Kaos shows why we might think twice before inviting the old gods back

The illusory glamour of Olympian gods titillates us once more.

Theodore Brun

Theodore is author of the historical fiction series The Wanderer Chronicles. He previously studied Dark Age archaeology at Cambridge, and afterwards worked in international law.

A mock classical ceiling painting depicts modern version of the classical gods.

Ye gods above.

Netflix.

The old gods are making a comeback all across Western culture. This is a conclusion increasingly reached by a spectrum of culture-watchers; some religious, some not at all. But, if true, the boldest and brashest example of this comeback may well be the new Netflix series KAOS, starring Jeff Goldblum, released last month.

Kaos is a genre-busting mythological dark comedy-drama. One might say a modern re-summoning of the pagan gods.

Charlie Covell, the writer and mastermind behind the show, and a self-confessed mythology geek, has created a colourful, high production, and often funny depiction of what the world might be like if the gods of Olympus still ruled over us. The plot follows several different strands taken from Greek mythology - most obviously Orpheus’s journey into the Underworld to bring back his dead wife, Eurydice - and weaves them together into a larger narrative, retelling the downfall of the gods.

As the show opens, Zeus reigns as king of the gods from his fantastically kitsch mansion atop of Mount Olympus. So long as the sacrifices and adulation of humankind keep rolling in, he is happy. But when he wakes one day to discover a new wrinkle on his forehead, this triggers not only a kind of mid-life crisis, but also possibly - so he fears - the end of the world as he knows it.

Goldblum plays Zeus as, well, Jeff Goldblum: quirky, nervy, paranoid, and not a little menacing in an understated way. In other words, perhaps more “Jeff Goldblum” than you’ve ever seen him on screen before. It is certainly a compelling and sometimes hilarious portrayal.

“A line appears, the order wanes, the family falls, and Kaos reigns.”

This is the prophecy that has haunted Zeus for aeons. What he doesn’t know is that he shares this personalised prophesy with three other mortals in the story - Eurydice (Aurora Perrineau), Caneus (Misia Butler), and Ariadne (Leila Farzad) - all of whom will play an unwitting role in bringing about the overthrow of the world order under the Olympian gods (hence: KAOS). The early episodes establish who these mortals are and begin to draw their disparate stories together.

Counterpoint to Zeus is his brother, Hades, ruler of a literally black-and-white underworld, with David Thewlis brilliantly cast in the role as the world-weary and ailing keeper of the realm of the dead. Something is amiss down there which threatens the whole system of human souls and what happens to them. When he tries to warn his brother, Zeus’s disdain for Hades and his problems only makes matters worse. Also in the frame of this dysfunctional family are Hera (Janet McTeer) and Poseidon (Cliff Curtis) - brother and sister (and wife in Hera’s case) to Zeus, as well as being lovers behind his back, who are poised to put into effect their own betrayals, if Zeus goes too far off the rails.

Last, but not least, since he proves the bridge between the gods and humans is Dionysus (Nabhaan Rizwan), one of Zeus’s many children. (But the only one who comes to visit.) A hedonistic agent of chaos from the outset, Dionysus seems to be the only one of the gods with any genuine interest or admiration for humans. Impressed by rock-star Orpheus’s passionate love for his wife, Eurydice (“Riddy”), it is Dionysus who helps Orpheus break into the Underworld to get her back when she dies, thus triggering the series of events that could let to the fulfilment of the prophesy.

The illusory glamour of the gods of Olympus seem to titillate us once more. We don’t really believe in them, but we’d kind of like to see more of them all the same.

Smart, stylish, twisty and certainly original - (the entrance to the Underworld is through a dumpster bin around the back of a bar) - Kaos is an ambitious multi-stranded epic about power, fate, love, and family. But perhaps above all, it is saying something about the relationship between humanity and the divine. At one point, one mortal tells another that the only good things in life are human. This feels like a statement of underlying intent. And the way the gods (especially Zeus) become more capricious, more sadistic, more vengeful as the story unfolds, the more it feels like we’re encouraged to agree. Defiance of the gods is the real mark of virtue here. Rebellion against the gods, the natural outworking of that defiance.

The irony is that whatever distaste which Kaos succeeds in cultivating in us, the viewer, for pagan forms of the divine may help explain why, historically, Christianity swept aside all the pantheons of pagan worship of the first millennium in the wholesale way that it did. Jesus Christ literally incarnates that bridge between the divine and the human. And what’s more, the message he preached claimed that, far from disdaining humanity, God loves them so much that he was willing to be the sacrifice for their good. And not the other way round, demanding incessant and capricious sacrifice by humans instead.

Now, centuries later, in Western culture, familiarity seems to have bred contempt with that far more hopeful story. Instead, the illusory glamour of the gods of Olympus seem to titillate us once more. We don’t really believe in them, but we’d kind of like to see more of them all the same. And storytellers like Charlie Covell are only too willing to give the public what they want. If the old gods are indeed trying to make a comeback, Kaos shows us why we might think twice before inviting them in.

Does Kaos succeed? It certainly makes a valiant attempt to marshal a large number of plot lines involving a huge cast of characters, unfortunately not all of whom are interesting enough to keep you coming back for more. And an awful lot is riding on there being a Season 2 - that is, if the threads we have followed so far are to lead on into a satisfying and meaningful conclusion.

Without that, I’m afraid the whole thing may be left standing alone as a work of, well… chaos.

The Wild God we can't coerce

Weird and increasingly encountered beyond the wilderness.

Belle Tindall

Belle is the staff writer at Seen & Unseen.

A pianist raises his arms while sitting at a grand piano amid recording equipment.

Nick Cave recording Wild God.

nickcave.com

Christianity is a wild thing.

I say this, even while only half-understanding what I’m saying. It’s something that I’m learning. Or perhaps it’s more appropriate to say that it’s something that I’m unlearning. Because, admittedly, I’m far more familiar with a somewhat domesticated view of my own faith tradition. The kind that allows me to fashion fences out of my expectations; to put parameters around God’s presence and boundaries upon his behaviour. Both of which are a farce, of course - but a comforting farce, none the less.

You see, there is nothing ‘comfortable’ about a God who cannot be wholly predicted or comprehended, let alone controlled or contained. A wild God is always going to be a challenge to a culture that has enthroned comfort. We’re too easily spooked and too unused to the sensation of being cosmically baffled.

But, affronting as it may be, I am trying my best to sit in the knowledge that the God I believe in is a wild God. And I’m finding this wildness increasingly hard to ignore. Perhaps it’s all the Rowan Williams I’ve been reading, or my newfound interest in the Romantics (as in, the eighteenth and nineteenth century poets, not the 1970’s American rock band). Or maybe it has more to do with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ new album, which I have been listening to relentlessly over the last week.

In this musical offering, Nick Cave introduces us to his ‘Wild God’, who I think is my God too. It’s just that ‘wild’ has never been the first adjective I reach for when describing him.

Until now, I suppose.

Let me clarify what I mean by wild, because what I’m not saying is that God is inherently chaotic, unruly, reckless or irrational. Wild Gods, as we know them from the myths and legends, act on tempestuous whims, and are more than a little havoc prone. They are perilous, largely because one can never truly know where they stand with them. That couldn’t be further from what I mean. The entire Old Testament - as complex, nuanced and masterful as it is - can be understood as a collection of ways in which the God at its centre is saying – this is who I am, this is what I desire, this is what I’m going to do, this is where you stand with me. If you were to read the Bible, it would become pretty clear pretty quickly: God is insistent that those who seek to know him will never have to second guess him. God’s wildness does not mean that we cannot know the essence of who he is or how he feels towards us. I like to think that we can endeavour to know him accurately, but never exhaustively.

Rather, what I’m trying to get my head and heart around is the knowledge that God, and therefore Christianity, cannot be wholly domesticated. Despite my best efforts, it cannot be made into an entirely comfortable and cozy thing. To make it so, one would have to dilute it, shrink it, bleed any truth out of it. In his poem - Sometimes a Wild God -Tom Hirons writes,

Oh, limitless space.
Oh, eternal mystery.
Oh, endless cycles of death and birth.
Oh, miracle of life.
Oh, the wondrous dance of it all’.

There’s an innate weirdness to the Christian worldview, a pure wildness at the heart of it. It’s brimming with mystery and mysticism. As Hirons hints, it’s bigger and more consequential than our comfort-zones would like it to be. And, what’s more, much of it is communicated through the natural world. Biblical narratives and poetry are endlessly pointing us toward the places and spaces that are outside human cultivation – the stars, the mountains, the oceans – the things that pre-date and will outlive us.

Christianity is wild in that there’s an alluring organic-ness about it. Its truth sits beyond human manipulation and coercion.

For millennia, whole lives have been given over to this truly wild and, I believe, wildly true story. Can I give you just two recent examples? Two people who have (utterly unexpectedly) adventured their way into this wild and wonderful way of seeing the world? Two people I’ve had the joy of learning from over the past year?

First up is Paul Kingsnorth.

Paul is an award-winning poet and a best-selling author of both fiction (including the Buckmaster Trilogy: Wake, Beast and Alexandria) and non-fiction (including Real England, Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist and his ongoing Sub-Stack series: Abbey of Misrule). He is, and always has been, an advocate for treating the natural world as if it were far more than a machine to be used or a resource to be obtained. Such behaviour is, according to Paul, nothing short of sacrilegious. As well as an enchantment with what he can see and sense in the natural world, he also has a long-standing fascination with all things mystical.

Buddhism, Witchcraft – you name it, he’s tried it.

He told Justin Brierley and I the story of how he his adventures have led him to arrive at the wildest possible destination: Christianity.  

And then there’s the renowned mythologist, Dr Martin Shaw, who decided to do a 101-day wild vigil in Dartmoor. Despite not being a Christian, on the very last night, he prayed. While praying, he looked up and saw something utterly unexplainable, something ‘properly Old Testament’. And that was it – after a night of dancing, several other ‘odd’ experiences, and eighteen months of deep pondering – he was able to say, ‘I went into the forest expected to be wedded to the wild and I came out wedded to Christ’.

Thinking about it, it’s probably no accident that ‘Christianity’ began on the margins, and from there, worked its way into the cities. There was a time where the prediction of Jesus’ arrival was being yelled out into the countryside, so loudly that people were emptying the surrounding towns to come and hear more. A time when rumours of redemption were being whispered in the rural hills. A time when its chief messenger was an inexplicably weird man named John the Baptist; who shunned his prestigious priestly heritage to live in the wilds, to dress in camel skins, to eat honey and insects and insist upon the imminent coming of the long-awaited Messiah. This Messiah, by the way, who would be born where animals are kept, sleep on mountains, retreat into deserts, walk on water, speak to storms, and break people (including himself) out of stone graves.

You see what I mean, Christianity is a wild story to believe and live in accordance with.

It’s the story that drove the ‘Desert Mothers and Fathers’ of the Third Century AD to reject civilisation and all its comforts, in order to seek God in the silence and solitude of the desert. It’s the story that is still inspiring people to live in caves on Mount Athos, secluded islands just off the coast of Wales and forests in the heart of Ireland. An uncontainable message has, since its inception, been lived out in uncontainable places.

Honestly, you want weird? Christianity can darn-well give you weird.

Don’t be fooled by over-familiarity or be swayed by that pesky left-side of your brain, the part that wants to convince you that you know all that there is to know. Christianity is a story that I, myself, had forgotten was quite this wild.