#damn norse mythology and all their kennings

[otakween]

Digimon Frontier - Episode 30

Damn, another episode where basically nothing happens. They acted like this was some big reveal, but it was pretty obvious that Koichi was Koji's brother (the only other option is clone lol). I'm waiting for the "why" not the "what!" Also, I'm sick of seeing that damn "running around the train station" animation over and over again >:/ We get it, Koichi saw Koji on the train.

Notes:

Another uber dark episode. Some scenes had a grey filter over them (smoke or fog I guess) and there was a lot of limited animation. One of those episodes that makes you question the show's budget lol.

Having the rest of the gang digivolve just to attack a fence felt like a lame excuse to digivolve. Especially since it didn't even work lol

So Koichi is aware of Koji because his grandma told him about him on her sickbed (deathbed?) Also, Koichi has a dad lol. Was it the same dad as the one in the other episode or a different dad? I guess it would have to be the same if they're twins. (Wait...are they even twins?)

Velgemon kinda uggo, I don't like his color scheme. It is kinda nice to have a bird digimon in the show though. Mixing it up. His name comes from Norse mythology.

Koichi is like the Ken of this season with all the brainwashing and exploitation going on. He seems like he'll be the gentle-type too.

Omg, they dubbed Koichi's insert song. That's kinda based. Dub version was very manly lol

Wait what kinda weirdo names their sons Koichi and Koji? Those sound way too similar! Kinda like naming your sons Tom and Tim or something lol

Cherubimon and Ophanimon are just directly contributing to battles now apparently. Makes me question why they don't just do that all the time. (I'm sure there's some "oh, they're not at full power" excuse)

Patamon has super locatin' powers or something. I guess since he's a Seraphimon Patamon he's like Patamon+ haha

[yourfandomfriend]

The Original Mythology

You know what’s funny? I’ve been a Norse heathen and casually studied Norse mythology for 27 years now, starting from library books where I fell in love with the gods, to old GeoCities pages with Old Norse along with several possible English translations, to what we have now. 

And the most important lesson you learn the more you study is how very far removed we are from the source material.

The pre-Christian people who told countless stories and worshipped around the 300s to the 900s had a completely different context than the Christians who recorded just a few stories from the 13th to 16th centuries out of nostalgia and nationalism and heavily Christianized those stories.

And those were in Old Norse.

Hundreds of years later, in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, they were translated into English by very different scholars with little understanding of the culture of any of those people above. And depending on where you chose to put your commas, you could completely change the meaning of a very important paragraph. All translations were different...

So almost everybody just picked one translation and called it a day.

And most modern folks just coming to paganism can’t make heads or tales of that translation, anyway, instead trusting blogs from 2013 that quote wikis from the oughts citing websites made by college students in the 90s quoting new age books from the 80s quoting academic papers from the 70s that studied one English translation in the 1910s, based on a compellation from the 1600s, *deep breath* based on a guy collecting (and even inventing) Kennings in the 1300s, based on a tiny sliver of surviving myths from the pre-Christian era, with all their own layers of baked-in, unquestioned assumptions and blind spots and bigotry.

And yet, this many degrees of separation in, there are still kids who consider themselves experts on the source material and thus lecture into the wind, correcting no one in particular (or everyone), about misconceptions in Norse myth, saying, “but in the Original Mythology,” like they have any damn clue what they’re talking about.

There is no original text to quote. That’s an important thing to remember.

[norsesuggestions]

9 realms of norse mythology

as told by someone who is bad at maths, and also just realised that iron age people too appear to be bad at math. or rather enjoys saying nine realms as a poetic conventions more than. erm describing exactly nine realms.

Asgård: boring as fuck. like honestly the gods seems unable to even stay in that damn realm a single legend. clearly asagård is not to rec. do not visit. Points 2/10

Vanaheim: wtf is this place? Freya, Frey and Njord is from there anyway so that is nice. otherwise. no idea. points ??? (impossible to give points. mystery place)

Utgård: apperntly a evil place of giants and beasts. but also. Loki and Thor keeps going. everyone spends all their adventours here. tbh this sounds like the best place in the 9 realms. 9/10 (losing 1 points cause dangerous)

Jutonheim: the difference between ugård and jutomheim is cryptic. jutonheim appears to be a region in utgård. or. maybe the oppsite. anyway same thing true as with utgård. 9/10

Nifelhel/Hel: good!!! death kingdom ruled by the daughter of loki Hel. Don’t be confused by her name. she does not rule over hell, it is just confusingly similar sounding. her death kingdom is hall with a feast. sounds totally ok. 10/10

Midgård: where humans live!! perfectly allright. nothings special though. has one good thing. JÖRMUNGANDR the midgård encircling serpant!! otherwise meh. 5/10

Muspelheim: on fire. literally. would not visit 0/10

Myrkheim/Nidavellir: home of the elves. the elves make all the cool jewellary, enchanted chains and epic weapons of the asagods. basically the source of all important shiny in the 9 realms. tbh would move there. although i get the feeling they are like tolkien noldor. lives in underground palaces and make shiny. and just like noldor, avoid stealing their shiny! such things ends badly 9/10

alfheim: another place were elf lives (? the fuck is norse mythology elves anyway. there seems to be no agreement in this subject. basically the beings of alfheim and myrkheim are referenced to as several different mythological beings. dwarves, elves, gods, spirits??? wtf is going on. we will never know). hrm. ANYWAY. Frey chilled there. sounds much more hippie than myrkheim. but i got angry at trying understand which kind off being lived there. therefore it gets NULL POINTS.

Winner: Utgård/Jutonheim and Myrkheim.

Loser: Muspelheim. fuck that place. i am not really sure it is actually a realm anyway. my very unsourced feeling tm calls that it is a kenning, not the name for a seperate realm. but i base that on nothing but spite

[otterskin]

The Devil in The Window

Apologies for low image quality. This is a repost with some reworking for an earlier, longer breakdown I did of the Loki trailer. Now that episode 1 is out - (YAY I WAS RIGHT, TAKE THAT MEPHISTO FANS! But also I do look forward to his eventual appearance, you think I don’t also have a huge interest in satanic mythology and the devil’s appearances in literature? Because I certainly do.) - I think it’s a good time to review.

Anyway, here’s a new shot of the window, apologies for using the older ones I drew on before from hereafter though. They updated the design for the episode, so some details have changed - however, I think that the old one had some details that were actually better to demonstrate with, the biggest being the change to the chest shape. Still, I think the intent remains, and I suppose it’s all to the good I used the design that shows it clearer.

So, Norse Mythology. It’s been Christiannized. You can thank Snorri Sturluson for that, but you can google all about him later. Let’s just say that he made many Norse figures into equivalents for Christian ones. Baldur is Jesus, pure and a sacrificial lamb who dies for a greater good. And the devil is...Loki. Something the Marvel comics and the MCU have continued.

Here we have a devil, dressed in green and with a distinct shape on his chest:

Hmmm...wait...I know that weird horny shape...(yes they changed this design in the episode, but it still has this basic shape, just with another layer of gold above it.)

Ah. I’d say that cinches it. This is meant to be Loki. If you look at the devil’s hair, it also resembles Loki’s, being shoulder-length and kinda curly.

So, what’s devil-Loki doing? Laying an egg? Trying out a foot massager? For a second I thought it was a moon, but we see the moon over his left shoulder, amongst the stars. Which means this is - probably the Earth.

...Dammit; I live there.

So Earth is barren and being devoured by flames, likely caused by this Loki sitting atop of it (in a throne, no less). Aw gee, things look pretty bad, don’t they?

But wait - what’s that? Under the Earth (and, possibly, under the earth)?

It’s a plant. A shoot, to be exact.

Back to Ragnarok for a second. Ragnarok isn’t the apocalypse (something we see a lot of in this trailer - all of it seems to be exploring the end of days). Ragnarok is the fire meant to wipe out the old and fertilize the ground for the new. And after the gods have died, what happens? Well, Baldur emerges from Hel, one of the only surviving gods (hmm, seems him dying worked out, didn’t it?). He’s joined by Líf and Lífþrasir, who are the new first man and woman, who’s names mean ‘Life’ and who are pictured, usually, with plants and new life. It is they who are tasked who growing a new Yggdrasil after the destruction of the old. The previous first man and woman are Ask and Embla, meaning Ash Tree and Vine/Elm tree, so there’s a theme there.

So a new sprout, possibly a tree, growing out of the destruction of the old.

This fits with Loki’s role as understood in mythology. He checks the arrogance of the gods, including when they tried to achieve immortality (sorry, Baldur, nothing personal), and that keeps the gods at their best. After Loki is imprisoned, the gods become weak, unhelpful and foolish, and Yggdrasil starts to rot. Eventually Loki escapes and returns along with Surtur (who also resembles this figure) to burn it all to the ground. This is also referenced in Thor:Ragnarok, with Loki releasing Surtur in the Vault, a place of thematic importance to Loki and one that represents the hidden secrets and sins of Asgard). You could say Ragnarok continued into Infinity War, where Loki played an important part in aiding Thanos’ destruction, giving up the stone to protect his brother and essentially dooming the rest of the universe - but also ultimately leading to its salvation, even if, like Myth Loki, he wasn’t around to see it.

So, we see the Variant literally start a fire in the trailer -

- in fact, this whole trailer is awash in flame -

It’s fire, fire everywhere and Variant Loki’s setting them!

Damn, even our ‘hero’ Loki is burning stuff down! Does this mean that Loki is doomed, always meant to be an avatar of death and toasty destruction?

Well...let’s go back to that stained glass. Hmmm...wait...I know that weird horny shape...

And there’s something else...the bottom of the Earth is being lit up, and not by fire. Light appears to be coming off this little plant.

What colour is this plant again? That’s right, green. Green is the colour of new life and growth and change and...hang on, I’ve heard that before, too..

.

Hang on hang on HANG ON... let me have a look at the shape again.

That’s...a letter. An L? For Loki? Like in the title sequence?

Wait...no, a different letter. An older letter. After all, Loki is old Norse. How do you spell his name in that again?

ᛚᛟᚲ ᛁ

And ENHANCE on that third letter!

This, my friends, is a Kenaz/Kaunaz, or what would become 'K' in our alphabet. It is also known as the 'Loki Rune' (and the Ulcer Rune, for some reason. I suspect Odin understands why). It’s used to spell his name, but is also used on his own to represent him. Heck, it's even his Superman 'S' in the comics:

Runes are more than letters - they are symbols for concepts. So what else does it mean?

Primarly, it means ‘torch’.

And also ‘knowledge’ (ken). As well as ‘growth, change, the search for truth, decay, arrogance, elitism, feminine, kinship and creativity.’

...Okay, that’s a lot, but you have to admit it fits.

More specifically, it means ‘Mastery of the Fire’. As in, someone who has learned to tame fire so that it is helpful, not harmful. To bring light and, symbolically, knowledge.

There’s another way Loki’s been associated with fire - in the Wagner Ring Cycle, Das Rheingold, the opera that inspired much the Thor films’ aesthetic and certainly their helmets, Loki is called ‘Loge’, which means ‘Fire’. He’s usually dressed to match, too -

Many trickster figures are associated with fire. They are usually called ‘Fire-bringers’ - See: Raven, Lucifer, Prometheus, etc. They are often complex figures with a foot in different worlds, but who nonetheless help mankind with the gift of ‘fire’ - although they usually pay for it, and tend to be self-destructive.

(Side note. Lucifer means light-bringer, which is what luciferase is named after. Because it glows. Which is helpful in labs. In case someone needed to know that.)

Moving from a destructive fire-starter to a fire-bringer seems like a great character arc for Loki to take, especially given his rehabilitation in pop culture, the comics, and even wider culture. Loki has gone from being seen as an evil, deviant, destructive character to one who’s seen as a patron of the arts and creativity, of stories rather than lies. Heck, some scholars of Norse Mythology even posit that he’s the closet thing to a protagonist Norse Mythology has, so I guess that backfired, Snorri!). Being dressed in green and with the sprout clearly also being stylized after his Kaunaz, there’s foreshadowing that he’ll be capable of growing good things even out of ashes.

So, to sum up: Being ‘Satan’ sounds pretty bad, but with a little letter re-arranging like we see in the title sequence, you can be...

...practically a saint. Maybe even a saviour.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

[rococospade]

Choral chapter 18 notes + a very fast and loose explanation of the chaining of Fenris:

For anyone not familiar with Norse mythology, Tyr was one of their war gods. He was basically a lawyer with a sword, because destroying your opponents in court and destroying them on the battlefield were equivalent acts. His claim to fame is sacrificing his sword hand to shackle Fenris, though — which can be read as an act of defiance, incidentally my preferred interpretation. See, the gods took Fenris as a pup and liked him as a sort of pet at first, but the rate of his growth terrified them… it got to the point that only Tyr was brave enough to feed him, actually. So the gods decided Fenris needed to be shackled, and through some bullshit that scared them more (apparently giant wolves can break basically anything, go figure) got some magic bullshit from the dwarves to lock him up with. Now, wolves aren’t stupid, and Fenris is a wolf that was sired by the god of tricks, so he was pretty sketched out by the dainty chain they presented him with after iron shackles and thick ropes and shit. So he was like, I’m not letting you put that shit on me unless someone puts their hand in my mouth.

Now, back to Tyr. Tyr’s basically the anti-Loki. His job is closing loopholes, not riding through them on a stolen chariot. He doesn’t trick you so much as serves you a summons wrapped in so much legal redtape that if you even think about trying to get out of it, he’ll hit you with the bonk stick. Tricking the wolf he’s been feeding and playing with into chains when he hasn’t actually done anything wrong (yet. Unsurprisingly Fen’s a bit salty after the being chained up in a swamp thing.) probably rubbed him all kinds of wrong. He’s also the only one with the guts to agree and put his hand in Fen’s mouth, knowing damn well he’s going to lose it, because hell if the gods are unchaining him if this works, that is a BIG SCARY WOLF.

Of course, you probably know how the story ends. Fenris gets shackled. When he can’t break the chains (or possibly when he can’t break the chains and they won’t free him at his demand, hell if I remember), Tyr loses the hand. So the gods have shackled their boogeyman, but they’ve also taken out (or severely reduced the effectiveness of) one of their chief warriors in the process. 

How does this relate to a Bloodborne fic? I’m going to take someone’s hand. (No. Or at least I haven’t planned on it.) The thought process tied more to how people can navigate systems of power, especially when combating abusive authorities. Or, a man who can fight with weapons is a soldier, while one who can fight with words is a lawyer. 

(Also probably something about people kneecapping themselves because they’re afraid of stuff that hasn’t happened yet, but that’s pretty du jour for a setting like bloodborne.)

More in depth: if you do something wrong at a job and your boss doesn’t report it within a certain window, but DOES bring it up when you report them for some kind of misconduct, that’s actually illegal in most places (at least where I live) and is considered a form of retaliation. Now whether your work actually does something about that is of course another issue, but if you have a company that’s either leery of litigation or else isn’t staffed by incorrigible bastards, they should crack down on that shit.

Following that, Ludwig has been quietly making a note of the bullshit he’s caught Ascelin doing for years and censured him for almost none of it. There’s definitely a reason for it. And I’ve been thinking a lot about that, and the binding of Fenris, while I write this chapter.

… And this is absolutely an example of mythology indirectly influencing writing, in a way that ultimately enriches it. Read widely for the joy of it! You never know what will crop up as useful later :) and even if it doesn’t, there’s so many really cool stories in the world!

Thanks to Weiila by the way, as she’s encouraged me a lot in my interest in Norse myths, sometimes by giving me fun abridged versions and other times by recommending ones to read or otherwise explaining an interpretation that I maybe wouldn’t have found on my own/in English! (For example Tyr’s kenning — “bravery”, or… “the wolf’s leftovers”.) 

[jeeprhyme]

2017 Reading Challenge 23/52 A Book With Career Advice On Writing - Stephen King I read a lot of Stephen King growing up. My mum owned most of his books, now I guess I do. I think I read On Writing two or three times in one year. I always wanted to be a writer as a kid, and a teenager. Right up until my final year at uni, studying to be a writer. One bad teacher killed it for me, and I’ve never really come back. Anyway, this one is more memoir than writing advice, but it’s a great book. Shit, I might actually hit halfway on this damn list before the year is out.

A book recommended by a librarian The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

A book that’s been on your TBR list for way too long IT - Stephen King

A book of letters Frankenstein - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

An audiobook Wishful Drinking - Carrie Fisher

A book by a person of colour The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden

A book with one of the four seasons in the title A Midsummer Night’s Dream - William Shakespeare

A book that is a story within a story The Name Of The Wind - Patrick Rothfuss

A book with multiple authors Good Omens - Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

An espionage thriller Casino Royale - Ian Fleming

A book with a cat on the cover Doctor Sleep - Stephen King

A book by an author that uses a pseudonym Feedback - Mira Grant (Seanan McGuire)

A bestseller from a genre you don’t normally read Murder On The Orient Express - Agatha Christie

A book by or about a person who has a disability Labyrinths - Jorge Luis Borges

A book involving travel The Great Railway Bazaar - Paul Theroux

A book with a subtitle Twelfth Night (or What You Will) - William Shakespeare

A book that’s published in 2017 Norse Mythology - Neil Gaiman

A book involving a mythical creature Wrath of a Mad God - Raymond E Feist

A book you’ve read before that never fails to make you smile Guards Guards - Terry Pratchett

A book about food My Berlin Kitchen: A Love Story (with Recipes) - Luisa Weiss

A book with career advice On Writing - Stephen King

A book from a nonhuman perspective Charlotte’s Web - EB White

A steampunk novel Perdido Street Station - China Miéville

A book with a red spine Flight Of The Nighthawks - Raymond E Feist

A book set in the wilderness A Walk In The Woods - Bill Bryson

A book you loved as a child Wild Magic - Tamora Pierce

A book by an author from a country you’ve never visited 1Q84 Part 1 - Haruki Murakami

A book with a title that’s a character’s name Hamlet - William Shakespeare

A novel set during wartime All Quiet on The Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque

A book with an unreliable narrator Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

A book with pictures The Type - Sarah Kay

A book where the main character is a different ethnicity than you Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison

A book about an interesting woman Mullumbimby - Melissa Lucashenko

A book set in two different time periods Kindred - Octavia E Butler

A book with a month or day of the week in the title A Local Habitation (October Daye) - Seanan McGuire

A book set in a hotel The Shining - Stephen King

A book written by someone you admire Alif The Unseen - G Willow Wilson

A book that’s becoming a movie in 2017 Hidden Figures - Margot Lee Shetterly

A book set around a holiday other than Christmas The Thanksgiving Visitor - Truman Capote

The first book in a series you haven’t read before Rosemary and Rue (October Daye) - Seanan McGuire

A book you bought on a trip Purple Hibiscus - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Advanced

A book recommended by an author you love Difficult Women - Roxane Gay

A bestseller from 2016 The Girl On The Train - Paula Hawkins

A book with a family-member term in the title Dreams From My Father - Barack Obama

A book that takes place over a character’s lifespan The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - F Scott Fitzgerald

A book about an immigrant or refugee The Refugees - Viet Thanh Nguyen

A book from a genre/subgenre that you’ve never heard of The Grace of Kings - Ken Liu (Silkpunk)

A book with an eccentric character Into A Dark Realm - Raymond E Feist

A book that’s more than 800 pages The Wise Man’s Fear - Patrick Rothfuss

A book you got from a used book sale X-Factor Volume 1 #70-71 - Peter David et al

A book that’s been mentioned in another book Paradise Lost - John Milton (Frankenstein)

A book about a difficult topic The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

A book based on mythology Throne of the Crescent Moon - Saladin Ahmed