: In a previous thread I proved beyond the shadow of a
: doubt that this is Myrdred, the someday Deceiver, and
: no one had the slightest shred of evidence to put up
: against my theory... HAH! I think all we managed to
: prove in that thread was that it didn't look like
: Myrdred but that he had no good alibi as to where he
: was when that picture was taken. It's one of those
: mysteries that will never be truly solved.
: Anyway, as to the head: I can't say for certain what,
: where, when, who or why it was but I think I know
: where the inspiration for it came from.
: The Knight Templars were a bunch of badass warriors
: during the Crusades and nobody ever thought of
: impugning their honor. But over time they kind of got
: rich and sloppy and finally the Spanish Inquisition
: decided that it wanted their money, so it called 'em
: all up for questioning (with torture! plenty of...
: torture!) and made them confess that they were evil
: beer-swilling satanists who ate babies and had sold
: out the crusades (everybody was confessing to this
: back then, it was kind of a fad). Apparently, though,
: the Templars were so popular that the usual dull
: confession routine wasn't enough--people wanted
: details--so the Inquisitors sent out a press release
: detailing just how the Templars had cooked their
: babies and swilled their beer and worshipped satan.
: The last bit is the most interesting: the Templars
: supposedly claimed that they worshipped a demon called
: Baphomet who appeared as--yes--an animated severed
: head. It supposedly advised them and told them where
: to find all kinds of buried treasure.
: A later version of the story, in C.S. Lewis' "That
: Hideous Strength" might also have influenced
: Bungie. In that one, a famous killer gets guillotined
: by the French (this takes place in the early part of
: the twentieth century). Some English creeps steal his
: head and reanimate it in their lab out in the English
: countryside and make it their leader and chief adviser
: but of course it turns out to be evil, etc. Check this
: book out, it's a very interesting story (the whole
: series is fun: Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra),
: though the ending gets very mystical and strange.
: (Man, I haven't thought about Lewis in years. Next
: I'll be finding Narnia refs!)
: Then again, it might just be a reference to the severed
: head of the Limper in the Black Company books, but
: nobody (except Toadkiller Dog, and he changed his
: mind) ever looked to that thing for advice.
: For what it's worth...
Or it might be inspired by one of the ten thousand "severed head" tales in Celtic mythology. I think its most direct inspiration, though, is the Norse god Mimir, the wisest god in the pantheon; he got his head cut off by the Vanir (a rival set of gods from the more popular Aesir) but Odin preserved it with magic herbs and Neosporin and stuff and visited it regularly thereafter for advice.
--SiliconDream
