I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about comic books and characters and who created who etc etc, when he stated that Thor was created by Marvel Comics. I cleared my throat, all lady like and said "Well, the truth is that Thor has been around much longer than that. The Vikings 'created' Thor, not some writer with a good imagination!" Obviously, because he is a grown man and quite intelligent he knew this to be true and his comment was merely a slip of the tongue or perhaps he was differentiating the two characters, the real Norse God and the comic book hero. Which is fine, but it got me wondering... How many other people out there, kids especially, look at the comic version of Thor and Loki and whoever else is in it (I have as yet not ready any myself) and see them as 'make believe'? See them as characters some genius made up and decided to write stories about? I wonder how many people out there do not understand who Thor and Loki (etc) really are?
It also got me wondering, how much else in popular culture has been taken from the ancients and adapted to suit their purposes. I know Anne Rice uses the name Akasha (which i only recently learned is the sanscrit word for ether...), and the gods and goddesses in Supernatural are based upon deities from a plethora of pantheons, but exactly how deep does it go? Are people picking random symbols from a book they picked up at an occult store and running with it? How many other TV series' have the myths of the ancients interlaced with modern world ideas? It is intriguing to me, and what it means is that there is a lot more reading and viewing in store for me in the future. I don't think I'll make it my life's passion to discover them all, after all I have other things I need to do, but it might be something else I draw on when viewing new series and movies...
It is interesting to me that the knowledge of the ancients is right there for the next generation to access, should they decide to make the connections and dig a little deeper into the name of their favourite comic book character...
It is rather sad, don't you think, that reading mythology seems to have fallen out of school curriculums? Otherwise, your Marvel comics sort would have known better...
ReplyDeleteI agree, considering my day job is a History teacher, I understand all too well! We have managed to get a bit more into the curriculum, but there is still room for improvement! Unfortunately, there seems to be so much more to teach them that the PTB believe is more important... My only hope is that the Marvel comics encourage the readers to do their research......
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