The symbolism of eggs as resurrection and rebirth is not unique to Christians: decorated ostrich eggs were placed in the graves of ancient Egyptians and Sumerians 5,000 years ago!
The association of eggs with Easter developed when they were prohibited during Lent. Since chickens did not stop laying, boiling was a way to use up eggs that built up during the Lenten fast. Many nations’ cuisines incorporated boiled eggs, like the slice of egg in the salteñas that Carlos ate in New Heights or the Hungarian potato casseroles served around Easter.
Egg decorating and dyeing became popular, with fancy ones given as gifts, which reached the height of excess in the jeweled Fabergé eggs commissioned by the last two Russian tsars.
Egg games include dances, hunts, rolls, tosses, passing games with spoons and other implements, and a sort of demolition derby called “egg jarping,” in which players crash their eggs into those of other players, and the last intact egg wins.
Some eggs need no decoration. Our new baby chickens will grow up to lay eggs that are naturally blue, green, dark brown, and lighter shades of brown.
Mainly, though, this post is about “Easter eggs” in media, which refers to a hidden message, reference, or joke, often in digital format. I have these interspersed throughout The Helios Series.
The term originated in conjunction with an ATARI video game, in which the developer hid his name in the frame, only visible if one hovered over a certain spot (at that time, they prohibited putting developers’ names on the games to prevent poaching and limit bargaining powers). When it was discovered, it was too expensive to remove. Instead, the enterprising marketers decided to embed future “Easter eggs” for players to discover.
Hidden content far precedes this, and is common in the physical world, such as aviation mechanics leaving messages hidden in engineering spaces of jets. The “Easter eggs” in video games and movies can be cheat codes, subliminal messages, inside jokes, references to pop culture. or sometimes taunts to competitors: the 1084 CVAX microchip contained etchings in the Cyrillic alphabet that said, “VAX: when you care enough to steal the very best.”
Comic books do this, too. The word “sex” is hidden in almost every frame of New X-Men 118, and the spines of books in the background of Universe X: Spidey read: ” “HARRAS HA HA, HE’S GONE, GOOD RIDDANCE TO BAD RUBBISH HE WAS A NASTY S.O.B.” This taunt to a recently-fired boss was caught before press, but the preview copies that have this are now valuable collector’s items.
In computers, Easter eggs pose security concerns, since they are often held secret, and could theoretically implant “logic bombs” into work, though they can be also be used as tools to detect illegal copies.
I have no taunts in my Easter eggs. Instead, they are references and callbacks to earlier books, sometimes funny, sometimes ironic, that will be apparent to readers of the whole series, while not bogging down new ones.
If you’ve read multiple of the books, did you like the Easter eggs? I’m planning out my new series, and it’s a question under consideration, since it is a lot of work. Let me hear what you think!
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