Modern Popular Culture: Katabasis

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My example of a katabasis in modern popular culture is from the (2004) Sci-Fi television series Battlestar Galactica, created by David Eick and Ronald D. Moore. The basic premise of the series is that a civilization of humans is nearly, brought to extinction after a surprise attack from a cybernetic race known as the Cylons and subsequently the survivors set out on a voyage to find a fabled lost homeland. I thought this series would be a good example because of all the motifs it borrows from Greek and Roman mythology. For one the surprise attack in which the series begins is essentially the story of the Trojan horse, except the horse is a Cylon known as Caprica, presented in a woman’s form. She is then able to trick a Gaius Baltar into letting her gain access to the defense mainframe, thus disabling the defenses and allowing the invasion of Cylons to occur. In retrospect, I think the whole series is an allegory to Greek myth; Caprica is Aphrodite presented normally in a bright red dress, image of sex and desire, whilst Gaius Baltar is Adonis given his vanity, death and rebirth and eventual mostly female cult dedicated to him.

In any case, my example of katabasis from this series would be Kara Thrace known as “Starbuck”. She is a rather hot tempered and wild heroin, who really personifies many aspects of the katabasis from both Geek and Roman myth. One example of this would be when Laura Roslin, the president of the surviving humans, instructed Starbuck to journey home to Delphi to retrieve the Arrow of Apollo so that they could open the tomb of Athena and find the fabled homeland known as earth. This plotline is straight from the story of Aeneas and the Golden Bough. Laura Roslin acts as the Pythia or Sibyl of Cumae an old woma...

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...nation of the journey towards salvation, Apollo turns toward Kara Thrace to ask her what she will do with her newfound freedom, hoping that she will not have any excuse to deny his love anymore. Once he turns towards her to hear her answer, she simply vanishes in the wind, in an equally eerie and somewhat heart wrenching way as Eurydice fate in the story Orpheus and Eurydice.

Therefore, in summation, after reading chapter eleven of Classical Myth 6th edition by Powel and having just realized a show I had watched over a year ago was just a rather complex allegory to Greek myth specifically dealing with Orphism, polytheism colliding with monotheistic Christian beliefs. I feel that Kara Thrace personifies of the katabasis for her journey and role in the overarching plot take on every aspect of a katabasis, merging all of the Greek stories of a katabasis into one.

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