Annoying Questions I'd Like Answered...

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Jun 15, 2014 9:13 pm

A quick search pulls up this:

Some guy on Stack Exchange wrote:Recall that "ginger" is the whole plant; although we call the spice "ginger" commonly now, it's really the gingerroot we use and that we see in daily life. But the ginger plant has green leaves and orange to red flowers. When you see the flowers, the reference to redheads is much more obvious.

So, this is what the term is referring to:

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sun Jun 15, 2014 9:18 pm

Honey blonde is more golden yellow.

Really if you want a confusing blonde hair term, there's dishwater blonde (light, light brown/dark blonde). I have never in my life seen dishwater that color, and hope I never will. My sister was once told she had dishwater blonde hair, and she hasn't worn her natural hair color since. I think she's a strawberry right now.

My hypothesis about why ginger refers to a wide range of reds is that hatred needs to be expanded to include the most people possible. And since red hair and sin go hand in hand, you've got to expand your definition to get as many people in the category of dirty sinner as you can.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sun Jun 15, 2014 9:20 pm

Stahlseele wrote:That picture i'd call honey blonde more than anything O.o

Wikipedia actually has strawberry blonde and honey blonde under the same category of words describing a "reddish blond." I suspect that the boundaries are vague and subjective. Apparently, hair color is an area of study in dire need of standards and conventions.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sun Jun 15, 2014 9:25 pm

Is honey blonde more red? I absolutely loathe hair colors. As far as I can tell, the various colors are made up by hair-dye companies to sell products. And they vary from company to company. Not having dyed my hair before, though... I can only say that I'm a brunette.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Jun 15, 2014 10:03 pm

ok, yes, that also makes a modicum of sense.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Jun 16, 2014 3:22 am

In case Cynic and Maj and others with squirming larvae of their own haven't seen it yet, Galaxy Slime:

Instructions on how to make it: http://www.two-daloo.com/night-sky-acti ... orax-free/

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Mon Jun 16, 2014 4:04 am

EEEEW all that glitter will never come out of your carpets, and it will get into your carpets, and your skin, and your hair, and your hardwood, and basically anything it touches will be sparkle forevermore.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Mon Jun 16, 2014 4:14 am

I might actually use that for a mad science birthday party. But other than that, play dough and sparkle never make it into my house for the very reasons that darkmaster brought up.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Jun 16, 2014 4:19 am

yeah, I figured it would be good for the party. Toss it in a wading pool outside and hose kids off before letting them inside.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Mon Jun 16, 2014 4:19 am

That is really cool - I especially appreciate the link at the bottom to how to use it to make bubbles. And my house has no problem with glitter. When, at the brilliant age of two, I found my son naked and covered in purple and red glitter hiding on top of a tall bookcase... I realized that I would be forever covered in the stuff. He hasn't let me down - it's even become one with the finish on my desk.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Jun 16, 2014 4:23 am

Yep, you just need to accept it will happen if you have kids. My youngest sister didn't disappoint in that respect.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Jun 16, 2014 7:48 am

In mythology, what is the difference between a hero and a god? Would Cu Chullain qualify as a deity?

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Mon Jun 16, 2014 8:07 am

Gods have absolute power, while heroes are generally mortal or partly mortal, also their lives tend to suck less than heroes.

Seriously, most heroes have terrible lives and die horrible. The only reason Odysseus doesn't get lynched at the end of his story is because Athena personally came down from heaven and declared hostilities over. Beowulf dies alone and in despair with no worthy heir and the knowledge his people will probably be destroyed in without him. His only consolation is he can leave behind the dragon's hoard which turns out to be cursed and worthless so the people bury him with it. Arthur's wife is stolen from him by his best friend but he can't bring himself to have her burned at the steak so he has Merlin save her which leads directly to him being murdered by his son. Sigmund's entire family is killed by a jealous rival and he later dies in battle against Odin leading to his wife and unborn son to be forced exile. Speaking of Sigurd, he spent most of his life in indentured servitude to a dwarf who tried to murder him in a ruse to gain the riches of his brother, who had shape shifted into a dragon. Other notable events in Sigurd's life include the murder of his three year old son by a jealous Brynhild, after, of course, he himself is killed by his wife and her brother because Brynhild told them Sigurd had slept with her. Brynhild then kills herself by burning herself on his funeral pyre.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Jun 16, 2014 8:54 am

Huh, fair. Thanks.

TiaC · Post by **TiaC** » Mon Jun 16, 2014 9:01 am

Heroes die, Gods don't. (Ragnarok doesn't count)

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Mon Jun 16, 2014 9:24 am

This isn't entirely true either. Greek mythology literally starts with Chronos getting cut into pieces by his children, a pretty consistent theme in mythology is that nobody, nobody can escape fate. To the point that Odin, a guy who knows the exact time and cause of his death (he gets eaten by a wolf) doesn't even try to alter his fate. It's just that most people are in fact, mortal, and not gods and living in antiquity kind of sucks.

So a lot of stories end up being more or less about the futility of human life and the brutality of death.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Mon Jun 16, 2014 1:06 pm

Prak_Anima wrote:In mythology, what is the difference between a hero and a god? Would Cu Chullain qualify as a deity?

It's super-dependent. In Greek Mythology, 'being a god' comes with a whole pile of innate stuff like shapechanging and literal immortality; there is simply *no* way to kill an Olympian (or anyone else classified as immortal), which is why Zeus and his siblings lived through their devouring and also why they had to put all their titanic enemies in horrible prisons instead of just executing them.

On the other end, the Aesir of Norse myth aren't even innately unaging – they rely on eating magic youth apples to not be doddering wrecks. Loki seems to be an innate shapeshifter, but Odin changes shape with sorcery that is theoretically learnable by anyone, and basically no-one else in their tribe does that.

Celtic Myth has people on both ends, because it basically runs on the D&D level structure – at some point a person has enough magic to qualify as a god, but the cutoff point seems pretty arbitrary, and characters totally graduate from one stage to the other over the course of several stories. Cu Chullain never gets to godhood, but then he does die pretty young.

Egyptian gods can totally die, which we know because Osiris is fucking murdered at the start of his myth. He gets better, but he actually did die and it's treated as a pretty big deal.

So if you want to talk about the difference between heroes and gods, you need to specify a myth context.

darkmaster wrote:Gods have absolute power

This is actually an extraordinarily rare case. Zeus can't whisper. Athena loses a weaving contest to a mortal, and she's the goddess of fucking weaving. Hephaestus is maimed and ugly and can't do shit about it. Hell, most of the named Aesir have a persistent injury of some sort which they'd presumably shed if they could. Outside of the monotheists, actual claims of absolute power are very rare. Cult of Ra is the only one I can think of.

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Mon Jun 16, 2014 1:29 pm

When I say absolute power, I mean over mortals. If Athena wanted to she could kill you right now but doesn't you have not offended her sufficiently to make you worth her time, that's pretty much the reason people worshiped the goods, because the gods can strike you with lightning if you don't.

Also, color me unconvinced that the Aesir would remove their injuries if they could, because they were worshiped by a warrior culture that values combat, wounds are proof you've been in combat. Regardless the thing gods actually can't do is fight fate, and lie?

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Mon Jun 16, 2014 1:51 pm

darkmaster wrote:When I say absolute power, I mean over mortals. If Athena wanted to she could kill you right now but doesn't you have not offended her sufficiently to make you worth her time, that's pretty much the reason people worshiped the goods, because the gods can strike you with lightning if you don't.

Again, myth of Arachne. Athena, goddess of womanly crafts, gets in a spinning contest with a mortal and loses; that's not absolute power over, that's explicitly inferior to. Apollo gets really upset when women break up with him, presumably if he had absolute power over them he'd Majesty them and they wouldn't do that.

Yes, Greek gods have a lot of power and can bully people with the threat of dire curses, but they frequently have to go through with those curses because the people don't obey them. And as soon as you're not being obeyed, that pretty much excludes 'absolute power.' Also, the Greek gods pretty explicitly can't remove the curses they lay on people, so they don't even have absolute power over their own powers.

Also, color me unconvinced that the Aesir would remove their injuries if they could, because they were worshiped by a warrior culture that values combat, wounds are proof you've been in combat.

You need to get some idea of what you're fucking talking about, because neither Odin's missing eye nor Tyr's missing sword hand are proof that they've been in combat.

Regardless the thing gods actually can't do is fight fate, and lie?

Ra's will is explicitly stronger than fate and gods lie all the time.

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Mon Jun 16, 2014 2:05 pm

Yeah, and then Arachne got turned into a fucking spider. And you're a fucking idiot, Odin traded his eye for omniscience a Tyr gave up his sword hand voluntarily because being left handed makes you a pariah in a society that spends most of its time thinking about fighting.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Mon Jun 16, 2014 2:30 pm

Greek myth has Sisyphus, who managed to trick the gods repeatedly and even captured Hades for a while. He got stuck with the bolder punishment as a "trick your way out of this one, asshole" sort of thing.

The god-hero split is honestly pretty arbitrary.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Jun 16, 2014 2:43 pm

Any sufficiently advanced hero is indistinguishable from godhood?

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Mon Jun 16, 2014 3:07 pm

darkmaster wrote:Yeah, and then Arachne got turned into a fucking spider. And you're a fucking idiot, Odin traded his eye for omniscience a Tyr gave up his sword hand voluntarily because being left handed makes you a pariah in a society that spends most of its time thinking about fighting.

I don't know what point you think you're trying to make. Yes, after losing, Athena cursed Arachne. But that's not really substantially different than a noblewoman losing at a contest and then having the competition's nose cut off for being uppity. It's not absolute power, it's just more power. If you had absolute power over spinners, you wouldn't lose spinning contests.

Also, wtf? Your first position was that the Aesir's maimings were probably voluntarily maintained because battle wounds are cool. Now you admit they aren't battle wounds, good, that's progress, let's move on.

First, I don't know where you get the idea that being left-handed makes you a pariah in warrior cultures; it doesn't, you just pulled that right out of your ass. Tyr gave his hand as collateral in a deal, broke the deal, and forfeited the collateral; it's part of his whole thing as god of laws. The whole point is that it's a significant and lasting price. There is exactly zero reason to believe that he can grow it back at all, let alone at whim.

Yes, Odin pays his eye for the Wisdom of Ages. Again, the point is that it's a significant and lasting price. There is exactly zero reason to believe that he can grow it back at all, let alone at whim. And if he didn't have to pay that price, he wouldn't have, because he totally straight up stole the Mead of Poetry when he had the chance.

But let's talk about the dude who actually did get a battle-maiming. Thor has a chunk of whetstone lodged in his head that gives him dreadful headaches whenever anyone anywhere sharpens their weapons wrong. That's not a cool battle-trophy, that is a crippling liability. And all the Aesir specifically tried to get it out and could not; they turn to a human sorceress, who is succeeding where they failed until she gets distracted. So Thor very specifically wants to be cured, and not he nor anyone in his tribe can do it.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Jun 16, 2014 8:06 pm

I'm working on a pagan/mythological abecedarium using various gods, and was debating whether to use Cu Cullain for C. Even having decided on gods for 'C' (Chantico from Aztec and Camazotz from Mayan), the "Hero or God?" thing comes up a lot as I browse through God Checker.

schpeelah · Post by **schpeelah** » Mon Jun 16, 2014 8:35 pm

It seems to me that the difference is that gods were supposed to be around "right now" and you could potentially attract their attention for good or ill, or were involved with creating the world. Heroes on the other hand didn't have impact on the world of normal people beyond possibly creating some local landmarks.