Night #40 - Clothes Make the Man

That's how the saying goes, at least. Clothes and personal possessions define status, whether or not someone is a professional in a given field, and what the man's general tastes include. They are the most nonverbal, upfront way for someone to state to the world: this is who I am, this is what you're getting when you interact with me. They are the easiest way to determine whether someone is worth your time or not, outside perhaps of body language or body odor.

So bearing all that in mind, what can be said about Kahmunrah?

First, some images. Take a close look and consider what you see:

(You can't see this, but images of the Horus warriors are flanking the gate on both sides.)

Personally, I look at these images and wonder what this guy has with birds. Honestly. His outfit's covered with bird motifs, all the way up to his wickedly tall hat, he summons an army of bird-headed creatures from the underworld, the gate is adorned with little birdies... Okay, the latter is kind of to be expected, since two of the chief gods of ancient Egypt are falcon-headed, so it makes sense that Egyptian artifacts would be adorned with them. But consider Kahmunrah in isolation.

Even by the standards one might expect from the ancient Egyptian people, this guy loves his birds. I'm not talking about pretty little songbirds, either. I'm talking birds of prey, large enough, with enough beak strength and sharp enough talons, to make quick work of as many small mammals as they so choose. Kahmunrah is by temperament vicious, war-like, quick to anger, and more likely to fight you physically than, say, his little brother, so it makes a certain degree of sense that he would naturally identify with the fighting aspects of birds of prey. But the level of love he displays for birds is kind of creepy.

This could be for any number of reasons: he's just as enthused about falcons as I am about The Little Vampire, for example, or he's weirdly aroused by seeing falcons kick butt and being able to kick the same level of ass just as effectively. Or, and I think this makes the most sense, he identifies so strongly with birds of prey because of his need to gain control over others that he deems smaller than himself (falcons vs mice, for example). It's a bizarre permutation of the Napoleon Complex where not only does he feel small because of how he was raised, he seeks to overcome this by overpowering others (see this link for more information concerning why Kahmunrah would feel this way). He therefore takes the falcon as his model for how to go about his life and pursue his goal/obsession. Given his tendency to go overboard (again, please refer to the above link), he covers himself in falcon-themed paraphernalia showing his strong association with what the bird represents to him, and the army he chooses to summon from the land of the dead is one of falcon-headed spear-wielding men.

Even so, in the immortal words of Gus, "He looks like a weirdie."

Next on "For the Love of Night at the Museum": Part two of whatever Kahmunrah's general spectrum of tastes seems to be: that pile of treasure that he spends half the movie planting his ass on.

Countdown: 331 Days to NATM 3