Pessimistically Me

[avatar216]

Thor's and Loki's Appearances and Why I Dislike Strongman Thor

I'm not sure how controversial this take is, but I absolutely disagree with the idea that God of War's depiction of Thor is more accurate to myth because Thor eats a lot, as if eating a lot doesn't convert to energy that is expended by doing things like walking or running and fighting and fishing, which he does basically all the time, and those things take endurance and core strength more than they do bulky muscles that would actually make some of them pretty hard if we really wanted to apply real-world physics to it and biology. I know people say, "Well, he should not look like a supermodel like Chris Hemsworth," but they don't seem to realize that building a strong man's body is just as gym-intensive in terms of actually achieving that level of muscle and being able to maintain it, which, yes, does take a lot of food but also requires you to be doing short bursts of heavy lifting of objects constantly, not walking, running, or hiking for hours or even days without getting much rest or stopping much. In fact, Thor's actual lifestyle would be completely counterintuitive to a modern-day powerlifter. Elite strength athletes actively avoid heavy cardio because they know it drains the caloric surplus needed to maintain their weight and causes them to lose muscle mass.

And as much as people think a modern powerlifter frame is the only way to show true "raw power," I disagree, and think Thor should look like someone who actually hikes mountains, clears timber, builds his own halls, and fights constantly. I’m not arguing that Thor should look skinny. He should be a massive, broad-shouldered, towering man. But his lifestyle fits the mold of a rugged, high-endurance, all-terrain warrior. If we apply real-world logic to casting, an actor modeled after a high-altitude mountaineer or an extreme wilderness survivalist makes infinitely more sense for the physical tasks Thor executes daily.

As for Loki, well, I think at minimum he should be very handsome and generally so to the audience because a creator or writer has to ultimately decide if they're going to go with Norse beauty standards or modern-day beauty standards of what makes an attractive man, but either way, he still needs to be attractive, and so having a supermodel of sorts play him would make sense with or without the scars. I've seen the argument that Loki shouldn't have abs because he eats a lot just like Thor does, but again, like I said above about Thor, he travels and walks and fights somewhat regularly, although less than Thor does, and many have brought up that he has given birth, so wouldn't his body be forever changed? And to that I say, "Yes," but that doesn't mean he wouldn't be able to have muscle or the physical body to do those tasks constantly, and that doesn't even account for him seemingly building his own house or houses, depending on if you want to include what Odin says about him living on Midgard for 8 years raising children and seemingly taking care of a farm, which is a pretty labor-intensive thing to do all things considered.

[tilviljunarkenndr]

Bit weird seeing multi-pantheon crossover art and fics with deities who I know for a fact would never actually get along, and have nothing in common outside of their pop culture representations and maybe, just maybe, their most basic roles in their respective pantheons.

[tilviljunarkenndr]

Keep seeing a lot of Greek mythology fans posting stuff where Loki and Eris are besties, probably because Eris is the goddess of chaos and Loki’s often (incorrectly) presented as the “god of mischief” in pop culture, but there’s a pretty glaring problem that’s obvious to people who have read Norse myths, but would easily slip through the cracks if you didn’t, so allow me to explain to all you Greek fans why they wouldn’t be friends.

I’ve already mentioned that Loki’s not actually the god of mischief, but furthermore, Eris is not a normal trickster. Eris’s name means “strife” and her entire prerogative is making people miserable because it’s funny. Loki, on the other hand, is one of the most easily ragebaited gods in his entire trigger happy Viking pantheon, to the point where he tried to beat someone to death with a stick for stealing his food, and there is no universe where they would have a normal, civil interaction. Eris would likely just antagonize Loki until he snaps and tries to kill her by any means necessary, likely at the cost of anyone and anything in the surrounding area.

[avatar216]

I do agree, but it occurred to me that the Greek gods like doing lots of terrible things to humans and often like to drag them into their conflicts with other gods. I think this would actually create a different problem if Eris and Loki were ever to meet because, yeah, they wouldn't get along because Loki would get easily enraged by her, but I also think he would capitulate as he almost always does; however, he still doesn't really do bad things to humans, and that does make me question how a conflict between them would go seeing as Eris would immediately want to bring humans into it and either Loki would just not participate or may even get upset if we include his eventual snap at Odin in Lokasenna over him being unfair to humans in battle. I do think their feud would be epically terrible for the other gods, but I still think there would be a way for Loki to weasel his way out of letting stuff happen around humans on his end anyway while still going after Eris because he doesn't give up easily.

If I had to say who I think Loki would get along with, it would have to be Heracles and, arguably, Athena, even though I know you mentioned her in a reblog. I say Heracles because he's actually similar to Thor, and if Loki can get along with Thor, I think he could get along with someone like Heracles, seeing as Heracles likes to fight and does care about the people in a similar way to Thor at times. As for Athena, it's actually because she quite literally tricked Hera into breastfeeding Heracles and even tricks others as well, and I do think they could bond over tricking their fellow gods and goddesses into doing shit they want them to even if it backfires in their face.

[vyvilha]

it is strange to me when people present loki being half jötunn as a trait that others him and contributes to his role as a trickster. odin's mother was a jötunn. thor's mother was a jötunn also so he has a lot more jötunn blood than loki. it is clear that jötunn heritage wasn't considered an alienating trait among the aesir

[dychelicerae]

it's the patrilineality innit. the fathers side of the family would have been considered significantly more important to a persons heritage than their mothers, and the thing that separates loki from the other half-jötnar in asgard is that her father was the jötunn rather than her mother. the relationship between the æsir and jötnar in the myths is quite a bit less antagonistic than its usually portrayed in adaptations but loki certainly wouldnt have been considered an ás in the same way that odin or thor were

[avatar216]

While I understand where this speculation comes from, I would just like to point out that it is just that—scholarly speculation that isn't directly referenced in the text and is arguably actually contradicted by the fact that Loki is consistently called one of the Æsir. I feel like this line of speculation almost always seems to ignore what the text itself actually says about Loki himself but rather hyper-focuses on his father and his mother as if implying that the text never says anything about him specifically, but the thing is it does, and it arguably contradicts this idea that he's considered other when even in Lokasenna, when the other gods are most angry at him, they still consider him one of them. Not even to mention the fact that he isn't the only one in a situation like this because in the Poetic Edda, at least Heimdall doesn't even have a father seemingly, and so I don't understand why people don't go hard on speculating why he is considered one of the gods, and the same thing goes for Týr as well because both of his parents are jötnar, apparently. 

I feel like we should actually be a lot more cautious when it comes to separating analysis of social norms in or outside of the text and relating that back to what the text says, because I don't think textual analysis should override what is there in the text to the point that we actively disregard the source material we're looking at in favor of our interpretation born out of extra-textual material. I think it's perfectly fine that we speculate, but I don't think speculation should override what we have in front of us to the point that we assert it as the thing that we have right in front of us when it is not. I say this because in this case, and this is no shade to the people above, people constantly assert that Loki is actually a jötunn or half-jötunn, like it's an unequivocal fact that everyone must accept when it's never actually stated in our sources. I feel this way in part because people almost act like this statement is a gotcha to people who do call Loki a god and then simultaneously ignore that some people did seemingly worship jötnar like Surtr. The issue also, in part, exists because we want these categories to be neat little boxes that the things in the stories can fit into, and when they don't neatly fit, we want to shove them in a box they seemingly weren't a part of in the first place just because it fits with our simplistic model of social structures better than the messiness that we actually have in the myths.

Edit to add: just to add more to what I said about Heimdall and Týr. Like I said, these two gods' parentage does complicate the picture and is a direct contradiction to the idea that a god having a father is a necessity even for being considered a god seemingly, and this is not even to mention Bragi possibly being Bragi Boddason and thus actually being born a human. I just really think these things add to the picture to make it more complicated than it often appears by saying it's a straight paternal-favored inheritance and that then being linked to the residence in Asgard even though other beings besides the gods possibly, or more likely, probably live there, like the elves. Let us be more careful in equating living in Asgard with being a god and the requirement that you must be a god to live there in the first place and that to even live there is to necessitate having a father who is counted as a god, which seems like a stretch given what we see in the myths and the logistical fact of the gods probably needing a lot of help with day-to-day stuff that we just take for granted in the modern world even with the aid of magic.

Another thing is that this simplistic notion about paternal inheritance meaning something about being a god or an áss  when assuming that it works the same way as human families is that you have to then factor in things like fostering and adoption because those are very common in the Norse world and do even seem to be a thing amongst the gods, so are we going to say their foster children or adopted children are not one of them when they would socially still consider that child one of them? And yet another thing is that—and I'm not trying to be insensitive to the situation with certain ethnic groups across the world—we should be careful when applying this logic to old societies that didn't have a blood quantum-like system that said, "Oh, you're 1% of this or you're 2% of this; therefore, you're not this other thing," when that's not really how it actually worked but rather a colonization-induced need to keep your group together and a need to find what the borders strictly are of what is us and what is other. Heritage in many societies across the world throughout history was not a math equation of 10% of this over 50% of this but rather what group you grew up with or had political or emotional ties to. I feel like this is also why when we talk about DNA tests and being a percentage of something, making us more genetically tied to one group or another does not mean that we share cultural ties with that group, and this is often a problem in discussions because people from those cultures will say, "No, your great-great-grandmother or whatever was from our culture, but you are not because you don't share our actual cultural customs," and that does matter, and I do think this same sentiment could be applied to the myths as well because it is about the day-to-day lived reality of who you are around and where you stand every day versus some imagined history that you have with another group because of heritage that you don't actually share on a day-to-day level.

[tilviljunarkenndr]

Feeling bored. Feed me your headcanons.

[avatar216]

I don't know if this counts because maybe it's more of a speculation than a headcanon, but I've had this thought that maybe Loki helped take care of Thor at some point since I think it would actually help to explain why he singles him out in comparison to Odin's other children, who he doesn't seem to interact with at all or with sheer hate in the case of Baldr. I guess it's a question of what makes Thor special to Loki in comparison to Odin's other children as well, and I'd argue vice versa since Thor seems to seek him out and actually listen to him when it comes to him giving him orders and not questioning him, although most of the gods don't really question Loki until Lokasenna. I know people like to harp on Loki and Odin's friendship to explain a lot of things in the myths, but I don't necessarily think this fully explains Thor and Loki's dynamic since Thor barely seems to get along with Odin at times, and I highly doubt Loki simply being a friend of Odin's would have automatically made him someone Thor would want to spend time with, especially as he grew older. Thor also seems to be like the only one that Loki is willing to praise, although the main thing he seems to praise him for is keeping promises/going through with threats, which I agree, as you have mentioned in another post, is one of Loki's greatest vices.

I've also held on to this speculation in part because of finding out that, according to Snorri in Snorra Edda, Thor was fostered by two people named Hlóra and Vingnir. Not that I think the guy mentioned in this couple is Loki. I just think that it's interesting that there is a possibility that Thor was handed off to someone else to be raised, so why not Loki as well because he's there?

[the-elf-witch-from-space]

Marvel and MCU completely butchered Norse mythology. It has done more harm than good for our community. Most of the time it upsets me, but they changed one detail that I absolutely love, and think is hilarious. See this guy? Heimdall?

In our actual texts it states a few times Heimdallr is the "whitest of the Æsir". What they meant was that he is a shining, exemplary, honorable character, similar to the sun coming out with rainbows, since he guards the bifröst, which is the rainbow, and he has golden teeth. "Whitest" more in the vein of "white magic" than his actual skin color. They were saying "This guy is the best of us, as reliable as the sun"

The fact they let Idris Elba play him though? Perfect, I think it's great. People love Idris Elba. People love Heimdallr. It makes the racists mad. That's a win in my book. He should have gold teeth though, if we want to be historically accurate.

[avatar216]

I would just like to correct you on some of the things you either got wrong or don't seem to be understanding in the tags. The Norse did have color terms for people, and in fact you're wrong when it comes to Hel because she is never called black, but rather the text explicitly says that she is half blue (blár) as a corpse. Emphasis on the part where she's compared to a corpse and not, say, an African person. They called Africans and other dark-skinned people "blámaðr." which literally translates to blue man. And while I agree with you that they had a different understanding of race or wouldn't have understood it at all, that doesn't mean they didn't understand that different people looked different and didn't ascribe them a color according to their own language's color categorization for people. The word "svartr" [black] was mostly reserved for hair color or dark skin due to tanning or dirt, according to Dr. Jackson Crawford, at least, and a few other experts, from my understanding.  

Old Norse used the word "hvítr." (white) in multiple ways, including to refer to someone who was super pale because it was seen as a positive trait for women because it meant they didn't have to work, but in a man, it could be viewed negatively in that he was likely a coward who stayed inside when other people went out to fight or work hard. It can even have the connotation of "argr." in some cases. In the case of Heimdall, it's unclear because it could either mean that he was super pale and fair, or it could be referring to his purity, like it does with Christ. However, this word was also just used for someone who looked ethereal or was quite literally glowing because it could mean so ethereal that you look as though you are glowing, and yes, it is used with this connotation sometimes in poetry. 

As for the pronunciation of Heimdall's name, well, it depends on if you're going with the modern Icelandic pronunciation or the reconstructed Old Norse pronunciation, in which case it would be more pronounced like "h-aym-d-ah-ll-r" because in Old Norse the double L is just a double L sound, which simply means that the consonant was held longer, and the ll does not represent the TL sound of modern Icelandic, which in Old Norse was written as "TL" because that's what it is but has since merged with the double L in modern Icelandic  This sound (the voiceless alveolar fricative) can actually be found in other languages like Welsh and Nahuatl, and in Welsh the sound is also spelled with a double L like in modern Icelandic, which is where we get the name Lloyd from, and in the case of the other language, you can clearly see that the sound is still rendered in the Latin alphabet as TL rather than written as a double L If you want to render heimdall's name in modern Icelandic it would be (h-aym-dah-tl-ur). I can see why you think it's pronounced like a k/c sound though because it sounds like a cracking sound when the two are put together.

Just to add, if I have gotten anything wrong myself, please do correct me. This is just the information that I have at the moment to the best of my knowledge and the research that I'm capable of right now.

[avatar216]

I don't understand why you're bringing up runes in Old Norse when it comes to the name because it's irrelevant because that's just a writing system and tells us nothing about the underlying phonology, and the underlying phonology of the name is TL in Old Norse or Proto-Old Norse.  just because the runic alphabet didn't have a way to indicate elongated consonants didn't mean they didn't exist, and it doesn't mean that they then correspond to two consonants being pronounced together because they don't. Since this is just a fact of the underlying basic linguistic structure of Old Norse in the time of our written sources and of reconstructed Proto-Old Norse and not just something I'm making up, but rather just trying to tell you that while I do understand why you're rendering it as CK, that is not a part of the reconstructed Old Norse pronunciation that some of us favor because it would in fact be incorrect, and it's not incorrect to pronounce it with a double l, but it would be if you were using the modernized Icelandic pronunciation and spelling saying that we are pronouncing it wrong is misunderstanding that we're not using the Icelandic pronunciation in the first place and that we're either actively choosing to pronounce it in a way that makes sense with English phonology or as close to Old Norse as we can. Yes, modern Icelandic is the closest language we have to Old Norse, but it has changed over the last 1,000 years and that change includes merging the double l sound with the TL sound. I literally said in my response that I understand why you're wondering it as a CK but that that it's not a CK but rather just it sounds like like one because that's the sound the miles renders when those two sounds are put together and runic inscriptions does not change the underlying phonology of a language because remember Old English was also written in Ruins but you probably wouldn't say that certain sounds didn't exist in Old English simply because it wasn't/couldn't be rendered and runes or the Latin alphabet.

 As for why I brought up Christ, well, it's because Jesus Christ was called White Christ, as in the sense of purity in Old Norse, and it has nothing to do with whatever you just said there about being a white man because they didn't seem to really think he was a white man but just that he was pure. Beyond that, you ignoring that Hel is being compared to a corpse and is not described as black like an African person is in fact relevant because you literally said that it's fine that her mother is depicted as a black woman because her daughter is described as half blue as a corpse, even though that seemingly has little to do with her other than women like her often seemingly producing monstrous children in the myths, because remember, this same woman also produced a giant serpent and a giant wolf, and what the heck does that have to do with being Black? Your argument is honestly just stupid when you think about that as well.

Also, what the heck does any of this have to do with colonizers? As though the Norse themselves didn't go colonize other places like Greenland or Canada. If you're talking about the Christianization of Iceland, then, well, that mostly wasn't forced on them and was their own choice. I don't know why you're trying to protect the Norse as if they were in some special category that didn't do the things that you're talking about other groups doing when, as I said, they themselves colonized many places and stole stuff and women, which is why most Icelandic people on their maternal side are more closely related to Irish people or English people than any other of the Nordics.

[the-elf-witch-from-space]

Marvel and MCU completely butchered Norse mythology. It has done more harm than good for our community. Most of the time it upsets me, but they changed one detail that I absolutely love, and think is hilarious. See this guy? Heimdall?

In our actual texts it states a few times Heimdallr is the "whitest of the Æsir". What they meant was that he is a shining, exemplary, honorable character, similar to the sun coming out with rainbows, since he guards the bifröst, which is the rainbow, and he has golden teeth. "Whitest" more in the vein of "white magic" than his actual skin color. They were saying "This guy is the best of us, as reliable as the sun"

The fact they let Idris Elba play him though? Perfect, I think it's great. People love Idris Elba. People love Heimdallr. It makes the racists mad. That's a win in my book. He should have gold teeth though, if we want to be historically accurate.

[avatar216]

I would just like to correct you on some of the things you either got wrong or don't seem to be understanding in the tags. The Norse did have color terms for people, and in fact you're wrong when it comes to Hel because she is never called black, but rather the text explicitly says that she is half blue (blár) as a corpse. Emphasis on the part where she's compared to a corpse and not, say, an African person. They called Africans and other dark-skinned people "blámaðr." which literally translates to blue man. And while I agree with you that they had a different understanding of race or wouldn't have understood it at all, that doesn't mean they didn't understand that different people looked different and didn't ascribe them a color according to their own language's color categorization for people. The word "svartr" [black] was mostly reserved for hair color or dark skin due to tanning or dirt, according to Dr. Jackson Crawford, at least, and a few other experts, from my understanding.  

Old Norse used the word "hvítr." (white) in multiple ways, including to refer to someone who was super pale because it was seen as a positive trait for women because it meant they didn't have to work, but in a man, it could be viewed negatively in that he was likely a coward who stayed inside when other people went out to fight or work hard. It can even have the connotation of "argr." in some cases. In the case of Heimdall, it's unclear because it could either mean that he was super pale and fair, or it could be referring to his purity, like it does with Christ. However, this word was also just used for someone who looked ethereal or was quite literally glowing because it could mean so ethereal that you look as though you are glowing, and yes, it is used with this connotation sometimes in poetry. 

As for the pronunciation of Heimdall's name, well, it depends on if you're going with the modern Icelandic pronunciation or the reconstructed Old Norse pronunciation, in which case it would be more pronounced like "h-aym-d-ah-ll-r" because in Old Norse the double L is just a double L sound, which simply means that the consonant was held longer, and the ll does not represent the TL sound of modern Icelandic, which in Old Norse was written as "TL" because that's what it is but has since merged with the double L in modern Icelandic  This sound (the voiceless alveolar fricative) can actually be found in other languages like Welsh and Nahuatl, and in Welsh the sound is also spelled with a double L like in modern Icelandic, which is where we get the name Lloyd from, and in the case of the other language, you can clearly see that the sound is still rendered in the Latin alphabet as TL rather than written as a double L If you want to render heimdall's name in modern Icelandic it would be (h-aym-dah-tl-ur). I can see why you think it's pronounced like a k/c sound though because it sounds like a cracking sound when the two are put together.

Just to add, if I have gotten anything wrong myself, please do correct me. This is just the information that I have at the moment to the best of my knowledge and the research that I'm capable of right now.

[thorraborinn]

I've noticed a trend on Reddit where people claim that Odin isn't fighting his fate; I'd like to know if you've seen any similar comments and what you think. This idea is frequently accompanied by the claim that the Norse people saw their gods as entirely good and the jötnar as entirely evil. I feel like this take lacks nuance on how the gods were actually seen, seeing as we don’t really have much in general, let alone about how the Norse viewed good and bad. Never mind the questionable use of etymology in terms of the words “good” and “evil,” because just because Old Norse had words that roughly translate to that doesn’t mean the underlying conceptual framework is the same, and the words in English are heavily influenced by Christianity, but this seems to be ignored in terms of the fact that the Christian view on good and evil has changed significantly over the last 1,000 years.   

I know I’m essentially asking two different questions, but the reason these two things seem to be intertwined is because these people are trying to justify everything the gods did as being viewed as good simply because they protected humans, and even though they did things like chaining Fenrisúlfr and raping women, it wouldn’t have been viewed as wrong but simply as something that Odin had to do because of fate. I see a problem with this because I don't think we'll ever really know whether the Norse people would have seen their gods' actions as purely good and treated them as benevolent deities simply because they protected them. I suspect that this idea is heavily influenced by Christian dualism, which is not being acknowledged, and I recall instances in the sagas where the gods were not viewed favorably, despite being worshiped. This doesn’t even include local beliefs in spirits who definitely weren’t viewed as purely good and who are mostly ignored in contemporary paganism in my experience. Hopefully, this makes sense.

I've had a hard time responding to this because it seems inadequate to just call it incorrect and move on. It's incorrect in a way that I think can give us some insight into the risks of reconstructed religion and the responsibilities that come with taking them on. I have a lot more to say about this, and have repeatedly started and stopped trying to say it in the drafts of this post, but that isn't what you're asking me to do, and I should save it for another time.

What I'll say briefly is that I've long had concerns that, as a modern religion still in an early development stage (if we're optimistic about its future), the foundation of heathenry is being formed in the context of social media that hijacks our need for community and redirects it to serve corporate interests to our detriment. I think the arguments you're seeing rise to the surface, not necessarily by anyone's conscious choice, for their fitness in an argumentative social media environment. They're not only good at shutting down arguments because of the asymmetry involved (it takes a lot more work for me to make the claims I did in my bullet points below), they also maintain an amount of exclusivity because few people would want to take these positions because they suck (if you think this is what heathenry is, the obvious choice is to just not be heathen… nobody is making you). I really do not have the capacity to believe that someone else believes the meanings of the words "good" and "evil" have been exactly consistent for their entire existence and someone who says they believe that is lying, possibly including to themselves.

I already linked it below but I'm gonna highlight a recommendation for the paper "De Natura Deorum: A Few Theses on Gods and Pantheons" by Jan A. Kozák.

Anyway here's my bullet-pointed actual response:

There was never a single, cohesive "Old Norse religion," but a broad spectrum of beliefs that differed regionally and probably along gender and economic lines, so at best any blanket statements about Norse religion generally are limited in scope. Clearly certain features would have been common throughout, but that has to be argued for and not assumed.

sub-point to the previous: the preservation of the myths that we still have record of was influenced by a Norwegian warrior aristocracy that we shouldn't assume to be representative of the entire medieval Nordic world.

sub-sub-point: the only place other than Saxo (who I'll remind you was not even attempting to relay mythology accurately, and who hated the gods almost as much as he hated women) that we get any reference to an abusive relationship between Óðinn and Rindr is in a praise poem for either Sigurðr jarl or Hákon jarl, the latter of whom was in fact a mass rapist as he believed he was entitled to be by his office of king, so this claim of an ontological buffer between the world of myth and the actual real world falls pretty fucking flat. Heathens like Hákon jarl because he was the last bastion of heathenry in Norway and don't have the guts to face the fact that because of him it died without honor. Sorry if that's cheesy but I don't know how else to say it.

We have basically no idea what people thought about the myths. There is good reason to doubt that the mythic genre approach to the gods was how they thought of them in other contexts.

The gods disagree with each other in myths all the time so I don't know how anyone squares that with the idea that they are all only capable of good. How were Óðinn and Þórr both doing good when they went tit-for-tat alternately blessing and cursing Starkaðr?

We have only a kind of weak idea of what anyone thought about the gods at all, and then nearly only for the land-owning elite, and all of this needs to be taken critically due to the time between the events described and their recording.

Norse people were capable of recognizing things as "good" and "evil" (or maybe we should just say "bad") but it's extremely doubtful that these were fundamental and unchangeable principles, and if we're to take seriously the claim that Norse religion was animistic then we should understand good and evil as emerging from negotiable relationalities rather than prior to it.

I know this is beating a dead horse but Þorvaldr holbarki worshiped Surtr. The recon crisis-avoidance response is that it was propitiation rather than worship but if we're "orthoprax not orthodox" (which might not be a given, but I'm used to people treating it like it is) then there's no real difference that matters.

The theme of unintentionally bringing about prophecy in the attempt to avoid it recurs throughout Norse literature and there's no reason to doubt that it's exactly what it looks like.

Rape is always wrong with no exceptions and a religion that says otherwise is a bad religion that you shouldn't practice.

[avatar216]

Thanks. I completely agree. I've often thought the same about how those types view fate, as depicted in myths, considering Frigg's attempt to prevent Baldr's death. It's as if they believe everyone accepted their fate without question, never experiencing negative emotions or trying to change their circumstances, simply because it was destined to happen. I particularly get this response when I bring up stanzas 22 through 24 of Lokasenna because Odin did nothing wrong when it came to his treatment of humans in battle; they were fated to die, and so Loki’s criticism can’t possibly be about the fact of humans dying, but rather it's just about them not winning a battle. Some people argue that my interpretation is flawed because fate is predetermined, and therefore, Odin had no choice but to choose those who were already fated to die, making his decision justified. I didn't find this argument convincing because it relies on the idea that people can't die before their predetermined fate, despite the myths being inconsistent about how fate relates to death. On one hand, fate can be very specific, but on the other, it can be as vague as acknowledging that every living being has a limited lifespan due to biological impermanence.

This notion is also reflected in how some people on these subs and elsewhere view Loki and, surprisingly, Thor, where they seem to think the gods should have easily dismissed Loki like a stranger, ignoring the centuries-long relationships and emotional bonds they shared with him. Maybe they expect the gods to always meet their standards of perfect rationality, as if any deviation, like Loki's, makes them either not gods or evil. This expectation that the gods should be perfectly rational doesn't even make sense, given that they're often swayed by things like jewelry and pretty women, even if those women belong to an enemy group. Furthermore, this perspective fails to account for the fact that just because something is an enemy of the gods doesn't mean it's an enemy to humanity, as if the gods dictate every relationship humanity has with other beings. I also believe that many of these individuals are simply forgetting that, as you mentioned, there was no single standardized religion in Viking Age Scandinavia to begin with. This misconception also affects how people talk about the gods as a whole, as if they shared a unified, dominant worldview and humans interacted with them collectively, rather than recognizing that individuals often had personal connections with specific deities, like Thor or Odin, who served distinct roles in their lives.

I think our limited understanding of the Norse perspective on the gods, including Loki, leads people to make sweeping statements, such as, “They saw him as the devil; therefore, they didn't worship him.” However, this assumption overlooks the fact that we don't truly know their thoughts on him and the other gods, as evident in the case of Heimdall, who is in a similar situation, yet not considered evil, and whose lack of worship is not attributed to that reason. No. They simply state that the reason why he doesn't have places and people named after him is unknown. I also appreciate your point about good and evil, and I agree; if I recall correctly, there's a source that discusses how people used to be prohibited from using the bathroom in a ritualistic space by some guy, but this rule was eventually changed because it was inconvenient to have to travel a long distance to use the bathroom. I feel like if this was flexible, then other parts of social interactions were absolutely likely negotiable, both amongst humans and the gods and in interactions between the two. I do think this is kind of a fault of trying to create a religion out of so few surviving sources at times and of people wanting things to be so simple and not changing over time as if the religion wasn’t a living tradition that would have inevitably changed with location, time, and social status. Honestly, this didn’t even make sense to me given that we know that Odin was particularly favored by the upper classes and Thor by the lower ones, to the point that they seem to even conflict over it.

I also feel like this is also part of a growing trend to want to make Odin the supreme leader of the gods as if he were Zeus, to the point that this is even leading some people to dislike Thor because he has the audacity to conflict with Odin over things and isn’t particularly cunning nor obsessed with wisdom like Odin, but yet Loki is still unacceptable because he does too many bad things to the gods and also because Thor seemingly relies on him to be the cunning one in their dynamic instead of Thor being cunning himself.

[avatar216]

It's my 10-year anniversary on Tumblr. 🥳

[avatar216]

My Annoyance With Norse God Loki and Thor Opinions

I know many other people have talked about how Loki has basically turned into an uwu baby in pop culture, but there is something when it comes to the mythology that I don't see anyone talking about, and watching a video about Thor and Wonder Woman made me want to revisit this. In this video the guy makes an argument that one could argue that Loki in the MCU takes on the same role as Thor of the myths in terms of killing giants, but I have a problem with this because I feel like this ignores the fact that the god Loki is in fact fairly pro killing jötnar to the point that he is the one reminding Thor to put Asgard above himself in several of the myths. I know people like to joke about the myth where Thor puts on a dress, but it seems like they forget that Loki was telling Thor to shut up and stop thinking about himself because the enemy was going to be living in Asgard if he did nothing. His argument also seems to ignore the fact that Thor logistically couldn't kill all Giants in the myths anyway and wouldn't want to because that would mean killing some of his very own relatives. Also, Loki was so dedicated to protecting Asgard, so much so that in the myths it is literally the whole reason he agrees to distract the builder's horse in the first place, because Asgard wasn't going to be able to be protected if he didn't. It's not just in this myth either because it also happens in a few other myths. I bring all of this up because I feel like a lot of people talking about Loki seem to be under the impression that he does and/or would have a problem with Thor killing giants because they're innocent, even though the only time he seems to have a problem with it in the context of myth is when Thor does something specific in Jotunheimr that Thor would never admit to humans because they would judge him for it. 

I mostly find this annoying because it feels like people are trying to justify depictions of Thor being a villain, like in Snyder's Twilight of the Gods, by saying that Thor kills giants, so of course he's terrible, even though by the standards of the mythology, which we should not be judging by modern-day standards anyway, Thor is doing his job, and if he didn't, humans and the other gods would be dead, as Loki basically tells him more than once. This especially irritates me because they act like Thor in myth is a particularly arrogant guy when Odin is arguably way more selfish than he is, and honestly, if Thor was being that selfish, Loki would have definitely let him know about it. Honestly, even Marvel has Loki yelling at Thor for being this way. Thor was very much a god of the everyday person, and this meant having to kill whatever was a threat to that, and if he didn't, he would have been called a coward. This doesn't even really work in Snyder's verse because historically Thor and Jesus were compared, not Jesus and Baldr, despite people and scholars liking to say that Baldr is a Jesus-type figure. Jesus was actually found kind of lacking and was, in one story, turned into a more warlike figure because he just wasn't seen as violent enough to be a real god. I feel like a lot of these arguments come with the modern-day baggage of thinking violence is always bad and that those who do it must be there for evil or a villain because they are simply being violent because that is their job, but back then, if you weren't violent or willing to fight, you were going to lose everything, including everyone you love and even your own life. I feel like this relates to Loki too because it's like people think that he would be such an innocent who doesn't like killing, and of course he's just a poor little victim who gets beaten up by all the other gods even though he's often the one ordering them to fight and to kill to protect Asgard. I feel like it shocks people, and I don't think it should, when I tell them that Loki actually orders other gods around in the myths when I thought that was obvious, and that is something that coexists with him getting beaten up a lot. Some of the kennings for him are things like "the leader of the troops" along with "the deep-minded, retaining God of plunder." I know people pay lip service to Loki being complex, but they don't really seem to get how that actually functions in the myths and how Loki's motivations are sometimes as plain as day and aren't as flip-floppy as Marvel would make you believe. He is not going around betraying the gods every 5 minutes and putting Asgard in danger because that is honestly more of an Odin thing to do because Odin is the one to let the enemies into Asgard if it means he would get something out of it. I would even go so far as to argue that Marvel kind of gave Odin a lot of Loki's traits in the myths when it comes to dealing with others because it's usually Loki who is the one yelling at others for not doing their jobs, whereas Odin just sits there and doesn't really seem to care unless it directly pertains to him. It's not that I'm arguing that Loki isn't wacky in his own way, but just that he's actually more serious and more straightforward than people seem to think he is. 

Loki doesn't really seem to accept bribes or even play around with the concept of greed because he doesn't really want anything in myth besides his normal motivations of saving his own life, food, alcohol, doing things for the LOLs, simply doing his job, and later on pure undivided revenge with the occasional sheer want of malicious intent for the sake of it. I feel like what confounds the issue with Loki in particular is that people confuse intent with outcome, and they are in fact different things because, yes, Loki's actions are often incomprehensible, but oftentimes his intentions are good or at least born out of a place of just simply doing his job because he was ordered to do it. I know people are going to say he only does what he does because he is threatened, but being threatened or simply being asked to do something doesn't seem to make a difference to him because the only things that don't seem to work are bribery and ass-kissing. Ultimately I'm just trying to explain that Thor is the way he is because of those around him, and Loki is not in opposition to Thor being this way but actually often the one encouraging Thor to be that way. If we're going to talk about Thor being the way he is, then we must acknowledge those who influence those very traits because those traits don't stand in isolation in the myths but are rather influenced by those around him who encourage him to be that way and discourage him from being any other way. I know it's fun to see Loki as oh so silly and his antics as wacky weirdness, but in myth they do serve a purpose, and I do wish people would acknowledge that Loki does what he does because it's a job, and this does impact others, including Thor. 

However, I do attribute some of this to Marvel, in making people believe that Thor is a very conceited god who only cares about himself and is ready to start a fight at any time. In reality, though, this doesn't happen as frequently as you might think in the myths because he frequently prefers to go home if given the option rather than fight. In regard to Loki, Marvel Loki is extremely avaricious and power-hungry, which doesn't, in my opinion, fit in with myth. Loki takes his work very seriously and doesn't really care about power because he already has it to a certain degree and doesn't seem to want much more of it because authority comes with more work. Despite the fact that gaining power necessitates both ambition and greed, Loki is not particularly greedy in myth, despite his somewhat ambitious nature. It's another instance of poor little Loki being hurt by the other guys, even though he was a major participant in everything the other gods did and never seemed to mind. I suppose I can also blame Snyder for this now. I don't want people to confuse not having a problem with killing the enemy with being okay with killing humans because that is another thing that Marvel actually ended up making people believe about Loki, which is that he's okay with killing humans when he's not normally outside of Ragnarok. However, that does not make him innocent and Thor the villain, nor does it make Odin superior or inferior.

[jonquilclegane]

"Loki and Sigyn's relationship was abusive"

....

NOT IN THE EDDAS, IT IS NOT.

I am so tired of people pretending they've done the research or saying they read the Eddas and then they sprout such nonesense that SHOWS they NEVER read or listen to either of the Eddas.

PLEASE DO. Jackson Crawford's translations of both Eddas are on Audible and fantastic to listen to.

Anyway. A little reminder.

Loki never insults or humiliates Sigyn in the Eddas. He insults the Gods but never Sigyn.

Was he cheating on her? Well, we don't know. Loki did have lovers (male and female, canonically), but was it before or during their mariage, the timeline is unclear. However, let's remember that Sif has a kenning about sharing her "man" (Thor) with Jarnsaxa. SIGYN DOES NOT.

(Quite the opposite. Pagans have the cutest kennings for Loki & Sigyn's relationship)

And even if he did, I find rather hilarious that people are ok with Thor, Sif, Frigg or Odin cheating on their spouses, but it's only SCANDALOUS and proof of his evilness when it's Loki? ^^'

Also reminder that Angrboda - with THAT name and as we know her today- was only introduced after the 12th century. (Her part was most likely Gullveig's before that, which means that Loki had their kids after eating her heart). Kenneth W. Harl states in his course on The Vikings that the primary version of what will become the Norse gods were already there around 1200 BC. So they probably evolved and changed a lot before Snorri and the monks put those tales on the paper.

And it's heartbreaking to see that since writers have so much creative freedom, they STILL CHOSE ON THEIR OWN FREEWILL to depict Loki & Sigyn as abusive and toxic...

Haven't they suffered enough???

Media where Loki is depicted as an abusive husband towards Sigyn:

Marvel comics (old and NEW, i'm afraid ^^'), Sandman, Magnus Chase, Gospel of Loki, Norse mythology books with a pro-Odin agenda...

Media where SIGYN is a cheater and betrays Loki (and is blamed for Vali & Narvi's fate. And her holding the bowl was a lie): Melvin Burgess Lol. What?

But ACTUAL Norse mythology?? Both Eddas? NOPE. Not a sign of Loki EVER abusing Sigyn.

Please, guys, do your research.

[avatar216]

Norse Pagan here. It is clear that you are mistaken because neither the Snorra Edda nor the Poetic Edda refer to Angrboða as Gullveig. According to Völuspá hin skamma, neither of these two seems to be the unnamed witch whose burning heart Loki ate, as Odin does not mention this when discussing the mother of Loki's three monstrous children, Angrboða. I wish this particular idea would die because there’s no indication that Angrboða even died. This doesn’t even take into account the fact that we know almost nothing about Sigyn, except that she is Loki’s wife and remained loyal to him when he was chained. Apart from a possible association with incantations, we know very little about her. I genuinely don't understand why you people care so much about her, since the author has to invent an entire personality and backstory for her, given that we know nothing about her. They are essentially making up their own character and giving her the name of this obscure goddess. At that point, I would rather they create their own character, since that's essentially what they're doing; why give her the name in the first place?

I don't understand why Sif having a sister wife matters to Loki and his wife's marriage, as the myths clearly show that neither of these two gods are particularly loyal to their wives. Thor won't tolerate anyone speaking ill of his wife or Járnsaxa, whom he regards as his concubine or mistress. In Lokasenna, Loki essentially boasts about the numerous goddesses he slept with. Since he is explicitly described as a manwhore in the text, I fail to understand why you and others believe their relationship is special and that cheating may not have happened during their marriage. He claims to have slept with Sif and even Skaði while dealing with her father, and he was already married by then. Loki is definitely no innocent, and I don’t understand this desire that you people have to make him into this, like, essentially perfect husband when he’s not that, and this is coming from someone who worships him. I love him, but I acknowledge that he is not that great as a husband if we’re talking about cheating and the like in the myths because he also says that he slept with Týr’s wife and even claims that he had a child with her. I don’t think he needs to be abusive for them to not have a super great relationship, but I don’t suppose that he was an abusive husband, just not a very good one. In actuality, I would contend that he was more concerned with his work, Thor, and his children than he was with his wife.

I would not fully trust Dr. Jackson Crawford's current translation—he is releasing a new one this year—because he sometimes presents his ideas as factual representations of the text, which is not always accurate. For example, in one of the poems, it says 'Óðr's girl,' referring to Freyja, but he translated it as 'Odin's girl' because he thinks the two figures are the same, even though the text does not support this. There are other examples, but this is the only one that immediately came to mind. In addition, there is a stanza in Lokasenna where Crawford translates Loki telling Týr that he cannot handle well with two, probably referring to the fact that he is missing a hand, but Crawford chooses to translate this as you cannot solve conflict between two men. He has changed his mind about this, but even after reading it, I was confused because Loki does not appear to care about resolving conflicts between people unless it involves killing one of them. Other scholars do not trust his translation for several reasons, including the lack of footnotes and explanations for his choices, which can only be found in his videos. He also tones down a lot of the insulting and derogatory language used, including Loki's, since he himself often insults people for things he does. I'm not saying Crawford is completely untrustworthy, but his translation should be cross-referenced with others, and sometimes his ideas slip through unintentionally.

As for why their relationship is often portrayed as abusive in popular culture, I believe it's because many writers simply copy from other works of fiction without reading the original mythology for themselves, a practice some writers openly admit to. This is why Hades and Persephone are often depicted as having a loving relationship, despite the myth explicitly stating that Persephone wanted to escape him, even going so far as to lie about his actions. I also believe that part of the issue lies in the fact that they want to portray Loki as a villain, which requires attributing more negative traits to him than he actually possesses. If he were simply neglectful towards his wife and didn't hate humans, never murdering them, he would be a rather dull character. It can be argued that him simply not really focusing on his wife and not being on a vengeful quest to murder humans because he wants them to bow down to him, and when they don’t, he murders them, does indeed make him harder to understand and like because he’d be too different from other villains and gods who are abusive husbands and who hate humans.

[avatar216]

More Negative Opinions on Inside out 2

This is an expansion of my review of Inside Out 2. I still don't really like it, and after reading other people's reviews, I have even more reasons to think it's bad. I still think the plot resembles the first movie, with Joy and Anxiety undergoing a similar character arc. They both learn that they have to accept all the other emotions, and that they can’t just push other emotions away. I find it difficult to accept Joy's character development, especially in the first movie, as I struggle to believe she can overcome stronger emotions like disgust. I also find it hard to believe that Sadness and Joy wield so much control and power at headquarters, given that they are less influenced by external factors than the other three emotions. In her books on disgust, psychologist Susan Beth Miller notes that disgust, anger, and fear are emotions that are, to some extent, shared and require external stimuli, which is why people often want to share something they find gross with their friends.These books made me think about the movie's ending, where Riley appears to choose Joy, although this emotion cannot be easily controlled by the conscious mind and is not heavily influenced by direct learning, unlike disgust or fear. I dislike this particular scene in the movie because it suggests that people can effortlessly overcome emotions like disgust, fear, and anxiety by simply choosing joy, which is unrealistic, as these emotions often fight back or return with increased intensity. For those of us who've watched the movie, we've observed that opting to feel joy can actually amplify disgust and embarrassment, since disgust perceives the emotion as foreign and not part of oneself, and embarrassment is triggered by witnessing people engage in supposedly happy activities, which can be unsettling and even prompt us to flee the room. In this movie, I believe the disgust or embarrassment response to happy things would likely be depicted by Disgust being unable to acknowledge Joy as a legitimate emotion, a phenomenon not exclusive to disgust, as some individuals are actively fearful of their own emotions, especially Joy. Overall, I dislike the way this franchise handles the concept of emotions and their relationships to other parts of the mind and body.

I had an epiphany about the movie's message: suppressing memories and emotions isn't that different, since memories are only suppressed due to the strong emotions tied to them that Riley dislikes. I think that if the memory were just of a neutral event, like eating breakfast with her parents, it wouldn't be suppressed in the first place – unlike when you forget someone's name while talking to them. The only difference lies in past and present emotional suppression – one could argue that it's still a form of present emotional suppression, such as when she felt disgust or fear in the past, did something foolish, and now feels shame and guilt, immediately pushing the memory away. These are suppressed memories, not repressed memories, meaning that she is actively choosing to ignore them. As anyone familiar with psychology's history knows, repressed memories are problematic because attempts to recover them have not been entirely successful, and it's easy to create false memories, especially in young children. If something is repeated enough and attributed to a credible source, it can become accepted as true.

I'm not afraid to say that I think that part of this movie's appeal lies in people projecting their own emotions onto it, because when you really think about it, we know very little about Riley's friends Bree and Grace, as well as her parents. Honestly, I can't think of a single thing I know about them beyond their shared love of hockey and a particular band. When it comes to her parents, they share a love of hockey and a hatred of broccoli. Oh, and her dad works for a startup. That's really all. However, there's a significant difference between knowing facts about a character and truly understanding them as a fully fleshed-out person with their own life, personality, likes, and dislikes.

Many Pixar movies, except for Toy Story to some extent, struggle with this issue because we don't get to know Andy, his sister Molly, and their mother well, largely due to their limited screen time, which makes it harder to reveal their characters. Unlike Bree and Grace, these two characters have established personalities from their initial introductions. I also think this isn't as big of a deal in Toy Story because the plot doesn't rely on them being important to the main character, since Andy isn't our main character, but Riley is. Riley's personality, as portrayed, is largely defined by her supposedly happy-go-lucky demeanor and near-perfect persona, but the movie asks us to believe she's a good kid who's simply making mistakes, despite the fact that her actions constitute criminal behavior. I don't really care about her or her emotions regarding the loss of her friends, as we don't know enough about them to be invested in her relationship with them. It seems unnatural that she's developing anxiety over losing them after only two years, especially given that she seems to have forgotten about her friends in Minnesota, whom she knew for 11 years. I believe this is largely due to poor writing and overly restrictive world-building, which confines her character to her inner thoughts and emotions, making her uninteresting. However, a developing teenager would likely experience more intriguing emotions, such as disgust, fear, and the struggle to balance romantic love, lust, and risk-taking, which would have a greater emotional impact. Anger and sadness have to grapple with the big injustices, consequences, and failures in her life that might destroy joy to an extent or lessen her prominence and power.

Unlike DreamWorks or Illumination, I don't think Pixar will ever explore harder topics in their sequels, such as the consequences of breaking and entering, losing oneself, and facing repercussions as an adult, both legally and within one's friend circle, where being fake can lead to ostracism. As for the personified emotions themselves, as I mentioned in my first post, I didn't care about any of the new emotions, especially Anxiety. As someone who has experienced envy from others due to my possessions, I have no love for the emotion or the character. I strongly believe that envy should not be trivialized, and it's certainly not healthy; although it may provide some insight, it can be destructive to others when they sense envy in someone. It sours relationships even if the person doesn’t act on it.I don’t think anxiety needs to exist as its own character because fear could have literally just covered it, and by definition, it can’t exist without fear anyway. I found their arbitrary distinction between fear and anxiety utterly ridiculous because I find the distinction in psychology utterly ridiculous. I've always considered embarrassment, shame, and guilt to be closely linked with disgust, as they often work together; therefore, I find it confusing that embarrassment is associated with sadness. It was a weird choice, despite Disgust's reluctance, 'you want me to go up there.' I think it would have made more sense for Disgust and Fear to return to headquarters, as they would have a better chance of dealing with Anxiety, since she can't exist without them. Alternatively, it might have been better to have them join her, given Fear's concern for Riley's safety and Disgust's concern for Riley's social and bodily perfection. Ennui's character design is, ironically, unappealing to me because it breaks the laws of biology and physics too much.

[avatar216]

Part 1: Psychologists and Toxic Therapy Culture/Speak

This is the first part of a rant I've been wanting to write for a long time, addressing my frustrations with therapy culture and certain aspects of psychology that bother me in real-life, online discussions and fiction. A blog post by a psychologist, whose work I usually appreciate for its critique of positive psychology and the happiness industry, prompted me to write this post; however, I was disappointed to see that he, along with other psychologists I follow, have fallen into the trap of labeling people they disagree with as narcissists or claiming that there is a narcissism epidemic in society simply because they don't like their online opinions. I’m calling out the psychologist by name because I find their actions absolutely unethical, as they’re diagnosing people they haven’t met in person, and I wish psychologists would stop doing this. These psychologists, including James C. Coyne, Dacher Keltner, and others, some of whom consider themselves Negateers. Keltner is not one of these people. However, despite not liking his research, he is still one of the psychologists who frequently claim that random people are narcissists. The Post was on Substack and is called No, feelings don't need to be validated

Unfortunately, I've come to realize that psychologists and psychiatrists are encouraging people to label everyone they know as a narcissist or claim they have borderline personality disorder (BPD) or some other psychological condition like bipolar disorder, which particularly annoys me since I've grown up with people who have it, and the symptoms they describe bear no resemblance to the actual condition. Either type one or type two: what people often fail to realize is that not everyone with bipolar disorder experiences mania, as there is a second type that leads to hypomania and hypo-depression in some individuals. The use of psychological terminology in general really annoys me, as psychologists should stop encouraging people to use their invented terms as insult labels that can be thrown at anyone, like calling someone an asshole. In fact, the psychologists I mentioned above use the term narcissist in this way, and they are even starting to do the same with BPD, like you can just throw this label at someone you don’t like or get into an argument with on the subway.

The term 'narcissist' did not exist until the late 1800s and has only gained significant popularity over the past 20 years. A psychologist coined the term because the original phrase, 'Narcissus-like', has its roots in the 15th or 16th century. This word was not in common usage though, and even this term had only risen in popularity by the mid- to late 1800s. I’m saying this because I keep seeing people claim that the term 'narcissist' has always been around and wasn’t originally a psychological label, unlike the word 'crazy', but this is simply untrue. I don’t have much love for the field of psychology, as I enjoy critiquing it and reading about its fundamental flaws and methodological issues in many books and articles, but I think psychologists should stop using petty insults against people they dislike by labeling them with psychological terms if they’re going to treat the public. It feels like these psychologists lack professional and social integrity because they almost feel like they’re up in a high tower where they can just throw stones at people on the bottom without any care for how that’s going to actually cause harm in the long run, and as Dr. Jackson Crawford likes to say, when the people at the bottom don’t understand why you’re up in the tower in the first place, then they are likely to burn it to the ground.

This post primarily focuses on psychologists, and it also applies to psychiatrists who use terms from their field to insult people they have no business labeling, including those psychologists who diagnose people on TV, which I strongly dislike. It's frustrating when people like Kati Morton claim that Jake Paul is a sociopath, and they are called out for their actions, but yet other psychologists and therapists who do the same thing are just left unchecked. I struggle to respect these fields when professionals behave inappropriately and aren't held accountable, partly because critics are often misunderstood as implying that people shouldn't seek therapy or that therapy is ineffective, when in fact there are over 200 types of therapy, and not all are equal. For instance, I do not support ECT as a treatment, since it causes memory loss and can result in permanent brain damage. This is not something that Hollywood fabricated, as some psychologists might have you believe.It's not just the term 'narcissist,' but also terms like 'sociopath.' They claim there's an epidemic of certain mental health problems, but I don't know how they can be so sure, given that many people in the US wouldn't visit a therapist or take their surveys. Moreover, their statistics are often based on the WEIRD group – white, educated, industrialized, rich, and Democratic individuals who are primarily interested in psychology. In fact, as a psychology student, you're 400 times more likely to be in a psychological study than anyone else in the population.

Of course, they, themselves are aware of all these problems, but the people I specifically oppose are mostly just jerks who should not be in the field in the first place or whose research I respect in one way but completely disagree with in another because they have a bad habit of labeling everyone a sociopath, narcissist, and other psychological terms against anyone who even dares to question their field or point out a simple error. Overall, I wish they would develop some integrity, like biologists and other scientists, for the most part. They also need to overcome their physics envy and career insecurities, which they display everywhere.

[whatyourusherthinks]

Inside Out 2 Review

Oh god I'm gonna get fucking slaughtered for this one. Oh hello! Inside Out is a pretty good movie right? Well, yeah. I wouldn't put it on my top ten list of animated movies or anything, but I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. The way it personifies aspects of our emotional states is pretty interesting actually, as long as you can swing with the metaphor. But Pixar and an... interesting track record with sequels, so I'd say a second instalment isn't necessarily a guarantee for quality here.

What's the Movie About?

Riley goes through puberty while going to hockey camp, and Headquarters gains some new emotions that kick out the old ones.

What I Like.

A lot of this review could just be a review for the first Inside Out, so the things I like best about this movie are the same as the last. The various ways the movie explains different aspects on human psychology is really interesting. They introduce a mechanic of a self image that gets solidified by sending certain memories to a pool beneath headquarters and that was pretty interesting. The visualization of brainstorming and panic attacks were excellent. The characterization of Envy being really tiny and Embarrassment being the one to first turn against Anxiety was perfect as well. I like that one of Riley's darkest secrets was that she still likes Blue's Clues. (Me too Riley. Me too.) The voice cast is also top notch, just like the first movie. There were a couple moments where Amy Poehler and the animators really got to act as Joy and they were probably the best scenes in the movie. Inside Out (the first one) completely undid all of the negative effects of the plot at the very end, which I thought was annoying. And credit where credit is due, Inside Out 2 does not do that. I also got a dark laugh out of the scene where the thought animators riot against Anxiety, how'd the hell they slip that scene by the Disney Overlords?

What I Didn't Like.

Unfortunately the sequel does not improve my low points of the first. When the metaphor doesn't make sense, it really doesn't make sense. I can deal with the various emotions having their own emotions, but why can different emotions have crushes on each other? Or why does Riley has multigendered emotions with different hair styles when everyone else in the universe has emotions that all look very similar? There's a couple times where stuff jumps out at you or something suddenly makes a loud noise. And maybe I'm officially old, but I did not appreciate the jump scare. I kind of hate that the conflict of these movies is based on irrational behavior. I feel like it's kind of unavoidable based on the premise (even more than most comedies), but at least the first movie it felt understandable that Riley was acting out. She's 11, and her entire life got uprooted. The second movie is she's just trying to impress a clique. And yeah, they take pretty much every single awkward and irrational action every teen sitcom takes with this plotline. It got to the point where I was dreading the sections that flash back to headquarters. Also, this is kind of unavoidable with the personification I guess, but the fact that they portray negative states of mind seems a little shifty, right? As some one with mental illness, how am I supposed to take this movie? It's not my fault I have anxiety disorder and anger issues. Clearly my Joy didn't try hard enough to return to headquarters after being ejected!

My final complaint is certainly unique to the second outing, however. They retcon a lot of new things in the new movie, and the explanation is pretty much, "Oh yeah, we just didn't show you that before." or "It's new. Shut up.". I mentioned that there is a pool beneath Headquarters that they send memories to to create Riley's self image. Well that pool is in the Memory Dump. You know. The massive pit where Bing Bong died. Well now everyone has an elevator down to a nice lake where all the memories can go and sprout into a tree or some shit. And I guess nothing gets forgotten anymore? Also, and I've been saying this since the teaser came out, but the ending of the Inside Out implies that the more complex emotions are just combinations of the emotions we start out with. That's the point of the upgraded console at the end. Just because internet commentators were too stupid to get that and mentioning that "Inside Out ignores a bunch of other emotions humans have" made them feel smart, now the people who made the movies feel like they needed to prove a point and double the cast without a good explanation.

Final Summation.

Do you remember Salt Bae? He got internet famous for like two seconds because he sprinkled salt in a weird way and they used that to make a restaurant or something? Yeah, the restaurant with the gold plated steak. Inside Out 2 is the first bowel movement you take after eating there. It's got little flecks of something valuable in it, but it's mostly just recycled and shit. Jesus Roan that's pretty harsh for a kids movie. Is Inside Out 2 really that bad? Well here's the thing Buggnutz...

Inside Out 2 is Inside Out but worse. Without the context of Inside Out, is it worse than, say, IF? No, I wouldn't say so. I certainly have given worse movies passes. But usually that's because I appreciate the uniqueness of the concept, or it gives me something I can't get anywhere else. Basically, there is no better movie, so I enjoy what I have. But I have a better movie than Inside Out 2. It's the first Inside Out. The sequel doesn't expand on any of the first movie's concepts in ways that makes sense, it's doesn't do any of the beats of the first movie better, and it doesn't make me feel any emotions stronger than the first one did. It's passable kids fair, but when has that stopped me from trashing a movie?

[avatar216]

I completely agree, but I would just like to add that I don't like how this movie implies at the end that someone can just choose to feel joy, which to me comes off as incredibly dismissive of the fact that people can't just get out of a state of say misophonia induced disgust or anger. Wanting to feel Joy doesn't just make it magically appear, and Sadness coming up to Joy and saying Riley wants you literally makes no sense to me. This part of the movie treats emotions like they're at the beck and call of the conscious mind, which is a concept from positive psychology that I find deeply disgusting and angering and that might have led to the torture of so many soldiers and animals alongside them. The original movie and I guess this one was trying to imply that being told to just be positive and relax is stupid as is shown when Joy plans to do that exact thing to Anxiety, but then kind of goes back on it by implying that the conscious mind can control emotions. All you have to do is choose joy and voila anxiety will just be attached to a massage chair I guess. The only emotions that have been consistently and reputably shown to be even slightly controlled by thought and mere implication alone are disgust mainly and to a lesser extent fear because both of those can hijack your imagination and just by imagining things that make you afraid or disgusted can make those feelings just as strong as if you were literally going through them. Telling yourself that you feel joy does not mean that you do, but rather all it means is that you're deluding yourself into believing that you do and then actively denying if you are feeling disgust, anger, or sadness, etc.  

I hate how this franchise is basically a product of the neoliberal positive psychology industrial state insofar as it constantly promotes happiness, while simultaneously pretending to approve of and promote showing negative emotions, but that is only true for the negative emotions that a therapist would actually like, like sadness, and not more dangerous ones that could and did literally lead to revolution or genocide like disgust. Not that I expected a children's  movie to really touch on how dangerous disgust and fear can actually be in the face of overwhelming poverty and governmental mismanagement. I think the characters that represent joy and disgust in the Disney repertoire way better than these personified emotions are Judge Claude Frollo and Fix It Felix, Wander, or even Tow Mater. 

[avatar216]

Not Every Fear And Experience Equal Anxiety

Can we please stop mislabeling basic human emotions like fear as fucking anxiety please? I'm saying this because I have been very afraid and downright paranoid recently because a gigantic oak tree fell in our backyard destroying a car and even hitting our house a little and it keeps making me jump every time I hear something loud but that doesn't mean I have fucking anxiety. I'm ranting about this because my uncle asked me if I have anxiety and I'm like no but I feel afraid and paranoid because we have yet more trees that could fall in our backyard still. This word angers and disgusts me so fucking much. I'm sorry to have to tell people that sometimes people just have terribly shitty things happen in their lives and that doesn't mean that it's anxiety that they're feeling. I'm also ranting about this because I constantly see people who reviewed the new movie Inside Out 2 claiming that everyone has gone through anxiety right and that's the main emotion that we all have to deal with even though as someone who has to deal with misophonia induced anger and disgust along with compulsively washing my hands and feeling uncomfortable if I don't bathe in the proper way, and the intrusive thoughts that come with them, I would say that anxiety and the way they describe it sounds like a fucking cakewalk. People please stop presenting your experiences as universal because they are most likely not. I don't know maybe it's because the disorders of anxiety actually give people a deluded sense of reality and that their problems are universal which is actually a part of these sorts of disorders. 

I also despise how the movies advertising people basically present the movie as though anxiety is the most overwhelming and frightening emotion as well as a universal Human Experience when going through puberty, when it's actually disgust, anger fear, and hate that have led to many problems and I knew this at the age of 10. Not everyone had a cushy life growing up like Riley where they weren't feeling constantly disgusted after having to touch people and not wanting to touch anything because even just sitting on a couch or letting someone else use a blanket of theirs disgusted them to High Heavens to the point that if it would be given back to them, they wanted it to be cleaned multiple times or if not just straight up throw it away. At least I know I'm not normal and never have been, but I've known this since I was 7, so I find Riley's whole realization in the movie wholly unrelatable because disgust would have slapped me and caged joy in a corner long before that. 

[berrywinkle]

You know, it kind of pisses me off when someone’s perception of norse mythology is based on Marvel/MCU. And it’s so easy to spot because they get basic facts wrong. No, Thor and Loki are not brothers, Loki is Odin’s blood brother. Loki’s last name is not «Laufeyson», Lauvøy was a Æsir maiden, and Loki’s father was a jotun called Fårbaute. Sif is not a goddess of anything, she is Thor’s wife. Loki can’t shapeshift, he and other gods borrow enchanted animal skins from Freya, goddess of love and magic.

[avatar216]

Some of these things are just actually wrong you stated here. Sif is in fact called a goddess in the myths, and yes, she may be Thor's wife but that does mean she is considered a goddess by marriage. Really none of the Norse gods and goddesses are really considered the gods and goddesses of anything, but some of them do have titles that would suggest that they are associated with some things and you could say technically they are the god of that thing like Odin is called Raven God and Loki is called the deep minded retaining God of plunder. Also, yes Loki can shape-shift without Freyja's falcon skin cloak. He turns himself into a woman in þrymskviða{the story where Thor gets his hammer stolen} without using her cloak and likewise he turns himself into a mare in the building of the wall story. He also changes Iðunn into a nut.  He also lived for 8 years on Midgard as a woman and as a cow according to Odin in Lokasenna. So yes Loki can absolutely shape-shift without using her cloak or any other objects and so can Odin since he turns himself into an eagle and a woman among other things. Heimdall also can shape shift since he turned himself into a seal when he and Loki fought in one story. 

[berrywinkle]

All animal shapeshifting in norse mythology is done with enchanted animal skins, and Loki was just in disguise when he pretended to be a woman. The reason how the gods knew Sleipner was Loki’s foal was because the mare skin he had borrowed from Frøya was suspiciously stretched when he came back after being gone for a year. And he didn’t turn Idun into a nut, he trapped her inside a nutshell

[avatar216]

Loki only borrows her falcon skin cloak in the beginning of the myth where Thor gets his hammer stolen and he does not actually do that when he turns himself into a woman in that very same story. Odin also says that Loki turned into a cow and a woman and bore children in Lokasenna. It does not mention him ever using any cloak or skin of an animal to do that because no cow skin is ever mentioned being used in this context ever. Give me the stanza of the particular poem or prose section of Snorra Edda where Loki's ever stated to use anything other than her falcon skin cloak and then we can talk. Also this says nothing about Heimdall or Loki being able to turn themselves into seals because there is never a seal skin cloak of any sort mentioned either. Odin is never mentioned to be using the skin of an eagle or snake ever, so what about those examples as well? Sure they don't see him have sex with the horse, but they do see him turn into one. He only uses the falcon skin cloak because he cannot turn into birds, not because he can't turn into any animal at all. You said he cannot shape shift. And yet there are many examples of him shape-shifting into a woman and fully biologically becoming one to the point of being able to get pregnant. Odin also turns himself into a woman to be able to rape Rindr. They are not described as dressing up like women but literally becoming them.  Also, you said that Loki cannot shape shift not that all animal-based shape-shifting in Norse mythology is done with animal skins. I just remembered about the story of Otter, where Ótr is actually a dwarf who turns himself into an otter and is never stated to have used the skin of an actual otter to be able to do that and in fact he doesn't turn back into a dwarf when he's killed either. He stays an otter and gold is placed on every inch of his pelt. Loki also turns himself into a salmon when he's trying to escape the Gods and he is never stated to use the skin of a salmon. Also, most translations I've read of that particular myth literally do state that he turned her into a nut not that he put her in one and I've never seen any actual scholar translate it that way. The only translation I've ever seen that described it that way was an amateur's translation

I've literally gone through arguably hundreds of papers by reputable scholars and videos that never ever implied that these Gods cannot shape shift and that they have to use some sort of objects to do it every single time outside of the context that Loki can't shape shift into a bird that can fly like a falcon. Remember that most of the jotnar can shape shift as well and they are definitely never implied to use any sort of skin of an animal. I would rather trust someone like Dr. Jackson Crawford or Dr. Matthias Nordvig than someone who is blatantly getting it wrong and can't cite their sources. Here's a link to a video by Jackson Crawford explaining misconceptions about Loki including his power set. https://youtu.be/icUElWDmFW8?si=IBC3cfrxOY1_82DK

My sources are as follows: Lokasenna (the poem where Loki insults all of the gods and goddesses and can be found in the Poetic Edda - stanza 23), the building of the Wall (which can be found in the Prose Edda), Þrymskviða(the story wherein Thor loses his hammer, which can also be found in the Poetic Edda), the myth of the theft of the Mead of Poetry (the story wherein Odin turns himself into an eagle and flies away with the mead of poetry and can be found in Skáldskaparmál in the Prose Edda.), the myth of Ótr (also found in the Prose Edda), The Rape of Rindr (The story wherein Odin turns himself into a woman and pretends to be a healer so he can force Rindr to sleep with him and can be found in the Prose Edda), and Húsdrápa (the story where in Loki and Heimdall fight as seals and can be found in the Poetic Edda). The translations I have available to me to use for citation are copies of Dr. Jackson Crawford's translation of the Poetic Edda, Carolyne Larrington's second edition translation of the Poetic Edda, and Anthony Faulkes translation of the Prose Edda. 

[berrywinkle]

You know, it kind of pisses me off when someone’s perception of norse mythology is based on Marvel/MCU. And it’s so easy to spot because they get basic facts wrong. No, Thor and Loki are not brothers, Loki is Odin’s blood brother. Loki’s last name is not «Laufeyson», Lauvøy was a Æsir maiden, and Loki’s father was a jotun called Fårbaute. Sif is not a goddess of anything, she is Thor’s wife. Loki can’t shapeshift, he and other gods borrow enchanted animal skins from Freya, goddess of love and magic.

[avatar216]

Some of these things are just actually wrong you stated here. Sif is in fact called a goddess in the myths, and yes, she may be Thor's wife but that does mean she is considered a goddess by marriage. Really none of the Norse gods and goddesses are really considered the gods and goddesses of anything, but some of them do have titles that would suggest that they are associated with some things and you could say technically they are the god of that thing like Odin is called Raven God and Loki is called the deep minded retaining God of plunder. Also, yes Loki can shape-shift without Freyja's falcon skin cloak. He turns himself into a woman in þrymskviða{the story where Thor gets his hammer stolen} without using her cloak and likewise he turns himself into a mare in the building of the wall story. He also changes Iðunn into a nut.  He also lived for 8 years on Midgard as a woman and as a cow according to Odin in Lokasenna. So yes Loki can absolutely shape-shift without using her cloak or any other objects and so can Odin since he turns himself into an eagle and a woman among other things. Heimdall also can shape shift since he turned himself into a seal when he and Loki fought in one story. 

[lokiinmediasideblog]

This is a wanky post of mine so ignore if you don't wish to deal with it. I just saw some complaint in the Loki tag about a certain love interest from Norse mythology not being adapted to Marvel.

I understand not liking a Loki adaptation because it's too different from the source material, but judging it based on whether or not a certain love interest from the mythology is present is just not a good way to assess a Loki media depiction (and in my even wankier youth where I courted war I saw condemnation from a-particular-blog-I-beefed-with towards a wonderful CHILDREN's BOOK (Loki: A Bad God's Guide to Being Good) for "erasing" said mythological wife and normal children in the family tree doodle *eyeroll*. It's a children's book where Loki's forced to have a childhood, FFS!!).

I also think adding a secret family changes a lot of the intended life stages and dynamics of say Thor (2011). It's perfectly fine when people do it in fics that are tagged as being inspired by the myths and have the pairing. But sometimes it's treated like cannon and I end up accidentally reading some fic of it in an unrelated pairing involving some Avenger or GOTG; and it gives me whiplash.

[avatar216]

I agree because sometimes these people frighten me whenever I come across their posts. I swear sometimes it seems like they have a view of Loki in their heads that doesn't make any logical sense no matter if you look at Marvel or mythology. It almost seems like they confuse him with other gods like Hades or rather their perception of Hades anyway. I don't give one rat's ass about his wife and their relationship because he does cheat on her, and no, he does not hide it despite what Neil Gaiman and other writers would have you believe. I sometimes, when reading the myths, think that Loki only has sex so he can have as many kids as possible. I do think that they have this image of her in their head that is kind of an idealized image of themselves and they want to make Loki their perfect dream man but that unfortunately involves him basically becoming their creepy fetishized version of Hades where his wife is his whole world and nothing else matters to him; arguably including his own kids. Like it seems almost as though they want someone very aloof and uninterested in the matters of other people like it is with Hades outside of his own kingdom. Unfortunately for them, Loki is nothing like that and is almost always involved in stuff regardless of if it is his fault that it's happening or not. I sometimes call Loki willing but not eager to help because he would absolutely help a person if they asked him or ordered him to do it, but he is rarely willing to volunteer unless he thinks Asgard or Midgard are in danger.

They make her like an amalgamation of Sif, Freyja, Gefjun, and their precious Persephone as well, insofar as they make her as willing to let a man take care of her as Sif is, but yet they want her to be independent and badass like Freyja and Gefjun. They also give her the personality of Gefjun insofar as being sweet, charming and super nice to Loki despite all the douchebaggery he does, but independent and scary enough to frighten the s*** out of Odin as well as someone he respects as well because she knows magic of the future just as well as he does. Sig's also made to seem similar to Freyja in the way that she just constantly weeps and mopes when her husband's not around sometimes but yet is supposed to be this bad ass Valkyrie that works with Odin and someone who Odin is so fearful of that he has Loki actively go after her when he doesn't want to. They also seem to throw a touch of Persephone in there as well in so far as her supposedly being madly in love with her husband even though in the hymn to Demeter, Persephone is actively stated and described as being sad about not being with her mother and she does not want to be with Hades at all. Honestly I feel like they just truly want an amalgamation of the above three goddesses and not someone like Persephone who loves her mother a lot and doesn't really want a husband. Not that Gefjun is married or wants a husband because she doesn't, but she did have a few children. Speaking of valkyries. Sig is not one according to the mythology and I honestly question why she would even be one given Loki's seeming dislike of Odin's treatment of humans on the battlefield. Can these people please explain to me why he would ever marry a valkyrie given that? 

 As for the MCU and the comics, they either think she got done dirty or just don't like his current love interest in the case of Sylvie in the MCU. I'm not defending Marvel's choice in making Loki's love interest a version of himself because I do think that's creepy as s*** and I don't like that they claim that he's a narcissist, so I'm not defending that by any means but I do think they're whining is definitely annoying. I don't even like most adaptations of Norse mythology when it comes to Loki because I think they do him dirty but that's not because he doesn't have his wife or whatever. It's because they make him an abusive shit bag with no redeeming qualities at all and then pretend that he wouldn't acknowledge that he isn't nice or an a****** because as this one author said no one would actually openly admit to not being a good person, right? No honey, you are definitely wrong on that because Loki does acknowledge that he's not nice. That's literally the whole point of his argument in Lokasenna. That author is Cat Rector who authored the book The Goddess of Nothing at All, if anyone is curious.