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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I was going to say Mullah Omar but I didn't think of it. Ishmael says we can develop this theme cautiously.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The first thing to say is that the 'six foot six' is surely significant. Not so much for singling him out to others but for singling himself out from others, if you see what I mean. In other words, are heroes born, made or do they make themselves?
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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I am intrigued, how it was that Hattie was so close straight away, when everybody else has struggled.
Can you let us know Hats?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Some other archetypes
| Mullah Mohammad Omar, who was born approximately 1959 |
This is perhaps unavoidable with Jesus, Buddha etc (but not, note, with Alexander the Great) but it is surprising in the modern era, even in the more backward parts of the modern era. Why didn't they ask him (or his mum)?
| nobody knows when or where |
This is a two-way street. For instance Jesus was 'born' in Bethlehem to fulfil an Old Testament prophecy. But possibly Jeff Beck's advice 'everywhere and nowhere, baby' is safer.
| died probably around April 2013 |
Or not at all. King Arthur still lives in the caves of Bora Bora..
| raised (so they say) by his uncle, his father died when he was young, |
This is a frequent theme of Christian heroes because of the later doctrine of chastity among the priesthood.
| he did not complete his studies. |
Another trope, eg the Buddha, St Augustine, Hitler, Stalin i.e. they are 'of the educated classes' but haven't been indoctrinated.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| MH wrote: | | (but not, note, with Alexander the Great) |
Not quite sure what you are implying. Alexander had a miraculous birth.
Alexander was born on the sixth day of the ancient Greek month of Hekatombaion, which probably corresponds to 20 July 356 BC, although the exact date is disputed,[8] in Pella, the capital of the Kingdom of Macedon.[9] He was the son of the king of Macedon, Philip II, and his fourth wife, Olympias, the daughter of Neoptolemus I, king of Epirus.[10] Although Philip had seven or eight wives, Olympias was his principal wife for some time, likely because she gave birth to Alexander.[11]
Several legends surround Alexander's birth and childhood.[12] According to the ancient Greek biographer Plutarch, on the eve of the consummation of her marriage to Philip, Olympias dreamed that her womb was struck by a thunder bolt that caused a flame to spread "far and wide" before dying away. Sometime after the wedding, Philip is said to have seen himself, in a dream, securing his wife's womb with a seal engraved with a lion's image.[13] Plutarch offered a variety of interpretations of these dreams: that Olympias was pregnant before her marriage, indicated by the sealing of her womb; or that Alexander's father was Zeus. Ancient commentators were divided about whether the ambitious Olympias promulgated the story of Alexander's divine parentage, variously claiming that she had told Alexander, or that she dismissed the suggestion as impious.[13]
On the day Alexander was born, Philip was preparing a siege on the city of Potidea on the peninsula of Chalcidice. That same day, Philip received news that his general Parmenion had defeated the combined Illyrian and Paeonian armies, and that his horses had won at the Olympic Games. It was also said that on this day, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, burnt down. This led Hegesias of Magnesia to say that it had burnt down because Artemis was away, attending the birth of Alexander.[14] Such legends may have emerged when Alexander was king, and possibly at his own instigation, to show that he was superhuman and destined for greatness from conception.[12] | |
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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Osama bin Laden came to mind regardless of the discrepancies with the story line (not of humble birth, plenty of video footage/photos). Disappearing on a motorbike with an AK47 reminded me of T.E. Lawrence.
There aren't very many recent figures who qualify as heroes, or anti-heroes, in their lifetimes.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Not quite sure what you are implying. Alexander had a miraculous birth. |
Since it appears to be advantageous to leave most heroes' dates vague, there must be some purpose in nailing down Alexander's very precisely. It may be like the Jesus situation (25/12/0001 to 03/04/0034) -- if you're making it up from whole cloth, best make it beyond peradventure. The miraculous bit comes with the later territory.
PS Alexander may not have qualified for 'humble birth' but they did the next best thing and made him half-foreign.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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It's not a big thing or anything but my own nativity featured an ox and an ass. True, dad and my brother were in the waiting room but I think it still counts.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | Not quite sure what you are implying. Alexander had a miraculous birth. |
Since it appears to be advantageous to leave most heroes' dates vague, there must be some purpose in nailing down Alexander's very precisely. It may be like the Jesus situation (25/12/0001 to 03/04/0034) -- if you're making it up from whole cloth, best make it beyond peradventure. The miraculous bit comes with the later territory.
PS Alexander may not have qualified for 'humble birth' but they did the next best thing and made him half-foreign. |
In the 5th century B.C., Archelaos, king of Macedonia, introduced feasting on the Macedonian new year’s day in honour of Zeus, along with theatric and gymnastic games which we would understand as Olympic games.
These games bring together (reset) ancient calendars. There is a truce between competing calendars, chronologies.
Fast forward to Phillip the second of Macedon, you will find that Alexander was born on the same day that the Macedonian team (Phillips favored horse) won the chariot race of the Olympic Games.
These Olympic dates, by orthodoxy, have been recalculated to fit "sacred chronology" along with some other ifs and buts.
The important thing to Orthodoxy is the date (to hang its biblical history on). The important thing to Wiley is the Chariot and the horse.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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And what is the significance of this??
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Spit it out, what do you want to learn about?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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That's the spirit, Coyote. The knout and the boot is the only language he understands. That's two languages of course.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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I'm sorry. I presumed there was some point you wished to make regarding the nature of history or legends....?
As I said. That stuff about the Roman Legions was brilliant! Why can't we have more of that?
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Ishmael wrote: |
As I said. That stuff about the Roman Legions was brilliant! Why can't we have more of that? |
All I can say there is plenty of brass in Coin, stonework in Castles, and chess pieces in Noggin...but they do all contain a "legend" element.
My general approach before starting a thread is to make sure I have a number of ideas which could lead in a number of directions. I then travel light and quick according to response. There were other ideas, in Legend, but they never saw the light...........
Hero was different it features a lot of fuzzy thinking. I got the idea, many moons ago when a number of intelligent people were questioning whether Al Quaeda existed or whether OBL was alive or dead, etc, etc, and I was thinking it was pretty strange that no one was even looking at Mullah Omar. I eventually came to realise that this was because there was nothing to see.
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