(urth) happiness in The Knight
James Wynn
thewynns at earthlink.net
Tue Mar 22 08:06:55 PST 2005
>> And (ideally) the Overcyns follow the pattern of the beings of Kleos.
>But, this isn't even beng mentioned in the context of this discussion. Why
>hasn't it come up?? I am an Odinist - It's my religion. I have some
>problems with the pictures of the Overcyns in WTK, and I think I can now
>define the reason.
>Odinism is not actually a supernaturalist religion: it conceives of the
>gods as human archetypes, or at least that's what we say nowadays.
>I don't know if the original gothis saw Thor as genuinely creating the
>thunder by throwing his hammer, but in one very real sense they believed
>the same as us modern Odinists. They **didn't** believe in Kleos or
>Elysium. They didn't think that standards for right and virtue came down
>from on high. That belief came later (with the development of
>monotheism).
I don't think TWK is centrally about Nordic mythology. It is about
knighthood: a concept that developed under Christianity. I don't think
"knighthood" can be dealt with separate from a Medieval Western European
Christian worldview. Wolfe has pulled a slight of hand. He has borrowed
liberally from Nordic mythology and terminology but is actually writing a
Christian story -- in the vein of "The Chronicles of Narnia". When Allfather
kneels before St. Michael the Archangel (who is *directly* associated with
Jesus in the Icelandic "Njal's Saga") that becomes obvious.
~ Crush
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