Flight Rising Discussion

In modern fantasy media it seems that "naga" is the go-to term for anything half-human half-snake, but in some cases when the creature is FEMALE and part snake they will use Lamia. It's really all up to the author at this point. Like with how you want to spell faery/fairy or gryphon/griffin or if your shpynixes are Egyptian or Grecian. How do you prefer your Kirin? More draconic or more equestrian? How about Baku? More of a traditional chimerical mish-mash or go the easy way out with a tapir?
Things are all sorts of jumbled. But it's pretty neat and leads to so much variation.

Just got some reference as for what exactly modern gamers used to know as lamia: [center][img]http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/215/5/0/50e287f2cc2df0fef8f56114f3bb25c1-d388xdm.jpg[/img][/center] ...and naga: [center][img]http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20050415012249/wowwiki/images/6/6a/Naga2.jpg[/img][/center] Mostly due to WarCraft and Disciples))) But I do like such classification ^w^ As you can see, nagas are more sea\underwater\fish themed, while lamias are more human\anthro-like. Also, wiki too says that Nagas were underwater creatures. And as they originate from India, it is not unusual for them to have multiple arms (you know, many creatures in indiam mythology have multiple arms or\and heads)

Oh, and also - WarCraft is NOT the only game, where Nagas are multiarmed and underwater. I can also remember:
Heroes of Might & Magic (Nagas apeared in 3, 4 and in 6 they have their own fraction)
Might & Magic 8 (NOT the same game with "Heroes of...", this one is RPG)
ChronoCross
Magic the Gatchering TCG (althou here they are called Merrow)
Breath of Fire

This is what I can remember instant, but if I'll wait and concentrate on it, I can remember more for sure.

I wonder if this has anything to do with this tumblr post.

I don't really like this change.

Naga is more suited, as it's an in general term for humanistic snake ladies (to sum it up).

Lamia is someone from mythology. it's much more specific...

@Getura Merrow are totally different creatures from nagas. They are essentially the Scottish and Irish verson of merfolk... And actually the creature I have been trying to remember the name of for the past few days! (I wanted to make a joke that the characters from Free! may have been a result of a cap-less Merrow and a human)

As for the more traditional Naga, it literally depends on what culture you are looking at. The epic Mahabharata, for example has a mishmash of Nagas that are humans with snake traits and snakes with human traits and shape-shifting snakes but (at least according to my resources which at this point is mostly wikipeda, google is being unhelpful) no association with water. In Hinduism on the other hand, they have a heavy association with water, and are often guardians of bodies of water. Past that there is a lot of culture-blending where the naga become synonymous with other serpents and dragons of the region. Usually multi-headed dragons that can shape-shift, treasure-guarding deities, and beaked water serpents.

So as you can see, it really all does depend on what the author of said fantasy thing is going for. Also, maybe it is just because I've never played any of the games you listed (though I have heard of them and I do have a handful of MtG cards because I love the artwork) but I, as well as many people I know, when they think of nagas they think of land-based upper-half human lower-half snake people. Not saying that the aquatic naga isn't well-known, but I do believe that the land naga is more popular.

The Lamia that is associated with snakes is the Greek one and is far more prevalent. And also has many interpretations and forms (yet another poor woman cursed by Hera, Zeus needs to learn to keep it in his pants), and he was like a boogeyman of the time. A story to tell children to scare them into doing good.
The duck-footed one mentioned earlier seems to be from Basque mythology, which was (apparently) quickly replaced by Christianity in that region.
Both Lamia appear to be female-only, while Naga can be both male and female. The females are sometimes called Nagini, sound familiar HP fans?


tl;dr: It doesn't freaking matter because Naga and similar creatures were found all over Asia and it's multitudes of belief systems and cultures and some naga have absolutely zero human traits at all! It's a mish-mash!


@Rhea
Perhaps? Though, while that person's intentions are good... They apparently haven't been around fantasy genre anything for the past few years (or any art website with a significant number of anthro artists, furry fandom members, and lovers of monsterboys/girls). Naga have become so frequent and prevalent in all kinds of colors (both normal human skintones and not-so-normal skintones) it is kind of a stretch to put blame of white-washing on FR.

Is it a golden opportunity for throwing in some racial variation.... But media (mostly the internet) is so saturated with white naga now-a-days it seems more like a missed opportunity than actual white-washing.

@Pisces
I've noticed Lamia has come to mean snake-lady like how Pegasus has come to mean winged horse (remember: in Greek mythology Pegasus was the name of a specific horse). I dunno why I guess it's just a thing people do. Mostly in video games and stuff.

What exactly a Naga is varies depending on the source used. The first thing I usually think of with Nagas is something along the lines of how it is depicted in Shin Megami Tensei. http://images.wikia.com/megamitensei/images/4/46/Naga2.JPG

Lamia is a specific woman in greek mythology, and in SMT is depicted like this http://images.wikia.com/megamitensei/images/5/5c/Lamia.png

Although in earlier SMT games Naga and Lamia looked more similar, so *shrug*. What Nagas and Lamia are/look like isn't very clear-cut so I keep pretty chill about the subject.

@AutumnWyvern I understand that. But languages evolve and adapt, and that dumb butt on the tumblr post saying FR is whitewashing Naga and essentially saying they're disrespecting an entire culture because a word from it branched off and developed another meaning, is ridiculous.

I hope that isn't why FR changed the name.

@Pisces Yeah I really don't get the whitewashing thing... When I was originally typing up that part of the post I had a bit more stronger wording but I lightened it up a bit.
Heck the definition for naga has become so stretched that I have an OC who technically probably isn't a naga, but I refer to him as one (for simplicity) and people easily recognize him as one despite, well... He doesn't have the most human of upper-halves that's for sure.
Like
If he can be recognized as a naga I'm petty sure any vaguely humanoid creature with a snake bottom half can be called a naga.



(Oh god it's so late I need to go to bed but now I'm all hyped up I love talking about mythological creatures and learning about different cultures and this gave me a huge excuse to just google a whole bunch of different-yet-related creatures from around the world isn't culture so fascinating????)

@AutumnWyvern I frikkin LOVE mythology and learning about new creatures too

Edit, everyone please take note that putting the lessthan sign in your post will cut off everything you say after it.

In a nutshell, I explained how it's perfectly okay for a word to branch off and take on new meanings.