|
Post by redsycorax on Nov 27, 2023 3:25:59 GMT
Which still leaves us with the question how incarnate evil beings like the Nazis can utilise it. In any decent determinist moral universe, they'd be predestined for a hot old time in the afterlife!
|
|
|
Post by jonclark on Nov 27, 2023 4:36:12 GMT
If the Spear is a check on God's agents then it might not be limited to only working for the "right" side.
After all that deterministic universe either let the Nazis exist or already knew they'd lose the in the long run. Either way those Powers probably didn't see letting the Axis use the Spear as a problem.
|
|
|
Post by redsycorax on Nov 27, 2023 21:52:10 GMT
Even given the use of the Spear would protect a regime that facilitated the Nazi Holocaust and the deaths of six million Jews, one million Sinti and Romani and several million others? How could the Powers let an act of consummate demonic evil like that go unhalted through the use of an artefact associated with Christ Himself? The more one thinks about it, the less it makes sense. So therefore, the weight is on the side of an easier explanation, and more in line with All Star Squadron pre-Crisis continuity, through this explanation: The Spear of Destiny in this context is not the one that was sanctified by Christ through its proximity to Him during the Crucifixion. Any identification of it as such is mistaken. Indeed, it might well be Nazi propaganda that this is 'that' Spear of Destiny, but is actually a Norse pagan artefact imbued with thaumaturgic abilities and originally existed within Asgard or Valhalla. That would fit in better with the Nazi ability to manipulate (some) Valkyries and the presence of Gundra within the UBA.
|
|
|
Post by dans on Nov 27, 2023 23:43:37 GMT
that makes sense... it would be useful propaganda to have people think the sanctified spear was on Hitler's side...
|
|
|
Post by DocQuantum on Nov 28, 2023 4:31:26 GMT
In a story in Weird War Tales #50 by Steve Englehart (which Roy Thomas cites in All-Star Squadron), it is described as an evil relic, not a holy relic, because it was used by a Roman soldier to pierce the side of Christ on the cross. The way it is described in this story, taking place in 1945 during the fall of Germany, is as a legend. Nobody could know its true origins. (BTW, if Alexander the Great really held the Spear of Destiny along with the other world conquerers, I must point out that Alexander lived and died BEFORE Jesus did. Alexander died in 323 BC. So this guy is likely full of it.) In real life, there are a number of contenders for the actual spear, known as the Holy Lance, the Spear of Longinus, and the Spear of Destiny, but likely none of them is the real deal. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_LanceOn the other hand the Holy Grail, used by the Dragon King to erect his half of the Axis supernatural field over Japanese-held territories, is traditionally considered a holy relic in any tradition (though one with pagan roots from the Mabinogion).
|
|
|
Post by redsycorax on Nov 28, 2023 4:44:55 GMT
Hang on, how can Alexander the Great have held it when Alexander (356-323 BCE) lived centuries before Christ? And he died young. And Napoleon ended up losing the Napoleonic Wars. And we all know what happened to Adolf in the end. Moreover, why is that panel depicting him as little more than a teenager when he'd already served in the First World War and was in his thirties by the time he came into contact with the Spear? He was born in 1889, so he would have been thirty five at the time that he first saw it?
You're right, Doc, that Nazi was obviously full of 'it'. Or full of something, either wine and/or illicit substances, one suspects...
|
|
|
Post by dans on Nov 28, 2023 6:19:53 GMT
on the one hand, full of it. He clearly likes to boast. On the other hand, that spear apparently had significant mystical powers, so there was some substance in his boasts...
|
|
|
Post by redsycorax on Nov 28, 2023 22:56:19 GMT
It obviously must have been mystical, to have been used by Alexander the Great three centuries or so before the life of Christ, then getting used in the Crucifixion and then turning up intact to accompany first Napoleon and then Hitler. But the question is, where exactly did it come from? And if it was an evil artefact, wouldn't it have been neutralised by the implicit sanctity of Christ? So my guess is that the above Nazi boast is nothing more than self-aggrandizing propaganda, which Nazi Germany was expert at. It might well have been used by Alexander the Great, Napoleon and Hitler, but perhaps the Christ angle is stretching things a little too far. I still think the Spear of Destiny as used by the Nazis is probably a Norse pagan artefact lurking there under false pretences. The Nazis weren't exactly known for their truthfulness, were they?
|
|
|
Post by jonclark on Nov 28, 2023 23:12:31 GMT
Or the object simply wasn't turned from the dark side simply by being involved with Christ. It was part of his death after all not something used by him.
|
|
|
Post by dans on Nov 29, 2023 12:53:56 GMT
I like either explanation - Christ did not sanctify the spear that was used to stab him or the spear used in the comics was not the same spear, but some other artifact. What does Christianity say about that spear, sorry, not that 'up' on my studies.
|
|
|
Post by redsycorax on Nov 29, 2023 21:37:57 GMT
Protestantism doesn't accord relics any special value or importance, because it believes that the sanctity of Christ was not transmissible, except within those denominations that recognise the sacraments (religious events) of the eucharist and church marriages. Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity are full of relics and residua from Christ, His Apostles and numerous Saints, as well as Apparitions/appearances of the Virgin Mary. Within those frameworks, the Spear of Destiny features in John 19:34, although not named as such. The apocryphal/gnostic "Gospel of Nicodemus" names the Roman centurion involved as Longinus, later beatified as a Catholic saint. Several pieces of the Spear of Destiny/Holy Lance exist, which identifies a divergence from what is described on Earth-Two... the Spear has fragmented OTL and is no longer a coherent object. Those fragments were witnessed in the Vatican, Paris, Byzantium and Istanbul/Constantinople. During the French Revolution, the alleged Holy Lance spearhead in Paris went missing. In the case of Byzantium, the Ottoman conquest in 1453 meant a lot of Christian relics and artefacts went missing too. However, another Holy Lance is claimed to exist in Armenia, within an Orthodox monastery there- and this time, it's the full apparatus. The full Holy Lance/Spear of Destiny makes numerous appearances in various incarnations of the Holy Grail myth, including Parsifal. Here on Earth-Prime, there are therefore several contenders for the status of the Spear of Destiny, some claimed to be the whole artefact and some are fragments. Clearly, the history of the Spear of Destiny (if that object referred to above is indeed that artefact and not a pseudonymous substitute) after the Crucifixion is quite different on Earth-Two, or else that object is not the Catholic or Orthodox Spears of Destiny). IMHO, given the Nazis were full of it (especially one Josef Goebbels, who I suspect is the original source of the claim cited above), it's highly possible that the story depicted therein is a load of winged horse doodoo: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Lance
|
|
|
Post by DocQuantum on Nov 29, 2023 22:59:53 GMT
Trevor Ravenscroft, an occultist, was the one who popularized the Spear of Destiny in his SPEAR OF DESTINY book, something I read probably 30 years ago. I'm sure that's where Steve Englehart (and Roy Thomas after him) took his inspiration for the DC Comics version. It made for fun reading as I recall (especially back then when I was checking out a lot of books from the "oddball" section of my local library), but I wouldn't take it as history. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spear_of_Destiny_(Ravenscroft)
|
|
|
Post by dans on Nov 30, 2023 1:29:23 GMT
and here I figured that once I retired, I'd never learn anything new... thanks!
|
|
|
Post by redsycorax on Nov 30, 2023 2:03:19 GMT
It'd be interesting to have the Spear deployed against something of Christian (or Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu or Muslim) provenance and then fail to work at all. Which would more or less invalidate the story. I mean, think about it. It didn't stop Alexander the Great from dying in his thirties and his empire posthumously collapsing, or Napoleon from failing to subdue Tsarist Russia or losing at Trafalgar and Waterloo. Which means that Mr. Schickelgruber had advance warning of the defects and prior failures of the 'malevolent' artefact in question, yet still chose to use it. If this was a mainstream consumer item, the bunco squad would have been called in long before this. So yes, the Spear is a powerful artefact, but its operational scope and effectiveness seems to be severely bounded. It clearly fails to protect the one who manipulates it in the long term. One can only assume that the Fuhrer's syphilis and methamphetamine addiction were already impairing his 'reasoning' when he decided to use it.
|
|
|
Post by redsycorax on Dec 1, 2023 22:51:00 GMT
Anyway, getting back to the proposed Horned Owl/Midnight Angel story, I might even make it an Xmas one. I'll do some reading up about German traditions and provide a useful equivalent event to an OTL aspect of life in Occupied Paris. A clue for those interested- as with my earlier Horned Owl and Fledermaus detective stories in Elseworlds, it'll be a relevant homicide case.
|
|