By: Alexander Holmes

As far as I am aware, the Gelatinous Cube is not a god or mythical creature from any sort of ancient culture.

It is, by all accounts, a mythical creature made by Gary Gygax for the Dungeons and Dragon's fantasy setting. According to the Gelatinous Cube's wikipedia page its first publication was in the game's 1974 Monsters and Treasure book. It is a modern mythical creature, drawn from contemporary, goo-based, fictional creatures in other stories, and reimagined as a whimsical polygon.

The act of creating new myths out of old ones is called Mythopoesis. While the term may be fancy, the fact of the matter is that most storytelling works this way. Familiar characters reimagined in new contexts for new stories. And nothing is exempt from this kind of storytelling. Anyone who writes their first story likely tries to write what inspired them, and thereby creates a derivative work. One lacking in the skill and quality of a seasoned author, but nonetheless the copying is Mythopoesis. 

Popular media today uses Mythopoesis as a foundational method. Comic books, movies, and games, you name it. And notably, the three most reused mythic traditions are the Egyptians, Greek and Romans being used interchangeably, and Norse.

(At time of writing) - If you search Norse on Steam, 242 games. If you search Greek on Steam, 407 games. If you search Egypt on Steam, 425 games.

For comparison, if you search Yokai, 209 games. Aztec? 115 Games. Search Kalevala? 8 games. How about Loa, the Haitian Voodoo pantheon? 2 Games. Seadogs of Nassau by Oni Studio, which is an Assassin's Creed Black Flag mimic depicting the Loa as evil gods spreading monsters, plagues, and disease. Which is… we'll say rude. And Inu: Loas'Fate, which is a cartoony tower defense game featuring the Loa, but has been in the Coming Soon purgatory since 2024.

Notice how both games mentioning the Haitian Loa also make reference to Japan through the words Oni and Inu? Steam's search function obviously isn't an exhaustive list, but I hope this demonstrates a bit of what I feel is intuitive. Certain religious or spiritual traditions are more popular for use in modern stories than others.

So what do the gods have to do with the Gelatinous Cube? Well obviously I just saw the announcement trailer for God of War Laufey. A new adventure for the God of War reboot series. While fans speculated over the years about which pantheon the Greek turned Norse inspired God of War could go to next, between just Egypt and Japan if we're being real about it, Sony Santa Monica was working on something entirely different.

Laufey takes place in a new setting, The Afterlife of the Gods. In which we see spirits, gods, and creatures from a variety of cultures. All in one place.

Which, as a person who loves uncovering different cultural inspirations in games, I'm so much more excited for Laufey than I was for Ragnarok. I love the idea that there is a chance for me look at a single scene and be able to point at Durga, Son Wu Kong, Nurarihyon, Quetzacoatl, Niamh, Kouzen Zaka, Inkosazana, and the Metatron all having a chat. I don't think that's going to happen, but you understand my meaning, even if you only know two of the deities I just listed. (I know which two you already knew as well.)

But the presence of the Gelatinous Cube is clearly an outlier in this context. Every character in the God of War series, so far, has been a God or mythical creature of the featured culture. The Cube is very much a modern fiction.

Now I have an informed guess as to why the Gelatinous Cube is here at all. Games take a very long time to make. It is known that God of War Laufey's script was completed many years ago. Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition was experiencing a boom of popularity when this game would be in that early writing phase. So an homage to a pop-cultural reference seems like an obvious choice, even though D&D 5e wasn't able to keep that momentum to match the unrelated video game's release date.

That said, it has me feeling some kind of way to see the Gelatinous Cube in this setting. 

That feeling is a strange sense for what is and is not taboo when doing creative writing about different religions and cultures. Obviously these games are exercises of fiction writing. We are doing mythopoesis on purpose here. But the Cube breaks the suspension of disbelief to say, “Look at the fiction!” And that which is The Fiction are the spirits and deities of people's religions.

Introducing the Gelatinous Cube feels the same as introducing Fey to our friends Spider-Man, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Hornet.

One of the major misconceptions of the modern world is that these ancient religions are dead. There are still communities who believe in and worship the Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Norse Gods. There are still people who believe in and worship pagan deities and local spirits. Is it permissible to write of these people's religion as a fiction on the level of the Gelatinous Cube?

The knee-jerk response is yes. It is permissible for anyone to create art of any kind. But that doesn't mean we won't have feelings or opinions about what is made. Maybe you aren't feeling the strangeness I am yet. So let me ask a different question. 

It's a humorous meme at this point, but can Jesus of Nazareth appear in a God of War game and fit the setting? Can Jesus have a conversation with the Gelatinous Cube?

If the answer is no, is that because we tacitly accept that Jesus is non-fiction and the minority religions are fiction? If the answer is yes, do we not include him for fear of the backlash by the population of Christians who find fictive depictions offensive? If that, then aren't we saying fictionalizing minority religions is permissible because they lack social/political influence? If Jesus feels too weird to include, remember that real people already feel weird about their religions being depicted as fiction in this way. 

Do you feel the strangeness now? Would you feel upset or uneasy if your faith was made to converse with the Gelatinous Cube? 

As a second generation Haitian American, I am not a believer nor a practitioner of Voodoo. However, I feel quite protective of the voodoo faith in all its forms, and the other neighboring religions such as Santeria. These religions are small, and have often been the target of political violence and abuse by foreign powers. People do not know about them, and they are frequently characterized as evil, devil-worshipping things in American media. 

I am not worried that God of War will make such a faux pas. However, the lessons people take away from popular mythopoesis are often quite skewed and derogatory.

I once had a person argue to me that the depiction of sexual violence in the original God of War series made the games more authentically Greek, because Sexual Assault is common in Greek myth. Spoken as someone whose main engagement with Greek Myth must be listicle summaries of the exploits of Zeus, and nothing more.

I would welcome a fictive story involving Jesus from the God of War writers. One of my favorite ongoing stories is Kill 6 Billion Demons, one of the greatest examples of mythopoesis crossing

Christian and Indian religious stories I have ever seen. And that comic has weird, sci-fi elements in a multi-versal god-dimension, just the same as Laufey's Afterlife of the Gods. 

To purposefully do Mythopoesis means to show an interest in the ideas and values which mattered to those people and those stories. Inclusion does not have to be appropriation and caricature if you take a truly curious and open-minded stance. Reimagination can also be respect. 

But only if we keep within the scope of the inspirations.

I love the Cube. The Gelatinous Cube may stay in every scene. But bring me Jesus as well. Show me that the fiction is respect, regardless of the size of the religion.

Thank you for reading,

Take care of each other,

And stay true.