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Anyone else notice how many monsters in the FF seris wre stolen? Here's a few:

1. Quezacotl- Aztec/mayan god

2. Ahriman- evil spirit in the Zorastrian religion

3. Gilgamesh- Sumerian hero

Anyone know of any others? Oh yea, I know about the one's listed in the FFVI esper section, so no fair taking things from there.

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What if he shot you first instead of your secretary?

I suppose I'd have to catch the bullet, wouldn't I

Hmmm. I wouldn't exactly say stolen. But you are correct in that any monsters are from mythical beasts in mythology. Like Chimera, to name one. But really, there are so many.

As footbigmike was saying, there are just too many monsters/summons etc. for us to list them here. They get them from cultures all over. I really like the fact that they use names from real cultures

This has been done somewhere else in here before. I remember, because someone enlightened me to the fact that golems come from Jewish mythology.

CoN is educational!

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Join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people - and kill them.

~Pacifist Badge, 1978

All of the 4 fiends of the Elements are found in Canto XXI of Dante's Inferno, which I'm currently reading myself. I was pleasently surprised to come across them. I found an Online version you can look at here- http://www.online-literature.com/dante/inferno/21/
Keep in mind Valvalis is actually Barbariccia. It's rather intresting that all 4 would be mentioned in the same Canto is it not ?

Edit - Calcibrena are also found here.

Edit2- Scarmiglione= Milon

Edit

EDIT 3- Actually, as an aside, I've been thinking about collecting all the mythological history of everything in FF and making a page about it for easy reference. It's rather difficult though as nearly everything is from something. If anyone wants to help me, send me a msg. Any little bits of info are appreciated.

This post has been edited by MogMaster on 5th October 2005 23:45

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If you've been mod-o-fied,
It's an illusion, and you're in-between.
Don't you be tarot-fied,
It's just alot of nothing, so what can it mean?
~Frank Zappa

Sins exist only for people who are on the Way or approaching the Way

Gee, I dunno...

Ashura: A hindu sun goddess.
Bahamuth: The enormous fish on which the bull, Kujara, supports a rock of ruby on which an angel supports the earth. God, these people are messed up. How he became a dragon is anyone's guess.
Ramuh (Ramah): The 7th incarnation of Vishnu. Chivalrous, virtuous, and right-doing.
Ifrit (Efreet): A category of djinn.
Leviathan: A giant whale, in the bible.
Odin: The Norse god of cheese and sausages!
Shiva: A hindu god of destruction.

And these are just FF4's summons...

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Quote (Silverlance @ 5th October 2005 16:27)

Ramuh (Ramah): The 7th incarnation of Vishnu. Chivalrous, virtuous, and right-doing.

Don't forget that Ramuh was called Indra in FF IIus. Indra was, I think, a less-important-than-Vishnu-or-Siva Hindu god of storm and war, Vishnu's son and Ganesha's brother. On a similar note, Ifrit was called Jinn in FFIIus, but you covered the explanation for that.

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Odin: The Norse god of cheese and sausages!

I hope you meant "war and wisdom" when you said "cheese and sausages" .

And yeah, this topic's been done to death all over the place. Here are a few of my favorites:

There's the Babylonian creation goddess Tiamat, who actually was a goddess of salt water, combining with Apsu's fresh water to form the brackish water of the Tigris and Euphrates' marshes; I dunno exactly where the common perception of her as a dragon comes from. For those of you not old-school enough, Tiamat is one of the four Fiends in FF I and FF IX, and probably other places too, but those are the only ones that come to mind.

Pre-Islam and Zoroastrian/Zarathustran (not Zorastrian) Arabic and Persian culture has two important world-gods that have made it in to FF games. Bahamut, the fish (beats me why they made him an ass-kicking dragon), who carries Kujata, the bull, on his back. On Kujata's horns they balance the seven worlds of creation. I know that Islam borrowed a teensy bit from their predating myths (most notably the seven levels of heaven corresponding to the seven worlds of pre-Islam myth), but I'm pretty sure they don't think that we live on an fish and a bull anymore. Of course, Bahamut is the ass-kicking dragon from very nearly all of FF (was he in IIj and IIIj? I can't remember...) and Kujata/Kjata is the bull summon from FF VII.

Cerberus, my favorite summon in FF VIII (whose inclusion was one of the bright spots in FF VIII), was the three-headed canine guardian of the Underworld. He was one of the brood of Typhon/Typon and Echidna (two huge monster-children of Gaea, the latter of whom was also an endgame boss in FF IIIj) and one of the very few of those brood who doesn't meet his end through the daring deeds of a Greek hero (Heracles fought him for his twelfth labor, but didn't kill him). I thought that his Double/Triple ability in combat was quite appropriate, don't you?

Yeah, I was actually going to be a classics major for awhile (before I realized that I didn't want to deliver pizzas for a living), so I know a bit too much about myths. Sorry for the overly-verbose post.

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
END SPOILER

Yeah.. They steal from them because they think it would be cool =P They are cool, though..

PHOENIX- The great bird that once died, and was resurrected by flames.

Indeed its done all the time. Its almost like a way of keeping all the older cultures alive, yet another reason for me to play video games

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Neneko is Neneko because Neneko couldn't be Neneko if Neneko wasn't Neneko!
--as quoted from Neneko, Mahoraba {Heartful Days}

I can stab a man with a thick paperback book thru the ribcage.

There are an awful lot of them that are taken more directly from D&D, like the Mind Flayers and Merelith. (And, yes, some of the D&D monsters are taken from mythology, but some of the attacks and strengths/weaknesses of the monsters are more reminiscient of the D&D versions.)

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Veni, vidi, dormivi.

Characters, places, and even items as well as monsters are taken directly from myths, legends, religions, and sometimes even movies (with FF, especially Star Wars) or TV. These cultural references are either homage to the thing in question or are simply things people like to see for nostelgic value. There's no stealing in it...

If I were to list all the ones I know, I'd be here all damn night... >.<

This post has been edited by Mu the Squirrel on 7th October 2005 00:45

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The Arcana are the means by which ALL is revealed.

Raiden- Chinese god of thunder and some other stuff that I can't recall (like Quez, too many jobs to remember.) The correct spelling is "Raijin" but pronounced "Rayden," so the enemy from FF8 is also. And Fujin is the Chinese god of wind (see Mortal Kombat 4)

Titan- too obvious. Greek mythological children of Uranus and Gaea, siblings to the gods, etc

Pheonix- Arabic bird-beast of rebirth.

Of course there's Unicorns and the Phantom, who are from some myths which escapes me but everyone knows them.

The number of beasts in the FFs with mythological origins is too countless to try to get em all at once, and a bunch of them are hard to date back to their myths because of whatever changes they made. (Such as Bahamut, Shiva, and Raiden.)


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I fear my heart and fear my soul
Life goes on, it surely will,
Without me and I wonder:
Will I ever see light again?

Life goes on...

First of all, unless there's an unexpired copyright on every mythological creature ever created, nothing's been stolen.

There's a pretty extensive list here describing the origins of nearly all names in the Final Fantasy universe (even several submitted by yours truly), many of which are clearly derived from mythology and religion. Just click on one of the categories. And hey, it's edu-muh-cational!

This post has been edited by SilverFork on 7th October 2005 09:52

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Words of Wisdom:

If something can go wrong, it will.

If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway.

If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. - Murphy’s Law

Boing! Zoom! - Mr. Saturn

It's not really "stolen", jus' inspired from. A lot of games, movies, etc. use names from biblical or mythological text from which they use to pick out names/characters, so it's not like FF/Squenix is the only ones that do it, but it is a method that is tried and true.

This post has been edited by FabulousFreebird on 7th October 2005 12:00

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"Thought I was dead, eh? Not until I fulfill my dream!"
Seifer Almasy


"The most important part of the story is the ending."
Secret Window


"Peace is but a shadow of death."
Kuja

They also have one named after a cigarette. Its called Marlboro. Cerberus is also from mythology. He was the guardian of hell along with hades who is a summon if FF7.

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Watch in awe, watch in awe,
Aeria Gloris Aeria Gloris
I'm calling, calling now, spirits rise and falling
To remain myself longer
Calling, calling, in the depths of longing.
To remain myself longer
Watch in awe
Aeria Gloris

Inner Universe

Quote (karasuman @ 6th October 2005 00:00)

There are an awful lot of them that are taken more directly from D&D, like the Mind Flayers and Merelith. (And, yes, some of the D&D monsters are taken from mythology, but some of the attacks and strengths/weaknesses of the monsters are more reminiscient of the D&D versions.)

This may just be me being an Idiot or whatever, but I' pretty sure nearly every video game has some basis of D&D, going double for the rpg's. Only thing I can't connect is sports and racing games, but im pretty sure there probably is a table-top sports game with dice and stuff out there somewhere.

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Neneko is Neneko because Neneko couldn't be Neneko if Neneko wasn't Neneko!
--as quoted from Neneko, Mahoraba {Heartful Days}

I can stab a man with a thick paperback book thru the ribcage.

Quote (Worldwyrm @ 8th October 2005 00:41)

They also have one named after a cigarette.  Its called Marlboro.

Not quite. It's called Malboro. Though it's pretty close.

There's a lot of mythology in the games, such as Behemoth, Kraken, Fenrir and dragons. And that's just monsters. There's much mythology in items as well: Excalibur, Masamune, Ragnarok, Caladbolg, Gungnir...the list goes on.

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I'm a general, not some opera floozy!

*insert humourous observation here*

Actually, the names change from game to game, but its originally supposed to be called Marlboro or Marlborough or something like that. Pretty obvious where the name probably comes from, considering that its attack is often "Bad Breath" or "Sour Mouth" or something like that. However, it looks like this monster plant with sharp teeth.

Also, http://www.ffcompendium.com/h/name.shtml is a huge database of such information.

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Marlborough is the name of one of the 'ghetto' nighbourhoods in my city, which makes me laugh at the 'Bad Breath' thing. Is it actually funny? Probably not. No offence to any ghetto babies out there.

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The first duty in life is to assume a pose,
and the second duty is...well, no one's found out yet.

Quote (Hamedo @ 5th October 2005 15:33)

This has been done somewhere else in here before. I remember, because someone enlightened me to the fact that golems come from Jewish mythology.

CoN is educational!

golems come from jewish mythology? i had no clue the jewish culture had mythology... i'm so surprised that they came up with the golem.

well, that's a good thing, cuz golems are sorta cool in any game!

Mades

If I recall correctly, from reading various sources over time:

Possible spoilers: highlight to view

Golems were monsters put together from mud/stone, and then animated by priests who'd write something on their foreheads. They were used to protect synagogues in case they were under attack by invading armies or whatnot. The story goes that there was at least one golem that started overreacting and attacking normal people as well, so it was 'deactivated' by the priest wiping the inscription off the stone.

For reference, golems of various kinds (usually iron and stone) have appeared as monsters in the Castlevania series (as have just about all other mythological creatures). Also, golem is the name for a Pokemon--the highest evolved form of geodude, it evolves from graveler when that is traded. It resembles a creature protected by a spherical shell of stone, and can retract itself into that shell to perform powerful 'bowling' attacks.

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Well, I can think of the Winged Dragon of Ra.. wait... somethings not right there....

But seriously:

Shiva, God of many Hands.
Septhiroth, one of the ten (eleven including the septhira) orbs of light on the Tree of Light.
Jenova, take on Jehova, name of the Christian God.
Necron, not sure which came first, but Warhammer has a unit called Necron.
Sin, possibly a take on sin from Christianity, and immortalising it as a monster.
Chimera, a Greek monster, mostly the same as the Final Fantasy 10 version.



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You say I'm weird: you're the person who is exited when you kick a leather testicle into a net.

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Kill me, or else you a murderer!

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Ashura: A hindu sun goddess.
Bahamuth: The enormous fish on which the bull, Kujara, supports a rock of ruby on which an angel supports the earth. God, these people are messed up. How he became a dragon is anyone's guess.
Ramuh (Ramah): The 7th incarnation of Vishnu. Chivalrous, virtuous, and right-doing.
Ifrit (Efreet): A category of djinn.
Leviathan: A giant whale, in the bible.
Odin: The Norse god of cheese and sausages!
Shiva: A hindu god of destruction.

the shiva in ff games isn't based off of the hindu god, because the hindu shiva is a male

it is actually based off of cletic/gaelic (some northwestern european group) mythology
as a goddes of ice,
it is an easy mistake to make though, since the first person to translate hindu mythology into english accidently mistated shiva as a female

i myself was only corrected upon this last year

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"Have you ever seen a baby do that before?"

Odin (almighty king who had to give an eye to find what the future of his ppl was)
thats all i remeber....i think this was said but Sephiroth derives from judiaism


also go here to learn more things (tho its just FF VII)(click on games, Final fantasy, final fantasy 7, dictionary) http://www.kuponut.com/

This post has been edited by dont chocobos rule? on 12th October 2005 02:06

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Aujourdhui a commence avec toi.

Quote (dont chocobos rule? @ 11th October 2005 21:06)

Odin (almighty king who had to give an eye to find what the future of his ppl was)

Nope. Odin gave up his eye to the wise giant Mimir in order to be allowed to drink from the fountain of wisdom, not to see the future, I don't think. He also hung himself by Yggdrasil to learn the secrets of all of the Runes, and seduced a beautiful giantess in order to drink from the mead of Kvasir. He was a god of War and Wisdom and king of the Aesir gods, and has been mentioned in this topic already. As has Sephiroth.

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
END SPOILER

Here's one not taken from mythology:

Atomos- Greek word for atom

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What if he shot you first instead of your secretary?

I suppose I'd have to catch the bullet, wouldn't I

Quote (laszlow @ 11th October 2005 21:52)

Quote (dont chocobos rule? @ 11th October 2005 21:06)

Odin (almighty king who had to give an eye to find what the future of his ppl was)

Nope. Odin gave up his eye to the wise giant Mimir in order to be allowed to drink from the fountain of wisdom, not to see the future, I don't think. He also hung himself by Yggdrasil to learn the secrets of all of the Runes, and seduced a beautiful giantess in order to drink from the mead of Kvasir. He was a god of War and Wisdom and king of the Aesir gods, and has been mentioned in this topic already. As has Sephiroth.

o woops....my memory is kinda bad for myths

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Aujourdhui a commence avec toi.

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o woops....my memory is kinda bad for myths

Then why in the name of Selune did you post?
Oh yea, a monster:
Abaddon/Abadon- Hebrew name for "Destroyer"

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What if he shot you first instead of your secretary?

I suppose I'd have to catch the bullet, wouldn't I

Quote (laszlow @ 11th October 2005 21:52)

Quote (dont chocobos rule? @ 11th October 2005 21:06)

Odin (almighty king who had to give an eye to find what the future of his ppl was)

Nope. Odin gave up his eye to the wise giant Mimir in order to be allowed to drink from the fountain of wisdom, not to see the future, I don't think. He also hung himself by Yggdrasil to learn the secrets of all of the Runes, and seduced a beautiful giantess in order to drink from the mead of Kvasir. He was a god of War and Wisdom and king of the Aesir gods, and has been mentioned in this topic already. As has Sephiroth.

I remember in the Odin sidequest in FF8, you had to take out the beast statue's eye and plug it in some other beast statue's eyesocket. Is this what Square was trying to point at?

Thanatos is a headless horse, usually representing death/decay. (Appears in Secret of Mana (Seiken Densetu 2), Final Fantasy III NES, and I forgot where else it appears).

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Who is Byblos?

I cant remember the name but the fiend of air from FFMQ (I know! Its not a real FF so dont throw rocks at me ) shared the name of the demon that possessed the girl in the exorcist and actually is several demons in one body and is mentioned somewhere in the Bible.

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A hero is somone who steps up when everyone else backs down.

Your greatest adversary hides inside your mirror.