Fucking Crazy: The Story of Eshu

Question: A few things. One, Eshu is awesome. Two, he's also a total sociopath. Three, why is he connected to the god of divination? Four, why have the others not DONE something about him? Five, are any of the OTHER first gods who are his siblings as bad as him? Six, Loki vs Eshu, who loses, Loki, Eshu, or the world?

ONE: We know, right?

TWO: Some gods just want to watch the world burn.

THREE: Eshu and Orunmila are inextricably linked in Yoruba mythology; they need each other and form an inseparable pair (well, inseparable except when Eshu is pranking the poor dude). Orunmila, as one of the sons closest to the great Olodumare and the undisputed holder of all the universe's wisdom from him, has all the divination, foresight and intelligence of the gods, but without Eshu, the master of the ways and keeper of communication, he can't share it with anyone. Because Eshu is the conduit between the gods and humanity, he's fundamentally necessary to any attempt for the two to communicate without gods actually showing up in person, which is why every Yoruba divination ceremony begins with an invocation of Eshu and ends with him offered due sacrifice along with whatever else the diviner required. Mythology paints the symbiotic relationship between the two in the story where Orunmila, at the beginning of time, knows everything but cannot share it with humanity, which as as a result is bumbling and failing hardcore in their attempts to fulfill their destinies. In return for Orunmila allowing him some of the glory and sacrifice of the rituals, Eshu strikes a deal with him that he will open the way between worlds for Orunmila's wisdom to flow down to the mortals who so sorely need it; he teaches him how to perform a divination ceremony so that mortals can understand what he's trying to tell them, and in return the first portion of all sacrifices now goes to Eshu. In places where Eshu's cult is particularly strong, sometimes the story even implies that Eshu was the first diviner himself and taught Orunmila how to see into the mysteries of Fate. Another myth explaining their co-dependence says that Eshu once tried to kill Orunmila in a fit of anger, but found that he was unable to do so because the two of them were so strongly bound together that they could never be parted, and nothing could kill one of them without killing the other.

Of course, Eshu's Eshu, so their partnership is one fraught with peril. If Eshu doesn't like what Orunmila wants to say in a divination, or is just feeling ornery that day, it's understood that he may sometimes garble or forge the message, causing mortals to believe that the god of divination gave them instructions that he distinctly did not. If Eshu doesn't feel like he's getting his fair share of the sacrifices and honors due Orunmila, he's prone to murder and brutal practical jokery, which even extends to Orunmila himself sometimes if the offense was particularly grave. And if Eshu is just being a dick that day, there's nothing much Orunmila can do; he's dependent on him to send his all-important divinations through to the people (and even other gods) who need them. On the other side of the coin, Eshu is fractious but never abandons his role entirely, because he can't stand losing that sweet, sweet sacrificial wine and meat.

FOUR: Unfortunately, nobody can really do anything about Eshu. Olodumare decreed that, despite his penchant for fucking everything up for everyone, Eshu is a necessary part of the universe, because someone has to be in charge of random chance, cruel whim and chaotic disagreement and they might as well all get used to it. He's one of the direct sons of the old creator god and has been around as long as there's been a pantheon, giving him precedence over basically everyone else except for Orunmila and Obatala. Because he's the keeper of the boundaries and paths between worlds, pissing Eshu off is a great way to get blockaded in your house or find that your travels always go wrong when you can least afford them to, and the gods themselves need the divinations that Eshu has so thoroughly made himself a part of, too. And, possibly most importantly, they're afraid of him - not necessarily in the "oh noes he might kill me" sort of way, but in the "he will fucking destroy everything I love and I'll never see it coming" way. It's similar to the way the old World of Darkness Ravnos vampires could get away with shit by threatening to start crime-waving over a city en masse if they were threatened; nobody wants to be the guy who takes Eshu's nuclear-grade "fun pranks" to the face and ends up destitute and miserable forever. It's illustrated best in a story wherein Shango is strutting around, preening like the big old peacock he is and crowing about how he could destroy any of the gods he chose and none of them could possibly challenge his might. Eshu looked up long enough to say, "Oh, yeah?", and Shango immediately said the most dignified and kingly version of "Well, of course not you, that would be ridiculous, we're best friends," and then hastily went home and probably took it out on his wives.

FIVE: It depends on what you mean by "as bad as". As far as pure psychotic tendency to just destroy things and people for no reason, no, Eshu really doesn't have any equal. Aganju's cranky and reclusive and will kill you if you go to his house, but he doesn't do things like going out of his way to kill a dude's wife because he accidentally sacrificed the wrong color of goat, and while Obatala has an unfortunate tendency toward being a lush, he's a model of compassionate goodwill compared to the trickster god. Oshumare, Orunmila and Oduduwa are similarly mostly benevolent, with only the last one showing any real signs of characteristic African god-insanity (mostly by making bad decisions about wars).

If you branch out to the gods of the next generation, Eshu isn't quite equalled, but there are some pretty acid-tripping bonkers other members of the pantheon there. Ogun is a textbook case of Guy Who Uses Riastrad Too Much and Kills All His Friends, Shango is a batshit insane despot who routinely conquers and pillages the countryside, kills himself and attempts to murder his family members, and Olokun has to be chained to the ocean floor to keep him from flooding the entire continent when he's in a bad mood. Really, the Yoruba were pretty worried about their gods, which is reflected in a lot of praise songs and prayers to them that tend to repeat lines like "Please don't kill me in my sleep" or "Please understand I respect you and don't need to be smited" a lot. Some of them are out of control.

SIX: The world loses. Loki and Eshu probably both win.