#isfet

meet Safiya al-Sarab and Isfet, two new ocs based on two of my favourite aladdin villains for my new upcoming story.

I feel like there's often a lot of misunderstanding regarding how Kemetics view a/pep. We seem to be characterized as 'fearing' it, or 'pearl-clutching' about the 'evil' of it or whatever, but that's not accurate to the worldview there.

A/pep isn't evil. It exists outside of morality. It's more accurate to liken it to a representative of entropy--it's a force that seeks to unravel the entire cosmos and everything in it. It stands opposite to the act of creation, it represents the end of all things. A/pep 'winning' would look like an empty universe, everything brought to absolute zero. This force is a part of our universe, and we (and the ancients) very much do acknowledge it, but it's not something to communicate or collaborate with, because there is nothing to be gained from it. It has nothing to say to us, nor us to it, because we're diametrically opposed: we exist, and it is a force of nonexistance.

Characterizing it as representative of 'chaos' or 'destruction' therefore falls a bit flat--even destruction is a form of creation, it turns things into new things (even if those things are often horrible). It's sort of like that old saying, "the opposite of love is not hate, it is apathy". A/pep is that apathy. It is Nothingness. A forest fire is a devastation that can bring about new growth, but the 'destruction' a/pep brings is final.

The netjeru fight a/pep each night because this uncreating force is overwhelming and tireless, and must be constantly beaten back in order for existence to continue. In a way, you can see it as choosing every single day to continue surviving, even when forces in the universe try relentlessly to grind us down. That's why we deface its name--it's not fear, it's not like it's fucking Voldemort, it's just that each strike against it is a small effort we put towards keeping the lights on. The ancients believed words have power, and even invoking its name gives it a tiny mote of energy--and it doesn't need our help.

She is the bringer of plagues, and that's why the ancient Egyptians were so fixated on keeping her green and placated. they propitiated her daily to help keep the country in her good favor. in fact, a lot of ntrw worship and veneration was rooted in that. each ntr has the capability to both be benevolent and be a bringer of isfet.

isfet can be broken down into two categories: naturally occurring and manufactured/man-made. naturally occurring isfet is stuff like disease and death. they are part of existence and they are part of ma'at. when the gods are acting upon this type of isfet, they are usually reframed as being acts of ma'at, and so the transgression becomes acceptable as part of maintaining a larger ecosystem or balance.

f'ex, no human (or ntr) can survive without committing isfet. to live is to consume, and food is a double-edged sword of both isfet and ma'at. this is true for every living thing on this planet, to sustain creation is to commit certain acts of isfet. when you eat, you could frame it as isfet for whatever you're eating, but it could also be framed as creating ma'at so that you can sustain yourself. in this way, the two are interlinked. this is why the Osirian myth cycle is as important as it is: it creates a framework that allows us to take such violent acts of isfet (albeit, fully natural forms of isfet that /will/ happen to all of us eventually), and convert these acts into ma'at.

it's the manufactured isfet that is particularly destructive. wanton, meaningless destruction. capitalism. exploitation. oppression. all of these are human-made forms of isfet that shouldn't exist. whenever the gods partake in this sort of isfet, they often experience some sort of negative effect (such as Osiris bleeding out his stupid head for being an egotistical jerk when he received the atef). these sorts of isfet are regarded as worth destruction in totality. or in other words, there is no upside to this form of isfet, and so we work to eradicate it.