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I remember one of my courses on Roman history saying a lot of the Spartan Mirage, so to speak, also comes from Romans identifying with many of the values ascribed to the Spartans. Is that correct or out of your wheelhouse? It's really great to have a classicist in the thread.
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Aug 29, 2014 04:32
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Who is David Jaffe? I can gather why he's creepy as poo poo if he's fond of that scene, but who is he?
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Sep 3, 2014 02:14
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Pvt.Scott posted:Do you think that Kratos stops and thinks about what he's done with his life? Everyone hates him, he looks like poo poo and he's letting himself be used as a pawn in an Olympian slap fight. I think he may have some self-esteem and codependency issues to work through. Is the Oracle a licensed therapist? It's less this and more that he's amazingly, legendarily thick.
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Sep 5, 2014 22:48
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Goddamn. I took a little greek before discovering I could not manage it and I never knew I was pronouncing everything so wrong. Greek is hard for an English Speaker.
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Sep 10, 2014 06:33
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bman in 2288 posted:Goddamn, Greek Mythology is maddening, I can't make sense of it. If someone makes one little mistake, it's like everybody else's poo poo gets wrecked. What would cause these deities to be so spiteful? It's not unique to them. I always joke that Yahweh really mellowed out when he had a kid, because holy poo poo is Old Testament Yahweh a shitkicker, with laws like 'You must kill everyone and destroy all their livestock and structures and spoil or I won't help you and you'll lose all your battles' or his constant arguments with Moses about 'Goddamnit Moses just let me kill all these stupid ingrate bastards already' 'NO LORD WHAT WILL THE EGYPTIANS SAY' Old Timey Deities get up to all kinds of spite and wrath.
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Sep 12, 2014 22:33
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Pvt.Scott posted:I suppose having the gods be fickle and capricious is one way of helping to explain and cope with the often random and unfair things that happen in life. Bob had a heart attack? Musta pissed Zeus off. It came up in the thread earlier. Wasn't it Artemis doing drivebys for kicks that causes heart attacks?
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Sep 12, 2014 22:36
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Did the Greeks also have the basic concept that a lot of wrath was basically automatic? As in, sort of a function of the (un)natural world? There's a passage in the old testament where they're bearing the Ark of the Covenant in to set it up in place of honor and one of the bearers accidentally touches it when he tries to stop it falling over, and coming into contact with the sacred (divine) when he was profane (earthly) just instantly, straight up kills him without any kind of fanfare. David gets pissed and complains to Yahweh, and shoves the Ark in a random noble's house to keep for a time, but Yahweh just tells him that's what happens when the pitcher hits the rock, basically; no moral judgment, no-one's fault, just a function of the profane contacts the sacred directly. Did that kind of thing happen a lot in Greek Myth, too? I'm always curious about the parallels.
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Sep 12, 2014 23:15
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Bobbin Threadbare posted:My favorite book of the Old Testament is Job. Job's story takes up the first couple chapters, and then all the rest of it is a long philosophical discussion between Job and his friends as to why all the terrible things in the world happened to him. His friends figure, "Well, you must have done something to piss God off, why else would all this happen?" Job's response is, "I didn't do a drat thing, I was a good Jew, I made all my sacrifices, I observed the Sabbath, I did everything right. poo poo just happens sometimes." Job also did more than make all his own sacrifices; he actually sacrificed and prayed extra to try to protect his children in case they accidentally sinned (that went really well for them when they became collateral in the divine experiment to discover if disinterested piety exists, considering they all died horribly and instantly). He is, in every way, shown to be the exemplar of all that should be considered moral in his society and his exceptional wealth and success would have been considered entirely reasonable by the likely audience. I'd recommend, if you're interested in Job, Carol Newsom's Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations; she does excellent work and it was one of the key sources in my master's thesis on the topic. She makes the excellent point about the contrast between how Job appears in the beginning, which is written in the style of a fairy tale or normal moral parable and where he must be the Moral Exemplar, and how he acts much different the second you get to the dialogue. She, and other commentators, have also made the important observation that Job's friends are proven wrong, yes, but they're meant to be taken seriously; as far as they know they're not wrong at all until God resolves the conflict. Job, too, doesn't know he's in the right and sure as hell doesn't accept his suffering meekly. As the story goes he becomes more and more certain (through contesting with his friends) that he's got a legal claim to having been mistreated by God, and that could he simply speak to Yahweh about the matter, he might be able to succeed in pressing said claim. It doesn't go that way! It doesn't go that way at all. When he comes up against Yahweh with his claim that the universe isn't behaving properly God basically begins a long boast about the amazing Chaos Demons and horrible beasts (which humans can't possibly defeat) that he defeats and asks Job if, seeing as he thinks he knows how the universe should be functioning, he was there when it all started like God was. I personally read Job's meek withdrawal after this tirade as more defeated and hopeless than dutiful; God asked him if he had an 'arm like El' and it turns out he really doesn't. He then proceeds to confirm for Job that Job was right in the earlier argument anyway, and as you pointed out, grants him his material wealth and new family members back; but what's really interesting is not only did Job never actually ask for that, he specifically denies it when he's talking to his friends. What he wanted was an answer, and while my thesis was that he receives more of one than it first appears through what can be inferred from his point of view of God's resolution of the conflict and the theophany in general, he never actually receives the answer he was seeking directly, supposedly because it is beyond him. I could say so much more but I've already written too much; sorry, I spent a year of my life reading about a ton of this stuff and writing a master's thesis on it, so it just kinda leaps out unbidden whenever anyone mentions the Book of Job.
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Sep 12, 2014 23:28
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Cooked Auto posted:That book I recall was covered by the old Goon Bible Project. One objection is that Satan is not God's enemy in the book of Job. Satan is God's courtier and something like his prosecuting attorney. Note that God initiates the encounter, too; asking his prosecuting attorney to consider a guy and then devising a trial to see if he's really righteous. God is responsible for what happens in Job. Satan is merely his servant. Basically, Job was written before Satan had been repurposed by popular mythology into a king of evil figure, and portrays Satan in his original role.
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Sep 13, 2014 00:12
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achillesforever6 posted:Well not truly the end, he did have to put the baby that was in her into his thigh until it was ready to be born. Ah, right! That was Dionysus, right?
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Sep 13, 2014 03:33
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Zeus can put his kids wherever the hell he wants, he's a God. I remember the Contendings of Horus and Set, where the two of them basically try to impregnate one another to shame each other by hiding it in the other's salad and stuff like that, because Gods can impregnate whatever they drat well please, being so powerful. The Contendings of Horus and Set are pretty weird. Egyptian mythology is also awesome and weird.
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Sep 13, 2014 06:22
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Quiet Python posted:I for some reason imagine this as God cutting a wrestling promo on Job. Even "Arm like El" sounds like "24-inch pythons". This is basically how it sounds if you read it aloud, yes.
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Sep 13, 2014 20:40
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RickVoid posted:There's also the fact that Constantine basically co-opted his own pagan faith into early Christianity. This is the reason why Catholocism seems more interested (or at least focuses more heavily on) the new testament and Christ the Son of God rather than the old testament and the God of Abraham. It's also the reason why Christ, the Angels, and the Saints are always depicted with halos of loght: his pagan faith worshipped the Sun as God. It's partly this, and partly that a religion with an active and effective missionary tradition will pull this kind of stuff everywhere it goes. "Oh, you have a hero? Yeah! Uh, our God is totally okay with an awesome guy like that. Yeah, he's been a Saint all along. You can keep worshipping him, just add these bits." and other means of finding points of cultural contact are basically how effective missionaries do. Also, a lot of the New Testament vs. Old Testament stuff was actually from the Apostle Paul, who is probably one of the most successful missionaries of all time, spreading the faith through 'god-fearers', people who accepted the basic principles of Judaism or were exposed to it by their neighbors among the Helenistic Jews but couldn't join because it was partly a matter of the Chosen People. If you really want to spread your religion, either find people who already half understand what you're talking about or figure out ways to make what you're talking about fit what people already understand.
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Oct 3, 2014 00:12
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BgRdMchne posted:I always understood that Christianity succeeded because there is a duty to proselytize built into the religion. That is also a major part of it, yes.
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Oct 3, 2014 01:15
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VerdantSquire posted:Yeah, he basically went and whitewashed a ton of stuff to try and make greeks seem like the "Good guys". In reality, the Persians were probably closer to having the modern definition of moral superiority then the greeks were. After all, the Persian Empire had at least outlawed slavery and was fairly tolerant when regarding non-Zoroastrian faiths. The greeks, on the other hand, were xenophobic, misogynistic, pro-slavery, and were totally okay with pedophilia. Even the "Democracy would've been strangled in the crib!" argument is fairly weak, because the idea that maybe the people should pick leaders doesn't really require an amazing degree of intellect. You would not believe how often I've heard people say, with a straight face, that it wasn't until the Enlightenment that anyone was ever able to think of such a novel concept again. People are weird as hell about history. Also, Persian Empire was pretty cool, yes. Just ask the Hebrews how they felt about Cyrus the Great. (They liked him a lot, he's mentioned as someone Yahweh is tots cool with)
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Oct 16, 2014 02:41
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Bobbin Threadbare posted:I dunno, the book's writing seems pretty in line with the game's. Kind of the problem, isn't it?
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Oct 22, 2014 04:06
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Samovar posted:Centurions? Really? The name of the heavy troopers in this Greek-based game is centurions? I remember there being one myth where a king tries to sacrifice his most valued possession to the Gods when they come over for dinner, so he kills his son and feeds him to them without informing them. When they find out, King Tantalis (I believe that was the name, I'm sure the more knowledgeable will correct me) is sent straight to the mercy of the Furies and he's the guy who can never reach the fruit above his head or the water at his waist forever, while the Gods immediately returned his son to life and gave him gifts for his trouble. I don't think the Greeks were generally keen on human sacrifice, though I'm sure it's come up in a couple myths.
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Oct 22, 2014 12:32
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Pvt.Scott posted:Space marines are so hard to kill because of their gigantic pauldrons. You can't get a heroic shoulder wound of nobody can get at your shoulders. Hades is just asking for it. Holy poo poo. I've finally found an explanation for the drat things.
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Oct 31, 2014 05:25
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You guys are correct that Samson would be the go to guy for Jewish mythology, though. Hell, he's even got Kratos' level of angry: "Alright, God. I know I hosed up, and I don't care if I die, but grant me the strength to DESTROY THESE MEN." being your last wish is pretty metal. I would also kill for a game version of the Enuma Elish, or however you spell it. The story of the ascension of Marduk and his contest with Tiamat.
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Nov 5, 2014 19:15
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Rigged Death Trap posted:Jesus kills you with Massive alcohol poisoning. You could also bring in Evangelical Muscle Jesus, who is so buff he is breaking the cross in the greatest expression of missing the point ever rendered by man (which would be pretty fitting to being alongside Kratos!) Or Left Behind Killer Jesus, who opens his mouth and people start melting. There's plenty of right wing fundamentalist Jesuses who are every bit the Christian Kratos!
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Nov 6, 2014 18:05
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So...does Kratos ever accept the slightest shred of responsibility for any of his actions?
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Nov 19, 2014 06:03
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:
I think my favorite part of this is what it says about Kratos. That he's actually quite weak and cowardly if he ever encounters adversity that he doesn't have superpowers to overcome.
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Nov 22, 2014 20:57
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Rargh I'ma kill all the things
Barbarians rule Spartans drool
I'll save you Kratos but now I own your rear end, have some kickass weapons
Hey why don't you go kill Ares for us?
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I think the story would've been a great deal stronger if Kratos had just splatted on the rocks. At the same time, if instead of Kratos Kills Mythology, they'd played him having various adventures in new eras of warfare through human history that could've been hella metal.
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Dec 17, 2014 18:48
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CmdrKing posted:I'd say he didn't understand why he had the nightmares. He assumed they were a curse from the Gods, and thus doing this task for the Gods and earning their absolution of his crimes would remove them. Trying to die again was presumably just sheer desperation. Maybe he figured that they were part of his punishment in Hades' realm and he'd be free of them in Elysium? I dunno. I think this gets at a really key point. Kratos' epic flaw is that he cannot ever understand that he is responsible for the poo poo he does. At every point, it's 'someone else's' fault. He made the rash pledge to Ares, he was perfectly happy to revel in his power and slaughter until it killed his family, his own guilt is why he's got the nightmares, but at no point in the story does he ever accept any of this responsibility. It's all Ares' fault, it's all the Gods' fault, it's all a Curse, etc. It's why he's kind of halfway interesting in this game, at least.
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Dec 19, 2014 05:28
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