(no subject)
Dear anonymous author of Beowulf,
Look, I know it was the 9th century and you were probably doing this under pain of death from your church fathers, but dude, your ancient Scandinavian characters definitely would not be invoking the Christian God. You and I both know they worshiped the Aesir, and after a while all the "Thank the Almighty for our luck in defeating the monsters" stuff goes from simply distracting to irritating. I have to mentally replace "Cain" with "Loki" and "Lord God" with "Odin/Thor/whatever appropriate diety from the Norse pantheon" if I want the poem to make any kind of sense. I don't mind messing with history a little to tell a good story, but awkwardly inserting Christian references into a poem with obvious pagan roots is just a bad idea.
On another note, who else is looking forward to the Beowulf movie? It looks like it's gonna be loud, violent, stupid, and full of Vikings - in other words, a good time. Plus, Neil Gaiman had a hand in adapting the poem!
Also, a shameful confession: due to my abiding affection for Stupid Viking Movies, I watched Pathfinder the other night. Ever wondered what a 90-minute-long Manowar video would look like? Yeah. At least I got to see Eomer's butt! Hee!
Look, I know it was the 9th century and you were probably doing this under pain of death from your church fathers, but dude, your ancient Scandinavian characters definitely would not be invoking the Christian God. You and I both know they worshiped the Aesir, and after a while all the "Thank the Almighty for our luck in defeating the monsters" stuff goes from simply distracting to irritating. I have to mentally replace "Cain" with "Loki" and "Lord God" with "Odin/Thor/whatever appropriate diety from the Norse pantheon" if I want the poem to make any kind of sense. I don't mind messing with history a little to tell a good story, but awkwardly inserting Christian references into a poem with obvious pagan roots is just a bad idea.
On another note, who else is looking forward to the Beowulf movie? It looks like it's gonna be loud, violent, stupid, and full of Vikings - in other words, a good time. Plus, Neil Gaiman had a hand in adapting the poem!
Also, a shameful confession: due to my abiding affection for Stupid Viking Movies, I watched Pathfinder the other night. Ever wondered what a 90-minute-long Manowar video would look like? Yeah. At least I got to see Eomer's butt! Hee!