What is your favorite mythological figure (of ancient religions only)?
Hands down it’s Dionysus for me. He keeps his promises.
Cool story
Demeter is up there.
Her baby father (Zeus), aka the big douchebag, married away her daughter Persephone to his brother Hades. Patriarchy does what patriarchy does. The brothers were aware neither Persephone nor Demeter would approve of the deal so Hades had to kidnap Persephone and force the deal upon her.
So Persephone were abducted and her mother were beyond herself with worry about her absence. Once Demeter learnt about the deal she threw the hissy fit that all hissy fits are measured against. Plants stopped growing, livestock stopped giving birth and the world soon was in a cataclysmic state. Behold a mother’s justified wrath and tremble.
Douchebag-in-chief was forced to negotiate but wouldn’t anull the whole deal. Only that Persephone would spend half her time with her mother (spring, summer) and the other half with the husband forced upon her (autumn, winter).
This comment alone is making me interested in Greek mythology. I’d like to know more. Any reading suggestions toward that end?
Not as much reading but I’m taking much of my cues regarding mythology from Red over at Overly Sarcastic Productions (https://www.youtube.com/@OverlySarcasticProductions).
Two related videos
Wrath of Demeter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhhANZKerug
Hades and Persephone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac5ksZTvZN8What I especially like about their content is that there is plenty of source critique. Things are seldom presented as “this is the exact truth”. Mentioned in the video about Hades and Persephone is “we don’t know the original myth” which I find telling of much of their mythology work.
This is great stuff, thanks!
Im currently listening to an audiobook by Arthur C Clarke called ‘The Greeks’ which is about ancient greek history.
Ive also listened to Stephen Fry’s ‘Mythos’ which is about ancient Greek mythology.
I would strongly recommend them both.
Thanks a lot for the suggestions!
Ezekiel.
That guy want on a peyote trip in the middle of the desert and literally saw God.
Lord Enma (or Yama) rules over a pretty cool buddhist hell
Diomedes, he got eaten by horses, which sounds metal as fuck.
The ghost of Christmas future
Mara
NSFW
Baron Samedi
Eldad HaDaani (Eldad the Daanite). Not a major figure but he was like a classic bard in D&D. Told of his travels - which are referenced in songs made out of the literature talking about him. Said he had encountered a river that nobody knew where it was and is considered like lore (the Sambatyon). Anyway I always felt like it was a cool story. I never read all that much of him but growing up as Orthodox Jewish he’s mentioned in some things we sang and I always equated him as being a perfect Bard for a D&as campaign.
Prometheus
It might seem like a subjective question, but the answer is objectively Prometheus and his replacements in other cultures.
Someone that went against God(s) to give humans knowledge that at the time was considered magical
Like, we talk about how much tech changes stuff today, but fucking fire?
Imagine being alive when your group of humans mastered fire. That shit would have been fucking mind breaking.
Being alive in the time fire was invented - well it’s hard to say since it was Homo Erectus who did so, some millions of years ago. Modern humans are very different from good ole’ Erectus, and we think differently, so… the tale of Prometheus is a good one for sure, but it’s also much younger than the actual history of human control over fire.
Source: https://study.com/academy/lesson/how-did-stone-age-man-make-fire-discovery-importance-facts.html
He is the one that have humans fire and was chained to the rock for all time while having his guts eaten by a bird each day which healed each night?
Yep.
The OG Light Bringer sentenced to eternal damnation for providing knowledge to humans.
And yes, I’m still salty Christians made him the bad guy.
Can you explain further? I don’t recall that Prometheus was mentioned at all by that particular religious group.
Odin is cool af.
Any trickster god.
I’m going to drop a low key Loki here
No, you aren’t
Low Key being Loki flew past me for most of American Gods.
Nobody’s human
Why are you posting a picture of Dr. Strange?
Why are you posting a picture of Idris Elba?
Hail Eris!
Anubis and Thoth weighing the heart of the dead to see if it is as light as a feather before letting them into the afterlife.
I love the idea that there’s no “do this, do that”, or a concrete set of rules or commandments. But the idea that if you can look back on your life, and if your heart isn’t weighed down with the burden of all of the things that you did that know we’re just wrong…then you can go on to the afterlife.
It’s just no much more of a reasonable, adult approach to morality.
So, the guy who kicked a kitten at age three and still broods about it goes to hell, and the war criminal who feels justified for bombing civilians gets off scot free?
Actually…yes. At least for the “war criminal”. I think the point is that you can’t hide your inner feelings from the feather. So if you genuinely, in the deepest depths of your heart, have no qualms about bombing civilians then you’re fine.
I think this points out the fundamental relativistic nature of morality and how the feather copes with it. Everyone has some sort of moral compass, and the feather measures how true you were to it. And really, what more can you ask of anyone? Decide, for yourself, what is right and what is wrong and stick to it.
Putting aside the fact that a toddler probably lacks the intellectual or emotional development to have a truely personal morality, I cannot imagine that someone who “broods” all their life over kicking a kitten when they were three is anything other than the nicest most moral person you’ll ever meet. I don’t think that have any trouble with Anubis and Thoth.
Anub
I’d pick Anubis if I was a furry.
So…Anubis.
I like the various mythologies for psychopomps; Anubis, Charon, grim reapers, Azrael, Vanth, valkyries, etc.
psychopomps?
“Psychopomps (from the Greek word ψυχοπομπός, psychopompós, literally meaning the ‘guide of souls’)[1] are creatures, spirits, angels, demons, or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls from Earth to the afterlife.[2]”
cool, thanks.
If you like psychopomps, you should play Spiritfarer, you get to be a psychopomp. and it’s comforting.
