The General Religion, Mythology, and Theology Thread

The closest thing to a Greek deity of luck was Tyche.

Wikipedia's entry on Tyche

And note that she wasn't a deity of good luck alone.

Edited by M84 on Mar 6th 2019 at 11:53:23 PM

Forgotten Realms had them split up.

I was always fond of Tymora.

:)

No, they have the Heaven and Hell thing too. It's just different parts of Hades. Righteous souls went to the Elyisum fields, unrighteous souls had various tortures applied to you like rolling rocks up and down hills.

It's a pretty common divide that there's one Underworld but different parts of it. It's actually pretty rare for humans to come live with the gods who usually get their own place.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Mar 6th 2019 at 8:11:06 AM

Well, at least which afterlife you went to had nothing to do which god you worshipped I think?

The Greek gods didn't have unique afterlives for their followers. They just decided to make use of the underworld that was already present. They already had Tartarus as the go-to bad afterlife eternal torture prison, so all they really needed to do was make the non shitty parts.

Edited by M84 on Mar 7th 2019 at 1:09:30 AM

The only “humans coming to live with gods” in mythology I can recall is Norse, with Odin’s chosen warriors who died in battle getting spirited away by the Valkyries to drink and party in Odin’s hall Valhalla until it was time for them to fight with the Aesir during Ragnarok.

The only time what god you worshipped determines what plane you go to in the afterlife is in Dungeons and Dragons, which makes a big deal about god and player morality.

For the most part, people acknowledged and payed respects to most if not all of the gods of a particular pantheon, but often chose to focus on worshipping a central god or a few more important ones depending on the person’s profession, where you were (Ares was highly revered in Sparta, Athena was the patron god of Athens, etc.) and what particular role each god played.

Edited by ILikeRobots on Mar 6th 2019 at 9:33:03 AM

IIRC, the only thing that mattered (for the ancient Greeks, at least) was if you'd got an afterlife at all. And it was determined by whether or not you've had a proper burial.

Well, Judeo-Christian (I really think "Islamic" should be hyphened there as well) belief does say rightous souls will live alongside God as well.

And depending on how much you are willing to stretch the concept of "Afterlife with Deities" thing, in Buddhism I do believe it is possible for one to reincarnate as a god, though generally is not recommended as the easy life will make it harder for you to achieve Nirvana.

x2 Yup. Greeks and Romans had their own concept of purgatory depending on if the dead has been given the ferry fee across the River Styx. No payment for Charon, and that person’s shade wandered the river banks outside of the afterlife blankly.

Edited by ILikeRobots on Mar 6th 2019 at 9:38:16 AM

Pure Land Buddhism has, well, the Pure Land in which you will have a very blissful time, but specifically because it's good for meditation and achieving Nirvana.

The Deva have a hard time due to the power they wield fundamentally becoming a general obstacle, not necessarily a good life per say.

Edited by TerminusEst on Mar 6th 2019 at 9:55:10 AM

Nirvana is more or less freeing oneself from mental shackles such as desire. It's very easy to see how having the power of a Deva could be an obstacle towards achieving Nirvana.

Now I'm wondering if someone could get buried with a bunch of extra coins to help them over... Are there any myths like that?

Thst would be ingenious.

But no myths like that iirc. Maybe Charon doesn’t take bribes. He has morals, after all.

_{Or more likely the Greeks and Romans just weren’t that charitable with the dead they didn’t know.}

I remember reading that a particularly malicious thing to do to one’s enemy dead was to dispose of the body without giving them a chance to be given the proper ceremony, knowing full well that they had just condemned their enemy to an eternity of forgetful purgatory.

Other times, like in warfare between the Greeks, both sides were allowed to collect their dead after the battle.

Well, it wouldn't be a bribe per se. It'd be paying other people's fees.

That's the basis of Antigone. It was such a grevious offense that they were able to make a whole play out of it.

Edited by kkhohoho on Mar 6th 2019 at 3:39:27 AM

Also the whole thing in the Illiad where Hector tried feeding Patroclus's corpse to the dogs and then Achilles raging super hard at his corpse till Priam managed to convince him.

Generally it was considered kinda heretical? to leave them unburied, going by all of mythology. Looting the corpses was fine though.

Speaking of the Iliad... Helen (of Troy) very likely was a major Greek goddess.

Until Mycenean Greece got pulverized in the Bronze Age Collapse.

She... got a bit of a downgrade, no?

Heck, a lot of female deities got heavy downgrades and refits all across the Med and beyond, both running up to the Collapse and after.

Matrilineal forms of decent and social structures also died a death (they had been declining before, but the Collapse really did for them).

As a result, lots of demonizing of once-respected gods and godesses occured, as the tales they had been part of got overhauled and/or the people who told the tales either moved or wound up with new neighbours.

In short: major upheaval = interesting times. Paradigm shifting hurts.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Mar 6th 2019 at 10:39:54 AM

Granted, she was by far one of the best characters in The Illiad by all accounts, though I can't confirm as I haven't read the poem myself.

Helen had a character? I thought she was just a metaphorical representation of a flimsy casus belli to destroy a powerful competitor?

She got turned into a Conflict Ball disguised as a Distressed Damsel/ Standard Hero Reward.

When, you know: she got kidnapped-by-deity, married against her will (while her first husband threw a fit) and had kids in that second "marriage". Never mind this is a woman who was either on her second or third kidnapping at this point. Because beautiful women/girls aren't allowed to say, "You guys do know I'm, like, ten, right?" or "You do know I'm already married, right?"

Then she got hoiked back, minus kids. And probably plus tonnes of trauma. Oh, and then gets called a slut by quite a few tellers of the tales.

Because... She somehow seduced people just by walking into rooms?

(Aphrodite was jealous: you can tell.)

Edited by Euodiachloris on Mar 6th 2019 at 12:55:33 PM

I was talking more about the original, though.

I mean, if nothing else, Paris was considered The Scrappy even among the ancient greeks.

Hector was I think part of this designated group that consisted of peeps like David as the virtuous seven?

Yeah, basically they were a group that most closely followed the code of chivalry, as everything Hector did was simply to protect his home from being conquered.

Sure, he was far from perfect, as were pretty much all the other Virtuous Seven, but they were nominated with medievel values in mind, and it can be generally agreed that, if nothing else, they all at least tried to do their best under the circumtences.

It’s very easy to like Hector

I always had a soft spot for Troy

The movie itself too

Edited by vicarious on Mar 6th 2019 at 8:14:55 AM

Paris being The Scrappy to the Greek audience is an easy explanation, since he's like the poster child for everything they hated. He's pretty much a Hate Sink for the culture and even his father and brother are telling him how much he sucks in the poem, lol.

• 1.) Prioritized his love for a woman over everything else, including loyalty to his family and country (the Greeks were ultra-misogynists to thge point male/male relationships were lauded as "being free from the base, primal instinct and grossness of women." Paraphrasing a bit. Hector, on the flipside, cared about his country and duty more than his wife, since his response was basically to shrug his shoulders when she basically tells him that she's worried about him dying and leaving her husbandless and their son fatherless.
• 2.) Violated Menelaus's hospitality by hopping in and stealing his wife. Hospitality was a huge thing in Greek culture and Zeus was the primary enforcer of "be nice to your guests." That's why you got stuff like Odysseus trying to invoke Zeus to get Polyphemus to leave him and his men alone, but sucks for him because Polyphemus' response is "Don't give a shit about what the gods say, lol."
• 3.) Really sucked at being a warrior. He had to cheat and have the gods help him in order to kill Achilles, and he would have died in their 1v1 if the strap on his helmet hadn't broken through divine intervention and let him crawl to safety.

Edited by ILikeRobots on Mar 6th 2019 at 6:06:18 AM

But even under a modern lens, you can't say Paris ever tries to present himself as sympathetic to the reader: he's a goddamn Spoiled Brat, that's as much a fact today as it was back in Ancient Greece.

A better character to compare would be Achilles, who was pretty well justified in his actions going by the mindset of the time, but nowadays is just as much of a playboy as Paris, if a more competent one.

Edited by HailMuffins on Mar 6th 2019 at 11:27:51 AM