Friday 18 January 2013

B is for Baddies

We Pagans don't really do Good and Evil, at least not in such a fiercely black-and-white way as Christians. Even our darker deities aren't 'bad', just intense, or unforgiving, or destructive, or just plain misunderstood!

Hades, for example, is often portrayed as a Baddie. In the recent Clash of the Titans films he even tried to take over the world due to his jealousy and anger towards Zeus for tricking him into his role as guardian of the Underworld. This is nowhere near the impression I have of him from the research I have done into the Greek pantheon. For starters, nothing I read implied he was tricked, merely that the brothers (Zeus, Poseidon and Hades) drew lots for which domain they would watch over. In my opinion Hades got the toughest job of all. He watches over our loved ones once they've passed over, yet how often do we remember to thank or Honour him?

Loki, however, seems to have gathered quite a few fans in recent times, helped no doubt by the fabulous characterisation by Tom Hiddleston in the Thor and Avengers Assemble films. I've lost count of the Pagans I know who have named a cat or dog after him (but I've never heard of anyone naming their pet Hades?) and yet he is a deity that has shown true malice by tricking Hod to kill his brother Baldr. Even this act (which would quickly be labelled "evil" by many people) does not make him evil with a capital E. One of the wonderful things about Pagan Deities is the depth and complexity of their characters. Loki is not known as the Trickster God for nothing, but sometimes his shenanigans were to help his kin, one of my favourite examples being the time he and Thor dressed as women to retrieve Mjollnir from the Jotnar.

One of the (many) blessings of following a Pagan path is learning to see the varying shades between the black and white, to realise that (in the words of Stevie Wonder) there is good and bad in everyone. We've all walked through trials and traumas to arrive at Today, and sometimes these things leave scars. Examining our deities can help us remind us of this.


2 comments:

  1. I like this choice of topic, and you made me think about my black and white view of some deities.

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    1. Thanks Gemmi. Although I can be quick to leap to conclusions I do try to look for other viewpoints after my initial snap-judgement. Very little is really Black-and-White in real life, even White is actually a whole rainbow when you get right down to it!

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