Set's "typhonic beast" is supposed to be an "anti-animal"
It's very likely that Set's animal is actually a deliberately crafted mythological creature that is meant to convey unnaturality. Rather than a normal animal like a falcon or a crocodile, the typhonic beast is basically a mixture between a serval, a donkey, an aardvark and an elephant shrew with a demonic forked tail, something that never existed. What better way to demonstrate Set's attributes, Chaos and wild beasts, than to make up a fucked up creature that combines every weird mammal in Africa?- Throughout history, many unknown creatures are described as having the parts of more familiar creatures, such as the idea that platypi have "a beaver's tail and a duck's beak" or the ancient Chinese calling giraffes "Kirin". Set-animals could be a species that became extinct, from over-hunting
(they would've been near some of the oldest non-migratory human civilizations) or when the Green Sahara turned into a desert and lost much of its biodiversity.- Thing is, it doesn't really resemble any known african mammal species. We would still have it in the fossil reccord if nothing else; plenty of african megafauna is known from saharan fossil sites. The closest I can think off is Sivatherium, which probably died off way before egyptians formed their ideas of gods.
- Arguably, he does resemble an African mammal, albeit from the wrong region of Africa. This is highly anecdotal, but whenever I've shown my friends pictures of Set and asked them what animal he looks like, pretty much all of them call him an aardvark. But apparently, aardvarks are found in the sub-Saharan region, not Egypt.
- Thing is, it doesn't really resemble any known african mammal species. We would still have it in the fossil reccord if nothing else; plenty of african megafauna is known from saharan fossil sites. The closest I can think off is Sivatherium, which probably died off way before egyptians formed their ideas of gods.
Ammit is the Grim Reaper of Egypt.
Its an Eldritch Abomination capable of devouring and destroying souls. While Osiris is the lord of the underworld he isn't a genuine embodiment of death. Ammit is The Grim Reaper itself, responsible for the "true" death that comes with devouring your heart and soul.- But Ammit doesn't guide the souls of the dead to the Underworld, the actual job of the Grim Reaper is not to kill people, is to keep them dead and guide their souls to the afterlife, like Thanatos, the Valkyries, Hermes or other psychopomps, the true Egyptian Personification of Death is Anubis
Apophis was responsible for Set's Face–Heel Turn.
Set was an important ally to Ra in helping fend him off, and as a more benevolent God of Chaos he would attract more chaos-aligned beings to his cause than Apophis could manage. As such the serpent played a role in his Demonization in hopes it'd turn Set into a Spanner in the Works, maybe even a potential ally. However this didn't pan out because Set still hates Apophis and is perfectly willing to side with Ra even if he's become a villain. Given he's an Omnicidal Maniac of pure evil, this failure can be attributed to mis-understanding the goodness in Set. Medjed is...
Medjed is only mentioned briefly in the Book of the Dead, which says he belongs to the house of Osiris, and "shoots with his eye". Note that that's "eye" singular, not "eyes" plural. Now in the Osiris myth, when Isis restored Osiris's body, a certain part got eaten by a fish and couldn't be recovered. That fish was specifically a species called medjed. Now think about it, what's something that's described as "one-eyed", and can shoot? Yeah. Medjed the smiter is actually Osiris's missing penis.The Set Animal, aka the 'Sha'' is actually a creature from either the deep past or far future
Whatever it is, at some point at least one of them got to Predynastic Egypt thanks to Primeval-style time travel where people witnessed them, before they either died out or returned to their time. Whatever happened, the sha remained in the community's consciousness long enough to enter mythology, but as the centuries went by detail of it were forgotten outside of its image and description. Eventually, with this strange animal unlike any other in memory but never seen, it became associated with the unknown and "what's beyond", and then with a god who represents exactly that. Apep and the Serpent of Eden (and maybe Satan) are one and the same
It does seem like dooming humanity to sin and chaos would be something a god of chaos and darkness would do, especially when Adam and Eve were made by a being associated with light and order. You can easily picture Apep deciding to screw over one Egypt's neighbours for the sake of it. Cue God and the Egyptian Gods having to work together and banish him back to the underworld.The Bible doesn't mention that leiu of God cursing the Sepent and destroying its legs/banishing him because christians didn't like the idea of their God and Pagans' gods bring equals and working together.
Ra sided with Set in his battle with Horus because he was still angry at Isis for tricking him into revealing his true name, and because Set defends him against the Chaos Serpent every night.
Ra is the one who vetoes the initial decision to award the crown to Horus simply because Set killed his brother to get it. His reasons for doing so are left murky, but if you think about other myths involving Ra it makes more sense.
Set had several reasons for killing Osiris beyond just jealousy and wanting power.
Nephthys sleeping with Osiris to produce Anubis may have been one major driving factor, but another big one that doesn’t get discussed much is that Isis stole Ra’s secret name by nearly killing him with poison. This caused humanity to question Ra’s power after seeing him at death’s door, leading to the debacle of Ra unleashing Sekhmet as revenge and nearly losing control of her and causing humanity’s extinction, resulting in Ra having to abdicate the throne to Osiris. Set, being very protective of Ra, may have seen Osiris’ rule as illegitimate and a result of Isis’ clever trickery.
