#ramakien

Miss Earth Thailand as Suphannamatcha, the mermaid from the Ramakien.

Also spelled as Suvannamaccha.

She is a daughter of the demon king Totsakan / Ravana, sent to interfere with Hanuman's plans but she ends up falling in love with him instead.

I’m having feels about the Ramakien aka the Thai version of Ramayana. Basically, the Thai version is much edgier lmaoo, whereas the OG Ramayana is a semi religious text.

The real villain seems to be gods. The god who is the shitty manager of heaven, allowing his servant (the previous incarnation of Thotsakan- the “bad guy”) to be bullied until he finally snaps, and the arrogance of the our “protagonist” who when he was a deity (Phra Narai) challenged our “villain” to be reborn as someone incredibly strong so they can fight fairly. Like, why not fight fair in the first place (fuck that excuse of teaching Thotsakan a lesson about lust)? If Phra Narai really cared about the wellbeing of the mortal world then why release a monster to be reborn in the world below, just so you can show off your strength and kill him?

And damn, the war between Rama (Narai’s human incarnation) and Thotsakan is really imbalanced. Rama had a bunch of his friends incarnating alongside him to fight in his army, along with extremely advantageous blessings from the topmost god (the guy who allowed the villain to be bullied in the first place).

A lot of the characters in Team Protagonist are also assholes. Hanuman is vindictive, and also a sexual predator who fucks Thotsakan’s wife by pretending to be Thotsakan.

The part that reaaalllyyy made me angry is when Thotsakan’s wife realizes the truth, she tries to kill herself in shame but Thotsakan stops her and is all like “what’s done is done, it’s okay, don’t hurt yourself” etc. In contrast, Rama - our oh so great protagonist - made Sita (his wife) walk through fire to prove her purity and innocence (aka that she didn’t sleep with Thotsakan whilst he kidnapped her... like even if she did it’s not like she could refuse???). And again, he doubts her when he sees a picture of Thotsakan on her (turns out to be a ploy but man, have some faith in your wife dude).

I know you shouldn’t judge old literature by modern standards, but when the villain treat their wife better than the protagonist I couldn’t help but be annoyed.

Also, a lot of the Yak/Asura/Demons in the story aren’t bad or heartless. After a battle where Thotsakan’s son got killed, he cried over his son’s corpse and his soldiers also cried over their lost comrades and relatives. Kumbhakarna, imo, is Best Boi. He’s Thotsakan’s little brother and is a demon who just keeps to himself, and tries to talk sense into his brother but in the end supports his brother anyway out of loyalty (and I suppose, fear of being exiled lol). He’s a guy who just wants peace. This other demon, Mareet, is also a dude whose mother is a general who followed Thotsakan’s orders and got killed (I’m not trying to excuse her complicity or justify Thotsakan’s action though). He lost his mother, his brother (and not sure maybe his wife and kids too) to Team Protagonist and he’s just another piece on the chessboard who is so outclassed by his opponents.

This play really shows how war sucks.

18 Simian Troops(18 มงกุฏ ; 18 mongkut) from the Ramakien,Thai adaptation of rmyn. They are incarnation of deities, in order to serve as Rama's army and vanquish demons.

“Hanuman transforming neck pillow doll”.

Probably inspired by a chapter of Ramakien where Hanuman turns giant and protects an army inside his mouth.