Talk:Commentary on the Three Charms of Ikkulu

Chris: Great, even this guy thinks these things are indecipherable. Maybe we should just bring the riddle of Stratoniche's Tomb to some Hypperboreans. There must be some scholar in poetry up there.

tcm: the last charm (hairless altar) is about Aramin and i think it points to Psoikanthe (which is in the wilderness of the Rus aka Russia). we found it already. however, if this says what i think it says, then Drelzne is not Kukuth as we had originally thought.

are there four sisters?

Kukuth killed Aramin and then Drelzne killed Kukuth, and then a fourth sister (brother) killed Drelzne?

"Kin to your killer, your victim, your avenger."-- Kukuth is kin to her killer, which i suppose to be Drelzne (because of this line

    [Aramin is] Avenged by her sister [Drelzne], risking the wrath of the Furies,
                Fratricide avenged by fratricide.")

as well as kin to her victim, which i suppose to be Aramin (again, the line above). but she is also kin to her avenger. did another sister (or possibly the son, Heracles) kill Drelzne to avenge Kukuth? there is a fourth name associated with these three and that is Stratobia. we originally though Kukuth was another name for Drelzne and Stratobia was another name for Aramin, but what if these are all different people, and they were all Ikulu's daughters?

aside from that, Heracles is Ikulu's son (whom Baba Iaga told us to seek in order to find her daughter [but which one?]) and he is in the East. now, which East will be harder to pinpoint, but the Diadocomachia says he went "east beyond the borders of the empire," which means past Alexandrine India. this could mean a myriad of places including China, Japan, and even the New World, depending on how far exactly he sailed.

Chris: Now, who is/are the father(s) of Ikulu's kids? Cause there could be half siblings. Didn't Alexander do the nasty in the pasty with Ikulu? I don't know much about this stuff. Thought I'd just interject.

tcm: it has been posited that Nectanebos was just Ikulu in disguise (see Olympia's Confession, and therefore Alexander could be Ikulu's son (although it seems Kukuth is also a result of this coupling), but it has also been posited that yes, Alexander and Ikulu conceived Heracles, and the charms above seem to point to that. now, it's certainly possible that both are true; it's not unheard of in the ancient world for incest to occur either accidentally or on purpose. if this is true, then it's also possible that Alexander is part of that whole fratricide bugfuck. as to other fathers/mothers, i don't believe we have any clues to that effect. only Olympia and Alexander have been hinted at thus far.

Noah: Texts, both in and out of game, seem confident that Barsine was the mother of Heracles. This would not make him any less kin to Ikulu, however, considering that Alexander was likely her son, thus making Heracles her grandson. No need to speculate incest at every turn, you sickos.

If at any point it was theorized that Drelzne was Kukuth, it seems to me now very concrete that Drelzne is/was referred to as Stratonike, Aramin as Stratobia, and Kukuth is someone else entirely, about whom we know little. A trip to the city of Dyrrachion, named in this commentary, might shed some light on this mysterious figure.

It might also help clarify things if someone were to draft a family tree, with Ikulu as the hub.

tcm: okay, but these people need to be siblings (fratricide only pertains to siblings killing siblings, right?). And Kukuth's poem points to there being four people involved in this merry-go-round situation. if Heracles is only her grandson, then we need to find Alexander in order to find the daughter (who i assume is Drelzne, what with being on the moon and all). doesn't everybody know where Alexander is? isn't he in Alexandria? no, i think Heracles is Ikulu's son, as he is the only "lost" male figure we know of. plus, he's got a poem devoted to him alongside ones devoted to Kukuth and Aramin. the more i think about it, the more certain i am that Heracles is Ikulu's son. Barsine could have been another disguise or name for Ikulu. this also means that Drelzne is not the 'evil' sister as we originally posited, but Kukuth is. Drelzne is supposed to restart the human race, so why would she be the evil one, right? poor Aramin just got the short end of the stick.

tcm: then, of course, there's this: Arabic Epitome of Greek Mythological Geneology. i guess it's possible for all these siblings to be siblings, but not all of them offspring of Ikulu.