Why Illyria? by Delia

ANGELUS ARCANUM

Why Illyria?

POSTED BY: DELIA
UPDATED: Friday, May 7, 2004 15:47
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VIEWED: 4481
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Thursday, April 22, 2004 3:55 AM

I wonder if I could get other fan's opinions on this. I've read in a number of places that Joss is a Shakespeare fan (holds play reading parties at his house, and all), which I think is terribly, terribly cool (but a subject for another thread). With that in mind, I've been trying to make some sort of meaning out of Illyria's name, since Illyria is the setting of the play 12th Night. I can't come up with much of anything, and I wondered if any other Joss/Shakespeare fans had theories. (Actually, I'm fairly certain lots of Joss/Shakespeare fans have theories, I'm really wondering if they'd be willing to share them.) I know I may be looking for meaning where none exists, someone may have just thought it was a cool name, but this is Joss, so somehow, I doubt it.

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions for courses of therapy?

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Thursday, April 22, 2004 7:05 PM

RUXTON

You may get some clues if you put "Illyria" into Google. The name, among many other things, applies to an open-air touring theatre company in the UK, begun in 1991,and based near Stratford-upon-Avon.

Also, it seems to harken to the Balkans, tho I didn't read much of what I found.

Good luck.

.........Ruxton

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Thursday, April 22, 2004 7:07 PM

RUXTON

Here's more from the "Encyclopedia" google link:

Updated: Apr 16, 2004

Encyclopedia: Illyria
This article is about the ancient civilization related to present-day Albania. See also Illyria (software), Illyrian (television). ---- {{msg:histalbania}} In classical history, Illyria or Illyricum was a country on the Balkan Peninsula, approximately where modern Albania and Bosnia are now. The main towns were Lissus and (probably) Epidamus. The area had been settled by two groups that would later be known as the Pannonians and the Dalmatians in Roman Empire times. The inhabitants were Indo-European language speakers, called Illyrians and are believed to be the main ancestral group of modern Albanians. The Albanian transliteration ''i lir

'' translates to a free person. The name Albania is derived from the name of an Illyrian tribe called the Arber, or Arberesh

, and later Albanoi, that lived near Durr s.

The ancient Illyrians, like other Balkan peoples, were subdivided into tribes and clans. The Illyrians were Indo-European tribesmen who appeared in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula about 1000 BC, a period coinciding with the end of the Bronze Age and beginning of the Iron Age. They inhabited much of the area for at least the next millennium. Archaeologists associate the Illyrians with the Hallstatt culture, an Iron Age people noted for production of iron and bronze swords with winged-shaped handles and for domestication of horses. The Illyrians occupied lands extending from the Danube, Sava, and Morava rivers to the Adriatic Sea and the Šar Mountains. At various times, groups of Illyrians migrated over land and sea into Italy....[Etc. There's more at the link.]

Onward.
........Ruxton

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Friday, April 23, 2004 11:25 AM

HOWDYROCKERBABY1

Maybe he read that play and just really liked the name Ilyria, and thought it sounded mystical and all-powerful or something like that.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Here's to Jayne, the box dropping man-ape-gone-wrong-thing"
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

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Monday, April 26, 2004 6:47 AM

LISSA

Quote:
Originally posted by howdyrockerbaby1:
Maybe he read that play and just really liked the name Ilyria, and thought it sounded mystical and all-powerful or something like that.

i don't know...that doesn't really seem like joss...

~lissa, spwhore

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Monday, April 26, 2004 7:00 AM

DELIA

Illyria, in 12th Night, is a country ruled by duke who is in love with the notion of being in love. It's a country where a characters wander in disguises, and artiface is as important as truth. It's a country where a man presumed drowned turns out to have lived. And it's a country where just when you think you've a happy ending coming, an oath of revenge is sworn.

And I think all that's important. I just can't quite figure out WHY.

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Monday, April 26, 2004 7:02 AM

DELIA

Ruxton,

Hmmmm. I never realized William Shakespeare hadn't made it up. Worth looking into. Thanks!

Delia

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Monday, April 26, 2004 7:03 AM

LISSA

Quote:
Originally posted by Delia:
Illyria, in 12th Night, is a country ruled by duke who is in love with the notion of being in love. It's a country where a characters wander in disguises, and artiface is as important as truth. It's a country where a man presumed drowned turns out to have lived. And it's a country where just when you think you've a happy ending coming, an oath of revenge is sworn.

And I think all that's important. I just can't quite figure out WHY.

it kinda sounds positive for Fred, doncha think? hmm, interesting...

~lissa, spwhore

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Thursday, April 29, 2004 9:48 AM

CAPTAINCDC

Not sure why Joss is using the name Illyria, but Angel is not the only show using the name. On Star Trek: Enterprise episode 71 Damage, the enterprise crew encounter a ship full of Illyrians who they ultimately steal their warp coil from.

May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.

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Thursday, April 29, 2004 9:58 AM

MAUGWAI

Quote:
Originally posted by Delia:
Illyria, in 12th Night, is a country ruled by duke who is in love with the notion of being in love. It's a country where a characters wander in disguises, and artiface is as important as truth. It's a country where a man presumed drowned turns out to have lived. And it's a country where just when you think you've a happy ending coming, an oath of revenge is sworn.

And I think all that's important. I just can't quite figure out WHY.

I was thinking maybe it's because everything in Illyria is backwards. Olivia loves a woman dressed as a man. Orsino loves a woman who doesn't think she can love men, but then he loves a woman who has been a man the whole time. So maybe it all has something to do with relationships and dishonesty and disguise. Illyria is conflicted emotionally and doesn't belong in her body, much like Viola was trying to be something she wasn't. Every person on that island was confused about where they belonged.

Then again, maybe Rcokerbabe is right.

"Dear diary, today I was pompous and my sister was crazy."

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Friday, May 7, 2004 1:07 PM

ILLYRIANKA

INTRODUCTION…
…is unfortunately needed, this time. The thing is composed of three parts, one of which is composed of two parts. The first one made some sense but didn'’t live up to expectations, mainly because *mumbles* I-forgot-what-I-indented-to-write-next *sigh*. The second and third parts are a uniquely sublime display of half-witted-ness and incoherence, let’s just forget about them. The fourth part is about cockroaches. I quite like it. The fifth (or the fourth, depends on how you count it) is a little addenda I felt like adding because “Some Things Were Just Too Much”. It’s mostly pointless, anyway. On the whole, this is the most embarrassing display of pathetic incoherence I have ever produced. Hopefully, it won’t get any worse. I won’t correct it anymore basically ‘cause I lost heart for it, completely. But I wrote the Albanian Etymological Dictionary thing instead.
http://www.geocities.com/protoillyrian

THE SO-CALLED *ESSAY*
“Man is good, people are bad.”
D-chan after a certain Jean Jacques Rousseau

“Man is bad, people are worse.”
Sara, after sneering at D-chan

When thinking about the reasons of the current situation in Kosovo – or rather what is left of it- it is most vital to always bear in mind that there are some cruel streaks in human nature that are not due to post-Czarnobyl mutations and timely interventions of the powers-that-be .

An average man, who, we should not forget, is a species of animal, is a flexible creature who, if encouraged properly, can easily make habit of something, genocide included. An average man is, too, a simple, yet self-contented creature, who’d rather blame his own, to put it mildly, lack of success on Jeanne D’Arc, King Henry VII or Quetzalcoatl, the god, rather than himself. A human being can thereupon easily be manipulated into venting out his frustrations on said Jeanne D’Arc, King Henry VII or Quetzalcoatl, the god (though as to the third one, chances of executing one’s revenge are rather slim); a manipulation that does not necessitate a psychotic loon to be acted out, but can be as well accomplished by lazy bureaucrats who believe it is easier to take full advantage of the divide et impera rule than to deal with the problems that would certainly arise were the aforementioned bureaucrats to change their strategy.

Now, having said all those things, we know for sure that the Serbs who started the conflict are not inhuman, blood-sucking abominations of nature, sadly, they’re nothing but the victims of several centuries of dedicated brainwashing and grudges that I believe are older than Methuselah, or at least his peer. As to why the Serbs are the victimizers, not vice versa, there’s no doubt it is because they easily outnumber the Albanians. If the situation had been different, if it had been the Albanians who had been in “overabundance” I doubt that they would have done anything to preserve the peace and live in harmony with the Serbian minority. The fact that Albanians didn’t have a blathering loon for a president at their side, together with his Hello-I’m-Dr-Mengele-Nice-To-Make-Your-Acquaintance wife and his psycho son wouldn’t have been of much help, I believe. Theoretically, Albanians should actually be grateful that coincidence made them victims and that they didn’t do all the dire things they could have done – which they didn’t only because they weren’t given the opportunity.

When wars break out and conflicts escalate this is never because of some extra-terrestrial meddling in human DNA or one of the sides having secretly crossbred with basilisks throughout the centuries, no matter how the opposite side would want to believe it, this is mainly because the circumstances and coincidences are the way they are. Between the two world wars there was no country in Europe without its own fascist party, yet only few of them succeeded – not because people in certain countries were more intelligent and could tell the risks and evils of fascism, but because in certain countries people were far too happy with their current situation to be willing to endanger it. Germany started the war in 1939 because it had the means of doing so, and I do believe had Poland be powerful enough; the World War II would have started earlier.

Surely, there’s no other reason. Logically, anyway. A grudge cannot be blamed on, for that would be preposterous; none of the parties would ever admit they want to kill the other because of an old grudge. We can rule out racial issues, as well, if not for a better reason then because there are no two different races neighbouring in Kosovo. There might be also religion-related issues, but none of the parties again would say they fight the other because they worship a bit different God, they’d rather say the other party is, to put it mildly, the reason of famine, children’s starvation, wars and natural disasters, AIDS, global warming as well as environment pollution – which is far beyond logic, but then again, maybe that at least would be a reason good enough to start genocide.

………. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

How to put and end to this?

Surely, believing that both sides stop killing when they realize how much similar they are, is preposterous, naïve and ridiculous. All people are similar, if not the same; and would one stop hating their mother-in-law, for example, upon hearing the news that she is similar to them, inasmuch as she speaks the same language and lives in the same culture area? No such luck. And if one can’t to this with their own mother-in-law, why do so with a bunch of strangers one has never seen, but is always eager to swear they have at least three legs and strips of fur on their foreheads?

So there’s only one solution.

If they are all so stupid that they want to die, which is no doubt the case, since if it was otherwise, they would have stopped killing one another ages ago, they deserve the Darwin prize, or, in other words, they deserve their gene pools to be erased, eliminated, for the sake of mankind preservation. We did with no doubt state that they have no logical reasons to kill, then it must be some suicidal streak that predominates in both nations, a streak that is a danger for the mankind, and seems to be incurable, not to mention quite terminal.

If they are so stupid, let them kill one another, until there’s no one left, but cockroaches. And peace and quiet. Finally. Until cockroaches figure out how you build nuclear bombs, anyway.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Maximilian Robespierre, the cockroach, slowly glanced at his audience, cleared his throat and began speaking passionately:

“It’s been twenty years since we were given the opportunity to build something of our own, our culture, civilization, our brave new world on the wonderful manure of human corpses. Anyone else would have failed miserably, anyone else would have declined the Fates’ offer saying it is impossible to create something good on the fundaments of death and destruction, anyone else would have considered it immoral,” here Robespierre indulged himself a little disdainful snort, “but we, cockroaches, we were able to overcome those initial difficulties and create an entire civilization from scratch! For there is something that we were gifted with by the Goddess herself, we and none else! The power of the rational MIND! The power that enabled us to ensnare Nature, to enslave death, to grow the fourth pair of legs, to look beyond and to send a cockroach to the Moon, to brew glory and to stopper death.”

Robespierre paused for a moment. He looked around to see whether his words made the intended effect. They did. Oh yes, they did.

“Nevertheless, it is we who live in hiding, not the human vermin. It’s our compatriots all over the world who are deemed pests and disgusting waste of proteins!”

Robespierre paused again. He always liked being theatrical.

“Ladies, and Gentlemen, it is my duty to ask: is this fair? Is this what our world should look like? Is this what we call justice?”

Robespierre heard angry humming. He smiled.

“If you feel that no, this is not justice, and if you are as indignant as am I then I shall tell you my dream . For I had a dream,” Robespierre continued with passion, “a dream of a world where all cockroaches lived in peace. A world where you wanted for nothing, a world that was so close to the paradise, the paradise which we once had lost, that you could not tell the difference anymore, a world with no people!”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, the time is now. The time when we act! The time when freedom starts and when years of suffering and slavery end! The era of Revolution!”

Robespierre finished, just to hear his entire audience hum “Liberté! Egalité! Fraternité!” and “Vive la Révolution!”

Things were looking positively interesting, decidedly.

TBC *cough, cough*

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...

ADDENDA
(cause there’s sth that really irritates me. I do mean it)
As regards the fight over the name “Kosovo” I must say this is the most preposterous matter I’ve heard of for quite some time. They want to name “Kosovo” “Dardania”? And exactly why, pray tell? Because that’s how it was called 2000 years ago? Cool, so maybe we should go back to calling France, Belgium, Holland, part of Italy and Luxemburg Galia Transalpina, Galia Cisalpina, Galia Celtica, Raetia, Noricum, Galia Narbonensis, Galia Lugdunensis and Galia Belgica also because that’s how they were called 2000 years ago? There are a handful other useful names, like Thracia, Numidia, Mauretania (hell, why not? Libya sounds terribly lame, if you ask me), Illiria, and a lot more. And cities? Why not cities? Surely Lutetia looks better than Paris, Lugdunum than Lyon, there are also those catchy Colonia Agrippina, Bonna, Moguntiacum, Aguincum, Castra Regina, Augusta Treverorum, Argentorate (oh, I BET Germans would be terribly thankful for changing the ugly name “Strasburg” to Argentorate!) Bisantium instead of Istanbul, who wants to contort their tongue to say “Istanbul”, that’s just too much bothering, why not Mamucium United instead of Manchester? How about “Durovernum Tales” instead of Canterbury? And what would Oxford say if Cambridge became Durolipons – after all, Durolipons does sound so ancient and dignified! And what about rivers? Hell, rivers too! Who would want to pronounce the fishy-looking Dniestr if they can have Tyras instead? Or Tanais instead of Don, Rha instead of Wolga? But why resort to Roman and Greek names? Why not derive from the names used by Celtic and German or even pre-Indo-European tribes that didn’t even have their writing, thanks to which we could make up all the names by the means of our all too vivid imagination, so that they sound too (insert name of the right country) for their own good? Just like it happened to Bombay? Bombay that was founded by Portuguese and received the name Bom Bahi because it was a haven but is now called Mumbai, courtesy of some fanatics who decided that since Mumbadevi, the goddess, used to be worshipped there before the Portuguese arrived, which would be about 400 years ago or so, the city should be named after her. Thankfully, the entire world refuses to take part in this insanity and thus Bombay is still Bombay mostly everywhere beside India.

And then, why only change names? Why not divide Budapest again, to Buda and Pest? Actually, why not leave cities and destroy them, and live in little villages from now on, the Cincinnatus’ way (“magna cura parvum agrum colebat”)? Why not dispose of electricity? And steam engine? Along with all the other inventions made throughout the last 2000 years? As a matter of fact, why not go back to the Stone Age? And why not start walking on all fours again? This our history, we should be proud of it, shouldn’t we? And so on, and so forth.

So, basically, there’s only one thing to say: We’re really sorry for you, guys, that you missed 2000 of history that happened since you last time got out from under your rock, but it happened and you can’t really do much now, but to catch up on the events and shut up. Good luck to you and our best wishes on the new path of life.

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Friday, May 7, 2004 1:40 PM

SHINY

Quote:
Originally posted by Illyrianka:
INTRODUCTION…
…is unfortunately needed, this time. The thing is composed of three parts, one of which is composed of two parts.

Err...umm...what the heck does this essay have to do with Firefly, Angel, or the Jossverse?

I'm just sayin'.

Please help Haken keep this site running by occasionally clicking on some of the sponsored ad links on the side of the page!

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Friday, May 7, 2004 3:47 PM

DELIA

Quote:
Originally posted by Shiny:

Err...umm...what the heck does this essay have to do with Firefly, Angel, or the Jossverse?

Shiny,

I'm so glad I wasn't the only person wondering that. I mean, I know the word Illyria refers to a lot of things, but I was kind of wondering about a semi-hidden Shakespeare refernce, not the history of the Balkans. Although I guess there could be a reference there . . . .

Delia

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