave and honorable men.  And that would be true no matter what religion or culture or ethnicity or national background they came from.

The Bible lists David's flaws and sins in painful detail.  He was a murderer, an adulterer, a skirt-chaser, a lousy Dad, a political opportunist, kind of a violent guy after a long military career.  One thing he wasn"t was a homosexual.  Before anyone goes there, no that's not a slap at gays.  I am discussing David in his historical and cultural context.

Jonathan, in contrast, comes off as decent guy.  He remained David's loyal friend and confidant, knowing his father Saul violently disapproved, knowing that David's presence in Israeli politics would prevent him from ever becoming king, knowing that in their many battles against the Philistines it was David who would win the glory, gold and girls.  He stuck anyway.  While the Old Testament details David's many exploits, Jonathan was no slouch in the hero department either.  He and his shield-bearer took on the whole Philistine army, using terrain to advantage, and whipped them.  It was Captain Judah and Bucky!

But we are drifting away from our go-to girl Jezebel again.  If you are interested enough I can do a separate write-up of David and/or Jonathan.  And Rey certainly deserves her own thread even if I do think she is a Mary Sue..

Edited October 23, 2019 by seneschal

[Qizilbashwoman]

10 hours ago, seneschal said:

I am discussing David in his historical and cultural context

you think you are but you are, in fact, not

[seneschal]

15 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

you think you are but you are, in fact, not

🙄. Let's agree to disagree and move on to something more fun (which is the whole point of my write-ups).  Any more insight you can give us on Jezebel, Queen of Israel?  How would you use her in your RuneQuest campaign?

[seneschal]

Postscript:  Jezebel managed to outlive Ahab (killed in battle against Aram, a rival nation north of Damascus), their son Ahaziah (reigned two years but died from injuries caused by falling through a second-story lattice; accident or "accident"?), and even Elijah (carried off by a divine whirlwind).  When Jehu, new King of Israel, arrived at Jezreel, the city where the queen mother was staying, he ordered the royal servants to prove their loyalty by tossing her majesty out a second-story window.  Not only did she suffer a bad fall but she was trampled by horses startled by her sudden arrival in their midst.  After refreshing himself following a long, hasty journey, Jehu ordered that Jezebel be given a proper royal burial.  However, the servants were able to recover only her skull, feet and hands.  Feral street dogs had devoured the rest of her.

Jezebel had murdered prophets of the One God and made worship of pagan deities popular.  But the crime for which Elijah condemned her and Ahab to death was something else entirely. Jezebel had arranged for a palace neighbor to be falsely accused of a crime and executed so that Ahab could annex his land and expand the royal vegetable garden.  It was this callous murder and theft that exhausted God's patience.

[Attercop]

If any of them ever existed.