Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. Hi,
Speaker 1: my name is Robert Lamb and this is the Monster Fact,
Speaker 1: a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
Speaker 1: focusing in on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in time.
Speaker 1: In this episode, we will finish our look at the
Speaker 1: four chaos gods of the fictional far future universe in
Speaker 1: Games Workshops Warhammer forty thousand. In previous episodes, we looked
Speaker 1: at Bloodthirsty Corn, the hyper protean Zinch, and the plague
Speaker 1: lord Nergle. Today we enter the domain of Slanesh, the
Speaker 1: Lord of Excess. In forty k Lore, we are told
Speaker 1: that Slanesh is the youngest of the chaos gods, having
Speaker 1: only truly accreted out of mortal souls and emotions with
Speaker 1: the fall of the decadent Aldari civilization, an event that
Speaker 1: all but destroy the Alvari and pour open a massive
Speaker 1: warp rift known as the Eye of Terror. Slanesh's domain
Speaker 1: is that of hedonistic excess, but also that of need, want,
Speaker 1: and obsession. The demons that manifest in Slanesh's service are
Speaker 1: alluring contradictions that blur the line between pleasure and pain,
Speaker 1: desire and revulsion. The demonets of Slanesh make up most
Speaker 1: of the chaos God's battle force, and they feature some
Speaker 1: favored characteristics of Slanesh's servants. They are humanoid beings with
Speaker 1: pale flesh and long purple hair, alluring yet also equally ghoulish.
Speaker 1: Their feet and legs are reminiscent of reptiles or birds,
Speaker 1: bringing to mind such real world mythic traditions as that
Speaker 1: of harpies and succubie. Oh yes, and they also have
Speaker 1: crab claws, lots of crab claws, something that doesn't really
Speaker 1: connect to any mythic or folkloric traditions that I'm aware of,
Speaker 1: but they absolutely make it work and it has become
Speaker 1: a signature aspect of their look. Demonets also appear bilaterally asymmetrical,
Speaker 1: particularly in the chest region, where one side features a
Speaker 1: female breast and the other a male breast. While titillation
Speaker 1: is clearly part of this design, it also strongly echoes
Speaker 1: the male female duality in the symbolism of bathom from
Speaker 1: occult in Western esoteric traditions. This influence is especially prevalent
Speaker 1: in the Towering Keeper of Secrets, the deadly Slaneshi demon champions,
Speaker 1: which often, especially in recent depictions, feature strong goatlike characteristics
Speaker 1: such as foot and head reminiscent of Bathomea. But there's
Speaker 1: another servant of Slanesh that I'd like to talk about here,
Speaker 1: and that's the Mask of Slanesh. This purple hued Harold
Speaker 1: once danced in the good graces of the Lord of Excess.
Speaker 1: But according to the ninth edition Chaos Demons Codex from
Speaker 1: Games Workshop, the Mask fell out of favor with Slenesh
Speaker 1: and is now cursed to dance and cavort forever across
Speaker 1: strange realms and battlefields. The dance of the Mask emboldened
Speaker 1: surrounding Slaneshi forces, but also in sourcel's enemy troops to
Speaker 1: join into its spiraling dance, where it slices them to
Speaker 1: exotic ribbons of flesh. This, of course, brings to mind
Speaker 1: a famous mania from our own history, the dancing plagues
Speaker 1: off the fourteenth through seventeenth centuries, as pointed out by
Speaker 1: John Waller in a Forgotten Plague, Making Sense of Dancing Mania,
Speaker 1: published in two thousand and nine in The Lancet. A
Speaker 1: certain degree of embellishment stains some of these accounts, but
Speaker 1: cases in thirteen seventy four in fifteen eighteen are pretty
Speaker 1: well documented. Most sources agree that dancing plague incidents involved
Speaker 1: groups of individuals swept up in long bouts of involuntary dancing.
Speaker 1: The dancers cried out in pain or pleaded for mercy.
Speaker 1: In some accounts, they danced until they died. While enigmatic
Speaker 1: and certainly hard to believe from a modern perspective, dancing
Speaker 1: plagues are not without skeptical explanation. Wilder explores a few
Speaker 1: leading ideas in the paper. First, there's the possibility of
Speaker 1: urgot poisoning, a topic we've discussed in depth on Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind before. It's caused by the consumption
Speaker 1: of fungus infected grains that can lead to nightmarish altered
Speaker 1: states of consciousness. Waller also discusses the possibility that the
Speaker 1: dancers could have been in an involuntary trance state, something
Speaker 1: people are far more susceptible to during states of intense
Speaker 1: psychological distress, and these centuries certainly provided plenty of stressors.
Speaker 1: This explanation also require exposure to a pre existing belief
Speaker 1: about dancing plagues, and in these cases, the cause would
Speaker 1: be believed to be some sort of a spirit or
Speaker 1: a curse, and there is evidence for this in art, literature,
Speaker 1: and law from these time periods and regions. So Waller
Speaker 1: writes quote every so often, when physical and mental distress
Speaker 1: rendered people more than usually suggestible, the specter of the
Speaker 1: dancing plague could quickly return. All it then took was
Speaker 1: for one or a few poor souls, believing themselves to
Speaker 1: have been subject to the curse, to slip into a
Speaker 1: spontaneous trance. Then they would unconsciously act out the part
Speaker 1: of the accursed, dancing, leaping and hopping for days on end.
Speaker 1: It's a different sort of compulsion than that found among
Speaker 1: the followers of Slanesh, but there are other examples of
Speaker 1: mass hysteria or mass psychogenic illness to consider, such as
Speaker 1: laughing epidemics and witchcraft panics, though of course slantash doesn't
Speaker 1: have to work through such real world means to control people.
Speaker 1: That's all for this monster fact series, but I think
Speaker 1: I'm going to continue the basic format here, with future
Speaker 1: episodes drawing on groups of creatures from other fandoms and
Speaker 1: other traditions. So tune in for additional episodes each Wednesday.
Speaker 1: And the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed. As always,
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
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