Timeline for How can demigods exist if the gods don't have DNA?
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10 events
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| Jan 11, 2019 at 1:55 | comment | added | WhatRoughBeast | And if you're trying to invoke incest as an objection on other than "genetic" grounds, you should be aware that lots of mythos's explicitly feature incest. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incest_in_folklore | |
| Jan 11, 2019 at 1:52 | comment | added | WhatRoughBeast | For a start, despite being born of a single male, Athena was female, which establishes very clearly that gods don't use X and Y chromosomes. Furthermore, her attributes were different from Jupiter, despite having only a single source of chromosomes, so the "genetic" differences between gods and humans are even greater than "simply" sex determination. | |
| Jan 11, 2019 at 1:36 | comment | added | WhatRoughBeast | ... As a simple example, Jupiter was a male god, as evidenced by the children born of his dalliances (voluntary or otherwise) with human women. Yet he also produced Athena via parthenogenesis, which violates everything we know about biology and genetics. | |
| Jan 11, 2019 at 1:33 | comment | added | WhatRoughBeast | @Valorum - Nope. Deleterious genes (recessive or otherwise) are artifacts of DNA. There is simply no reason to think that magical reproduction works the same way. Presumably the equivalent in magic is "qualities", whatever they are, and there is no reason at all to expect qualities to interact in the same way genes do. If you can point me to an experimental study which establishes other wise, of course, I'll change my view. Umm, I'm willing to wait while you find one... | |
| Jan 11, 2019 at 1:28 | comment | added | Valorum | @WhatRoughBeast - It's a lot harder to handwave incest, I mean. It's the sorta thing that audiences pick up on | |
| Jan 11, 2019 at 1:09 | comment | added | WhatRoughBeast | @Valorum - "it's a lot harder to hand-wave for characters that are living in contemporary times" - Why? Gods are magic. Magic isn't science. Although for the last several decades there has been a (unfortunate, in my opinion) movement in fantasy to try to make magic more "scientific" - talking about energy flows, worrying about mass conservation in werecreatures, etc. The essence of magic is either a) wishing makes it so, or b) you can control a powerful entity which will do what you want. Anything else just dilutes what magic can do. | |
| Jan 10, 2019 at 18:05 | comment | added | Adamant | What I'm saying is that if those consequences were social, Riordan hasn't solved anything; if they were biological, he's come up with a much more involved explanation than he needs. | |
| Jan 10, 2019 at 17:54 | comment | added | Valorum | @Adamant - I think the primary concern is that in the original myths, the gods were clearly directly related but also quite happily committed incest, leading to all kinds of unpleasant consequences for the demigods. That's all well and good for Greek myths and legends (where you can just say "oh well, it was all a long time ago and people didn't have the same understanding that we do" but it's a lot harder to hand-wave for characters that are living in contemporary times. | |
| Jan 10, 2019 at 17:51 | comment | added | Adamant | I'd forgotten this. What a convoluted explanation. If Riordan was worried about concentration of recessive genetic diseases (which is the biological issue with inbreeding), why not just say that the gods don't have them, but still have DNA when they manifest? They are gods, after all. If Riordan was concerned about the social aspect...well, obviously, he's not. | |
| Jan 10, 2019 at 17:43 | history | answered | Valorum | CC BY-SA 4.0 |