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[Draco18s]

Thank you so much, Draco. That was a fantastic waste of precious minutes of my life. I only wish I could fill all my minutes with such pointless amusement

Try Raptor Safari?

[Rowanas]

blurst is awesome.

[Draco18s]

blurst is awesome.

They are.
And I wish my professors 3 years ago had heard of Unity3D (because X3D is not awesome).

[killswitch]

>I think you take the heroic cycle too broadly

I don't think I'm thinking what you think I'm thinking...

> psychologists ... scientists

huh?  I thought we were all just nerdy gamers

[Rowanas]

Killswitch, the heroic cycle, as laid out by Joseph Campbell, no?

By the psychologists and scientists comment I just meant that there are those who are good at psychology, like the airy-fairy elves that they are, and those who have the analytical mind of a scientist. It was a gripe about you applying the heroic cycle to everything in sight merely because it bore some resemblance.

P.S. I am a geek. It's very important that they not be mixed up.

[therahedwig]

To specify, the problem is not so much the monomyth, but rather that I think both me and Rowanas have found that sometimes you can apply it to a myth just like how you would apply 'this story is about jesus in purgatory' and 'this story is about homosexuality' to a myth.
It's all possible, I mean, you can say the Minotaur in the Labyrinth is about Theseus fighting his sexual feelings toward men, confronting them so that he can then finally marry the beautiful Ariadne. Or you could say that the Minotaur in the Labyrinth is like Jesus in purgatory, trying to reconcile with the sin of mankind.

See, I could apply it, but it doesn't mean anything. If only that sexual relationships between men waren't a very big deal in ancient greek, and that Jesus wasn't even born back then. Similary, applying the monomyth doesn't reveal any insight either, maybe because a lot of the details of the monomyth don't even apply to the Minotaur myth without fudging it.

So in general, what I'm trying to say is: People see what they want to see, especcially when it comes to the meaning behind stories. Therefore, be critical of your own thoughts so you may have a richer understanding of myths.

[Rowanas]

Therahedwig has given me the proper words to describe my psychologist vs scientist feeling:

So in general, what I'm trying to say is: Psychologists see what they want to see, especially when it comes to the meaning behind stories. Therefore, be critical of your own thoughts so you may have a more scientific outlook on things.

[killswitch]

At least part of this is a straw man argument on both your parts.  Y'all say I am projecting my own issues onto the story - I'm not.   I said that the minotaur represents things that are concealed out of shame and guilt, because... the king conceals the minotaur in a labyrinth out of shame and guilt.

What I am doing is extrapolating the characteristics of the story to the largest scale.  But it's the scale of the experience of reality, not the scientific model of reality.  That is because dwarf fortress is interactive story-telling ( at least that's how I engage with it), and in story telling (books, films, games, etc) power comes from relating things to human experience.  Great stories impact on many levels, the material level, the logical level, but without the human level you get a dry history book.  A list of facts and no juice.  Dwarf Fortress is already far from dry.

I love science.  Science is one of the best things to happen to humanity ever.  But science is young.  It is a long, long way from properly modeling many, many things.  The human brain, one of the most complicated structures known, is one of those things.  The interaction between human brains in groups and societies is even more complex than that.  Yet these are things that we have to deal with every single day.  Science is a candle in the dark, as Sagan describes - it's a good way of shining light on something, but it does not inform you of all that you experience and deal with in life.

Consider the endeavor to understand the human brain.  Do you think that a single human brain can understand the entirety of how a human brain works?  This is like making a map of the earth that is exactly the same size and shape, containing every detail the original has and trying to put it in a library in switzerland.  The brain may be knowable, but not by you or any individual human.

You tell me to be critical of my own thoughts - I am, and I have been.  And now I am telling you - there are limits to what critical thinking can reveal to you, and beyond that is the absolutely vast unknown.  Treating things unknown like they are either known or are not important is a pitfall of giving more credence to science than it can bear.

--

With regards to the monomyth not applying to the minotaur story, or only touching on part of Theseus' story - it describes the act of going into the labyrinth to confront the minotaur pretty perfectly, in fact it is one of the main examples that Campbell uses in The Hero With A Thousand Faces.  And that is the exact part of Theseus' story that we are concerned with, which Toady was enacting when he sparked this whole topic.  So yeah, it's relevant.  All the monomyth does is identify the anatomy of the story and then relate that to human experience. 

I started this out correlating minotaurs to the parts of the self that are concealed out of shame and guilt.   The shame and guilt are directly from the text, they were not added by me.  Correlating the minotaur with a part of the self is a technique for getting to the part of the myth that anyone can relate to.  Has every human alive felt shame and guilt?  The probably have*, and that makes it universal.  That is power.

*_{Okay, so we just lost all the newborns and psychopaths from the audience.}

[therahedwig]

Okay, let's try this again:
For starters, I would like to point out that you are making this arguement to say that Minotaurs have to be evil because they were so in the original myth. And you are using the monomyth to back up your arguement.

So, men with the head of a bull living in labyrinths have to be evil, because a couple of thousand years ago some greek dude told a story about a man with a bull head being evil. Ancient greece, a totally different society whose stories have been changed around(Seriously, when was the last time you saw an accurate depiction of greek myths in media other then books?) whenever they are told to modern day public, or whose stories are considered in a completely different worldview by modern audiences.(Lysistrata)

You are doing this by using a theory that is very singular and flexible to the point of being a curiousity like a palindrome.
A literary theory based mostly on indo-european cultural perceptions.

There is something about that argument that just doesn't click for me, and I will repeat again that I find that you should be a bit more critical of the monomyth(or indeed, of similar things, like the 5 common plots or archetypes).

And I'll leave you with Shakespear in the bush to contemplate over.

[Catastrophic lolcats]

Hey, there could be minotaurs in polite society, even as captain of the guard or General or somesuch. Maybe they aren't even taking advantage of their enormous physical strength and have become a herbalist, or cook.

The run fine porcelain stores.

Although it is unimportant to anyone, and I'm extremly drunk off many a good rum. I'd like to state that the music in that struck me as farily famailiar. I went through my whole music list and I do believe the (first) music is Pteron from Orche - Likev Dust of the Balance. The more you know..

Edit: Damn it to the ninth circle of hell I think it's Radio instead.

[Varjo]

Im sorry but i lost most parts of the psychological stuff However, here is my thoughts about diseases and Minotaurs. 

Argembarger, Rowanas, killswitch: Minotaur do not have to be "evil". It is just a different race who want to survice in the world - if dwarves are in the way, some sort of conflict will emerge. If Minotaurs are immune to disease why should they wash? Its no problem to them and their breeding, social things etc. Being diseased in dwarf point of view, does not make them evil, does it? They are different than dwarves. Actually, who knows if dwarves carry diseases which are threat to Minotaurs? This kind of disease spreading thing has happened in planet earth many times, for example when Spanish people conquered South America around years 1500, they bring diseases with them which didnt exists in SA.

However, if people likes to have Minotaurs as more civilizied race, how about some another race to be disease carrying race which main food could contain dwarves and humans (there is no need to race be "evil"). Does anybody remember very good role playing game of the past, the Runequest? Its no computer game but real roleplaying game before time of computer games. There is this kind of of race. The Broos. Very nasty beasties. In Runequest they are evil. Anyways, Games workshop Ltd. have been thinking about characteristics of Minotaurs, Broos and Beastmen already from 1978.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RuneQuest
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beastmen_%28Warhammer%29

[Argembarger]

And I'll leave you with Shakespear in the bush to contemplate over.

That was a really fascinating article, thank you for that

[Grek]

The defining traits of a minotaur do not, in any story I've ever heard, contain "is covered in filth that makes people who fight them get sick". As such, Minotaurs should not be known for that.

[killswitch]

I have never said that minotaurs should be evil - in fact I said "As far as good/evil, no one here mentioned that.  It's just that when someone is trying to eat your face, you tend to make an enemy out of them."  But we are talking about minotaurs as night creatures, who are therefore enemies of the adventurer.  Enemy does not equal evil, does it?  You could easily play the minotaurs part and call the humans evil, if what you mean by evil is adversary.

As minotaurs have been presented thus far, they match the greek myth.  They live in a labyrinth, they kill people, they are similar to night creatures.  They do not seem to be a civilization, but individuals scattered.  I'm not even saying they should stay this way, I'm just talking about them the way that they are currently, to my rather limited knowledge.

I would be happy with them as clean or dirty, but I prefer dirty slightly more, because that origin myth is cool.  Villagers sending sacrifices or prisoners to satiate the local minotaur is cool.

Are we working from a different origin myth than the greek one?  Are minotaurs a race?  Can they interbreed?  If so how did they come to be men with bull heads in the first place?  Or was it minotaurs all the way back?   Are all the creatures in dwarf fortress the product of evolution?  I don't know if these have already been determined, or if there is precedence in the game for dealing with this kind of thing.  Maybe there is and my ideas are out of sync due to my noobness. 

therahedwig, you seem to think that I am turning to the monomyth as a panacea.  My argument for correlating minotaurs with shame doesn't even require Campbell.  In the story I am working from (I am happy to work from another, but this is the one that I have, which I also like) the minotaur is hidden out of shame, and so is associated with shame.  I really don't get the critique.  Is Nixon not associated with scandal?  Yes they both are associated with many things, and maybe shame isn't the most prominent to you.  fine.  But it is a valid association.  You don't think it should be in the game?  fine.  But don't tell me I am not thinking critically just because we don't see eye to eye.  Ad hominem arguments are unnecessary and unconstructive.

Rather than trying to invalidate my perspective, why don't you provide your own?  You think the minotaur should be how?  What you have said so far is that you associate the minotaur with royal scandals.  You clearly have some background on the topic, so share, please. (that article was cool , thx)

[Rowanas]

Killswitch, I agree that the way you described my words, I was in the wrong. I've misunderstood you and I apologise.

Therahedwig, cheers for that, amusing to read.

Varjo, if you didn't mean to sound condescending and it merely came across that way due to English being a second language for you, ignore the tirade below. If you did mean to sound condescending or English is your first language, continue.

*********************************************Rant begins***************************************************

Varjo, I'm insulted that you think anyone who calls themselves a gamer could not know of Runequest. I am a roleplayer foremost, from a pairing of two gamers who themselves grew up with "traditional" games. I run the college Gaming Society, a club dedicated to roleplaying (and occasionally other) games. I've run it for three years and it's the longest running society in college. The list of ways in which I am not merely a computer gamer is a long one and I have only just begun.