Night #33 - Legends are Lessons

It's a shame that not everyone pays attention. Take, for instance, the Egyptian legend of Seth and Osiris (and Isis, and Ra, and Horus, and several others). The story goes that after Isis tricked Ra into letting her banish him using his secret name, Osiris assumed the position of king of the gods, and was a good and just ruler. However, Osiris had an older brother, Seth, who was jealous of his position and decided to take it himself. So, to achieve this, Seth murdered Osiris and cut up the body, scattering the pieces all over Egypt. Isis, who is for some reason distraught over this, goes to gather all of the pieces (some versions tell that the penis was eaten by a catfish, making the fish unlucky and putting a ban on eating it) and reassemble them. She wraps the body in linen and magically resurrects Osiris, but only long enough to conceive by him her son Horus, who then went on to avenge his father's death in a long, drawn-out battle with Seth.

However, we know next to nothing about the family lives of the Brothers Egypt aside from the fact that Ahkmenrah was favored over his older brother and the implication that Kahmunrah was neglected/abused by his parents, both of which compound into his plan to take over the world. But we also know that Kahmunrah implies, by his statement that he is the fifth king of Egypt after it comes out that his younger brother is the fourth king in the first movie, that he may have killed Ahkmenrah. He does state that he feels the throne of Egypt is rightfully his, and he certainly doesn't seem patient. Therefore, either he killed his brother to make sure Ahkmenrah doesn't become a symbol for anyone who might resist him, or Ahkmenrah killed himself because he saw that Kahmunrah waging war on him could tear the country in two. In any event, following Ahkmenrah's death, Kahmunrah makes it pretty clear that he took the throne. This element of the history between the two brothers closely parallels the murder of Osiris by his brother Seth, also for political reasons.

But if that is one commonality among many, then can we be led to assume this is a family rife with political homicide? If Isis duped Ra into abdicating, essentially, then did Ahkmenrah and Kahmunrah's mother do something similar to the Brothers' grandfather? Did she connive her way to power as well? If Kahmunrah is not legitimately the pharaoh's son as Ahkmenrah is (refer to Night #3), then was it part of her bid to make it so? Did she try to give him a good life by doing this? Or was she just as conniving as Isis was in trying to seize power through her husband? Further, does this indicate that Ahkmenrah has a son who avenged his father's death by killing Kahmunrah (this son may or may not be the child of this Shepseheret woman) and then assumed control of Egypt?

Perhaps all that is true. After all, in death, Ahkmenrah refers to wherever the tablet resides as his "kingdom", as in, "Now bestow the tablet upon me so I may assume command of my kingdom." If the museum is his kingdom and everything in the museum is dead, then Ahkmenrah is a king of the dead, therefore adding weight to his role as the Osiris figure in his dynamic with brother Kahmunrah, the most probable Seth figure in the account of Ahkmenrah's death and the succession after him. And adding weight to the notion of Kahmunrah as the Seth figure is his own notion that he is the rightful heir of his father, thus the most natural and orderly. Seth was not always regarded as evil, and in fact he went with Ra every night through the Underworld and was a key warrior in the fight against the snake demon Apophis/Apep. Kahmunrah views himself as keeping order, his own fight against the chaos demon. Amongst all his other motivations, he sees himself as doing the right thing for the sake of the universe (admittedly that particular motivation has been buried under a great deal over the centuries).

All of that having been said and assuming Shepseheret is Ahkmenrah's wife (or sister, or both), I've just found another reason to be leery of her presence in the franchise. Assuming she is some other relation to the Brothers Egypt, then I simply don't want to rush in, personally. We'll have to wait and see in regards to this mystery woman.

Next on "For the Love of Night at the Museum": Understanding how the Brothers Egypt refer to themselves in terms of titulary.

Countdown: 338 Days to NATM 3