You’ve mentioned multiple times about Zeetha’s name being inspired by Sita, but why do you think so? I’m Indian and honestly I don’t see it? Skifander doesn’t seem to have any other Indian iconography attached to it, Ashtara and Gilgamesh are both Sumerian, half a continent away from India, and Zantabraxus, Skifander, none of the other words have any Indian hint/cast to them, liguistically or visually. Have the Foglios said anything about Sita being the inspiration behind Zeetha’s name?

professorsparklepants:

Yeah, it took me until someone else pointed it out, but the Tamil version of the name is usually transcribed into English as Seetha (like the actress) which seems pretty clear to me. There’s also the surface similarity, that Sita is a lost princess, even if in her case, lost is more “kidnapped” than “stranded”. I have a couple other reasons, but those are all really long and have to do with parallels to the mythological Gilgamesh, so they’re better served as part of my extended meta. (Promise I’ll get that done this weekend; you’ve given me a good reason to). You’re right about most of the other motifs being more Mesopotamian or Persian, but there is one thing: Zeetha’s swords are Katars (transcribed as Qatar’as in the novelization) which are very uniquely Indian, and originated in Southern India.

(2/2) I mean the Egyptian god Set, in Greek Seth, was a lover of Ashtara (or Astarte) and an enemy of Isis (or Innana or Ashtara), Zeetha could be a feminisation of that. Set, was apparently traditionally the god of foreigners, which would be very apt for the daughter of Chump, and much of the demonization of him that we know in stories today, happened later in Egypt’s history.

I… really don’t think that Zeetha’s name is a corruption of Seth. For one thing, the double combination in English is almost always indicative of a long vowel, and there’s no version of Set’s name that I’m aware of that uses the long E. And also, Set’s most (in)famous deed is literally… murdering his brother, and attempting to murder his nephew. Sure, Klaus seems to think that’s what she’s here to do, but I think if it really were what the Foglios picked her name for, she’d be more of a villainous character.