With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

Even better if it can't talk or reason. I think it's less tattling and more "if you don't stop being a dickhead I'm going to cut this cord"

 

Corroborating maybe?

 

I can't help but think of the line in Hackers (film, 1995)

Someone: "What did you do, Paul?"

OL: "I had Zues declared dead..."

 

Suggestions on a postcard...

Thank you, corrected.

 

George.

 

What God name Canis have again?

 

It's Art, since he's the New God of Art.

 

On the other hand, I entirely agree with the principle of the thing. Zeus is clearly attempting to abuse his power here and definitely in the wrong and - while one of the main reasons OL cares is almost certainly that Diana is close to him - I can definitely understand not wanting to just do the mercenary thing of immediately resolving it by throwing another person (even a willing person) at him out of spite for the fact Zeus should not be doing this in the first place, because it's a gigantic dick move.

And that's not even getting to the fact that super-long term it may create even more work if OL has to continually solve this problem for Zeus every hundred years or so because Zeus isn't told in no uncertain terms to back the fuck up.

 

Call Bruce. Ask him about his contingency plans to get rid of Zeus. If he doesn't have such a plan it shows that he isn't paranoid enough.

A monotheist having some level of divinity is even funnier than a king having a tattoo saying "death to kings".

...walks into a bar.

If this was a proper Greek Mythology Legend "Man angry at god, calls on Hecate" is the point where it really goes off the rails and makes Euripides and his fellow tragedians (and his little oil flask) sit up and take notice.

 

Paul at his least likeable.
Doubly so as he is called out on it and doesn’t even acknowledge the fact.

 

Ouu, subvert Ares to your side by offering him a chance at total war against The Reach. We have already proved that gods can survive in space, probably enough to satisfy Ares, if not to satisfy Paul.

If the Reach kill him, no loss. Either way, that should be a decent bribe.

 

For reasons that will become apparent, cooperation with Ares will soon be...

Impractical.

 

I'm curious what Jupiter thinks of all this. Assuming he has a similar relationship to Zeus as Vulcan does to Hephaestus.

Is Jupiter still married to Juno?

 

That story ends in a very questionable way.

 

Hmm, i remember renegade mentioning that Zeus put Ares somewhere as punishment, and Tartarus is a place of punishment, so maybe they'll fight him.

 

Yup.

It's kind of sad at this point, because sometimes the bigger fish should just be a bigger fish.

 

Olympus calling it now, Zeus IS Olympus.

Yeah yeah, getting flashbacks to God Of War here.

 

The roman version of Zeus is a far better partner to his significant other.

 

I actually like this as it provides a justification for having the Greek Gods remain a major force while still having supernatural mechanics that make the Gods depend on mortal belief for power and survival. Many urban fantasy settings with a similar premise simply take the fact that the Greek Gods are a powerful mystic force even as the Gods from non-western cultures are ignored or denigrated as minor figures. I believe that this undermines worldbuilding efforts by not recognizing that the Greek (or Roman) Gods were far from the only major manifestation of pre-Christian religious belief. There are many other Gods that once had far more worshippers or are even still worshipped by a sizeable fraction of humanity. These Gods should be highly active if human belief is treated as being supernaturally significant.

From an OOC perspective this mono-focus on the Greek Gods is understandable as a western audience or author is far more likely to be familiar with their legends. It also avoids the tricky question of cultural appropriation and the possibility of disrespecting genuine religious beliefs. The western culture associated with the Greek Gods is so predominant that no one is seriously concerned about showing it appropriate respect and the associated religion is so faded away that no one will be offended by the misuse of their mythology.

 

Except in DC the Greek God's aren't supposed to be dependent on mortal belief for power and survival.

 

The issue with is that the Greek gods aren’t a bigger fish, their a fish in an infinite ocean. There’s no definite and solid scale in DC as nature of the comic. How does Nabu/Klarion rate against an Olympian? Does worship increase them or nah? If worship is a factor then can Paul just make a phone call to Mammon and have him kick Zeus in the teeth or is there something governing inter pantheon relations? Also most importantly, where does the Ophidian come into this?

The bigger fish thing only works when you know how big yourself and the other fish are, otherwise everyone’s game.

 

I know that we don't get exact details, but my understanding was the human belief helped the Gods develop from the Dream, maintain their integrity as a magical construct, and grow in power.

 

As shown in one comic not having it can also starve them. I'm not actually sure which one but I've seen a few panels about it before.

 

There is a really great scene in Neil Gaiman's Sandman series where Bastet is shown living as a withered figure due her lack of worship and then is able to briefly restore her divine appearance by feeding from the worship provided by a child who looks at a cat and sees a goddess. His Thessaly series also has some Death Gods who seek to compensate for their lack of worship by feeding on human souls. I believe that these examples can serve as a basic guide to how the Gods depend on something that humans provide.

 

As per this fic the Star Conquerors mother stars are also physical manifestations of belief by the little mind controlling starfish.

Anyways Zeus is not a big fish, the only reason his pantheon is relevant to the DC universe is only because of the memetic status of Greece gods and the European narrow focus of the western media we consume.

By their own argued rules and weight of raw numbers of historic and current believers Zeus and his pantheon are less than toilet paper to the gods of Asia or the Abrahamic theurgy kerfuffle, they are used in media because they are inherently entirely irrelevant just like the Norse mythos, their religion is dead and they have no significance thus its OK to put them in comics and media.

I think the best way to interpret this in universe is that Greek mythology is so starved for relevance that they are barely above powerful mortal sorcerers and they interact with mortals whenever they are able to because they literally need every single scrab of notice they can scrape off the floor. The creatures of other more powerful religions only interact with mortals out of boredom or duty, not because they have to.

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To go back to the tangent being discussed, Paul is being entirely correct when he says most gods are jumped up elementals, gods worth their salt cannot be used in comics without risking having a noticeable fraction of the human population flip their shit, thus the only ones that will ever show up enough to be identificable characters are elementals like Zeus because Superman cannot throw down and win a fight against Jesus Christ, but he can certainly beat the absolute shit out of Zeus.

 

The Hellenic religion is not dead, like the Norse, it maintains followers.

 

In Vertigo.

Vertigo and the mainstream DC universe were separate universes until the flashpoint merger.

In the mainstream universe the gods gained their power from the exact same as the New Gods- The Source.

It was a plot point in the Genesis event, also in Wonder Woman in which Cronos and the Titans attacked others, including the Hindu gods, and the Silver City for their piece of the pie.

Edit: Rather worship was a separate source of power. Darkseid got the Greek and Roman gods to separate so they wouldn't gain all the energy from the Greek and Roman worshippers, as an example.

 

Pretty much.

In actual DC the Gods/Titans of Earth were born from the Godwave and their power comes from The Source.

 

Yeah there’s like some 2000 followers in Modern Greece and some 100k that have some sort of interest. I have no idea what kind conversion rate human belief is to actual power but to compare, the Abrahamic faiths have some 5 billion worshippers. If human faith is a defining factor then Zeus should rate somewhat equal to minor demon lord, if that.

My interpretation of DC gods is that they have a base power level determined by how powerful their parents are, how well they practise, if they’re blessed/connected to a greater power and then that’s added to by the number of followers they have. Death gods switch from worshippers to how many dead are in their realm. I think if Hades wanted to he could probably go toe to toe with Mammon and might have been able to defeat Nabu if they were fighting in the Underworld.

 

DC's interpretation of "worship" is rather liberal.

Every war is an act of worship for Ares, whether the combatants have heard of him or not.

A speech by Orion actually indicated the New Gods are the same.