Far Beyond the Sea

Question: Hey, I know Asia is a distant memory right now, but how would you deal with Susanoo being assigned to Yomi, especially with Izanami's dubious Titan-ness?

Ooh, Susanoo and his underworld connections is one of my favorite things to speculate about in Japanese mythology!

So, for those who aren't up on their Japanese shenanigans: in the Kojiki, when Izanagi assigns Susanoo as the divine ruler of the seas, he begins weeping and wailing with great sadness, so strongly that the rivers and lakes dry up and all the greenery on the mountains withers. When Izanagi asks him what's wrong, he cries that he wants to be with his mother, which makes Izanagi so furious (because remember, he just escaped from Izanami and walled her up in the underworld, and probably his conscience doesn't appreciate this kid bringing it up again) that he says the courtly Japanese equivalent of "Fine, fuck you, then," and banishes his son to the Underworld.

There are a lot of very interesting things going on in this myth. For one thing, it's an interesting issue that Susanoo knows about and misses Izanami at all; while she is said to be his mother in the Nihon Shoki, the Kojiki where this myth is related claims that he was born from Izanagi alone as he purified himself after escaping Yomi. It seems odd that Susanoo, who was born only of his father and has never even met or seen his mother, should even know about her, let alone be so devastated by her absence; most likely this is because of various older traditions being mashed together during the historical period when Shinto was being institutionalized as the state religion, but in mythological terms it leaves a lot of room for Storytellers to play with Susanoo's exact origin and relationships. It's also interestingly touching; when the entire pantheon has rejected Izanami for being a representative of death, decay and impurity, it seems that Susanoo alone finds this unfair in some way, or at least feels for her situation. Since he's the representative of chaos and breakdown himself, his siding with her may be an example of him going against the normal order, symbolized by Izanagi, and aligning himself with powers that are ultimately detrimental to the universe.

But, anyway, Susanoo does in fact get exiled, and he thereafter retains a lot of death and Underworld imagery, despite not being said explicitly to rule a death realm or actually spend any time with his mother. He is often said to have centipedes, symbols of death and decay, in his hair and clothes in other myths, and to occasionally be said to dwell beneath the ground or to have a home in the Underworld (although not often explicitly Yomi). He's clearly related to death in some way, but he's also clearly not considered to be ruling Yomi, which continues to belong to Izanami; so what's he doing?

One of our favorite theories has to do with the mythic land of Tokoyo. Tokoyo (which means literally "the otherworld") is a mysterious magical location where the spirits of blessed ancestors and the dead live in eternal peace and plenty, along with various kami and magical creatures. It is generally considered a land of the dead, but also a place of happiness and mystical powers, with a lot in common with the faraway Irish concept of Mag Mell. Tokoyo is never explicitly said to have a ruler, but one theory is that this is the Underworld that Susanoo administers; not only does it contain the dead, but it is also usually conceived of as a mysterious island floating somewhere in the primordial sea, which is also Susanoo's traditional domain. Under this interpretation, Susanoo and Yomi would both be rulers of Underworlds but not of the exact same realm, with Izanami receiving the vast majority of the dead but Susanoo administering the disposition of particularly worthy, heroic or otherwise special souls after their deaths. And since there's already potential for multiple Underworlds in Japan if you bring in the imported but still influential Buddhist realm of Jigoku, ruled over by Emma-O, multiple destinations for the dead might fit together well in the greater world of Japanese cosmology.

If you don't want to bring another Underworld into it, or just don't like that theory or want to use Tokoyo for something else like a Terra Incognita, you could also consider Susanoo to live in Yomi somewhere, and simply not to be its ruler. He might be one of Izanami's few allies, which could make for some intense political issues, especially if you consider her to be a Titan, and might also be a motivation for his occasional outbursts and attacks on the gods in the Overworld who abandoned her so long ago. After the debacle with Amaterasu and the cave, he's probably not particularly welcome in Takamagahara anymore, and while he descended to earth at Izumo, it's not particularly practical for a god to actually live among mortals for any period of time so he's probably not there. Alternatively, he might not be friends with Izanami; she has a very bad attitude toward the living, and the fact that he stood up to his father might not be enough to overcome her ingrained resentment and misery, so he may be just as careful about going into Yomi as anyone else (albeit probably better at it since he probably has a good deal of Death boons).

Izanagi's banishment of Susanoo does not explicitly say that he is sending him to rule Yomi; in fact, all it says is that he's banished from the abode of the gods, although the implication is that he probably wanted to go see Izanami as a result. His immediate response is to go bother Amaterasu first, though, so where he eventually ends up living when he isn't in the Overworld is sort of up for interpretation.