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Help I can't stop thinking about the use of Latin and Christian cultural references in K-Pop Demon Hunters.
The first one is the name. HUNTR/X is pronounced "huntrix", and -trix comes from ancient Latin, where it's the feminine form of nouns that end in -or for the masculine, like victor, victrix. It's certainly rarer in English than endings like -ess (think shepherd, shepherdess) and mostly used in legal or religious contexts. So a "huntrix" is the same as a "huntress", but it sounds more like the language western Christianity used for centuries.
And then... there's Your Idol.
Which literally begins with a medieval Christian song, the hauntingly ominous Gregorian chant version of Dies Irae. Which is Latin for "Day of Wrath", the beginning of a vivid description of the day at the end of the world where all souls will be called to answer to God for their sins. Over the centuries, Western composers have been integrating bits of its melody into anything they want to sound even a little spooky. Jaws cello? Dies Irae.
And then the title itself... when people first called pop stars "idols", they were not approving of it. "Idolatry" means to worship something that isn't God the way you would worship God himself, and for Christians (as in other Abrahamic religions) this is a huuuge no-no. The Ten Commandments literally START by saying, "You shall have no other God before me. You shall not make for yourself any graven image or idol [...] You shall not bow down to them or serve them." (Exodus 20:3-5) Christian religious leaders frequently instruct their followers to think about whether they have created any false idols in their lives, putting something above God, whether that's loving money more than doing what's morally right, or caring about looking attractive and fashionable more than caring about being principled and Godly.
So the song is literally playing up all the Christian perceptions of what idols and demons are. They're attractive but evil! They're here to steal your soul! Bowing down to them gives them power! They demand human sacrifices!
To explain demons: Many branches of Christianity are very fierce about believing that the only legitimate supernatural power is God, THEE god, God of the Bible, and His only begotten son, and/or, anything sent, blessed, or okayed by Him. Angels, saints, churches, etc. In that worldview, anything else that claims to be a supernatural entity, anything that is not God (THEE God) is fundamentally evil. Coming from Satan, Hell, demons, devils. The only correct response to them is to beat the crap out of them and send them back to where they came from. The power of Christ compels you, yadda yadda.
WHY THIS MATTERS: This is basically the attitude HUNTR/X started the movie off with. This is Takedown in a nutshell.
And it's totally wrong.
When Christian missionaries came to Korea, they found a rich interwoven tradition of Korean shamanism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. People understood the spiritual world as having a vast number of spirits and gods, who each had different personalities, tendencies, and relationships with humans.
And the missionaries said, "THESE ARE ALL FALSE IDOLS. THESE ARE DEVILS. THESE ARE DEMONS. YOU'RE WORSHIPPING THE GREAT DECEIVER. THIS IS EVIL."
They didn't care about the stories behind each god. They didn't care if a ceremony was meant to worship a spirit or persuade it to be less of an asshole. Frankly, they thought even believing in these spirits and gods at all was problematic, but if you have to grant that they're real supernatural forces... they're not from God, so they're all Satanic.
So Rumi is left trying to understand why she can be part good and part evil, but has no idea what being a demon actually means. She doesn't know their stories, how they behave, or how to live or fight with them. Literally ten minutes talking to one hits everything she's ever known like a wrecking ball. Because you cannot actually write off vast swathes of people, or centuries of religious and spiritual thought and experience, as "demonic" and leave it at that.
And I think that's beautiful.