Senan Demel 1/09/20 Period 2 - Blog #2

Senan Demel’s Blog - Modern Mythology 2020

01/09/20 - Team 4 Presentation

Aim: How do the Norse use stories to explain their natural world? 

  We started with the Do Now, which was to compare Norse gods to others gods from different mythologies. We concluded that the gods are fallible, and are not invulnerable to forces bigger than themselves. For example, gods in Norse mythology will age, so they use special apples to stay young.

  Team 4 gave us a summary of the story they would be discussing and then asked if we would rather be Thor, Loki, or Thialfi. I personally would have rather been Thor because of his immense power and abilities.

Then they asked critical thinking questions such as, "How does X relate to the relationship between the gods and giants?" These questions force us to gain a deeper understanding of Norse Mythology and the meanings behind the stories.

  Brian Jiang made a funny comment saying how the story was about Loki tricking the giant into giving them free food. I laughed.

  The group presented a summary of Apple story afterwards, and asked if the apples make the Aesir actual gods or if they are gods because of their innate powers and special qualities. Yayin gives a great answer, saying the apples are what separate the gods from humans and giants. “A well deserved plus twenty,” I think to myself.

  We conclude the presentation with a review of the major concepts we learned, and a little something about foot sizes and the information they give about suitable marital partners. I wasn’t sure what this was about at first, but I think the size of a male’s foot is proportional to the size of his heart.

  In summary, I learned about what makes a god, and why. All gods are different and all mythologies are different, but they all share a small set of qualities that distinguishes them from others, such as humans or giants. This is important to know because it would otherwise be pointless to learn about different mythologies. We would end up studying one of them and concluding that the others are the same, when in reality, they have an unspeakable amount of depth and history packed into them that we can only fully understand by delving deeper. Moving forward, I can use this knowledge to learn the lessons, find the themes, and understand the explanations in each type of mythology instead of generalizing mythology as a singularity.