Anazi Boys; The Way of the Trickster God
I really love trickster archetypes in characters; they offer such a broad scope in terms of character thanks to their morally ambiguous nature and often chaotic and self-serving choices, and I personally really love seeing the ways authors and creators take them!
Anazi Boys also wrapped up the idea of trickster characters with something else I hold dear to my heart as a storyteller; the idea that animals are intrinsically tied to our own nature. Spider is a cunning, obvious choice for a tricky creature that weaves threads of schemes into webs that tangle a menagerie of people together, but I think overall just the idea of including animals representing human emotions and feelings is really tied to us just wanting to see bits and pieces of ourselves in something easily recognized and related to!
I found myself connecting to another body of work I've been keeping up with; Gunnerkrigg Court is a long-running webcomic with two important characters being Coyote and Ysengrin, a wolf who's strength, having been spent over time, is indebted to Coyote. It reminded me a whole lot of Spider and Tiger's ongoing rivalry, what with the dichotomy of strength and anger interacting with cunning and deception. Although I will say that Gunnerkrigg has a slight warp on their ending, merging Trickery and Power rather than having one ultimately prevail over another!
Bouncing off of that, I do think Anazi Boys could have benefited from a little bit of a twist on the folkloric-style it banked upon for a lot of the characters. Still, there were parts of the story that I loved! Bird Woman's interaction with Spider, and her cutting out his tongue was, in my opinion, well written with just enough drama and visuals for me to craft it into an elaborate scene in my own head. Still, I think taking inspiration from fables and fairy-tales that impart lessons on others is a great kicking off point, but I did feel like the ending was a little expected, and just a tad unsatisfying. Moments like I mentioned made up for it, for me at least. I think there was a lot of fun to be had in this book, and I know I'm going to be thinking about it whenever I come across similar stories in the future!
Anazi Boys also wrapped up the idea of trickster characters with something else I hold dear to my heart as a storyteller; the idea that animals are intrinsically tied to our own nature. Spider is a cunning, obvious choice for a tricky creature that weaves threads of schemes into webs that tangle a menagerie of people together, but I think overall just the idea of including animals representing human emotions and feelings is really tied to us just wanting to see bits and pieces of ourselves in something easily recognized and related to!
I found myself connecting to another body of work I've been keeping up with; Gunnerkrigg Court is a long-running webcomic with two important characters being Coyote and Ysengrin, a wolf who's strength, having been spent over time, is indebted to Coyote. It reminded me a whole lot of Spider and Tiger's ongoing rivalry, what with the dichotomy of strength and anger interacting with cunning and deception. Although I will say that Gunnerkrigg has a slight warp on their ending, merging Trickery and Power rather than having one ultimately prevail over another!
Bouncing off of that, I do think Anazi Boys could have benefited from a little bit of a twist on the folkloric-style it banked upon for a lot of the characters. Still, there were parts of the story that I loved! Bird Woman's interaction with Spider, and her cutting out his tongue was, in my opinion, well written with just enough drama and visuals for me to craft it into an elaborate scene in my own head. Still, I think taking inspiration from fables and fairy-tales that impart lessons on others is a great kicking off point, but I did feel like the ending was a little expected, and just a tad unsatisfying. Moments like I mentioned made up for it, for me at least. I think there was a lot of fun to be had in this book, and I know I'm going to be thinking about it whenever I come across similar stories in the future!
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