Miscellaneous Myths: Zahak The Serpent King
1,645,485
Published 2021-07-02
PARTIAL TRACKLIST: Starfall, Black Blade, Winged Dragon of Ra theme, He Who Brings The Night, To Victory, A Hero's Return, False King, Star Sky
Elevator, Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
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All Comments (21)
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“Sorry I killed sixteen of your sons, and to make it up to you I won’t kill your seventeenth.” Zahak officially wins the “Not as big of a jerk as you could’ve been” award
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"Give me this movie Hollywood. You cowards" best quote ever
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I love how the lineup of kings goes directly from stuff like "clad his people in tiger skins" and "discovered firestarting" to "ENSLAVED DEMONS WITH MAGIC" with nothing in between lol
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I think the part that gets to me the most about this story (besides the name "Johnny Snake-shoulders") is that Zahak doesn't just want to believe that he's a good king, he's so insecure about it that he wants people to sign paperwork notarizing that he's a good king. That is hilariously desperate.
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That blacksmith really said “Screw this I’ll find the prophecy child myself”
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Snakes, also known as Danger Noodles, sometimes called Nope Ropes
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That blacksmith guy sounds like he’s either cool as hell or just the most productive Karen of all time with no in between
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"Have you looked at our king lately?" "Hmm? What? No. Maybe, a little." "He's got snakes growing out of his shoulders." "What?" "Have you noticed, that our king, has little human-brain-eating snakes growing out of his shoulders?" "I... don't see..." "Cyrus... are we the baddies?"
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"Nobody good has ever held the title of 'Serpent King'" So did you guys know that in slavic folklore, snakes and serpents were considered protectors of the household and the hearth and the serpent king was a benevolent entity that rewarded people for treating his subjects with respect and only retaliated in self-defence?
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"You guys would tell me if I was a bad person, right?" Now I'm just imagining Zahak and his snake shoulders having heart to hearts, movie nights, a spa day (the snakes have little cucumbers over their eyes)...
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Keyumars: *Invents clothes* Hushang: *Invents technology* Tahmuras: *Straight up slaps a bunch of demons with magic and makes them tell him their secrets, oh and also weaving*
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On second watch through, something stands out to me about the general population in this story: they're proactive! The king has declared himself a god? Call the neighbors in to overthrow him! New king also bad? Form an army and go find the prophecy child! You don't typically see that in these types of stories.
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What the hell, that Blacksmith deserves to be king, I’ve never heard of a bigger power move
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I so especially love how Zahak doesn't just up and fall to evil over nothing and Ahriman has to go through utterly ridiculous lengths to corrupt him, and even then it doesn't fully make Zahak an uncaring bastard, just someone whose sunk too deep with very bad advice from someone actively trying to make him the bad guy.
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Funnily enough, I was watching this with a snake draped over my shoulders. I didn’t go on a murder spree, but the resemblance did make me uncomfortable enough that I moved him to my arm 😁
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"Can i see if this noble is trustworthy?" "Role for insight." rattle, rolling "... Nat 1" sigh this dude seems legit, wise, and honest. "Cool. What do you need from me? "I need you to kill your own father. Make a wisdom saving throw."
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I love how Zahak went from “gee wilikers” to “I hope they still think I’m a good king even though I’ve killed 16 of their kids :(“
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Soldier 1: Have you looked at our king lately? Soldier 2: Yeah. Soldier 1: He's got Snakes coming out of his shoulders! Soldier 2: So? Soldier 1: Are we the Baddies?
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Love how Ahriman had to do a whole bunch of stuff to make Zahak evil despite being empowered and Ahura Mazda had to do ONE THING and let the domino effect take care of the rest
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Fun fact: from an evolutionary perspective snakes are goddamn horrifying, they look a lot like tree branches which made our ancestor hyper vigilant to them and also made them much better at recognising snakes.
