Hello? What's your favorite scary movie?
Who is this?
[deep voice] What's your favorite scary movie?
Oh, Dr. Z, is this you?
You really have to stop with these prank calls.
But, serious, what's your favorite scary movie?
Okay, we can talk about that later,
but I'm filming an episode right now.
Okay, sorry, good luck.
Okay, bye! Bye!
If you've attended a sleepover party
anytime in the last 50 years,
chances are high that you've encountered
a prank call like this.
Maybe you've even made one yourself.
But for thousands of years
before the invention of the telephone,
pranks fell under the purview of a force
even more powerful than rowdy teens.
It was left to the Trickster Gods.
[intro music]
From Maui in the Southern Hemisphere
to Amaguq in the North,
Trickster Gods and spirits can be found in mythologies
across the globe,
and their stories are some of the most fascinating ones,
like the Chinese tale of Sun Wukong.
Also known as the Monkey King,
Sun Wukong used his super-human strength
and impressive shape-shifting abilities
to pester the other gods.
Once, he crashed a heavenly banquet
that he was rudely not invited to,
drank all the wine, and then drunkenly stole
a bunch of immortality pills.
For his misbehavior,
the Monkey King was imprisoned under a mountain
for 500 years,
and his escape provides fodder for countless modern stories.
On the other side of the world,
the Hopi people of the American Southwest
told tales of Kokopelli.
According to one source,
Kokopelli is described as a lascivious troublemaker
whose obscene behavior provides an outlet
for people's less socially acceptable desires
and reminds them how they should behave.
This flute-playing Trickster God
is also a fertility deity
who makes his own fun as he travels the region
to spread corn seed and encourage pregnancy,
sometimes through wild parties and erotic dances.
This naughty figure is so popular in the Southwest
that his image can be found
adorning countless pieces of art and souvenirs.
And of course, the Norse people gave us
what might be the most widely known Trickster of all--
Loki, the god of mischief.
Much of what Marvel reveals about Loki onscreen
is faithful to the old myths,
like his chaotic nature and his long-held beef with Thor.
Even alligator Loki has some foundation
in the old Eddas,
which mention Loki's shape-shifting powers.
But the MCU's interpretation of Loki is just that--
their interpretation.
In the original myths,
Thor and Loki aren't even brothers,
so don't expect to be an expert in Norse mythology
after watching Tom Hiddleston charm his way
to the Avengers' bad sides.
By the end of this video,
I'll tell you about another Marvel superhero
inspired by a Trickster God, but first, let's analyze
why the Trickster is so common around the world.
It has to do with why myths were told in the first place.
Before the Internet and the scientific method
and even the concept of writing things down,
humans told stories for a few different purposes--
to explain the natural world,
to educate, and to entertain.
Myths, like monsters,
were created to explain natural phenomena
and reflect human understanding of the world around them,
and throughout time immemorial,
one thing that humans have definitely known about nature
is that it's tricky.
Storms come when you least expect them,
animals steal food and other valuable resources,
and don't even get me started on fire--
a bright light that provides warmth and prepares your food
but can also burn you
and magically turns wood into ash?
Sounds like a very elaborate prank to me.
A Trickster Deity is a convenient way
to explain these events.
Indeed, in many mythologies,
it's a Trickster who teaches humanity how to harness fire.
Myths were also used to codify social norms
for children and adults alike.
In mythology, the Trickster often faces consequences
for their nefarious hijinks,
like when Sun Wukong was imprisoned
for eating the very peaches of immortality
that he was assigned to protect.
These peaches, in addition to the pills he stole before,
made Sun Wukong extra invincible.
This lets everyone who hears the story
know that an immortal god could not run their punishment,
and neither can you.
And finally, Trickster stories are fun and funny,
just like an entertaining myth is supposed to be.
The chaos and randomness inherent to a Trickster persona
often make us laugh.
Psychologists who study humor have found a few theories
about what makes something funny,
and incongruity is one such theory.
We find something funny when there's a mismatch
between our expectations and reality,
and randomness creates the opportunity
for that hilarious juxtaposition.
In one Norse myth,
the giantess Skadi demands to be compensated
for her father's murder and insists
that one of the gods needs to make her laugh.
Loki is apparently the only Norse god
with a sense of humor, so he tied one end
of a rope to a goat and the other to a very...
sensitive part of his body
and then squealed with pain as the goat ran away.
It must have been a you-had-to-be-there kind of joke
because Skadi was appropriately amused
and agreed not to kill the gods.
So Tricksters can be found
in so many different mythologies
because nature is violent everywhere,
and the crafty qualities of the Trickster
make this particular archetype the perfect vehicle
for delivering moral or practical lessons
in a fun, memorable package.
Across cultures, Tricksters share many characteristics.
They're unpredictable, are often able to shapeshift,
and they rely on their quick wit
and penchant for mischief
to get them out of hairy situations.
One Trickster that embodies all of these qualities
is Anansi, the Trickster god of knowledge and stories
who originated with the Akan people
of Ghana in West Africa.
Christianity has been the dominant religion in Ghana
for nearly a century,
but traditional Akan religion is polytheistic.
Their pantheon is ruled by a supreme Creator God
who goes by many names, sometimes Nyame.
Second to Nyame is Asase Yaa,
a goddess of the earth, and together,
they have many children and messengers of lesser power
known as Abosom.
Amongst some, Anansi is the most important
of these children.
Often depicted as a spider with a man's head,
or a man with eight legs,
Anansi plays a key role in some fundamental Akan stories.
According to one,
the human world was originally bereft of stories
until Anansi got bored one day
and decided to buy them from his dad, Nyame.
The Sky God said that Anansi could have his stories
for a steep price.
Anansi had to bring him four
of the hardest creatures to catch--
Onini the python,
the hive of Mmoboro hornets,
Osebo the leopard, and a fairy.
But Anansi uses his cunning and his targets' weaknesses
to capture each one.
Impressed, Nyame granted Anansi ownership of his stories,
and Anansi shared them with humanity.
But lest you think that makes him a good guy,
there's another story where Anansi tries to horde
all the wisdom in the world by trapping it in a pot
and sticking it at the top of a tree.
Except the pot was much bigger than Anansi,
and he had trouble carrying it to the top
until his son, Ntikuma,
suggested he place it on his back.
Anansi was so shocked
that he hadn't thought of the answer himself
that the pot slipped from his grip.
The pot shattered on the ground,
and a storm carried away the wisdom inside
to the rest of the world.
In yet another story,
Anansi brings disease to the world
in an angry act of revenge
after his father took all of his wives from him.
In Nyame's defense,
Anansi did promise to bring him a beautiful wife
in exchange for one of his delicious sheep,
and then used that sheep to woo several new wives
who he kept for himself.
When the Atlantic slave trade
forced West Africans from their home
and enslaved them across an ocean,
they took stories of Anansi with them.
They held onto him as a symbol of resistance,
as a reminder that,
with a little bit of cunning and resilience,
even something as small as a spider
can escape most tough situations.
Now stories of Anansi have spread and morphed
across the Caribbean and the Americas,
making their way into plenty of popular media,
like Neil Gaiman's Mr. Nancy from "American Gods,"
or Spider-Man.
That's right--it's Marvel canon that in an alternate universe,
Earth 7082, to be precise,
the very first Spider-Man was Kwaku Anansi.
Whether it's displayed on the silver screen,
told around a campfire,
or painted on the wall of a cave,
Trickster stories remind us to roll with the punches
that life throws at us
and to face obstacles with cunning instead of force.
But Tricksters' most important characteristic
is their unpredictability.
You never know if a Trickster in a story will be the hero
or the villain or merely the fool
providing comic relief.
Their flexibility is what makes them so effective
and appealing.
And if you start looking for them,
you'll see Tricksters everywhere,
from Prometheus tricking the gods
into giving us fire,
to the Roadrunner "beep beeping" his way
through a world where the laws of physics don't mean a thing.
Comment below with your favorite Trickster figure,
and remember: prank responsibly.
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