Pallas - Tumblr Posts
Drew this after finding out Ody was king at 13. Immediately needed to draw Pallas “bad at emotions w mortals” Athena trying to help
Hi! A lot of the time in pictures of the Monkey King, he has a sort of hat with two feathers(?) coming off the top of it. Are they feathers? What is this hat or hairstyle called, and what is the significance of it, do you know? Thank you
The novel calls Sun Wukong's hat a "purple gold cap with phoenix feathers” (fengchi zijin guan, 鳳翅紫金冠). [1] This kind of head gear is most commonly associated with young heroes in Chinese opera, and it's generally portrayed as a helmet with lingzi (翎子) feathers. According to Bonds (2008):
[F]eather movements enlarge the gestures and emotions of the wearer. For example, rotating the head in circles…expands a sense of anger. Shaking the head back and forth quickly…adds to extreme frustration. Biting crossed feathers in the mouth heightens the appearance of aggressive feelings (p. 44).
But this kind of feathered headgear was once a kind of military regalia. You can see examples from this detail of The Emperor’s Return to the Capital (Rubitu, 入蹕圖), a painting from the 16th-century:
Knowing the above explains why it really, really annoys me to see drawings of the Monkey King with feathers attached to his golden headband or sticking out the top of his head like insect antennae.
That's why I wrote this article about what Sun Wukong looks like:
Note:
1) Yu (Wu & Yu, 2012) translates this as "a cap with erect phoenix plumes, made of red gold" (vol. 1, p. 137).
Sources:
Bonds, A. B. (2008). Beijing Opera Costumes: The Visual Communication of Character and Culture. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
Wu, C., & Yu, A. C. (2012). The Journey to the West (Vols. 1-4). Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.
Addressing all Captive Prince fans...
This is the Pallas Cat.
Do with this information what you will.
Happy Manul Monday! Pallas Stare edition
Happy Manul Monday! Baby Pallas Cat edition
✨Somebody is going to die✨
Odysseus:Goddess and man bestest of friends Athena:sorry, I am still not over that one tragic childhood friendship with Sapphic undertones, I had with Pallas