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Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 19, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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these myths may have been subversively introduced to undermine the revival of old European religions.

Not quite- think of it more like Spiderman or James Bond. You get many reboots or episodes with different writers, who all have different artistic interpretations and motives. And "what becomes canon" often becomes hotly debated among the followers of that mythological figure. And characters change with the time, Juliet is going to be black in an upcoming movie.

If some writer gave James Bond a male lover in a new James Bond "myth" that would also become "canon", but a lot of followers of James Bond would consider that to be a subversive myth within the broader myth body. It's entirely possible that James Bond, created with the intention to be a masculine symbol of English chauvinism, gets transformed by writers in the future who do not like that original message. It happens all the time.

So if someone wanted to reboot James Bond and reset the canon, they would pick and choose what remains canon and what does not because it was not created wisely, or it was created subversively. In practice this happens all the time, for example a huge amount of Star Wars canon was ejected because it wasn't aligned with Disney's plan for the mythos. There's no contradiction there as they openly admit this is what they are doing.

It should also be noted that the Old Testament is another example of comic-book literary fiction becoming religion. Their observation of the way symbols and myths inspire us and direct our behavior is a powerful one. How can we harness it? I doubt a revival religion around Apollo is the answer but I think it's the right question.