A Guide to Monsters - Religious Stuff

[espanolbot]

Comments

[glprime]

I'll admit, I loled at the Golem keeping Shabbos amidst a rampage.

But honestly, the Rabbi probably made him just so work could still get done while keeping himself cool with the Big G. I'm non-practicing, and there are times when it seems our covenant is rolling our eyes at how our more devout brethren try to find loopholes to their own rules. It often seems a cultural thing for Jews to be natural Rules Lawyers, based on Rabbinic traditions.

[donnblake]

It always made a fair amount of sense to me, if you assume that the texts containing the rules are Divinely Inspired (the bit that always gives me trouble). Clearly, God wouldn't unintentionally leave any loopholes in his rules, so any loopholes must therefore be intentional, and exploiting them is totes okay.

[icon_uk]

This may not be terribly coherent as thinking theologically on a Monday is rarely a good idea in my case, but I'm a little uncertain about using examples of religious iconography in non-religious situations as examples of "Religious monsters"

"Fallen Angels" is a case in point, in Judeo-Christian lore there is the most noted fallen angel, Lucife, who in the original usage retains his angelic power levels and serves a particular function (The embodiment of the cost of hubris). I don't think Superman and Batman are good analogies for angels as they tend to be in the Bible (Though it may depend on which bit of the Bible you're referring too of course)

The fact that Supernatural, or Hellblazer, or Neverwhere or heck even Pete and Dud in Bedazzled, have utilised the concept of angels (fallen and otherwise), but deliberately used them in very different ways, has little or no bearing on their original religious intent.

On the other hand, Dante's inferno use is, IMHO, fair game, since that only refers to it in the context of the original. It's not about Lucifer coming back as a real-estate agent, or the like, but about what happened after the Fall.

That being said, I've always loved Pratchett's take on Golems, including the fact that they are the one thing that the Zeus like (eg lightning throwing) head deity of the Discworld hates most; a ceramic aetheist.

On the other hand...

[timefire]

(I do apologise for any mistakes here - my knowledge comes mainly from Holywood. And Wikipedia)

Personally, I'd say that at least quite a lot of these can, and should, be counted as "Religious monsters".

Take Hellblazer, for example. There's a Heaven, and a Hell. There're also Aztec gods and plant elementals and endless other non-denominational oddities. And yet, Heaven still wages war against Hell, and the writers seem expect, when they show us their Gabriel or their First of the Fallen, that we see the biblical Archangel or the Adversary of lores.

As far as I know, most stories like these don't try to hide the source materials they drew from - they can portray the material *out of context*, sure, but TV!Liliths tend to look like Lilith, swim like Lilith, and quack like Lilith enough, that viewers will recognise them as "Lilith".

Re: On the other hand...

[icon_uk]

That's sort of my point though (I think), they refer to the original source as a sort of shorthand, and then go and do something completely different with them.

It's sort of akin to assuming that the text of Dracula is an extended autobiography of the historical Vlad Tepes. Similar source, vastly different presentations.

When they do use such characters, they often ascribe different missions and personalities to them. Angel's actually having personalities for one thing (Some did, like the Archangels, but they don't get a lot of text). Your average heavenly host doesn't seem (or at least shouldn't be) just a bunch of "just regular folk with wings who happen to like a nice tune on the harp", rather they're a manifestation of omnipotent power!

In such cases the entities tend to be humanised so that they can be used in a story where the interact heavily with humans, and that leads to some degree of disconnect, because the originals really didn't interact with humans much. A bit of smiting there (but not on a personal level) a revelation there, but not really hanging out with the guys or explaining an ineffable plan which should be beyond the ken of man.

Re: On the other hand...

[timefire]

I suppose this is one of those arguments where both sides are essentially saying the same thing and completely agree with each other about all the main points.

So, let's discuss semantics ;) I'd say that, even when writers butcher the source materials and "creatively reconstruct" them like some sort of grotesque Hannibal Lecter, they still want to pass their version off as the real deal to the audience (it depends on the writer, of course, but most do). They want us to apply the "Religion" label to their monsters (and probably some of the basis setups that label carries in our minds, for example ARK OF COVENANT = HOLY = SMITE EVIL - which sort-of conditioned the viewers to accept a Nazi-exploding deus ex machina, even if it doesn't quite match the Bible's description)

They want our brain to go 'ping' in a very specific direction, and that mindset should perhaps qualify the monsters as "religious monsters", even if the substance of the iconography is lost in translation.

Re: On the other hand...

[icon_uk]

Forgive me asking, as it's not strictly on topic, but is there a reason I'm getting about 6 different versions of the same reply? (Or they seem like the same reply, they might have subtly different punctuation I haven't spotted yet).

You can edit a post (provided it hasn't got any replies to it yet) rather than deleting and reposting.

Re: On the other hand...

[timefire]

Oops sorry. My bad. I *thought* I was just editing it, rather than taking it down and repost it again or something?

Mainly it's just me being stuck up about correct punctuations and so forth.

Either that, or my laptop is haunted and currently accessing to like 10 different parallel universes, in each of which my reply is worded slightly differently ;)

Re: On the other hand...

[skemono]

Editing a comment also sends an e-mail to the person you're responding to, same as posting a new one. So if you edit a comment multiple times, they'll receive multiple e-mails.

Re: On the other hand...

[timefire]

I see. That makes sense, then.

Thanks for the tip.

... Although to be honest, I still prefer my haunted laptop theory ;)

[shadowpsykie]

having just come off a Chaucer class, in one of Chaucer's tales, the Friar's tale if i am correct, we have a fairly Milton-esque view of demons. In here the demon while "prowling about seeking the ruin of souls" is doing so because it is his job to do so and is essentially allowed to do so because it is part of God's plan. (be it to test humanity or because it has to do with free will).

i am actually happy some one remembered the fact that Lucifer retains his powers. the idea was that what ever gifts God grants he will not take away. however after the fall his gifts DID change. He was once the most beautiful of angels and the most musically gifted (which is why he is attributed to seduction and often noted for his cunning).

that all said, i can see why he is using Angels and the like as "religious Monsters" but i do agree that perhaps a bit more research could be done because it does seem to be a bit of a generalized gloss. I don't have a problem with the view of "Fallen Angels" as monsters, as they are generally viewed as such, but perhaps they would fall better under Demons (which is what Fallen angels essentially are). Don't get me wrong, i don't mind fairly deep stories concering fallen angels (Supernatural plays with this really well, though its been a while since i have seen it) but those stories a bit harder to classify as they don't fall neatly into the typical fallen angel category.

[donnblake]

Side question- can I ask what you're using as "original usage" for Lucifer? I've been interested in the question for a while now, and as best I can tell, the only usage of Lucifer in the Bible (as a Greek translation of a Hebrew term referring, I believe, to the Morning Star or Venus, though in a poetical kind of way) is in reference to a Babylonian King, and the association with Satan came only later (which makes a certain amount of sense, as the theme of Satan as 'fallen angel' rather than as one with just a particularly dickish role as God's angel in charge of testing humanity only seems to have emerged in the New Testament, or, I guess maybe in the Deuterocanonical texts, which I'm not too familiar with, having been raised in a Protestant Church).

However, in addition to the Deuterocanonical books, there's a whole load of various apocrypha, Christian and Jewish, I'm not up on, so if any of those shed light on the whole Lucifer=Satan thing, I'd be grateful if you could point me in that direction.

[lego_joker]

I love your writing style. That is all.

This entire thing feels like something that Steph Brown wrote (and possibly drew) for a research paper.

[espanolbot]

...That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to be about my drawing or writing. ^^ Thank you.

[dr_archeville]

I've heard, though have not read for myself, that in the novelization of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the grotesque banquet was a big hint to Indy that something was Terribly Wrong in the palace, because those aren't dishes that Hindus would ever eat. If so, it would've been nice if that had been clearer in the movie.