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[pikachu17]

Uh, weren't there nine worlds in Norse mythology?
And spirit world is not the same as just invisible spirits.
Spirit world is a place other than regular earth for them to be spirity in.

[Rolan7]

The Norse didn't really believe in alternate dimensions in that sense. They have a god-realm a human realm and a dead-realm, the same sky/earth/subterranean divide, which is clear when you look at their artwork depictions. They had no reason not to believe that these were physical places located relative to each other.

And invisible spirits doesn't mean they're not here all around us, so it's not like D&D Astral Planes or something. When you die, a physical Valkyrie takes you to the physical place. Sure, can't be seen, but that doesn't mean that it's in a different realm of existence.

But they did.  The planes were described as branches of a tree, with certain planes being higher or lower.
Which is absurd, because you can't look up and see the other planes...  or even the rest of the tree, that Midgaard is supposedly a branch of!
It's so absurd it has to be metaphysical.  Separate planes.

[smjjames]

The Norse didn't really believe in alternate dimensions in that sense. They have a god-realm a human realm and a dead-realm, the same sky/earth/subterranean divide, which is clear when you look at their artwork depictions. They had no reason not to believe that these were physical places located relative to each other.

And invisible spirits doesn't mean they're not here all around us, so it's not like D&D Astral Planes or something. When you die, a physical Valkyrie takes you to the physical place. Sure, can't be seen, but that doesn't mean that it's in a different realm of existence.

The invisible spirits residing in their own realm (visiting ours just temporarily, or until we banish them) or wholly in our realm is going to depend on the flavor of spirit realm you're talking about as they aren't all identical, some are separate from our realm, some aren't.

The Norse didn't really believe in alternate dimensions in that sense. They have a god-realm a human realm and a dead-realm, the same sky/earth/subterranean divide, which is clear when you look at their artwork depictions. They had no reason not to believe that these were physical places located relative to each other.

And invisible spirits doesn't mean they're not here all around us, so it's not like D&D Astral Planes or something. When you die, a physical Valkyrie takes you to the physical place. Sure, can't be seen, but that doesn't mean that it's in a different realm of existence.

But they did.  The planes were described as branches of a tree, with certain planes being higher or lower.
Which is absurd, because you can't look up and see the other planes...  or even the rest of the tree, that Midgaard is supposedly a branch of!
It's so absurd it has to be metaphysical.  Separate planes.

I thought Midgard was the center. Still, I'm not sure if they really did think of them as places unreachable by physical means since the separate realms seems like a modern interpretation.

[NJW2000]

Re: Heaven and literalism: the word "metaphor" really springs to mind.

Not that your given peasant didn't think of God as a massive old man living on the clouds, but modern theologians would probably just say the language needed to describe heaven accurately wasn't available.

[Reelya]

I don't know, plenty of the Norse cosmology seems like it was taken literally.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_cosmology

The root in the Æsir homeworld taps the sacred wellspring of fate, the Well of Urðr. The tree is tended by the Norns, who live near it. Each day, they water it with pure water and whiten it with clay from the spring to preserve it. The water falls down to the earth as dew.
...
Animals continually feed on the tree, threatening it, but its vitality persists evergreen as it heals and nourishes the vibrant aggression of life.[1] On the topmost branch of the tree sits an eagle. The beating of its wings cause the winds in the world of men. At the root of the tree lies a great dragon, Niðhǫggr, gnawing at it continuously, together with other unnamed serpents.

If excess water from watering the World Tree falls on Earth and the wings of an eagle in the tree cause literal winds on Earth, then it's clear that many, if not most ... if not all, people took this to be a literal physical explanation of things. The great dragon gnawing at the root of the tree obviously explains why earthquakes occur.

It just has the Gods up in the sky (where you conveniently can't go and check) like most other beliefs. The "tree" holding heaven up isn't a metaphor for "alternate realities" it is in fact a hamfisted way of explaining why the Gods just don't fall down. The fact that you can't go and see the tree doesn't mean it was clearly understood as metaphor any more than the Bible belief that there were physical foundations holding up the firmament of the sky.

Viking Priest: "The Gods live up in the sky"
Skeptical Viking: "Uh, wouldn't they just fall down, then?"
Viking Priest: "Well it so happens, there's this tree ..."
Skeptical Viking: "Why can't I see this tree, then?"
Viking Priest: "Well the base of the tree is far away, past the icy wastes ... you can go check, if you like"
Skeptical Viking: "Uh, no thanks, I'll take your word for it."

[Frumple]

That's a children's book. It's in the library nearest to me. Like. I know what it's getting at. And apparently going by the reviews it's even a pretty decent one!

But it's still one of the sketchiest children's book covers I've seen my life.

[smjjames]

I read that at first in the context of the male sex organ at first, then a minute later I saw the actual bone it meant. XD

The cover art isn't particularily sketchy (just switch the pig for little red riding hood), but the title is there a little just due to the double meaning that the intended audience isn't likely to be aware of.

[Frumple]

Switch the pig for little red and the fox goes from skeevy maybe-rapist to pedophilic skeevy maybe-rapist. That would actually make things worse, tbh.

[TD1]

He practically screams "I want to put my bone in your purse."

With RRH, it would be even worse.

[Reelya]

Switch the pig for little red and the fox goes from skeevy maybe-rapist to pedophilic skeevy maybe-rapist. That would actually make things worse, tbh.

Arguably, stories like Little Red Riding Hood were cautionary tales about avoiding pedophilic skeevy maybe-rapists.

[Kagus]

I read that at first in the context of the male sex organ at first, then a minute later I saw the actual bone it meant. XD

The cover art isn't particularily sketchy, but the title is there a little just due to the double meaning that the intended audience isn't likely to be aware of.

Thing is, "bone" can be used to describe the organ itself, but it can also be used to define one of the popular actions associated with that organ. Which makes the way Mr. Fox is leering at lil' miss Pig Riding Hood all the more suspect.


Norwegian childrens book writers, I have to say, seem to understand their target audience... Stories such as the twin set of the little boy with diarrhea who pooed from here to there, who pooed out his dinner and pooed out his friend, who pooed out things he hadn't even eaten yet; and the book from the same author following his sister who vomited on things in much the same way her brother handled the other end of the bodily spectrum.

Or perhaps an inspiring tale of becoming comfortable with yourself for who you are, as depicted in "The Elephant Who Didn't Dare to Fart".


In a slight turn from bodily functions, there is of course the highly popular "Kurt" series of books, including the one where Kurt manages to reel in a fish the size of a large house, so he and his family decide to take a quick vacation, build a shack on top of the fish, and sail it around the world (crossing from Norway to China apparently takes 2-3 days when sailing a dead fish) while eating it out from underneath them.

...it's not entirely without bodily functions, of course, because Kurt's youngest, the boy, has as a life goal to urinate in public restrooms in every country in the world. The book covers his making a lot of headway in that lofty objective.

[Reelya]

Norwegian childrens book writers, I have to say, seem to understand their target audience... Stories such as the twin set of the little boy with diarrhea who pooed from here to there, who pooed out his dinner and pooed out his friend, who pooed out things he hadn't even eaten yet; and the book from the same author following his sister who vomited on things in much the same way her brother handled the other end of the bodily spectrum.

Relevant:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faU-lqGWgiM

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(btw this is Japanese so watching this one-minute video counts as having completed a full series on anime tracker sites like myanimelist. Quick way to pad out your list. The same dude did a ton more shorts that also count. Usually extremely gory)

[smjjames]

I read that at first in the context of the male sex organ at first, then a minute later I saw the actual bone it meant. XD

The cover art isn't particularily sketchy, but the title is there a little just due to the double meaning that the intended audience isn't likely to be aware of.

Thing is, "bone" can be used to describe the organ itself, but it can also be used to define one of the popular actions associated with that organ. Which makes the way Mr. Fox is leering at lil' miss Pig Riding Hood all the more suspect.

I know that, and yeah it certainly does, what with triple multiple entendre and all that.

[Reelya]

Rihanna is a computer hacker named “8 Ball,”

Wow, i totally have to see Ocean's 8 now. That sounds so cool and clever.

* note here that Ocean's 8 debuts in 2 days and there seems to be a review-embargo on the thing. That's when the studio avoids sending out early copies of a movie to reviewers - which they'd normally do to drum up good press for the thing. The only review of Ocean's 8 on Rotten Tomatoes is in Spanish, which is an appalling omen for how good the studio thinks this movie is. They've got a full lockdown on review copies in America.

EDIT: also the person who wrote Ocean's 8 apparently wrote what is considered the worst movie on Netflix.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/christopherhudspeth/netflix-worst-movie-dude-lucy-hale

[Kagus]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

btw this is Japanese so watching this one-minute video counts as having completed a full series on anime tracker sites like myanimelist. Quick way to pad out your list.

This is entirely irrelevant to me, I have to say.