The Raven and the Light

     In the myth, Raven is the main character.  He transforms into a child to fool the selfish light keeper.  Once the keeper is comfortable with allowing the child to play with the sun on his own, Raven morphs back into a bird and releases the sun back into the world.  This is an example of an Accretion Myth because at first there was nothing, but with the use of primordial elements like stars, light, and the sun, created the world with night and day.

Sky Tree Analysis

     Native American myths were often very short and repetitive, so that people could remember the story since they were passed down orally.  The Sky Tree is no different.  The myth is only eight small and medium paragraphs.  It reiterates that the tree fell, that there was a giant hole, and that the animals were making land for the woman to fall on.  The animals played a more important part of the story than Man did, which is also common among Native American mythology.  Overall, the Sky Tree closely follows the common ideas of Native American myth.

Emergence Analysis

      Some of the tenets most important to Native Americans were family, animals, and the sacred number four.  This is apparent in The Emergence.   Towards the beginning, two winds come together to form the First Man and First Woman.  These two "people", along with First Boy and First Girl, leads the creatures of the Fourth World into the Fifth World.  A family of four, with two parents and two children, boy and girl, is one of the most appreciated family structures of Native Americans, partly because there are four members.  The number four is considered very balanced and sacred.  Every number in the myth, save once, was either four or a multiple thereof.  When new characters are introduced, they are in groups of four, for example the four types of insects mentioned, the four great birds, the four common features of Third World people, the four gods, the four cardinal directions, etc.  The insects found the perfect The four animals represented all of the Native American people when they came together to find a leader.  Those animals, Lion, Wolf, Bluebird, and Hummingbird, became the ruling council for the Natives.  Turkey saved the seeds of all the Natives' important crops, and is consistently honored.  It is always the animals that make the key decisions for the Native Americans.  Family, four, and animals were very important to the Native Americans, and that is demonstrated in The Emergence.

The Boy That Belonged

    Two men appeared out of nowhere, a few yards apart in the narrow moonlit lane, surrounded him, and challenged him to a math-off.  The well-dressed gentlemen in front of Darius did not intimidate Darius in the slightest.  Turns out that both men had graduated valedictorian of their respective classes.  Darius lost with a one hit-KO.  The Geniuses had finally extracted revenge on Darius by placing him in the best environment for any brilliant student: college. 

     This all started when numbers police raided Darius' home when he was only 7, taking his parents to math jail to serve life functions.  Darius believed this to be a conspiracy by the Geniuses, and therefore joined the Super Smart Crew.  His friends became his family, and Darius dedicated his next ten years inflicting mathematical losses on the Geniuses.  Darius believed that every Genius dumber was one closer to finding the key to release his parents.  Thus was his goal, to free his parents and disband the Geniuses forever.

     Exactly ten years to the date, 3650 days later, Darius was becoming very close to decoding the riddle of conspiracy.  The Geniuses began to worry that Darius would free his parents, therefore bringing down the Geniuses' empire.  They formed a plan to prevent Darius' progress, and told him to meet them in the narrow lane at midnight, to organize a peace treaty between the two parties.  That is when Darius lost consciousness and woke up in San Diego State University. 

      It was in Music Theory that Darius came to.  He looked up, through the stained glass roof, and around the giant auditorium..  Lucky for him, the cute girl sitting next to him quietly explained to Darius where he was.  To him, the bulky European instructor was speaking some Irish accent of English.  This was the same in his Calculus BC and English Lit classes as well.  Miraculously, that same cute brunette sat next to Darius in both of his other classes.  She was the only student, or person for that matter, that he wanted to understand.  The two spent most of their time together from that moment on, seeing how she was Darius' most attractive friend.  This amazing girl, whom Darius found out to be Mary, became his guide and study-buddy.  With Mary's help, Darius achieved his PhD and passed with a 5.01 GPA.  Darius and Mary helped each other on everything, and started dating after college. 

     College was the last obstacle between Darius and his parents' freedom.  Within his degree was written the secret to emancipating his parents.  It turned out that Darius' mother was born into the Geniuses, but left when she found out that the Geniuses were cheating.  To prevent their expulsion, the Geniuses bribed the cops to arrest both Darius' mother and father.  Once everything was said and done, Darius looked back at the experience he had just endured.  Darius realized that no matter what life throws at him, he can overcome it with his passion and his brain.  Everything would have been fine if it were not for Darius and his very talented (and beautiful) sidekick Mary.

Foil and Protagonist

     In the Batman graphic novels, Batman is the hero and Robin is the sidekick.  In the graphic novels he appears in, Robin is always in Batman's shadow.  Robin is a more immature version of Batman, which brings out Batman's brains.

     Batman can be reckless, but Robin even more so.  Robin is very impulsive.   His personality emphasizes Batman's premedial abilities.   The fact that Batman and Robin are so similar helps the reader realize how concentrated the former really is.  The similarity also creates a special bond between the two that is imperative when fighting Joker's thugs.  Creating Batman and Robin with similar personalities brings another dimension to Batman that may go unnoticed otherwise.