The General Religion, Mythology, and Theology Thread

Stay classy, Priapus.

First, I'm amazed at the utter lack of interest of Vikinglanders in their ancestral mythology. They don't care at all. They're more familiar with Marvel's Thor than even Valhalla, let alone the actual cycles.

I myself am most familiar with Woden in his Wagnerian incarnation, who, there, was mostly an Asshole with capital A, controlled by greed, unfaithful, arrogant, unforgiving, and a misogynistic and filicidal prick.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

In the myths I read Odin seems more or less decent. He rules Valhalla fairly and treats humans relatively well when he comes in contact with them.

His thing is more that he's also at eternal war with the Frost Giants and always preparing to face Ragnarok in the future, so he has occasional bouts of ruthlesness, but always for a great good of some sort. It's not like Zeus who's a dick for no goddamn reason. Odin tends to be a more The Needs of the Many kind of guy.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."

As Sky Bullies Fathers go Odin is pretty decent. He's not a serial rapist like Zeus or a genocidal maniac like Yahweh. Yes he can be a Manipulative Bastard but that's because he's fighting against the end of everything and he's not afraid to pay the cost. He gave an eye for the sacred mead and speared himself to the World Tree as a vision quest.

Trump delenda est

That's Metal as fuck.

Inter arma enim silent leges

I knew that Odin sacrificed an eye for wisdom, but he got the wisdom in the form of sacred mead?

I am suddenly much more skeptical of this wisdom. Makes me think of this (site NSFW).

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

There's a reason The Metal scene has such a obsession with Nordic mythology.

Reminder: The norse mythos state Earth is the flesh of a giant, the oceans are his blood, the mountains his bones, the trees his hair, the sky his skull. In the wise words of Jontron...

"All you Fascists bound to lose."

Ymir must have looked pretty weird if his skull was big enough for the rest of his body to fit inside it, though I guess there might have been leftover parts.

Still a great "screw depression" song even after seven years.

Maybe during the battle that did him in his corpse fused together into a round-shape, condensing himself in a extremely compact form like a crumpled tissue of paper.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."

Sounds like Wagner.

Keep Rolling On

See, that's the thing. Barring Wagner, Woden is the loose equivalent in the German pantheon. I understand the relationship to be similar to the Greeks and the Romans. Id est, the names and/or overall builds are nearly identical, but the character traits can be radically different.

If anyone knows the non-Norse Germanic mythologies in more detail, could you fill us in?

edited 1st Jul '16 9:15:07 AM by SpaceWolf

This is a signature.

Wagner deliberately distorted the myth and angered folklorists because he wanted to make An Aesop about greed and compromise being bad and love and passion being good. Or something like that.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

He gave his eye in exchange for drinking from a sacred well. The mead thing is from a different myth.

Don't ruin the fun. Exchanging your eye for mead is the most metal thing, ever.

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Remember when Metal was dangerous, fearsome, and youth-ruining? Now it's become... *shudder*... classic.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Quebec aren't into Canada as a "thing"?

edited 1st Jul '16 11:34:26 AM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Wrong thread there mate.

The Finnish Ukko, shares a similar symbol◊ to Thor (being a thunder god), but was also the highest god (or developed into it over the centuries) with some Odinish/Zeusy characteristics (king, sky, beard etc.). I suppose being the highest and all, and also being intimately tied to the very lives of the people worshipping them (weather primarily) makes the assumption, that the king of the skies might not be the nicest person around.

Interestingly, the word vasara (hammer) is probably a loan word from the Sanskrit word vajra. The god Indra wields a vajra, and the god Ukko wields a vasara. Not to mention that the Finnish word for god and heaven (jumala and taivas) might be from Sanskrit rootwords as well. Indo-european at the very least, but nobody is really sure.

It is a mystery.◊

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele

Unless some Quebecois treat where they live as a Religion (no doubt some do)^note  ...and I'll stop there before I mention the S-word.

edited 1st Jul '16 10:36:47 AM by Greenmantle

Keep Rolling On

My Dad got real depressed when he heard a Metallica song on the oldies station.

"Any campaign world where an orc samurai can leap off a landcruiser to fight a herd of Bulbasaurs will always have my vote of confidence"

oh, odin? I like Odin!

Odin is an interesting character with really neat themes. He's a person who would do anything for power and knowledge. He pinned himself to the world tree with a spear; hung there for 14 days and 14 night in order to learn magic runes. He gave up an eye for the mead of wisdom. He learned magic that was inappropriate for men, even though doing so was costly to his reputation.

He's also kind of a jerk who likes to start fights for no discernible reason. He's the sort of fellow who would give you a magic sword so you could kill someone that slighted you, knowing full well that this will lead to five generations of feuding.

I doubt the other gods liked him much, but he kept his position by being a fucking sorcerer and an old, clever son-of-a-bitch.

That's actually a great template for a Fallout faction leader...

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

WELL of wisdom. Not mead! I don't care how metal it is, I refuse to let an inaccuracy go! Odinn gave his eye up so he could drink from the wise giant Mímir's well, situated at the tip of one of the ash Yggdrasil's three roots.

You're all confusing this myth with the myth of the poet's mead (skáldamjöðurinn), which was made from the blood of the wise god Kvasir, who himself was made from the combined saliva of the Æsir and the Vanir — two clans of gods that combined their spit to symbolically end their long war. Odinn did acquire this mead, but he didn't trade his eye for it — he just straight-up stole it, implicitly after seducing the daughter of the giant who owned it. Odinn drank the mead, turned into a hawk and flew back to Asgard, where he vomited it out for the gods to pick up. Anyone who drinks the mead is gifted with the gift of poetry.

On his way, Odinn the hawk also crapped some of that mead onto the earth. Anyone who comes into contact with that became a crappy poet.

That may be the best "Just So" Story I ever read. What a punchline!

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Okay, that's not any less metal. I approve.

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x5 I thought it was nine days.

ETA: According to the Other Wiki it was nine days and it was a soring, not a well and the spring was mead. We are probably dealing with multiple stories which have a tendency to melt together.

''Nine days I hung from the World Tree A sacrifice of myself to myself''

One of the most badass lines in the history of poetry

edited 1st Jul '16 1:35:22 PM by tricksterson

Trump delenda est

I think I read somewhere that the Zeus (and most/all of the other Greek gods) of earlier Greek myths was much less of a dick than the one from later myths.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.