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14.10.12

Roleplaying and Marvel.

Most people who follow a norse pagan or heathen path/religion are commonly hit in the face by Marvel when searching for information, artwork, and opinions on the Gods, among other things. That comes with many reactions, and causes great conflict in the community at times... particularly with Lokeans and the fever that were Thor and The Avengers (movies).

I, particularly, am a Marvel fan. I also can completely separate fandom from religion, and it is rather strange to me when people join it... not necessarily wrong, but strange. I've been a Marvel fan since before I knew of paganism at all, and since then, I never really liked Marvel's Loki or Hel... the movies do make Loki more likeable, and Tom Hiddleston's portrayal of him was very good, but that doesn't change the comic version.

I also was a Lokean before the movies came out, along with the whole Loki's Army craze. It doesn't really affect me religiously in any way. I just find it wrong when people who worship only and exclusively the Marvel character call themselves Lokean, since that is the term used for those followers of Loki from the myths such as myself. People who see Marvel Loki as a facet of Loki the deity and choose to merge both don't really bother me, but I'm not personally one of them.

It is true the movies brought more light on Lokeans and norse paganism/heathenry in general, but I don't think post-Marvel Lokeans are any different from ourselves, and it's wrong to dismiss all of them with "You're just a fangirl" as some old-timers and anti-Lokean asatruar do. I'd take education and dialogue as the best way to interact with them and help them out with it, if they really wish to learn more.

Another thing the movies brought was the wild increase in roleplay of the Marvel characters, and consequently, some slightly worse things. I'm a roleplayer myself, though not of Marvel, and the whole Marvel roleplay that sticks to the characters is as neutral to me as the rest of the fandom, even if it's with the characters who were based off the deities. The problem comes when they bring the deities themselves into the roleplay.

I've seen some roleplaying myth Hel, myth Loki, Angrboda, Fenrir, Jörmungandr, Thor, Odin... but worst of all, Sigyn. I'll be pretty blunt here, Marvel canon Sigyn is kind of a psycho and she freaks me out with the way they wrote her. But Sigyn, the goddess, is very different from the character and due to the lack of lore on Her it's very easy for a roleplayer to take the image of myth Sigyn and roleplay Her instead of the character. The way this happens bothers me quite a lot, not only because it clogs up searches for actual followers of Sigyn, but because here they are not pretending to be a character, but a goddess.

So I can say the only thing that bothers me of the whole Marvel vs. Heathenry/Paganism thing is slamming them both together into one thing, or taking one to complement another. People roleplaying actual gods from the lore, that just doesn't stick with me. If given the choice I'd personally not look at such, but since tumblr is a place that depends on tags, it's hard to navigate without such.

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