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#no seriously adam from the bible
astoriachef · 1 month
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But why does he look like Bret Hart?
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The Biggest Problem With Hazbin Hotel's Rehabilitation Mentality Is Trying To Make All Sinners Victims Instead Of Owning Up To Their Own Sins
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I think the biggest problem with Hazbin Hotel rehabilitation mentality is that they focus in on how sinners are victim of circumstances rather than owning up to their problems and changing themselves. I think the biggest thing with this series is the fact that they think the problem is society instead of someone's own issues how they got into hell.
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One of the first indications of this bs is making it out that Lucifer and Lilith were just misunderstood dreamers were against a strict ignoring that they caused sin in the world and caused help humanity's downfall. But the narrative ignores that fact and tries to treat them as victims of heaven, so we can have Lucifer as a misunderstood sad boy instead of how in the Bible he was jealous of humanity and wanted to bring it down with him due to God's love for them. A misunderstood sad boy wouldn't do this type of shit and Vivziepop selling it a load of it.
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I know this is going to be controversial but I think Angel Dust is hindered as a character but not focusing on what got him into hell. And it wasn't just the drugs and sex, because he did kill people and some of them probably didn't end up in hell. So just imagine him being sent to heaven and his former victims recognized him for his crimes and until now showed repentance. However, the narrative even then doesn't focus on that fact but the idea he's a total victim and doesn't show part of his way to redemption is get his life back together and admit he's done shit where he wasn't the victim but the victimizer. One could say he was put through that life, but then again show his sister is in heaven and that she chose a life of virtue and made it. So, he has no excuse of his dad or brother getting himself into hell except himself and he needs to work on it. Even if he's a victim to Valentino, he still is a victimizer in someone else's eyes who recognizes him decades ago.
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And I am also going to say this the Extermination is used as a way to have all of hell be turned into pitied victims that you forget a lot of them are in hell for a reason. And even more they are doing antics that got them probably into hell like murder, sex, and other types of depravity. While not all sinners are on the same level, the exterminations as a whole just i used to make you forget that they are there for a reason and erase that there is a reason they weren't given a chance into heaven. Seriously, Emily herself called them innocent souls when in any other scene they are far from innocent and the reason why Adam is depicted as a one note villain is because they can't fathom the idea that maybe the Extermination could be used to cull the worst sinners or something.
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I think the biggest problem with Hazbin Hotel's every sinner is really a victim it comes ironically counter to finding redemption. A show which Vivziepop says she inspires from but she completely misses the point is Bojack. She says she's watched it but the biggest point of the show just because you are the victim doesn't give you an excuse to act like a total jackass to others and not own up to your mistakes. The problem is Habzin Hotel never lets anyone own up because they have to play victims, especially any character favored by Vivziepop. Redemption doesn't come from seeing yourself as a victim, but recognizing your own mistakes and how to reform from them. And frankly I didn't see Angel Dust want to reform from his mistakes, but just want a home away from Val. The problem is that Hazbin Hotel is about enforcing victimhood instead of owning up that you did bad things and need to change. An excuse for your behavior is still not fully an excuse and you need to own up to your actions.
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Remember this post where I talk about the points "for" and "against" who Nightbringer could be, with the obvious choices being Barbatos and Michael (seriously read that post, so that this post will make more sense)
Ok so more points! To be honest though, this post is less about Barbatos vs Michael and more about Demon vs Angel
1.) MC actually meets and talks with Nightbringer who says he's a demon
BUT he says it like this:
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• Barbatos should know by now that MC has never had a problem trusting demons. They're literally in the situation they're in now because they gave a book that could have easily stopped him to the demon that was trying to kill them 5s ago and then pledged to protect that demon & his family and keep them happy
• Angels on the other hand do think like this. We see it from what Luke & (to a lesser extent) Raphael say. From what Lucifer says when he first meets Diavolo. From the (pretty fucked up but also lore/relationship building) angel event. Even from Simeon every once in a while.
2.) It's (probably) not present Barbatos because Nightbringer says that the new path that MC is on will bring about true happiness, whereas the path MC was already on (post s4) was already steadily moving towards what Diavolo wanted (they had a human employed in a high position in the Devildom hello???), and so was also what Barbatos wanted. I'd say it's also probably not past Barbatos (and I talk about why in the post I linked up top)
3.) Nightbringer, also tries to guide MC and get them to do what he wants because he thinks that's the best path, even when they repeatedly say they don't want this. This also feels like something an angel would do? Like demons make pacts with humans and then they have to listen and do whatever the human commands them to. Angels become guardian angels for certain humans, they're not supposed to interact with the humans but they are supposed to protect them - that sounds like there's a lot less of the human's decisions/choices/free will being taken into consideration than when in a pact with demons.
4.) Adam says he heard trumpets right before he met Nightbringer. And look it's been like over a decade since I read the Bible (so please correct me if I'm wrong) but aren't trumpets very famously associated with angels?
5.) Say we take Nightbringer's name very literally, as in Night - Bringer. And Nightbringer's little slam poetry sesh after talking with MC implies it should be taken literally. He brings darkness. And um....
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??????
Now I'm not placing all my bets on Nightbringer being an angel.
There's always the possibility it's a third secret Barbatos (which I think would be very funny) or a completely different character
Right now, I'm just simply laying out all the facts that we've been presented with. Eiher way I'm excited to find out who it is (and punch him in the face. I think MC deserves to break his jaw)
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9.) Presumably-Michael says that the MC allying with Nightbringer would piss the Celestial Realm off
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copiasass · 1 year
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i found the old post of all the reasons why i see Copia as the anti-christ:
1) Aight the first one is like the art from Pro Memoria and the rest of my points will be under the cut
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Copia has the mark of the beast on his chest which isn't a clear indication that he's the anti-Christ, anyone can have that tattoo. At first glance it just looks like Adam and Eve, which obviously its inspired by? But what I find fascinating about the choice here is that he is the one offering Eve the fruit. So he's clearly being depicted as the serpent here, offering Eve knowledge and mortality (which like, the song is about).
Could've chosen any other boring ass bland dude to be depicted here but nope. Copia.
2) The album artwork itself
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The cardinal is quite literally sitting on a throne on top of the entrance of hell.
That is in the mouth of a three-headed beast which Cerberus (which is Greek but still hell/Hades related) which is a hell hound but turned into a rat.
There are also six wings spreading from behind the cardinal and none of the papas have really been depicted so explicitly to be devilish? Seriously, compare the artwork of the other albums, all the Papas are there, yes, but none so explicitly mirroring the devil.
Lucifer is a seraphim in most interpretations of the bible, and they have six wings.
the album artwork is also inspired by this album artwork:
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so yeah definitely a Theme Going On Here Don't You Think?
Let's talk about the throne that the cardinal is sitting on?
The colors are blue and gold, which is a HUGE stark contrast to the rest of the colors of the album artwork. The blue and gold throne matches with Copia's new color scheme as Papa IV
Which, at first I just thought "WOW NEAT so tobias had papa iv's color scheme planned out for a while huh"
But if you look at the other side of the album artwork:
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From left to right we see papa i, papa ii, papa nihil, sister imperator, papa iii, and then copia
but what i find fascinating about this is the lady behind copia? who's wearing blue and gold, which is papa iv's colors?
Could just be a random lady like the other people in the artwork but I find her interesting and of note because she's so explicitly highlighted from the rest of the crowd, surrounded by two devilish beings that appear to be her bodyguards. cause she's wearing blue and gold? and copia looks like he's looking at her.
It's a bit of a jump, yes, but I think that lady is Lucifer.
Tobias Forge has mentioned before that he thinks of lucifer as a man, woman, or nonbinary. Lucifer doesn't exactly HAVE a gender for Tobias, or at least can be whatever gender lucifer wants to be in the moment. I cannot for the life of me find that quote, but I know its out there somewhere.
3) The first horseman is interpreted to be the anti-christ
From the wiki page:
In John's revelation, the first horseman is on a white horse, carrying a bow, and given a crown, riding forward as a figure of Conquest, perhaps invoking Pestilence, Christ, or the Antichrist.
Obviously he's not carrying a bow, but he is on a white horse.
And like most people, I always thought the first horseman was pestilence, but there's several interpretations of who conquest is.
One of the interpretations of conquest is also that he is the anti-christ.
So copia being conquest in a mashup of both pestilience and the anti-christ? Yeah, I dig it.
Also, my girlfriend told me that back during the black death people thought it was the cause of the anti-christ from some podcast she listens to. So the anti-christ and pestilience kinda mesh together into conquest.
4) Tobias Forge is CLEARLY inspired by the Omen series for ghost. He's said it himself this project is like omen and exorcist but as a stage show and band.
He also clearly made it a thing in the prequelle skits that the omen series is a clear inspiration.
So obviously the shining is a clear inspiration here as well but like, Damien (who is the anti-Christ) also rides a tricycle in the first omen movie:
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6) Damien and copia are around the same age.
So this theory is connected to the sister-imperator-is-copia's mom theory (this was written before that was confirmed in that Doom chapter)
i ran out of images allowed on this post but
There's the moment in the prequelle skits where sister imperator touches her stomach, implying that she's pregnant. She also attacks a lady for smoking near her which kinda tracks with her not wanting secondhand smoke around the kid.
So many people assume that she's pregnant with nihil's kid and sure yeah. I can see, its a way better assumption than what i'm about to shit out on here but:
The lyrics to prime mover come to mind when i think of these two theories combining into one?
here's the lyrics:
A secretive nun
Bearing the old ones' bastard son
Selected heir
Machinary insect
Bloodline of the dark architect
Toxic blood
Of not known birth
Antichrist will walk the earth
i think most people interpret this song to be about a nun that bears satan's child. sister imperator, a nun, bearing copia? so that's how i interpret that. its from the first ghost album so maybe it doesn't really have any part to do with what tobias is doing now post-meliora eras but i found that interesting
so what if copia is tobias forge's alternate take on the anti-christ from the omen series?
the omen was released in 1976 but was mostly filmed in 1975 making a 5 year old damien born in 1970 or around that time
the date of kiss-the-go-goat video is september 13th, 1969 (also, the main joke here was it being the day Scooby Doo aired, but it still works in pregnancy timing)
but if she's pregnant in the video copia would have been born in 1970. If pregnant around that time she would have given birth around June of 1970, making a 6AM, June 6th birthday track: 666.
Same, or close-ish, to damien's age.
Since tobias forge is clearly inspired by the omen series im thinking that maybe he wanted to have this an alternate take on this for my band.
Another thing that I wanted to bring up, that I didn't really when I first wrote this post out is yeah, she was pregnant touching her belly when looking at Nihil. And I truly believe that Imperator wanted Nihil to be Copia's father, even though Copia is Lucifer's son. That mirrors EXACTLY the case of Joseph and Christ. The anti-Christ is an inversion of Christ, correct? Therefore, Joseph in that inversion would've been Nihil. Basically, his kid, just not blood-related.
That was thrown out once Nihil cheated on Imperator and Copia raised, presumably, just by her.
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rius-cave · 2 months
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I think Abel was Adam's favorite son and Adam is the typical father who, when he has a prodigy son, shows him off everywhere as if "He has my genes" and always compares Cain to Abel.
And maybe when Cain tried to impress his father things went wrong or Adam found a mistake and ended up comparing him to Abel.
The text from the Bible actually supports this I'd say. I don't remember if it said that Abel was a favorite child, but the thing was that Abel did things right and was good in the eyes of God, while Cain wasn't respectful/didn't take the sacrifice seriously. TL;DR about the Cain and Abel story is that Abel offered a (lamb? it was a pure animal) to God, and Cain only offered fruits he had harvested, which weren't a suitable sacrifice to God and it wasn't accepted. This is what was probably the final straw that made Cain kill Abel.
But I agree, I mean the final straw was the rejection of God, but I definitely do think that it came from their parents as well, very very likely.
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aliferousonyx · 3 months
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Hazbin Hotel Ep 6 SPOILER!!!!!
So, I've developed a new obsession with Hazbin Hotel, and I just watched the 5th and 6th episodes. My mind is buzzing with thoughts, especially regarding the angels.
But first, a round of applause for our favorite boy, Angel Dust. He not only stood up against Valentino but proved himself worthy enough to go to heaven. Like, holy shit, this guy just made the whole haven question if a sinner can be redeemed.
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Now, about the angels.
First off, Adam – how is this guy not in hell? He ticks all the boxes:
Gluttony, [Adam eats his rib like a buzzsaw]
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Greed,
Adam: Yeah, I've never made a mistake in my fucking life.
Sloth  ( didn't bother to come to hell to taDidn't bother to come to hell to talk to charley)
Wrath,
Adam: Did I hear you imply
That they don't deserve death?
Are they Winners?
Are they Sinners?
.............
And for those of us with Divine Ordainment
Extermination is entertainment!
Seriously, this guy seems to have a real passion for taking lives. It's like his favorite hobby or something.
Envy, Lust,
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Adam: So, I was playin’ this gig, and for some fuckin’ reason, this virtue chick was diggin’ on the drummer, and it's like, “do you know who I am? I’m fuckin’ Adam. I’m the original dick!” (pointing to his penis down the table) All dicks descend from me. You think you want drummer dick? (Lute shaking her head) No way! I’m the Dick-fuckin’ master! (eats a mouthful of ribs sloppily) So, anyway, then we fucked, and it was awesome. What’d you do this weekend?
Pride. Do I have to say it?
And not only that, he's not in hell; he leads the exorcists like they're his kids.
I don't know if I hate Valentino more than Adam at this point.
Lute. I think that's Adam's daughter, maybe Aclima, since she mentioned, "The only reason you're still here is because daddy gave you and your hellborn kind a pardon from an exorcist blade."
Now, she could be referring to God, but I don't think God is involved in this.
The crucial thing I noticed is that she is the only exorcist who uses swords, unlike the others who use spears.
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The swords she uses can kill angels, as seen when she hurt Vaggie, and Vaggie didn't regenerate.
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Angels can't be hurt by angelic weapons like spears, or else the demons would have used them to kill angels if they could. Therefore, I think the only things that can hurt and kill angels are these swords, possibly flaming swords.
According to the Bible, a flaming sword was entrusted to the cherubim by God to guard the gates of Paradise after Adam and Eve were banished (Genesis 3:24).
Well, that would mean that Carmilla Carmine either got one or made one, but you need Holy Fire to make one, so I don't know.
In the pilot, Lute had two swords, and then we saw her with one when she attacked Vaggie, so there's that.
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renstears · 1 year
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Nightbringer theories (Obey Me; SPOILERS!)
Alrighty so I decided to play Nightbringer after being scared of it for the past few weeks; so far, I have some questions and theories in mind. I’m still on Lesson 8 so I’m not sure if most of my theories here are gonna be right or just straight up wrong.
Questions & Theories:
- Since Solomon came with us to the past (or more like came to the past to come aid for our ass), wouldn’t there be a chance the Solomon from THAT timeline/past meet the present Solomon we know of? Wouldn’t this create a whole time paradox….?
- Lilith’s body got disappeared by Diavolo so that she can get reincarnated as a human; would there be a chance we get to see her reincarnated form at least if we don’t see her angel form? Also, reminder that Lucifer is the only brother who knows she got reincarnated, so most likely the other 6 brothers will have a huge fucking melt down like last time in the previous Obey Me game.
- When the game first started, we hear Solomon narrating a bit about Barbatos and this human Barbatos went to. Solomon used they/them pronouns for the human, at first, I thought it might be us/MC—but then it occurred to me, why would the devs only now reveal our/MC’s appearance and the timeline that Barbatos met this human must’ve been a very very long time. Either 1. They used they/them pronouns for the human to keep their identity hidden until revealed later on 2. The human is either one of our ancestors/related to Lilith’s reincarnated form or 3. This human might be a Biblical figure from the Bible; if you go to the official Obey Me Instagram; they illustrated Barbatos controlling a puppet that looks like a king (some speculated the king is David as he is the father of Solomon).
- In another illustration made by the official Obey Me cast on Instagram, it shows Diavolo gesturing to a red apple. Either this is indicating he was the one that lured Eve to eat the apple and regretted that decision which is the reason why he decided to improve his behaviors later in life.
- Man when I heard Raphael’s voice during Asmo’s arc I thought it was Adam, but nvm, it wasn’t. We may see Adam in the story though, like I mentioned in one of my previous posts, Adam was Lilith’s ex husband, so I don’t doubt that the devs would add an element of it to the story.
- There isn’t much information about Barbatos in demonology and from mythologies, but it's ironic that from said mythologies, Barbatos has the ability to reconcile arguments between friends/rulers but he seems to have this heavy dislike towards Solomon and refuses to speak about it. I seriously wonder what Solomon did bc this man fucking forgot what he even did to the butler.
- While I was doing research on Barbatos, I stumbled upon this (credits to Myths and Folklore wiki editors!) according to the The Infernal Dictionary (a book of demonology). This is stated about Barbatos:
"Barbatos, great and powerful demon, count-duke in the underworld, a type of Robin Hood; he is shown in the form of an archer or a hunter; He is found in forests. Four kings sound the horn in front of him. He's acquired the knowledge to divine the speaking of birds, the roar of bulls, dogs barking and screaming various animals. He knows the locations of buried treasures, say magicians. He reconciles quarreled friends. This demon, who was once of the order of Virtues of Heaven or that of dominions, is reduced today to commanding thirty hellish legions. He knows the past and the future."
I personally don't think in the game, Barbatos is an angel (or maybe he is an angel but man's disappeared for so long everyone forgot him and my guy turned into a demon afterwards/hj). It'll be interesting to see his lore and how the devs wrote his backstory. In mythologies, he's illustrated looking like Robin Hood, so maybe Barbatos (in the game) went to the human to give them justice??? Take my theories with a pinch of salt.
And that's all I can think of, I'll make more theories as I continue playing in my free time.
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gryficowa · 1 month
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Me as a child: **I know who tempted Adam and Eve to eat the apple**
Me today: **I don't know who the hell tempted them to eat this fucking apple, because once they say that Satan and Lucifer are the same character, and then they say they're not, plus there's Lilith and Samael, so that's even better**
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And there's also a snake, but it's hard to tell whether it's one of the entities mentioned or another, because it turns out that it's not, but according to the church's narrative, it is there and you don't understand anything, but it lost its legs or something, so yes, I guess the snake was like a lizard or something (I don't understand anything)
I don't know anymore, once again there is the narrative that Lucifer is the ruler of hell, and then that Beelzebub and you don't understand anything anymore
So for the life of me I don't know who is who and who is to blame, because all this makes no sense, probably someone else tempted me to eat this fruit (Because it wasn't actually an apple, but a red fruit, but apple has become popular in pop culture, so that's great ) and this amount of contradictory information causes cognitive dissonance, especially if you plan to put characters from the Bible's lore in your universe, because it looks more like an argument about who is guilty, and there is no information that confirms anyone's guilt, so you start to wonder if God didn't create himself in a different form, to test the faithfulness of Adam and Eve (Which, contrary to appearances, is not stupid, there was already a situation where he "Tested" someone else's loyalty), or he didn't choose this form, so that then people thought that one of these characters was guilty (Because God must be pure in their eyes or something)
Yes, I'm an agnostic, but I'm interested in the lore of the Bible, mainly demons, because it's interesting and that's all, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm lost in all this
Seriously, demons from the lore of the Bible and Slavic mythology are interesting, so it's not surprising that I'm interested in them
Hell, even Asian demons (Japanese or Chinese, I don't know what the mythology of Koreans and Indian people is like) are interesting because of many interesting features (I just love them)
But yes, I don't know who tempted me to eat the fruit and it's all such a mess
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dailyanarchistposts · 17 days
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A.3.7 Are there religious anarchists?
Yes, there are. While most anarchists have opposed religion and the idea of God as deeply anti-human and a justification for earthly authority and slavery, a few believers in religion have taken their ideas to anarchist conclusions. Like all anarchists, these religious anarchists have combined an opposition to the state with a critical position with regards to private property and inequality. In other words, anarchism is not necessarily atheistic. Indeed, according to Jacques Ellul, “biblical thought leads directly to anarchism, and that this is the only ‘political anti-political’ position in accord with Christian thinkers.” [quoted by Peter Marshall, Demanding the Impossible, p. 75]
There are many different types of anarchism inspired by religious ideas. As Peter Marshall notes, the “first clear expression of an anarchist sensibility may be traced back to the Taoists in ancient China from about the sixth century BC” and “Buddhism, particularly in its Zen form, … has … a strong libertarian spirit.” [Op. Cit., p. 53 and p. 65] Some, like the anti-globalisation activist Starhawk, combine their anarchist ideas with Pagan and Spiritualist influences. However, religious anarchism usually takes the form of Christian Anarchism, which we will concentrate on here.
Christian Anarchists take seriously Jesus’ words to his followers that “kings and governors have domination over men; let there be none like that among you.” Similarly, Paul’s dictum that there “is no authority except God” is taken to its obvious conclusion with the denial of state authority within society. Thus, for a true Christian, the state is usurping God’s authority and it is up to each individual to govern themselves and discover that (to use the title of Tolstoy’s famous book) The Kingdom of God is within you.
Similarly, the voluntary poverty of Jesus, his comments on the corrupting effects of wealth and the Biblical claim that the world was created for humanity to be enjoyed in common have all been taken as the basis of a socialistic critique of private property and capitalism. Indeed, the early Christian church (which could be considered as a liberation movement of slaves, although one that was later co-opted into a state religion) was based upon communistic sharing of material goods, a theme which has continually appeared within radical Christian movements inspired, no doubt, by such comments as “all that believed were together, and had all things in common, and they sold their possessions and goods, and parted them all, according as every man has need” and “the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul, not one of them said that all of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things in common.” (Acts, 2:44,45; 4:32)
Unsurprisingly, the Bible would have been used to express radical libertarian aspirations of the oppressed, which, in later times, would have taken the form of anarchist or Marxist terminology). As Bookchin notes in his discussion of Christianity’s contributions to “the legacy of freedom,” ”[b]y spawning nonconformity, heretical conventicles, and issues of authority over person and belief, Christianity created not merely a centralised authoritarian Papacy, but also its very antithesis: a quasi-religious anarchism.” Thus “Christianity’s mixed message can be grouped into two broad and highly conflicting systems of belief. On one side there was a radical, activistic, communistic, and libertarian vision of the Christian life” and “on the other side there was a conservative, quietistic, materially unwordly, and hierarchical vision.” [The Ecology of Freedom, p. 266 and pp. 274–5]
Thus clergyman’s John Ball’s egalitarian comments (as quoted by Peter Marshall [Op. Cit., p. 89]) during the Peasant Revolt in 1381 in England:
“When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then a gentleman?” The history of Christian anarchism includes the Heresy of the Free Spirit in the Middle Ages, numerous Peasant revolts and the Anabaptists in the 16th century. The libertarian tradition within Christianity surfaced again in the 18th century in the writings of William Blake and the American Adam Ballou reached anarchist conclusions in his Practical Christian Socialism in 1854. However, Christian anarchism became a clearly defined thread of the anarchist movement with the work of the famous Russian author Leo Tolstoy.
Tolstoy took the message of the Bible seriously and came to consider that a true Christian must oppose the state. From his reading of the Bible, Tolstoy drew anarchist conclusions:
“ruling means using force, and using force means doing to him whom force is used, what he does not like and what he who uses force would certainly not like done to himself. Consequently ruling means doing to others what we would not they should do unto us, that is, doing wrong.” [The Kingdom of God is Within You, p. 242]
Thus a true Christian must refrain from governing others. From this anti-statist position he naturally argued in favour of a society self-organised from below:
“Why think that non-official people could not arrange their life for themselves, as well as Government people can arrange it nor for themselves but for others?” [The Slavery of Our Times, p. 46]
This meant that “people can only be freed from slavery by the abolition of Governments.” [Op. Cit., p. 49] Tolstoy urged non-violent action against oppression, seeing a spiritual transformation of individuals as the key to creating an anarchist society. As Max Nettlau argues, the “great truth stressed by Tolstoy is that the recognition of the power of the good, of goodness, of solidarity — and of all that is called love — lies within ourselves, and that it can and must be awakened, developed and exercised in our own behaviour.” [A Short History of Anarchism, pp. 251–2] Unsurprisngly, Tolstoy thought the “anarchists are right in everything … They are mistaken only in thinking that anarchy can be instituted by a revolution.” [quoted by Peter Marshall, Op. Cit., p. 375]
Like all anarchists, Tolstoy was critical of private property and capitalism. He greatly admired and was heavily influenced by Proudhon, considering the latter’s “property is theft” as “an absolute truth” which would “survive as long as humanity.” [quoted by Jack Hayward, After the French Revolution, p. 213] Like Henry George (whose ideas, like those of Proudhon, had a strong impact on him) he opposed private property in land, arguing that “were it not for the defence of landed property, and its consequent rise in price, people would not be crowded into such narrow spaces, but would scatter over the free land of which there is still so much in the world.” Moreover, “in this struggle [for landed property] it is not those who work in the land, but always those who take part in government violence, who have the advantage.” Thus Tolstoy recognised that property rights in anything beyond use require state violence to protect them as possession is “always protected by custom, public opinion, by feelings of justice and reciprocity, and they do not need to be protected by violence.” [The Slavery of Our Times, p. 47] Indeed, he argues that:
“Tens of thousands of acres of forest lands belonging to one proprietor — while thousands of people close by have no fuel — need protection by violence. So, too, do factories and works where several generations of workmen have been defrauded and are still being defrauded. Yet more do the hundreds of thousands of bushels of grain, belonging to one owner, who has held them back to sell at triple price in time of famine.” [Op. Cit., pp. 47–8]
As with other anarchists, Tolstoy recognised that under capitalism, economic conditions “compel [the worker] to go into temporary or perpetual slavery to a capitalist” and so is “obliged to sell his liberty.” This applied to both rural and urban workers, for the “slaves of our times are not only all those factory and workshop hands, who must sell themselves completely into the power of the factory and foundry owners in order to exist; but nearly all the agricultural labourers are slaves, working as they do unceasingly to grow another’s corn on another’s field.” Such a system could only be maintained by violence, for “first, the fruit of their toil is unjustly and violently taken form the workers, and then the law steps in, and these very articles which have been taken from the workmen — unjustly and by violence — are declared to be the absolute property of those who have stolen them.” [Op. Cit., p. 34, p. 31 and p. 38]
Tolstoy argued that capitalism morally and physically ruined individuals and that capitalists were “slave-drivers.” He considered it impossible for a true Christian to be a capitalist, for a “manufacturer is a man whose income consists of value squeezed out of the workers, and whose whole occupation is based on forced, unnatural labour” and therefore, “he must first give up ruining human lives for his own profit.” [The Kingdom Of God is Within You, p. 338 and p. 339] Unsurprisingly, Tolstoy argued that co-operatives were the “only social activity which a moral, self-respecting person who doesn’t want to be a party of violence can take part in.” [quoted by Peter Marshall, Op. Cit., p. 378]
So, for Tolstoy, “taxes, or land-owning or property in articles of use or in the means of production” produces “the slavery of our times.” However, he rejected the state socialist solution to the social problem as political power would create a new form of slavery on the ruins of the old. This was because “the fundamental cause of slavery is legislation: the fact that there are people who have the power to make laws.” This requires “organised violence used by people who have power, in order to compel others to obey the laws they (the powerful) have made — in other words, to do their will.” Handing over economic life to the state would simply mean “there will be people to whom power will be given to regulate all these matters. Some people will decide these questions, and others will obey them.” [Tolstoy, Op. Cit., p. 40, p. 41, p. 43 and p. 25] He correctly prophetised that “the only thing that will happen” with the victory of Marxism would be “that despotism will be passed on. Now the capitalists are ruling, but then the directors of the working class will rule.” [quoted by Marshall, Op. Cit., p. 379]
From his opposition to violence, Tolstoy rejects both state and private property and urged pacifist tactics to end violence within society and create a just society. For Tolstoy, government could only be destroyed by a mass refusal to obey, by non-participation in govermmental violence and by exposing fraud of statism to the world. He rejected the idea that force should be used to resist or end the force of the state. In Nettlau’s words, he “asserted … resistance to evil; and to one of the ways of resistance — by active force — he added another way: resistance through disobedience, the passive force.” [Op. Cit., p. 251] In his ideas of a free society, Tolstoy was clearly influenced by rural Russian life and aimed for a society based on peasant farming of communal land, artisans and small-scale co-operatives. He rejected industrialisation as the product of state violence, arguing that “such division of labour as now exists will … be impossible in a free society.” [Tolstoy, Op. Cit., p. 26]
Tolstoy’s ideas had a strong influence on Gandhi, who inspired his fellow country people to use non-violent resistance to kick Britain out of India. Moreover, Gandhi’s vision of a free India as a federation of peasant communes is similar to Tolstoy’s anarchist vision of a free society (although we must stress that Gandhi was not an anarchist). The Catholic Worker Group in the United States was also heavily influenced by Tolstoy (and Proudhon), as was Dorothy Day a staunch Christian pacifist and anarchist who founded it in 1933. The influence of Tolstoy and religious anarchism in general can also be found in Liberation Theology movements in Latin and South America who combine Christian ideas with social activism amongst the working class and peasantry (although we should note that Liberation Theology is more generally inspired by state socialist ideas rather than anarchist ones).
So there is a minority tradition within anarchism which draws anarchist conclusions from religion. However, as we noted in section A.2.20, most anarchists disagree, arguing that anarchism implies atheism and it is no coincidence that the biblical thought has, historically, been associated with hierarchy and defence of earthly rulers. Thus the vast majority of anarchists have been and are atheists, for “to worship or revere any being, natural or supernatural, will always be a form of self-subjugation and servitude that will give rise to social domination. As [Bookchin] writes: ‘The moment that human beings fall on their knees before anything that is ‘higher’ than themselves, hierarchy will have made its first triumph over freedom.’” [Brian Morris, Ecology and Anarchism, p. 137] This means that most anarchists agree with Bakunin that if God existed it would be necessary, for human freedom and dignity, to abolish it. Given what the Bible says, few anarchists think it can be used to justify libertarian ideas rather than support authoritarian ones and are not surprised that the hierarchical side of Christianity has predominated in its long (and generally oppressive) history.
Atheist anarchists point to the fact that the Bible is notorious for advocating all kinds of abuses. How does the Christian anarchist reconcile this? Are they a Christian first, or an anarchist? Equality, or adherence to the Scripture? For a believer, it seems no choice at all. If the Bible is the word of God, how can an anarchist support the more extreme positions it takes while claiming to believe in God, his authority and his laws?
For example, no capitalist nation would implement the no working on the Sabbath law which the Bible expounds. Most Christian bosses have been happy to force their fellow believers to work on the seventh day in spite of the Biblical penalty of being stoned to death (“Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy day, a sabbath of rest to the Lord: whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death.” Exodus 35:2). Would a Christian anarchist advocate such a punishment for breaking God’s law? Equally, a nation which allowed a woman to be stoned to death for not being a virgin on her wedding night would, rightly, be considered utterly evil. Yet this is the fate specified in the “good book” (Deuteronomy 22:13–21). Would premarital sex by women be considered a capital crime by a Christian anarchist? Or, for that matter, should “a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother” also suffer the fate of having “all the men of his city … stone him with stones, that he die”? (Deuteronomy 21:18–21) Or what of the Bible’s treatment of women: “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands.” (Colossians 3:18) They are also ordered to “keep silence in the churches.” (I Corinthians 14:34–35). Male rule is explicitly stated: “I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.” (I Corinthians 11:3)
Clearly, a Christian anarchist would have to be as highly selective as non-anarchist believers when it comes to applying the teachings of the Bible. The rich rarely proclaim the need for poverty (at least for themselves) and seem happy to forgot (like the churches) the difficulty a rich man apparently has entering heaven, for example. They seem happy to ignore Jesus’ admonition that “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.” (Matthew 19:21). The followers of the Christian right do not apply this to their political leaders, or, for that matter, their spiritual ones. Few apply the maxim to “Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.” (Luke 6:30, repeated in Matthew 5:42) Nor do they hold “all things common” as practised by the first Christian believers. (Acts 4:32) So if non-anarchist believers are to be considered as ignoring the teachings of the Bible by anarchist ones, the same can be said of them by those they attack.
Moreover idea that Christianity is basically anarchism is hard to reconcile with its history. The Bible has been used to defend injustice far more than it has been to combat it. In countries where Churches hold de facto political power, such as in Ireland, in parts of South America, in nineteenth and early twentieth century Spain and so forth, typically anarchists are strongly anti-religious because the Church has the power to suppress dissent and class struggle. Thus the actual role of the Church belies the claim that the Bible is an anarchist text.
In addition, most social anarchists consider Tolstoyian pacifism as dogmatic and extreme, seeing the need (sometimes) for violence to resist greater evils. However, most anarchists would agree with Tolstoyians on the need for individual transformation of values as a key aspect of creating an anarchist society and on the importance of non-violence as a general tactic (although, we must stress, that few anarchists totally reject the use of violence in self-defence, when no other option is available).
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sobeksewerrat · 2 months
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Thinking about Adam meeting the Vees.
Velvette making fun of him calling him ancient (we saw how bad it was with the other overloards. Imagine how out of hand it'd get for the First Man Ever)
Vox wanting 2 kiss him on the lips 4 almost killing Alastor and also maybe secretly being jealous /hj
Oh n if Valentino ever hears abt his backstory (giving birth 2 alot of ppl part) he'd prolly try 2 get him a porno job as a birth kink or smth (<- none of these words r in the bible . I'm so sorry)
Okay..I got shock from reading the Val part so I had to leave my phone for 15 mins...and I can't believe I'll have to tag this as breeding kink now.
Velvette would so do that and it would piss him off so fucking much
The thing with Vox is canon. And besides, who doesn't want to kiss Adam on the lips?? /j
Val....honestly, fuck you for making me read that. And fuck you for making it make sense. Generally just fuck you. Hopefully God's next prophetic dream about us in hell gets sent to you, not me.
Seriously AN couldn't you have sent this in DMs??? Didya have to invade my inbox?!??!
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hyperray · 3 months
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Just watched the finale and...
I almost feel nothing. I feel weird. I am both excited from the cool moments, and dissapointed by the cringe moments. Its like the cool matter and cringe matter met and they annihilated eahc other to zero. My mood swings about the finale is comparable to the infrared wavelength. Actually let me visualize this by showing the peaks as + and cringe moments as - +Vox laughing at the hotel's preparation -Vox swearing (Actually I'm giving a minus to all the swearing, which OH MY GOD!! There is so much of it, I have an extremely hard time to find this cool and interesting. Viv, STOP IT, PLEASE!) +General Pentious +Charlie's speech +The whole scene where everyone is enjoying themselfes before the fight -Besides Pentious expressing his feelings for Cherri (Which I do ship) the whole concept is rushed, she only appeared one time and when they are eye to eye the ship thing if forced quickly, and she only starts considering him after Angel tells her that he might have two dicks. Like, hmm, that would make it a very one sided relationship -The Charlie and Vaggie song having the same style as the Charlie and Lucifer song makes this all feel somewhat incestious. Am I the only one who feels that way? -Lute is being uncharacteristic with how she is swearing, feels a bit like the Striker treatement +I love everyone's battle outfits! I think Charlie's shield might be a reference to that one christian folklore how someone was using a shield made by Lucifer himself which later broke from another holy weapon +Alastor's shield -Yeah it is pretty weak how the angels can be killed with their own weapons, though I also find this interesting, maybe their own weapons can kill them not out of holyness, but from power-level essence, you get me? +++Besides the swearings and the Lucifer vs Adam fight, this battle was AWESOME!!! Especially Adam vs Alastor -Vox' hard on, or his entire appereance in the episode and Alastor swearing. I really hoped Al would be outside the swearing curse --"Vagatha!" "Not my name" I really feel like this is Viv's spiteful way of saying "Fuck you guys, the way I name my characters is completely fine and stop whining like there is anything wrong with it." +Angel Dust protecting the Egg Boi ++Pentiou's build up of attacking Adam and manning up to kiss Cherri ----------Pentious being casually whiped out by Adam in one pew and everyone imemdiately mourning for him. Seriously WHAT THE FUCK!!! That was the most UNDERWHELMING SHIT I've ever seen! +Razzle and Dazzle becoming Dragon and Vaggie vs Lute fight, as well as her speech to humiliate Lute +Charlie and Adam's fight and interaction +Lute ripping her arm out --The entire Adam vs Lucifer fight and interaction. Okay I expected there to be a large power gap between those two, it is Lucifer after all, but it felt too one sides, and I got second hand embarrasment for Adam by being so casually humiliated by all these silly animal transformations and insult ---Also did Lucifer really sleep with Eve too? That makes the whole view on the Morningstar family relationship so wrong. Luci and Lilith supposedly were deeply in love, but if Lucifer must've slept with Eve too it must've been soon after he met Lilith too, and Luci was trying to be a sort of prometheus figure to Eve, what a massive downplay on so many things! Though I hope he wasn't serious about it and just wanted to get under Adam's skin ----Lucifer saying "I'm going to fuck you" to Adam was the MOST VRINGE INDUCING thing here! --Adam's true face. Look I don't care if this is suppose to reflect his actor's face, why is he this white boy hill billy? Jeez, does Viv even care about the Bible lore and trying to make it more accurate than just the surface level stuff?Would it have been so hard to just make him more lore accurate? I'm seriously starting to think Viv might have a kink on that.
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serendertothesquad · 5 months
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I can finally go off about the Odd Squad Season 3 pitch bible (AKA happy 9th anniversary to this big lil' franchise)
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I had originally wanted to do a little analysis video on this thing, and maybe I will someday, but for now here's a text version of that video.
I have not found the overall series bible -- and oh you better believe me when I say I've tried, and oh you better believe me when I say I have found shit -- but if I die before it's unearthed, then it will be, perhaps, the greatest failure in my pseudo-career as Odd Squad fandom leader. We've had cast members reveal pink drafts of scripts, we've found deleted scenes in some episodes...I just wanna see the big old pitch bible for the entire show. (Why didn't Sinking Ship Entertainment give me that when they sent me a fan package in exchange for me not promoting watching the show via VPNs? The fan package was nice but if I got a copy of a nice thick happy show bible I think it'd cure my depression!)
"But Seren, you managed to get PBS's Metadata Bank wiped from public view of everyone on the Internet who isn't a PBS employee, won't the same thing happen aga-" Shhh. Shhhhhhh. The answer is no. Absolutely not. Not on your life. Worst-case scenario is that a Season 4 bible is decided to be kept locked in a vault that's tighter than anything Disney could ever craft.
Can we move on now? Right, cool. Then let's go.
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Y'know, it's sad that they continue to uphold that Season 1 and Season 2 were set in Nondescript Town, Nondescript State despite any and all evidence pointing to both being set in Toronto. I don't care if it makes it seem more local to kids. Some kids don't really have a giant-ass replica of their town's name sitting in their town's main square.
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"But it's in the backgro-" Shhhhh. We're talking about the demographic that weaponizes brutal honesty better than John Wick weaponizes his own two fists. Shhhhhh. I'm willing to bet some kid has noticed that sign.
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Tim McKeon and Adam Peltzman had the balls to put in a merch pitch that would have made Hasbro execs slam their hands on the table and then immediately go in for the deal-closing handshake.
No but seriously, they could have made bank on selling miniature vans. Osmerelda had a mini-van toy of her own in "Monumental Oddness", even! Odd Squad's already just slightly toyetic, one more injection won't hu- wait, the chance has passed now. Well, fuck. Never mind.
But ohhhh no, that's not even the most egregious part. The most egregious part is the fact that they called Creature Room employees...ah..."creature wranglers". Quite obviously, we know that's not all they do...I mean look at Ocean, as one example.
...Okay that's not so egregious.
Also, I, uh...well...they're not so much "roles" so much as they are "departments". You don't really go into a job interview at the local Target saying you'd like to apply for the role of part-time cashier like it's a school play and you really wanna strut your stuff. Odd Squad is a workplace. It has always been a workplace. Let's stick to the roots.
And while you guys do that, let's move on to the characters! This is one of the things I most want to see from an Odd Squad show bible, because if PBS can hike up their belts and declare Oprah to be physically seven years old right on the Wild Wild Internet, for all we know Olive could have been named Olivia somewhere in pre-production and they wanted to make her a hell of a lot more fucked-up than she turned out to be.
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You know what's also sad? The fact that no one has the balls to admit that Odd Squad has precincts and it's not just smaller offices also named Odd Squad under a Big Office that's probably named, oh no you better not guess it, Odd Squad.
Let's be honest here, Opal is by far and away the most "we erased only the small smudges but she's otherwise polished" character in here. Everyone else has characterization that differs wildly from the final products. Opal...not so much. Pretty much everything said about her here is right on the money.
Except for, uh...that third paragraph. Let me word-vomit about that.
It does not matter how hard the franchise will try and make you believe Opal is not the leader. The fact of the matter is, she is the leader, de facto, and as such, she takes charge in all kinds of situations. However, that doesn't necessarily mean she's not keen on passing the buck to her teammates, as she's done it before (see, blugh, "Odd Squad in the Shadows") and she's more than willing to do it if she has to. This is a trait I honestly would have loved to have seen in her -- an Opal who decides to go-off-queen on her teammates by saying that she's the boss and what she says goes would have been more entertaining to watch than the final product we got. Opal's an enjoyable character, but she could have used a lot more polishing to make her as perfect of a character as her predecessors. Yes, even with the story arc.
Such a good example of this unused trait in action would be with a plotline similar to "O For a Day" -- Opal is forced to fill in for an Odd Squad Director after they get ill or sick in some way, and as a result, she slowly begins to get drunk on her own power until it becomes full-blown alcoholism and it gets to be at its utter detrimental peak for the precinct and the agents that work there. Maybe she micromanages like a boss bitch so that it's micro-micromanaging. Maybe she has her sanity go weeeeeaaaaaaaow down the drain. Maybe she becomes what CEOs of corporations aspire to become. Whatever the outcome, it could have served as wonderful character development for her and showed that being a leader is no easy task and choosing one is not a "pick a name outta a hat" method.
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Whereas Opal is a sort of weak expy of past characters (Olive/Otto) -- and even that could be a stretch -- Omar is explicitly referred to here as an expy of Olympia and Otto, which...well yeah, actually that's pretty accurate.
You know who he's also an expy of? Pinkie Pi- nah that joke got old fast in 2016, I'm not revivin' it again.
Omar is one agent out of the group whose personality remains largely the same, but also has something just a teeny-tiny bit...off. In this case, the thing that's off here is the fact that he's gullible. So let me word-vomit about this too, and throw some Pepto-Bismol into my Walmart shopping cart while I'm at it.
I'm going to be real with you guys, even though some of you might already be aware of this: Otto is not a gullible motherfucker. He's really not. If some random stranger on the street waddled on up to me and asked me what the first word I'd use to describe Otto would be, "gullible" would not be the first word that springs to mind. Has he had gullible moments? Oh abso-fuckin'-lutely without a doubt. He's a dum-dum blorbo sometimes and if I gotta be frank with Frank then I like him like that. But is he easily gullible? Yeah no.
Maybe Otto being gullible all the time was something that was planned for when he was nothing but an idea on paper. I've seen enough criticisms about his character development to where I could probably hang that guess out on a limb and pray to the oracle in "Nature of the Sandbeast" that I'm lucky.
But I digress. Omar's gullibility being exploited to hell and back by his teammates would have been amazing to see, but alas, it never really came to pass in Season 3. Would have made for great conflict with The Shadow when she didn't have an obsessive schtick for Opal and didn't decide to wake up and choose the "by proxy" option for her crimes.
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Now where in the McFuck can I begin here? Can I start by going inside and telling the cook I'd like a McCrispy Lack of Facts with a side of large What the Fuck and a large WHOA AN ACTUAL ORIGINAL CHARACTER with no ice? Cool, thanks, card got approved and I'd like my receipt please.
To say Orla is a writers' pet is something that you could have some bobo respond to with "citation needed" and get citation...but not really enough citation. For a character that is no expy of any previous one in the franchise and is something birthed from the God of Originality in the Television Industry...well yeah, you could say that justifies it. But Orla is really a fantastic character through and through and she deserves all the love she can get. I mean it's not every day you get a character willing to make people spill their coffees by punching and kicking the ever-loving shit out of an octopus (for simplicity's sake, let's assume it's an octopus, okay? okay) on a network where physical violence can become weirdly memetic at best (I'm side-eyeing you, Arthur) and controversial at worst (I, uh...I can't name any controversies about that. I am sorry).
I'm not about to delve into the historical parts of that paragraph, largely because history is my worst subject. I can say for sure, however, that I see why they changed what she called cars. If we wanna get technical -- and I mean insufferably so -- then cars would technically be the carriage and the horse. The horse serves as the engine, and then you have the carriage as the main body of the vehicle. "Metal chariots" is a more broad term that is far more accurate, because when I, for one, think of a chariot, I think of the carriage and the horse.
Also, I'm pretty sure sandwiches were around back in her time...lemme see here...
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Mmmmmhm. As I thought. And let me check the timeline of the show here...
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...Oh! Well wouldja look at that! Not exactly 400 years, but close!
Yeah, something tells me a lot of writers on the crew might have gotten an A in comedy but got an F in history. That or they simply went "bitch, we don't give a fuck!"
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Tim and Adam slipped in an absolutely beautiful burn that missed the show as much as that one guy who shows up to meetings several hours after conclusions.
Like I said before, and I will repeat: Orla is not an expy of any one character. She is an original character made from scratch like your mother's baked bread. I find it hard to believe that she's a copy of Otis in any aspect outside of "hey, both of our seasons have us as the feature of story arcs". I can kinda sorta see the "surprising skills" aspect, but not by much outside of the season premiere. (Which, to be fair, had her scaling a wall with the same strings the Zephyr Heights royalty used to pull themselves up, but did not have her saying anywhere that she tamed a jaguar. Nowhere does it say she tamed a jaguar. Wrestled alligators, but the fun stops with big cats that can eat your face off.)
Perhaps I can blame that on poor execution within Season 3 itself. After all, it tried to gamble with character development and it failed. And that's just one flaw out of many.
Shifting subjects, though, the most hilarious thing I find about this paragraph is her ability to come up with ideas that are out-of-the-box. Which, for those that have not watched the horror that was the second half of the season and miraculously lived, is Osmerelda's schtick. She is explicitly labeled as the out-of-the-box member of the group. They did a theft-not-theft of something from the pitch bible and slapped it onto Osmerelda and ohhhhhh maybe that's part of the reason why she's terrible as a character.
Wow. Eureka moment! How about that?!
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Before I get started on tearin' apart Oswald like a huge-ass Thanksgiving turkey from the supermarket, I'd like to address what has to be one of my biggest pet peeves of the season.
"Librarian/museum worker" is not a thing. Stop trying to make "librarian/museum worker" a thing, Gretchen. It will never be a thing.
If you want to call Oswald by the correct terminology, then allow the Seren to educate you.
He is an Odd Squad Security agent first and foremost. He's got the uniform, he's got the position, he's got the duties, he's got the competence to make Owen eat dirt and live, it's all right there.
Second and backmost...he's a museum curator. A "Curator" is what you call people who work in museums. I know this because I punched it into Google because I'm a petty bitch who eats reruns of A&E shows for every meal.
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For what it's worth, I will also accept "museum archivist" and "archives technician". That too.
Okay, have we got that settled? Cool beans. Let's move on.
Oswald as a character is, for all intents and purposes in existence, what happens when you take Oscar, suck every last inch of science out of him, and then replace it with an obscene level of bookbookbookbookBOOKBOOKBOOKBOOK. He's still got the same "sacrifice your lives to the devil that births oddness, here I shall stay in my safe zone" mentality that Oscar does, and he's the smart guy of the team, but that's about it as far as comparisons go. I never really pinned Oscar as a nerdy ol' bookworm anyway, though it would have been amazing and hilarious to see.
That being said, Oswald applying the power of the writing gods' hands to real life and failing tremendously would have been a great trait for him. You know the lil' man would read a book on overcoming social anxiety and pull off a Shocked Pikachu Face when it doesn't work. And then he'd read on why it didn't work, try again with the opposite, and pull off another Shocked Pikachu Face when that fails.
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Ah, now, see? These are other traits I would have loved to see in Oswald.
Him being an insufferable jerk who goes "well eckshuelleh" every 5 minutes -- yes, including with exposition, that market of which Oprah had cornered for 8 years -- would have probably made Season 3 more enjoyable, at least for me.
You know what would be a good thing to add to that batter, though? Him being meta.
In Season 3, especially in the second "kids are more forgetful than a backwards elephant" half, Oswald makes a few callbacks to earlier seasons. Which is nice and all, but imagine if he pried through particular cases and nabbed specific events and relayed them to people like it's his job and livelihood. If they had enough balls to make Xavier and Xena utter jerkasses, they could have grown two more to make Oswald an utter jerk, but one with redeemable qualities. As an example of one: he's a jerk who goes "well eckshuelleh" on people, but he does it because he loves the show. He loves Odd Squad lore and history. He's a fanatic.
I mean...well...he loves it already. He's enough of a fanatic and that shit has been proven. But they don't really lean into it all that much. It might as well be more informed than anything else.
But jerking the subject away from that...what if God gave you a character with all the autism traits, and you decided to come out and say "nah, he's not autistic, he's a quirky lil' man"?
You're telling me you can't make the boy canonically autistic in the same way that, ohhhh, I dunno, AJ Gadgets is canonically autistic? Or that one Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood character whose name I forget? You're on a network that embraces diversity the same way wine moms embrace the triple-L of "Live, Laugh, Love" and you had an opportunity...and Tim and Adam both blew it. Out of the water. Nuclear explosion. Does autism exist in the world of Odd Squad? Is there air?! You don't know!
Okay, that's a dumb question. I was reminded that muscular dystrophy exists, along with whatever disability Xena has.
Instead, what they did with Oswald was make him so friendly and sociable with people you wouldn't believe he's been a hermit in the belly of the Big Apple for [REDACTED] years. Which is a waste, because I'd have liked for him to be canonically autistic. They spend so much time on gender and making sure girls and women triumph over men and boys that they forget about disability, y'know?
Ah well. There's always Season 4. But let's be honest, I'm fully prepared for them to laugh and say "there are no autistic people in Manchester, what a silly notion!"
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Here's another pet peeve of mine when it comes to this show, and those who have followed me and my biz for a long time probably know this already.
I don't like the formality error on proud display here.
Let's set the record straight. You don't call your boss at work Manager, not unless they're one of those whoo-hoos who knows they're paying you minimum wage for busting your ass and is reveling in it. No one does. No one calls them that.
So exactly why call Oprah by Ms. O? Or even the Big O?
Yes, it's an easy identifier for popularity purposes. Yes, it's her title that everyone calls her by except for a few close pals.
But that's just it -- it's a title. It's not her actual name. It's not like her mom delivered her cesarean-style and decided to name her Ms. O to compete with Elon Musk and whatever gibberish he's named his kid this time. It's not like Oprah decided to get a legal name change to go with her meal of a free promotion. Oprah is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, her actual name, and to insinuate it's not puts you in a silly delusion with a silly mind that might not be so silly.
But, y'know...I've screamed this at people for nearly 9 years now and no one's listened. I was friends with Joshua Kilimnik and had the crew watch my stuff and still no one's listened.
...Maybe I'm the one who's deluded...
...Um.
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...
Yeah okay, maybe I might have a point if they're not even bothering with title capitalization anymore.
Not much to spice up here, but if you're wondering where in the blue hell Onika came from: she's from Season 2 of OddTube. Is not an Odd Squad explorer or an oddness finder, but rather, she built an entire 2015 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter, threw some Odd Squad stuff on it, and called it half of a day, all with her own two hands.
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Okay, it's hilarious that they're using teamwork and perseverance as an example of "broader themes". Yes, they are broader themes, but you also have:
Bullying
Trauma
Stop being like your family. You are not your family. You are you.
Friendship (is magic!)
Why going to work sucks ass on a daily basis
I could keep going, but I think I've made my point well with just these 5.
Nice justification for the set piece that is Oprah's office, though. That's clever. But...and it's a but bigger than any but Sir Mix-a-Lot has ever sung about in his career...this just highlights one of the problems with kids live-action shows. Had the show been animated in full, there would be no "I'll take seven slices of pizza and you can stuff your faces with the rest" to be found. Instead I must suffer in agony as I get whined at that "Odd Squad is not a cartoon".
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One of the Odd Squad God's biggest mysteries is why, exactly, they axed Omar, yoted him into a single episode and a shitty-ass clickbait thumbnail, and decided to replace him with Orla.
...
No, no...actually I might know why. It may or may not have anything to do with the discussion of whether Orla is a "writers' pet" or not. No one @ me, I have theories.
But let me lay down Chris's crispy McNugget of truth for you all: while Orla does have appeal in her not understanding how technology works to save her life, Omar has somewhat equal appeal in him being a lover of traveling and buying souvenirs. Hell, if they wanted to grow balls that would make AC/DC weep, they could have cohosted the series. But alas, it was simply not meant to be.
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Given how PBS Kids is planning to go the short-form route as a means of cutting costs while still aiming for quality, I'm kind of sad this never came to fruition. Imagine numerous seasons of OddTube, one for each country. All they would need to do was account for every Canadian in each country because if not then the bad guys have won.
...I mean it could come to fruition. Maybe. It might not. Maybe. Hopefully. It could be with Orli or something I dunno. She could shoot the shit or however British people say the phrase!
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When I tell you folks this aged like milk, lemme tell you it aged like fucking milk. Like you could hear it churning at the grocery store while the manager does fuck-all about it.
Anyone who has absorbed enough of this franchise knows that episodes have absolutely been no stranger to rehashing mathematical concepts. And that's fine by me, because the episodes themselves aren't derivative outside of that regard. Each Season 1 and Season 2 episode is hand-crafted so it doesn't feel like a painfully obvious Xerox copy of a previous episode. Key word being "painfully obvious", keyer word being "painfully", because there are episode copies out there (see "The Trouble with Centigurps" and its mid little brother "Worst First Day Ever") that are obvious but don't actively make you say "I'm going to buy some Clorox and pour it into every facial orifice known to scientists who study human life".
Season 3 was absolutely no exception. However, instead of creating new plots and just sticking with that, they created new plots and also rehashed old ones in addition to reusing math (and science) concepts. Like plopping new pasta sauce on old shittily-cooked spaghett'. Is shit, tastes like shit.
One of the most glaring examples is with the infamous clip show episode, "Welcome to Odd Squad". Anyone can clearly see it's a rehash of "Odd Squad Needs You" from Season 2, just with new elements (a B-plot, Orpita instead of Oprah...No-Name who's essentially relatability personified). And, I mean, y'know...it's a clip show, which, in most cases, spells bad news for a series and/or a franchise. That too.
All in all, these comments are hilarious to me. Even if they are a stark reminder that in a show where comedy comes first and education comes second...there's still education.
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If your first thought upon reading this wasn't "this seems more of a better fit for Wild Kratts or Cyberchase than Odd Squad" THEN WHAT THE MCFFFFFFFFFUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU GET BACK IN THE HOUSE. YOUR LITERACY IS O F F JIM YA GOTTA READ IT AGAIN.
Okay, but I digress. In a world where the rules of scientific concepts like biology and anatomy go completely out the fucking window and land right onto your uncle's Corvette, this is a very stupid lesson and I'm honestly glad they didn't go through with it. We don't need lessons on the ecosystem in a world that explicitly defies the rules of ecosystems as we know them in real life.
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I just did an audible groan at that stupid-ass pun. "Mathience"? Really? Suck a peanut. Like 90% of the "odd" puns are better than that trash. Be the fuck for real.
This is a nice plot, really, but I dunno...something about it just doesn't sit right with me. Let's be realer than real here, one of the climates would have had to be the Arctic. Another one might have been in the Amazon somewhere, or another place that's humid. And the third one...yeah I dunno about that one. But this plot isn't sitting right with me. Like a bruised coccyx.
...Okay, my brain got fried there for a moment. Let's move on.
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I guess it's time I air out my ire with this episode -- which is a good episode, but let me just take the time to talk about one of the things that bothers me about it.
The 44-Leaf Clover is supposed to grant whoever finds it magical powers. So where in the holy God of McFUCK are the magical powers of the Mobile Unit?
Let's be realer than realer than real here: the Mobile Unit having magical powers would have really spiced up Season 3. If not the entire Unit, then at the very least Opal and Omar, who initially went on the adventure. But that part of the Clover's lore is just dropped clear straight away like my dinner from last night. We have four normal humans with no powers who pissed off that one guy who called them politically correct. Which honestly sucks and is yet another thing we can throw into the "Odd Squad Missed Opportunities" bucket. Wow is that bucket getting full. Shall we dump it in preparation for Season 4?
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...Yeh but oddness struck like a long-ass time ago. You don't get two of the same snowflakes and not find it odd. Confetti Betty's a step up, sure, but oddness is oddness. Let's try and keep continuity, hmm?
---------------------------------------
So that's it. The Odd Squad Season 3 pitch bible, properly dissected and torn through and ripped to utter shreds like a dog to a slipper. Sorry not sorry. Had to be done.
Still holding out hope for an entire series pitch bible to unearth somewhere in life. Preferably sometime before my death. Preferably on the 'Net. Preferably stored on my computer somewhere. I can and will tear into that too if it ever pops up.
But for now...we wait for Season 4 news. Since I don't want to do anything big this year for the franchise's 9th anniversary because ADD and depression and ADD, you all can have this instead. You're welcome. This has rotted in my drafts for at least two months. Take it.
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Adam Should Actually Care About The Sinners Since They Are His Descendants (And He Should Be More Likely In Charge Of The Cherub Program)
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Again while yes Adam is usually in strawman anti-religious media as being a strawman misogynist based on interpretations. I wonder why couldn't have changed through the years where he at least cares for his descendants and the fact his actions caused their downfall into hell. I think a twist on things is he regrets how he acted towards is wives and how it hurt those down the lines. I like to think he would be the one who comes up with the program to do something on earth that helps people from getting into hell through something like the Cherub program. Also instead of being a crass, vulgar rock star type I do think he would be a strict moral person who tries to act proper because his mistake cost humanity their souls and he's regretted it for eons.
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Seriously, I really can't see the man who is the ancestor of all humanity taking glee in even his fallen children being killed. He would do something like create Cherub that can even try to save the worse sinners from falling. I still think he would disagree with reforming those in hell, but I want to think the real Adam would care about his descendants facing a second death and even thinks he could with skeptical eyes entertain Charlie's idea if it could help save more lives from being snuffed out. But I also think he would say to Charlie that he's doing everything he can through Cherub to prevent more souls from falling.
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If they wanted to have an angel of destruction they could have had someone like Dumah for the job instead of Adam. And a thing could be Adam and Dumah could be butting heads about humans. While Adam thinks hell is forever, he also is against his children being exterminated and Dumah would be more like the guy who would want to mercilessly exterminate everyone with no mercy. And Dumah is found in the Bible being in charge of destroyer angels. Best of all Dumah is mentioned as disobeying God and as a result was kicked out. He was then banished where he would then torment sinners except on Sabbath. In other words, maybe make Dumah evil and clean heaven of the exterminations. Make Dumah a wild card who does it on his own dime while Adam and Heaven are clearly against this. It would again make things more complex and less one note heaven is evil while hell is the lesser evil and misunderstood bullshit.
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nicosraf · 11 months
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Hello, if it’s alright could I draw some fanart of my interpretations of the different angels? I must admit I barely passed the half way point on your novel and I’m obsessed with the angels. Although I do have a question where are the women??? Jkjk. But it’s been an itching question since they are gender less beings with many forms. Also do the angels ever take their more biblical form and 🪶🪶🧿🧿🧿🪶🪶 hello brother their fellow angels?
hello! of course!!! I love seeing interpretations!!! (though i do ask not to whitewash, if possible hghghg)
And the women!! Well! The (biblical) explanation is longer than I expected but here ya go:
Angels as genderless beings is.... actually not true. The Bible refers to angels as "sons" of God a couple times – like Job 1:6, Job 2:1 (most explicitly), and Genesis 6. Genesis 6 is pretty important, because if Job is right about angels being the "sons of God", then this chapter says angels are capable of sex and procreation (with women, at least, though I have some thoughts on that). Also, angels exclusively appear as men, in the Bible. When the angels visit Abraham, they're described as men. When they visit Sodom in Genesis 19, and all the Sodom men line up to try and have sex with the angels, the angels are described as men. (In fact, the "gay people are evil" understanding of the Sodom story is entirely contingent on angels being understood as men.) (Fun fact: it's from Sodom, also, that I reasoned all angels are outrageously sexy.)
But why are angels all men in the Bible? Well, the reason is because Eve is supposed to be the first women, and in traditional (sexist) Christian thought, Adam is a man, modeled on God, who is masculine. Because the angels are between them, then they're supposed to be men, or at least man-ish.
I remember when I learned all this I thought it was absolutely hilarious. God and his all-sexy-male angel paradise. Incredible. Perfect.
But in all seriousness, the origin of this idea is that Christianity is really sexist. And the gender of angels is something pretty much every significant angel writer/artist has struggled with, like John Milton in Paradise Lost.
The back and forth about angel gender is actually my absolute favorite thing about Paradise Lost. The most significant line is "for spirits, when they please, can either sex assume, or both;" which clearly states that angels are supposed to be intersex. And yet, all the angels in Paradise Lost are men, use male pronouns, and they're described in almost entirely masculine terms; one instance where that isn't the case is this one line about Lucifer: "his form had yet not lost all her original brightness". Even here, the feminine characterization is just an attachment to the masculine.
In my opinion, John Milton wants to explore angel gender (and angel homosexual sex, too, btw, as per angel Raphael telling Adam all about the gay sex angels are up to), but Milton is held back by the pretty clear Bible teaching that angels are supposed to be male or at least male-ish. (Also, my friend Cas is much more of an academic about John Milton, angels, and angel gender, and I'm mostly parrot-ing him because he's much smarter than me, so they're your guy if you have questions). I like Milton's ideas of angels being between gender, though, and I plan to do a lot more with that:
I played around with the bizarre idea of God and his all-male paradise, but ultimately, the angels in ABM are not male. There is no such thing as male because there is no such thing as female. Like Milton, I think they're between genders.
Why do they use he/him pronouns, then? As a nod to the "all angels are male" Christian teaching, and (on a more personal level) to explore tenderness and queer gender expression (all the makeup and jewelry and dressing up) in he/hims. (Plus, it's a tiny jab at machismo, which is incredibly attached to Mexican Catholicism and an enormous source of pain for me, so now I get to make Catholicism gay and girly and laugh to myself). But, lastly, pronouns don't equal gender. Men can use she/her, women can use he/him. (Especially coming from a Mexican perspective, it's pretty common to hear gay men use feminine pronouns to refer to themselves.)
But what about their bodies? Do they not have masculine bodies, then? As I mentioned in this ask (where I discuss the trans-ness of the ABM trilogy and angels and also God) and this ask (where I discuss angel sexual organs), I stay vague because you have the room to imagine whatever you want. Specifically, angels are intersex but what that means for their physical bodies is basically up to you.
(But why would you write vaguely? Because ABM is about gender and queerness, and the fact that it can't be easily understood and it takes on a life of its own for each reader is the point !)
ABM and its sequels are about angel gender trouble and gay feelings, so don't worry, you have a lot to look forward to in that regard.
Oh and about the "biblical forms".... :) no spoilers
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sending guitarspear right back at you lol
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I'm love them..... Adam sucks so much and lute is such an asshole and they deserve each other <3
Ok but like seriously I'm like. Adam has lost both his wives, very likely through his own fault as well as Lucifer's interference (no one is perfect or fully to blame in this particular situation, they're all at fault), and while he sucks so much and was handed these things along with being the first man and is generally The Worst .... Losing people who for all intents and purposes were supposed to be with you and love you, that hurts. It hurts a lot.
I don't condone Adams actions or behaviour, but I can understand how losing Lilith and eve, both indirectly to lucifer, would hurt, after he was given the promise of being the First Man and the creator of humanity and all that promise likely entailed.
Honestly, when I think about Adam and what's going on in his squishy little dickface head, it leads me into the same roads thinking about this show always does - is it a person's fault for believing what they're told about themselves? Are the actions they do as a result of this belief that hurt people fully to blame on them?
Heaven and hell do not exist in a vacuum in the original texts. God is not blameless, in my humble opinion, for the events that transpire and lead to the bible we know today. And I don't know how much hazbin intends to fuck around with the original text (Adam can't enter heaven in the Bible cos he committed the original sin and they've already fucked with that) but it's interesting to consider the larger implications of what they have already used and what might come later.
Adam sucks and he believes he is owed a woman's love and subservience. We know he demanded Lilith's subservience from the beginning (but who's telling that story? What are they skewed by? Is Charlie's account of the original story of Eden to be trusted? She is Lilith's daughter, and has only known hell as her home, can we trust what we says the whole time?)
But who told Adam that he was owed that? Was he made with that idea in his mind? Was he told Lilith, and subsequently Eve, would be his? Was he led to believe he could demand these things with no consequences to anyone else's wellbeing?
And if so... Is it his fault if he believes that?
These are the kinds of things I think about with these stories. I honestly don't think the show is intelligent enough or well written enough to properly go into them in a way I would find satisfying, but I do like the implications of some of the writing and what I can think about beyond that.
Anyway, back to Adam and lute.
Adams whole deal is that he's lost women who were supposed to be his, and that hurts as much as he is a dickhead about it. It makes me think that deep down he's lost the ability to trust that anyone will stay and, y'know, actually like him as a person. Yes, he sucks so fucking much, but when you're faced with the prospect of being a shitty person and having no one like you at all, or being a shitty person in control of lots of nice things, who wouldn't pick the second option? He's a human through and through to me, full of petty jealousy and righteous anger and generally a stupid mean dickhead who enjoys being nasty for fun.
Enter lute, who stands next to him with everything. Lute, who is his second in command, who not only tolerates his crass humour and vulgar language but seems to engage with it in her own way. Lute who is wholeheartedly on board with the violent eradication of the sinners, to the point that she absolutely believes people need to die if they can't live to a standard set by someone else (again, who sets this standard and why?)
Lute, who is every bit as awful and horrible as Adam is, and matches him in a way seemingly Lilith or Eve didnt.
Lute, who stayed.
They're not good people and frankly I don't want them to be - to me they're a product of being created to serve a purpose that you really don't have all the answers for and have no say in; Adam to populate humanity, Lute to destroy what heaven deems destroyable and wrong.
Who sets the terms of their existence? Do they have an agenda to fulfill? Some goal they want to reach? How do Adam and Lute, and by extension the exorcists and heaven and hell, play into this? What is the purpose of punishing people, and creating people to punish those, and who creates the rules that mean these punishments happen? By extension, who creates the rules that rewarding people like Adam and Lute happen? Why? And is it their fault if they are wholeheartedly led to believe that they are deserving of the status they have when they very clearly do not have the full picture of the situation at large?
They're so interesting to me and I love them so much.
Also I'm just a sucker for hardass terrible female characters who do not so right things and the sleazebag men they want to jump so. There.
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vaicomcas · 7 months
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I am confused by Adam and Eve in Supernatural. I guess only Adam was the one who was from the bible, but not Eve? Because she seemed to have no relation to Adam and also much, much older than him?
But then I am further confused when I looked at the timelines of various creations in SPN:
--Eve said to Cas in 6x19 "I'm older than you, I know what makes angels tick." This seems to imply Eve was older than angels.
--At the beginning of time God fought the Darkness/Amara to bind her so that he could be free to create the universe. He was assisted by the archangels. So archangels already existed before creation of the universe.
--As Michael disclosed, he used Leviathan blossom as part of the spell to seal off Amara, so Leviathans also already existed before creation of the universe.
--But Death said in s7e1 that Leviathans are older than angels. This seems preposterous. (slightly less so if Archangels are considered separate from regular angels).
--Death could be as old as God but he was unsure.
So this is the order of things in SPN universe?
The Empty (unless it was Chuck's lie to the Shadow which is entirely possible)
God/Amara/possibly Death appears
(God created archangels, if archangels are separate from angels; otherwise, Leviathans happen first)
God created Leviathans, and Purgatory to put them in (although Purgatory could also be created later when the rest of the universe was created)
God created Eve; if we assume she is generally older than angels (and conveniently, he can put Eve in Purgatory that was already made for the Leviathans)
God and archangels fought and sealed off Amara
When regular angels were created is unclear,, but it's after Leviathans, Eve, but before complete creation of the universe.
God created the universe
God created Animals that went through evolution such as little grey fish
Adam from the bible
Humans emerge bible-style, apparently
Monsters were created by Eve? It's hard to know when Eve would have created them, but many of them seem human-like or human-derived so I assume they were created after humans.
Lucifer's rebellion and defeat by Michael and banishment to hell
Lucifer rules hell and creates first batches of demons
Lucifer imprisoned in the Cage by Michael
Thoughts?
Of course, none of this can be taken seriously. Because Michael's spell that bound Amara during that pre-universe battle? It didn't just include Leviathan blossom, but also Myrrh, cassia, rockrose. If universe hadn't been created, where did these things come from?
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