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Oni (myth): Difference between revisions
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Basically it means that great tools (primarily tools of death : any great power holds some kind of danger) should be handled by the ones who are worthy of them. The juxtaposition of the two proverbs "Oni ni kanabô, Benkei ni naginata" is rare (I only found it in some guy's signature) and the moral meaning would be somewhat weaker. | Basically it means that great tools (primarily tools of death : any great power holds some kind of danger) should be handled by the ones who are worthy of them. The juxtaposition of the two proverbs "Oni ni kanabô, Benkei ni naginata" is rare (I only found it in some guy's signature) and the moral meaning would be somewhat weaker. | ||
===Hercules=== | |||
Ironically, a character that's very similar to Buddhist ONI is the ''pagan'' hero [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules Hercules]/[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heracles Heracles]. He wears a lion skin and wields a massive wooden club, which is fairly close to an ONI's tiger skin and kanabô... | |||
The Greek mythos has episodes where Hercules displays gratuitous violence, while at other times he appears as sly and cunning. One thing's for sure : he's inhumanly strong to start with (half-god), and his chosen attributes (the Nemean Lion's skin and the massive club) make him even tougher. | |||
As for regeneration... a (Greek) hero is not immortal (neither is an ONI), but as a half-god he's inhumanly tough and resilient. So there's a reasonable analogy here as well, with the Japanese ONI as well as with the [[Daodan]]. | |||
See [[Oni2:Heroes|here]] for a deeper connection between Bungie's [[Daodan]] and Greek heroes (no, it's not just the way they used the Greek alphabet at the TCTF... there's more). | |||