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  1. #1
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    Default How would your feel if the Gods the Amazons Worshipped were changed?

    How would you feel about a version of Wonder Woman where, instead of just worshipping the Greek Gods, the Amazons instead worshipped a pantheon goddesses from across the world?

    Naturally, the Greek goddesses would still be worshiped, but so would goddesses like Isis and Amaterasu.

    (The male Greek gods would also still be around for stories, btw. )

  2. #2
    Extraordinary Member kjn's Avatar
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    Would largely depend on how it was done.

    Just adding gods or goddesses is rather boring and doesn't really add anything other than cruft to the Wonder Woman mythology. Any additions would have to make sense both from a mythological standpoint (add something that the Greek pantheon lacks), from a historical standpoint (like that the Norse gods are much too late), to the needs of the Amazons, and fit within the existing naming structures.

    One angle I'm using to look at the Amazons is that they aren't necessarily Greek-inspired (even though Marston was when he created them): rather they inspired the classical Greek civilisation—my headcanon is that the Amazons are nymphs of civilisation rather than nature—and they certainly could have inspired many other cultures in Asia, Europe, and North Africa as well. The names they use are the Greek ones, but that's largely a thing of convenience for us modern people.
    «Speaking generally, it is because of the desire of the tragic poets for the marvellous that so varied and inconsistent an account of Medea has been given out» (Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History [4.56.1])

  3. #3
    Extraordinary Member CRaymond's Avatar
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    Given the mess of syncretized deities that were worshipped by the people of Anatolia, I'd be down with an ENTIRE nuanced cosmology that includes Greco-Egyptian pantheons with Sumerian, Persian, Arabic and Slavic elements. Amazonian "Olympians" should include Dagon, Chernobog, Inanna, Baal...

    I don't know. I could go on, but I'm at work. Themyscira is supposed to be in the Black Sea, not the Aegean.

  4. #4
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    I'd think we weren't talking about The Amazons anymore, since The Amazons are artifacts of Greek Mythology. If that's the case, we're really talking about something more akin to Marvel's Inhumans than we are DC's Amazons.

  5. #5
    Astonishing Member Tzigone's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DrNewGod View Post
    I'd think we weren't talking about The Amazons anymore, since The Amazons are artifacts of Greek Mythology. If that's the case, we're really talking about something more akin to Marvel's Inhumans than we are DC's Amazons.
    I tend to agree. It's been a while since I've read Golden Age Wonder Woman, but I seem to recall there that Aphrodite was their primary (not only) goddess worshiped, and she made Diana. I'd rather like to go back to that.

  6. #6
    Astonishing Member Koriand'r's Avatar
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    Been there done that sort of when the Bana-Mighdall Amazon's gods combined with Athena and company to recreate Themyscira or when Diana pledged her allegiance to Kane Milohai.

    I'd rather the Amazons forsake their patrons altogether and fend for themselves.

  7. #7
    Astonishing Member Tzigone's Avatar
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    I'd rather the Amazons forsake their patrons altogether and fend for themselves.
    I wouldn't mind it too much. I'm an atheist in real life, so I like the sentiment of not needing gods. Plus even their own patrons have been shown far from admirable on occasion (which, to be fair, definitely suits the myths), and she's a hero who might not want to worship beings who do that. So, if they were set up to fail or betrayed, maybe. As I understand it, there was a time when gods weren't looked to for morality among in the area. Philosophy was for morality. Relationships with the gods were more transactional - sacrifices for victory in war or rain or whatnot.

    I actually did consider a reworking using more of what we think the Greek pantheon looked like earlier, more in the time Amazons supposedly existed, but the stories were crafted later, of course. Poseidon, not Zeus would likely have been the chief god, etc. But I thought that would be too unfamiliar to most. If WW is to use Greek mythology, it should probably be, in the broad strokes, what the American audience is familiar with.

    I'm certainly not very interested in the gods. Their stories in WW often bore me.

    But, I do feel like on some level, their worship of at least some gods in that pantheon is a defining characteristic of the Amazons instead of just indistinct warrior women. On the other hand, in their original incarnation, they are nothing like mythological Amazons. But that's okay - it was centuries before stories got written down, and they got the details wrong, hmm?

    One thing I'm trying to figure out, is what I want Amazons to be (for my own personal headcanon). I don't want them to be a really stagnant culture. But if they are immortal on the island (my preferred version), that makes it difficult. New ideas often come from new people, and they don't have new people. Plus a certain population density helps when it comes to scientific innovation. And necessity, too. Them having amazing philosophy is easy. But scientific and technological things are more difficult. They haven't been exposed to new ideas from far away regions. They don't have the same needs (in terms of increasing crop production due to growing population, disease, even the need for certain types of machines to take the place of muscle power or truly mass production). Figuring out what they do need, and how that would manifest, is vexing me.

  8. #8
    Uncanny Member MajorHoy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jcogginsa View Post
    How would you feel about a version of Wonder Woman where, instead of just worshipping the Greek Gods, the Amazons instead worshipped a pantheon goddesses from across the world?

    Naturally, the Greek goddesses would still be worshiped, but so would goddesses like Isis and Amaterasu.

    (The male Greek gods would also still be around for stories, btw.)
    Can we say "unnecessary"?

  9. #9
    Extraordinary Member AmiMizuno's Avatar
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    I don't see it necessary for the Amazons to change patrons until Banas are brought back to the island

  10. #10
    Uncanny Member MajorHoy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AmiMizuno View Post
    I don't see it necessary for the Amazons to change patrons until Banas are brought back to the island
    I don't think it's necessary period.

    If the Banas do return, then that tribe can worship other deities if they want. But no need to mess with the main Amazons' deities to be more "inclusive".

  11. #11
    Extraordinary Member kjn's Avatar
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    Another thing here is that the Amazon aren't likely to "worship", at least not in the sense that we think of it today. Rucka had a great description of it in the Wonder Woman 75th Anniversary Special, where he put the following in Diana's words:

    This is interesting, and I think this is important. When we talk about the Patrons… outside of my culture, when the Patrons are discussed, they are always discussed as… they are granted an omnipotence that they do not have.

    I think, perhaps, this is a result of the blurring of concepts of divinity versus godhood. There is a larger discussion to be had there, where a Judeo-Christian, monotheistic deity is presented as omnipotent, and may well be.

    The Patrons are as—no, they are more flawed than—the people you will meet on the street. Thus they are as capable of, in not more capable because of their power, all the mendacity and cruely and pettiness that you encounter in day-to-day life.
    Now, I quibble a lot that Diana would use the term "Judeo-Christian", and I think that Rucka himself didn't grok the concepts that he put forth here, and not nearly to the degree that Wilson does in the way she presents the Greek gods. But the relation between the Amazons and the Greek gods is hugely dissimilar to the relation there is between modern Christians and their God, or for modern Moslems to Allah.
    «Speaking generally, it is because of the desire of the tragic poets for the marvellous that so varied and inconsistent an account of Medea has been given out» (Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History [4.56.1])

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jcogginsa View Post
    How would you feel about a version of Wonder Woman where, instead of just worshipping the Greek Gods, the Amazons instead worshipped a pantheon goddesses from across the world?

    Naturally, the Greek goddesses would still be worshiped, but so would goddesses like Isis and Amaterasu.

    (The male Greek gods would also still be around for stories, btw. )
    I suppose what I could see is the Amazon's recognizing the male members of The Pantheon, but only worshiping the female members.

  13. #13
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    Too messy and convoluted..I think..writers will make a mess of it eventually. I think there's more than enough in Greek mythos from the Olympians, Titans, the primordials, and the demi-gods for this.

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