Also To Be Fair The Greek Myths Are The One Referenced By The God Grades - Tumblr Posts

How Digimon Universe Invokes Myth

I had a horrible, horrible epiphany about Appmon that I am compelled to share.

So, as I was writing my Appmon analysis thoughts, considering how Appmons main thesis of using kindness to fight the singularity and how that stands in antithesis to the self-fulfilling prophecies so common in myth where going out of your way to fight something is what makes it come to pass in the first place. The most notable example to me was the Greek Myth where Uranus was overthrown by his children who he prevented from being born, hurting their mother Gaia in the process. In turn his son, Cronus, was overthrown by his children whom he ate, and his son Zeus, who was prophesied to be overthrown by his son, consumed his child’s mother before he could conceive the child of his doom. And the God Grades were named after Greek gods this season. In my head this was a sort of side note. A cool little detail. Not that this is exclusive to myth (hey Kung Fu Panda II) or anything. But myths are the foundation of human storytelling. Even today it’s something that gets used quite a lot. Because it's such a terrible, human concept. Using violence out of fear against people motivates them to want to use violence against you.

Now if you want a recap of what I said somewhere else that I don’t care to look for, Appmon argues against it, basically Appmon is a battle between Denemon’s children. While one of his children goes rogue and kills him, fulfilling the prophecy of the singularity. He does not overthrow humanity because ultimately through the kindness he (and Haru) showed, Minerva (and Yuujin and the Appmon), remained loyal to humanity. Even though Appmon grew strong enough to overthrow humanity, they didn’t. Now I have an additional thought, that being Uranus, while defeated, still exists as the sky. Just like Denemon, though killed still exists. Does that mean anything? I don’t know.

Then I was thinking about how Digimon does gender in all its different seasons. And how Appmon was the most baffling. Because okay. Digimon aren’t consistent and they can have gender sometimes. But those are usually in the series where digimon aren’t man-created AI. So what the heck Appmon. Why do you have gender? And your appmon have parents? Parents have only been used for digimon in Xros (the season infamous for implying digimon sex), and Frontier, where digimon very much so had gender, but also were born from reincarnating eggs whose gender did not seem set in stone. Both seasons, which took the more “Digimon are naturally existing fantasy monsters” rather than “Digimon are AI monsters born from human influence” approaches. Are they AI born from humans? You can’t give me two completely conflicting stories about Appmon’s existence. 

Or can you?

So I’ve taken a few classes on myth and religion through the years. And unfortunately due to reasons I have mythology fresh on the brain. But the idea that myth contains conflicting stories about things is one that was discussed. Myths generally weren’t told as one continuous story of truths. They were told as independent stories. While they were regarded as truths, you weren’t supposed to think deeply about the discrepancies because these are stories of the divine. Beyond perfect human understanding. The individual stories each said something about the society. Each story held its own truth, relying on a consistent cast of characters. An example is how there are two, semi-conflicting stories of the creation of man in Genesis. This results from the fact that at one point these were two separate stories, each meant to illustrate a point about the world. It was only after they were gathered and codified did we consider them part of one story.

But this also got me to remember what gods are. They are divine representations of things. For instance it is not that Gaia represents the earth or governs it. It is that Gaia is the earth. Hades is also the name for the underworld. Gatchmon is a search app. Appmon are to Gods, the way Apps are to natural phenomenon. Appmon are modern gods. Now this isn’t the first time Digimon tipped its toes into myth. It has digimon who are representatives of all sorts of preexisting myths. But they don’t enact these myths. Perhaps they will be referenced as having godlike influence in their reference books, but they will not be worshiped like gods in the texts (anime, Manga, games) themselves. They invoke these myths, but they are not myths themselves.

The apps are personified in the way the gods are personified. Gatchmon is like a human comprehension of the search engine. Search engines exist, finding and sorting knowledge in ways that are beyond the average human comprehension. Search engine giving irrelevant knowledge? Gatchmon messing with you. Search engine giving you the perfect search result. Gatchmon. Music app algorithm playing songs you hate? Musimon. Music app playing the exact song you were in the mood for? Musimon. Phone randomly reboots… Rebootmon. In the same way the gods of myth toyed with human lives, causing them pain and suffering. Disease, love and fertility were all products of the gods. Appmon toy with humans in the same way. People earn the favor of the AI the same way the Greeks earned the favor of the Gods. Through sacrifice. In this case the sacrifice of their personal data.

So how can apps have parents? And go to school? And have genders? The same way that God’s have gender, have affairs and have parents. The way. Appmon live an existence beyond human comprehension and beyond the human flow of time. Appmon go to school for the same reason that there are myths of the gods cheating, and fighting and stealing among each other getting into petty grudges. App Fusion charts is like the genealogy of the gods. But for the Apps. It is the way that some Apps use other Apps to improve their functions. The way search apps will reference locations or the weather if you ask it to look those things up. The way Apps relate to each other, communicating using AI that builds upon each other. We wouldn’t have video calls if it weren’t for camera apps or phone calls already existing. The stories of the Appmon going to school, or having parents is the representative explanation for why things are the way they are. This app was never released? It failed app school. This App references these two? Those two Apps are its parents. Some Apps come into existence fully formed. Some do have parents. SOME APPS ARE BOTH, THE TRUTH NOT UNDERSTOOD BY MORTAL MEANS AND ONLY RELEVANT TO THE STORY THAT IS BEING TOLD. APPMON ARE MERELY OUR COMPREHENSION OF THE FORCES THAT GOVERN OUR LIVES.

 So now having established that, Appmon is a modern myth. A story of what’s to come, and the characters, the Apps, that rule our modern lives. Digimon Universe is the Ragnarok, the Book of Revelations of our modern age. Obviously it is not a true myth. It’s a children’s show. But it invokes the patterns of myth so I’m calling it as I see it.