Enslaved: Odyssey to the West
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is an action-adventure video game developed by Ninja Theory and published by Namco Bandai Games. Announced in 2009 as "Enslaved", it was released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in October 2010. As a loose adaptation of the novel "Journey to the West", the game is set 150 years in a future post-apocalyptic world following a global war. Only remnants of humanity survive, along with the still active war machines left over from the conflict. The game's story follows Monkey who is forced to escort Trip home safely after they survive a ship crash. Players play as Monkey, who must combat enemies using his staff from a third-person perspective, engage in different platforming challenges and solve puzzles.
Wonders of the East
"The Wonders of the East" is found in three manuscripts. It is in the Beowulf manuscript (also known as the Nowell Codex, London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius A. xv). It is written in Late West Saxon in a Mercian dialect. Other than "Beowulf" and "The Wonders of the East", the other works in this codex include: "The Passion of St. Christopher", "The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle", and "Judith". One scribe is believed to have copied "The Passion of St. Christopher", "The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle", "The Wonders of the East", and first part of "Beowulf", and another scribe wrote the remainder of "Beowulf" and "Judith". While the first scribe, known as Scribe A used a more traditional square insular minuscule script, Scribe B uses a newer, round minuscule script. This has made it quite difficult to date the codex, as both scripts originate from slightly different periods of Anglo-Saxon society. The date of this manuscript is usually believed to be “within a couple of decades of A.D. 1000,” argued to be no earlier than AD 997 and no later than AD 1016, although other scholars have dated it to be from as early as the 8th century. The earliest known owner of the codex was antiquarian Laurence Nowell, who left his signature in the top margin of several pages from the manuscript. The manuscript is heavily damaged from the fire of Cotton Library in 1731 and so some parts of accompanying texts are missing. The codex may have been intentionally put together because four of the manuscripts discuss monsters. Furthermore, it is a “"liber monstrorum", or book of marvels, designed for entertainment along with usual edification. Andy Orchard argues the monsters witnessed in "The Wonders of the East" are identifiable in other texts of the manuscript. The "Donestre", cannibal creatures who lure "foreigners" in with "devious words" before eating all but their heads. These monsters sit and "weep over the head", which scholars such as Orchard have used to show how the creature resembles Grendel's Mother from "Beowulf". Orchard further argues that these monsters reflect those who do not conform to Anglo-Saxon norms, and are a construction of the "other". Christopher Monk discusses theories focused on the sexuality and femininity of the monsters found in "The Wonders of the East." He claims these monsters are depictions of human sexuality, aided by the illuminations which accompany the prose. The Wonders of the East is the only text from the Nowell Codex to be illustrated or "illuminated" which some highlight as central to the monster studies applied to the manuscript. Orchard argues that the text is a "liber monstorum" or "book of monsters" and illustrations aid the reader in studying the creatures described in the prose. Other creatures encountered include the snakes, which may stand for dragon. These creatures are said to have "horns as large as rams" and anyone who "strikes them or touches them" will die and the area around them "set ablaze". Another creature called a "conopenae", said to have the head of a dog which some scholars have argued links with Saint Christopher from an earlier text, who may have had the head of a dog according to legend.