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skasion posted:A dragon is an animal named after dragons. You know, like the dragons in the Bible, or the ones the Roman army uses as standards. No one would say that an earthworm isn't a worm and is only named after worms, even though the English word worm has the same semantic history. It's clear that there's some overlap conceptually between worms and worms: they're long, they're thin, they're creepy (literally, they creep about on or in the ground), they twist about, you may well find them in a burial mound if you go digging up treasure. Other features like the scales or the fire or the wings or the penetrating hypnotic gaze or the literal identity with Satan may be present in only some worms, but what do you expect, they can't all be Smaug the Terrible, chiefest and greatest of calamities. so, by that logic dragon flies are dragons, too? and dragon fruit should then count, too, since they're fruit named after dragons gently caress, now I can't stop thinking about plant dragons
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# ? Oct 7, 2023 22:51 |
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# ? May 10, 2024 21:32 |
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Snapdragons
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# ? Oct 7, 2023 23:05 |
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Butt draggin' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKxlvWOqmFs
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# ? Oct 7, 2023 23:07 |
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I've managed to fool a few people into thinking jackalopes are in fact real.
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# ? Oct 7, 2023 23:26 |
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Tulip posted:If I were a farmer with no internet access who learned everything via word of mouth it would be very easy to convince me that dragons existed somewhere else even if I had never seen one. I'd just be like "wow that's crazy." "If dragons are real... then show me." *flashes you a highly-detailed woodcut print* "...well I'll be goddamned. That's nuts."
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# ? Oct 7, 2023 23:28 |
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Star Man posted:I've managed to fool a few people into thinking jackalopes are in fact real. I mean that's because they are. I've seen their heads!
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# ? Oct 7, 2023 23:33 |
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Hippocrass posted:I mean that's because they are. It's true!
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# ? Oct 8, 2023 00:10 |
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Libluini posted:so, by that logic dragon flies are dragons, too? and dragon fruit should then count, too, since they're fruit named after dragons My I introduce you to a little series called pokémon? Also I hope one day future archaeologists find and debate the nature of pokémon. Pikachu was the chief of the pantheon, while raichu the god of storms and power stood in opposition. The post of high priest changed on a regular basis, each office holder introducing a new form, with only Pikachu constant. There seems to have been much debate regarding the status of Lucario as either a « loving furry cringe mon » or « the coolest ever » Edgar Allen Ho fucked around with this message at 00:27 on Oct 8, 2023 |
# ? Oct 8, 2023 00:22 |
skasion posted:Canst thou draw out Leviathan with a taxonomy?
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# ? Oct 8, 2023 04:43 |
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I wish I had history questions related to this, because it feels like this thread is the closest fit, but then also not really. Going from just reading Bart Ehrman's the Apocryphal Gospels I decided to just read all of the stuff from Nag Hammadi (reading Meyer's The Nag Hammadi Scriptures, probably gonna read Pagel's The Gnostic Gospels alongside it.) I don't even know why I'm doing this, I guess vaguely because I just wanna get a feel for that whole very early creation of Christianity kind of time and mindset, and the Orthodox "this was the early church they were unified in their beliefs x church is just like that/descended directly from that" is complete bullshit. And it feels like the gnostic stuff is the closest thing we have texts from for one of those very Roman-era mystery religions. A lot of it is a pain in the rear end to read, guys jerking themself off about "watch me say some contradictory thing and then say if you don't get it it's because you don't have gnosis!" but I just read the Gospel of Truth, it's genuinely incredibly well written and kinda beautiful. Whoever wrote it was really good at it, and I just kinda wonder who unknown incredibly talented author from 1800 years ago was. Maybe it actually was Valentinian? Anyway, Gospel of Truth, absolute pro-read. Not even long but just really good and does explain a whole cosmology and stuff with a lot of that kinda gnostic "these words aren't what you think they are when you first read it" thing but still making sense.
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# ? Oct 8, 2023 06:06 |
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When people live in a time where literally over half the world is acknowledged as a mystery to them and for all we know maybe dog faced men live in India they probably aren't too fussed on whether dragons are a real thing or not, yeah. If anything there's interesting ideas about non human beings being able and willing to worship God and making a point of showing them doing so. Reminds me of Islamic folklore that goes that Djinn can and do follow the same religions humans do, that there are Jewish, Christian and Muslim Djinn, and they are judged the same way humans are.
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# ? Oct 8, 2023 10:15 |
Ghost Leviathan posted:When people live in a time where literally over half the world is acknowledged as a mystery to them and for all we know maybe dog faced men live in India they probably aren't too fussed on whether dragons are a real thing or not, yeah. If anything there's interesting ideas about non human beings being able and willing to worship God and making a point of showing them doing so.
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# ? Oct 8, 2023 10:25 |
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BrainDance posted:I wish I had history questions related to this, because it feels like this thread is the closest fit, but then also not really. , currently reading Nag Hammadi buddy
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# ? Oct 8, 2023 12:32 |
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BrainDance posted:So, this is weird to me. I might be giving medieval people too much of the benefit of the doubt, but this book seems to be asking to be taken literally. I would have assumed by then people had realized dragons were mythical? Since no one in the Roman empire for example had ever really seen one first hand I'd imagine. And it's just so bizarre that they're just walking along and like out of just any old cave 3 dragons pop out. I just imagine, if I was in that situation and time and I read that I'd think "I've passed by hundreds of caves, never seen a dragon pop out." If you look at the various paintings of "St George and the Dragon", you don't see D&D-style house sized dragon breathing a giant cone of breath weapon. They mostly look like an alligator or crocodile with wings (usually instead of forearms), they're even of similar size to those. If you can believe a crocodile, I think a crocodile with wings instead of arms is not that big of a stretch, while the Tolkein/D&D style dragon is more of a 20th century phenomenon (especially with how widespread and specific it is). SlothfulCobra posted:This is a time before zoos or photographs. There are definitely a lot of animals out there, but you have to be extremely well-traveled to see most of them. It was before the word 'zoo' was coined and before publicly accessible zoos - there were menageries maintained by royalty and other rich people going back at least to BCs, but they weren't something most people would have access to. I think the lack of photographs is another major part. In the 20th century, if someone says 'there's really a dragon/duck-billed platypus', one of them can produce a National Geographic photo spread of the creature and the other can't. Before widespread photography, both of them could produce a description or drawing (or woodcut, or carving, etc.) of one and they'd both look equally realistic, especially before highly realistic art styles took off. It's obviously not impossible to fake a photograph, but it's a lot harder to do and has to be deliberate. When all of your knowledge of lions, giraffes, alligators, elephants, and so on come from descriptions and artistic interpretation, I don't see why a dragon (that's basically 'one of these, but with wings') would warrant extra skepticism.
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# ? Oct 8, 2023 19:35 |
I think it went the other way sometimes, too. Aren't giraffes called "kirin" in Japanese (and maybe the equivalent in Chinese?) because once they finally got around India and caught a few and brought them back to China, they responded: 'well, this kind of looks like the legendary animal, obviously the same thing.'
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# ? Oct 8, 2023 19:53 |
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Yeah, the line between a real creature and a made-up creature is a matter of terminology to an extent. Marco Polo talks about unicorns, but makes it clear that they're very different from the popular European conception of unicorns (he's referring to a rhinoceros). In later centuries, some people would look at a narwhal and say "it turns out unicorns are actually aquatic." Marco Polo also talked about salamanders, but noted that they are actually minerals rather than animals (i.e., asbestos), which is a bit of a terminological stretch. On the other hand, the creature we call a salamander today lacks the asbestos-like fire resistance of the legendary salamander.
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# ? Oct 8, 2023 20:03 |
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The modern dragon image was well established before Tolkien though I’m sure he’s in large part responsible for popularizing it. But he himself is going off well established precedents like in Spenser for exampleFaerie Queene I, Canto XI.viii-xiv posted:By this the dreadfull Beast drew nigh to hand,
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# ? Oct 8, 2023 20:13 |
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Sure, but Spenser was writing allegorical fantasy, and despite his attempt to write like Chaucer, he was actually a contemporary of Shakespeare. He's not a good source for what medieval people believed about dragons.
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# ? Oct 8, 2023 20:20 |
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Star Man posted:I've managed to fool a few people into thinking jackalopes are in fact real. Unfortunately they are.
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# ? Oct 8, 2023 20:33 |
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Silver2195 posted:Sure, but Spenser was writing allegorical fantasy, and despite his attempt to write like Chaucer, he was actually a contemporary of Shakespeare. He's not a good source for what medieval people believed about dragons. I didn’t say he was medieval, rather modern. Just responding to the notion that the image of the modern dragon is a 20th century thing. Spenser may not have “believed” in dragons but this is not really relevant. Regardless of their thoughts on its physical description, medievals would certainly have understood the point Spenser’s dragon was trying to make, namely that Satan is terrifying.
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# ? Oct 8, 2023 20:41 |
I suspect tolkien was very specifically drawing on the volsungasaga.
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# ? Oct 8, 2023 20:53 |
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I suspect tolkien was very specifically drawing on the volsungasaga. For Smaug? Most directly, William Morris’ version of Fafnir + some elements of the Beowulf dragon—but also as a slight send-up of his own previous take on this concept, the Book of Lost Tales’ Glorund(=the Silmarillion’s Glaurung)
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# ? Oct 8, 2023 21:16 |
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Silver2195 posted:Sure, but Spenser was writing allegorical fantasy, and despite his attempt to write like Chaucer, he was actually a contemporary of Shakespeare. He's not a good source for what medieval people believed about dragons. But consider that Spenser was writing heavily in imitation of medieval representation, to the extent that he was using archaic grammar and word forms to hit that vibe. There's a ton of stylistic overlap between TFQ and medieval romance.
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# ? Oct 9, 2023 01:16 |
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BrainDance posted:I got a question, I don't know if it has an answer but I'm still curious. Walking by a cave and 3 dragons pop out? Totally believable, gotta roll a 99 on the random encounter table sometime. The finest cartographers have clearly marked out where the dragons are at, have you just never seen a map before? Really telling on yourself about your ignorance here bro. On a more serious note, in Revelation 20, Satan is explicitly described as a dragon. I'm not sure what conclusions you might draw from that, but surely the author would be familiar with that usage. Dopilsya fucked around with this message at 01:39 on Oct 9, 2023 |
# ? Oct 9, 2023 01:36 |
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Dopilsya posted:On a more serious note, in Revelation 20, Satan is explicitly described as a dragon. I'm not sure what conclusions you might draw from that, but surely the author would be familiar with that usage. Yes but nowadays we just call them Billionaires. Who have less money than Smaug.
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# ? Oct 9, 2023 09:25 |
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FreudianSlippers posted:Some good Dragons
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# ? Oct 9, 2023 12:08 |
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What is the feature of dragons that distinguishes them then from non-dragon large lizards? It doesn't seem like it's wings because I guess not all dragons fly. I don't think all dragons breathe fire. Like if you gave a komodo dragon to a medieval European person wouldn't that just actually be a dragon to them?
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# ? Oct 9, 2023 12:35 |
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A dragon is just a really big snake. Sometimes with wings. See: Níðhöggr The Hydra Satan
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# ? Oct 9, 2023 12:44 |
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Also sometimes, a somewhat big cat. See: Tatzelwurm
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# ? Oct 9, 2023 13:25 |
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You could very plausibly taxidermy (is that a verb?) a crocodile head from Egypt and show it off in Europe as a dragon head. Nile crocodiles can get real big and scary.
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# ? Oct 9, 2023 13:28 |
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Lead out in cuffs posted:I'm just remembering when they went around asking a bunch of Americans, right around the time of the invasion, to point out Iraq on a map. NGL, if someone asked me that I'd point to where I was right then on the map just to troll condescending survey takers.
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# ? Oct 9, 2023 21:22 |
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Cessna posted:NGL, if someone asked me that I'd point to where I was right then on the map just to troll condescending survey takers. Yeah, some absolute malicious respondents in this particular one.
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# ? Oct 9, 2023 21:28 |
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that distribution looks like 'i don't know but the form requires me to pick a location; I can't answer that I have no idea' so they just click randomly
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# ? Oct 9, 2023 21:32 |
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Me being asked to identify Baghdad and pointing to Bagdad, AZ. When I am told am incorrect I nod sagely and point to Bagdad, CA
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# ? Oct 9, 2023 21:33 |
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Nobody knows where anything is. I've done so many map activities with students and the only ones who have the slightest clue about geography are the nerds who play Paradox games.
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# ? Oct 9, 2023 21:35 |
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cheetah7071 posted:that distribution looks like 'i don't know but the form requires me to pick a location; I can't answer that I have no idea' so they just click randomly Personally, I think Iran is at Point Nemo Grand Fromage posted:Nobody knows where anything is. I've done so many map activities with students and the only ones who have the slightest clue about geography are the nerds who play Paradox games. Yeah but no one thinks Iran is in the ocean or in America
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# ? Oct 9, 2023 21:35 |
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Grand Fromage posted:Nobody knows where anything is. I've done so many map activities with students and the only ones who have the slightest clue about geography are the nerds who play Paradox games. hello, did you teach me? also, taking a train to Italy tomorrow and I swear to relish every single dick drawn between Ostia and Pompeii and the other stuff but being real, the dicks mostly
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# ? Oct 9, 2023 22:00 |
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Maybe just barely thread adjacent, but David Mitchell wrote a book about the medieval kings of England. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqwMLCh8RnE This is really good video BTW. Mitchell seems to have done tons of research.
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# ? Oct 9, 2023 22:55 |
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Cessna posted:NGL, if someone asked me that I'd point to where I was right then on the map just to troll condescending survey takers. Yeah have you seen the survey that shows 10% of teenagers do every drug, have sex ten times a day and are seven foot tall quadruple amputees who weigh 999 pounds
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# ? Oct 9, 2023 23:11 |
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# ? May 10, 2024 21:32 |
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zoux posted:
Weird how many of the us guesses are concentrated around Louisiana/east Texas/Oklahoma ish
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# ? Oct 9, 2023 23:22 |