Omnium
Junior Member
Posts: 58 
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Post by Omnium on Jan 2, 2014 18:42:02 GMT
Off the top of my head Tom said that Paz's Spanish grammar is poor because she's 'a Galician hick'. So she speaks and understands the language perfectly well (by which I mean nobody who speaks spanish would fail to understand her), but will use 'incorrect' forms of words and sentence structure.
So, I'm guessing that we're due a far heavier chapter, after the (mostly) happy fun time that was Thread. But it's probably a good thing to move the plot forward, and (one assumes) find out more about Jeanne and the etheric side of GKC universe.
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Post by Intelligence on Jan 2, 2014 20:50:26 GMT
It looks to me like the skull has a hood surrounding it? So maybe we might see the Grim Reaper? If that's him, he looks rather drunk. Must have partied too hard.  |
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Omnium
Junior Member
Posts: 58
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Post by Omnium on Jan 2, 2014 22:17:49 GMT
It looks to me like the skull has a hood surrounding it? So maybe we might see the Grim Reaper? I don't think there is a Grim Reaper in GKC. On the page where Annie meets Neith, Hermes/Mercury and so forth there was a psychopomp who resembled the Grim Reaper (cloak, scythe and all) but was stated to be someone else. |
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yarksie
Full Member
veggetible
Posts: 100
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Post by yarksie on Jan 2, 2014 23:37:07 GMT
It looks to me like the skull has a hood surrounding it? So maybe we might see the Grim Reaper? I don't think there is a Grim Reaper in GKC. On the page where Annie meets Neith, Hermes/Mercury and so forth there was a psychopomp who resembled the Grim Reaper (cloak, scythe and all) but was stated to be someone else. Oh I forgot about that. |
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Post by Mezzaphor on Jan 3, 2014 5:01:15 GMT
His name wasn't given in the comic, but the guy with the cloak and scythe was Ankou.  |
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Post by exdevlin on Jan 3, 2014 16:54:46 GMT
The title page reminds me of Day of the Death celebrations/artwork. Is a Mexican tradition, no? Paz is not strictly depicted/stated as Mexican, but she may know of it, by association? I don't remember if it's in-comic or Word of Tom, but Paz is Galician. Galicia is the northwest corner of Spain, due north of Portugal. Linguists argue about the relationship between the Galician, North Portuguese, and South Portuguese languages/dialects, but it's pretty clear they are more closely related to each other than to Spanish. Spain does formally recognize Galician as a regional language. It is (I'm pretty sure) Word of Tom that Paz actually doesn't speak Spanish very well. Considering that her native language is closer to Portuguese and she came to a British boarding school pretty young, that seems appropriate. There's no particular reason to think that Paz would be aware of how Mexican-native customs got mixed into the celebration of All Saints' Day. It was a pretty loose association, even in my head, so don't give it much weight. The cover does remind me strongly of Day of the Dead though. I didn't know about her Galician heritage though; neat. |
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Post by lordofpotatoes on Jan 3, 2014 21:59:06 GMT
Maybe the grim reaper will just go by the name of Thanatos?
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Post by Lightice on Jan 3, 2014 22:02:55 GMT
Maybe the grim reaper will just go by the name of Thanatos? But Thanatos is depicted as a winged human, not as a cloaked skeleton. If the Grim Reaper is a psychopomp in his own right, rather than just an alternate name for Ankou, then I'd assume him to go by that name. |
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Post by lordofpotatoes on Jan 3, 2014 22:11:17 GMT
Maybe the grim reaper will just go by the name of Thanatos? But Thanatos is depicted as a winged human, not as a cloaked skeleton. If the Grim Reaper is a psychopomp in his own right, rather than just an alternate name for Ankou, then I'd assume him to go by that name. I have never known how thanatos looks like so... Could the grim reaper be Chronos? Chronos is not a god of death or anything in canonical mythology, but thats where the grim reaper got its looks from. And Chronos is time, so it might be that time reaps your soul and thats why he's a psychopomp. |
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Post by Lightice on Jan 4, 2014 0:14:32 GMT
Could the grim reaper be Chronos? Chronos is not a god of death or anything in canonical mythology, but thats where the grim reaper got its looks from. And Chronos is time, so it might be that time reaps your soul and thats why he's a psychopomp. But Chronos isn't depicted as a robed skeleton, either. There is no figure from any classical mythology who would match the Grim Reaper imagery, to my knowledge. He was born from Medieval allegorical illustrations. |
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Omnium
Junior Member
Posts: 58
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Post by Omnium on Jan 4, 2014 2:39:51 GMT
Could the grim reaper be Chronos? Chronos is not a god of death or anything in canonical mythology, but thats where the grim reaper got its looks from. And Chronos is time, so it might be that time reaps your soul and thats why he's a psychopomp. But Chronos isn't depicted as a robed skeleton, either. There is no figure from any classical mythology who would match the Grim Reaper imagery, to my knowledge. He was born from Medieval allegorical illustrations. Wikipedia informs me that he's a figure from Breton mythology. Thanatos wasn't the guy that took souls to the afterlife. He was death. Those were different concepts in Greek (and Roman) mythology. |
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Post by thedoctor on Jan 6, 2014 8:58:49 GMT
With what y'all are talking about, new psychopomps and all, you might be interested in this thread. It discusses a lot of this stuff pretty in depth! |
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Post by Lightice on Jan 6, 2014 9:50:58 GMT
No, it's Ankou. Wikipedia informs me that he's a figure from Breton mythology. I did mention Ankou earlier, I just commented on the possibility that Grim Reaper is a separate entity. I believe that Ankou is inspired by the same imagery that produced the latter, in any case. |
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Post by keef on Jan 6, 2014 20:29:35 GMT
His name wasn't given in the comic, but the guy with the cloak and scythe was Ankou. So he's French; should he be Jeanne's psychopomp? |
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Post by warrl on Jan 6, 2014 21:39:35 GMT
His name wasn't given in the comic, but the guy with the cloak and scythe was Ankou. So he's French; should he be Jeanne's psychopomp? Actually, he's also Cornish and Norman French. Being both Cornish and Breton? That's easy. There was significant commerce - and the occasional war - between Cornwall and Brittany going back at least to shortly after the Romans abandoned Britain. Not to mention that the people of both areas through Roman times and for some time thereafter were predominantly Romanized Celts, with a lot of both Roman and pre-Roman mythology in common and speaking very similar languages. The Norman French are harder to explain, unless they learned of him after moving into Normandy (adjacent to Brittany) from Scandinavia. On the other hand, linguists and geneticists both say that the Scandinavians, the Germanics, and the Celts were pretty much cousins. So it isn't out of the question that they already had that particular bit of mythology. |
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Post by keef on Jan 6, 2014 22:08:52 GMT
It's an interesting character, I had never heard of him. I have read a lot of French comics (in translation, can't read French)and there are several that deal with local or old religion and folklore. But can't remember ever reading about this guy.
And I have to look out for him next time I reread American Gods, there were some depictions of mythological characters I didn't recognize.
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