Origin and Religion of the Norn

Gender shouldnt really be a major factor in attributing the Bear Spirit to the gods. Also is the whole "bear is the leader" thing actually mentioned ingame? i always figured that they had no leader because they were not actually a group like the gods were. The Bear Spirit is simply the one the Norn seem to share a link with.

As for the Snow Lynx thing there is also mention of an Eagle Spirit in the "GWEN and Now" article. It also implies that there are more animals with each one having its own associated spirit. So rather than being Avatars or interpretations of the gods, the animal spirits are the actual representaion of animals.

<---- Did not read the thing properly (needs to learn to read before he talks)

Personally, of the various spirits, I would be inclined to associate Owl with Lyssa and Wurm with Abaddon. Lyssa is a god of inspiration among other things, which gives her a better connection to Owl than Wurm. Abaddon, on the other hand, was the lurking monster that lies beneath reality as we know it and that has the potential to cause great destruction if he emerges - which seems a good analogue to Wurm. Furthermore, the Wurm's underground lifestyle meshes well with the portfolio of hidden knowledge.

It would be very telling if it was revealed that Wurm had had a major change of heart in recent times.

That said, and partially referencing Free Runner's point, it's possible that instead of each god having a single animal spirit as avatar to the Norn, they may have different spirits for each aspect of their portfolio. The twin goddesses that compose Lyssa in the human pantheon, for instance, may be seperate in the Norn, possibly with both being a source of inspiration but with Eagle representing beauty and Owl illusion. Or it may be that Dwayna, while having Bear to represent her mothering aspect, also has a bird spirit such as Eagle to represent her as the goddess of the air.

Idly, regarding Balthazar as Ox... it might be that Ox doesn't necessarily represent domesticated and castrated oxen specifically (do the Norn even keep domesticated animals?) but the cattle of the Shiverpeaks... namely, the bisons and aurochs that all happen to have "Berserking" in front of their names...

Sure, but we also have plenty ambient dolyaks grazing amongst them.

About Ox, I don't mean that it is to be represented literally as domesticated or castrated, perhaps I didn't make myself clear. The ox is even shown in Chinese astrology to have peaceful characteristics.

But we could go in circles with this and get nowhere. In searching for Norn-domesticated animals (of which I only found pigs ._.) I found an interesting quote:

Perhaps there are unknown half Norn humans already among us? To further fuel this, Gaile said this about Egil--I'm assuming, because of the text on Egil's discussion page on the official wiki--after asking the writers about his profession:

We now have Norn nomads, Norn heroes asking for a human hand in marriage, along with a Norn joking about having Elonian blood running through her.

Bolded word is your issue. Norn seem to be based purely off of the Scandinavian area and Norse background.

There is also a NPC that says something along the lines of "I've been thinking of traveling and heading south, but I hear the monsters are rather weak down there." Or something along those lines. So Nomadic Norn are definably around.

Just because I make a reference to something it doesn't mean that I'm making a direct connection. I know the Norn are not based on Chinese culture, but I am not talking about the Norn or their religion, I am talking about oxen.

Oxen and their characteristics. Not Norn.

As for the rest, it seems you either ignored what I was getting at or it went over your head. I referenced but was not talking about nomadic Norn, but the possibility, even the increasing probability, of half Norn humans.

Ok... well that idea is still not very reliable because we need to look at the background of things when we look at them. In this case, the Norn need to be connected to the Oxen. So when looking at Oxen in this case, we should look for Oxen where the Norn's influence comes from - Scandinavian and Norse and the like in other words.

Oh, I got that, but I brought up another instance where a Norn talks about traveling.

You're ignoring the fact that the writers may not just be looking at one culture to make another. Yes, the Norn come from Norse influence, but the characteristics of an animal most commonly referred to as an ox don't necessarily have to be looked at through only a handful of sources.

That said, yes, an ox can mean various types of bovine mammals. Yes, we should be looking at Scandinavian and like cultures when speculating and hypothesizing about the Norn, but we shouldn't cross off pop culture either.

-sigh- You misunderstood me. No where did I say we should "cross off" non-Norse influences. I simply meant we should look at the influences of the Norn first. As it would make more sense that things that deal with the Norn share the same background influence as the Norn themselves.

You completely rejected the idea from the time I mentioned Chinese astrology. I don't want to make this into a pissing contest, I just want you to keep an open mind.

Oxen in Norse mythology:

Gefjun drew from Gylfi
gladly the wave-trove's free-hold,
Till from the running beasts
sweat reeked, to Denmark's increase;
The oxen bore, moreover,
eight eyes, gleaming brow-lights,
O'er the field's wide: booty,
and four heads in their plowing.

Oxen here are being used in the domesticated, tamed or conquered (however you want to look at it) manner I had mentioned earlier. In other words, they were used to plow fields. Furthermore, I quote the following: "It is possible that there is a ritualistic plowing ceremony behind this myth, and that Gefjun is to be considered a fertility goddess."

From the explanation, it's not actually clear that the oxen were domesticated. It's possible that they were simply willing accomplices in the claiming of more land than Gylfi had intended to give.

This is ignoring the trend in Norse mythology that has the Aesir and giants at odds with each other, but there are exceptions to this trend. However, while the Norn have Scandinavian influences, their culture is obviously not a carbon copy of the Norse.

As an additional consideration, ANet could simply have used the term 'ox' in order to use a more familiar term regardless of whether the 'ox' in question was actually domesticated, possibly invoking the second definition of 'ox' as 'any bovine'. Which certainly would cover bisons, aurochs and, arguably, humanoid bovines such as minotaurs as well.

You're absolutely correct, it's so unquestionably not clear that I also used 'tamed' and 'conquered'. Anyway, from the myth do you not make the connection that oxen had been used to plow fields? Do you think they just used oxen in that one mythological example and never once used them to actually do some work? Not to mention yoking. I am not relying on a myth to make my argument. Myths have some basis in reality and there were clearly domesticated--err, sorry, "willing accomplices"--animals we call oxen working the fields in Sweden.

And hence my readiness to include Chinese/pop-culture influence when making my argument.

This made me laugh. What? More familiar than 'bull'? You have got to be kidding me. We already know how unacquainted the OP was with oxen--which in fact, is used most often to describe the docile workers--and ANet's writers would rather use that than the clearly fierce bull which already has its place in GW as warrior-like?

So terribly sorry I never bothered studying Bulls and the like. -__-

Anyways, going back to a quote from a Norn Breakfast Mc Rit brought up, "By the bison" makes it seem to me that the term of "ox" for this is in fact the generic bison use, and not a docile bull usage. Although we cannot confirm anything until GW2 - or some confirmation by Anet - I will stand by believing that "ox" simply means bison. I may look around later for more references to the ox spirit.

A quick Google search never hurt anybody.

A bison (buffalo or American buffalo; to us Americans) while ox-like is not an ox. The word 'bull' is much more likely to be used in a generic way than 'ox'. Eg. Male whale; male elephant; male bovine mammal.

This correlates to the many animal spirits the Norn are known to revere.

A bison (btw, I did know a buffalo is a bison) is a bovine mammal. And as we all know by now "ox" can refer to a bovine mammal - which includes bison. So I do not see how a bison cannot be the ox spirit, which seems to be what you are implying.

Edit: Also, I would agree somewhat with draxynnic, but not that it was used for "familiarness" but for "generalization." Meaning that Anet hasn't set in stone - at the time - what kind of animal the ox spirit would be: bison, bull, or something else. Perhaps when they got to the collector's dialogue, they had settled on what it would be, and that Egil's dialogue was made before the decision, and simply forgot to change it - or didn't bother.

Off topic, I just realized your name was changed from Azazel. Your new avatar is much better, by the way.

That actually makes the most sense.

Actually, I was going for 'allied' or maybe even 'mercenary'. The point I was making is that the giants in oxen form may not have been under her control at all, except in that she was apparently the brains of the operation...

...and even that may not entirely be the truth, if the way it worked out was that she mentioned the deal to a couple of giants and it was them that came up with the idea of taking oxen form and ploughing half the kingdom.

Certainly more familiar than 'aurochs' and maybe even 'bison'. We have no evidence that the Norn even have domesticated cattle as we know them, but 'ox', as I've already noted, can be used as a generic term for bovines - including bison - without having to refer specifically to domesticated draft animals.

The four giants were her sons. The story also says that she transformed them into giants and yoked them to the plow. That hardly sounds like a deal was made, even if they were her sons. But anyway, this is going a bit off topic now.

Getting back to the spirits representing the gods or the animals... Whether the spirits are representations of the Gods (based on the different aspects and not the gods as a whole due to the *possible - as things could have changed since the manual was made and then overlooked* greater amount of Norn Spirits), one thing is sure:

The Norn have the same afterlife as Humans. This is not only supported by the Wintersday quest, but also a quote from Jora that I noticed the other day:

Due to the *albeit brief* description of the "hall of spirits" and due to the name, I think it would be safe to *at the very least* assume that it is the same as the Hall of Heroes.

Edit: Since this was brought up in GWO:

This is true, not sure if it is in the manuscripts, however, if the Rift is at the center of the universe, than it is only logical for multiple worlds and races to believe - if not know - of it's existence.

With the Hall of Heroes being the center of the Rift, and the Underworld being in the Rift (supposedly), and the Rift being in the center of the Mists, than it is far from unlikely that races would not have the same belief of the Rift as being the afterlife, just different names/ideas of how it looks - the "Realm of the Dead" would be the Underworld, "Realm of Fallen Fighters" would be the Fissure of Woe, "Realm of Villians" would be the Realm of Torment, "Realm of 'Nice People'" would be Dwayna's Realm, Tree Huggers for Melandru, etc. etc.

As such, would it not be far out to say that those multiple races, worlds, and more to the point religions have the same beings overwatching those areas? I would think that it is very logical. While numbers won't be the same (some religions will have a 1 being for 1 aspect or personality trait *such as one god for trickery, one for cunning, one for death, one for ice, etc. etc. to humans they would all be Grenth*), the location and the job will be the same or at least similar.

This is basically the same idea as the concept of all religions in rl being the same, just addition/removal or combination/splitting of gods and locations.

Except the Charr. There are no gods for the Charr!

...Sorry, just had to get that out of my system.