This week on MYTH, we’ll continue Monkey’s epic journey to the west to retrieve Indian magic. The story is slowly nearing it’s conclusion after our break for a very special Valentine’s Day. This is the fifth episode on the epic tale of Sun Wukong, the Monkey King. If you haven’t heard the first four parts, I’d recommend going back and listening. The first episode provides a lot of back story on the Monkey King and on the chinese cosmology, the second tells how this whole quest thing got started, the third tells Sanzang got tricked into banishing Monkey from the party, and the fourth tells how Sanzang ended up hanging from a tree surrounded by bandits. To summarize, Monkey was trapped by Buddha and could only be released if he served the monk Sanzang on his journey to the west to retrieve the magic sutras from India. Along the way, getting into a stupid amount of trouble and getting out mostly through literal deus ex machina, they acquire two more disciples: Ogre and Piggy. After some sitcom antics, Sanzang figures out he’s been tricked by demons into distrusting Monkey, and they all become one big happy party again just long enough for Sanzang to nearly get his dick sucked by a scorpion demon. Monkey gets the gods of the stars to burn her to dust. Not long after, Monkey forgets how much trouble Sanzang gets into on his own and goes scouting. The monk is promptly kidnapped by bandits and strung up in a tree. In this episode, you’ll learn that Ogre is a tattle-tale, the evil twin trope is a lot older than Star Trek, and that all you need to be a great doctor is some hair. Then, in Gods and Monsters, it’s the feng shui monster who can make you rich but can’t take a shit.
