Favorite Good Monster

30 Day Monster Challenge - Day 17

Cherubim

Sooner or later, everyone gets confronted with the fact that angels in the Old Testament are not people with wings, but massive, fiery chimeras covered with eyes. After that point, you either start ignoring that tidbit of information, or you become the weirdo who demands better four-faced angel representation. I trust you to know where I stand. The cherubim probably started out based on the lamassu (who is also on this list) and the sphinx, leftovers from the nomadic Hebrews various wanderings, exiles, and enslavements. But to me, the cherubim exemplify the divine chimera far better than either of those two monsters ever will. I’d say that cherubim represent the connection between monsters and the divine better than those two. 

I called Leviathan the monster of God, but truth be told, these guys represent that ideology just as well. It’s just that most people don’t call them monsters. But what else can you call something that’s half man, half animal, all badass? That’s a monster! When the cherubim show up, it means God is done screwing around. It is divine message time, or it is divine dying time. A cherubim is there because something is about to go down, or something has already happened. We inherently assume monsters are creatures of evil or ill-fortune, so anything monstrous can’t be associated with the divine, right? But the cherubim force us to see past that, force us to look at what monsters are. Monstrum meansomen; angel means messenger. The connection is practically right there in the name! So here’s to the cherubim, the holy monsters of God.

Runner-Ups

Lamassu - These guys, along with sphinxes, are probably the proto-cherubim. They were guardian spirits in ancient Mesopotamia, and were put at the entrances of buildings. Aside from the wings and strength, they also had an interesting feature that a lot of modern depictions of them forget; they have five legs! Yeah, you can barely see it on that statue, but there’s a grove between the front two legs while also one behind them. Apparently, this was meant to trick demons and evil spirits. It’s interesting that the guardian job got passed on to the cherubim; the first cherub in the Bible, after all, is the one that’s set to guard Eden. The lamassu have kind of become a symbol of the ancient Middle East in general, if not the ancient world. It always makes me happy to see them around, even if it’s only vicarious cherubim

Al Buraq - Another Middle Eastern divine chimera. This guy (or gal, I’m still not entirely clear) is something like Islam’s pegasus or Sleipnir. The al buraq and the angel Gabriel appeared before the Prophet Mohammad one night and took him on his famous night journey, where he journeyed to the farthest mosque and then to Heaven to speak with God and the past prophets. I always found the story kind of cool, mostly for the differences and similarities in Judaeo-Christian narratives. For instance, Christianity doesn’t have a story about traveling to Heaven, even astrally, while Judaism of course has the Book of Enoch. In essence, al buraq strikes me as a kind of angel that fills a function in Islam that is otherwise void in other Abrahamic religion; the angel not just as a messenger, but a traveler.

Baku - These guys are just adorable. A kind of Japanese spirit, though I’m not entirely clear on whether they’re yokai or not. Anyway, they’re dream eaters; have a nightmare, call for a baku, and it will come eat your bad dreams. Just don’t do it too much or they’ll eat your good dreams too. Traditionally, baku are supposed to look like animals with the trunk of an elephant, tail of an ox, paws of a tiger, and eyes of a rhino. That kind of got shortened down to elephant with tiger paws. But even after that, they’ve become associated with tapirs. It’s not hard to see why; tapirs fit the description pretty well. Also, tapirs are cute. Who doesn’t want a dream eating tapir looking out for them? That’s pretty much what drowzee in Pokemon is supposed to be; a baku tapir. I’m not saying that tapirs are actually dream eaters, but I will say this; baby tapirs are covered in fuzzy fur like pajamas. You make the connection.