Posted on 05/07/2019 6:20:31 AM PDT by C19fan
Cersei Lannister needs some anti-dragon air defenses, so the twisted mind of Qyburn has dreamed up a double-bowed monstrosity. In season 7, he tests it on an ancient dragon skull (which would be like firing an AR-15 through King Tut's sarcophagus), and in season 8—it appears he's made a few more.
But Cersei's high powered anti-dragon weapon is much more than just fantasy. In human history, this old-school Godzilla-sized crossbow goes by a different name—a ballista.
This kind of catapult uses a pair of bent bow springs to store and release energy. Sure, it works well enough to put a big hole in a dragon, but there's no getting around the fact that it's 2,500-year-old technology. In fact, Qyburn's engineering solution closely resembles the very first pieces of artillery ever made on Earth.
(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...
You would think someone has tried a working formula of black powder.
Seems like a big water hose would be more effective..................
Chesterton was right. When people stopped believing in God, they will believe in anything to fulfill their mystical needs. Flying dragons, marching armies of the dead and soft porn seem to fulfill that need in many.
Fulfill? It seems they need more and more.
Yes. When you eat no calorie foods, you are always hungry, malnourished and dying.
Just a funny aside: The Dragon is a symbol of Wales, UK. The Government there in all it’s wisdom, has banned the name ‘Dragon Sausage’ (which is a nod to the symbol) from stores, as it doesn’t contain any dragon.......false advertising......not kidding.
Ahem,
Back in the good old days of universal religion, at the very dawn of printed books, the best-selling category of books in Europe, other than bibles, were medieval romances. The works of Ariosto, of Montalvo, of dragons and griffins and enchanters and damsels in distress, and many of the damsels were not quite as well behaved as one would assume. All the things Cervantes made fun of (though he was a huge fan) a generation later.
The next generation of best-sellers were more “realist” picaresque novels that tended to even more racy material. Voltaire parodied this style (and a lot more of course) in Candide.
Why do you assume that in the “universal age of religion”, there were not numerous agnostics and atheists? Read Chaucer, Dante and others. Then as now secular leaders used religion to forge a common consensus and give themselves legitimacy despite their personal failings. Those who are adept at addressing the mystical needs of people usually prosper and rule.
In part it is because most of the “fantasy” fan base of the time was deeply religious. Whether they were moral people or not is another question of course.
St. Teresa of Avila, the mystic, was a notable fan of these epic romances.
I can imagine St. T at a modern anime con.
Cervantes’ anti-hero Don Quixote is immediately translatable to modernity. Imagine an old retired guy in Modesto, CA, with a tremendous comics collection, who one day goes nuts and imagines he’s a superhero.
Right, because the concept of fiction wasn’t invented until after the secularists rose to prominence...
so all those watching GOT are atheist? Good idea.
What is important to realize is that humans are the only species that has evolved with a neurological capacity for mysticism. That neurological capability is at the core of wonderment and inquiry. Without it scientific inquiry and art would not exist. For example a cow confronts grass, eats the grass, exists and procreates but does not wonder why or how the grass grows or why it does not grow. A human wonders and comes to realize the necessity for water, minerals, soil etc and learns how to irrigate and fertilize. If the rains don’t come , he as a corollary of his mystical capabilities makes incantations to unseen spirits that control the rain. If his incantations work, he celebrates and eats but even in the face of starvation and imminent death he rarely loses hope of relief or some eventual condolence and peace in an “afterlife”.
Of course St. Teresa of Avila was a mystic. It is not surprising that she exercised her mystical capacities and needs by blending it with the prevailing Catholicism of her time. She was intelligent and the result was comforting theological insight for herself and others. Of course she had other primal needs and those were satisfied or perhaps sublimated by her love of the trashy novels and stories of her time. Boccaccio describes such figures and in a very literary way explores this theme.
Its forever amusing to witness how self proclaimed atheists and agnostics exercise their mystical capacities. Whether it be celebrity or earth worship, or Bolsheviks that destroyed churches and murdered priests but maintained their personal astrologers, the list is endless.
What is important for decent conservatives to realize is that the exercise of mysticism can lead to societal abominations such as abortion and socialism. The criminals leftists who sanction these atrocities are at peace with themselves. It is important to make them uncomfortable.
Very much doubt that all those who watch and enjoy Game of Thrones are atheists. They are enjoying the acting, story and visual presentation. However what is amusing are the writers. They have consciously chosen to exclude traditional religious ritual especially any hint of Christianity from their story. Yet they exercise their mystical capabilities and needs as manifested in the form of flying dragons and ferocious armies of the dead. Fantasy is mysticism.
To be fair, both the original writer and the scriptwriters created numerous religions in the GOT world.
Some of these are very relevant to the plot. They are both pagan-Catholic allegory or varieties of mystical paganism, and some of it is outright shamanism, much like Japanese Shinto.
The scriptwriters have downplayed much of the religion in the last couple of seasons, no longer constrained by GRRM’s material.
Its interesting to compare to JRR Tolkiens treatment of religion in LOTR. It is both nearly invisible (nobody goes to church!) and part of the deep structure. Or CS Lewis in Narnia, where it is all allegory, or in Out of the Silent Planet.
The Romans called their little ones “scorpions,” but they were based on torsion (”twisting”) rather than tension (”pulling”). Or am I thinking of another model?
The ancient Chinese had a repeating model, it was attached to a heavily weighted chain. Each link weighed enough to “recock” the device, but it takes like a team of horses to pull the chain back when it’s run out if links.
Not surprising, considering Westeros is NOT on Earth. Since it’s a completely fictional world, there’s no Christ-story to allude to.
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