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Grendel; what was it anyway?
Topic Started: Jan 25 2010, 12:58 PM (1,455 Views)
sam999
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Beowulf. It's a nice story with some strange creatures. The idea here is to find out just how possable the creatures are. Grendel, his mother and that dragon... ...but mostly the grendel.
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sam999
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JohnFaa
Jan 26 2010, 05:44 PM
Gorgonopsids had neither of those
When then some reptomamel. This is as in the myth it had both scaly skin and stick-out ears. It's mom also had eggs in her cave.
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sam999
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JohnFaa
Jan 26 2010, 04:25 AM
In my book Grendel was a monstrous dragon like creature, even if the original tale meant perhaps it to be an humanoid. Maybe a bipedal lizard that developed a human like gait instead of a theropod one?
It was suposted to be a monstrous dragonlike humanoid.
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sam999
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I know it makes no sense but this is how I always think of a grendel as looking.
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Edited by sam999, Jan 26 2010, 07:56 PM.
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agatharights
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I always figured that Grendel was just a human being with some sort of extreme deformities and a large size.
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sam999
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yellowdrakex
Jan 26 2010, 11:50 PM
I always figured that Grendel was just a human being with some sort of extreme deformities and a large size.
Then why would it eat people?
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Ddraig Goch
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One film portrayed the Grendel like this.
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sam999
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Ddraig Goch
Jan 27 2010, 02:59 PM
One film portrayed the Grendel like this.
Whereas in the myth the creature known as the grendel looked like the scaly thing I posted before.
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agatharights
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sam999
Jan 27 2010, 02:50 PM
yellowdrakex
Jan 26 2010, 11:50 PM
I always figured that Grendel was just a human being with some sort of extreme deformities and a large size.
Then why would it eat people?
Well, probably because townsfolk would've chased him out of town as a boy, hunted him, ostracised him, and tried to kill a starving dude repeatedly. Treat a person as a monster- and thus they will become one, to quote Reid from Criminal Minds.

I'd assume that the myth itself would've been greatly exagerrated over time and by people living in the area who grew to fear him.
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sam999
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How about an evolved turtle?
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Holben
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Cold-blooded animals would have problems living in cold swamps and moving around so much. They'd also have to go to the surface to breathe- and Grendel's mother doesn't.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

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Ddraig Goch
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Cold-blooded animals would have problems living in cold swamps and moving around so much. They'd also have to go to the surface to breathe- and Grendel's mother doesn't.
So, with such strange biology, one can conclude one of two things;
a) Grendel was either a bogey-man, or a "giant", who was embellished over time, or
b) Grendel and his mother are an alien species

Take your pick.
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sam999
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Ddraig Goch
Jan 30 2010, 08:07 AM
a) Grendel was either a bogey-man, or a "giant", who was embellished over time, or
b) Grendel and his mother are an alien species
c) Grendel was some sort of reptomamale
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Holbenilord
Jan 30 2010, 06:23 AM
Cold-blooded animals would have problems living in cold swamps and moving around so much.
Reptiles can go farther north than sometimes thought; Denmark (where Grendel and his mother live) is well within the range of several reptile species. Europe's only poisonous snake, the Adder, gets above the Arctic Circle in Scandinavia.

Beowulf's dragon is in Geatland, which is the southernmost part of what is now Sweden. Presumably whatever lets it breathe fire might help keep it warm, though ;)
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SIngemeister
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sam999
Jan 30 2010, 09:07 AM
Ddraig Goch
Jan 30 2010, 08:07 AM
a) Grendel was either a bogey-man, or a "giant", who was embellished over time, or
b) Grendel and his mother are an alien species
c) Grendel was some sort of reptomamale
Reptomammal? Is there such a thing?
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Holben
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Rumbo a la Victoria

No, he couldn't be a synapsid throwback or any dinocephalid or summink. They didn't survive the PT extinction.

How about- it's just a story? This is speculative.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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