Newsletter 04/05/04

Golemoids

While the true mythical golems are pretty rare in fantasy fiction, there are a host of other beings that resemble golems in many ways.

Gargoyles

Gargoyles are often found on ornate European buildings. They primarily serve as rain spouts, rain water draining out of the wide open mouths. In some stories, such creatures can come to life, and either act as guardians of the building or even the city they live on, or hunt their surroundings for prey. In some legends, the gargoyle actually changes to stone and back to flesh, in others, the gargoyles flesh is very stone like, and so it doesn't undergo a physical metamorphosis.

Here is a link with some legendary gargoyles.
http://www.ponddoc.com/WhatsUpDoc/Statuary/Gargoyle.html

Talos

Predating the Hebrew Golem myth, Talos was a collosal living bronze statue that guarded the harbor of Crete. The Argonaughts encountered Talos who would not let them into the harbor. The myths vary (as myths do) as to how Talos was defeated. The common thread is Medea. She may have told the crew of the Argo the secret of stopping Talos (by removing a plug in it's heel to drain it's 'blood' out). She may have removed the plug herself, and it is possible she enchanted Talos, and caused it to knock the plug out on it's own.

This page has some information on Talos:
http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Talos1.html

The Colossus of Ylougne

From a story of the same name written in the 1930's by Clark Ashton Smith. The Colossus was what resulted when necromancers emptied a grave yard of corpses and treated the flesh and bones. After the treatments, they reassembled the material into an enormous humanoid body and animated it.

There is not much online information about the Colossus, but this link lists the anthologies the story appeared in.
http://www.eldritchdark.com/misc/bibliography/index.php/The%20Colossus%20of%20Yl...

Frankenstien's Monster

A classic science fiction monster, the Monster of Doctor Frankenstien is a set of exhumed body parts from numerous people and stitched together. The humanoid body was then struck by lightning, and brought to life. The monster had a mind of its own, apparently not connected to the corpses that provided its parts.

This link goes to an online copy of the novel, including Shelley's preface and letters.
http://www.sangfroid.com/frank/

Robots

Oddly, the entities that are most common and similar to the Golem are the staples of Science Fiction, robots. While some robots are like those of today, complex machines that do what they are programmed to do, others are much more golem like in many ways.

Perhaps the classic golem-robots would be George Lucas' droids. The droids of his universe act with uncommon intelligence and insight. While they do at times seem to have sets of programming they must follow, they seem to have a lot of leeway in how they will follow the programming. These droids clearly have their own intelligences and personalities, and are not just preprogrammed machines.

The original robots were actually not mechanical at all. The term robot comes from a Czech word, robota, meaning drudgery. The first Robots were from a Czech play called R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots). These robots were not mechanical, but were vat grown humanoids made to do the work of men. They are thought to be soulless and unintelligent, but that theory is quickly proven wrong in the play.

See the following link for more information on R.U.R.
http://jerz.setonhill.edu/resources/RUR/index.html

As time went on, Robots became mechanical rather than biological. While many writers use the terms interchangeably, Robot is generally used for mechanical beings, while android is used for artificial biological beings. At least those are the definitions given in my copy of the Dictionary of Science Fiction.

For those so inclined, here is a list of fictional robot stories in all types of media.
http://www.scifan.com/themes/themes.asp?TH_themeid=10

So, that is our whirlwind tour of golemoid beings in fantasy and science fiction. Tune next time, when there will be a new topic.