Myths are malleable platforms on which belief gathers or is attracted. Belief often creates gods that encompass the myth and make it plausible enough. From there religion is formed on belief that is itself then manipulated by clever chaps so that the god(s) can be worshipped 'properly' (aka organised with due ceremony including valuable gift-giving, occasionally of a fatal nature, which the clever chaps of course need to organise some more) and so are made to make a whole culture work...
Norse sagas say a lot of about Ice Giants - they have their rational basis in periods of rampant glaciation aka Ice Ages. Legends of Ogres (as opposed to Trolls) are thought to have originated in the times when Neanderthal humans co-existed with the Cro Magnons (us, Homo Sapiens). Ironically, although recent studies are showing that the Neanderthalers were definitely Ogre material being bigger (as in build as they were not as tall), stronger (
really big muscles) and pretty much as smart as us, being superbly adapted for a hard life in the Ice Age; but they
didn't do too well when the last big freeze receded and so the more adaptable Cro Magnons out-evolving the older branch of the family took advantage of this and may even have assisted the poor old-fashioned cavemen on their way to extinction by indulging in a little prehistoric genocide...
And such is the basis of mythology - stories get told of the great giant ice
river that carved a continent with its bare 'hands', or of the horrid hairy hunched big bad ogre of a Neanderthal who would kill you in an amusingly horrible way soon as look at you unless you nipped in there quick and slammed a flint blade between his shoulders... the stuff of legends. Most legends/mythologies have a basis in reality but their meaning gets twisted in time and a multitude of re-tellings and this is how a culture like the Egyptians had comes into being. Most people would would agree that desert cultures are big on gods. They're hard environments to live in and so sharing knowledge to pass on to following generations on how to survive is vital. Some of this knowledge is perfectly sensible - hygiene is of course the basis of some taboos or practices that continue to this day. If you live in a hot country eating shellfish and pork (or meat in general) can be a bad idea, circumcision in males (not females) is a very good idea in some cases, so share the joy and all the chaps have it done nice and early and ideally don't catch anything too nasty when they grow up - provided they're clean in their habits and don't get too fond of their livestock...
Religion generally defines and solidifies myth and legend into a social culture and is quite often very fair in wanting the same thing for everyone, but the trick of course is to control it - which is naturally what Dios does with Khuft and with his descendants for 7,000 years. In Pyramids, Terry
doesn't touch on the gods or religion as such until the Valley's rocked off its proper dimension. The gods return like a surreal plague and Dios is completely horrified that the load of tosh he's been peddling to help the Pyramid culture turns into the real stuff of legend and of nightmare. Terry has a field day with the sun gods naturally. They didn't have tons of these on purpose - some of them were regional and more popular at certain times or perhaps 'infected' by or even passed on to other cultures and conquerors (the charioteer god for instance went down big with the Greeks and it's not certain who gave who that one). The dung beetle god's pure Africa and thoroughly symbolic even though it's based on sheer crap. If Africa didn't have dung beetles it'd soon disappear under the resultant midden. And the beetle of course uses its nice big chewy piece of dung to ensure a good meal and start to life for it's larva. So it's a lovely philosophic 'circle of life' tale that would explain how the world works and replaces itself in a kind of immortal cycle to people who haven't really thought it through. The sort of people who haven't got anything better to do of an evening than go down to the River Djel and watch Croc and Hippo TV and maybe have a beer and a smoke whilst listening to the strange ole priest babbling on about your place in the scheme of things and maybe having an invigorating sing-song while you're at it?
Dios is the High Priest of his own cult effectively - the gods are all of his own making and as he is immortal all myth starts with him so he is the Ultimate Creator God and the gods he creates are his own chess pieces in the same way that Blind Io, Offler, the Lady and Fate do with 'normal' people. His default nature is as a High Priest/Grand Vizier however, so he's
much more interested in normal people, including the kings, doing what he says when he says it, so he's a lot more cynical and purposeful than the inhabitants of Cori Celesti with his chess pieces. Having them come to life and completely ignore him is the start of his come-uppance and when he realises that the game's up. No wonder he's in such a state of shock and hardly notices what the other leading priests are getting up to trying to stay on top of things because he has to leg it back to Necropolis... :twisted:
See DJ agrees with me - and he types faster! 
) then when the great pyramid went critical it's blast activated the other flaring pyramids so they then activated and did the Frankenstein thing? 
