Creation
Right away, the first words of Ra, the Egyptian sun god, grabbed my attention: he explains that he is "Khepera at dawn, Ra at high noon, and Tum at eventide." I find the idea of a supremely powerful being with multiple personalities interesting, and think it could lead to some fun character work and conflict. The idea of Nut could make a compelling monster or villain, too, I think: a creature of darkness who never gets tired and burns with stars.
The Secret Name of Ra
Isis's manipulation of Ra to learn his real name and take his power was the main takeaway of this story; it actually reminds me of some of the stories of fairies, who have to obey the orders of any person who learns their real names. But more than that, I found Isis's motivation behind the manipulation more compelling: she's a goddess stuck in a human form on earth, and she's tired of the mortal world and wants to rejoin the rest of the gods. I like the idea of a protagonist stuck in a different form and desperate to get back to his or herself, only to realize in the end that that doesn't necessarily mean what he or she expected that to be—either because people and circumstances change, or because he didn't know his true self as well as he thought he did (metaphorically or literally).
Ra and Hathor
In this story, I loved when Ra gathered up all the rest of the gods in secret at his temple for a meeting. So if I were to use this one as the basis for my assignment this week, I'd probably end up going with a sort of impromptu family reunion/summit of a bunch of dysfunctional, squabbling gods, called together because their power over men is weakening and the humans are planning to rebel or replace the gods entirely.
That said, when I read on to the introduction of Hathor, I felt like she would be the basis for an interesting story, too—this gleeful, destructive force who the gods unleashed to go around slaughtering humans and flooding the place with blood, and then had issues reining back in once she'd caused enough damage. I think a reimagining of that conflict, featuring a protagonist who has to stop that force once she's unleashed, could be worth looking into.
The Sun's Journey
From this section, I liked the concept of a group of "magicians" protected by Osiris, god of the dead, and charged with protecting mankind from all sorts of evils. The idea that the god of the dead keeps a squad of life-savers under his wing is all kinds of counterintuitive and interesting, and I think it could be fun to experiment with. I also loved the idea that Ra gets weak every so often and has to rely on others to chant invocations to "overcome the demons of darkness who are his enemies." Nighttime is this long, drawn-out battle for Ra; he always eventually emerges victorious with the sunrise, and I find it interesting that he and his protectors know the battle's coming and how it's going to end, but have to keep repeating it anyways. The POV of one of his protectors might be interesting to see, in that scenario.
Osiris
In this story, it was the opposition in personalities between Osiris and his brother Set that caught my eye. Osiris is a peacekeeper, achieving his victories "by reason of gentle and persuasive speech and by music and song." His brother Set, on the other hand, loves warfare, and he's got a "heart...full of evil" and "wicked designs" to "stir up rebellion in the kingdom." It makes me want to write about a pair of brothers who are completely different; but instead of playing with the light brother/dark brother duality and leaving them as archetypes, I'd like to look at their dynamic and how they complement each other and act together as a stronger whole. I'm also interested in taking a closer look at the good in the dark brother and the bad in the light brother, and at a situation in which the light brother ends up being the corrupt one deep down after all.
The Death of Osiris
This time around, I was interested in the end of the story, when Isis feels pity for a weeping mother whose child has just been killed by one of Isis's scorpions, and brings the child back to life. If I were to use this story, I'd probably keep the concept of someone supposedly taking pity and bringing the protagonist's family member back to life—only for the protagonist to realize that the relative's corpse is just being inhabited by some creature planted there.
The Journey of Isis
In this section, I found Horus's destiny pretty compelling: he was killed as a child but brought back to life by the gods, who decided that it was their will that he would grow up into a strong fighter and kill the current king. If I were to do a story based off of this, I'd probably play around with the idea of a kid like Horus, raised from the dead and groomed by the gods after that to fulfill this destiny they've decided on.
King of the Dead
Osiris finally gets some resolution in this story, and his fate is actually quite inspiring: the rest of the gods pieced him back together and restored him to life, and he became Judge and King of the Dead. I love the idea of someone dead being brought back to life—which, let's face it, would be enough to mess anyone up a little bit—and, because of those job qualifications, having power over death and other dead people, probably as a street-level necromancer.
Bibliography: Egyptian Myth and Legend by Donald Mackenzie. Source: Mythology and Folklore UN-Textbook.
Image Credit: "Anubis" by Steve Maw. Source: Flickr.
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