Male Roles Vs. Female Roles in Fiction: Discussion/Analysis/Troperwank

Wait, there are significant numbers of people who follow Greek Polytheism?

I follow a general-purpose polytheism. Does that count?

I cannot say with 100% certainty which deities I think are real and which I don't. But I do look out at the world and say, "I think a clusterf*ck of competing divine intellects and agendas explains this mess a whole lot better than one deity's seamless, perfect master plan."

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 20th 2019 at 1:13:02 PM

Might as well.

That's interesting, it's not something one would think is impossible but it seems rather interestingly anachronistic.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Mar 20th 2019 at 12:13:34 PM

there is a wikipedia page on it

and yeah there are pagans for most religions. We just rarely think about it because our culture is a bit, uh, skewed on the religious perspective? But I've hung out in the communities before. They exist.

You could argue it's not, er, centralized in the way a lot of christian offshoots are, but it's still a religion, and when looking at the stories written, it's worth using that lens when analyzing imo.

Edited by MrAHR on Mar 20th 2019 at 3:17:12 PM

Prior to going to a class on the subject and reading this thread, I had no idea that there were actual reasons behind very old mythology ideas. It makes me appreciate them even more.

Edited by GAP on Mar 20th 2019 at 2:17:40 PM

For me as a polytheist, religious discussions are weird 'cause, like, when I think of "different religions", I think

• Greek
• Egyptian
• Christian
• Hindu
• Shintoism
• Buddhism

Etc. etc. But for a lot of people, especially people in this country, they hear "different religions" and they think

• Catholic
• Baptist
• Lutheran
• Protestant
• Jehova's Witness

etc. etc. And I'm like, "That. That's one religion. Different sects, but one religion."

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 20th 2019 at 1:22:32 PM

Yeah. I mean I'm muslim and I STILL got hit with that mentality. It took me ages to realize that there are lots of religions out there that don't look anything like we think they do. It's really easy to assume, especially in the US, at least in my experiences.

Meanwhile here in Finland I was like "Oh wait, Americans aren't Catholic/There are multiple different protestant church there?" years ago

(that said, Religious Education doesn't go super in detail about other religions than our version of Christianity, but it still goes through basics of Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism(still confused that is what English calls Kungfutse) and Shinto. I don't remember Zoroastrianism or Sikhism being mentioned or at least they were only briefly details)

Edited by SpookyMask on Mar 21st 2019 at 10:58:53 AM

Fascinating as this is, we do have a Religion thread.

Eh, there's a caveat here as I am both a Christian theist and a fan of shows like Lucifer.

Medusa could indeed be someone's polytheist Greek religious icon while simultaneously having a fictional representation in someone's television that exist as two separate continuities. While some people may object to a story someone may write about Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter (my boss David Wilson did "This is my Blood" as a Stoker award nominated work) — I don't think people have a leg to stand on in complaining about it because most religion is personal but public domain.

Subject to critique, reinterpretation, and differing opinions.

The use of Medusa as a parable (that's a word that has gone out of style but is still very relevant) on slut shaming (for a consensual encounter) and victim blaming (for a rape victim) is extremely useful. However, you can also remove that element because each universe's Medusa is different and there's certainly value to a story of Medusa the oathbreaker. It's just not the story many remember.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Mar 21st 2019 at 5:28:46 AM

I mean, yes, obviously. I didn't say otherwise. The main thing is when we're critiquing the base myths we should keep in mind what lens we're using.

Even Lucifer and most other stories avoid depicting certain aspects of religion. We never really see Jesus or God in stories like Lucifer or SPN. It's a weird unspoken cultural norm. So even when you have fictional stories there are some boundaries that don't get crossed nearly as often.

Didn't God show up in some recent seasons of Supernatural?

God might have! But I definitely know that there were several seasons set with angels as major characters and we never actually met god.

Granted I do know that there's implications that someone who died and is showing up is Actually God, but in the 8 seasons or so I watched of it, it was always vague or implied. So I think it's worth using as a reference.

Hellblazer is also based around the fact that Hell is awful.

But God may be worse.

Preacher removed all ambiguity from the idea.

I'll take this opportunity to mention that I'm really tired of the shtick of "heaven and hell/angels and demons exist and they're both equally terrible irredemable assholes". It was a fresh idea at one point but is now kind of hackneyed. I'm not even a christian or particularly against christianity being criticized, but writers tend to do in the exact same way over and over again that it's gotten kinda boring.

I second Drag's take. The whole "Heaven and Hell are equally rotten" has pretty much been beaten to the curb by this point for me. It doesn't help it can unintentionally feed into the "Both sides!" fallacy and it often leads to a "humans are awesome" narrative that just bores me to tears.

I tend to be of the "there are no good or bad ideas, only bad storytelling." Then again, as an author I WOULD say that wouldn't I?

, Agreed. You hit the nail on the head as to why I can't stand it anymore, and the fact that it's not a bad idea in concept but certain particular repetitive takes have beat it into the ground.

Oddly, Jesus DID show up in American Gods the series as a major character.

Unlike the book.

They had Mexican Jesus gunned down during a Border Crossing.

I kind of feel like we don't have enough sci fi, fantasy and superhero media showing humans as awesome. At the same time, I also feel they also have a major case of what measure is a non human influencing the writing.

It is a dilemma.

I oddly have the opposite problem where humans are always some kind of mythical race of badasses in sci-fi.

There's almost never a sci-fi franchise where humans are the Belgium of Space and I mean that with all my love to Belgium.

We're always a superpower or The Chosen One.

Sorry what do you mean by "Belgium"? I'm not familiar with how some countries are viewed these days.

Which is to say it is an important and obviously notable country but it isn't the driver or world shaker in the galaxy.

No offense intended to Belgium.

Usually Earth is Space United States, Space Rome, or the only power in the galaxy period.

Yeah, Earth is never Space Finland

Though isn't role of humanity in scifi also off topic in this thread?

Good point.

So to get back to the topic that accidentally sent us down this road, I hope to see more complex takes on "evil" female characters from myths like Medea.

Edited by windleopard on Mar 22nd 2019 at 6:18:21 AM