More Norse Mythology, Yaaay! Also, THOR 2 IS AWESOME!

So, I went to see Thor: The Dark World with my friend today.

AND I LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT. XD

I liked it even better than the first one, actually. The storyline was a little hard to follow at points, but I kept up all right and caught a few subtle mythology references to boot!

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! THIS IS FOR BOTH THOR AND THOR 2

So in the first Thor movie, Marvel pretty much pulled a few things from the myths, threw out the rest, and created their own storyworld, which I enjoyed immensely. I do have a mental list of the stuff they got wrong.

#1, and this really is the most important, Thor and Loki are NOT brothers. I know I said this in my last post, but it  bears repeating. A long time ago, before Odin became king/chief/All-Father, he was wandering around in Jotunheim when he met a half-Jotun, half-Asa (god) named Loki. They took to each other so much that they let their blood run together and swore an oath to always be brothers, to fight side by side and that one would never accept a favour unless it was also offered to the other. (The oath got broken later, though.)

But Thor and Loki do have lots of adventures, so I can see why Marvel did that.

#2. They left out the story behind Odin losing an eye.

I really understand them leaving this out, because it's kind of a long story and totally unnecessary to the plot of the movies, but still. Odin's missing eye is pretty much the reason he's qualified to lead Asgard.

A while after he'd met Loki, Odin decided that he needed to acquire wisdom. He took out his eye, threw it into Mimir's Well*, and hung himself off of Yggdrasil** for nine nights and nine days. When the nine days were over, the runes of wisdom fell from the tree and Odin became the All-Father.

*Mimir's Well is a very special place in Jotunheim. It's a well guarded by the talking, decapitated head of a very wise Jotun called Mimir. Long story.

**Yggdrasil is the world tree, which branches through all nine realms. It's the center of Norse mythology: everything revolves around it, in a way.

#3: I'm not sure if I should mention this, but Thor's friends are almost all people Marvel made up. I say this because it would have been fairly easy to pull a few names out of the Norse canon, but they didn't.

I actually like how they did the Bifrost Bridge and Asgard--it looks really cool! And they got Heimdall more or less right--he's the guardian of the bridge who sees and hears everything.

#4, and this is really just nitpicking: They got Sif's hair colour wrong! I mean, yeah, it's a minor detail, but come on, guys. There's an entire myth about it. *facepalm*

In the myths, Sif is actually Thor's wife (which would explain why she doesn't like Jane Foster). There's one story wherein Loki sneaks up on Sif while she's asleep and cuts off her hair. Sif had very beautiful golden hair, the most beautiful of any goddess, so she and Thor were pretty ticked off. Loki promised to make amends by getting Sif new hair. He runs off to the world of the dwarves and gets the Sons of Ivaldi to make hair out of real gold, which he then brings back to Sif along with some other goodies for the Aesir.

Then Loki makes a rather stupid bet with a dwarf named Brokk. Loki says that the Sons of Ivaldi are the best smiths in the world and there's no way Brokk's brother Sindri could make anything better than they could. Brokk takes him up on this. The loser loses his head.

Despite some interference from Loki, Sindri makes some pretty cool stuff: a collapsable ship that can hold all the Aesir but still fold up and fit into a purse, a flying golden boar for Frey, god of fertility and sunlight, and, best of all, Mjolnir.

Yep, that's where Mjolnir came from. Odin really doesn't have any control over it.

The gods say that Brokk won the bet, but just before he cuts Loki's head off Loki says, "WAIT A MINUTE! I said you could have my head, but you're NOT allowed to touch my neck."

And that's how Loki escaped death on a technicality! But he didn't get away totally scot-free. Brokk got a leather thong and stitched his mouth shut, which sounds quite painful and kept Loki quiet for a little while.

I've noticed that Norse stories tend to lead to digression in a way that Greek myths often don't. Or maybe that's just me.

One more thing that I just remembered!

#5: I'm pretty sure there is no such thing as "Odinsleep." That was just a plot device to take Odin out of action in the first movie.

And now moving on to the second movie!

The one additional thing they changed that wasn't changed in the first movie was Loki's punishment. Compared to what they did to him in the myths, being locked in a cushy cell was shockingly lenient! I mean, he kills 80 people and they just throw him in jail?! In the myths he kills one person (Baldur) and yeah, okay, he does do some other bad stuff too, but not mass murder.

After the Lokasenna, wherein Loki crashes a feast and viciously insults almost everyone, the gods hunt him down, drag him to a cave in Niflheim, tie him to three sharp rocks with the entrails of his own son, whom they murder right in front of him, and as if that wasn't enough Skadi (goddess of the mountains) hangs a serpent over him so that it can drip poison on his face.

I mean, geez. I didn't even find out about the entrails thing until recently and I was like, WHOA. *Shudder* That seems like overkill.

Moving on...

They referenced some actual myths! And this made me very, very happy! :D

There's this one scene where people are walking around Asgard and some of the gods are out in a courtyard training falcons, and then this raven swoops down and lands on Odin's arm and caws kind of like it's talking to him.

Well, guess what? It is! Odin has two ravens, Hugin and Munin, who fly around the world to bring him news, and that was definitely one of them.

Also, there's a myth where Thor actually fights a giant made out of clay! Granted, he doesn't actually smash it--it just kind of falls over on him. But I'm pretty sure they referenced it in the movie!

Skip to 2:13 in the above trailer and you'll see it.

That scene made me very happy. Yay!

Oh, and there's a scene with Yggdrasil in it! They don't mention it by name, but it's a beautiful image of a giant tree with the nine realms in its branches.

So yeah, it was a good movie and I really enjoyed it. Lots of stuff blew up. There were some wonderful funny moments. I recommend it, for all its flaws. Marvel really just has its own storyworld, and I like that a lot.

Doesn't stop me imagining Myth Loki's reaction to the movie, though...:D

Fun Facts About Norse Mythology

Hey guys!

Sorry I haven't updated in so long (it's been what, a month?). I'm touched that this blog gets so many pageviews! Feel free to comment on any post, by the way.

For the past week or so I've been obsessed with Norse mythology.

Actually, it's more like I've become re-obsessed. I first came to love Norse mythology in 4th grade, since it was part of the curriculum. For some reason I like it better than Greek mythology, which is more widely known.

My re-obsession commenced when we got an assignment in Creative Writing instructing us to take a god of our choice and write about them in modern day setting. I think whoever wrote the assignment was thinking Greek, but that's been done a lot (*coughPercyJacksoncough*)

So I did Norse.

The problem with trying to update Norse mythology is Ragnarok.

Ragnarok is the end of the world, where the gods and the jotuns (giants) have a big apocalyptic battle. Most depressing chapter in my Norse Myths book, because almost everyone dies. Odin, Thor, Loki, Heimdall, Frey...there are maybe seven survivors total, mostly minor characters (although I think Baldur comes back from the dead, so that's good).

It's pretty unusual for a mythology to include the destruction of all its own gods, and I read somewhere that Ragnarok may have been invented to allow Norse myths to coexists with incoming Christianity. The fact that in some versions two humans survive Ragnarok to re-populate the earth supports this.

Or maybe it just got consolidated with the Book of Revelations. *shrugs*

When I was younger my favorite god was Thor, but these days it's Loki.

Note: Unlike in the Marvel universe, in traditional mythology Thor and Loki are NOT brothers. I'm learning to tolerate Marvel, but this still bugs me. Loki and ODIN are blood brothers, but not brothers by birth. Back before Odin lost an eye and gained wisdom ('nother story) he met Loki. (D'Aulares Book of Norse Myths, my main source, says that Loki was some kind of mutant jotun, but I read elsewhere that he's 1/2 jotun and 1/2 god. I think that makes more sense, since he's supposed to be a pretty handsome guy and he's also a shapeshifter.)

Anyway, Loki and Odin got along so well that they cut their wrists and let their blood flow together. They vowed to always fight side by side, to honour each other as brothers and never to accept a favour unless it was also offered to the other. I'm pretty sure all of these promises got broken by both of them.

So that makes Loki something like Thor's adopted uncle.

Although to be honest, Thor and Loki really do behave more like brothers. They go on quite a few adventures together, and although Loki ticks Thor off a few times, he also gets the thunder god out of some sticky situations.

I've had fun with the modern-day story and maybe I'll post it here later. It's seven pages long with extensive footnotes and mainly revolves around a dialog between Loki and Sif (Thor's wife). Also, Thor's in jail. XD

Anyway, coming back to this post after about a week, I saw Thor the other night! And I actually really enjoyed it. They did change a lot, but it was fun to watch and I got really into it.

But I was kind of annoyed at the Loki-Odin relationship...see above rant.

The other thing that bugged me a little was that Loki was so serious. I always pictured him as being really funny, even a little goofy sometimes. I guess I'll just have to write him myself. :)

Oh, and have some art.

Drawn with pencil and pen, coloured in Sumo. Not quite finished yet though...

It's a drawing of two of Loki's lesser-known children, Narfi and Nari. (Or Nari and Vali, depending on where you look, but there's a different god called Vali, so I went with Narfi.) They have a fairly gruesome fate which I recently found out about. :P They're really very minor characters...

I will definitely be posting more about Norse mythology later!

Here's another Sumo picture for you.

Igor O'Malley, who was drawn quite a long time ago. 

Can't Think of a Witty Title

Here's something I love about my school: There's a big piano in the living room and sometimes Mr. K, one of the religion teachers, practices it in the morning. You can hear the music all through the building and it's so beautiful.

Monday morning and I'm feeling kind of drained. I have a history quiz in seven minutes, so we'll see how that goes...

My weekend was insane.

Saturday: I had to go to church for acolyte training from 1-4, and then my mom took me to the art store. New pens, yay! I'm still learning how to use the art pens I got. I also got a book on writing comics.

We got home at about 6, and I didn't have much time for homework. I was up till like 11.

Sunday: It was Homecoming, o joy, so I had to acolyte at 11:15. It was like 98 degrees and we were wearing two layers of robes on top of our clothes. MISERY.

Service let out at 1:00. I had foolishly volunteered to run carnival games afterwards, so I spent the next hour helping kids fish ducks out of a kiddie pool with a fishing rod and giving them tickets. I skipped lunch entirely and didn't really get hungry until later.

When I got home, I had about two and a half hours for homework before I went to this "class party." In hindsight, I should have let my parents go alone. The students were only invited so that more parents would show up. There were a total of eight juniors there, counting me, and no dinner! I thought there would be better food. But nope, my entire dinner was little appetizer quiches and a cracker with some kind of nasty spread on it.

Yay.

Then I was up till about 11 doing homework, so now I'm a bit tired. I had no time to relax at all. I officially hate history. That's what most of my homework was. For some reason I have a hard time caring about early colonial times.

Got to go take that quiz now. Oh joy.

But my drawing with my tablet is getting better.

OSF 2

Last time I finished off talking about The Tenth Muse, so this time I'll start with The Heart of Robin Hood.

Left to right: Little John, Marian (in disguise), Robin and Will Scarlet.

I loved it.

I should note that I've loved the Robin Hood stories since I was quite small. My dad used to read them to me and I grew up playing Robin Hood in various parks and my backyard, pretending to be him or Marian, reading the stories, and watching the Errol Flynn movie about 20 times.

Yup, that's the one.

So I was already a fan.

Truth be told, I was a little nervous going into the play. What if it wasn't good?

But my worries were totally unfounded, because it was fantastic!

The play starts off with Robin and his men as bloodthirsty cutthroats who haven't quite figured the whole "giving to the poor" thing, but still have a generous reputation. Marian and her servant Pierre try to join them, since Marian really doesn't want to marry Prince John (such a creeper) and might have to anyway, but when she discovers Robin's true nature she decides to set herself up in opposition to him as "Martin of Sherwood," who really DOES do the giving to the poor thing.

Meanwhile, Prince John raises taxes to fund his own private army and take over the country and two children get involved after their father refuses to pay...

The thing I really loved was that this play had some really funny moments but was also very scary. The danger to Marian and the children was very real, and it had some heartbreaking moments. But it balanced that with good humor and great acting.

The set was pretty awesome too. It was in the Elizabethan theatre, which is outdoors, and they were actually using the same set for three forest-themed plays: Cymbeline, Midsummer Night's Dream, and Robin Hood. 

Lastly, we saw My Fair Lady.

It was a good musical, and they staged it well, but something about the story just didn't sit right with me. In case you don't know, My Fair Lady is about a speech therapist who makes a bet with his friend that he can pass off a Cockney flower-seller as a lady via speech lessons. The speech therapist was a little too much of a jerk for me to sympathize with, but it was still a good musical.

The staging looked a little weird initially--two pianos in the middle of the stage?--but they pulled it off really well.

Fun fact: There's this song called "On The Street Where You Live," sung by somebody who's just fallen in love with the main character, Eliza Doolittle.

(For context, she's just been to the horse races. Under the instructions to discuss only the weather and people's health, she made a few drastic faux pas, such as mentioning her Cockney father's gin addiction [it was about his health...])

The guy in the play totally overacted this. It was hysterical! He was running around and lying down on the stage while singing.

My dad told me that that number was actually written just as a filler, because the horse-race sequence was pretty elaborate and the stagehands needed time to change the set! It was written just so the guy could stand in front of the curtain and sing while they moved stuff around behind him.

Yay for fun facts!

My favorite character in My Fair Lady was probably Eliza's reprobate dad. He's completely morally bankrupt, but he freely admits it, and he's also really funny.

Probably my favorite song in the entire thing.

OSF

Greetings from Ashland, Oregon, where the smoke from the nearby fires has finally abated! (Mostly.) (It had to wait until right before we went home...)

We drove up over Sunday and Monday, stopping overnight at Dad's brother's house. That was fun because I got to see my aunt, uncle and cousin who I very rarely see. Then we arrived on Monday night, with our first play set for Tuesday afternoon.

I don't know if you've ever been to Ashland. It's a very beautiful town. I'm not sure if I'd want to live here full-time, but I love visiting. There's a great green garden called Lithia Park, where the ducks roam freely and the river rushes over rocks and boulders. I love walking through it, and occasionally hauling my cello out to try and make a little money. (A few years ago I got $30 in an hour. No such luck this year--$3 in just under two hours.)

And the plays! The real reason my family comes up is for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. We saw one play per day this week, and all of them were wonderful.

Play 1: The Taming of the Shrew in the Angus Bowmer theatre.

The Angus Bowmer is a big indoor theatre. It's very versatile, set-wise. This year I saw three plays in it, each with a radically different set.

Taming was set in a sort of late-1950s New Jersey amusement pier. The music was rockabilly, and the clothes were often ridiculous. The language was thoroughly Shakespearean, but that was about it for the Bard.

Taming is always a hard play to pull off these days, so I've heard (this was the first time I've seen it). OSF did it really well.

Taming was set in a sort of late-1950s New Jersey amusement pier. The music was rockabilly, and the clothes were often ridiculous. The language was thoroughly Shakespearean, but that was about it for the Bard.

Warning: Spoilers.

Basically,  there’s this girl called Bianca who has two suitors. She’s not allowed to get married until her older sister, Katherine, does. The problem is that Katherine is a “shrew”—she’s not very pleasant to be around. She’s a total wildgirl who tortures her sister and scares off any prospective suitors. I liked her.

 A new guy called Lucientio comes to town (in this case Padua) and falls head-over-heels for Bianca (this is in addition to her two suitors). Then Petrucio, who was a tough, tattooed biker dude in this version, arrives looking for a rich wife. One of Bianca’s suitors convinces him to go after Katherine. Petrucio and Katherine, who he calls Kate, don’t exactly hit it off, but they’re certainly a match for each other—no one else would have either one of them.

A lot of other stuff involving Bianca and her suitors happens too, but I’m going to focus on Petrucio and Kate.

The thing that theatres have a hard time with these days is that after Petrucio and Kate get married, Petrucio uses some harsh wife-taming techniques including starvation and sleep deprivation. He finally gets her to agree with him that the moon is the sun. The thing I liked about this version is that even though Petrucio’s messing with Kate, getting her to agree with whatever he says, you can tell from the actors’ body language that she’s messing with him right back.

There’s a tricky bit at the end where Kate has a speech about how women should be obedient to their husbands. OSF softened that with body language again: There was this moment when Kate whistles and makes a “Get your butt over here or else” motion at Petrucio, the kind of thing you do to call a dog.

This play definitely wasn’t my favorite, but I did like it.

Play 2: The 10th Muse, also in the Angus Bowmer.

This one was fantastic. It's a world premier, so you probably haven't seen it. It's about this girl, Jesusa, in Mexico in 1715. She's been sent from one convent to another, to care for a sick sister (Sor Isabel, who in addition to gradually losing her sight is a bit of a rebel nun…). Arriving simultaneously are her roomates: Tomasita, an Indian of the lowest caste who will be working in the kitchens, and Manuella, a noblewoman who will be staying at the convent for several months.

The girls “enjoy the convivial chef, Sor Filomena, and try to stay clear of both the irritable Sor Rufina and the fearsome Mother Superior” (a quote from the playbill).

The girls are situated in an old storeroom, filled with useless junk and some rather useful objects as well.

Also in the room is an old wardrobe. When the girls finally get it open, they discover that it’s full of papers. Stories, love poems, plays, all forgotten—or were they hidden?

Jesusa, Tomasita and Manuella begin to act out a play in the evenings for their own amusement.  Then Sor Isabel (remember her? Rebel nun?) catches them at it. She recognizes the papers as being the work of the famous Sor Juana Inèz de la Cruz, who lived in the convent and died twenty years before. Sor Isabel thought they had been burned…

And I'll leave you hanging there. Go see the play if you get the chance!

Plays 3 and 4 coming soon, along with other exciting tales!

Art!

I draw a lot. I know I haven't posted any drawings, but I do.

So I finally got a tablet!

And I SUCK at using it.

For example:

That's supposed to be my dad in his new pyjamas and our two cats. (The cats were drawn with the cursor, not the pen.)

Normally when I'm not using the tablet, I draw stuff like this:

And this:

One of my characters. Her name is Wilhelm.

And even this:

My characters. Takes too long to explain, but I'm proud of it.

Now, I've been drawing stuff like this. 

A little sketch of my doll and my red book bag lying on my bed.  It's not blood, I promise!!

I've gotten better, though...a bit...

Here's the only other thing that's in a proper format to upload:

No one in particular, I just wanted to try drawing a girl with long hair in a manga-y style.

Whoops, looks like I forgot to get rid of some lines there. Shoot. Like I said, I'm learning. Largely through trial and error. 

The worst is when you forget to save something, ugh.

And that's what I've been up to these past few days!

Well, that and the animation class. We move pieces of paper around in front of a camera. I'm working on an adaption of Little Red Riding Hood with construction paper puppets. 

The Parking Fiasco

Mom and I were going to check out the Metro Station, because I was taking the train the next day. So we got to the parking structure, but right next to it, blocking it from our view, was a different parking structure.

"I think that's where Dad and I parked last time!" I said, pointing. My dad and I had been in the same area to see a play at a nearby playhouse.

So Mom parked in the parking garage and we exited via a gate and walked next door to check out the Metro station, which also had a parking garage. Once we'd seen it and figured out how it worked, we headed back to the car.

Only we couldn't get in. The gate was locked.

And then I saw the rather large sign that said, "LINCOLN APARTMENTS: TENANT PARKING ONLY."

While you could park there without any problems, it seems that you needed a key card to get back IN.

We were locked away from our car.

Oops.

So Mom and I took off around the parking structure to look for an open door. We probably wouldn't have found one anyway, but Mom saw headlights and we dashed back around and ducked through the gate as another car left. Yay!

Moral of the story: Be careful where you park.

In other news: I'm on Pottermore and I'm a Slytherin. I'm totally shocked: I thought I'd be a Hufflepuff for sure! Aah!