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Post by Doctor Doom on Mar 3, 2007 6:46:34 GMT -5
Or maybe, ua2, because it NEVER made sense for a Norse God to speak 16-th century english?
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Post by The Night Phantom on Mar 3, 2007 9:40:27 GMT -5
Or maybe, ua2, because it NEVER made sense for a Norse God to speak 16-th century english? Why not? When did he learn English?
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Post by dlw66 on Mar 3, 2007 10:29:02 GMT -5
I'm glad he spoke in Olde English -- I am very rusty on my Nordic languages !! It just made reading the comics (with a mood) easier...
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Post by The Night Phantom on Mar 3, 2007 11:29:53 GMT -5
Indeed, if the comic takes the “realistic” route of having Thor speak only Old Norse or the like, lettered in futhark runes—well, I could find it interesting from a linguistic perspective but probably worth passing up from an entertainment perspective.
Actually, it would make even more sense to me that the gods would have their own godly language (maybe more than one), rather than always speaking mortal tongues amongst themselves.
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Post by The Night Phantom on Mar 3, 2007 11:50:28 GMT -5
By the way, I don’t think Marvel has ever portrayed Thor speaking Old English a.k.a. Anglo-Saxon. The English of Elizabethan times, the King James Bible, etc. is an early stage of Modern English. A modern person almost certainly would not comprehend Old English without being a scholar in such things. ( Beowulf, written in Old English, begins, “Hwæt! Wé Gárdena in géardagum þéodcyninga þrym gefrúnon hú ðá æþelingas ellen fremedon”…) Traditionally, the speech of Thor and other Marvel godly characters isn’t really consistent with even the circa-16th-century stage of the language. It’s really contemporary English with an infusion of archaic vocabulary and grammar and a strong avoidance of anything that would strike the average reader as pinpointing the contemporary era (or any time after, oh, 1900 or so—no “23-skiddoo!” for the son of Odin!).
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Post by The Night Phantom on Mar 3, 2007 13:18:07 GMT -5
Hmm—I am amused by this automated statistic from the board’s main page: * rubs hands together and cackles with glee *
All this discussion of Thor’s speech patterns reminds me of a theory I’ve had for quite some time. I hypothesize that many “cosmic” or other “high-power” beings of the Marvel Universe—gods such as the Asgardians and Olympians, abstract entities such as Eternity and Death, certain powerful aliens such as the Stranger and Galactus and his heralds and the Watchers, other beings based on energies such as the Shaper of Worlds and the Phoenix Force—are capable of “translinguistic” communication of a psychic or quasi-psychic nature which we lesser mortals can often understand (at least somewhat) as language but which occurs in addition to or instead of actual language. So, when an Asgardian speaks to a human, the Asgardian may not be speaking English or any other language the human understands, but the human comprehends the communication as occurring in a human language—the translinguistic ability eases the comprehension of a message that the listener cannot consciously perceive in its true form. The reason some beings sound archaic is that there’s something about them (within and/or outside the translinguistic message) that leads the listener to perceive their communication that way, influenced by the listener’s own linguistic expectations (e.g., that a god should sound like something out of the King James Bible). This theory could also account for some speech that occurs under circumstances one might think would make speech impossible, as when heralds of Galactus talk to each other in the void of space.
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Post by dlw66 on Mar 3, 2007 13:51:30 GMT -5
Your theory on language might also jibe with something I read about Galctus at one time (forgive me -- I can't remember when or where!) -- namely, that Galactus appears physically to a given species as looking like they look. So, Galactus does not necessarily have a humanoid form, but appears that way to earthlings...
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Post by The Night Phantom on Mar 3, 2007 15:14:58 GMT -5
Doug, I’m glad you mentioned Galactus’ appearance—I was going to make the same comparison but forgot! With JMS having used the appearance trick with his own Vorlons, I should think he would be open to the language theory too…
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Post by Doctor Bong on Mar 3, 2007 15:24:46 GMT -5
I'm pretty sure this was 1rst revealed during the cosmic trial of Reed Richards, during Byrne's run, dlw66... However, IMO, in later appearances by Galactus, especially the real recent ones, he hasn't been portrayed that way... For example, during his battles against Thanos (I don't mean during Annihilation, but the one that took place in the "Thanos" mini...) & the Hunger he was bested and it seemed like he was an actual being & not the manifestation of a Force of Nature... Perhaps, since Byrne's run, this explanation about the Big G has been "retconned", at least if we go by Doctor Doom's definition of the word....
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Post by The Night Phantom on Mar 4, 2007 11:03:30 GMT -5
[…] it seemed like he was an actual being & not the manifestation of a Force of Nature... Can’t he be both? Galactus started as a mortal. Anyway, physical presence is what M-bodies are for!
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Post by Doctor Bong on Mar 4, 2007 15:59:33 GMT -5
Do M-bodies appear to suffer the effects of physical or energy-based attack on them, Night Phantom...? I was never clear on that subject....
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Post by Doctor Bong on Mar 4, 2007 16:02:28 GMT -5
Also, since we're on the subject of Galactus, does anyone know if the Galen (Galan...?) element remains purged from his Big G persona...? There was this recent FF story where the 2 were separated...
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Post by Doctor Doom on Mar 4, 2007 17:59:46 GMT -5
Back together Ua2, though how was not explained. Unfortunately, fantastic (Pardon the pun) as his run was, Waid had much of what he did summarily retconned.
For example, the good Doctor was exiled to Hell in one story, and in the subsequent arc (One of my favourites ever) all his technology was destroyed etc, but he returned and was killed, though doing so killed Ben Grimm. Ben returned, of course. However JMS brings back Doom from HELL, odd since he wasn't there, his doombot armies are intact, and rather than saying "Oh My God, you killed me when we last met", the Thing responds with basically "Oh, it's Doom, I thought he was in Hell?" and rather than "Oh sweet Lord, I sacrificed everything to get rid of you, I had to shoot my friend, I was willing to lock myself away with you for all time to ensure you never hurt my family- you locked my children in Hell, set my wife's face on fire and tortured my friends as well as scarring me!?", Reed responded "We left you in Hell with no way out!?" And didn't show any great concern.
Rant over.
Oh, and make this last page of the thread reason 574 why Night Phantom Is Awesome.
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Post by The Night Phantom on Mar 4, 2007 20:16:28 GMT -5
Do M-bodies appear to suffer the effects of physical or energy-based attack on them, Night Phantom...? I was never clear on that subject.... Nor I. Oh, and make this last page of the thread reason 574 why Night Phantom Is Awesome. That makes me sound an awful lot like an Excedrin headache.
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Post by Doctor Doom on Mar 5, 2007 11:34:10 GMT -5
Maybe so, but an AWESOME excedrin headache!
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