The Bound God

My wife and I are big fans of the Starz original series, Black Sails. She's never read Treasure Island nor played Assassin's Creed: Black Flag (which we'll count as research for purposes of this show ;) ), so it's all new to her. But seeing Flint, Silver, and Billy Bones all together is wicked exciting. In addition to piratey goodness, the show has an amazing intro.

From the depths of the blackest water come the opening credits to Black Sails. A masterpiece of macabre, the intricate sculptures (created entirely with digital special effects) are captured in the midst of an epic battle; skeletons and pirates, locked in a conflict of the ages.

It's not just the music, even though the music is perfect. It's the iconography. I watch that and I see the story it's trying to tell, but in my mind, it's an entirely different story. It's my story. 

0:20 Aditi, mother of the gods
0:22 Lakshmi, Aditi's 1st granddaughter, plays the song of fate for prophets to decipher
0:24 Govinda, Aditi's 1st grandson, shepherd of the demi-gods and anointer of champions
0:38 Sumati, Aditi's 2nd granddaughter, patron of scientists and intellectuals
0:42 Mani, Aditi's 2nd grandson, patron of artists and lovers
0:46 Durga, Aditi's daughter, ruler of the Overworld
0:51 Dipaka, Bhima's son with a mortal, a warlord
0:52 Jaya, Aditi's son with a mortal, an adventure
0:55 Savitr, Sumati's son with a mortal, a politician
0:59 Bhima, Aditi's son, ruler of the Underworld
1:06 Mehesha, Devaraja's son with a mortal, a general
1:12 Lakshmana, Mani's son with a mortal, a prince

Here's the breakdown as it came to me after watching that intro a few times. Bhima falls in love with his sister, Durga. When she refuses to reciprocate, he kidnaps her and submerges her to the Underworld. Devaraja (not featured in the Black Sails intro) forbids the match. Enraged, Bhima kills his father. Mahesha rallies the forces of the world and captures Bhima, binding him so he can never escape.

Years later, without the Father or her children, Aditi falls into an endless slumber and the world begins to fall to ruin. Savitr, thinking Aditi will wake if the world is again threatened by her children, reveals to Dipaka the location of his father's prison. Dipaka attempts to free Bhima, and in so doing the dead begin to walk the earth. It falls to Jaya to stop him before the Overworld is dragged under and Bhima rules over a new land of the dead.