poor thor just. is in the wrong place at the wrong time, really. like yeah he fucked up but like from his perspective loki just suddenly went bananas in t1. and then in the avengers he just hasn't really had much time to process that and loki isn't exactly trying to help him out (self-destructive king uwu) and that just convinces thor further, i think.
honestly i really liked odin as a character in t1 - he was a combo of wise mentor and future antagonist that i felt worked really well. t2 didn't handle him quite as well but it still made him interesting and showed his depth. you could being mad at him for being a dick while at the same time more or less get where he's coming from. but ragnarok... like it did this really weird thing of trying to write odin as a tired old man the audience is supposed to feel sympathetic towards while having him admit that there's a massive threat coming to asgard that not only was he fully aware of all along but that he may have been actively keeping people from preparing for. and maybe, maybe if we'd gotten a decent explanation for that, i could accept it. i can think of a couple reasons off the top of my head for him to do that that are pretty in line with his characterization and allow him to properly straddle the line between "tried old man" and "ridiculously smart tactician trickster king". i think people forget that myth!odin was pretty tricksy as well; it would've been interesting to see that side of him.
but without that, t3!odin just kinda. fell flat. nothing about him makes any sense. he freed himself from loki's spell! okay, sure, he's pretty powerful, that makes sense, but why did he stay away? last we heard he was about two seconds away from executing him. he did so many terrible things in the past! then why does thor only blame hela on that despite odin's confession and keep talking about him like the greatest thing since sliced yaro root? he told his sons he loved them! yeah he probably does but are we supposed to just ignore that he's really fucking bad at it?
even his death doesn't make sense. he dies peacefully on a rock? by turning into little gold lights????? no one else dies that way, ever. and also he's a viking war god, why would he be okay with a peaceful death? did the rules for valhalla change when i wasn't looking? how come he shows up to tak to thor later but doesn't say anything to loki or hela? why did he go to strange at all in the first place? i think odin might have joined steve, loki, and rhodey in the "accidentally got replaced by a skrull who failed skrull school" club tbh
Oh, I also like Odin's characterization in the first Thor movie, I like it a lot. I even like the fact that what we're being shown is skewed by the Aesir perspective - Thor's a golden boy and even when he acts like an asshole it's because he just needs a hug from a nice lady, Odin's benevolent and infallible and the Jotnar are just mindless beasts bent on destruction with no redeeming qualities. That's a great starting point to a long journey of deconstruction of those ideas - did Odin really save Loki or just steal him from his real family? If Odin's such a great, benevolent king, where does all the gold come from? Why do the Jotnar fight against Asgard if it's bringing nothing but peace and prosperity? Is Thor right in trusting blindly in Odin and disregarding everything Loki says?
TDW tries to do some of that, but since it's so all over the place, it often fails. It does show off Odin is slowly crumbling down and that it was mostly Frigga who kept him in his right mind (stopping him from executing Loki, probably urging him to do other things - since he chooses to just willfully ignore the danger until it comes to Asgard's door after she's gone) and even has Thor realizing he doesn't need to be who Odin meant for him to be - even though that message is convoluted and kinda gets lost in everything else. Still not the worst attempt and I enjoy the parts that take place in Asgard a lot (with the Earth side being pretty much unsalvageable, with Portman phoning in her performance and doing her job so poorly she could've been replaced with a vaguely woman-shaped piece of wood and no one would notice, obnoxious jokes - I absolutely hate that they made Selvig's mental issues into a complete farce and Darcy is there just to say a couple of marginally funny lines and fuck off - and a plot that barely holds together).
Still, TR could be a natural progression from that, without even having to be very subtle about it - Thor coming to Asgard and realizing that hey, Loki's not that bad of a king actually and things are pretty okay, and teaming up with him to defeat Odin who just broke Loki's spell and is now completely unhinged (and recalls Hela from her banishment, maybe binding her with magic to do his will again?), revealing all the dark secrets of the past in the process. Or something. But no, most of Thor's character progression gets undone and he wants the throne again for some reason, Odin is suddenly a great, loving daddy and Loki's a backstabbing, betraying, slimy hack who has to come to his senses (as if he didn't do just that between the Avengers and TDW and didn't prove that by almost dying to protect Thor and his gf). Even Jane's just written off with one stupid line, after being a crucial part of Thor's character arc for two movies.
> did the rules for valhalla change when i wasn't looking? I feel like the movies are throwing away most of the lore (from mythology and comics), making Asgardians just an alien race with some nice quirks, and I wouldn't mind it that much if it was consistent - but no, we have to get that stupid prayer on Sakaar. I don't remember the exact wording, but there's something about Valhalla in it, isn't there? I just remember it pissing me off - the movies have been ignoring the lore and religion aspects for so long and now we're just throwing that in without any commentary - what religion do the Asgardians follow, is it like a fact (as in are Hel and Valhalla actual places and the dead really go there?) or more like our religions where it's based only on belief and no physical evidence? Why do they call themselves gods if there's something above? Is there even? How does that work? And so on. I'm not saying there's no answer to those questions, but if your quick, throwaway scene introduces so much nuance that hasn't even been hinted at before that you're not going to explore any further - how about you skip it and do something else in its place?
given the characterization of the jotnar in the comics i'm inclined to believe that odin at least genuinely believed loki had been abandoned. the gold is something a lot of people have brought up since ragnarok, presumably due to the history earth has with people going bananas over it, although honestly i think it was a weird thing to focus on - the theory on where exactly gold came from could easily imply that there are entire planet's worth just floating around, and asgard definitely has the tech to just zip over to what would essentially be a giant (most likely uninhabited) gold mine. the idea that all of asgard's gold had to have been stolen doesn't really line up with what we know about gold or space. then again, given that gold is only viewed as rare on earth due to how little of it there is, it's kinda weird that asgardians seem to place the same value on it in t3. honestly it would've made more sense to me if they just liked shiny things, but i'm no xenogeologist, so what do i know.
gonna be honest - i think frigga intervening to keep loki alive was actually a pretty dick move. like four thousand years of solitary confinement? for a guy you already know is suicidal? and the only visitor he's going to get is the ghost of his fake mom who just wants to tell him how great his fake dad is and how everything is his fault? just let the poor bastard die, damn. t1 establishes pretty well that odin is getting on in years– thor isn't even all that taken aback by the idea that his dad might've died while he was gone. t2 killing off frigga instead was actually a narrative choice i liked (and not just bc i don't like her), since it showed us odin without the woman who'd stood by his side all this time. the human trio... yeah they were handled pretty badly. in portman's defense, jane was just really badly written in t2, and why should she bother putting in the effort when her character is getting damsel-ified? darcy and selvig definitely deserved better, but honestly the biggest disappointment to me was malekith. in the comics, malekith was significantly more interesting (even if his backstory was basically a wattpad 1d fanfiction) and actually kinda funny (in a pretty dark way). plus it was fun to watch him and loki constantly betraying each other and trying to one-up each other in terms of completely over-the-top theatrics.
since t2 ended with thor abandoning his responsibilities (broski i get that you want to be "a good man" but your dad is old and you are literally the only heir as far as you know. who the fuck is gonna run things when odin dies??? heimdall??? he can't commit treason against himself!) and loki on the throne he never wanted to begin with, and since aou had thor fucking off to go learn more about the infinity stones (way to spend several years accomplishing fuck all, buddy), it would have made more sense for the movie to start off with thor returning from his quest having heard rumors of thanos, trying to figure out how to bring it up with odin. if surtr needed to be involved, then thor could have been investigating a potential tie he'd learned about from somewhere (why not have the soul stone be in surtr's possession? or the grandmaster's?? or mentioned at all prior to iw????) rather than doing the exact thing he was banished for in t1 (breaking into another realm and starting a fight for no good reason). have conflict amongst sif and the w3 - maybe hogun and volstagg have been having a weird amount of meetings with odin and seem oddly comfortable with how strange his behavior has become and the fact that he almost had them executed before abruptly changing his mind and letting them go with a slap on the wrist (bc hello they did treason again) so sif and fandral persuade thor to confront odin and that's how he finds out it's loki. hela being the main antagonist is fine if thor makes an attempt to communicate with her and being forced to kill her and destroy asgard in the process is what makes him realized that odin isn't the shining beacon of goodness he'd thought he was.
jane and thor breaking up offscreen makes sense, given that thor hasn't really been around and also two members of his immediate family died bc of her (not her fault, but like. feelings aren't logical to begin with, so...) and that caused enough tension for the two of them to agree to take a break. or, even better, jane brought up odin's dismissive treatment of her and thor, who loves his dad, automatically defends him. i remember someone had the idea of jane, selvig, and darcy running into odin on earth, and i think that would've been a great way to have all four of them be in the story. odin tries to warn them that some really bad shit is coming but it's kinda garbled, so jane has to babysit her ex's racist dad. darcy gets the chance to show off her polisci degree and selvig gets to use what he remembers from getting loki'd to figure out what odin's trying to tell them. meanwhile hela has finally broken out (maybe a giant snake helped her bc jormungandr at least deserved a mention) and split up the god squad, with thor and some of his friends landing on sakaar and the others trapped on asgard with hela. and instead of hela being inexplicably op (seriously they never explained in what sense she was so powerful - was it just the zombies? is she significantly stronger than the average asgardian? does she have the soul stone? explain, movie!! explain!!!!!) maybe she just has old allies she's able to contact. have karnilla show up and maybe mention the trip to nornheim brought up in t1, have a jotun or two come along and reveal that hela is loki's bio-mom (bc let's face it it's not a thor movie if loki doesn't learn something new and upsetting about his family), have ulik shown up and pretend to be thor (or tanarus w/e), just do something.
honestly the de-deification of the aesir actually did bother me a lot. like in the comics, they were straight-up deities. they were completely different from humans and it was really interesting. having them just be aliens not only made no sense, it made a lot of things unnecessarily confusing. like odin declaring that they weren't gods in t2??? hello???? he's literally got eighteen titles that refer to him as a god! also, i know modern media is heavily christian-ized (ugh) but it's pretty damn disrespectful to have the king of a pantheon still worshipped today loudly declare that he's not a god in a tone that makes it sound like anyone who thinks he is is an idiot. like i know the mcu has no respect for any non-christian religions ("jews? never heard of 'em. oh, we cast one as quicksilver? someone fix that please!" *gunshots* "whew really dodged a bullet there") but that's just condescending.
> given the characterization of the jotnar in the comics i'm inclined to believe that odin at least genuinely believed loki had been abandoned.
Yeah, I'd agree here if not for how the MCU purposefully distances itself from the comics at points - dropping in twists that stand in direct denial of what the comics show or just completely disregarding some aspects. Sometimes it works (Stark's character is so much more believable and easy to identify with in the movies, I honestly prefer Thanos' motivation in the MCU over that in the comics, I also give tentative approval to what it did with Skrulls), other times it doesn't (Malekith, The Mandarin, the whole fiasco of IM2, the Maximoffs... the list goes on and on and I can't really be bothered with every change I don't like cause it would take the whole day). But the point is - the MCU creates its own continuity and I don't always find filling the gaps with comic book knowledge working that well. Besides, they've basically admitted that it was a kidnapping basically by that What if episode. Also, it's even harder to believe considering Odin's plans - either he completely lucked out and found the son of the ruler of a rival empire just up for saving with a big bow on his head and a label "please make me into your pawn" or something more sinister went down, and - as far as realism goes, I'm inclined to go the latter route.
I used "gold" more in a more general sense, as in "wealth" - Asgard is pretty much a city on a floating rock, there ought to be some external economy/source going on to supply them even with basic stuff like fresh produce - but TR drew attention to that aspect, I think in the same words even, so i was kinda referring to that. I'm also not a geologist, but was taught geology at the uni and did some research while writing and the thing is - we're all made of stars. As in, the composition of the Earth is a pretty good reflection of the composition of the universe and - since the elements are affected by gravity when the star systems form, all planets in the habitable zone will have a similar composition. Yeah, there's a sizeable margin of error, but gold being so rare here means there's probably no planet in any way similar to Earth where it's so much more abundant. The same goes for other elements. So, there're resources that are scarce here that might be widely available elsewhere (like diamonds, which are basically compressed carbon and not even that rare on earth, only considered so precious because of the whole trade that's been created around them - and only the jewelry grade, too, considering there's a widespread industrial use of diamonds and those are pretty cheaply available), but the balance of the elements won't differ much. But that's beyond the point, since neither comics nor MCU are hard scifi, we're running with new elements (which isn't possible - what could be is only stable isotopes of those we've been already able to synthesize) and gods and magic and stuff.
> in portman's defense, jane was just really badly written in t2
Oh, definitely, Jane's been reduced pretty much to a stage prop in most scenes, and in those she wasn't - she was written to act like a moron who can't figure out how to live her life now that her hot boyfriend from space fucked off (and she was supposed to be a smart, independent woman. That wasn't that well done in Thor 1, but fuck if it wasn't a complete disaster in TDW). But still, a bad part can be somewhat salvaged by a good performance (let's face it, not all Loki's or Odin's dialogues in TDW are well written or make sense either, but both characters are still a major highlight of that movie).
There're many ways in which TR could be made better, even keeping the same story beats and I've seen multiple fanon rewrites/fixes, most of which were more satisfying and more coherent than what we've got if just on the merit of not completely shitting on the previously established canon and canon characterizations. Up until the series, I tried to work around it, reconcile it with what we've got up until that point, patch the inaccuracies and look past the shitty jokes and questionable decisions. But fuck if I can be bothered anymore.
i liked the skrulls but honestly thanos's change in motivation would've been better if they hadn't tried to frame it as sympathetic. as for stark... honestly, i liked the first couple iron man movies, but by the first avengers movie he was mostly annoying and by cw he was downright unbearable. then again i was never a huge fan of him in the comics either, but at least there he's kinda supposed to be unlikeable. trying to make him more sympathetic in the movies... idk it doesn't really ring true for me, i guess. maybe if the movies would call him out on his bullshit instead of constantly trying to pretend he's right, or maybe if they stopped letting rdj improve whatever he wants (tony apologizing to steve would've been awesome! instead we got a boring ramble about why fascism is good actually), or maybe it's just that his more.... ah, irksome fans on tumblr just made it impossible for me to like him. idk
see i've heard that argument about the what if episode before, but that doesn't really make sense to me. like a "what if" scenario is supposed to rely on established canon; it's basically a "for want of a nail" of your own work. if you claim that only one thing has changed and then have a bunch of things be completely different in ways that make absolutely no sense, it ends up just feeling completely removed from the original work. it was supposed to be "what if thor was an only child" by it turned into "what if the mcu was written by drunk frat bros who were also high". so i take the whole thing with a pinch of salt. if that.
that's sorta why i assumed that any planet with a significant amount of gold on it wouldn't really have any life. or nothing we'd recognize, at least. like realistically the majority of planets out there aren't going to be inhabited - i'd say there's a good chance that a lot of them are gas giants like in our solar system. so if asgard has mastered space travel (which they presumably have) then going out and finding some floating hunks of gold would be pretty easy, especially with heimdall around. now where they got the labor to build all that, that could've been some unethical shit. but we mostly just saw a couple murals and then hela talked about gold for half a sec. i think her exact words were "where do you think all this gold came from" but she never actually answers that question. just. places?? in general? like idk where it all came from, hela, just Generic Conquered Planet Number Five (trademark frieza force age 734)?
jane really got the short end of the stick in the movies. i can't speak for what the actress was doing, but honestly, if i felt like i'd just gotten sexy lamp'd, i might phone it in a bit too.
t3 was. bad, but bearable. from what i've heard of the series... should've let loki bleed out on svartalfheim, honestly. let him die as he lived - watching his family walk away to go do something else.
> thanos's change in motivation would've been better if they hadn't tried to frame it as sympathetic I never saw him like that, but I get where the argument comes from. He's basically the protagonist of IW, and a lot of screen time is dedicated to explaining why he does what he does and the condemnation (or lack thereof) is left to the viewer. Considering that it was still a superhero movie and it's a genre where the line between good and evil is usually thick and well defined - i totally get why that argument is tossed around so often. And I don't necessarily disagree - some condemnation of his actions coming from a verified good guy/gal would've been nice to have.
> it turned into "what if the mcu was written by drunk frat bros who were also high". so i take the whole thing with a pinch of salt. if that. Lol, fair. I don't insist on treating it as canon or anything, i just mentioned it because it plays nicely into my headcanons. Besides, it's still not the worst crime "What if" committed against Loki's character - the first ep was a lot worse in that regard. But it's just more of the same thing, as if the more recent MCU writers didn't understand what they were doing or how to handle complex characters (with the complexity already fucking well established). TR, IW and EG (even if by no means perfect) were the last watchable things for me, everything after that is just a completely unsalvageable mess.
> now where they got the labor to build all that, that could've been some unethical shit. that's exactly what I've been thinking :)
> he never actually answers that question I think the answer was heavily implied to be "colonialism" and "brutal conquest".
i guess it's just. ecofascism is like an actual thing that people believe in and thanos is basically just an ecofascist. plus, like everyone and their grandma has pointed out, he could have used the stones to make more resources; it just feels like a weak excuse.
ngl i didn't watch what if at all. exactly none of the episodes sounded interesting and i more or less gave up on the mcu in phase 3. and even in phase three i only bothered watching cw, gotg 2, ragnarok, black panther, and captain marvel. honestly black panther is the only one that really holds up; that movie was stupendous and i will die on that hill.
right yeah but i meant like where specifically. like is that how the beef with jotunheim started? is that the real reason why bor killed all the dark elves? some other planet we don't know about? conquest in and of itself doesn't produce gold unless the gold was already somewhere to begin with, so where?
> right yeah but i meant like where specifically. like is that how the beef with jotunheim started? is that the real reason why bor killed all the dark elves? some other planet we don't know about? conquest in and of itself doesn't produce gold unless the gold was already somewhere to begin with, so where?
I feel like those are valid questions, but it's honestly the last thing that bothers me in TR. Like, i get it, you can't just show everything in a 2:30h movie. Although, some more exploration of Odin's past is due. We've got that long memory sequence from Hela's fight with the valkyries - it was visually pleasing, but actually showed very little, since we've already got it from the expository dialogue. Why not use the time to show off how exactly Odin's old victories looked like and what was Hela's role in them?
yeah it's definitely not the most pressing question but like. it's one of the many things that irks me and bc it's so minor i haven't seen anyone else complain about it lmao
honestly i have a lot of hcs centered around odin and i'm not 100% sure what t3 could've done that i would've liked as much as what i came up with myself. if t3 cared about continuing the storyline the t2 had, i'd say bringing up more about bor would've been a good idea (bc comics!odin is morally,,,,,, complicated, but comics!bor is basically the biggest piece of shit imaginable. ...i say that, but he was one of the best parts of "angela: queen of hel", so...)
hela's whole "i used to be his executioner" thing didn't really make much sense to me. like it felt like a really half-assed (maybe even quarter-assed) shout-out to comics!skurge, but here it doesn't really make much sense. like an executioner wouldn't have been out on the battlefields, they'd be chopping heads off in the dungeons. i'm supposed to believe odin was having her do that? idk it just doesn't add up. only way i can make sense of it is if that's what he told her when he decided to cut back on the murder. "hey honey we're not gonna be killing people anymore. no worries tho i've decided you're the official state murder bot!" "awww thanks dad!"
My biggest issue with Hela is the timing and how the fuck nobody knew about her. Like, assuming that the aesir age progression is similar to human (which seems to be the case, more or less), just much slower - she is like twice Thor’s/Loki’s age, so 2-3k yo (depending on which you take as canon) - there must be people who are older than that. I get that you can purge the records, but did odin mind wiped entire population of Asgard?
The executioner title makes little sense too. Couldn't they just stop on the goddes of death? Like, did she really need another title?
the age thing drives me nuts. especially since according to the official timeline she started helping odin when she was twenty and got locked up when she was forty. that's like two decades of being a murder machine; that should be nothing to these guys. ignoring the fact that the age thing makes no sense bc the age thing already made no sense, that doesn't seem like much time. coulda been interesting if frigga persuaded odin to do it to ensure that her child would be heir to the throne and then hela just went nuts from spending most of her life in solitary confinement, but that's assuming thor is even frigga's son to begin with.
i mean it's pretty normal for gods to have a long list of titles (odin has like a gajillion and thor isn't far behind), but this one doesn't even make sense.
> the official timeline she started helping odin when she was twenty and got locked up when she was forty
It does? Lol, it sounds like another case of "oops, we kinda forgot we have this race of aliens that could live 5k years that we shouldn't apply the human scale to" mindfart the series suffered from on every fucking step.
yeah it's. bad. like sure there's not really a coherent lifespan scale for something that lives that long afaik, but. twenty should still be pretty young.
Also, explain to me how she is not a complete, non-functional mess, considering she had a "normal" life for 40 years (that still consisted of being Odin's tool) and then spent at least a thousand imprisoned/in solitary/wherever (that really needed at least two more sentences of explanation)?
yeah, like. realistically hela should've been catatonic or straight-up dead. like i get that it's a marvel movie, but anyone who spends enough time in isolation is, statistically, almost guaranteed to become suicidal. so either hela is a True Immortal (which she isn't if surtr killed her) or asgardians are immune to trauma (which pretty much all signs point to being Very Much Not The Case)
I mean, I can see how growing up in a society like Asgard is a case of survival-of-the-fittest, in which you either just learn to cope somehow or toss yourself off the end of the bridge at a certain point (I like to hc that this is like... a thing. Like the suicide forest in Japan), with no middle ground, but it's still not something to prepare you for a millennium of solitude.
Prolonged isolation - even a couple of weeks is enough for some, while it might take years for others - leads to all sorts of mental issues, with suicidal tendencies being one of them. Even social isolation can do that to some - as in, not actually being locked away from other people, just being denied interactions - with just as awful effects. So, yeah, it's totally plausible for Hela to be a perfectly adjusted person before Odin's "justice" made her into what she ended up being and it's still a testament to her resilience, if anything.
someone (i think black_feather_fiction) wrote that suicidal asgardians just charged into battle and refused treatment afterwards, which makes sense, but there's still no way to spend a fifth or your potential lifespan completely isolated and come out just fine.
yeah see i could've understood having hela be odin's scapegoat if they wanted to go down the route of odin being a complete monster (not my personal preference for him - i think part of what makes him work as both a character and a plot device is his moral complexity) but they. didn't? so i'm really not sure what to make of it. "ooh look how evil and scary hela is" yeah bro she's been in a box for a thousand years i'd be evil and scary too
I usually go for the "complete monster" characterization out of spite (and my own daddy issues of which there are many and I find it easy to project them onto a guy who's already quite a bit of an asshole in canon), but I usually make it a progression for him: from a strong leader who truly cares about the welfare of his realm (even if not individuals in it) to an old man mad with grief.
> suicidal asgardians just charged into battle and refused treatment afterwards it makes all sorts of sense, if you add the idea of Valhalla as it exists in mythology to the mix. I usually stay away from spiritualism and religions - as a completely non-spiritual, secular person I honestly can't understand what allure people see in that (on a personal level, I'm not talking about religions as organizations, with actual impact on the world, be it positive or negative) and I'm pretty sure I'd just mischaracterize it if I tried to delve deeper. And research on that is invariably hard, because there's pretty much no way to ask without getting jumped on/proselytized to (with a side of "it's personal" or "I have experiences you can't understand") if you ask religious people or just being told "I dunno, it's all a bunch of crap" if you ask atheists.
and that works! although even then, i wouldn't call that a full-on "complete monster"; more like... the fall from lawful neutral to lawful evil, i suppose. which works for odin. i have daddy issues as well, although they're more unique in that they aren't at all my dad's fault (long story but basically the only thing he did wrong was not get a colonoscopy sooner). for me, it's more... hm, i guess satisfying is the right word, to write odin as a tired old man with his own traumas who's basically just fallen into the unfortunate role of having been doing things one way for so long that it's pretty hard to change. it feels more realistic to me, i think. i've noticed in real life that older folks who genuinely learned from their experiences may apply said past experiences to present ones, even when enough things have changed that the situation is only the same on the surface level. for me, it feels more natural to write odin's mistakes in a more relatable manner for the reader - odin is a ruler, and thus has a lot of hard choices to make. he can't operate on all the info the viewers have, but he has info we don't, and that makes him very interesting to me.
i definitely get that - i was raised in a secular jewish household and became more in touch with my religious side as i got older. i'm in a weird position where i definitely consider myself religious on some level (i believe in g-d, i just don't pretend to know whether g-d is real or a metaphor, and frankly i don't think i'm supposed to know), but at the same time i don't really follow the rules i'm supposed to follow bc i just wasn't raised with them (and like. meat and dairy go so well together i'm supposed to just not eat them???? do i look like the kinda guy that has that level of self-control?????). having said that, i can at least promise you that if you want to ask like a rabbi about judaism, there is an almost 100% guarantee that he's not gonna try to get you to convert. only reason i haven't asked more questions is embarrassment, mostly... but from my understanding of things, there's pretty much no way to write religious stuff that's gonna completely appease everyone (hell, my people had gigantic pile of religious texts and then the xtians came along and said "this needs a sequel", and then for some reason the mormons decided to make a third one). the history of religion is long and silly and generally somewhat unreliable bc people kept destroying stuff to pretend things they didn't like hadn't happened.
My ex gf was Jewish and actually took me to the rabbi of her congregation (is that a proper term even?) once i started asking questions. It was some sort of new-age-ish kind of rabbi (one that was fine with a girl bringing her atheist girlfriend over to a meeting, so I assume it's quite unusual for a religious person, at least judging from my experiences with christians) and we talked for a while, but it was still weird and we basically talked theoretics and dogmas and stuff like that, and not personal experiences, because it felt just wrong to push for answers from someone who obviously dedicated their life to the religion.
The stuff I truly want to know demands deconstructing the faith to its barest form and answering the question "why do you think there must be something behind all this and why would that thing - should it exist - care whether some rando on some random planet prayed to it and followed some arbitrary set of rules that - on the universal scale - make little sense" and not "why do you think your religion is better than others". Since, on the fundamental level, I don't believe any religion better than others, since I don't believe in any version of a higher power (unless we're moving to abstract stuff like calling the universal entropy a deity or something, because then it's just arguing semantics)
> g-d
I was about to ask you earlier - what's up with that notation? I've seen it in a couple of places before (don't really remember the context though) and was wondering what this is about. Is it some kind of respecting your god and not using the name in vain (Christians have that rule afaik and most love to break it) - then why use it when talking about a general concept of "a god" and not any particular one?
(I'd google it, but it's pretty much ungoogleable because of the hyphen that search engines just ignore).
(if I come off as offensive or condescending - which I've been told multiple times I did when talking religion - sorry, that's not my intent)
well it's true that some of the orthodox rabbis are still pretty homophobic, reconstructionist and reform rabbis are usually gonna be fine with it, in my experience. and conservative rabbis are i think holding both positions at once. however, i should think most rabbis would be fine with answering questions about their faith, since one of the main functions of a rabbi - at least as i was told - is to act as a teacher. like they're not gonna give you a full-on impromptu analysis of maimonides' commentary on the mishnah right then and there, but they'll probably answer most questions.
see, a core jewish value is education– we tend to encourage debate, as it leads to growth and learning. so "why do you believe this", if asked in a respectful and non-sarcastic way (@ definitely my dad when he was a kid), is a question i imagine would be very interesting for a lot of jewish scholars to discuss.
ooh, i actually know the answer to that! it's not about using the name in vain; it's about ensuring that if the thing you're writing on is altered or destroyed, g-d's name hasn't been. chapter 12 of devarim (deuteronomy) speaks of eradicating idolatry by various means of destruction, including destroying the names of the false gods. it then goes on to say "you shall not do so to the L-rd, your G-d" (Devarim 12:4). therefore, if you don't write out the proper name, it can't be destroyed. it's fine to destroy the hyphenated version, so some jews used that instead. for instance, if this website were to be taken down or this comment deleted, i haven't actually technically written the name of g-d anywhere, so i haven't inadvertently caused it to be destroyed. not all jews bother, and i can't remember when i started doing it, but it's mostly just habit by now. sometimes people will use "Hashem" (literally, "the Name") or an abbreviation of that. having said that, technically it's not really necessary to begin with, since officially it only applies to the sacred hebrew names of g-d, and it's under debate as to whether or not other languages really need to worry about it.
then again, "it's under debate" is pretty much judaism's most consistent stance on anything– "oy, we're still arguing about it, come back in a few thousand years!"
as for the condescending thing– i didn't see it, but i'm admittedly really bad with tone myself (autism is a blessing and a curse), so who's to say. i'll go ahead and tell you that it's admittedly a little bit offensive to base assumptions about judaism on one's experience with christianity, but honestly so many people do it that it's probably more exasperating than anything else by now. more like a "tired sigh" response than a ">:O" response, if that makes any sense.
one last thing: please for the love of g-d (joke not intended but found funny anyway), don't take my word as gospel (joke intended, but found unfunny). i was raised very secularly, and i honestly can't give you the same level of confidence in my responses that a person with a more, uh, consistently religious upbringing could. hell, i never even got bar mitzvah'd; i'm a hebrew school drop-out (in my defense, they stopped giving us pizza, so it was like g-d practically said i didn't have to). hopefully i'll get around to it someday, but i'm really not the best source on this. everything i can tell you comes with an asterisk bigger than something really big and thematically appropriate for this conversation.
Thanks for the explanation, now it makes more sense :)
> it's admittedly a little bit offensive to base assumptions about judaism on one's experience with Christianity That was kinda a derpy mental shortcut on my side (sorry). I know for a fact that there are Jews who love to support their homophobic views with Torah, the same exact way some Christians (Catholics and Russian Orthodox both - the two denominations I had the most to do with due to my upbringing) do with the bible. Vide: my ex-gf parents and extended family, who pretty much kicked her out the moment they found out and claimed their religion condemns it (although, as far as I know, Torah is very similar to the bible in that regard and only calls male/male same sex relationships abhorent and punishable by death and doesn't care about women). The conjecture part was the assumption it must be the same with religious leaders - in christianity, the closer they stand to conservatism, the more they hook onto those old-fashioned notions.
> then again, "it's under debate" is pretty much judaism's most consistent stance on anything I appreciate it a lot, to be honest, that's why Judaism, along with Buddhism (which has a totally non-theistic variant that doesn't require any gods to function, which is fascinating to me) are the two religions that I'd probably be choosing from if I had to pick one. (Or maybe Hinduism, because it has such a fascinating mythology).
I like that "we know shit about the universe yet, so let's hang back and see where it takes us" attitude instead of just saying "we know everything and everything we know is set in stone and we totally won't have to eat our words in fifty years time" (vide: Mormons with their racist af doctrines that had to turn a bit less racist because of how the world turned out).
and yeah, there are absolutely homophobic jews. there's a lot of debate of whether homosexual relationships between men are condemned by g-d - i've seen all sorts of arguments concerning exact wording and mistranslations and potential historical revisionism and whatnot, but ultimately i don't really care one way or the other. i'm gay and i'm jewish and if g-d has an issue with it, that's between g-d and me. i think orthodox judaism is also pretty no-no towards lesbians, but imo all of that is just using a book to justify a pre-existing bigotry. judaism is a bit weird in that when we refers to conservative jews (meaning jews who follow the conservative jewish movement, not american jews who would politically classify themselves as conservative) we're actually referring to more of a middle ground - the idea was to be a little more chill than the orthodox jews and a little more traditional than the reform jews. or something like that. conservative jews are generally much more ok with lgbtq+ folks, although it's definitely still not where it could be.
honestly, i find most religions both extremely interesting and absurdly complicated. like half the stories associated with religions are just absolutely batshit to me - admittedly, a lot of the context has been lost (thanks christians really appreciate it :/), but sometimes you'll just be reading a story and then one of the characters will brutally murder another with a rock for breathing funny, and everyone just acts like that's a totally normal and ok thing to do. but honestly idk if anything can top shintoism's "we have a goddess of food who makes feasts by puking everywhere and when the moon god found out he killed her which pissed off his sister the sun goddess so much he's still hiding from her today" except for maybe the hawaiian fertility goddess kapo and her detachable flying vagina.
I feel like the whole orthodox vs conservative issue is more down to semantics since I'm using "conservative" to describe the hardcore Catholics because "orthodox" is a wholly separate flavour of Christianity.
> thanks christians really appreciate it :/ Don't get me started on that one. I absolutely fucking hate it how much stuff was lost because of the forced christianisation. There's basically nothing left - other than some folks tales and there's no telling how accurate they can be - of proto-slavic religions, since slavs were not big on written language when the Christians came and rolled over Europe in early middle ages. Even the mythologies that survived - greek, roman, germanic, or norse for that matter - are heavily skewed by the Christian interpretations and trying to force the - as you said, pretty damn bonkers - stories and deities into the Christian frames of "good vs evil" and losing so much nuance because of that. That's why I find Hinduism so fascinating, most likely. Despite some attempts, the religion survived until this day (although, I'm pretty sure some influence is there) and you can experience it in it's (almost) full glory, while so many others were just eradicated completely or reduced to skewed, twisted versions of themselves.
mm, not exactly? see, jews don't always like to call our ideological religious differences "denominations" due to the heavy association with christianity, but there's enough of a similarity imo. basically orthodox jews are one denomination and conservative jews are another, sorta like catholics and protestants, except not really. this is definitely a subject i don't have much info on, unfortunately.
ughhhhh i know!!!!! so much of modern culture has been steamrollered over by christianity, to the point where even trying to point it all out makes you feel like that conspiracy meme guy. but aside from all the atrocities concerning human life, the thing i'm most annoyed about is all the knowledge and history and stories they'd destroyed. bad enough that historical figures routinely tried to make themselves more important (looking at you, egyptian pharaohs who tried to erase all the other pharaohs and also that one chinese emperor who tried to pretend the world started with him or something), they didn't need christians showing up and making it worse! admittedly, lots of religions have done similar things, but none of them have ruined as much as the christians have.
which kinda ties back into my irritation with the mcu, particularly the asgardian parts - these are movie characters based off of ancient norse gods as reinterpreted by jewish creators– stop trying to smear christianity all over it! it's extra frustrating when cultural christians (atheists raised in heavily christianized environments) try to pretend that that doesn't apply to them to. like pal i know you don't want to be associated with religious christians, but pretending your upbringing was somehow divorced from the culture that it was enveloped in is not the way to do it! you can't separate yourself from ideas you refuse to recognize! you can't unlearn something by pretending you never learned it! you just can't! arghhhhhhhhhhh
> atheists raised in heavily christianized environments That's pretty much the drawer I fall into and, for a long time, I haven't realized how much my worldview was based on that Christian flavour of morality despite me throwing away the religion itself. But I think it's possible to be rid of that too, or at least be able to realize what parts of your moral system - and the whole culture, pretty much - are based on some outdated, religious ideas. Because, I mean, some of the rules make sense from the evolutionary standpoint (and probably would be there even if religions weren't a thing) - like the whole "not murdering people for shits and giggles" deal or "being helpful to those in need", while others not so much - anything pertaining to personal freedoms, freedom of expression or to be perceived the way you want to be perceived. [I also scoff each time I hear the tired "you need religion to have a morality system because the society would collapse if not for the threat of eternal punishment" argument that's not only a fallacy, but seems to totally disregard the existence of secular laws (of which too many are still too reliant of that "eye for an eye" vengeful bullshit many religions hold on to for dear life) - I fear no eternal punishments and I murder and rape as many people as I want to, which is zero, but that's beyond the point.]
Studying history (both in general and in terms of cultural changes) and applying critical thinking to what you learn definitely helps, I think, and you can at some point get rid of that mindset. I'm not saying I'm entirely there yet - honestly, I don't know and I don't think anyone can know for sure, considering how deeply soaked we all are in Christian influences - but I put in a conscious effort to at least try to look at everything with a fresh eye.
It's true for a lot of people - hell, it's somewhat true for me. christianity is so deeply embedded in so many facets of american life that fully avoiding its influences is borderline impossible. but yeah, i think it's very telling when people say "oh we need religion or else we'd all be murderous rapists" like damn maybe you???? not me tho. i don't need g-d to tell me not to do that shit, i got that covered on my own.
i'm not sure anyone's entirely there yet. and idk if it's even possible to be. hell, i can't even say i care all that much if people don't care enough to try and separate themselves from it. right now i'm just at the low bar of "please just stop pretending you somehow exist in a bubble", basically.
Comment on Friend or Foe
Evilkitten3 on Chapter 1 Wed 16 Mar 2022 06:49AM UTC
Comment Actions
Iamnotreal on Chapter 1 Wed 16 Mar 2022 05:19PM UTC
Comment Actions
Evilkitten3 on Chapter 1 Wed 16 Mar 2022 07:18PM UTC
Comment Actions
Iamnotreal on Chapter 1 Wed 16 Mar 2022 08:41PM UTC
Last Edited Wed 16 Mar 2022 09:41PM UTC
Comment Actions
Evilkitten3 on Chapter 1 Wed 16 Mar 2022 10:48PM UTC
Comment Actions
Iamnotreal on Chapter 1 Thu 17 Mar 2022 12:00AM UTC
Comment Actions
Evilkitten3 on Chapter 1 Thu 17 Mar 2022 01:43AM UTC
Comment Actions
Iamnotreal on Chapter 1 Thu 17 Mar 2022 04:45AM UTC
Comment Actions
Evilkitten3 on Chapter 1 Thu 17 Mar 2022 09:09AM UTC
Comment Actions
Iamnotreal on Chapter 1 Thu 17 Mar 2022 09:51AM UTC
Comment Actions
Evilkitten3 on Chapter 1 Thu 17 Mar 2022 03:13PM UTC
Comment Actions
Iamnotreal on Chapter 1 Thu 17 Mar 2022 11:57PM UTC
Comment Actions
Evilkitten3 on Chapter 1 Fri 18 Mar 2022 01:54AM UTC
Comment Actions
Iamnotreal on Chapter 1 Fri 18 Mar 2022 02:09AM UTC
Comment Actions
Evilkitten3 on Chapter 1 Fri 18 Mar 2022 06:29AM UTC
Comment Actions
Iamnotreal on Chapter 1 Fri 18 Mar 2022 07:51AM UTC
Comment Actions
Evilkitten3 on Chapter 1 Fri 18 Mar 2022 04:50PM UTC
Comment Actions
Iamnotreal on Chapter 1 Sat 19 Mar 2022 09:31AM UTC
Comment Actions
Evilkitten3 on Chapter 1 Sat 19 Mar 2022 07:18PM UTC
Comment Actions
Iamnotreal on Chapter 1 Sun 20 Mar 2022 06:13PM UTC
Last Edited Sun 20 Mar 2022 06:28PM UTC
Comment Actions
Evilkitten3 on Chapter 1 Sun 20 Mar 2022 08:00PM UTC
Comment Actions
Iamnotreal on Chapter 1 Mon 21 Mar 2022 05:57AM UTC
Comment Actions
Evilkitten3 on Chapter 1 Mon 21 Mar 2022 06:21AM UTC
Comment Actions
Iamnotreal on Chapter 1 Mon 21 Mar 2022 06:40AM UTC
Comment Actions
Evilkitten3 on Chapter 1 Mon 21 Mar 2022 07:11AM UTC
Comment Actions
Iamnotreal on Chapter 1 Mon 21 Mar 2022 07:54AM UTC
Comment Actions
Evilkitten3 on Chapter 1 Mon 21 Mar 2022 06:25PM UTC
Comment Actions
starkravingmad (stark_raving_mad) on Chapter 1 Wed 05 Apr 2023 12:07AM UTC
Comment Actions
Evilkitten3 on Chapter 1 Wed 05 Apr 2023 04:31AM UTC
Comment Actions