Incarnates: Mythology Connection?
By
40Thieves,
Posted on: 2005-05-20 15:26 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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FYI
Jack (i.e. me) has a BA in Classical Civilization, a MA in Ancient History and a MA in Greek & Latin. My specialty: ancient religion. I know ancient Greek, Latin, Italian, French, German, some Aramaic, Coptic, etc.
Basically, I'm EXTREMELY picky with mythology. Trust me on that.
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So basically, he's read everything that Joseph Campbell has ever written.
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Heck, he literally threw his son Hephasteus [sic] off of Olympus for some minor transgression, resulting in the god of the forge being maimed for life.
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Actually, Hera was the one who threw him off Olympus. Hera was obsessed with trying to have an absolutely beautiful child to impress Zeus so he'd stop screwing around with mortals. When she had the less than comely Hephaestus, she was so disgusted with him that she threw him off of Olympus. He didn't die from the fall, of course, being a god, but he was eternally crippled due to his legs being broken.
So recap: Zeus=Pretty good guy besides the adultery, and not to mention a pretty good father (Helped Heracles out even while Hera WAS FREAKING TRYING TO KILL HIM, kept the still fetal Dionysus in his leg, making him be born a god, etc. etc.)
Hera=Manipulative, jealous, and THROWER OF BABIES OFF OF MOUNTAINS.
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Well, apparently it depends on which author you've read. I encountered the version I cited in several texts in my Grandfather's library when I was young.
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Hepheastus wasn't Zeus Son. Hera bore him without help from Zeus in revenge for Zeus bearing Athena without Hera's help. Sometimes this is said to be why Hepheastus was born Lame. In some stories it is Hera who tosses him off of Olympus because of his Handicap. Other stories Zeus tossed him off because he intervenes in a fight between Zeus and Hera.
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I'd be really interested in a cite for this one, because I've never heard of Heph being Hera's offspring. The intervention in the fight between Hera and Zeus as the reason for his tossing is familiar though.
Apparently there are at least 3 different versions of the story floating around just on this thread. I wonder how many have actually been published? 
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Hepheastus wasn't Zeus Son. Hera bore him without help from Zeus in revenge for Zeus bearing Athena without Hera's help. Sometimes this is said to be why Hepheastus was born Lame. In some stories it is Hera who tosses him off of Olympus because of his Handicap. Other stories Zeus tossed him off because he intervenes in a fight between Zeus and Hera.
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I'd be really interested in a cite for this one, because I've never heard of Heph being Hera's offspring. The intervention in the fight between Hera and Zeus as the reason for his tossing is familiar though.
Apparently there are at least 3 different versions of the story floating around just on this thread. I wonder how many have actually been published?
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This tends to be true for a lot of Greek mythology (and a lot of other mythology, actually). Consider the evolution of the Robin Hood story, or the Arthurian mythos. It doesn't take long at all for stories to get blended, embellished, and renovated as time progresses. Every time I read anything about Greek mythology, almost everything I read starts with the phrase "in some versions of the story..."
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Anyway, I think the major religions have lost the idea of the psychopomp... hmm, wait a tic, I wonder if Uriel counts as a psychopomp? Isn't he the angel of death?
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He might qualify as a psychopomp, depending on what you might believe he does.
It's interesting how popular Neil Gaiman's "Death" character was/is.
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Anyway, I think the major religions have lost the idea of the psychopomp... hmm, wait a tic, I wonder if Uriel counts as a psychopomp? Isn't he the angel of death?
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He might qualify as a psychopomp, depending on what you might believe he does.
It's interesting how popular Neil Gaiman's "Death" character was/is.
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You would think that being portrayed as a cute girl would play a big part in it relative to the target market (although actually Sandman seemed to attract readers of both genders, at least when I was reading it), but then you look at Terry Pratchett's Death (esp. as in Reaper Man), and you see there is a lot more to it than that.
You could even argue that the George Burns rendition of God in the Oh God movies taps into a subtle piece of this: deep down there is something irresistably appealing about the notion that whatever awaits us beyond this life, its fundamentally kindly and non-judgemental.
Not all psychopomps are kindly and non-judgemental, of course, but at least they all tend to be, while maintaining an aura of mysteriousness, fundamentally understandable.
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* Manticore also dropped that Statesman has a unique ability which is represented on his Heroclix figure: The lightning of Zeus.
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only one problem......that lightning bolt on the figure is on ALL Heroclix figures. It shows how many attacks that figure can make on his turn. just FYI
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I was not referring to his attacks. I was referring to Quake and Pulse Wave. I baked those into the design of his dial to represent his ability to call upon the Lightning of Zeus.
~M
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Yeah, Incarnate refers to a deity. Statesman is "Zeus Incarnate" Zeus in the Flesh. Zeus inhabits the body of Statesman.
Likely hades inhabits the body of Lord Recluse.
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Image Comic's City of Heroes Issue 2 is a very good read on this very topic............(I refuse to say more for the BIG SPOILER that would ensue, though many probably already have discovered this)
Summer Heat
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* Manticore also dropped that Statesman has a unique ability which is represented on his Heroclix figure: The lightning of Zeus.
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only one problem......that lightning bolt on the figure is on ALL Heroclix figures. It shows how many attacks that figure can make on his turn. just FYI
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I was not referring to his attacks. I was referring to Quake and Pulse Wave. I baked those into the design of his dial to represent his ability to call upon the Lightning of Zeus.
~M
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Yeah, Incarnate refers to a deity. Statesman is "Zeus Incarnate" Zeus in the Flesh. Zeus inhabits the body of Statesman.
Likely hades inhabits the body of Lord Recluse.
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Image Comic's City of Heroes Issue 2 is a very good read on this very topic............(I refuse to say more for the BIG SPOILER that would ensue, though many probably already have discovered this)
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Check the first post.
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hmm, wait a tic, I wonder if Uriel counts as a psychopomp? Isn't he the angel of death?
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He might qualify as a psychopomp, depending on what you might believe he does.
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I've put very few points into Christian Lore over the years... hmm, how's that for gamer speak? hehe, I believe Gabriel's the one with the trumpet who raises the zombie army on Judgment Day... or calls the souls of the dead out of their corpses and into heaven or something like that... I like the Pied Piper of Zombies more 
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It's interesting how popular Neil Gaiman's "Death" character was/is.
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I think Arcanaville touched on a good point. I think people do feel attracted to the idea of a kind, non-judgmental psychopomp and Gaiman's Death (as much as I know of her) was that... and she was gothy, which was in vogue at the time. Life is rough. When you hurt yourself, the cold reality of life comes into focus. Flesh is just meat and we're not half as invulnerable as we feel we are. Death is a very scary thought but if we can clothe it in the guise of a kind figure, it gives us a little Fear RES, hehe. Not to mention that we all make mistakes, some worse than others and a figure who can see our naked soul but not judge us is very attractive, especially since people in general tend to be very judgmental... We also have the Western mentality molded by the Christian idea of one [censored]-up and it's straight to Hell unless you prostrate yourself before God and beg for forgiveness... wait, forgot about Original Sin, there is no one [censored]-up rule... it's straight from birth to Hell unless you beg and swear eternal servitude and every [censored]-up henceforth requires more begging, pleading and swearing 
Kind, non-judgmental psychopomps rule!
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Hepheastus wasn't Zeus Son. Hera bore him without help from Zeus in revenge for Zeus bearing Athena without Hera's help. Sometimes this is said to be why Hepheastus was born Lame. In some stories it is Hera who tosses him off of Olympus because of his Handicap. Other stories Zeus tossed him off because he intervenes in a fight between Zeus and Hera.
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I'd be really interested in a cite for this one, because I've never heard of Heph being Hera's offspring. The intervention in the fight between Hera and Zeus as the reason for his tossing is familiar though.
Apparently there are at least 3 different versions of the story floating around just on this thread. I wonder how many have actually been published?
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This tends to be true for a lot of Greek mythology (and a lot of other mythology, actually). Consider the evolution of the Robin Hood story, or the Arthurian mythos. It doesn't take long at all for stories to get blended, embellished, and renovated as time progresses. Every time I read anything about Greek mythology, almost everything I read starts with the phrase "in some versions of the story..."
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This is due to the fact that most myths were passed on by word of mouth. Time would fog up the memory, and each teller would have their own take on it.
I've never heard of Hephaestus not being Hera's son, however. That's very odd.
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I've never heard of Hephaestus not being Hera's son, however. That's very odd.
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Yes, it is odd, because I posted badly. I meant I'd never heard of Heph not being Zeus' son. I believe he was the son of Zeus and Hera. I've never heard of him being Hera's son but no Zeus' is what I meant to say. Sorry for that confusion.
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..but not judge us is very attractive, especially since people in general tend to be very judgmental... We also have the Western mentality molded by the Christian idea of one [censored]-up and it's straight to Hell unless you prostrate yourself before God and beg for forgiveness... wait, forgot about Original Sin, there is no one [censored]-up rule... it's straight from birth to Hell unless you beg and swear eternal servitude and every [censored]-up henceforth requires more begging, pleading and swearing
Kind, non-judgmental psychopomps rule!
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thanks for pointing out how judgemental people are ANd providing an example "tolerant" people are often the most intolerant in practice when it comes right down to it.
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This tends to be true for a lot of Greek mythology (and a lot of other mythology, actually). Consider the evolution of the Robin Hood story, or the Arthurian mythos. It doesn't take long at all for stories to get blended, embellished, and renovated as time progresses. Every time I read anything about Greek mythology, almost everything I read starts with the phrase "in some versions of the story..."
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This is due to the fact that most myths were passed on by word of mouth. Time would fog up the memory, and each teller would have their own take on it.
I've never heard of Hephaestus not being Hera's son, however. That's very odd.
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Actually, I don't think fading memory has as much to do with it as a natural tendancy for people to want to embellish stories. You don't accidentally forget there wasn't really a Maid Marion in the original story, for example.
As to the point about Statesman being an incarnate in the sense of possessing the power or actual being of a god, its an interesting thought; Statesman as Shazam. Its a shame we couldn't get Alex Ross to do the CoH comic, but I hear he's kinda busy right now.
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This is, I just wanted to say quickly, a fascinating read, guys.
That being said, I can't let this go by any further:[ QUOTE ]
For all known facts, Judaism adopted the idea of the good/evil duality during the time of Babylonian captivity. There, they were exposed to Persian Zoroasrianism which centered around the duality of light/good as embodied by Zoroaster (Zarathustra) and dark/evil as embodied by Ahrimaan.
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The light/good embodiment in Zoroastrianism was Ahura Mazda, not Zoroaster. Zoroaster (or Zarathrustra the Spitama) was the "prophet" who started the religion in the first place, and was himself just a mortal persian(or Medean, I don't recall exactly) magi who, in addition to founding a religion, was an adviser of Cyrus.
Sorry about the nit pick. Please, carry on.
Good, I'm glad that the conversation has made its way back to an intelligent one. For a while I thought that dogface was going to pull this one into something reminiscent of a somethingawful thread with his personal attacks; if you recall DrZeus's posts, mythology is subject to change as for 1) they are all made up in the first place and 2) they are passed on through word of mouth. Discussion of these topics are more entertaining and welcoming than calling people out on honest mistakes or their viewpoint on such lore.
Anyways, my thoughts on Greek mythology and CoH are simular to what Mattman said in that they are somewhat fictional. I sometimes dabble in creative writing myself and am enthralled by what mythology has to offer and would like to make up some stories using characters seen in Greek mythology, but wouldn't so much like to know every aspect of the culture so as to not upset nitpickers. I think that is what the dev team is doing is just using their imagination and taking from whichever pantheon that they choose and I think the result is delightful.
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..but not judge us is very attractive, especially since people in general tend to be very judgmental... We also have the Western mentality molded by the Christian idea of one [censored]-up and it's straight to Hell unless you prostrate yourself before God and beg for forgiveness... wait, forgot about Original Sin, there is no one [censored]-up rule... it's straight from birth to Hell unless you beg and swear eternal servitude and every [censored]-up henceforth requires more begging, pleading and swearing
Kind, non-judgmental psychopomps rule!
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thanks for pointing out how judgemental people are ANd providing an example "tolerant" people are often the most intolerant in practice when it comes right down to it.
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I'd say that you have him pegged quite nicely. "Tolerant" people are very often the most extremely intilerant.
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I think people do feel attracted to the idea of a kind, non-judgmental psychopomp...
We also have the Western mentality molded by the Christian idea of one [censored]-up and it's straight to Hell unless you prostrate yourself before God and beg for forgiveness... wait, forgot about Original Sin, there is no one [censored]-up rule... it's straight from birth to Hell unless you beg and swear eternal servitude and every [censored]-up henceforth requires more begging, pleading and swearing
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But you have no problem at all being extremely judgmental, yourself, right?
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This is due to the fact that most myths were passed on by word of mouth. Time would fog up the memory, and each teller would have their own take on it.
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Not necessarily. Egypt was long literate and underwent several mythological revisions to suit the political fortunes of various cities and regions.
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That said, I think the argument was not made for or against ethics. I believe the point was that while yes, Zeus in particular often acted unethically -I'd call him a spoiled brat-
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At least some Greeks gave their gods a "get out of moral responsibility, free" card. Morals were for mortals. Schools like Stoicism were, in part, reactions against this sort of moral philosophy. While they did not posit a supernatural absolute good or evil, they did posit an absolute good but begged the question on absolute evil.
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While we could probably attribute the labels of good and evil to this dilemma, we will very probably have to admit that there are good arguments made for either case.
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That is why Antigone is a tragedy, after all.
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Dogface tries to reveal Cronniss_S' implication that MMORPG players (therefore everyone on the forum) are an undifferentiated part of the masses. By this revelation, Dogface implies that Cronniss_S is not just insulting Dogface by saying he's not unique and special
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Really? Quote SPECIFICALLY wherein I revealed such complete ignorance of history of religions and of ethical philosophy as attributed to "the masses".
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This is due to the fact that most myths were passed on by word of mouth. Time would fog up the memory, and each teller would have their own take on it.
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Not necessarily. Egypt was long literate and underwent several mythological revisions to suit the political fortunes of various cities and regions.
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Which is why egyptologists are often reluctant to call the egyptian mythology a religious mythology and instead a sort of explaining mythology, an approach to explaining the universe. When the known universe changed, so did the myths. Pretty much like science today changes with what we know, and nobody thinks that's strange at all. Ie. Egyptian mythology has more in common with science than with religion...of course with the difference that science follows it's rules (scientific approach etc) and egyptian mythology had theirs.
Today we really can't say if the Egyptian gods were "gods" per se or more like embodiments of concepts and explainations (since our knowledge comes almost exclusivly from funerary goods and legal/administrative records). The Egyptian multiplicity of approaches (the more important a phenomenon is, the more explainations there are) and tendency to combine gods support the theory that Egyptian mythology while indeed being a system of belief (and a constantly developing such system of belief), it wasn't a religion as in the "this is the ultimate truth" variant.
To sum it up.
Egyptian mythology can be viewed more similar to science than a mythological story. Also, the egyptian mythlogy we know isn't exactly the religion of the egyptian masses (who worshipped quite different gods), but the gods of a powerful elite, and in the hands of a highly educated priesthood. As such embellishment is probably not a cause for religious change, but instead part of a concious process of development to change the religion as the world changed.
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Which is why egyptologists are often reluctant to call the egyptian mythology a religious mythology and instead a sort of explaining mythology, an approach to explaining the universe. When the known universe changed, so did the myths. Pretty much like science today changes with what we know, and nobody thinks that's strange at all. Ie. Egyptian mythology has more in common with science than with religion...of course with the difference that science follows it's rules (scientific approach etc) and egyptian mythology had theirs.
Today we really can't say if the Egyptian gods were "gods" per se or more like embodiments of concepts and explainations (since our knowledge comes almost exclusivly from funerary goods and legal/administrative records). The Egyptian multiplicity of approaches (the more important a phenomenon is, the more explainations there are) and tendency to combine gods support the theory that Egyptian mythology while indeed being a system of belief (and a constantly developing such system of belief), it wasn't a religion as in the "this is the ultimate truth" variant.
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In a sense, this is true of most religions: that they are at least in part designed to explain the world and how it works, or at least the bits of it they are concerned about. Its a very blurry line indeed between "the rain falls because the rain god made it fall" and "the rain god is the embodiment of what rain actually is." Returning to comics for a second, its like asking if the Endless are embodiments of concepts that would exist without them, or if the concepts exist because of them (a very Aristotean argument, actually).
I wouldn't agree that makes these religions/myths very much related to Science, with the capital S, though. Despite all the (silly, unwarranted) squabbles between Western Science, and Western Religion, throughout the years, its Western, JudeoChristianIslamic religion's subtle but significant perspective that the world isn't the way it is because God makes it that way, but because God made it that way, that is at the heart of Science.
If the rain falls because the rain god made it fall, there is no real inquiry past that point. Whatever happens, happens because the rain god wanted it to happen, and science is really cosmic psychology. When the rain falls because God made the world, and within His clockwork-like mechanical world, rain falls because he designed the world to incorporate rain, you can start asking really interesting questions, like "what is it about the world that God made, that rain falls when it does." You can try to take it apart and see how he did it. You can easily do this all the way up to the point where you ask "how did God make string-like constructs in a 12-dimensional space, that the quantum fluctuations inherent in them give rise to the particle families we see today?" At no point do you say "the string god hath decreed that all vibrational modes above the planck constant shall be cancelled through divine providence, allowing a bountiful harvest of low mass particle to emerge upon thine universe."
By in large, its the (originally religious, and mostly on faith) belief that the world operates mostly autonomously from God or gods, and according to a set of rules, not motivations, that allows Science to operate at all. That Mother and Daughter don't always get along so well anymore is a sad irony.
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I think she's been mentioned but Ananasi is an African Spider goddess. Don't know much about her beyond the name and continent of origin.
Hmm, hard to Google without getting tons of White Wolf crap... ah, hah: Anansi, West African trickster god... not very suitable to an archvillain type but if it worked for Loki...