lordnastrond
The Spirit of Darkness
So they have released a Set figure and I have..... thoughts.....
https://www.toyswonderland.com/product/tbleague-16-scale-seth-black/https://www.toyswonderland.com/product/tbleague-16-scale-seth-white/
First of all, credit where it is due - I think its brave of them - I like they are doing different Deities and Set, being Set, is a bold choice due to the inherent problems of trying to adapt the Set animal...
So what the hell actually IS the Set-animal? Entire monographs have been written on this subject for centuries with no consensus - the guesses range from Giraffe, Greyhound, Aardvark, Anteater, Oryx, Okapi (my personal choice), Fennec Fox (which I like due to the idea of a fox god of chaos being fitting), Hare, Desert Mouse, Tapir and Camel.
After all what creature has the body of a greyhound, a long curved snout, tall square ears and a stiff upright, and occassionally forked, tail?
The answer is none - it is a typhonic beast, a composite animal, a fictional monster that never existed in nature (despite some claiming it may be a now-extinct animal, there is nothing in the fossil record and no remains have ever been found).
This naturally raises a problem when trying to create artistic depictions of the creature in that artist interpretation will change the appearance drastically depending on their whim.
from threatening...
to cute/stylized....
to a blend of the two....
to comical....
This problem is merely exacerbated when creating 3D art I imagine.
So - there are two ways of adapting Seth in mainstream media - the first is to try and recreate the Typhonic/Set animal... OR to simply choose one of the many animals Seth MAY be and stick with that.
TBLeague chose the latter.....
Rather than tackle the Set animal (which I understand to a degree), TBLeague instead chose to make
SET -
the God of Chaos, Evil, Storms, War, the Desert, the Defender of Ra, Bane of Apep... into a rather goofy looking donkey....
I truly think pretty much anything else might have been better - in truth ANY choice of animal for Set is as correct/incorrect as another - they are ALL equally speculative. So choose something cool, or better yet, forget the desire to base Set on a real animal and just go ALL IN on adapting the Typhonic/Set beast - for me the most important thing with this is the effect the character is supposed to have.
Set Is supposed to be terrifying, a god of evil, terror, make him look positively demonic, satanic, make him look evil make him look BADASS.
.... this is just... awful.
To be fair, I think TBLeague knows this and thats why there is literally only 1 picture over the two figures showing a close up of the head and the rest of the pictures have this awful donkey head covered up by a fairly cool looking Stargate-esque mask/helmet to hide Set's shame.
Unfortunately the helmet is the coolest thing about this figure, the armour is pretty basic and boring, the base is also a little boring, he lacks his iconic was sceptre...
so much missed potential here, given that Set is such an important deity over such a cool set of dominions I expected some more inspiration from TBLeague, he is a war-god, storm-god, and devil-figure in one package with a strange demon-animal for a head AND YOU CHOSE A DONKEY.
So yeah, probably not one to buy for me, hopefully they decide to completely reimagine the character in a 2.0 down the line, but honestly I doubt it.
https://www.toyswonderland.com/product/tbleague-16-scale-seth-black/https://www.toyswonderland.com/product/tbleague-16-scale-seth-white/
First of all, credit where it is due - I think its brave of them - I like they are doing different Deities and Set, being Set, is a bold choice due to the inherent problems of trying to adapt the Set animal...
So what the hell actually IS the Set-animal? Entire monographs have been written on this subject for centuries with no consensus - the guesses range from Giraffe, Greyhound, Aardvark, Anteater, Oryx, Okapi (my personal choice), Fennec Fox (which I like due to the idea of a fox god of chaos being fitting), Hare, Desert Mouse, Tapir and Camel.
After all what creature has the body of a greyhound, a long curved snout, tall square ears and a stiff upright, and occassionally forked, tail?
The answer is none - it is a typhonic beast, a composite animal, a fictional monster that never existed in nature (despite some claiming it may be a now-extinct animal, there is nothing in the fossil record and no remains have ever been found).
This naturally raises a problem when trying to create artistic depictions of the creature in that artist interpretation will change the appearance drastically depending on their whim.
from threatening...
to cute/stylized....
to a blend of the two....
to comical....
This problem is merely exacerbated when creating 3D art I imagine.
So - there are two ways of adapting Seth in mainstream media - the first is to try and recreate the Typhonic/Set animal... OR to simply choose one of the many animals Seth MAY be and stick with that.
TBLeague chose the latter.....
Rather than tackle the Set animal (which I understand to a degree), TBLeague instead chose to make
SET -
the God of Chaos, Evil, Storms, War, the Desert, the Defender of Ra, Bane of Apep... into a rather goofy looking donkey....
I truly think pretty much anything else might have been better - in truth ANY choice of animal for Set is as correct/incorrect as another - they are ALL equally speculative. So choose something cool, or better yet, forget the desire to base Set on a real animal and just go ALL IN on adapting the Typhonic/Set beast - for me the most important thing with this is the effect the character is supposed to have.
Set Is supposed to be terrifying, a god of evil, terror, make him look positively demonic, satanic, make him look evil make him look BADASS.
.... this is just... awful.
To be fair, I think TBLeague knows this and thats why there is literally only 1 picture over the two figures showing a close up of the head and the rest of the pictures have this awful donkey head covered up by a fairly cool looking Stargate-esque mask/helmet to hide Set's shame.
Unfortunately the helmet is the coolest thing about this figure, the armour is pretty basic and boring, the base is also a little boring, he lacks his iconic was sceptre...
so much missed potential here, given that Set is such an important deity over such a cool set of dominions I expected some more inspiration from TBLeague, he is a war-god, storm-god, and devil-figure in one package with a strange demon-animal for a head AND YOU CHOSE A DONKEY.
So yeah, probably not one to buy for me, hopefully they decide to completely reimagine the character in a 2.0 down the line, but honestly I doubt it.
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