Latest Page Discussions/Comic Update Chitchat

[Miriam]

Given what Minna said about the Norse gods not granting powers to anyone who's been claimed by other gods, I find Reynir becoming Christian to be highly unlikely. (Though it just occurred to me it might be pretty funny if he gets mistaken for Jesus by the murderghosts for the aforementioned reasons and that's why they let him lead them to rest. ) Minna has also talked about her fascination with Norse mythology, so there's still some hope in me that that will remain the primary focus of the story as far as religion goes.

Oh yes, Reynir being mistaken as Jesus would be hilarious

[Hrollo]

We want a pagan world.

Let's not generalize. I for one am perfectly fine with the idea of a world where both pagan and christian beliefs are true and not evil — there's a long tradition of literary works (by Christian authors even) embrassing that concept (not least of them the Arthurian cycle).

Although in the case of SSSS, I'm still more inclined that whatever magic is, it's the same underlying thing for everyone and that their own religious beliefs only superficially shape the way they access to it and manifest its powers.

[urbicande]

Given what Minna said about the Norse gods not granting powers to anyone who's been claimed by other gods, I find Reynir becoming Christian to be highly unlikely. (Though it just occurred to me it might be pretty funny if he gets mistaken for Jesus by the murderghosts for the aforementioned reasons and that's why they let him lead them to rest. ) Minna has also talked about her fascination with Norse mythology, so there's still some hope in me that that will remain the primary focus of the story as far as religion goes.

They're probably all sitting there in Dunmanifestin and saying, "I'll trade you one follower for two ghosts and a first-round draft pick." to each other.

[Lazy8]

Let's not generalize. I for one am perfectly fine with the idea of a world where both pagan and christian beliefs are true and not evil — there's a long tradition of literary works (by Christian authors even) embrassing that concept (not least of them the Arthurian cycle).

Although in the case of SSSS, I'm still more inclined that whatever magic is, it's the same underlying thing for everyone and that their own religious beliefs only superficially shape the way they access to it and manifest its powers.

*blinks* How is that generalizing? I never said I wanted Christianity to turn out evil in this world, though the going assumption for me was that it did in fact turn out to be false, given that the pagan religions were the ones that survived - I'd have been perfectly fine if the matter had never been brought up at all, to be honest.

Part of my views on this are personal opinion - culturally I've found paganism to be a lot more engaging and interesting than Christianity, perhaps due to oversaturation in real life (I want to find out more about the culture I know less about). Part of it is my complete lack of faith in the ability of people to behave like mature adults when a touchy subject like religion is brought up, and I was right - I've already seen people in the comments section bashing non-Christians, claiming that Jews worship a "blood god", and saying that only secularists ever commit genocide. And yeah, I'm well aware that this is on the commentators who can't be bothered to behave like human beings, not on the comic, but suddenly throwing Christianity into a world that was previously established to be be predominantly pagan and atheist just feels like opening a can of worms that really didn't need to be opened.

Could you name some of those literary works that you mentioned, and what time periods they were written in? I'm curious as to cultural context, how all-encompassing monotheism was as compared to the modern day, and how well different religious belief systems were able to coexist with each other, also as compared to the modern day. Because cultural context does matter.

[urbicande]

Could you name some of those literary works that you mentioned, and what time periods they were written in? I'm curious as to cultural context, how all-encompassing monotheism was as compared to the modern day, and how well different religious belief systems were able to coexist with each other, also as compared to the modern day. Because cultural context does matter.

I'm not sure you can say "the modern day" without adding " in the western world.  Hinduism has many deities, Buddhism (as I understand it) has none, really.  (And, yes, SSSS takes place in northern Europe, so that counts as Western).

But I think that you could say that the old gods are *currently* ascendant in the SSSSverse, just as some version of the sort of overarching Abrahamic god was ascendant for many years in the SSSSverse.  There may well be an ebb and flow of...oh...divine tides.  (Which is an interesting concept that I wouldn't have thought of without this discussion).

Must think about that

[Lazy8]

I'm not sure you can say "the modern day" without adding " in the western world.  Hinduism has many deities, Buddhism (as I understand it) has none, really.  (And, yes, SSSS takes place in northern Europe, so that counts as Western).

Very true. I guess I kind of thought that was implied by context, though, as we have been discussing primarily Western works.

But I think that you could say that the old gods are *currently* ascendant in the SSSSverse, just as some version of the sort of overarching Abrahamic god was ascendant for many years in the SSSSverse.  There may well be an ebb and flow of...oh...divine tides.  (Which is an interesting concept that I wouldn't have thought of without this discussion).

Must think about that

Hm... yes, must think... Really, the whole concept of overarching cultural changes that are induced by an apocalypse is a fascinating topic. I've wondered before whether Christianity might have died out because the Christian God failed to protect his followers, while the pagan gods have demonstrably looked after theirs via the return of magic to the world, and the atheists have at least done a passable job of looking after themselves. (Sweden was quite successful at this, Denmark... not so much, but at least the Danish atheists managed to survive, which is more than can be said for any of the surviving remnants of Christianity that have appeared so far.)

Come to think of it, I've also seen someone put forth the idea that Mikkel might not actually be an atheist, but rather a Christian. It's not incompatible with his dismissiveness of magic, nor is it surprising that he wouldn't have said anything about it, given that as I understand it religion is a pretty taboo topic in the Nordic countries. Plus there was Minna's note that Mikkel could have told Reynir the significance of the cross if Reynir had thought to show it to him. Then again, given the Danes' fascination with the past it's also possible that Mikkel has simply done his homework and knows a lot more than the average person about the Old World in general. Honestly I'm still not sure how I feel about this possibility; I guess it would depend mostly on execution.

EDIT: Though come to think of it, his use of the phrase "you spiritual folks" with regards to Reynir's praying implies that he himself is not spiritual, so there's most of the basis for that theory out the window...

[Hrollo]

*blinks* How is that generalizing?

I don't understand your confusion; I was answering to a very specific sentence from someone who was not you, and which did contain a generalization about what "we" wanted to see in SSSS.

[urbicande]

Hm... yes, must think... Really, the whole concept of overarching cultural changes that are induced by an apocalypse is a fascinating topic. I've wondered before whether Christianity might have died out because the Christian God failed to protect his followers, while the pagan gods have demonstrably looked after theirs via the return of magic to the world, and the atheists have at least done a passable job of looking after themselves. (Sweden was quite successful at this, Denmark... not so much, but at least the Danish atheists managed to survive, which is more than can be said for any of the surviving remnants of Christianity that have appeared so far.)

Oh, absolutely. 

Mind, we don't know that Christianity has died out entirely, although it clearly will be a very minority religion in the SSSS world.  But my own background (Jewish) shows that a faith, no matter how small in terms of numbers, can survive.  Here in the real world there are still Zoroastrians. Heck, there are still *Samaritans*

Come to think of it, I've also seen someone put forth the idea that Mikkel might not actually be an atheist, but rather a Christian. It's not incompatible with his dismissiveness of magic, nor is it surprising that he wouldn't have said anything about it, given that as I understand it religion is a pretty taboo topic in the Nordic countries. Plus there was Minna's note that Mikkel could have told Reynir the significance of the cross if Reynir had thought to show it to him. Then again, given the Danes' fascination with the past it's also possible that Mikkel has simply done his homework and knows a lot more than the average person about the Old World in general. Honestly I'm still not sure how I feel about this possibility; I guess it would depend mostly on execution.

EDIT: Though come to think of it, his use of the phrase "you spiritual folks" with regards to Reynir's praying implies that he himself is not spiritual, so there's most of the basis for that theory out the window...

Yeah, if Mikkel is Christian he's only nominally so.

Onni, on the other hand, seems pretty well informed about the gods of the old world, which is a little surprising given the heavy emphasis that Finns probably have to place on just surviving.

[Lazy8]

I don't understand your confusion; I was answering to a very specific sentence from someone who was not you, and which did contain a generalization about what "we" wanted to see in SSSS.

I was reading your statement as being about generalizing concerning the presence of religions, not about generalizing the people in the fandom.

[Juniper]

Part of my views on this are personal opinion - culturally I've found paganism to be a lot more engaging and interesting than Christianity, perhaps due to oversaturation in real life (I want to find out more about the culture I know less about). Part of it is my complete lack of faith in the ability of people to behave like mature adults when a touchy subject like religion is brought up, and I was right - I've already seen people in the comments section bashing non-Christians, claiming that Jews worship a "blood god", and saying that only secularists ever commit genocide. And yeah, I'm well aware that this is on the commentators who can't be bothered to behave like human beings, not on the comic, but suddenly throwing Christianity into a world that was previously established to be be predominantly pagan and atheist just feels like opening a can of worms that really didn't need to be opened.

Don't forget that same post called Christianity a disease, I think they were implying that all three Abrahamic religions, or at least Christianity and Judiasm, worship a "blood god" because he called the blatantly Christian priest lady's god the "Jewish blood god" it's not just Christians being jerks about this. I've seen quite a few posts implying that all religious folk are evil / terrible / ect in the past few page's comments. Unfortunately it's quite a few people of quite a few different beliefs being jerks about this :c

[urbicande]

Don't forget that same post called Christianity a disease, I think they were implying that all three Abrahamic religions, or at least Christianity and Judiasm, worship a "blood god" because he called the blatantly Christian priest lady's god the "Jewish blood god" it's not just Christians being jerks about this. I've seen quite a few posts implying that all religious folk are evil / terrible / ect in the past few page's comments. Unfortunately it's quite a few people of quite a few different beliefs being jerks about this :c

Something I said (a year ago today, in fact) on Twitter:  "Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make read the comments section."

[Juniper]

Something I said (a year ago today, in fact) on Twitter:  "Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make read the comments section."

Ughhh this is so frustrating though because the comments section for SSSS was so fun and I was so happy that I'd found the one exception to the internet rule of "don't look at the comment section" but nooooo so many jerks are leaking in and ruining everything. Why can't it just be mead moose and squirrel cookies and fun chatter about the page ??

[urbicande]

Ughhh this is so frustrating though because the comments section for SSSS was so fun and I was so happy that I'd found the one exception to the internet rule of "don't look at the comment section" but nooooo so many jerks are leaking in and ruining everything. Why can't it just be mead moose and squirrel cookies and fun chatter about the page ??

A fair amount of the comment section is still very good and I'm still active there.

Part of it is learning to just gloss over a lot of things and ignore them, unlike this guy.

[Lazy8]

Don't forget that same post called Christianity a disease, I think they were implying that all three Abrahamic religions, or at least Christianity and Judiasm, worship a "blood god" because he called the blatantly Christian priest lady's god the "Jewish blood god" it's not just Christians being jerks about this. I've seen quite a few posts implying that all religious folk are evil / terrible / ect in the past few page's comments. Unfortunately it's quite a few people of quite a few different beliefs being jerks about this :c

Being a jerk knows no religion. There are certain things that just stand out to me more because they make me twitch the most.

[Miriam]

I don't understand your confusion; I was answering to a very specific sentence from someone who was not you, and which did contain a generalization about what "we" wanted to see in SSSS.

Sorry. I was replying to Lazy8, and I just meant Lazy and me, not the entire SSSS fandom. *cries*