: First, the Old Gods are straight out of Bungie lore. AKA
: the Dark Gods. And if you buy Principia Mythica, also
: AKA (yes I know that's redundant) the Spider Gods.
: Secondly, Greco-Roman and Norse myths are strikingly
: similar. In fact most major mythological pantheons I
: have found are telling nearly the exact same story
: (not just morals, but characters and plot), simply
: with different names substituted and different bits
: and pieces missing or distorted. The only bits I've
: yet to nicely weave in are Egyptian and other
: middle-eastern mythologies, which all have some nice
: resemblance but has been rewritten too many times over
: too many kingdoms and too many warring tribes to make
: nice sense out of; and Celtic, South African, and
: North American myths, which are much more legends,
: fables, and monster epics than cosmic mythology like
: the rest. Oh, and I've yet to fit in the significance
: of Mayan cosmology either.
: I've got Greco-Roman, Norse, Indian, Chinese, Japanese,
: Polynesian/Maori, Incan, and even
: Judeo-Christian/Muslim mythologies.
: I'm sure I've rambled about it at some point before, so
: I'll spare you all unless you really want to know the
: Tru7h.
Can we handle the tru7h? =Þ
But more seriously: the aztec and incan myths are really rather interesting in an odd sort of way, as I'm sure the Mayan ones are, though I haven't been able to find many good resources about that. The Egyptian myths are probably the most similar to the Greco-Roman tradition, especially if include the later greek and roman influences on it. Hinduism, though, doesn't really have a lot of similarities to the Greco-Roman, Egyptian, nor the Norse traditions, and it isn't particularly closely related to the various Chinese and Japanese things either. It has no sun god, as an extremely striking example, where four out of the other five in fact place great import upon their particular deities of the sun (Chinese mythology being the exception). There is one striking similarity between Egyptian and Hinduism, but it shares this with Judeo-Christian belief, and that's monotheism. Yes, Egyptian and Hinduism are polytheistic, but their canon texts at times suggest that all the gods are simply incarnations of one supreme god. Hinduism, by the way, actually goes beyond hinting at it, though I'm not sure if where it does is completely canon or not. Also, much of North American mythology may be more organized than it generally tends to appear; I think the major reason that it always appears to be so disorganized is there were so very many North American tribes. My final point for this paragraph is that Judeo-Christian mythology, though perhaps not so much Islamic myth, was probably most significantly influenced--and similar to--Zoroastrianism, especially with the introduction of Satan as an evil figure--well, excepting Catholicism. That was influenced just as much by Zoroastrianism, though it was influenced much more by another set of myths: see, catholicism is really just greco-roman mythology with the Christian God added on top, and just a dash of the dualist tendencies of Zoroastrianism. (no offense, if any of you guys are catholics)
Anyway, though on the grand scale of things the differences between Norse myth and Greco-Roman myth may seem small, if you simply compare them to one another, and keep it only within that particular perspective, there's plenty of differences: my personal tastes in mythology make prefer Norse myth to Greco-Roman, though that may partially be because I studied Greco-Roman so much in my early life that I grew bored of it.
