#he always looks like a little scandinavian mythical creature

[ye4rt]

[seewetter]

Ooh, gnome lore!

This actually is a very interesting topic, because gnomes tie right into the heart of how we classify beings for the purposes of fantasy worlds.

A lot of modern fantasy tends to classify fantastical creatures the same way we classify regular creatures: into species based on how related they are to each other. That scientific classification dates back to the 1700s, when Carlus Linnaeus (who is himself not easily classifiable by name) wanted to give each animal and plant an exact species.

But gnomes are beings of folktales. These tales report of things that are uncanny, rarely witnessed and outside the realm of everyday experience. By their very nature, all the different supernatural creatures therefore have a tendency to just “bleed together”. For example, the word “elf” or “fairy” can be applied to almost all the “little folk” as an umbrella term. The same is true for the Scandinavian term “troll”. The word “wight” originally just meant “person” or “guy”. And “jinn” is used in Islamic cultures to classify just about any being that is neither man nor beast, neither angel nor demon. In short, these creatures could be regarded as “spirits”.

Many of the specific terms people are familiar if they start researching the folklore of the world are actually just local terms from the dialects and languages around the world. “Folet” is really just the French “elf”, while “folleti” is simply the Italian variant.

Creatures from legends also “morph” over time. Sirens in Ancient Greek myths are minute creatures the size of your palm with the bodies of birds who sing you to your doom in beautiful voices. Modern readers don’t know about how tiny sirens were meant to be and imagine them as human-sized. What modern readers also overlook is that in medieval and renaissance times, people constantly claimed to be seeing sirens: women with the bodies of fish, who gazed into mirrors and combed their hair.

I want to take a little detour away from the gnomes just to illustrate our modern misunderstanding:

Carlus Linnaeus and his scientific tradition have strongly influenced modern readers and so people today are always looking for the “reality behind the myth” by which they mean the scientific reality. They are trying to scientifically capture what sirens *actually are* and start classifying the beings described in the stories. “Medieval sirens aren’t *really* sirens”, some 21st century fairy believers might say, “those are actually sightings of mermaids”. Similarly, many modern secular thinkers try to classify the mythical creature until only a real creature or phenomenon was left. Stories about will-o-the-whisps, so early Enlightenment thinkers argued, are really the result of bandits lighting swamp fires. Herodotus, the Roman writer must have meant rhinos when writing about unicorns. He must have meant king cobras when writing about basilisks. Sometimes this insight can be quite neat: winged serpents were likely misunderstood but honest travel accounts of both locust swarms in Ethiopia and anhingas (the proverbial snake-bird). That’s neat, but in ancient and medieval times people did not assume they lived in a world with distant lands full of locusts or anhingas, but distant lands with winged serpents. Their warriors didn’t die to large-toothed plant eating hippos that had been disturbed, but to the horrendous carnivore odontotyrannus. The world they inhabited was just as knowable and just as strange as ours, but mass media didn’t trivialize misunderstandings of the world...you couldn’t just watch hippo videos on YouTube. The gap between ignorance and education might have sometimes been smaller when it came to those things that are strange about the world.

So, gnomes:

Gnomes don’t appear in any ancient legends or myths by name. Instead, they are the result of an attempt to classify the fairy world 100 years before Carlus Linnaeus would take a shot at it (published in this book by Paracelsus in 1566).

The alchemist Paracelsus was an avid collector of folktales and fairy stories. He began to notice that although the fairy folk were quite diverse, he could perceive a correspondence between the 4 elements (fire, earth, water, air) and these stories.

He called fairies that lived in the mountains gnomes and argued that they must be a species, since they are so often small in size and often involved in mining the ore below ground.

He called the fairies from sailor’s yarns “undines”, given the large resemblance between the femme fatales of the sea.

He called the majority of fairies that fly through the air on wings “sylphs” and he assumed that “salamander” might be a good name for the creatures of flame.

This teaches us a bunch, right?

dwarves live underground, a “dwarf” has been synonymous with small size and dwarves resemble miners. So dwarves are (a type of?) gnomish creatures.

why would miners, working in small mine shafts that you can’t properly stand in assume that the spirits of the mountain that visit them in their shafts are small in size? Why did they not assume that gnomes were as tall as the Chrysler building while visiting the miners in their tiny mine shafts? Truly a mystery! No one will ever solve that! I certainly have no idea! We will never know!

Basically, I think an alchemist dealing with 4 elements was like a hammer to whom fairy creatures looked like a nail. So Paracelsus the alchemist alchemically subdivided fairy stories into fire, earth, water and air. The fact that dwarf stories always tell of “little guys” while mermaids often have fish bodies (it’s just easier if they have fish bodies so that they can swim in the sea, you know. Easier than having them be as human looking as a regular forest elf or whatever).

I think he kind of assumed that he was dealing with a natural feature of a real being. And thus, the gnome was born.

Paracelsus argued these beings are “elementals” (that’s where that fantasy term comes from) and argued that they are beings created without souls. Now why did he do that? Why are gnomes and undines considered soul-less?

Well, in the medieval Christian world, the word human had a much broader definition than today. Medieval maps painted human “monsters” at the edges of the world: one Christian saint (Saint Christopher) was said to have the face of a dog and hail from an foreign civilization of canine folk.

To a medieval Christian, lizardfolk or birdfolk or feline races of fantasy worlds would just be humans, descended from Adam and Eve, somehow.

Theologians like Augustine of Hippo argued that if these creatures were not humans, the only other option was that they were beasts and their human-like speech exaggerated.

For reasons I don’t have time to get into, religions like Christianity divide the cosmos into good and evil and don’t deal well with the idea of grey areas. So although crane men (as seen in the image above) could be seen as human and integrated into the “grey area” of humanity, beings with supernatural powers were a different story. Although the New Testament mentions spirits that are neither angels nor demons and neither good nor evil, medieval Christians were very dualist and did not reference such spirits. Instead, supernatural beings must be either good or evil. Dragons are either good (some interpretations of the Leviathan) or evil (the Beast of Revelations or the dragon George slew) or they must be mere beasts (like certain dragons in Arthurian legends that get tamed and held as pets).

This meant that ordinary people’s stories of meetings with little mountain fellows who granted wishes or punished foul deeds with curses were...at odds with this good-evil binary.

Paracelsus, by arguing that some spirit/fairy/dwarf stories were actually about beings that had no souls was able to put these stories into a new context. No longer did dwarves or leprechauns call into question the binary between good angels and evil demons. Now they were a lesser creation, a side project, soulless persons who were irrelevant to the larger cosmic battle of heaven vs hell but also more interesting than just “humans abroad who look reaalll different but have no special powers”. He could popularize the aspect of spirits most frowned upon (that they ARE magic, that they are magical from birth, that they aren’t like...crane men who learned black arts from the devil or miracles from god but are actually weird beings that just do magic because it is in their element.)

That inspired lots of people. The Rosicrucians were a religious movement that I almost want to call “New Age, but like 300-400 years ago” who tried to marry gnomes (and undines and salamanders...) in order to give them souls.

And the whole idea of these beings was fascinating, drew the attention of 19th century Romantic writers...who are, lets be frank, writing fantasy fiction before Tolkien codified the concept.

So by the time we get to the official birth of the fantasy genre, there are operas about gnomes, paintings of gnomes and lawn and garden gnome statuettes. The line between gnome and dwarf could never be drawn (since gnome is an umbrella term or synonym for dwarf) and then, possibly with D&D, gnomes found their way into “official” contemporary fantasy as separate beings from dwarves. And since Carlus Linnaeus had done his work, these two beings were kept completely apart, like two separate species. 

When D&D included gnomes, they had already included halflings and dwarves. Gary Gygax, one of the two creators of D&D, wanted all non-humans to be rare. He wanted players of D&D to experience the world through the eyes of  a human. So back then, since the hobby was quite new, the idea was that the game rules would disincentivize players to make dwarves or hobbits (which halflings were called until the Tolkien Estate sued).

The result was a rule set that insisted that although dwarf wizards existed, you couldn’t play one. Dwarves had to be warriors and with the creation of AD&D, the rules became that “dwarf” was a (magicless) class.

Absurdly, gnomes became magic-users to enable people to play “small guy, but with magic”. That became their niche. The D&D spin-off novels (Dragonlance) codified gnomes as tinkerers and engineers and when TSR (the company that made D&D) decided they would sue various smaller companies that were making supplemental material for them this prompted their British distribution company to form Games Workshop and make a wargame similar to, but different from D&D that could be argued in court to not be D&D. It was called Warhammer and it kept engineering and mechanically savvy gnomes.

Then a company called Blizzard got a license to make a Warhammer game and then lost the license...and used the already made 3D models to populate their game, which they called Warcraft. This meant that gnomes now existed as (A) a basic playable race in D&D (B) a basic playable race in Warhammer and (C) a basic playable race in Blizzard’s World of Warcraft.

The End.

NO wait, wait, wait.

The point is gnomes don’t have a fixed identity. Their presence all across major franchises has to do more with weird early game design in the 70s and legal decisions than with any enduring popularity.

A gnome can be anything. Aren’t the goblins in the 80s movie Labyrinth a bit like “gnomes”? Or maybe we could call them gremlins or pixies. Like if someone saw one of those and said “ugh, what’s that gnome?” would you necessarily correct them? You might not.

Gnomes could be the giants beneath the earth or the earth elemental that beats you to a pulp in D&D. They can be straight-up dwarven miners. Their exact nature and characteristics have never been straightforward and you have countless historical sources to draw from to create your own gnomes or widen your expectations about what they might be.

Thanks for reading.

[gryfon-spanish-werewolf]

Uuh dunno if you would like this prompt : Anna and Elsa as a mythical creatures.

Would love too see what you will write them as ^^

@like-redhead-probably I sat thinking about this ask for a long time, because while I IMMEDIATELY thought of one for Elsa, Anna’s absolutely eluded me. And I know you were probably looking for a story, but I am unable to stop myself from first EXPLAINING my choices xD

I was already thinking about the myth of the Hulder (or huldra if we’re speaking of the creature in general instead of the specific Norwegian myth) for other story-related reasons, and as I did more research, I felt like the Hulder REALLY shared similarities with Elsa.

Generally speaking the huldra is a Scandinavian myth of a pale skinned, blonde or brown haired, attractive young woman who lives in the wilderness, often luring men away with song or dance to be killed or misled, stuck wandering forever. Sometimes she’s connected strongly to water, and instead of making men lost, she drowns them. Sometimes she is described as similar to an elf or fey-like creature, with characteristics related to other Huldufolk (we’ll get to them later) such as living in a parallel world, or a world Underground, and therefore preferring caves or appearing and disappearing suddenly. Sometimes she is depicted as having a hollow back, or a cow’s tail, which she hides out of embarrassment or to conceal her true identity. Which… how cute is that?

Before the 11th century, the myths were focussed more around the Huldufolk, which literally means “Hidden Folk”. There are lots of stories as to why and how the Huldufolk came to exist, but for the purpose of Elsa I think it most appropriate to look at the Christianization of the myths. Why?:

Frozen and Frozen 2 are modern movies made by an American company and Christianity is nigh untanglable with American culture, they take place in ~1840s Norway, F1 has a dedicated place of Christian congregation depicted in said movie, an official royal crowning overseen by a Christian faith leader, and the adaptation of Frozen generally comes from author Hans Christian Anderson and therefore should take his life and society into account, etc.

The Christianized myth says that one day Eve was washing her children (presumably after Cain, Abel, and Seth) in the river, when she heard God approaching. Ashamed that He would see her kids unclean, she hid the half she wasn’t done bathing, and when God asked, “Where are the other children?” Eve claimed that she had all of them present, indicating the clean ones. This gave God pause, but in the end He said, “Then let all that is Hidden, remain Hidden.” The children that Eve lied about became the Huldufolk, unable to live among humans. These people would eventually become characterized as dwarves, elves, fairies, etc., as time and interpretations rolled on, the huldra being just one of many mythical “species”.

So. Who is Elsa? She’s a:

fictional, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned young woman who led thousands of men wlw to wander helplessly into the dark caves and wildlands of social media with a power ballad and a jaw-dropping transformation sequence

Okay I’m joking… mostly…

In fact my interest in choosing the Hulder for Elsa lies purely outside of any romantic or sexual appeal, especially since Elsa as a character exhibits next to 0 romantic or sexual interest across two whole movies and an additional two shorts. Indeed, there’s a reason people headcanon her as either asexual, aromantic, or both! No, the reasons I chose the Hulder are:

Elsa’s name

Her upbringing

Her duty as queen, and

Her general behavior, specifically in regards to Frozen 1, as Frozen 2 Elsa is, at times, an almost completely different character

Elsa’s name was chosen very specifically by the filmmakers because it means “God is my Oath”. Oaths are binding, heavy, and invoke the maker’s or subject’s actions and personhood in the future. In Elsa’s case specifically, it invokes divine witness: perfect for a queen, someone born to rule. A promise to be fair, to uphold, to protect, to lead, to be a dignified and honorable face for the country. And Elsa was so ready to be that… except for the powers of course. Or at least, when they became something other than a magical gift of wonder and joy. When they became dangerous. Then there comes another oath, spoken to powerful creatures of magic, the Trolls, and born from parental fear: “She can learn to control it.”

Binding, heavy, invoking of Elsa’s future. As she grows, Elsa becomes closed off, quiet, hiding in her own home. She still takes her duties seriously, but now that she has been Other’d, taught to hide herself and her curse, she is just as much shadow as person. To young Anna, Elsa must have been almost ghostlike, disappearing right when Anna thought she’d cornered her, only to reappear sometime later down the hall, out of arm’s reach.

God promised Adam and Eve that their children would inherit the earth, even after leaving the Garden of Eden. Then suddenly that changed, due to Eve’s fear and shame of her unwashed children, and some would now inherit Underground, or somewhere else entirely. The lost children of Eve had become Other’d, needing to hide, disappear, and resort to inhuman tactics just to exist. Maybe they’re jealous, maybe they're just tricksters. But it’s not their fault. And it wasn’t Elsa’s either. Another reason they are similar.

Now, it’s not all doom and gloom for the Hulder, or for Elsa. While the Hulder is generally known for her more chaotic and negative attributes - just like our favorite snow queen, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. There are a few myths that say burning a charcoal fire -instead of a coal or gas one- is most pleasing to the Hulder, that she’ll even watch over it during the night, and wake the sleepers in case something happens. If a traveler leaves supplies behind with a note or offering for the Hulder, they will travel safely. In fact, some people leave caches for her, as though to cater to specific requests. Coming across the Hulder by chance can have a multitude of outcomes, but if an astute observer spots her cow tail and mentions it, she may become shy and run away. Don’t mention the empty back though, that’s almost certain death.

Basically my point is… trade out the word “traveler” for the name “Anna” and we can draw all the similarities we want. Anna did all of those things, in a way. Anna gave Elsa a little gift of their favorite snowman every Christmas. Anna knocked on Elsa’s door and spoke to her, treated her kindly despite the distance between them, literal and metaphorical. It’s not hard to imagine that Anna left little notes around the castle, hoping Elsa would find them, read them, and know that Anna still loved her, still missed her. And, well, hopefully Anna wasn’t setting any fires and falling asleep next to them - but Anna always kept a light on for Elsa, in her heart. And it flickered and wavered sometimes, but it was a strong fire most days. And we know Elsa was always drawn to it, drawn to Anna because she loved her right back. Loved her first, even. And because it was a warmth that pleased Elsa, she tended it, quietly, carefully, warmly. Like putting a blanket over an Anna that had fallen asleep in the painting room, refusing that slice of chocolate cake so Anna could have two desserts, and listening, for hours and hours, days and days, for the sound of Anna’s glorious bonfire-like soul outside her bedroom door. Even when her secret was revealed, Elsa believed that the best way to protect Anna’s life, her flame, was to distance herself, running to a secret, special place all her own - much like the Hulder might run away back to the Underground.

And this last part’s just me, but I’d like to think that if the Hulder was treated kindly, respected, and given dignity, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if someone came across her accidentally. That instead of being instantly drowned, or the Hulder becoming sheepish and attempting to run, it would feel recognized. It could be called by name. And instead of feeling the need to hide it’s Otherness, it could be treated as part of it, and cared for just the same. I don’t even need to be subtle here: Anna called Elsa by Name, really saw her, and reframed her darkness into light. Anna hasn’t fought God yet, but she did walk through hell and back for a sister that everyone else saw as a threat, monster, and sorcerer. A category 9 Other. Too bad for them, Anna’s got a Category 10 heart.

Speaking of. We finally got to Anna.

Anna was difficult to pin down because to me, Anna is so very, very human. That’s what makes her special! Yes, yes, you could throw any mythical creature at Anna and the fun part would be trying to make it work within her personality and characterization BUT since the question was Anna AS a mythical creature, that changes the game! The word ‘creature’ itself tends to conjure something distinctly INhuman. So I…. tried, and cheated maybe a little. Because I picked for Anna the Norse Valkyrie.

Most people know what Valkyries are so this one takes significantly less explaining. Valkyries are women that are warriors, shieldmaidens, and the hands of Odin, and they choose who lives and who dies during battle. Their chosen dead ride with them to Valhalla, while those they choose to live are usually granted honors in life. There are the darker sides of Valkyries that paint them as blood hungry maidens waiting on the sidelines before a war, singing the names of who will die with glee… but generally speaking the version of Valkyries that most people know and admire today are accurate! And thank goodness because attempting to depict Anna the other way would probably give me an ulcer.

Anna, much like the Valkyries, is a woman of valor and strength, who is perceptive, guides others, sees into people’s hearts and reveals their goodness. Valkyries are also warriors of prowess themselves, and Anna in Frozen 2 with that ice sword? We all know she was ready to use that for real. She also exemplifies traits that Valkyries both look for and have! Bravery in the face of danger: hello Marshmallow, Elsa’s own blizzard, Hans’ lethal sword strike, LIVING MOUNTAINS, and a damn collapsing.... dam. She also defends those who cannot do it themselves: saying publicly that, “My sister is not a monster… she was scared, she didn’t mean any of this,” even if that cast suspicion or doubt on herself, and the crown, as a whole. Anna knew and believed in Elsa, despite all the years and heartbreak and anger. Despite the impossible magic that literally just happened before her very eyes. Belief in character, despite appearances. And once they were reunited, Anna made every effort to stay by Elsa’s side because she STILL had that faith in her. Anna’s name means “Grace” or “of Grace”, and damn if she didn’t extend that to the person others found most unworthy, even to Elsa herself. Valkyries see what others don’t, and their decisions are final.

[Deep breath] SO! You asked for Anna and Elsa as mythical creatures. You got… a small academic paper, by social media standards xD. I intend to write a little piece about a Valkyrie who encounters the Hulder on the edges of a battlefield and… realizes she never made a choice about this particular woman. And wonders why she can’t ;). BUT I didn’t wanna leave you hanging any longer. Hope you like my choices!

Oh also, nobody asked, but Kristoff is a werebear. No research required

[alexannedra]

Vulpes vulpes

In the Scandinavian countries, foxes were believed to cause the northern lights.  These aurora were called  "revontulet" in Finland, meaning "fox fires".  Foxes sometimes replaced cats as witch´s familiars in medieval European folklore, and were occasionally persecuted in the resulting hysteria.  The Japanese revered foxes as the divine messengers of Uka no Mitama, the Shinto rice goddess, although tales were also told of evil Japanese foxes that could possess people. Many cultures have stories about shape-shifting "werefoxes".  In China and other Asian countries, werefoxes were demons that prolonged their lives by seducing humans and feeding off their souls.  A variation of this theme is a myth common among the Siberian Koriak people, the Inuit, and various tribes of native North Americans. "The Mysterious House Keeper", tells of a fox that entered a hunter´s house and removed its skin to become a beautiful woman. When the hunter returned, he found that the woman had cleaned his house and he decided to marry her.  The bliss was short lived, however, as the hunter began to complain about his wife´s smell.  Her feelings hurt, she transformed back into a fox and ran away.

Some of the best known classic fox literature was written over 2,500 years ago by Aesop.  His fables told stories about various intelligent animals, and were used to convey a moral point to the reader.  Because of their craftiness, beauty, and solitary nature, foxes figured prominently in these fables whenever deceit, pride, or individuality was necessary to the story.  One such fable is The Fox and the Grapes.  In it, a red fox finds itself in a vineyard and tries to feed on the grapes hanging on the vines.  Despite its best efforts, the fox just can´t reach the fruit and gives up in frustration.  He saves face and consoles himself by saying the grapes were probably sour any ways.  The moral of the story is that people often badmouth things they can´t have.  Like many other of Aesop´s fables, the story gave rise to a popular expression (sour grapes) or proverb.  With the possible exception of the lion, few other animals are mentioned as often by Aesop as the fox is.

Both clever and foolish, creative and destructive, perfectly civilized and utterly wild. Trickster foxes appear in old stories gathered from countries and cultures all over the world -- including Aesop's Fables from ancient Greece, the "Reynard" stories of medieval Europe,  the "Giovannuzza" tales of Italy, the "Brer Fox" lore of the American South, and stories from diverse Native American traditions...

...but at the darker end of the fox-lore spectrum we find creatures of a distinctly more dangerous cast: Reynardine, Mr. Fox, kitsune (the Japanese fox wife), kumiho (the Korean nine-tailed fox), and other treacherous shape-shifters.

Fox women populate many story traditions but they're particularly prevalent across the Far East. Fox wives, writes Korean-American folklorist Heinz Insu Fenkl, are seductive creatures who "entice unwary scholars and travelers with the lure of their sexuality and the illusion of their beauty and riches. They drain the men of their yang -- their masculine force -- and leave them dissipated or dead (much in the same way La Belle Dame Sans Merci in Keats's poem leaves her parade of hapless male victims).

"Korean fox lore, which comes from China (from sources probably originating in India and overlapping with Sumerian lamia lore) is actually quite simple compared to the complex body of fox culture that evolved in Japan. The Japanese fox, or kitsune, probably due to its resonance with the indigenous Shinto religion, is remarkably sophisticated.  Whereas the arcane aspects of fox lore are only known to specialists in other East Asian countries, the Japanese kitsune lore is more commonly accessible. Tabloid media in Tokyo recently identified the negative influence of kitsune possession among members of the Aum Shinregyo (the cult responsible for the sarin attacks in the Tokyo subway). Popular media often report stories of young women possessed by demonic kitsune, and once in a while, in the more rural areas, one will run across positive reports of the kitsune associated with the rice god, Inari."

(To read Heinz's full essay on "Fox Wives & Other Dangerous Women," go here.)

There are tales of fox wives in the West as well, but fewer of them; and they tend, by and large, to be gentler creatures. (To marry them is unlucky nonetheless, for they're skittish, shy, and not easily tamed.) An exception to this general rule can be found in the räven stories of Scandinavia. The fox-women who roam the forests of northern Europe are portrayed as heart-stoppingly beautiful, fiercely independent, and extremely dangerous.

(Fox Woman by Susan Boulet)

(Little Elvie in the Wild Wood by Catherine Hyde)

The "nine-tailed fox" of China and Japan is often (but not always) a demonic spirit, malevolent in intent. It takes possession of human bodies, both male and female, moving for one victim to another over thousands of years, seducing other men and women in order to dine on their hearts and livers. Human organs are also a delicacy for the nine-tailed fox, or kumiho, of Korean lore -- although the earliest texts don't present the kumiho as evil so much as amoral and unpredictable...occasionally even benevolent...much like the faeries of English folklore.

In the West, it's the fox-men we need to beware of -- such as Reynardine in the old folk ballad, a handsome were-fox who lures young maidens to a bloody death.

Mr. Fox, in the English fairy tale of that name, is cousin to the kumiho and Reynardine, with a bit of Bluebeard mixed in for good measure, promising marriage to a gentlewoman while his lair is littered with her predecessors' bones. Neil Gaiman drew inspiration from the tale when he wrote his wry, wicked poem "The White Road":

There was something sly about his smile, his eyes so black and sharp, his rufous hair. Something that sent her early to their trysting place, beneath the oak, beside the thornbush, something that made her climb the tree and wait. Climb a tree, and in her condition. Her love arrived at dusk, skulking by owl-light, carrying a bag, from which he took a mattock, shovel, knife. He worked with a will, beside the thornbush, beneath the oaken tree, he whistled gently, and he sang, as he dug her grave, that old song...

shall I sing it for you, now, good folk?

Jeannine Hall Gailey, by contrast, casts a sympathetic eye on fox shape-shifters, writing plaintively from a kitsune's point of view in "The Fox-Wife's Invitation":

These ears aren't to be trusted. The keening in the night, didn't you hear? Once I believed all the stories didn’t have endings, but I realized the endings were invented, like zero, had yet to be imagined. The months come around again, and we are in the same place; full moons, cherries in bloom, the same deer, the same frogs, the same helpless scratching at the dirt. You leave poems I can’t read behind on the sheets, I try to teach you songs made of twigs and frost. you may be imprisoned in an underwater palace; I'll come riding to the rescue in disguise. Leave the magic tricks to me and to the teakettle. I've inhaled the spells of willow trees, spat them out as blankets of white crane feathers. Sleep easy, from behind the closet door I'll invent our fortunes, spin them from my own skin. Although chancy to encounter in myth, and too wild to domesticate easily (in stories and in life), some of us long for foxes nonetheless, for their musky scent, their hot breath, their sharp-toothed magic.  "I needed fox," wrote Adrienne Rich:

Badly I needed a vixen for the long time none had come near me I needed recognition from a triangulated face     burnt-yellow eyes fronting the long body the fierce and sacrificial tail I needed history of fox     briars of legend it was said she had run through I was in want of fox

And the truth of briars she had to have run through I craved to feel on her pelt     if my hands could even slide past or her body slide between them     sharp truth distressing surfaces of fur lacerated skin calling legend to account a vixen's courage in vixen terms

(Full poem here.) Ah, but Fox is right here, right beside us, Jack Roberts answers, a little warily:

Not the five tiny black birds that flew out from behind the mirror over the washstand,

nor the raccoon that crept out of the hamper,

nor even the opossum that hung from the ceiling fan

troubled me half so much as the fox in the bathtub.

There's a wildness in our lives. We need not look for it.

(Full poem here.)

There are a number of good novels that draw upon fox legends -- foremost among them, Kij Johnson's exquisite The Fox Woman, which no fan of mythic fiction should miss. I also recommend Neil Gaiman's The Dream Hunters (with the Japanese artist Yoshitaka Amano);  Larissa Lai's When Fox Is a Thousand; and Ellen Steiber's gorgeous A Rumor of Gems (as well as her heart-breaking novella "The Fox Wife," published in Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears). Alice Hoffman's disquieting Here on Earth is a contemporary take on the Reynardine/Mr. Fox theme, as is Helen Oyeyemi's Mr. Fox, a complex work full of stories within stories within stories. For younger readers, try the "Legend of Little Fur" series by Isobelle Carmody. And for mythic poetry, I especially recommend She Returns to the Floating World by Jeannine Hall Gailey and Sister Fox’s Field Guide to the Writing Life by Jane Yolen. 

[easythingstodrawtutorials]

How to Draw a Monster - Nose - Easy Things to Draw

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How to Draw a Monster - Nose - Easy Things to Draw

How to Draw a Monster – Nose – Easy Things to Draw

Video originally posted on my sketch monster channel, I’m merging both channels, so I’m importing this over. This is a video on tips to draw a monster nose. The nose is a relatively easy feature compared to the eye, but it still have challenges.

Also, don’t forget to check another tutorial How to Draw a Monster – Monster Portrait Demo – Easy Things to Draw

  Hi guys, how are you, I’m Enrique and welcome to my channel Easy Things To Draw, this video is one that I had already uploaded in my channel Sketch Monster, but as I said before, I’m in the process of merging my two channels together, Easy Things To Draw and Sketch Monster.

Since the channel Sketch Monster was destined to draw the things that I like the most, but I have noticed that in this channel are also interested in them, that’s why I want to combine them, and also in this way it is easier for me to maintain them.

Today I want to go over some tips about noses, and maybe how to make an efficient one or like a better-looking one. The pencil that I’m using today is a regular graphite pencil, since, in several of my videos I like to show you that you can use any material to draw, but if you really care about what exactly pencil I’m using is a portfolio aqua sketch 6b, but as I said before it’s not really important…

  whatever you decide to use, it will be fine. As I said, today I’m going to talk about some noses tips, the first tip, is about the things that you don’t have to put on a nose, but anyway, I’ll show you what people tend to do…

One way I find that it’s good to talk about noses and also how to draw this kind of science fiction, horror or even animal noses, is to know about what they’re made of, Apart from this I will talk really quickly about human noses.

  We will start with the human nose, and what they are made of, I advise you for this step to search in internet images of skulls or if by chance you have one near you, use it for reference, that way it will be easier for you to understand this step. The skull has this kind of ridge bone just before the nose starts, in the middle of both eyes, and then, and then what goes forward is mostly cartilage, that part of the nose is pretty malleable, well not as much as a mouth or even an eye, but it’s not so hard as a bone and you can notice that.

  Like, for example, when you’re drawing a nose, some people have this kind of hanging downward nose and then you can find some people with a really upturned nose, most of the shape is given by the cartilage and you can also see this in nose operations, because to modify them, they have to operate a part of the cartilage. So, we have the skull by there somewhere, but the end of this can be a lot of things…

  When I was making these nose I was thinking in trolls, these are a fearsome member of a mythical anthropomorphic race of Scandinavian folklore. Their role can change from diabolical giants, similar to the ogres, to devious savages, much like men underground living in hills or mounds. These are prone to theft and the kidnapping of humans. Another name they may have is “hill people” or “mound people.”

Literature, art and Nordic music from the romantic period onwards have adapted trolls in various ways, often in the form of an Aboriginal race, with huge ears and nose, that is why I think of them with this hanging downward nose, but this depends on how humanized you want to make them, and then you can find the fairies, which are a fantastic and subtle creature…

  These are generally described in the form of a beautiful woman with butterfly wings, for that reason, I believe, that it suits them a more upturned nose, although that does not mean anything, I wouldn’t want you to feel insulted, since by the way, my nose is more of the style of a hanging downward one, but these are stylized things that people usually do for certain things.

  For monsters, there are a variety of types of noses. the monsters have a very broad concept linked to mythology and fiction. This term can be applied to any being that presents characteristics, usually negative or unrelated to the regular order of nature. Monsters are described as hybrid beings that can combine human elements, animals, and also have an abnormal size and supernatural faculties. 

This term is reserved for beings who inspire fear and disgust or refer to people whose acts go against their own moral values, so monsters can have this kind of giant hanging nose or even not have it, and I want to talk about that really fast.

When you’re drawing a character with no nose, like for example Red Skull from Marvel, this character only has a huge hole where the nose goes because the cartilage doesn’t continue, It’s just the bone part, you can use this kind of no-nose, for a more mysterious or evil character…

Also, if you look straight ahead to the skull, you can see that in the nasal cavity it only have one bone in the middle, like I said before you can go online and look for skull references with a view to the front, that way you’ll have a clearer view of what I’m talking about. Another thing I’ve seen people do a lot lately is to leave some cartilage in the nasal cavity…

Like the same nose that we did look to the side, now we are going to do it with a view to the front, with the difference that in the middle you have to divide the nostril, like I said I’ve seen this a lot, that they don’t leave any bridge in the nose and is just like an empty cavernous thing.

So that might be a good idea, I’ve seen that style in a lot of creature designs, but another form of no-nose that you could use is two holes in your character, you know, like two small holes instead of a nose, because one of the things you want to make sure, is that your character can breathe, because if he has to run, you know, if you want to create a creature that moves very fast or something like that, he is probably  going to need more air than normal, so is going to need more than just his mouth to get it, so this style might work for you. How to draw step by step. 

In another type of creature, that you would also use this style is in zombies, these are grotesque characters with an insatiable hunger for human flesh, they are dead beings who have risen from their graves and want to destroy humanity. They have a clumsy walking and their body is in a state of decomposition, so their flesh is all mashed together, you can give them the appearance that their nose has fallen off, using two points instead.

Another tip about noses that I want to talk is about animal noses, if you want to incorporate this style in your drawing, I was thinking to give you an example using the skull of a coyote, This I use a lot in my examples, and again, you can look for some references online so you can learn better… 

Now if you look at the part where the snout is, you can tell, that they have the same kind of hole that we do, since they need a lot of oxygen to be able to breathe, but they have on the sides of their head this ridge and that’s another way to pull out like a snout, when you’re creating a character, especially if it’s like a werewolf, which is a hybrid character, because it has characteristics of a man and a wolf, has the body covered with hair, shorter legs, human hands, and a wolf head, or any character with a more stylish side of dogs, wolves, etc. You are going to want to pull that snout out, and yo have to remember, that part is made of bone.

Some dinosaurs don’t have this bone, what they have, is a hole in the sides of their faces, and that’s because, in that part, they have some muscles. An example of this could be the T-Rex, if you take a look at the skull of a T-Rex you’ll find that they have this huge hole, which I think is used for the muscles that they need to be able to eat.

Wolves and animals like those, don’t have these holes. An intermediate of wolves and humans could be a Bobcat, if you look at the skull of these animals you will realize that his ridge is intermediate, what I mean by this is that, it’s not completely similar to a human but is not as long as the snout of a wolf, coyote or parts of a dog, but this skull of Bobcat is kind of like an in between, or in other words, things are starting to almost pull out, but just a little bit…

The point of why I’m telling you all these things is because I think you should have this in your mind, this ridge or this bone in mind because when you want to draw a more animalized monster or things like that, this could serve you… Make cool monster drawings. 

Another thing that I also suggest you keep in mind, is this kind of cartilage bone and also where the bone begins and ends, The same goes for the cartilage, I consider it a good idea, that way you can build and mix your own nose and do it with the elements of animals or humans that you like the most. And that was it, those are my little tips for drawing noses, and remembering a little bit of what I said earlier, it is important to remember that at the end of the bone of our nose we can find the cartilage and this can take many different forms…

since that part is more malleable, so you can play with it as much as you want. What I was interested to teach you today are the things that go through my mind when it comes to drawing, hopefully, it has been helpful for you. Also, if you want to support me, you can always subscribe to my channel Easy Things To Draw, remember as I said at the beginning…

That I’m merging it with my other channel Sketch Monster, so you’re going to see a lot of the videos from that channel here, some of them have some changes, because they are a little bit old and the quality of some things, especially the audio, was not the best, also you can press the little bell button, that way you’ll get notifications every time I upload new content to my channel…

You know that I’m interested in teaching you guys how to draw easy things, like superheroes, monsters, how to draw body anatomy, robot or things related to them, as well as drawings for beginners. So it doesn’t really matter if you don’t have a lot of knowledge on these things, because I like to teach you how to draw step by step and in the best possible way to make it easier for you to learn or to improve.

But if you are someone with more experience, it doesn’t matter, all are welcome to see my tutorials, as I have said several times it is always good to review a little since some things are forgotten with the time. Also, other things that I like to talk about in my videos, apart from monsters and how to draw certain things, are about experiences that have happened to me as an artist, and I try to advise you a little. And that’s all, thank you so much for seeing my tutorial I hope it can help you and I see you in another tutorial where I will teach you easy things to draw, goodbye.

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Also, don’t forget to check another tutorial How to Draw a Monster – Monster Portrait Demo – Easy Things to Draw

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[thefloatingstone]

Why do you think skeletons aren't scary anymore? I can't watch old b-movies without either laughing or telling the woman screaming at the walking skeleton "calm down, it isn't even that scary."

*Rubs hands together* Hoo boy, you wanna know?

First off; I’m not a psychologist, so take what I say with a pinch of salt. But you asked so here goes!

I think the reason skeletons are no longer considered “scary” is simply due to 2 things; Desensitization, and disassociation.

When I was a kid, I was REALLY scared of skulls. Skeletons too I guess but skulls specifically. And I don’t mean cartoony skulls, I mean photos and videos of real skulls and skeletons. Looking back and trying to think of why, the answers seems to be, quite simply, that a skull is a face that’s not there any more. So when I looked at them, even if photos and stuff, as a child I could not ignore the fact that I was looking at something which was, essentially, looking back at me. And that’s unnerving.

A skull, and a skeleton, are essentially “something which is not there any more”. Both in the physical sense of flesh, but also in the metaphorical sense of “life”. Since literally forever, Skeletons have been shorthand for the concept of “death”. But this REALLY came into play after the Black Plague in Europe. Suddenly, a rather stagnant culture as far as art went, got a boom of artistic expression. Suddenly the mundane, everyday life was completely broken away from under them, and the concept that “Death is always with us” because very much a reality. Not only in the disease still on their doorsteps, but also as an extension that “we ALL die at some point. Disease or not.” In the past, mortality was a much more accepted concept of life, as it were, but the disease really made people stop and ponder it more seriously, having needed to face it head-on for such an extended period of time.

I bring this up because a Skeleton literally came to represent not only “death” but the concept of human mortality. And its depiction in art was not so much “here is a skeleton” as the idea that “death is our constant companion in life”

Later on, (much later) in Victorian times, EVERYTHING was super melodramatic XD like… EVERYTHING. And the Victorians had an especially morbid taste. Stories about murder, ghosts, and the supernatural were extremely popular, and often very seriously believed. This was when you could actually become VERY rich as a “medium” and hold seances and could be completely considered a 100% serious business. Honestly, I blame how repressed Victorian society was that anything even remotely morbid and “scary” would get the ladies screaming. (I am specifically referring to Victorian England here of course. I can’t speak much for, say, Scandinavian culture at this point)

So right around Edwardian England, the movies came along. And with the clinging ideas of Victorian England skulls, skeletons and other creepy nasty things were still very much in fashion as “things of the supernatural” and bloody murder and all that lovely stuff. Like Paranormal activity today, Spooky Scary Skeletons you went to see to scream at, not because you’re genuinely terrified of them on a deeper level, but because “eek! The movie is scary!”I saw Jurassic Park in theaters a year or so ago during a re-release and the teenagers in front of us were losing their shit. I doubt any of them are actually scared of Dinosaurs XD but it’s fun to go to a movie and be scared.

And movies offered a unique idea which could not really be done properly on stage per se. (although I’m speaking from ignorance here. Forgive me.) and that is with special effects, even basic early ones, we could see skeletons MOVE.

And this is a whole level of “wrongness” we can’t really comprehend today. Did you know that one of the first “moving pictures” of “The Great Train Robbery” had people supremely upset because it ends with a cowboy shooting directly at the audience? I do not believe people “ran screaming from the theater because they thought they were really gonna get hit by a train or get shot” as is the popular belief, but can you imagine seeing, for the very first time in your life, a gun pointed directly at you and fired? Now imagine seeing a movie with something like a SKELETON. and it is MOVING.

Those are two concepts when put together are extremely unnerving. A thing representative of “death” of “the life that once was here is now gone” getting up and suddenly moving around. That in of itself is scary, but skeletons are also often pictures as being malevolent. They are things of wrongness and they want to HURT YOU.

Much like bad CGI, a moving skeleton is right smack dab in the uncanny valley. Something far too human, but just not quite there. Moving around, sometimes talking, and in this case, out to get you. It’s human… but not quite.

(Metropolis. 1922)

But of course, as time goes on this becomes an easy crutch. And not all special effects are equal. A skeleton in “Jason and the Argonauts” may not be scary any more, but it’s still damn impressive.

“The Screaming Skull”? Not so much…

Soon. We stop associating Skeletons with “They are us, but not quite” with “horror movie” and “Halloween”. They no longer represent what they are. They’ve become shorthand for the idea of horror, rather than a representation of it.

When we look at skeletons these days in movies/cartoons/video games, we have come to associate them as something other than human. a “Skeleton” is now basically the same idea as “an orc” or “a mermaid”. It’s become a mythical species of its own. Its lost the root of what made it scary to begin with, the association with ourselves and our own mortality.

This is through over-use, through decades of subversion of ideas “what if skeletons were actually NICE?” which was novel when it first happened, but is now simply an extension of the “mythical creature” that is a skeleton. We have come to associate skeletons with skeletons, rather than death, decay, loss and the supernatural.

This is not to say this is bad. That is simply the way of things. And in fact, speaks volumes of where humans have gone in ways of empathy. Many people these days really love skeleton characters for the exact same reasons they were scary. “They’re like us, but different.” And whereas that was scary, it is now cause for affection. For reaching out and wanting to befriend and protect something almost like us… but not quite. Because human nature, (despite our best efforts) is really to be kind. And something that had become a character in of itself, it was only a matter of time before it became something sympathetic rather than just plain horror.

Although no longer scary in of themselves though, it is possible to remind people why we found the idea of a living skeleton scary in the first place. it’s extremely hard, and may not be “scary” but it can be done. But it needs to reestablish that association we had as children on an instinctive level.

A good example is “Wiseman” from Sailor Moon. (Yes really). I don’t find him “scary” as an adult, but as a child I would’ve been fucking terrified of this guy. And although not scary, he remains supremely creepy.

Mostly because we only ever see him like this:

And eventually, as the show goes on, there are brief moments where he does this:

Until, finally, in only 2 episodes we see what he really is. But we don’t see it right in front of us. It’s just shown in flashes, in brief moments as he speaks.

Coupled by the fact that over the course of 20 episodes or so, he very very slowly starts talking about his own ideals. That of death. Of despair, loneliness, and annihilation. Specifically, the death of hope, and the removal of any kind of future at all. There is no hopefull future, is Wiseman’s gospel. “Humans are ultimately alone. And they will die so. There is no happy ending. There is no future. So all you can do is respond with hate and anger to that which you cannot escape, and take as many people down with you as you can.”

So I hope that explains it a little at least?

We use to be scared of Skeletons because we associated them with our own death, and with the inherent wrongness of something dead still showing signs of life.

We’re no longer scared of them because we’re taught “nah. a Skeleton is just a person like any of us. They just look a bit different. But they’re nice when you get to know them. And if they’re assholes whatever. They’re just skeletons. like any of us, really.”

[wishingfornever]

1/10/2018 – No Contact:  Hitting the Polls

So, I ended up asking a question to my fellow nations and I got minimal communication out of it.  Lol, I’m really bad at being responsible. I ended up watching several movies yesterday.  And by yesterday I mean it’s almost 1am and I watched three movies as well as ordered a large pizza and ate it at one sitting.  I’m a terrible person.

Three movies, all animated and almost all French.  The Angry Birds Movie (which was better than I thought it’d be), Avril and the Extraordinary World, and The Long Way North.  The last two were the french ones.  I watched these after binge watching CellSpex who I started watching due to her Zero Punctuation styled portrayal of herself.  Not to say she’s ripping it off or anything, she just uses a very simplistic way to illustrate herself being her outline. Expression is done with a simple outline of eyes rather than using a facecam like other channels.

The Angry Birds Movie… as mentioned, better than I thought it was going to be.  I relate with the angry main character because I too have large eyebrows.  Oh, and I might have anger problems.  CellSpex mentioned how it was an allegory for Trump being right, but the way I saw it was… anti-American.  The pigs represented the United States as evident with their boats and greedy pigs with Southern Accents. The eagle was the outdated throes of liberty, coming back to aid a less advanced people to overcome their enemy who is a western power. In the end, they sing praises of “Red” which is communism!

I guess my point is, if you look for something you’ll find it.  I don’t think it’s trying to push a Communist message but everything can be open to interpretation.  That’s what makes everything so challenging.  When you take a religion and you determine your interpretation is the only correct one, then you end up with Protestantism and Catholicism with all these little heresies in between.

That said, Avril and the Extraordinary World.  I was a little let down.  I thought the art was something.  The animation was well done, I like how each individual person sort of moved on their own accord.  Gives a lot of life to the world in a very subtle way, I felt.  The opening scene with the police was just stellar.  However, I did feel the second half of the movie was somewhat weaker.  The ideas I came up for were WAY cooler than what actually happened.

I really wanted to see it in French, however.  I would have preferred subtitles.  Especially when the talking cat (who is actually quite charming, btw) requests Avril explain something simply by saying, “In English, please.”  That actually pissed me off.  They’re French. They’re in France.  They should speak French.  Even if the movie is in English, they should have said, “In French, please.”

I also thought the villain creatures were kind of… cute.  I mean, I didn’t like the idea behind them and sort of felt that they didn’t fit that well in a supposedly steampunk setting.  I was hoping for more politics and thought that they’d be a rival nation like Prussia or something.

Which reminds me, they (the French) were at were with the American League, for some reason… and they built a bridge to connect themselves with Britain.  Um… why?  They’re the BIGGEST rivals.  In fact, France had plans to invade Britain prior to WWI (if it came to that, of course).  And considering a Napoleon sat on the throne…  Not that it mattered.  The entire political system was sort of just background noise.  The Emperor wasn’t really important except that the original Napoleon III died.  Even then, he could have totally been replaced with a government stooge and it would have been fine.  I don’t know why they wanted France to be a monarchy when it was pretty unneeded.  If there were more politics in the movie, then yeah.  That’d be important.  But… it’s not, really.  It’s just kind of there.

There is a lot that I didn’t like now that I think about it.  I was expecting… A LOT more.  And I dislike how the Alternative History got the real history… wrong.  Like certain things wouldn’t have been able to happen due to what they proposed.  That’s always been a pet peeve of mine.  And I also dislike how they just selected a group of famous or relatively well-known scientists from the early 20th century just to be sort of… cameos.  I mean… Tesla.  That’s the only one people really would care about.

Regardless, I liked the animation, even though the noses and ears were really big.  The cat was great, as mentioned, and the grandfather wears spats.  That’s nice.  Fashion hadn’t changed much, it seems, as they still had late victorian wear.  It’s steampunk, which is sort of underplayed in media.  It’s charming.  It’s just… eh.  I was hoping for more.  I felt disappointed.  Like, if it were a pizza I’d have eaten it all and still feel like I hadn’t eaten enough.  And it’d have mushrooms which I dislike but I’ll eat anyways because it’s still good pizza.

Finally, The Long Way North.  This was my favorite of the night.  It was GORGEOUS.  Just beautiful.  The artwork wasn’t as detailed as Avril and blah blah blah but it was still very inviting.  What I liked most about it is that it didn’t use a lot of black outlines.  Really, it had very few outlines.  Samurai Jack did this, sort of.  The eyes are simple but they were beautiful.  The motion was just… refreshing.

The story was fine, though I did have some quips about how they’re supposed to be in Russia.  Only ONCE did I see Cyrillic.  The rest of the writing was mostly in French, which admittedly would have been a thing for Russian Aristocracy to know… but not Norwegian sailors. At least, I assume they’re Norwegian.  They have Scandinavian names and the ship is called the “Norge.”  I don’t really know what they do, either.  Like, they’re not whalers and they’re not transporting goods.  What do you do?!

They make plot happen, I guess.

I found how they did feet to be weird but also kind of… cute.  It had a childlike spirit but was still captivating.  There were some dumb cliches here and there and some more questions that I’d like answers for, but for the most part?  It’s a movie I want to suggest to Ariel.  I think she’d like it too.  :D

Time for bed.  Going to be a busy day tomorrow.  I intend to finish my tax plan tomorrow.  Or… today.

Well, that was a waste.  Current time is 10.  I didn’t have a lot of time today.  I was called in for work.  Drat.  I posted a poll asking about “What we should do!” and what should be taxed.  Irrelevant, really.  Just buying me time.  I didn’t have the chance to pick up honey mustard or anything else, not that it matters.  I was too tired from work.

I ended up watching videos and streams when I got back.  I can’t recall what I really did today, which is weird.

I’m watching an old movie.  Troy.  It came out 14 years ago.  An old story but I don’t like how the narration begins with, “Will they remember us in 2004?!”  Golly, I don’t know.  Will they remember us in 6018?  It’s dumb.  And they keep doing it.  “They’ll tell our tales thousands of years from now!”  Shut up!  Stahp it!  No! Stop bragging about how we remember an ancient story!  Stop it.  You don’t see modern stories about snipers talking about “In 300 years, they’ll remember me.”

Dumb.  So dumb.

Still, I quite enjoy troy.  Not a lot of ancient movies that aren’t overtly religious or mythic.  Like… it’s somewhat similar to what France considered art while Rembrandt was doing his thing.  He had stark contrasts with sublime imagery as did other Dutch artists while to the French, this was not art!  Art must be old, depicting historic events or mythological events!  That’s why there is SO much art depicting ancient kings and whatever and not much of the actual normal every day from that period.

Like, cool, but for real though.  Branch out.

In the 60’s and 70’s all Ancient movies were just… meh.  Ben-Hur. Romans.  Jesus, also.  Dumb.  I hated Ben-Hur.  Jason and the Argonauts.  Also dumb but impressive for its time.  Then The 300 Spartans or whatever movie.  Also dumb.  Haven’t seen it, but it’s dumb.  Of course, that one isn’t religious but I’m sure it’s got some religious undertone.  Most American movies did, probably in an effort to combat Communism.

Anyways, I’m trying to think of a good movie about Rome or Ancient Greece… idk.  There is a lot you can do, I’d personally like to see something involving the siege of Syracuse during the second punic war.  Which reminds me.  Why is Hannibal not in any movies?

Of course, Hannibal would perhaps be cast by an African American gentleman if they made a movie about it.  Really, they should get an Israeli to do it as the Carthaginians were a Semitic people.  Of course, that might not be enough because the modern Israeli can be sort of white at times. Perhaps an Arabic character would be fine.  Just a Middle-Eastern sort of appearance physically.

Regardless, going to watch my movie.  I like the outfits because they’re not the greek armor you know and love.  Breastplate, corinthian helmet, bracers… honestly, you had to supply your own kit back then.  So, there wouldn’t really be a uniform.  What I described?  That’s expensive and I’m fairly certain they didn’t have bracers.  Just didn’t.  Not sure why, may have been a waste of armor to them.

That said, the armor takes some inspiration from this old boar tusk helmet from the Mycenean period.  They were basically early Greeks which is appropriate for the… well, Greeks in the movie.  A lot of detail and design.  Sometimes too much design, but still.  It was clear that “These aren’t the Greeks we see from pottery.  These Greeks are even MORE Ancient!”  Except for Achilles who has a Corinthian helmet… with a very open face.  And somewhat modern armor for the time.

Regardless, I always felt good costumes help sink you into the feel of the movie. When I was younger, this all looked perfect to me.  Now?  Not so much, but it gets a pass.

Oh, Christ.  The costumes are worse than I remember.  Non-Greek items on supposedly Greek men.  They mentioned a lot of places in Greece, too. Not sure how powerful they would have been at this time but they didn’t sound very… well, powerful.  In fact, I think it’s kind of redundant.  Thessaly also looks like a desert.  It’s in greece so I THINK it should be green but I’m not sure.

The capital A without the line in the middle.  That’s a popular thing on shields.  Called a Lambda.  It’s basically the letter “L” for the Greeks.  Spartans never really used the lambda until AFTER the battle of Thermopylae which is YEARS after.  I say that because I noticed a random lambda at Achilles’s yurt.  Very ancient if they’re using yurts instead of housing.  Almost nomadic.

They say Thessalonian again.  I think he’d be identified more by his city rather than region.  Thessaly isn’t a city but a region.  I guess it’s not wrong, just unusual.

Army shots.  A lot of extras.  Thing is, uniforms are very important in movies because you can recognize them versus us!  We’re the good guys, we wear white while… eh.  Yeah, there was a lot of individuality in the militaries back then.  Armors would look different, shields would DEFINITELY be different, colors would be different, or whatever.  As mentioned, you brought what you had.  If you had a yellow shirt then you wore it.  Your friend would wear a blue shirt.  The idea of uniforms being an important thing to have wasn’t really a thing until quite recently.  Even in Ancient Rome when they had a professional army, you’d still see a few different effects here and there.  Mostly with officers, mind you, who could afford it.  But still.

I LOVE how they have to convince Achilles to stay because their army is scared.  Like, dude.  They’re scared because Achilles fights all the battles for them.  If he leaves, then they have to fight.  And they’ve probably never fought a battle because Agamemnon says, “Best fighters fight only!” all the time.  It’s a miracle the Greeks ever conquered Troy.

Oh, shit.  They have that weird helmet thing with a super circular crest. Didn’t notice it.  The guards at the table during a feast. Guarding… a portion of important wall?  Hrm.  Regardless, I’ve seen that helmet before.  Also seems to be a Saracen helmet adorned by someone at the table… for reasons?

Sparta is the most fucking overrated city state ever.  Just a thought.

Poseidon? I’m fairly certain the Trojans had different gods than the Greeks because they weren’t actually Greek.  I’m not entirely certain, however.  Just fairly.

The Greeks wear red and the Trojans wear blue.  Hrm…  Weird thing to notice.

Paris loves Helen… thing is, love wasn’t really an acceptable reason for marriage back then.  Funny thing, that.  You see someone talking about how in Greek mythology, humans had 4 arms and 4 legs and Zeus separated them so they’d have to forever find their soulmate, you look them in the eye and call them a liar.

Country wouldn’t really be the term.  City-State.  So City.

Whenever someone says, “Poetic” my ears perk like my name is being called. Hector said “Nothing Poetic” and I’m like, “Eh?!”  First half of my screen name.  ;)

Proved.  That’s a word, yeah.  Sounds weird.  I think I would have said, “Proven.”

Every day wear costumes are… weird.  Costumes in general are getting weirder.  Sean Bean, what?

And Odysseus references his wife.  Lel.  Odyssey easter egg.  And then he talks about how remembered it’d be… oof.  Stahp it.

Larissa? Wait, what?  That’s IN fucking Thessaly!  Achilles fought other Thessalians?  Seriously?  And the king of Thessaly didn’t know who Achilles was?  Achilles just happen to be a POWERFUL mercenary, born locally.  In fact, he’s from what is probably your main city.  I mean, he’s bumped elbows with OTHER kings like Odysseus.  And now they’re talking about being remembered again!  Christ, this is like the prequel to Coco.  -,-

Priam has a voice like deep velvet.  Oof.  Powerful.  Wasn’t expecting that from such a narrow figure.

Thinking back, I think in the Iliad the Gods were on both sides because they felt split about the issue.  I can’t remember, I read it in high school and it was sort of difficult to read through.  So, maybe they did worship the same gods?  Or maybe Homer assumed they did.  It’s possible.

What accent does Hellen have?  Everyone is English but she sort of sounds… well, drunk.

I hate when extras have their gear slightly to the side like it doesn’t fit correctly or something.  Dude, straighten your helmet.  Do what you need to do.  Everyone should be passed around a handheld mirror or something.  -,-

Oh, those archers have the most worthless helmets.  You could have a band of metal wrapped around your head that will get hot and eventually start cooking your flesh in the nice, Mediterranean sun… or you could wear a straw hat.  Both will protect you about the same.  The stray hat may actually be better, considering it won’t melt your forehead.  If the sun exists and can get hot, you don’t want to be touching metal.

Something I do remember is whenever someone who had awesome armor fell in battle in the Iliad, people fucking lost their shit and rushed to loot the body.  Strip them of their armor.  Random fact.  May remember it wrong.  So, a lot of those people who are fighting would have a shield, a helmet, and a spear with nothing else.  The myrmidons would be decked out because they’re badasses and they’d have collected armor from previous encounters… but the run of the mill warrior wouldn’t.

I want to see a movie where the armor isn’t a suggestion.  I want to see it actually save someone’s life.  Preferably, someone who isn’t a main character.  Something else I’d like to see is more people who are just… wounded.  Not killed but just wounded.  This may surprise you but most casualties in a battle weren’t really fatalities.  Well, not immediately… wounds could be fatal but they didn’t die instantly.  I dislike seeing the aftermath of a battle and it’s a field littered with corpses.  It wouldn’t be that static.  There would be crying, people huddled in a ball, people writhing in pain.  It’s actually kind of hard to kill a person. But no.  Everyone must die instantly.

Oh, look.  D-Day.  Lelelelelelel.

Random thing to note.  The Romans believed their people were originally Trojans.  This is probably untrue.  However, I do think it’s a possibility that their neighbors to the north may have been Trojan. They were the Etruscans and not a lot is known about them.  The Romans had a tendency to adopt customs and cultural ideas from other cultures, look at their gods.  Basically reskinned Greek gods.  The Etruscans being Trojan?  Perhaps the Romans adopted their neighbors’ history and some of their identity.  Just a thought, of course.

“I spoke with two farmers today.  They saw an eagle with a serpent clutched in it’s talons today.  This is a sign from Mexico.  They will pay for our wall.”  I make myself laugh.

I’m not sure they’d be kissing.  I believe kissing was a Roman tradition.  Was very unusual in other cultures.

Looking at the extras for the armies, I’d say this may have been filmed in Turkey.  If so, they used the Turkish army as extras.  That’s a common thing to do.  You pay the government rather than the extras so it’s cheaper.  Then again, they may have filmed somewhere else.  I assumed Turkey because that’s where Troy is supposed to be.  But the Trojans aren’t Turks.  Remember that.

Lol, they look like my cousins actually.  I think I see one of Adela’s brothers.

Hrm, maybe they aren’t entirely from an army. If they are, then they allowed the soldiers to grow beards just for the movie.  I’m curious where it’s filmed now.  :o

...is this Mexico?

HOLY FUCK, IT MIGHT BE!!!  I just Googled it.  They filmed in Malta and Mexico.  Mexico was where they filmed the gates and wall of Troy. Whoa.  The extras probably are Mexican.  Certainly a lot of CGI.  And it makes the idea that the eagle with the serpent thing represents a sign from Mexico even better.  I wouldn’t have guessed Mexico but the guy with Agamemnon looked like one of my uncles.  Interesting. :D

Hector has a very handsome actor playing him.  More handsome than Brad Pitt I feel.

There is a nose guard on the helmet of Paris.  When we see through his perspective, however, it’s sawed off.

He spits out a lot of blood for what looks like SUCH a weak punch.

Apollonians… they look like every other soldier.  It probably would have been cheaper if their costumes were more realistic.  Minimal armor for the average soldier while the Apollonians would have actual armor.  That way, they’re unique and can be identified quickly.  Also, archers are op please nerf.

The Hittites are mentioned.  That’s pretty neat except the Hittites are on the other side of Turkey, almost Armenia.  I can’t remember if it were them or the Assyrians but one of their cultures relied on conquest.  Either their civilization conquered or the world would end.  They had to win EVERY battle… well, they lost a battle. World didn’t end.  Then their civilization collapsed.  The lesson there is push for victory but allow defeats.  You can lose every battle in a war but that doesn’t mean the war is lost.

I feel the scene where Achilles rescues the priestess is cliché.  So cliché.  :/

They’re listing off gods now.  Eh…  There were literally hundreds of gods in Greek culture.  Like, I touched on this back with Hercules.

Sean Bean actually has a rather soothing voice.  I never noticed that until now.  I remember in the Sharpe series, he pissed me off.  Even then, I think it was less to do with his character and more to do with Anglophilia.  As well as blatant classism.  And horrible cliches, again.  And inaccurate historical portrayals.  Then again, I guess the books may have been better.  Not sure.  It was suggested to me back when I played vidya gams.

Patroclus is a terrible actor.

“Attack at daybreak!”  *attacks in the middle of the night WITH FUCKING NAPALM!!!*

Really, if you could get so close to their camp without setting off the alarm, why not just go in and stab everyone quietly.  I mean, you’re already attacking at night.  Just… come on.  Wouldn’t Apollo have better watch over you when the sun is out?

I love how they march in the sand.  Like, they look like they’re running SO slowly.  Fun times.

The armies stop fighting to watch the best fighters fight.  I’m not sure how true that is but I’ve heard it’s happened on medieval battlefields before.

One of the extras in the back, shaking his head.  I love it.

“There are no turns, so you can’t get lost.  I know you too well.  Got lost in the fucking hallway… dumb bitch.”  I shouldn’t poke fun.  I get lost easily as well.

Archery. Ah, yes.  Warfare for the cowardly.

Good fight between Hector and Achilles… except Achilles forgot his helmet, shield, and spear head.  D’oh!

King Priam snuck into the Greek encampment.  Really?  If some old dude could do it then the Trojans could have snuck at least Hector in there.  Killed a few people, slit a few throats of sleeping Greeks and then flee.  Cause chaos or something.  Didn’t have to turn the beach into the Vietnam War.

Wait, Priam knew Achilles father?  And the king of Thessaly never even heard of Achilles?  The guy who is literally two yurts down from his palace?

CGI soldiers… huh.  I wonder why CGI movies aren’t more common.  I think they did something like that with Beowulf but it was just… weird.  Not a good movie.  There was a movie called Beowulf and Grendel which was interesting.  Not the best, either, but they had historically accurate armor.  Always nice.  Was true to the original lore, as well.

CGI might be cheaper than live action in terms of large battles and historical accuracy.  And if you’re doing a series, maybe you can reuse assets.  Then again, it might be more expensive due to… well, CGI taking time to do.  Time is literally money.

Oh, Aeneas has a part in this?  I was under the impression that he was a cousin of Hector and Paris.  Paris doesn’t know him?  Huh.

“We’ll be together!  In this world or the next!”  Erm…  The River Styx isn’t a very romantic setting.

Lol, this dude just bounced his shield.

There is a lot of impalings in this movie.

Oh, Agamemnon died.  Weird, I thought he survived the war.  I guess he was basically the antagonist in this movie… though I don’t think there really was an antagonist in the Iliad.  Every story nowadays needs someone to personify evil, I guess.  Where Achilles is honorable, Agamemnon seeks power.  They clash, thus they’re opposites.

Eh…  I prefer the idea of not having antagonists.  We expect the bad guy to lose.  To die.  To be punished.  In reality, this couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s not that life is tragedy, it’s just what you make of it. Those who do what they must ensure a better world for themselves and those they care about.  Behind every pair of eyes is a story.  And in every story, they will be their own hero.  And each story… each hero.  They’re all flawed.

That’s what makes a good character.

Geez, Achilles.  I bet you wish you didn’t forget your armor in front of the gates of Troy.  Dumb ass.

If I recall correctly, Achilles doesn’t die in the Iliad.  I’m not sure I remember the ending at all.  However, it’s suggested that Paris’s shot was guided by Apollo himself… because Paris is a coward and isn’t allowed to be credited with defeating Achilles. Poor, poor Paris.

Of course, I’ve heard a lot of things.  My dad told me about how Achilles was on his chariot, dragging Hector’s body and Paris prayed to Apollo to guide his arrow and it hit Achilles’s heel.  He falls off his chariot and his head hit a rock.  That’s what my dad told me.  I don’t actually know how he died but the way I heard it sounds dumb.  Also conflicts with the Iliad, which probably isn’t the most ACCURATE of sources, but I like the idea of Achilles finding a bit of peace by returning the body of Hector.

Alright. Movie is over.  Not as good as I remembered but it was decent.  :D

Current time is 2:30.  I did the thing I thought was probably annoying.  The movie thing.  Not really a review, more a walkthrough.  If you just read it while not watching the movie then I just describe dumb moments.  I said I wouldn’t do it again because it’s annoying. But I started and I couldn’t stop.  My weakness is historical facts in movies.  D’oh!  And I told Adela I’d do the dishes before I went to bed!  Also D’oh!

I’ll do them… it’s just really late.  I’m irresponsible.  A good reason to not document my movie viewing experience is because of this crap right here.  I started watching a two hour movie at 11.  Maybe before.  And I just finished it.  I did a lot of writing with the occasional stop by google to check where the movie was made and who died when. Btw, I was right.  Agamemnon survived the war.  -,-

Anyways, time for bed.  But first, dishes.  Night.