Jason's Big Heist

            Jason’s quest for the Golden Fleece is one of the more well-known stories. Told in the Argonautica and other stories, it chronicles a group of heroes sailing into parts unknown, braving monsters, facing perils, and doing many other questy things. However, what the stories don’t tell is that the whole thing is an elaborate heist.

While most heroic quests follow a group of people out for treasure and facing peril, Jason is out for a very specific treasure, one that already has an owner. Sure, he’s doing it in order to appease a king so he can prove his worth, but theft is theft.

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It's All in the Duds

It is said that “Clothes make the man,” but that may be true for some more than others. I’ve been thinking it over, and found a pattern when it comes to clothes in crime fiction. Detective characters stand out in the crowd. Usually their manner—curious, attentive to detail, driven, and intelligent—sets them apart, but there’s more than that. The way they dress is actually quite conspicuous.

            A deerstalker hat, a mantled coat, a snuffbox, and a pipe. Just from that brief description we come up with Sherlock Holmes. The hat alone is enough to name him. Throw in the pipe and he’s unmistakable.

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Criminal Language

            Criminal enterprises are dangerous, no, really, I heard that somewhere. The risks of the job, though, are part of the deal. Hardly a criminal would balk at the risk of getting arrested or a prison sentence. It’s a risk, always has been, always will be. The job itself isn’t the only risk, though. Criminals have a need to go about their work in secret, and the only thing worse than getting arrested on the job is to get arrested before the job.

            For that reason criminals have to hide what they’re about, but they still have to talk about it. Talking about a big heist or, worse, the need to kill someone is a quick way to tip off the police. If the cops don’t outright arrest someone for planning a crime, you can bet they’ll take steps to make sure that the crime goes down in their favor, ending with thieves and other criminals behind bars, or even in body bags.

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Murder One

            Murder is old. We can’t call it the oldest profession simply because, well, it wasn’t really a profession when it was invented. There just weren’t enough people around, which becomes a problem later, as we’ll get into.

            Murder most foul, and it’s brother against brother. The incident with Cain and Abel is interesting for a lot of reasons. For one, this is the first generation. Adam and Eve got kicked out of the Garden, and their first two kids turn out like this. It’s not really fair to call it bad parenting, either; I mean they got 50% right. Not bad for a couple of kids freshly kicked out of Paradise, especially considering there are no parenting books yet.

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The Appeal of the Heist

            Heists are a staple of the crime genre. Who doesn’t love stories like Ocean’s 11, The Italian Job, or even A Fish Called Wanda? But, unlike murder and other crimes, heists are crimes we can get behind. We actually cheer on the criminals in their attempt to rob people. But why is that? Why can we get behind a group of people out to rob, yet condemn the mugger?

            Heists are always against someone big and oppressive. Either some kind of large corporation or viciously wealthy individual is the target. We dislike the big bad corporations and the viciously wealthy because, well, they’re not us and their character is shown to be flawed in some way, much as Andy Garcia’s character in Ocean’s Eleven. He’s powerful, shows himself off to be a jerk, and has very little sense of humor. This last reason is enough to justify robbing him.

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Warning: Virgins Bathing Ahead

            The Greek gods are kind of funny, and by that I’m not talking comedians. They do like jokes, but most of them tend to be the one-sided kind of funny where one thinks it’s funny, but the others are mightily ticked. When it’s between gods, not a whole lot happens. One might go complaining to Zeus, who never seems to spend much time on Olympus. If it was your job to settle disputes between the gods you might choose to be out of the office, too. Of course, what Zeus spends his time doing out of the office is a story for another time.

            When it comes to mortals, the jokes gods play are very seldom funny. Worse than that, the gods have a funny sense about pride. The absolute worst thing you can do to the Greek gods is to wound their pride. They take that personally. Worse, they won’t kill you. They’re fond of turning people into other things whether it be plants, animals, or insects. When you wound a god’s pride, expect to undergo a metamorphosis. There’s actually an entire collection of myth stories by the Roman poet Ovid called The Metamorphoses detailing these stories.

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It's in the Duds

            A long-time saying states that “Clothes make the man,” but it’s one of those things that may be more literally true for some more than others. I’ve been thinking it over, and found a pattern when it comes to clothes in crime fiction. Detective characters stand out in the crowd. Usually their manner, curious, attention to detail, driven, and intelligent sets them apart, but there’s more than that. The way they dress is actually quite conspicuous.

Read more at Criminalelemnt.com

Lepre-con-artist

            That guy on the cereal box isn’t the real deal. You know the one I mean: Green suit, jaunty green hat, gigantic clover sticking out of it. He carries a magic wand and fairy dust follows him around whenever he flies—does he have wings? How does he fly, exactly? Anyway, that’s not a real leprechaun. No doubt real leprechauns want to perpetuate this as their image because people will leave them alone, but I’m here to set the record straight.

            Leprechauns are faerie. The spelling’s important. We’re not talking Tinkerbell’s kind of fairy—though maybe the cereal box guy is related to her. We’re talking an entire race of enchanted folk belonging to Celtic mythology. All kinds of people belonging to the race of faerie—some people call them elves, dwarves, goblins, etc—can be found throughout Ireland and the rest of the British Isles, particularly in Faerie mounds.

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Vicious Valentine

            The stereotypical view of Cupid is one of an adorable, irresistibly cute, infant cherub winging his way towards couples to help people fall in love. He’s the poster child of St. Valentine’s Day, and I very much doubt he’s getting any royalties off of people using an image based on him.

            Of course, like so many things, the reality of Cupid is far, far different from the Hallmark version. Most of the reality has to do with understanding the Greek and Roman (since the Roman gods were basically the Greek gods adopted into Roman culture [Rome at the time didn’t care about copyright, they just sent in the legions to deal with troublemakers]).

Read the rest at Criminalelement (where it originally appeared on Valentine's Day).

Catfight of Epic Proportions

            It started with a beauty pageant. One day, Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite got into a rather vocal discussion about who was the most beautiful. Unable to resolve this pressing issue, they went to Zeus and asked him to decide who was the most beautiful.

            Now Zeus often isn’t given a lot of credit. He’s seen as the god who just goes out to schtup mortals; however, on this occasion he paused and looked around. The contest was between Hera, his wife; Athena, his daughter; and Aphrodite, his adopted daughter. Under thes circumstances, he decided, most wisely, that he wasn’t the man for the job—really, what man would actually go through with that, knowing the headaches it would later cause? Instead, he sent them off to a guy named Paris, claiming Paris had sound judgement.

            Zeus is a smart cookie.

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Crime in Mythology

            Crime is old, as old as written language itself, and a favorite theme in the world’s mythology. Whether it’s the murder of Able by Cain, the theft of fire by Prometheus, Actaeon spying on a naked Artemis, or stealing away Helen of Troy, crime is everywhere, and in every variation.

            Not only is crime prevalent, there are some interesting features about crime that come forward. First and foremost is that there is no getting away with it. For the gods it’s a simple matter to look down at the mortal world to see the crimes, whether it’s Zeus catching Prometheus or the God of the Old Testament asking Cain some pointed, uncomfortable questions in what is not only the first murder, but the first murder investigation and interrogation.

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