Favourite mythological heroes?

Anyone else think a Sigurd movie would be awesome?

Yeah, New Line, please get on the case and do it. And cast Richard Armitage and Dean O'Gorman as Regin and Sigurd, Miranda Otto as Brynhild, and Evangeline Lilley (playing Tauriel in the next Hobbit movie) as Gudrun! CHRISTOPHER ECCLESTON AS FAFNIR. My favourite scene in a movie about Sigurd would probably be the dragon fight. That riddle scene with Fafnir could be epic.

edited 16th Apr '13 7:25:14 PM by MorwenEdhelwen

There was that movie of Beowolf, whose premise was admittedly interesting (going by the fact that in the myth the only person who sees Beowolf kill the monsters was Beowolf himself, the film casts him as an Unreliable Narrator) but I thought it was kind of blah.

Nitpick: I think it's spelled "Beowulf" .

edited 17th Apr '13 1:09:30 AM by MorwenEdhelwen

I liked the recent Beowulf movie. Not so much the "hot" version of Grendel's mother. I love Angelina Jolie, but cmawn. Natural high heels (ALWAYS a Berserk Button for me... guys, put on a pair of high heels and walk around in them for a while and then see how you feel about having them permanently attached to your feet), a prehensile ponytail and no definition whatsoever on her boobs or crotch? Blah. Here's what Grendel's mother REALLY looked like in the movie.◊ You do actually see it in the movie, but only very briefly in the reflection of a shield or some such.

edited 17th Apr '13 2:24:43 AM by Alma

Interestingly, Ragnar Lodbrok, the legendary Viking, was said to have been married to Aslaug, daughter of Sigurd and Brynhild. The earliest kings of Sweden, Denmark and Norway were supposedly descended from them. Aslaug Sigurdsdottir. I have no idea whether these stories are true. They're probably exaggerated.

edited 17th Apr '13 4:40:46 AM by MorwenEdhelwen

Eugh. No wonder they kept that well-hidden. That would look nightmarish moving around.

Yeah.

Fionn Mac Cumhaill. Motherfucker was awesome. Bit his thumb to receive PHENOMINAL COSMIC WISDOM, killed the guy who killed his dad...

edited 17th Apr '13 5:19:50 PM by Exelixi

Having read a bit of extra information on Cu Chulainn, I'm starting to like him more. I mean, he was already basically the mythological Hulk, which automatically earns him cool-points, but I recently learned he hooked up with Emer because she was smart enough to figure out his coded messages. I greatly respect such a value on intelligence.

One interesting question has been on my mind recently: I have several Scandinavian (Danish and Swedish) Australian friends and one German who know the story of Sigurd/Siegfried, but there are no localised variants of his story either here (or in America, according to my research.)

All we have in America is either reprints in books of myths, or the Ring of the Niebelung. So, either dry, boring recaps, or opera.

@maxwell: In other parts of America, though, you have really distinctive variants of tales like Cinderella or Jack And The Beanstalk.

Technically, though you could write a version of the Sigurd story drawing on American folklore motifs.

edited 17th Apr '13 9:31:51 PM by MorwenEdhelwen

-puts on fanatic opera fan hat-

WHAT DO YOU HAVE AGAINST OPERA?

-removes hat-

anyway... i guess i like hercules too. first hero i knew of in mythology, even if it was through disney. crazy and stupid at times, but then, everyone is. and not everyone gets to duel hundreds of monster heads and strangle a lion.

I kinda really want to see a version of the Sigurd story set in the American frontier in the 1800s now...

@Master Inferno: I could write that. But.. what would Fafnir be?

{DELETED] Double post

edited 17th Apr '13 10:59:24 PM by MorwenEdhelwen

Um...huh. Trying to think of what sort of cryptids people believed in at the time.

Fionn Mac Cumhaill didn't bite his thumb, he sucked his thumb. Which makes it more awesome.

Fafnir would probably turn into a giant bear or something.

Sigurd the werebear slayer!