happiness in The Knight

James Wynn · 22 Mar 2005, 08:10 · from 2005-March.txt.gz

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From: thewynns at earthlink.net (James Wynn)
Date: Tue Mar 22 08:10:27 2005
Subject: (urth) happiness in The Knight
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>> And (ideally) the Overcyns follow the pattern of the beings of Kleos.

>But, this isn't even beng mentioned in the context of this discussion. Why 
>hasn't it come up?? I am an Odinist - It's my religion.  I have some 
>problems with the pictures of the Overcyns in WTK, and I think I can now 
>define the reason.
>Odinism is not actually a supernaturalist religion: it conceives of the 
>gods as human archetypes, or at least that's what we say nowadays.
>I don't know if the original gothis saw Thor as genuinely creating the 
>thunder by throwing his hammer, but in one very real sense they believed 
>the same as us modern Odinists.   They **didn't** believe in Kleos or 
>Elysium.  They didn't think that standards for right and virtue came down 
>from on high.   That belief came later (with the development of 
>monotheism).

I don't think TWK is centrally about Nordic mythology. It is about 
knighthood: a concept that developed under Christianity. I don't think 
"knighthood" can be dealt with separate from a Medieval Western European 
Christian worldview. Wolfe has pulled a slight of hand. He has borrowed 
liberally from Nordic mythology and terminology but is actually writing a 
Christian story -- in the vein of "The Chronicles of Narnia". When Allfather 
kneels before St. Michael the Archangel (who is *directly* associated with 
Jesus in the Icelandic "Njal's Saga") that becomes obvious.

~ Crush

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