Are you referring to the story you recently posted?
Oh. Woops. I forgot which post I was commenting on.
And I didn't mean that I've changed my opinion re: Holden's remarks and Buffy's reply in CWDP by my use of the past tense; I meant that was my immediate assumption when I watched it last year and still is. I quite like that the show plays with/raises that distinction.
Ah, OK, gotcha. I was racking my brain trying to come up with a reason to think otherwise... :)
"Thou shall honor no other gods but me" is the first Commandment, isn't it? it's been a remarkably effective bit of PR and a device for thought and behavior control.
Yep. (As an aside, I've heard some scholars claim that the commandments and some of the other oldest bits of the Bible aren't monotheist as much as monolatrist - ie they don't say there's only one god, but that there's only one god worth worshipping. I kind of like the idea that there are still traces of older myths in there...)
God didn't create "Man" in his image; humans create gods according to their current needs.
Much like science fiction writers. :) Funnily enough, some of my favourite descriptions of both gods and characters of faith in spec fic - Firefly and Discworld, for instance - are written by avowed atheists. It's a fascinating subject, but I think it takes a certain distance and self-awareness to write convincingly. (Which is not to say that's exclusive to atheist writers.)
The movie or the comics? Not familiar with either.
The Avengers movie. There's a scene where Captain America decides to get mixed up in a fight between Loki and Thor. Black Widow tells him to "sit this one out, for all intents and purposes those guys are gods." To which Captain America replies "There's only one God, ma'am, and I'm sure He doesn't dress like that." While Thor is calling down actual thunder...
even after her time with Giles I'm not sure I'd call Willow "religious"/WIccan per se, just that she has a greater (expanded) moral sense and awareness beyond herself, and awareness of repercussions ( "thesis/antithesis/synthesis" manifested in physical action.)
Absolutely. Willow's religious affiliation post-... well, season 4 I suppose, is tricky. She clearly fails the "no other gods before me" bit - again, it's hard to be a monotheist once you've actually shoved your fingers into a peroxide blonde god's brain and bossed the Egyptian god of death around. At the same time, of course, Jewishness is more than just a religious belief. I keep wanting to write post-series Willow fic that deals with all of that, but I'd have to read up a lot on Judaism and I'd still feel like I was appropriating something. (Even more so than I did in this (http://archiveofourown.org/works/423273).) Still, I can't help but feel that there should be fic in which Willow meets up with the golem of Prague...
As for wicca, it gets complicated since the writers clearly don't know much about it and constantly use it as a synonym for "being a witch". I'd say Tara is probably meant to practice the actual faith, while Willow (ever the pragmatist) picks and chooses the bits she needs.
Another canon-ish question: When fans call Willow a "goddess" are they basing that from Kennedy's "You are a goddess" in Chosen, which I didn't take literally
In my experience, quite a few people do. I really don't get it, but apparently they assume that Kennedy has some sort of goddess radar (goddar?) and can recognise one on sight. I do like the idea post-series of people (including Willow herself) wondering just how powerful she is or will become, but I don't think she automatically qualifies as a goddess past a certain point. Again, the concept of a god(dess) is pretty fuzzy, and I like that.
no subject
Oh. Woops. I forgot which post I was commenting on.
And I didn't mean that I've changed my opinion re: Holden's remarks and Buffy's reply in CWDP by my use of the past tense; I meant that was my immediate assumption when I watched it last year and still is. I quite like that the show plays with/raises that distinction.
Ah, OK, gotcha. I was racking my brain trying to come up with a reason to think otherwise... :)
"Thou shall honor no other gods but me" is the first Commandment, isn't it? it's been a remarkably effective bit of PR and a device for thought and behavior control.
Yep. (As an aside, I've heard some scholars claim that the commandments and some of the other oldest bits of the Bible aren't monotheist as much as monolatrist - ie they don't say there's only one god, but that there's only one god worth worshipping. I kind of like the idea that there are still traces of older myths in there...)
God didn't create "Man" in his image; humans create gods according to their current needs.
Much like science fiction writers. :) Funnily enough, some of my favourite descriptions of both gods and characters of faith in spec fic - Firefly and Discworld, for instance - are written by avowed atheists. It's a fascinating subject, but I think it takes a certain distance and self-awareness to write convincingly. (Which is not to say that's exclusive to atheist writers.)
The movie or the comics? Not familiar with either.
The Avengers movie. There's a scene where Captain America decides to get mixed up in a fight between Loki and Thor. Black Widow tells him to "sit this one out, for all intents and purposes those guys are gods." To which Captain America replies "There's only one God, ma'am, and I'm sure He doesn't dress like that." While Thor is calling down actual thunder...
even after her time with Giles I'm not sure I'd call Willow "religious"/WIccan per se, just that she has a greater (expanded) moral sense and awareness beyond herself, and awareness of repercussions ( "thesis/antithesis/synthesis" manifested in physical action.)
Absolutely. Willow's religious affiliation post-... well, season 4 I suppose, is tricky. She clearly fails the "no other gods before me" bit - again, it's hard to be a monotheist once you've actually shoved your fingers into a peroxide blonde god's brain and bossed the Egyptian god of death around. At the same time, of course, Jewishness is more than just a religious belief. I keep wanting to write post-series Willow fic that deals with all of that, but I'd have to read up a lot on Judaism and I'd still feel like I was appropriating something. (Even more so than I did in this (http://archiveofourown.org/works/423273).) Still, I can't help but feel that there should be fic in which Willow meets up with the golem of Prague...
As for wicca, it gets complicated since the writers clearly don't know much about it and constantly use it as a synonym for "being a witch". I'd say Tara is probably meant to practice the actual faith, while Willow (ever the pragmatist) picks and chooses the bits she needs.
Another canon-ish question: When fans call Willow a "goddess" are they basing that from Kennedy's "You are a goddess" in Chosen, which I didn't take literally
In my experience, quite a few people do. I really don't get it, but apparently they assume that Kennedy has some sort of goddess radar (goddar?) and can recognise one on sight. I do like the idea post-series of people (including Willow herself) wondering just how powerful she is or will become, but I don't think she automatically qualifies as a goddess past a certain point. Again, the concept of a god(dess) is pretty fuzzy, and I like that.