Raven on 22/3/2006 at 17:10
yeah right... that is stretching it a wee bit don't you think. I think it is safe to say that the trickster/woodies lord is a pagan god (at least one). In fact, does garrett not even say something about stealling from a god in the last level of tdp.
Dia on 22/3/2006 at 17:34
It always seemed to me as if the writers of the Thief games were rather poking fun at religious zealots in general. Think of the dialogue used by the Hammers/Mechanists/etc. The Hammerite/Mechanist/etc. orders always seemed like parodies of religions to me, not to be taken seriously (except if they were getting ready to kill you). Just mho.
moria on 22/3/2006 at 17:39
Quote Posted by Dia
It always seemed to me as if the writers of the Thief games were rather poking fun at religious zealots in general. Think of the dialogue used by the Hammers/Mechanists/etc. The Hammerite/Mechanist/etc. orders always seemed like parodies of religions to me, not to be taken seriously (except if they were getting ready to kill you). Just mho.
I agree, Dia - it always sounds a bit pythonesque to me: "O Lord, may we use this holy grenade to blow up thine enemies into tiny pieces, in your mercy".
Frikkinjerk on 22/3/2006 at 18:49
Quote Posted by Raven
yeah right... that is stretching it a wee bit don't you think. I think it is safe to say that the trickster/woodies lord is a pagan god (at least one). In fact, does garrett not even say something about stealling from a god in the last level of tdp.
Maybe, but I question the real influence the Trickster had. If he was an all important god then wouldn't Victoria have avenged the death of her god immediately instead of shrugging off her contempt for Garrett saying,"the past is the past"? The ritual at the end of TDP also makes me wonder. If the Trickster is the only Pagan god then what power is he going to great lengths to invoke? I think it must either be a greater god, or the power of nature. Either way it'd mean he's not really the central focus of Pagan worship.
It's my impression that the Trickster in Thief is based, at least somewhat, on the celtic Pagan character Puck who was not himself a god. From wikipedia:
Puck is a mischievous pre-Christian nature spirit.
The pagan trickster was reimagined in Old English puca (Christianized as "devil") as a kind of half-tamed woodland sprite, leading folk astray with echoes and lights in nighttime woodlands (like the Celtic/French "White Ladies", the Dames Blanches), or coming into the farmstead and souring milk in the churn.
&
An early 17th century broadside ballad, "The Mad Merry Pranks of Robin Goodfellow", which is so deft and literate it has been taken for the work of Ben Jonson, describes
Puck/Robin Goodfellow as the emissary of Oberon, the faery king, inspiring night-terrors in old women but also carding their wool while they sleep, leading travellers astray, taking the shape of animals, blowing out the candles to kiss the girls in the darkness, twitching off their bedclothes, or making them fall out of bed on the cold floor, tattling secrets, and changing babes in cradles with elflings. All his work is done by moonlight, and his mocking, echoing laugh is "Ho ho ho!"
&
John Milton, in L'Allegro tells "how the drudging Goblin swet/ To earn his cream-bowle duly set" by threshing a week's worth of grain in a night, and then, "stretch'd out all the chimney's length,/Basks at the fire his hairy strength."
Milton's Puck is not small and sprightly, but nearer to a Green Man or a hairy woodwose. For followers of neo-Pagan imagery, sometimes the influence of Pan imagery has now given Puck the hindquarters and cloven hooves of a goat. He may even have small horns. In Ireland "puck" is said to be sometimes used for "goat".
So, really the Dark Project would've been the ultimate trick played on man.
Jarkko Ranta on 22/3/2006 at 19:41
Speaking of funny voices, has anyone else noticed that Sheriff Truart sounds confusingly same like the Sheriff in Robin Hood - Men In Tights (that Cary Elves' classy). When the Karras' record of Sheriff speaking is played I can't be without smiting. And they also have similar faces...
"King illegal wild in it i a is!"
Yametha on 22/3/2006 at 22:28
Perhaps Viktoria was on approximately the same level as he was, so they'd be almost peers. It certainly seems she took over leading what he once led after his death.
Regarding the presense of other gods, does the thing he invokes need to be another pagan deity? He could be performing a ritual on the eye in order to use its power. As for him not being the central focus of pagan worship, all the pagan documents that speak of workship speak of the woodsie lord.
The nature thing is a good point though. Maybe the trickster is an avatar of nature, and he needs to call more power to his body to perform whatever the dark project was.
