Scheherazade's Quantum Suicide
Mythology in the Best of All Possible Worlds
In The Ballad of Reading Gaol, Oscar Wilde reminds us repeatedly that all men kill the thing they love. This entry to Applied Mythology is my tribute to Scheherazade from The Arabian Nights, one of my most beloved heroines and a marvelous example of the power and agency that women can wield in predominantly male-driven mythologies. Scheherazade is known not just for putting her life on the line (a default feature of Western heroines) but for her confidence in her skills, which she uses to save all the women of the kingdom, as well as to marry into near absolute political power. Go big or go home.
The Arabian Nights, abridged
As we’ve examined before, The Arabian Nights tells the story of Sultan Shahryar, the fictional Sassanid King of Kings, a fairly decent ruler who goes mad after finding in the span of just a few days, that his treasured wife, and his brother’s, as well as a powerful ifrit’s wife, were all profoundly unfaithful (and how). While it’s largely regarded that Muslim philosophy in the Middle Ages was well pollinated with the works of the ancient Greeks, this particular Sultan clearly failed his class on syllogisms:
A. My wife is unfaithful. B. My brother’s wife is unfaithful. C. An ifrit’s wife is unfaithful. D. Therefore, all women are unfaithful. Brilliant.
Determined to never suffer the indignity of infidelity again, Shahryar decrees that he will wed a woman every night and behead her the next morning, so as to prevent her from committing adultery, which according to him, they will all inevitably do.
Rather than seeing the kingdom’s gender ratio and demographics implode, Scheherazade ―the vizier’s eldest daughter― volunteers to marry the Sultan, but with a plan: each night, she will tell Shahryar never-ending stories so entrancing that his fascination and childlike curiosity will compel him to keep her alive for another day to hear how they end. After one thousand and one nights, he finally overcomes his trauma with women and abolishes his previous decree, accepting Scheherazade as his permanent wife while praising her ability to make him trust women again1.
A Note on Quantum Suicide
Before we explore Scheherazade’s remarkable achievement of transforming a misogynistic absolute ruler into a functional husband, let’s touch briefly on the concept of quantum suicide.
According to the multiple universe theory, all possible outcomes of quantum measurements are physically realized in some world; meaning there is a near infinite number of universes in which the consequences of our actions are played out. Imagine, then, that you play an indefinite number of rounds of Russian Roulette where you have a 50% chance of getting killed. With every pull of the trigger, there will be one world in which you live, and another in which you die. Only in the one in which you live, do you get a chance to play a second round, whose life/death outcome will in turn be captured in two worlds. After several rounds, there will be one you which will have survived every single time. And although this is a tiny fraction of a larger multi-universe tree diagram of events, to that particular you, it will seem like you just kept getting lucky and survived no matter how many times you pulled that trigger.
In very broad terms, the thought experiment of chancing death repeatedly through multiple worlds is quantum suicide, and the you that survived every single time is experiencing quantum immortality.
It is my theory that the Scheherazade we know of is one of many: she’s the Quantum Immortal one.
And Now, Let’s Kill Her
Mythology is largely based on the suspension of disbelief that “everything goes right”: the hero always defeats the monster, rescues the princess, avenges the father, etc.; especially when following the script of the Monomyth. We know how Oedipus answers the Sphinx’s riddle correctly on his first attempt, but surely, there are myriad quantum universes where his answers are laughably incorrect and he gets thrown off the cliffs at Thebes.
No one comes even close to having tested the boundaries of quantum suicide in mythology as much as Scheherazade, who plays a game of life and death during one thousand and one consecutive nights, each one entailing a quantum world where she dies and another where she lives only to risk her life again the following day.
And yet, when you read The Arabian Nights, there are some stories which are objectively more exciting than others. Cliffhangers are better placed, characters are more alluring, some stories are more relatable; not to mention the eventual boredom of routinely hearing stories every night, while hardly getting any sleep for almost three years.
Today, we will explore one of the 4.66632 x 10^699 quantum universes where Scheherazade does not survive. Following the rules of a thorough thought experiment, I’ve devised the method below for rating her stories, just to see what would be a reasonable point in which a normal sultan with an average attention span would have drawn a line and had her beheaded. The criteria goes as follows:
STRUCTURE: Tonight’s story was anchored in what part of the overall story?
Exposition: ±0pts. or
Conflict: +1pt. or
Resolution: -1pt.
CLIFFHANGER: How exciting was the exact ending of tonight’s story?
Building up to a climax: +1pt. or
At climax: +2pts. or
Right after climax: -1pt.
TRIGGERS: Did tonight’s story have themes that will trigger the Sultan’s misogyny?
Infidelity: -1pt. and
Evil women: -1pt. and
Stalling death: -1pt.
MISE EN ABYME: How embedded was tonight’s story inside other stories?
Less than 3 stories deep: +1pt. or
3 stories deep: ±0pts. or
More than 3 stories deep: -1pt.
RELATABILITY: How easy was it for the Sultan to relate to tonight’s story’s protagonist?
Commoner: ±0pts. or
Royalty: +1pt. or
Wronged royalty: +2pts.
BEWILDERMENT: How wondrous and captivating were tonight’s stories?
There were marvels!: +1pt. and
…and demons!: +1pt. and
…and treasure!: +1pt.
MOMENTUM: How did the overall mood of past stories affect tonight’s narration?
Last three nights had a score lower than 3: -1pt. or
Last three nights had a score higher than 4: +1pt. or
No pattern over last three nights: ±0pts.
These are the results of the first eight nights, which encompass the “Trader and the Jinn” story arc from our past entry.
Alas, poor Scheherazade dies within a week. And yet, we live in the quantum universe where The Arabian Nights exist because she survived an additional 142 weeks. This alone makes me believe we live in the best of all possible worlds.
And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
Coming up next: And now, for something completely different. Following our first Architectural Intermezzo, we’ll have our first Film Intermezzo: the mythology behind Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”.
And a fun fact: Scheherazade’s score takes a tumble when, right in the middle of “The Trader and the Djinn” story arc, she talks about an evil wife and how she wrongs her husband. Noting that this doesn’t trigger Shahryar’s PTSD, she double-downs a few nights later with “The Tale of the Ensorcelled Prince” where she explicitly tells the story of a loving prince who is betrayed by a treacherous wife who committed adultery with a black slave… the exact same situation that traumatized Shahryar in the first place. Scheherazade might well be an unsung precursor to prolonged exposure therapy.
Big shout-out to Scheherazade’s tween sister and wingwoman Dunyazad, who spent one thousand nights sleeping under the bed the Sultan and her sister had intercourse on, just to set up the storytelling mood at the end of each session.
Fascinating! It went so smooth yet wild from myths to quantum universes, I am impressed. This is the first essay of yours I read after I subscribed, and... I am already captivated. Cheers!