Raised By Wolves Season 2 (HBO)

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shevek
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The Ridley Scott series, which combines so many elements (Prometheus, Metropolis, maybe even a bit of Battlestar) that it's hard to tell what it is, other than being a fairly intense sci-fi headtrip with tons of symbolism (e.g. the Midgard Serpent right at the end of the Season 1 finale), is back after a long hiatus. Didn't even know this was happening until this trailer dropped, with the season coming only two weeks away on Feb 3.

And in the middle of all this, you have the two main characters (the android shepherds for the children) wearing shiny silver spandex pretty much all the time. So there's that.

What did you think of Season One (or have you forgotten about it already?) and will you tune in to this next chapter?


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shevek
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Anyone have any opinons on the first two episodes of Season 2?

It started slow with a lot of exposition and explanation needed for anyone to catch up, but it soon got very interesting.

Here's what I think this world-building is about, without regard to references to Alien/Prometheus and Bladerunner:
I think that the people who attribute Biblical myths to this show (going with the easy allegories about Adam, Eve, and the Serpent)
are just plain inadequate.

"Raised By Wolves" is a reference to Romulus and Remus, who were raised by a family of wolves (including suckling on a mother wolf's teats) before they founded the city of Rome. Then it becomes an alternate-history Earth where Judeo-Christianity never existed. Instead, the Mithraic Sol Invictus cult which started in Rome flourished and took over most of the globe, eventually spawning its own mythology and holy books.

The "atheists" who are the newer philosophical development are based on collectivist communist ideology which leads to authoritarian rule (quite evident in the lack of personal freedom evidenced in the atheist colony of Season 2). But here's the kicker: because Christianity never existed in this universe, Ridley Scott assigns the cross symbol to the atheists instead!! (You can see it on the bottom of their spaceships etc).

I actually think Ridley Scott is deeper than people give him credit for, and instead of going for the easy Biblical tropes, he is mining a bit deeper into human mythology, especially from Graeco-Roman sources and other Indo-European sources. Consider the snake - maybe he is not just your run-of-the-mill Garden of Eden snake, but a reference to the Midgard Serpent (birthed by Loki in Norse mythology); the Graeco-Roman cult of Glycon the snake god; and maybe even the Naga mythos of Indian and South Asia.

What do you think? Did you get immersed in the story by the end of Episode 2? I thought it was moving along quite nicely.
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Femina
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It's always kind of strange to me whenever a property like this looks to characterize atheism or similar 'nonbelief' as a neo-religious or cultural government. I know Scott claims he's atheistic but I'm not convinced that I believe him based upon the way he portrays such things in his work... no expressed comment on the morals or intricacies of any of that... just an observation.

He's also clearly terrified of the concept of AI xD

Season 1 was decent, and its a high budget romp in sci-fi entertainment over a full season of television you'd normally only get in a 2 hour film so... you can do a lot worse.
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Mr. X
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I think the view is it doesn't take a deity believing person to act in a religious sort of way.
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Femina
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Mr. X wrote:
2 years ago
I think the view is it doesn't take a deity believing person to act in a religious sort of way.
Yeah. I suppose that tracks insofar as general behavior toward fandom/political/sociological considerations... its not all centered around religious something... but they are centered around SOMEthing. it just seems to me extraordinarily unlikely that form of behavior would translate into an interest to declare yourselves heavily invested in non-belief? Like... It doesn't surprise me that a fanatical culture could rise up around non religious means... but I expect they would still have some.... THING... or other that they were centralized around and would just name themselves after that... and 'atheisms' is sort of specifically the antithesis of that? Choosing Aethism as your cultural species conceptually means you've coalesced so much around the refusal to believe in something that you have taken non-belief as the thing to fanatically believe in... it generally translates (to me) like someone of a strong belief system attempting to conceptualize non-belief as something normative to their mode of thinking as opposed to a probable facsimile of what a culture declaring themselves Atheists would actually BE... unless they took the name ironically of course... people do be comedians like that.

Eh? It's not really important. Just a sort of weird bemused observation on my part. The show itself is pretty good and far be it from me to argue that something shouldn't be explored in science fiction JUST because it seems unlikely to me xD. Lord knows the THEME of 'hardcore belief in non-belief' is at least worth a think or two.
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shevek
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Femina wrote:
2 years ago
Mr. X wrote:
2 years ago
I think the view is it doesn't take a deity believing person to act in a religious sort of way.
The show itself is pretty good and far be it from me to argue that something shouldn't be explored in science fiction JUST because it seems unlikely to me xD. Lord knows the THEME of 'hardcore belief in non-belief' is at least worth a think or two.
Yes, the show is far picking up steam to be very good - hope that continues.

As far as fanatical 'non-belief', that has happened pretty constantly throughout the 20th century in communist countries.
And about a decade ago, when the 'New Atheists' were big on the Internet, their brand of 'hard atheism' could be construed as being
somewhat fanatical. Actually, I think a lot of the hard atheists backed away from being so strident precisely because they were playing into the hands of the far-left's similar stridency, which these days often involves active hatred of Western religious culture.

Anyway, my point is that because of all these examples already existing in the real world, 'fanatical non-belief' is totally a thing that exists and can be extrapolated in the future as causing global violence and a great war. Hence, Ridley Scott can be spot-on in exploring this theme.
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shevek wrote:
2 years ago
Anyway, my point is that because of all these examples already existing in the real world, 'fanatical non-belief' is totally a thing that exists and can be extrapolated in the future as causing global violence and a great war. Hence, Ridley Scott can be spot-on in exploring this theme.
Scientism, as I understand it, can be one such belief.
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shevek
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Finished Season 2!

Oh yes, it is weird, and rife with all kinds of religious symbolism - there's even an upside-down crucifixion.
(A clue to why this is happening is that the main writer Aaron Guzikowski was raised strict Catholic and puts some
of those Catholic themes in his work.)
And there's proof that this is an alternate timeline where the Romans developed space travel - the room with the hibernation
pods has Roman numerals for numbering!

A bunch of characters get killed. The fourth and sixth episodes have significant scenes of body horror.
The final episode finally yields a very unique female peril situation.
And we have a new baddie (with an agenda) for Season 3. Overall, some episodes were faster-paced than others,
but I was definitely entertained. A show this interesting should win some awards.
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