Apparently, we're only here to dance to someone else's tune.
Why was Indiana Jones upset at the end of Raiders?
- Thread starter suarezguy
- Start date
Respectfully, no one forced you to reply to them. It was just a random post that you chose to interact with.
The weird events surrounding the extraction of the Ark of the Covenant must've spooked the US Government; a Nazi German battallion trying to wield the Ark on their island base apparantly going "poof" with no trace, with only two credible surviving eye witnesses describing the sound (and feel) of absolute eldritch fury.
Too unpredictable, too strange, and too powerful to study or wield properly, so a US officer decided to permanently store it in the Area 51 vault to avoid a national or global cataclysm (plus its very existance exposed on the world stage may cause ethno-religious mayhem).
Then there's the geopolitical fuckshow of a US intelligence "asset" killing German soldiers and blowing their shit up good, before war was declared (and the British colonial and native Egyptian authorities in turn must've been mortified by Nazi German agents causing trouble and establishing a small military presence on their turf, etc).
Too unpredictable, too strange, and too powerful to study or wield properly, so a US officer decided to permanently store it in the Area 51 vault to avoid a national or global cataclysm (plus its very existance exposed on the world stage may cause ethno-religious mayhem).
Then there's the geopolitical fuckshow of a US intelligence "asset" killing German soldiers and blowing their shit up good, before war was declared (and the British colonial and native Egyptian authorities in turn must've been mortified by Nazi German agents causing trouble and establishing a small military presence on their turf, etc).
What is essentially a tribute to Saturday morning serials, albeit with a much bigger budget, probably doesn't deserve deep intellectual analysis. It's an enjoyable adventure romp, nothing more. Himmler did send agents chasing all over the world for supposedly magical items in the mid 1930s that would supposedly enhance the power of the 3rd Reich, so there is a basis in actual events, but only in so far as it confirms the unhinged lunacy of that regime. The character of Indiana Jones has been claimed to have been based on Roy Chapman Andrews, but it's perhaps more likely that he's based on the heroes of 40s and 50s adventure serials and movies, who were themselves based on people such as Andrews.
I believe no one should have been in possession of it. Why anyone would leave behind a series of clues to find in the first place strikes me as pretty dumb.
It's a cultural treasure to the Israelis. They should have possession of it.
Because we wouldn't have a puzzle to solve otherwise. Let the ancients have their fun.
But why did the Ark (or its eldritch occupants) screw over their ancestors and allowed itself to be captured by an ancient Egyptian army with no complaint?
Depending on which story you are referring too, the Israelites failed in their responsibilities to their G-d and thus punished by foreign invaders.
The last one was the Romans, led by Titus, and the Ark's location has been unknown ever since.
The Ark of the Covenant disappeared from the Temple immediately prior to the Neo-Babylonian (Chaldean) sack of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II in 586-7 BCE. Its whereabouts remained unknown after this time. Some rabbinical sources say it was taken to Babylon; others say it was hidden by Josiah, king of Judah on the Temple Mount. The Egyptians were not involved - perhaps Josiah instead spirited it off to Tanis for safety.
The Narrator of the 1982 Re-release trailer says that explicitly. "And they are all Raiders of the Lost Ark"
Inuniverse I think the supernatural Ark of the Covenant never represented Arbrahamic God, the Bronze Age tribes and kingdoms who came across it in its (or their) unsheathed form assumed it/they did and the Hebrews then Egyptians paid the price like the Nazi taskforce did.
The clues were left behind by the Shishak regime and the "Well of the Souls" was intended as the Ark's secret permanent tomb at Tanis, with King Shishak trying to hide it in with more divine reverance than the 1930s US Government did.
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True. And it's an interesting twist to the idea.
Was Shishak mentioned? I can't remember.
Didn't they mention Sishak as the one who took it and hid it, and then a sandstorm wiped out Tanis?
That's an interesting detail if that's accurate. Not in line with current history but that would explain a lot.
My understanding is that Tanis remained occupied until Roman times when the Tanitic branch of the Nile silted up. Sishak is usually identified with Shoshenq I, who sacked Jerusalem in the tenth century BCE, so it's possible he could have carted off the Ark. According to 2 Chronicles, Shoshenq I looted everything from the Temple. Hezekiah is the last king of Judah recorded as having seen the Ark, and he lived around 741-687 BCE, several centuries later. Perhaps the Jews were in denial and created a replica before eventually deciding they no longer needed the original physical object to revere - but that's just speculation. The Egyptians would likely have understood the significance of the Ark as they had very similar sacred objects.
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Except by the time of Herod the Great the Temple was being restored and sacrifices started again. The Ark would have been part of that ceremonial worship on Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement).
The original Ark was long gone by the time of Herod the Great (72-4 BCE) surely. Are you saying it was lost during the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE?
ETA: I'm far from being an expert in such things, so I'm just curious.
ETA: I'm far from being an expert in such things, so I'm just curious.
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Inuniverse it was Pharaoh Sishak who seized the Ark and sealed it within Tanis, but despite the precautions and respect, the entities within the Ark saw a chance to potentially forever be dormant by conjuring up a massive year long sandstorm to bury a whole New Kingdom era metropolis (it/they deemed no human worthy of its/their glory and power, even the Hewbrew and Isralite priests were deemed hubristic).
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