The Cowardice of Aji Saka / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page The Cowardice of Aji Saka.

Whitehills 07 Sep 2021 11:46

This took me WAY, WAY longer than it should've taken me to read, which probably just means you did your job well. I like it, captures the feeling of the really old stories that center around a lesson.

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-Wanderheil

Snapdragon133 09 Sep 2021 03:09

I will not pretend to understand what this piece is saying, but I can tell it's saying something, which is enough for me lmao. I absolutely love the rhyming and kind of haunting swing the words have. You did very well!

(late author post)

Rigen 11 Sep 2021 02:05

This is actually a rather straight retelling of the founding myth of civilization in Jawa/Java island. Aji Saka deceived the evil giant (or sometimes just human) cannibal king Dewata Cengkar into giving him the entire territory, and then pushed the king down a cliff to the ocean where the king turned into bajul putih / white crocodile. Some version had Aji Saka kill the white crocodile, but some other left the crocodile slaying for later.

Interestingly in some version, the entire reason that Dewata Cengkar was a cannibal was because a cook accidentally served him his flesh/blood. So in this story, I made it that the humans intentionally made Dewata Cengkar into cannibal, so they could claim that they were oppressed and gain legitimacy to usurp the giant kingdom.

Maxyfran73 14 Sep 2021 00:16

This one took me a bit to read. I'm not quite sure what happened right at the middle of the piece, where the trickery comes into play, but the rest of the article was really engaging and well thought of. Loved the language used here, even if it was hard to follow. And that the piece was based off a piece of javanese legend was really cool. Really liking the storytelling potential that this author offers.

+1

Rounderhouse 22 Sep 2021 04:44

#17

I like and appreciate the nod to mythology in this - it's short, but it's so densely packed with implication, worldbuilding, hints at a great story, that I find it easy to enjoy in spite of the fact that it barely sticks around long enough for me to take its coat. This is what mega-short-form should be like on WL.