Talk:The Gates of Hell

Decimate the popular references section

From Wikipedia_talk:Trivia:

That should be required reading for anyone participating in this debate. What's said there about Marduk could apply to just about any other article about a deity or other mythological figure:

• Osiris: "In the movie Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Hedwig's song "Origin of Love" mentions Osiris";
• Apollo: "The original classic 1978 Battlestar Galactia series. The main character of the show was called Apollo. Who was an ace Viper pilot (space fighter planes seen throughout the series) and the Captain and strike leader of Galactica's Blue Squadron."
• Quetzalcoatl: "In the computer game Rise of Legends, there is a playable race called Cuotl. There are also air units in this race's army called 'Quetzals'."

Etc, etc, etc, by way of Kokopelli, Ozymandias, Sigurd, King Arthur... (the list goes on). Adopting the Marduk solution (wiping it all off and depositing it on Marduk in popular culture) as general practice would enable such articles to give a much better impression (seriousness, rigor, perspective) than they do at the moment. Bolivian Unicyclist 12:24, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

It's a tenable solution. But, then, this is an encyclopedia, not an indiscriminate collection of information. I think editors are perfectly within their rights to delete random trivia factoids on sight. And I'd caution against avoiding "popular culture" sections altogether; these can be nice additions to articles, provided they are well written, academically sound, and analytical rather than exhaustive. I'm currently reading a book on Jeki la Njambè (sadly, we have no article yet), an oral epic of the Duala people of Cameroon, and the author devotes quite a few pages to interpretations in Cameroonian popular culture. So I guess I'm trying to say: If you've got something intelligent to say about Fujin in popular culture, say it. If all you have is the fact that a character in Final Fantasy VIII is named Fujin, keep it to yourself or put it in the Fujin (Final Fantasy character) article. But ghettoizing these sections to X in popular culture is akin to sweeping the dust under the rug. — BrianSmithson 13:04, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

This article is basically informative, but its value is being cheapened by references that are basically uninformative. The references do not add to anyone's understanding of the sculpture, and the connections are weak at best. A gate that is large and foreboding is not necessarily a reference to this sculpture. At any rate, we should not forget that the fact that a reference is interesting doesn't make it notable or encyclopedic. With this in mind, I am removing the trivial trivia items from this article. Dekimasu 01:10, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

But deciding what is notable or encyclopedic is a non-NPOV process. That's why I advocate the "Marduk solution". -- Akb4 07:06, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Oddly enough, Marduk is very relevant here. One of the OTO totems of Rodin's circle (in particular, Aleister Crowley) is Abraxas, the Templar avatar of Marduk. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.242.191.76 (talk) 22:12, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Subjugate?

How could one be subjugated by a work of fiction? I don't think that's really correct usage in this situation. I'm not sure what was intended here; ie, what Rodin's relation to the subject was; admiration? obsession? merely a fertile source for archetypes? -- Akb4 07:06, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

The key is his youth. He was initially a seminarist in a new Order under Peter Julien Eymard, often called the Saint of the Eucharist - imho, fallaciously, if you read his letters, which are variously obsequious (à la Reverend Slope) and venal. There is much in the Curé d'Ars criticism of his circle. Rodin fell foul of this in his first sculpture - it accurately portrays Eymard's distorted soul, and as a result Eymard sent him away from the seminary with the recommendation that he become a sculptor. Rodin eventually fell into the FUDOSI/OTO satanic circle, and that original rejection sent his spirit into a spiral of sexually-driven emotion, gradually wandering further and further from the virtues of his youth. He remained in contact with his fellow seminarists all his life, which proved a baseline to his fall, and is a handle to the tension of the schizophrenic aspects of his work.

His substitute hero, Aleister Crowley, took the motto that "Do as you will shall be the only law", and that permissiveness turned the Gates of Heaven into the opposite. Take the most famous of the figures, The Kiss. It combines concepts drawn from Michaelangelo's Prisoners (the incomplete statues in the Florence Academia, where the figures are still imprisoned in the rock matrix they are being carved from), the Pre-Raphaelite virgin with an urgin', and the truth of lust. It is impossible to avoid the latter, and to a soul tortured by rejection it becomes a perverted spiritual puritanism - if I can't be pure, then I'll be corrupt. And that was but part of it - the scandal of the reverse of his Balzac, for instance, which is simply priapic, the world's biggest sex-toy, if you like, is typical. And such was the force that if you ascribe to the work, then you ascribe to a powerful negative dynamic.

As a purely personal opinion, recognising that the Baptistry gates have no tympanum, and that this work does not reflect the panelling of the original, there is a case to be made in terms of proportion with the inner tympanum of the Amboise chapel, thought to be closely associated with Leonardo da Vinci. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.242.191.76 (talk) 22:21, 15 July 2009 (UTC)