Silly god poll for Mikulas morning

[mrissa]

Please note: these questions pertain to works of fiction and use of deities/spirits therein, not to interactions with deities/spirits in your real-world belief system. Also, if you answer that the use of Japanese spirits in fiction gives you a pain, no one will assume that you mean all such uses. Just that uses that give you a pain tend to crop up, that many authors have a habit of annoying you by using these elements badly or frustratingly.

[Poll #883124]

I hope my package from Otto's comes today.

lydy was surprised and amused by the vehemence of my answer to the first question at dinner last night, which is why I thought to have a silly poll of this sort to begin with.

Comments

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

What was your Lydy-shocking answer?

It's not so much that I dislike Zeus as that he tends to bore me, fictionally.

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

What are citrus kisses, spritz, cream cheese drops, Russian teacakes and almond bark pretzels? The rest I recognise - or, at least, I've never seen apple bread but I think I can imagine it.

the virtue of photography

[aet.livejournal.com]

Even if I will fail to gather enough energy, I can always imagine that the old picture below is record of events of current year:

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/50797989@N00/32265647/)

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I'm not answering the first two because I can't separate fictional portrayals out that way. I reminds me of the time carandol and I were once coming back from the pub with a baby zorinth on a Sunday afternoon, and we passed Jehovah's Witnesses coming along the street. A door was opened to them as we passed, and we heard them ask the hapless neighbour, "How do you feel about the end of the world?" As we went into our house, carandol was gripped with an idea. "They'll come to our house in about ten minutes!" he said. "When they ask that, let's say 'End of the world? Do you mean Ragnarok? We're all ready for it in this house!' and go on like that." First I laughed, and then I said "Don't you think that might be a little, um, disrespectful?" "To Jehovah's Witnesses?" "No, to the Norse gods..." "But you'd only be pretending to believe in them!" "Yes, and that seems a bit disrespectful." "So you're not going to pretend to believe in them because you really believe in them?" "Not believe, exactly, I just don't want to be rude to them." At this point, the Jehovah's Witnesses knocked on the door. "Go away," carandol said, to their astonished faces. "We're not ready for you yet."

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Ditto. The Zeus-Hera dynamic is rarely done in an interesting way. I know that the source material doesn't leave a lot to work with, but meh.

[aet.livejournal.com]

You mean to say you live behind this door? Or no, someone who is either less or more respectful ...

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/50797989@N00/296501981/)

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Good call on the Native American fiction-y stuff...missed that first time around, just changed my answer.

Thanks a lot, de Lint.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Never read 'im.

The Native American stuff is usually due to just plain laziness. And no research. And "noble savage" issues. Bleah.

[cadithial.livejournal.com]

Lol, Russian teacakes :) My wife just got a package from Russia which may very well have something similar in it :P

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll.68569487

(the t-shirt in question says "druids are the chlamydia of fantasy".)

[porphyrin.livejournal.com]

It is a very good thing that we are able to check more than one box on that last question.

[meallanmouse.livejournal.com]

To be specific, what I've disliked regarding those particular deities or lot of deities, is that I've seen them treated far too often in stereotypical, uninteresting ways. And so they tend to blur and become all the same far too often each time they crop up in a work of fiction. The rare times they are fun and inventively written are treasured indeed.

(Loki wins hands down on being the most mishandled, poorly treated character.)

[greykev.livejournal.com]

I didn't mark it, but I specifically dislike Set as a character; ooh evil snake god! If they're going to make sh!t up I wish authors would just go whole-hog and make an entire fantasy world to go with their ill-considered, one-dimensional deities.

As an aside, do you think a cakeier gingersnap recipe (one that doesn't set into a firm hard cookie) would work for a jelly roll? perhaps with lemony cream cheese filling? Last year I did scones for the Library's 12 days of Christmas, I wanted to try something new this year.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Baldr and I do not get along. That's more conceptual than how he's handled, though. As far as handling, the handling of Loki drives me up a wall. Loki != Lucifer. Loki = Lucifer books make me want to hurl them across the room. I am a grown-up, so I do not. But I want to.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

There is a lot of god-related laziness in fiction. Alas.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Citrus kisses are little drop cookies -- orange cookie with orange frosting, lemon with lemon, etc. New to me this year, may not make them again if I don't like how they go this time.

Spritz are almond cookies made with a cookie press.

Cream cheese drops are drop cookies with a simple frosting, made with cream cheese and pecans.

Russian teacakes are the little dense ball cookies with chopped pecans, rolled in powdered sugar. (I usually hate powdered sugar, but I like teacakes.)

Almond bark is, depending on who you ask, the same stuff as white chocolate.

Apple bread is like banana bread. But with chopped apples instead of mashed bananas.

Re: the virtue of photography

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ginger YAY!

[snurri.livejournal.com]

True dat.

Krampusz?

[kaustin.livejournal.com]

You mean this guy?

He doesn't look like he'd hurt a fly!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And disrespect to the idea of Odin via fiction is just as annoying or upsetting as disrespect to the idea of Thor etc., for you? Or have I not quite got it yet?

Re: Krampusz?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Usually he is dressed more decorously when he comes with Mikulas.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I have similar problems with Loki, as noted above: people who are looking for Lucifer should either use Lucifer or make up a new mythology, not mess with trickster gods.

Lemony cream cheese filling: yes. Just so. My Guinness gingerbread might be closer to the recipe you want than pepparkakor.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well. One will do what one can, hmm?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Waltzing naked through the woo-ids, it's good enough for me!

[songwind.livejournal.com]

I don't find any of the Norse deities particularly onerous, though Thor is frequently stupid and somewhat annoying in fiction, and Odin's always so smug. :)

I frequently get annoyed at the use of Taoist, Buddhist and Hindu mythology in western fiction because it seems like authors don't want to do sufficient research. They get Tibetan mysticism in my Theravada Buddhism, and forget that Krishna and Vishnu are the same person, etc.