Windblown Headcanon [Tangential Spoilers for S5E8] · 9:47pm May 23rd, 2015
Howdy, y'all.
Even though I thoroughly enjoyed this most recent episode as a whole (I found Gilda's appearance here much more palatable than in Griffon the Brush-Off), I'm gonna skirt past all of that in favour of getting a new and exciting bit of headcanon out of my mind. If I leave it alone much longer, it's apt to make me release a half-assed story about it prematurely, and no one wants that. Head on below the break for some rapid-fire theorizing.
Okay, so we've got this Idol of Boreas, yeah? And we've got this cyclops demon guy Arimaspi too. I'd never heard of Boreas or Arimaspi before now, so I was inclined to do some research on them. That ultimately led me to this Wikipedia page about the Anemoi—Greek gods of the four winds. First we've got Boreas, God of the North Wind, described as such:
Boreas. . .was the Greek god of the cold north wind and the bringer of winter. His name meant "North Wind" or "Devouring One". Boreas is depicted as being very strong, with a violent temper to match.
The descriptors "very strong" and "violent temper" struck me as rather appropriate, given that the Idol of Boreas belonged to the griffons who, as we've seen, are prone to anger and power.
Now that's all well and good, but what really got me interested were these three other wind gods. If there's an Idol of Boreas in the MLP world, doesn't it naturally follow that the other three wind gods might have idols too? Maybe they're scattered throughout the world, guarded by different species—just as the griffons once guarded the Idol of Boreas. It's not the craziest line of thought.
So going by that, let's look at Zephyrus, God of the West Wind. Here's his description:
Zephyrus. . .is the Greek god of the west wind. The gentlest of the winds, Zephyrus is known as the fructifying wind, the messenger of spring.
Now, I dunno about you, but words like "gentlest," "fructifying," and "spring," especially in combination with the wind, instantly brought the breezies to mind. Maybe they have the Idol of Zephyrus hidden away in their homeland. Maybe that's why they go on such a dangerous excursion to collect pollen: in order to appease this wind god. There are all kinds of places you could go with that.
Next up is Notos, God of the South Wind:
Notos. . .was the Greek god of the south wind. He was associated with the desiccating hot wind of the rise of Sirius after midsummer, was thought to bring the storms of late summer and autumn, and was feared as a destroyer of crops.
This one's a bit more of a stretch, but not by much, I think. Being associated with "desiccating hot wind" and, to an extent, "storms" makes me think the Idol of Notos belongs to the dragons. It would also make sense because, according to the official map of Equestria, dragons reside in the south. With Notos being the God of the South Wind, the correlation is obvious.
Lastly, we've got Eurus, God of the East Wind:
Eurus. . .was the Greek deity representing the unlucky east wind. He was thought to bring warmth and rain, and his symbol was an inverted vase, spilling water.
This one's tough to pinpoint, but my best guess is that seaponies would possess the Idol of Eurus. There's such a strong association with water that it's the first thing I thought of. Calling the east wind "unlucky" is rather interesting, though. Not sure what to make of that.
My next thought was: what would these idols do? Are they really just hunks of gold designed to appease wind gods, or do they maybe have some magic in them? Perhaps bringing all four together would do something—give someone complete control of the wind, maybe. Was that what Arimaspi was trying to do? And if so, was the Idol of Boreas the first one he'd tried to take?
That's about as far as I've gotten with this train of thought. Now that it's out there, make of it what you will. I feel like I'll have to incorporate this into a story at some point, if only for my own peace of mind. These ideas intrigue me far too much to simply be left alone.
What do y'all think of this? Feel free to give me your opinions or throw your own thoughts into the pot. I'm curious.
Keep on keeping on,
—Arg
Interesting... Certainly worth thinking about.
That was cool, not to mention educational. :D
I did know Boreas was the Greek god of the northern wind but wow that headcanon is way more than I was expecting. It being a wind idol also explains why there was no wind in Griffonstone, yet the abysmal abyss had so much wind that Rainbow Dash couldn't fly at all. After all, that was the place the idol had resided for years, so if it does contain magic it makes sense it should have an effect.
I believe an epic fantasy adventure is called for in which a terrible new menace arises to threaten the world and the ponies have to gather the four idols together to stop it.