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Life finds a way
🕑 Added 2019-06-02 18:31:45 +0000 UTCWow, I wasn't expecting this month's CYOA to be so neck and neck. B has kept up a lead the whole time, but I wonder if A won't be able to manage a come from behind victory. It certainly is polling better than other underdogs, which usually get defeated by a 2-to-1 margin or so.
Anyway, I got back from Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and I don't know what critics are on, but if Aladdin is any better than it, I'll eat my hat. And I was thinking that the kaiju might be a good way to think of the gods and goddesses in cape comics. A lot of the times, it seems like these cats are either immortals with really great tech--so basically the Inhumans, blech--or are a bunch of rapists and murderers who are more trouble than they're worth. Admit it, you've wondered why Wonder Woman puts up with these jerks. World's biggest feminist and she worships the Harvey Weinstein of the cosmic set?
So I was thinking it would be better to think of the lowercase-g gods as Fisher Kings, beings who are tied into human nature and nature itself on a fundamental, personification level. For some mystical, magical reason, you can't have, say, human creativity without Loki. Sure, you could kill him, but whatever he's god of would just pop up in another wrapper. In some way, Thor embodies storms, he is the weather. It's impossible to deny human nature, it's impossible to deny the ecosystem, what you have to do is live in harmony with it. You can't go out and kill every wolf in the woods, you have to watch where you build your house, set up fences, etc.
Explaining this, it all sounds like an excuse to do a story where Thor gets sick because of climate change--"Why did you bastards run the air conditioning so much?"--but I'd prefer to think of it as a less literal, more Neil Gaiman, magical realism thing. Thor isn't just a guy with a bunch of AD&D stats in weather magic, he is on some unconscious, unknowing level part of every storm, every bolt of lightning, every drop of rain. And that's what makes him more than just an alien with a cool hammer.
Also, to get all theological wid it, he is innately part of the creation, not the creator. You build a car, car needs an engine to run, but the engine didn't build the car. Well, that's another post, but it'd be interesting to see what Thor wants from his followers (fans?) in lieu of religion. Is he empowered or at least appreciative of people showing valor in combat, especially in his name? How is all this compatible with Judaism and Islam and all the rest? Is his 'worship' seen as some sort of philosophy, as in some Western conceptions of Buddhism--something that's compatible with other religions, but that also validates Thor? Would the Catholic Church see him as a patron saint, an angel, or what?
