Magick Chicks 06-03-12 My favorite

[Ravenhull]

Well, I've been a masochist enough to linger on the VC forums through all of that and wouldn't mind some support if possible. The girls might not be innocent angels, but the way some of the posters talk over there, sheeeesh....

[The Nick]

I'll make you a deal - just call me over when some Nick-brand sarcasm or perspective is needed!

A message, a PM, e-mail, snail-mail, trained pigeon, whatever. Just pass the time along when the silliest stuff is there!

['J']

I have never had to deal with her in that aspect. Pretty much, I know Her as Crafter.

one of my favorite discussions on mythology comes from neal stephenson in cryptonomicon, where he compares athena vs ares. click the link for the full version.

..."So anyway, you probably learned in elementary school that Athena wears a helmet, carries a shield called Aegis, and is the goddess of war and of wisdom, as well as crafts—such as the aforementioned weaving. Kind of an odd combination, to say the least! Especially since Ares was supposed to be the god of war and Hestia the goddess of home economics—why the redundancy? But a lot’s been screwed up in translation. See, the kind of wisdom that we associate with old farts like yours truly, and which I’m trying to impart to you here, Randy Waterhouse, was called dike by the Greeks. That’s not what Athena was the goddess of! She was the goddess of metis, which means cunning or craftiness, and which you’ll recall was the name of her mother in one version of the story. Interestingly Metis (the personage, not the attribute) provided young Zeus with the potion that caused Cronus to vomit up all of the baby gods he’d swallowed, setting the stage for the whole Titanomachia. So now the connection to crafts becomes obvious—crafts are just the practical application of metis."

"I associate the word ‘crafts’ with making crappy belts and ashtrays in summer camp," Randy says. "I mean, who wants to be the fucking goddess of macrame?"

"It’s all bad translation. The word that we use today, to mean the same thing, is really technology."

"Okay. Now we’re getting somewhere."

"Instead of calling Athena the goddess of war, wisdom, and macrame, then, we should say war and technology. And here again we have the problem of an overlap with the jurisdiction of Ares, who’s supposed to be the god of war. And let’s just say that Ares is a complete asshole. His personal aides are Fear and Terror and sometimes Strife. He is constantly at odds with Athena even though—maybe because —they are nominally the god and goddess of the same thing—war. Heracles, who is one of Athena’s human proteges, physically wounds Ares on two occasions, and even strips him of his weapons at one point! You see the fascinating thing about Ares is that he’s completely incompetent. He’s chained up by a couple of giants and imprisoned in a bronze vessel for thirteen months. He’s wounded by one of Odysseus’s drinking buddies during the Iliad. Athena knocks him out with a rock at one point. When he’s not making a complete idiot of himself in battle, he’s screwing every human female he can get his hands on, and—get this—his sons are all what we would today call serial killers. And so it seems very clear to me that Ares really was a god of war as such an entity would be recognized by people who were involved in wars all the time, and had a really clear idea of just how stupid and ugly wars are.

"Whereas Athena is famous for being the backer of Odysseus, who, let’s not forget, is the guy who comes up with the idea for the Trojan Horse. Athena guides both Odysseus and Heracles through their struggles, and although both of these guys are excellent fighters, they win most of their battles through cunning or (less pejoratively) metis. And although both of them engage in violence pretty freely (Odysseus likes to call himself ‘sacker of cities’) it’s clear that they are being held up in opposition to the kind of mindless, raging violence associated with Ares and his offspring—Heracles even personally rids the world of a few of Ares’s psychopathic sons. I mean, the records aren’t totally clear—it’s not like you can go to the Thebes County Courthouse and look up the death certificates on these guys—but it appears that Heracles, backed up by Athena all the way, personally murders at least half of the Hannibal Lecterish offspring of Ares.

"So insofar as Athena is a goddess of war, what really do we mean by that?..."

Well, that part of the forum is a bit peculiar, since it seems to attract posters who only come there to complain about the protagonists of the comic.

[Ravenhull]

I remember back in one of early versions of AD&D's "Deities and Demigods" it was talking about how Hades was "neutral evil", but that didn't mean his followers would go out of their way to kick puppies, "unlike some followers of Ares."

[Artemisia]

J,

That's a lot of what I mean by Crafter. I just tend to fall into older terminology sometimes. I forget the connotations that so many modern humans have for some words.

[thebitterfig]

Makes me think of two other clever weavers. Penelope, with her unweaving trick to keep her suitors at bay while Odysseus returned from Illium (perhaps he married her in the first place because he could tell she was close to Athena in that way). Jacob the Heel-Grabber, who tricked his brother out of his inheritance, and his father into giving him the blessing of the firstborn. It seems the cunning ones take up the loom.

['J']

J,

That's a lot of what I mean by Crafter. I just tend to fall into older terminology sometimes. I forget the connotations that so many modern humans have for some words.

i wasn't really directing that at you so much as expanding on a point you mentioned. and it seemed a nice opportunity to share a bit from one of my favorite authors.

[Artemisia]

No worries J.

[Hurbster]

Well, that part of the forum is a bit peculiar, since it seems to attract posters who only come there to complain about the protagonists of the comic.

Yup, surprised that no-one defends them, actually. Usually it's a 'well , I got nothing'.

[Ravenhull]

I do to a degree. Mostly saying that I don't think they are complete monsters (Suki pushes the edge) and figure most of their behavior seems about right for teens given too much power... But after being beaten down so much...

[Tenjen]

Iam chopped liver!

[Thor]

Well, I've been a masochist enough to linger on the VC forums through all of that and wouldn't mind some support if possible. The girls might not be innocent angels, but the way some of the posters talk over there, sheeeesh....

The problem is that the protagonists in VC have no redeeming features. There's nothing to root for. There's nothing to like.

Currently, the head vampire cheerleader's life is being threatened by someone stronger and eviler. Will she escape? Who cares? Doesn't matter. Won't have an emotional impact either way.

Sure the VC don't actually kill people, but the rest of their behavior is so unprincipled that it's a little tiny plus buried under a heap of minuses. Drinking urine doesn't kill people either, but I'm no rush to tinkle in a blender and whip up a smoothie.

[TheDude]

Your post illustrates the prevailing attitude of the people who post in the VC forum though it remains unclear why people who don't care for the comic would continue to post there.

It makes that forum a somewhat unappealing place for those (like me) who think that the comic is quite entertaining and who do like the protagonists.

[mac2]

As much as I hate to contribute to this epic thread derailment, I have to agree with Ravenhull, TheDude, and the other people who actually like and enjoy the comic.

I'd also like to point out that, between the print and online versions, there are thousands of readers (at least I hope so, more readers means more chapters ) that never make any comment; good, bad, or indifferent. No author is going to make major change to a story based on the opinions of a relative handful of people. So the people who do nothing but complain are doomed to disappointment.

[Don Alexander]

I'll just pop in to say:

More Nick-sarcasm is always appreciated. Hail Beret Cat!

Also, Cryptonomicon FTW, that is some of the most amazing shit I have ever had the great pleasure of reading.