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Gods vs Superheroes: talking about entity work

  
  

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Less searchable M0rd4nt
07:53 / 31.12.05
Referring back to one of my earlier posts in the "Pop Culture Entity" thread: There's a massive difference between working with Magneto and working with entities like the Northern pantheon; I really feel that I'm working with a something that has its own personality and independant existence.

This is still true--increasingly so, in fact--but I'm finding it increasingly frustrating to explain why. I simply lack the language to communicate those differences.

I'm stuck with the same inguistic toolkit whether I'm talking about Marge Gundersson or Freyja Herself, stuck with the same verbs: Talk, listen, interact, evoke, invoke. It's really hard to explain what I mean when I talk about 'talking to' a God or a powerful spirit, as opposed to 'talking to', say, Yoda. I can add words (worship, revere, love) and I can elaborate a little (to speak with Marge, I go in here; to speak with the Gods I go out there; Gods and spirits are bigger than pop-culture entities), but it is really, really hard to frame my experiences in a way that someone coming from another perspective--the perspective that there's a basic experiential equivalency between working with Yoda and working with Odin--can properly grok what I mean.

I kind of feel that this is a problem. What can I add to my toolkit to make this easier? How can I communicate these differences without writing a shagging essay every time?
 
 
Tamayyurt
15:06 / 31.12.05
I don’t think that you can. Like you said you’re stuck with the same linguistic toolkit as everyone else. People have been trying to describe the very same things and have more often than not ended up with tomes let alone essays. Also just because gods feel bigger to you, who have the proper cultural context, doesn’t mean that Yoda or Magneto isn’t the bigger entity to a person with a strong pop cultural background. (And they’d have a similar difficult time trying to convey why Yoda or Magneto feel bigger to them.)

Slightly off topic, like you I’m one of the people who feel gods are more complete beings but for some strange reason I have to filter them though a superhero lens to interact with them.

And so


Becomes


And


Becomes


Weird, huh?
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
16:30 / 31.12.05
because gods feel bigger to you, who have the proper cultural context, doesn’t mean that Yoda or Magneto isn’t the bigger entity to a person with a strong pop cultural background.

Don't know if I entirely agree with you there, dude. I mean, I have a strongly pop-cultural background. I didn't have what you would call a classical education; sure, I grew up with at least a sketchy idea of who the Norse Gods are, but They weren't part of the background noise of my formative years in nearly the same way as Star Wars was. Before all this God stuff kicked off back in Spring I could probably have told you a damn sight more about Yoda than I could about the One-Eyed Bastard. Even now, "Judge me by my size, do you?" springs more readily to mind than "Hold not in scorn, nor mock in thy halls a guest or wandering wight". This is all stuff I had to sit down and learn, recently, consciously and with some effort.
 
 
Tamayyurt
16:49 / 31.12.05
Oh, I do agree with you... I was just trying argue why might Yoda feel more powerful then Odin to someone else. Guess I didn't do a good job of it. Maybe someone with that particular view could chime in and enlighten us?
 
 
Imaginary Mongoose Solutions
21:50 / 31.12.05
I haven't done any traditional godwork in so long, nor do I include many traditional gods in my allies, so it's hard to be an objective judge. That said, I work with pop culture-y entities pretty much exclusively these days and continualy find myself shocked by the depths and immenseness that can be found there.

My interactions with Xorn, over the past few years, have been deeply life-affecting and have surprised me in their level of interaction and... well hell, just their depth. The only thing that has ever approached it is my work with the Morrigan, back in the proverbial day.

I've honestly been off my game regarding any godwork this past year, so I'm slowly strating to build my relations back up again and she is one of the entities that I'm contemplating trying to make inroads with again. However, until recently, my most called upon allies have been Xorn, Phoenix, and El-ahrairah (from Watership Down).
 
 
--
23:02 / 31.12.05
Well, this is hardly an original insight, but I think that "pop culture magic" and "working with fictional characters" gets slighted alot by more "serious occultists because the entities you're working with haven't been around as long as figures from mythology, and thus appear to have less substance or resonance. Generally, when you're doing, say, a ritual, the prospect of invoking a wild god like Pan tends to fill one with more of a feeling of awe and mystery then, you know, calling on Bugs Bunny. However, a lot of the pop culture figures we use today are still very young, most of them originating in the last 100 years or so. Given that, in some ways, telling stories about gods back then (what we call mythology today) was the ancient civilization format of entertainment, I wouldn't be surprised if the Star Wars pantheon carries much more authority a couple of hundreds of years from now.

My problem with working with pop culture entities is what I tend to call the "giggles factor". I mean, if you look at it from a detatched viewpoint, there's something hilarious about an individual actually taking the time to sit down and exert a great deal of energy summoning Magneto. Using Yoda as an example like everyone else, I mean, when you get down to it he was a puppet voiced by Frank Oz, who also did the voice of Fozzie Bear. So there's that problem, not to mention telling someone else about it and keeping a straight face... Like that comment above, actually. It warms my heart that we live in a world where someone can say something like "Working with Xorn has really helped me (and so forth)" but I don't think I could say such a thing without smiling. In terms of pop culture, I've probably had most success with the Cthulhu Mythos, as they're suitably alien and creepy top get that proper feeling of awe. I was pretty much a child of pop culture myself, but as a child I also had a huge fascination with mythology, especially that of the Greeks and the Egyptians, not so much their gods but their monsters and bestiaries. The Cthulhu entities are a good mix of occultism and science fiction, I feel, plus I like all the watery, undersea creatures that, to an extent, are their familiars.

Alex Thoth, I notice you posted pictures of two of your fictional characters as stand-ins for godwork, and you've told me before about working with your own characters. I can associate myself with such a notion to some degree, as sometimes I'm working on a story and one character really leaps out at me. I tend to enjoy working with such entities as they feel more like presents from the universe rather then just working with something that someone else made up. That is, they seem to have more of a personal, private resonance.
 
 
--
23:04 / 31.12.05
Oh yeah, Imaginary Mongoose Solutions, I'm not mocking you or anything, I'm just saying that I'd have trouble making a statement like that without having my tongue in cheek. I think it takes a lot of balls (or vagina or whatever) to be totally sincere when saying such a thing and not being campy or ironic about it.
 
 
nyarlathotep's shoe horn
01:50 / 01.01.06
archetypes.

superman is hercules. They have different specifics, but they both embody the Strong Man archetype. (maybe one of the reasons that they were mainstays in the circus sideshow).

Bugs Bunny is New York City's answer to the Trickster God. We have allowed the Devil to be so villified so as to remove this role from him, leaving the job open for whichever Bronx Bunny might make that left turn at Albuquerque.

invoking the gods is always a giggle fit. Most of them have wry senses of humour. Most of them get the cosmic joke, and are waiting for us to catch on so we can all laugh together.

Even Oscar the Grouch laughs!

-not jack
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
12:53 / 01.01.06
See, this kind of frustrates me... I kind of feel that I'm talking at cross-purposes with most of the other people in this thread. We're using similar terminology so it looks like we're talking about the same thing, but we're not, or not really.

What I hope I can convey here is the fact that I'm not coming at all this from one single narrow perspective, that of the hard (or at least moderately firm) polytheist and spirit-worker. I've done the pop culture entity work; for various reasons not germane to this thread, I stepped away from deity work about 10 years ago. Even before then, I was taking the approach that 'godforms' (a term I've since amputated from my vocabulary with a fucking handsaw) were archetypal figures without any independant reality, fragments of Jung's collective unconscious. I really got into entity work about 5 or 6 years ago, working with figures drawn from fiction, servitors such as Fotamecus (if we interpret servitors as entities, something I'm not entirely clear on) and my own sub-personalities. Some of this work was as deep as a puddle and too half-arsed in conception and execution to yeild any interesting results, but some of it was fucking amazing. I am really glad I spent some time thoroughly investigating that approach, and I still think fondly of the bond I built up with my chosen characters. Working with pop-culture entities can be life-changing stuff when you really get into it--I was nodding and grinning when I read Imaginary Mongoose Solutions' comments on hir work with Xorn.

However.

Life-enchancing and amazing though working with pop-culture archetypes can be, in my experience it is a radically different experience from all out deity and spirit work in nature and scale. This is what I'm seeking--and generally failing--to convey. Nothing--and I do mean nothing--in my magical career has prepared me for the impact of the work I've been doing recently. It's been exhilarating, frightening, humbling, and totally fucking mental. Making the leap from pop-culture entities and gods-as-archetypes to approaching Gods qua Gods isn't easy though, partly because the mainstream of modern Western occultism seems to me to hold it as practically taboo. This is just my opinion, but I don't think that archtype and pop-culture work is the edgy minority activity that it's sometimes made out to be; in fact, I'd say it's pretty much the norm and has been for years. I find it very telling that I've only been able to find one or two other places besides the Temple where I can even hope to discuss the kind of work I'm doing. It's very hard to persuade people to even begin re-evaluating the recieved wisdom regarding this subject: the much-touted idea that pop-culture icons are somehow only Gods-in-waiting; the Small Gods/Sandman model of Gods as somehow feeding off worship and needing it to survive; and so forth. Even the simple word worship can kick off a slew of reflexive antagonism.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
14:02 / 01.01.06
This article has some interesting comments on the subject:

"[The divine answering machine] is a phenomenon that those of us who work closely with deities have observed for quite a while. If you approach a deity who does not wish to speak to you directly, you get the cosmic equivalent of their answering machine. A deity's cosmic answering machine is complex, impressive, and it can do a lot of things, including give advice, recite key statements, receive prayers, and put out a little power for appropriate magicks. It is not, however, the voice of the deity itself. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, although one may be fooled into thinking that the voice of man (or an archetype) is the voice of deity, no one could ever mistake the actual presence and voice of deity for anything but what it is.

Approaching the deity without believing in them is almost sure to get you the answering machine, and if you've never heard anything else, you might not ever know the difference. The sole exception to that is if a deity takes an interest in you, and decides to make sure that you really believe in them. If that happens, they generally win, if you're important enough to them.If you keep your eyes staunchly closed, they may give up and move on, deciding that you're not worth it."

I'm certain now that when I was doing my very earliest evocatory work, I got that answering machine pretty much all the time. (The first time I actually got the deity, I freaked and hung up for a decade or so. But that's another story.)
 
 
Seth
23:27 / 01.01.06
I wonder if the Gods themselves have an opinion on how you should talk about them. I hesitate to say for sure, but I imagine you might get some startlingly different responses depending on who you ask.

As far as ideas off the top of my head go I like the vocabulary I learned in church: communing, waiting on, interceding, ministering, immanent presence, etc. Those words are loaded enough for me… and I also have no problems with words like worship or devotions. Would any of those be appropriate?
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
02:16 / 02.01.06
I wonder if the Gods themselves have an opinion on how you should talk about them.

Stone me, I never thought to ask. And here's me with Team Saga ready for their literary close-up, too. I wish I could think of a really good excuse as to why I never came up with that notion myself.

I like the vocabulary I learned in church: communing, waiting on, interceding, ministering, immanent presence, etc. Those words are loaded enough for me…

I like those words too, but without the early education and experiences to inform them they need fleshing out before they can be brought into play. Pre-teaching the lexis, as we say in TEFLese: digging out a small but crucial handful of terms which must be defined before we get cracking.

and I also have no problems with words like worship or devotions. Would any of those be appropriate?

I know you don't, and neither do I; but the target audience I'm trying to reach does have a problem with those words, a massive problem. I've pretty much schooled myself to accept that if I use the word 'worship' I may well to have to spend a few paragraphs further down the page explaining exactly what I meant by that word. I'm thinking celebration, of worth, but what many magicians hear is obsequiousness. The word worship in certain kinds of occult community is so larded with negative associations that it can take several goes before I manage to get across the fact that No, I'm not just grovelling on my face in front of my graven image of choice because I'm scared of facing something (myself, the Universe, what-have-you). It would be easy for me to paint this as a faliure on the part of the reader, but it would also be a bit arrogant and really rather unhelpful.

I'm stuck with essays, aren't I.
 
 
Unconditional Love
11:45 / 02.01.06
Some practices are constantly alive, they live in people, is there for example a christian praying or singing at this moment? in all probability yes, a buddhist chanting or meditating, yes, a hindu in some form of devotional activity, yes. In most moments around the world these events are taking place in human beings, not on screens or on paper, the spirt is embodied, the spirit is flesh.

Remove the media matrix of informational flow and pop cultural entities exsist where? without the machinery the forms flounder.

Gods and goddesses dont need an image, a shrine, a church, these things help propogate spirits but they arent nessecary.

Pop culture entities are based upon mans invention, without humans invention as intermediary to the entities they dont exsist.

Take away humans from the gods and goddesses, and they are still there.

Spirits dont require humans. Pop culture work is entirely based upon a crux of egocentic and humanocentric behaviour it fits very neatly into athiest secular humanism that posits man as the centre of the universe and that that universe can be be moulded and formed by man as he wills without any regard for the natural environment and spirits that surround him.

Working with spirits requires submission and relationship management and an acknowledgement of how very little man is.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
15:35 / 02.01.06
I don’t think you can really convey the essence of your experiences with this any more clearly than you are doing. People just won’t get it unless they’ve actually had a qualitatively different experience themselves. Would you have taken someone else’s word for it yourself, before you got connected up? Probably not, because what we are talking about would have been entirely outside of your frame of reference just as it is with most magicians that don’t work in this way. The closest you can get to it is something like what the “answering machine” anecdote is attempting to convey – working with the archetype or idea of a God rather than an actual God speaking to you and interacting with you. People tend not to believe that magic can be as… real. Even experienced magicians struggle with the notion of something quite so living, vibrant, mental as this stuff. I think magicians can sometimes set limits on their own capacity to experience magic, and that this enforcement of boundaries is largely an unconscious process related to the desire to remain in control of the experience. What could be more terrifying to the magician’s ego than the implications of what we’re talking about here? Is it really that surprising that there is so much resistance to the notion? Isn’t it easier to have nice safe Jungian archetypes in the subconscious mind?

Whilst I doubt you’re likely to get anywhere with trying to convince people about this stuff online, the very fact that you’re speaking directly from your own experience about entity work – with experiences that largely contradict the received wisdom of the chaos magic party line on such matters – is fantastic. One of the most important aspects of chaos magic, to my mind, is not being afraid to revise your received knowledge in the light of your direct practical experience. Yet when such experiences lead to conclusions way outside the comforting dogma of recognised chaos magic theory, then we get to see how well that assertion stands up and the extent to which people are actually prepared to step outside of their preferred “paradigm”. Often not very far at all.
 
 
SMS
15:37 / 02.01.06
I'm stuck with essays, aren't I.
Perhaps we could be blessed with them. I'd be interested in reading a thread on the meaning and purpose of worship and devotion (or something in the general vicinity).
 
 
Digital Hermes
21:02 / 02.01.06
A pair of thoughts:

The perceived insufficency of language may be a clue itself. It's fairly easy to use langague to define and encapsulate pop culture figures. The divine, either as a subconcious or truly extra-real entity, are perhaps beyond language, beyond the word. Or rather, we don't have proper words yet. Rather then the context of our world, they are it's super- or sub-text. Would that hit a chord with the difficulty of describing them?

Second:
Yet when such experiences lead to conclusions way outside the comforting dogma of recognised chaos magic theory, then we get to see how well that assertion stands up and the extent to which people are actually prepared to step outside of their preferred “paradigm”. Often not very far at all.

Though this may be threadrot, I had to point to this. This is great. I've often found it interesting how dogmatic some Chaotes can be. It almost seems like an oxymoron, doesn't it?
 
 
Digital Hermes
22:03 / 02.01.06
I was reading a bit on Wikipedia about gnosticism, and it discusses the general tendancies when describing God. (Not the demiurge, but the true deity beyond, for those gnostics out there.)

In essence, gnosticism posits a God that may not be described in any rational sense; it is only possible to say what God isn't, and the experience of it remains something, again, in defiance of rational description.

This is reference to my first thought there, just posted to further the point a little.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
09:16 / 04.01.06
Would you have taken someone else’s word for it yourself, before you got connected up?

Really hard to say now--my perspective's shifted a great deal and getting back into an earlier mindset is nontrivial. I don't think I'd have taken anyone's word for it, and it's doubtful I'd really have understood what they were talking about. It'd be pleasant to imagine that I might have entertained the idea though. Partly it would depend on who was talking and what I knew about them.

Part of the problem is even explaining what I mean by 'a God'. And a big part of that problem is not really knowing what They are. Do angels cut themselves shaving and all that.
 
 
Dead Megatron
10:12 / 04.01.06
I know this is slightly off-topic, bu let's go for it anyway:

superman is hercules. They have different specifics, but they both embody the Strong Man archetype.

Superman is more than the Strong Man. He is also the Wise Man, the Guarding Angel. He is a guiding light for humanity, a example to be emulated. He is not Hercules, he is Apollo reloaded, he is Baldur with more action (the only difference is that, in the new myth, Apollo/Baldur was sent to Earth because Heaven was no more, destroyed by some "ragnarok", and Earth is the only place left for him to live. Jor-el is Zeus/Odin, and he is dead. Says a lot about the modern mindset, huh?)

Oh, and by the way, Superman is not Nietzsche's Übermensch, as some would say. Lex Luthor is Nietzsche's Übermensch.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
11:30 / 04.01.06
Take away humans from the gods and goddesses, and they are still there.

Spirits dont require humans.

I think this is a pretty key understanding. As I mentioned above, it seems to me that there's a strong preference for the "gods need worship" model amongst modern magical practitioners and it just doesn't seem to hold water. Forgotten gods and spirits can re-emerge and speak with us again after thousands of years.

There's a kind of smugness about that concept, something icky. I guess the image of once-powerful deities reduced to scavenging for scraps in some cosmic junk-heap, clutching at the sleeve of the Mighty Mage with wizened fingers and coughing "spare a prayer, Guvner?" is pretty seductive because it's really stuck.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
11:42 / 04.01.06
Perhaps that idea in western magic is rooted in the influence of the old grimoire magic model on interactions with spirits? A lot of that material takes place within the context of an ostensibly Christian mindset, and the magician commands, demands and threatens "demons" to do his or her bidding, under the authority of God and the heirarchies of Angels. As has been pointed out elsewhere, these demons were in some cases forgotten Gods and Powers of other cultures, subdued by Biblical likely lads such as Solomon. The influence of this form of magic on modern notions of "invocation" and "evocation" - as passed down via the Golden Dawn and Crowley - is immense. So I wonder to what extent this position of assumed control and subjugation has filtered into the background politics of how many western magicians prefer to interact with spirits?
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
13:39 / 04.01.06
I think that's probably a big part of the story. All that conjuring, abjuring, binding, banishing and generally throwing one's weight about is kind of ingrained on some level because there's simply not much to challenge it in our culture.

Looking to historical sources predating this model is a good idea in theory, but in practice it's not always possible. Few practices survived long enough to be recorded, let alone into modern times. Archaeology can only tell us so much about what people believed. Firsthand accounts from pre-Christian practitioners themselves are pretty much non-existant, so anything that remains is filtered through the lens of the observer's own beliefs and prejudices. Take that tantalising passage by Tacitus regarding what appears to be a casting of the runes; he's good enough to tell us a bit about the wood used and how the reading was done, but only refers to 'signs' being carved into the lots. What signs? Futhark characters, pictures, something else? We don't know because Tacitus didn't think it was important enough to put in his book.

Then these accounts are further garbled by modern authors on the subject of magic, who generally want them to support some pet theory or existing belief and will ensure that they do so with a lump-hammer and a cleaver if necessary.

Even when Western magicians look to other cultures' living magicoreligious practices, it's seldom with an eye to approaching them on their own terms: the general drive seems to be to try and shoehorn everything into the existing model (cf: "the Lwa are the dark side of the Tree of Life!"). Nothing is ever allowed to challenge the existing approach too much, it just gets processed into an acceptable form. And that's really hard to get away from, really hard to escape, because the attitudes become part of what magic "is". If you step too far outside the frame it's somehow not magic anymore.
 
 
Quantum
14:45 / 04.01.06
There's a kind of smugness about that concept, something icky.

I blame Pratchett more than Gaiman but I agree wholeheartedly.

Controversially, I do believe in historical inertia, old gods are more powerful than new. My opinion isn't worth much because I don't do much entity work (a little bit of shamanic totemism, a speckle of Hermes devotion etc) but if I did I'd choose Mercury over the Flash, Eshu over the Joker and so on. Old skool rools.

Reading that back I realised it's a bit of a lie, I'd probably use the Tarot keys instead of the gods, but that's because I'm a dabbler. The Hanged Man is Wotan, but Odin isn't just the drowned Pheonician sailor, if you see what I mean.
 
 
Dead Megatron
14:51 / 04.01.06
Bugs Bunny is New York City's answer to the Trickster God

I couldn't agree more. And Daffy Duck, as said in the Babylon 5 series, is a "household god of frustation"

I just thought the following: Darkseid would be a great god for a cult of nihilist fascist warmongering assassins. In fact, the whole New Genesis-Apokolips mythos is filled wiht perfect pop-culture archetypes
 
 
Quantum
14:58 / 04.01.06
Here's a thought for you- Bugs Bunny versus Loki? I know who'd I'd put my groat on.
 
 
Quantum
15:02 / 04.01.06
And another thought, pop archetypes are created (e.g. Siegel & Schuster created Superman) in a way that Gods are not.

You don't get disclaimers at the beginning of sagas-
"Loki & Thor created by Lars Larsson, Wotan created by Erik Magnusson..."
 
 
Dead Megatron
15:19 / 04.01.06
Excellent point, Quantum. Gods do not have copyrights

And, as for Loki, I never thought of it as much a trickster god as a god of reason lost in a pantheon of wargods. He, in fact, was not evil, but was considered so by ancient norsmen because he rather talk his way out of trouble (diplomacy) and to use arguments so complex (logic) that would seem like trickstery to less intelligent gods who measured honor and power only by phisical prowess (like Thor). Because he prefered talking instead of fighting, he seemed like a coward and a liar in a age where strenght was the only value, the perefered way to resolve disputes, and pillaging and kidnaping women were considered proof of valor and manhood. Loki is much more akin to modern western tought than Odin or Thor, with their warmongering ways, could ever be. Funny, huh!
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
15:48 / 04.01.06
Care to provide references to the Eddas for those assertions? Particularly the bit about Odin being "unintelligent" and unable to comprehend tricksterism. You could perhaps also explain exactly how the Northern tradition is a pantheon of War Gods?
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
15:53 / 04.01.06
The Hanged Man is Wotan, but Odin isn't just the drowned Pheonician sailor, if you see what I mean.

Just wanted to highlight that cos I think it's really important. Batman might be Ghede, and appears on some altars I've seen as a statue for Ghede, but Ghede is not just Batman.
 
 
Dead Megatron
16:07 / 04.01.06
OK, Odin was not "uninteligent". He could understand Loki very well (he adopted the little fella, after all), but I imagine he would have a hard time explaining Loki's actions to other gods. Loki and Odin were the most intelligent of the Aesirs, no doubt, bu while intelligent was Loki's proeminent feature, it was onlu one of Odin's many. Odin was also strong as Thor, wise as, say, Baldur, and also had the advantage of being all-knowing. But the norsmen who worshiped them probably could not tell the difference. For them, Odin ruled becaused he was "tough", not because he was "smart".

I want to point out that everything I said in this thread is my own personnal take on the gods as seen through the eyes of pop-culture. I am not a purist or a scholar, so I am just talking things from the top of my head (or, as we say down here in Brazil, I'm flatt out "shitting rules"). So, don't take it too seriously if I say something preposterous.

This theory on Loki, Thor, and Odin came to me as I was reading a Marvel comic book, so you can expect lots of distortions from the original concept. (you know, gods as super-heroes and all)
 
 
nyarlathotep's shoe horn
16:11 / 04.01.06
i started reading "divine horsemen" (about voudou) and the author draws an interesting distinction between spirits which have always been, and spirits which ascend.

[over-simplified version]
after death, your spirit is invited into an urn of sorts, and kept on the family mantle/altar/place of honour.

As the family passes through time, and the deceased's children have children, the spirit passes from deceased relative to ancestor. As the generations progress, the ancestor becomes divine.

these spirits are different from the spirits that always were, and in some ways are more powerful.

which is Superman? Which Apollo?

gods can't be copywritten. So what's Warner Brothers' problem? They're trying to contain a trickster. Are they ever in for trouble.

owing to some recent discoveries in the world of astronomy/astrology/time measure:

the stories of the gods are written in the stars. do you speak symbol?

--not jack

ps Superman is Apollo, I sit corrected.

pps Batman's story is a much richer mythology than Superman's (depending on who's writing which tale, but overall...)
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
16:13 / 04.01.06
I want to point out that everything I said in this thread is my own personnal take on the gods as seen through the eyes of pop-culture. I am not a purist or a scholar, so I just talking things from the top of my head So, don't take it too seriously if I say something preposterous.

It's OK, I wasn't taking you seriously at all. Less "making it up off the top of your head" and more speaking from direct personal experience or scholarship, please. Otherwise post what you have to say in the creation forum where it belongs.

This theory on Loki, Thor, and Odin came to me as I was reading a Marvel comic book, so you can expect lots of distortions from the original concept. (you know, gods as super-heroes and all)

No shit. Are we reading the same thread here?
 
 
Dead Megatron
17:03 / 04.01.06
Yeah, sorry about that. I got a little carried away with the "Loki is not Bugs Bunny" line of thought...
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
18:08 / 04.01.06
But the norsmen who worshiped them probably could not tell the difference. For them, Odin ruled becaused he was "tough", not because he was "smart".

If you'd read the Wikipedia entry, let alone the Eddas, you'd be aware that this is untrue. Odin is presented as a wise and farseeing being, not just a cunning warrior but a skilled wordsmith and poet, a wandering magician who repeatedly makes great sacrifices in exchange for wisdom. He didn't lose that peeper in a bar brawl, chum.

Thor is not some big dumb lunk. I refer you to the Lay of Alviss for details.

And Loki, God of reason? More like God of poor impulse control. Cutting off Thor's wife's hair for kicks and giggles is not the act of a reasonable deity.
 
 
Dead Megatron
18:45 / 04.01.06
God of reasoning instead of God of reason may be a better way to express what I meant. And I always had the impression Loki may have been seriously slandered in norse mythology. It happens sometimes: as gods lose power and influence over the centuries to their enemies, they end up being portraied as "evil". The same has happened to Set in Egipt, Satan and all pagan deities in Christianism, and Chronos and the other Titans in Greece.
 
  

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