The new Thoress?

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

The Goddess of Thunder

 

Marvel must have lost it marbles.  They've always played fast and loose with the Norse Myths, but this takes the cake.  The Norse pantheon is male dominated, but then all early myths are after the deposing of the Mother goddess about 6,000 years ago.

 

I don't think this is going to sell, fellas.

 

If they wanted a powerful female from those stories they could have used Fricka (Odin's wife), or even Brunhilde (who isn't even in those stories except by Richard Wagner).  It is pretty well established that while Odin cheated on Fricka she extracted some pretty terrible penalties from him.  Fricka is the goddess of home and family and marriage.

 

[Note: Brunhilde the Valkyrie is one of nine sired on Erda the Earth goddess by Odin.  I am not sure this is more than a side story in the main myth cycle.  Brunhilde was actually a princess of Burgundy who was wooed by Siegfried of the house of Orange in the Volsungasaga.]

[Thin White Duke 4,072]

As a Swedish person, I actually feel slightly offended. I don't believe in Scandinavian mythology. I'm not a religious person at all, in fact. But I feel like they think they can do whatever they want with the gods that my ancestors believe in, and thereby, in a way, make fun of them. That is not okay. It makes me feel mocked.

[Duke87 1,070]

*shrug* hey, rule 63. There is already plenty of fanmade material with female Thor out there. Been to any conventions lately? I have a picture of someone I know dressed as female Loki posing in a fight with some random stranger dressed as female Thor. The gender fluidity of characters in nerd culture is well established.

 

Then you also have the fact that female protagonists are significantly lesser in number than male protagonists in the world of superheroes and such. This is something that a lot of fans complain about - female fans because they want more characters they can identify with, male fans because they want more characters they can treat as eye candy.

 

So honestly I can't object to this. Everyone wins.

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

Ridiculous.  What was wrong with a big, dumb, burly, blond dude waving a hammer around and zapping people with lightning for the sake of justice?  I've always liked him, the weirdness of his old comic books is appealing on a, um, a weird level, and my collection has a sizable chunk of them, as well as all his Avengers appearances.  This just REEKS of publicity stunt.  Besides, we already have a female Thor.  What's wrong with Valkyrie?  Nothing, that's what.  Publicity stunt.  Are they gonna change him in the movies?  Can we get Samus Aran made suddenly male?  I mean, why not, right?

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Chuckle.  The next thing you'll get is a female Vulcan or Apollo.  Nothing is sacred, and stuff that was sacred a couple of thousand years ago is now just grist for the P.R. mill.  BTW, violent females give me a large lump in the guts.  I like strong women but muscle-bound ones are just bizarre.

[Easy Bakes 253]

They Killed off Archie too

 

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/16/how-archie-dies-teenage-comic-stars-heroic-fate-revealed

 

not that i care. haven't read a comic book since 1980.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

The new Thor turns out to be a HUMAN! She is a doctor with cancer that goes away when she wields Mjölnir but comes back with a vengeance as soon she stops.

--Ocram

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

That will make me Thor and Thorer.  Monkeying with the Morse Nyths is media foolishness.

[AkemiAzula 280]

Myths are just stories like any other. The only difference between an episode of The Simpsons and a biblical tale are the cultural associations and religious associations.

From the perspective of a universe creator/author the tales of the gods are as fair play for inspiration as the tales of skateboarders or donut eating nuclear power plant officers

[LexusInfernus 908]

Oh big deal. Someone took a fictional character, and changed their gender around. Why is that wrong? Its fiction, you can do whatever you want in fiction. And if you are a half capable writer, you can use gender bending to subvert expectations and tell an interesting story that way. And thats all that really matters here, is the story good. 

 

Don't like it, then don't buy the comic books. But I would caution against hating it on principle because they turned Thor into a woman. Read it first, perhaps you'll be pleasantly surprised. 

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

At least call her Thoress, or Thora or even Thorina.

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Mjolnir is not a lady-like device.  If the writers want to set back the anti-feminist groups why not simply revert to the per-Achaean Mother cults?  If they wanted a nasty Norse goddess, they could have used Erda.

[blade2k5 1,523]

The Goddess of Thunder

 

Marvel must have lost it marbles.  They've always played fast and loose with the Norse Myths, but this takes the cake.  The Norse pantheon is male dominated, but then all early myths are after the deposing of the Mother goddess about 6,000 years ago.

 

I don't think this is going to sell, fellas.

 

If they wanted a powerful female from those stories they could have used Fricka (Odin's wife), or even Brunhilde (who isn't even in those stories except by Richard Wagner).  It is pretty well established that while Odin cheated on Fricka she extracted some pretty terrible penalties from him.  Fricka is the goddess of home and family and marriage.

 

[Note: Brunhilde the Valkyrie is one of nine sired on Erda the Earth goddess by Odin.  I am not sure this is more than a side story in the main myth cycle.  Brunhilde was actually a princess of Burgundy who was wooed by Siegfried of the house of Orange in the Volsungasaga.]

 

 

If you had paid any attention to Marvel's Thor, you would have realized that Marvel only loosely follows Norse mythology.  So this is no surprise.  If you want actual Norse mythology, Marvel is the wrong place to look for it.

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

^ Well, I don't marvel at Marvel.  As producers of the pap of mayhem they may be OK, but I like my gods on a more hit than miss basis.  I don't remember them as comic book publishers when I was a kid or even later when I sold comic books.  They must have good market penetration now, however, since they seem to have created a pantheon of rather silly characters.  Of all the weird ones, the Hulk is the strangest.  Where does all that mass come from, and where does it go?  He is stranger than Billy Batson (Shazam!).

[blade2k5 1,523]

^ Well, I don't marvel at Marvel.  As producers of the pap of mayhem they may be OK, but I like my gods on a more hit than miss basis.  I don't remember them as comic book publishers when I was a kid or even later when I sold comic books.  They must have good market penetration now, however, since they seem to have created a pantheon of rather silly characters.  Of all the weird ones, the Hulk is the strangest.  Where does all that mass come from, and where does it go?  He is stranger than Billy Batson (Shazam!).

 

Like I said, Marvel is the wrong place to look for authenticity in Norse mythology.  I think you're just looking for something to complain about because it doesn't fit your standards.  I mean really, if you don't like this Thor, then why pay any attention to it only to complain about it?

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

^  I must say that I am mildly amused.

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

This dude used to be Thor, so I guess it's not that ridiculous, but it's still Jane Foster.  It is just a publicity stunt, make no mistake.  Whatever, in comic books, anything goes.

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Speaking of Wikipedia, good old Thor is the Norse Mythos protector of mankind.  Is Thoress going to be the mother of mankind?  What happened to good old Erda?  Those guys at Marvel are building their own mythos.

[Meg 368]

I thought Thor was the Supreme Commander of the Asgard fleet.

[blade2k5 1,523]

Those guys at Marvel are building their own mythos.

 

And there's something wrong with that?

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

 

Those guys at Marvel are building their own mythos.

 

And there's something wrong with that?

 

Heavens no.  It is important that they get a hit and not a myth.  Maybe they can supply the mything link.

 

Thor can be looked at as sitting at the right hand of Odin, or he could even be the chief god.  The writings that have come down from Iceland seem to put it either way.  Of course, Odin was a generally bad boy going around having sex with anything that moved.  He called on Erda who then had a set of nonuplets (the Valkyries), so you can take your myth any way you like. 

 

Wagner made up his own plot and even the characters of some of the gods and took them into a Germanic theme.  If you look for the characters in the Ring cycle in history they are actually there:  Siegfried was a prince of the house of Orange (Netherlands) and Brunhilde was the daughter of the Duke of Burgundy, so it was really a diplomatic affair.  Then along came Adolf the Aryan (who wasn't by the way) and he fell in love with the massive music that kind of matched his ideas of architecture, but by then he had rusty tool steel from ear to ear and a tin ear besides.

 

Actually the Norse Myth I really like is the story of how Heimdall lost his hand.  In order to prevent Ragnarok (end of everything) it was necessary to bind the Fenris wolf to the tree of life (Yggdrasil), but Fenris would only agree to being bound with ribbons if Heimdall would put his hand in its mouth until the binding was complete.  Loki used some rather strong ribbons (Loki is equivalent to the native American Trickster), and when Fenris couldn't get free, he bit off Heimdall's hand.

 

Now in the Marvel myth, Loki is a waif from the Frost Giants who was fostered by Odin as his son (step-brother of Thor), and turns out to be a real villain.  In the sagas from Iceland, Loki is an elemental and not a god or even a demi-god.  He is simply a rather malevolent force of nature.  I really can't imaging how the American writers at Marvel came up with the origins of Loki, because if anything, Loki is related to Erda (the earth mother elemental).  It is hard to get the mind around the idea that there are beings in the Norse Mythos that are not gods or demi-gods, but the Greek equivalent of these elementals would be the Titans. 

 

Oh, and Loki is the fire elemental in most of the stories.  I think Wagner took a faint reference for this so that he could get his magic fire scenes in Die Valkyie and Seigfried (episodes 2 and 3 of the Ring Cycle).  {I am not a particular fan of Wagner, but I do like Der Flegende Höllander.  And I just can't stand Parsifal.}

 

Now I like parody, particulary when someone takes the pickle out of some stuffy old thing.  But really, I don't think Thor would stand for a gender change.  He has just too much testosterone for that.  I really think they've made a mythtake on this one.

[LexusInfernus 908]

Heavens no.  It is important that they get a hit and not a myth.  Maybe they can supply the mything link.

 

Thor can be looked at as sitting at the right hand of Odin, or he could even be the chief god.  The writings that have come down from Iceland seem to put it either way.  Of course, Odin was a generally bad boy going around having sex with anything that moved.  He called on Erda who then had a set of nonuplets (the Valkyries), so you can take your myth any way you like. 

 

Wagner made up his own plot and even the characters of some of the gods and took them into a Germanic theme.  If you look for the characters in the Ring cycle in history they are actually there:  Siegfried was a prince of the house of Orange (Netherlands) and Brunhilde was the daughter of the Duke of Burgundy, so it was really a diplomatic affair.  Then along came Adolf the Aryan (who wasn't by the way) and he fell in love with the massive music that kind of matched his ideas of architecture, but by then he had rusty tool steel from ear to ear and a tin ear besides.

 

Actually the Norse Myth I really like is the story of how Heimdall lost his hand.  In order to prevent Ragnarok (end of everything) it was necessary to bind the Fenris wolf to the tree of life (Yggdrasil), but Fenris would only agree to being bound with ribbons if Heimdall would put his hand in its mouth until the binding was complete.  Loki used some rather strong ribbons (Loki is equivalent to the native American Trickster), and when Fenris couldn't get free, he bit off Heimdall's hand.

 

Now in the Marvel myth, Loki is a waif from the Frost Giants who was fostered by Odin as his son (step-brother of Thor), and turns out to be a real villain.  In the sagas from Iceland, Loki is an elemental and not a god or even a demi-god.  He is simply a rather malevolent force of nature.  I really can't imaging how the American writers at Marvel came up with the origins of Loki, because if anything, Loki is related to Erda (the earth mother elemental).  It is hard to get the mind around the idea that there are beings in the Norse Mythos that are not gods or demi-gods, but the Greek equivalent of these elementals would be the Titans. 

 

Oh, and Loki is the fire elemental in most of the stories.  I think Wagner took a faint reference for this so that he could get his magic fire scenes in Die Valkyie and Seigfried (episodes 2 and 3 of the Ring Cycle).  {I am not a particular fan of Wagner, but I do like Der Flegende Höllander.  And I just can't stand Parsifal.}

 

Now I like parody, particulary when someone takes the pickle out of some stuffy old thing.  But really, I don't think Thor would stand for a gender change.  He has just too much testosterone for that.  I really think they've made a mythtake on this one.

 

Look, Marvel's Thor was never meant to be a comic book take on actual Norse myths. The writers at Marvel just borrowed the names and iconography from the Norse myths to add flavor to their own setting. Also I suppose its a genius marketing ploy, everyone knows about Thor so when you have a viking looking dude named Thor with a big hammer, you instantly recognize who he is and what he does. There never was an intention to remain true to the actual myths, I mean, they have Thor fight extra dimensional aliens in a bunch of stories. Really, you should see the Marvel Thor and the Norse myth Thor as two wholly separate things. As such its fine for Marvel to change the gender of their characters without upsetting fans because its no longer true to the original Thor myths. Of course, they do run the risk of upsetting fans because they turned Thor into a woman because they make him a woman. 

 

Though I suppose gender switches have been done before, and I guess that if the story itself is good, most people won't care. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

--------------------------

 

Text removed due to rudeness  - Meg