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STRIFE or CHAOS?????

Started by hooplala, February 25, 2008, 09:34:26 PM

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Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

Quote from: Requiem on February 29, 2008, 11:36:48 PM
Wasn't a big part of the point of PD that people has been mistaking all chaos for strife, and all strife for chaos?  Curse of Greyface and all that.  So Eris was goddess of chaos, but got called the goddess of strife, since the Greeks couldn't tell the difference.


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maphdet

Quote from: Hoopla on February 29, 2008, 05:23:36 PM
Fair enough.

I think -personally- they just wanted an obscure female goddess who could be crazy.  Eris fit the bill.

Weren't most the Female goddess crazy.
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Cain

Quote from: Requiem on February 29, 2008, 11:36:48 PM
Wasn't a big part of the point of PD that people has been mistaking all chaos for strife, and all strife for chaos?  Curse of Greyface and all that.  So Eris was goddess of chaos, but got called the goddess of strife, since the Greeks couldn't tell the difference.

Good point.

However, it depends on how you use the word strife.  They use it in terms of evil chaos, for lack of a better word.  I've thought of it more as a human level of chaos, what happens when you get people with different perceptions and interests residing in all the same place.  Value neutral, in other words.

Just felt that was worth clarifying.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Hoopla on February 25, 2008, 09:34:26 PM
In all my research on Eris I have never seen an ancient reference about her makinf any reference to Chaos, only Strife.

Did Hill and Thornley just make the Chaos aspect up?

And if so, why not just use Chaos (or Kaos) the goddess?

Strife IS chaos, if you would believe Von Clausewitz.

Or Kurosawa.

But yeah, I think they just made it up.
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Dido

As far as i remember, the ancient greek deity chaos was more some kind of conscious prima materia.
Following a sequence of events to the earliest event that can possibly be constructed as a reason (as the prophecy that people are trying to avoid instead of the morons actually doing what they do) is a very prominent feature of ancient Greek thought, which is why I should like to remind you of the other trickster lurking around the golden apple.
Meaning Prometheus, whom Zeus offered do free from the rock he was chained on (for being nice to humans ) if he would tell him what he knew about Thetis (supposedly only a minor sea Godess favored by Zeus). Prometheus  played hard-to-get for a few centuries until Heracles freed him. In return for 'allowing that to happen' P told Zeus that Thetis' child would be mightier that his father, which caused Zeus to pass her off to a mortal....aaaand not invite everybody to the wedding. etc.

Ancient Greek myths are not very coherent but the holes in this one are among the best.

hooplala

I hadn't been aware of that aspect of the story . . . interesting.
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Cain

Yeah, that ties into the idea that Achilles' death was arranged by Zeus.

hooplala

Well, nobody likes a cock-blocker . . .
"Soon all of us will have special names" — Professor Brian O'Blivion

"Now's not the time to get silly, so wear your big boots and jump on the garbage clowns." — Bob Dylan?

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
— Walt Whitman

Requia ☣

Was Prometheus a trickster Diety?  I've never been able to find anything on him outside the stuff about fire and his resulting imprisonment/release.
Inflatable dolls are not recognized flotation devices.

Cain

Prometheus was considered a trickster, yes.

http://www.theoi.com/Titan/TitanPrometheus.html

Theoi should really be your first stop for any mythological questions.

hooplala

Quote from: Requiem on March 14, 2008, 04:40:41 AM
Was Prometheus a trickster Diety?  I've never been able to find anything on him outside the stuff about fire and his resulting imprisonment/release.

How far did you look?
"Soon all of us will have special names" — Professor Brian O'Blivion

"Now's not the time to get silly, so wear your big boots and jump on the garbage clowns." — Bob Dylan?

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
— Walt Whitman

Requia ☣

A variety of very thick mythology books from the library and wikipedia/google.
Inflatable dolls are not recognized flotation devices.

Requia ☣

QuoteHesiod, Works and Days 11 ff (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C8th or C7th B.C.) :
"It was never true that there was only one Eris. There have always been two on earth. There is one you could like when you understand her. The other is hateful. The two Erites have separate natures. There is one Eris who builds up evil war, and slaughter. She is harsh; no man loves her, but under compulsion and by will of the immortals, men promote this rough Eris (Strife). But the other one was born the elder daughter of black Nyx. The son of Kronos, who sits on high and dwells in the bright air set her in the roots of the earth and among men; she is far kinder. She pushes the shiftless man to work, for all his laziness. A man looks at his neighbour, who is rich: then he too wants work; for the rich man presses on with his ploughing and planting and ordering of his estate. So the neighbour envies the neighbour who presses on toward wealth. Such Eris (Strife) is a good friend to mortals."

From the site linked earlier.
Inflatable dolls are not recognized flotation devices.

Cain

You have to remember that Hesiod was also a mysognist who hated the idea of powerful women in any way whatsoever.

Not to mention his sources were the bloody Muses of all people.  Servants of Apollo, the god Nietzsche typified with order, harmony and rationality.

Dido

#44
Like Nietzsche's contemporary critics I believe that he was a little off target with that idea. It is only in comparison to Dionysos that Apollo looks rational.
Prometheus is a pre-Olympian trickster cum hero deity and known for the accuracy of his prophecies (as indicated by his name).