Question: Is Ahouva Anderson really immortal after her marriage to Woody?
Yes, actually, she very nearly is, though it's not just through the magic of being married to Woody (she's a good sport about it, but I'm not sure even she can try to pretend that being married to Woody is a magical experience). Ahouva was an older woman and widowed from her first marriage when Woody married her; Vivian saw that she was beginning to develop early-stage cancer and probably wouldn't live too many years, and not only cured her but also dropped a hefty dose of Control Aging on her as a sort of wedding gift. Ahouva now ages approximately one day every hundred years, so it will take somewhere in the neighborhood of 547,500 years before anyone's likely to even notice her getting wrinklier. Vivian and Woody neglected to mention this to Ahouva herself, so I imagine she's going to be somewhat surprised when she figures it out (although, of course, these things do tend to happen when you marry a god).
In other senses, Ahouva is not technically immortal; she can be killed by normal dangers as easily as any other human and is not particularly immune to things like cold or hunger, either. But considering that Woody is prone to Vigil Branding everything she ever touches and threatening the living shit out of her community whenever he thinks someone might be looking at her funny, the odds of anything ever getting close enough to hurt her are pretty much nil unless he dies or Ragnarok hits.
will woody awaken his son when he is old enough?
ReplyDeleteThat I don't know. The kid's only about a year old right now, so it's up in the air. I'd guess he probably would, but only he knows for sure. :)
DeleteIf Ahouva is an older woman, what attracted Woody to her in the first place? I she still attractive, or is it something else that he likes about her? Do they even love each other?
ReplyDeleteIt was actually her age that made Woody choose her. Essentially, he was performing a very complex ritual hunt for Nanook, the polar bear god, and there was a long list of tasks he had to complete, including killing the great seal, using its body to attract a polar bear and hunting it, and finally performing the correct ceremonies over the meat before returning it to the local Inuit tribe. He discovered too late that the final step of the hunt was to marry one of the locals in order to become one of Nanook's people; Woody being Woody, he went through with it because he is all about finishing what he starts.
DeleteThe local chief actually offered both of his young, beautiful daughters, but Woody intentionally searched the village for an older woman with no children or husband to support her, both so that she would have nothing to lose by marrying him and so that the young women of the village wouldn't get stuck with him. Ahouva was pretty surprised, but when a god turns up and says you're getting married, you pretty much sigh and go along with it.
It's quite touching, actually; it may not be a love match, but he takes very good care of them both.
so that the young women would not get stuck with him? Is he that horrible to look at and be around? The young beautiful daughter he married would have probably been almost internally beautiful and youthful if Jioni gave her control aging, and she would have also been the wife of a god and rich. I think that that kind of missed chance for young, pretty girls who have never been married (especially the daughters of the chief who are royalty to begin with) would cause the rest of the tribe to act slightly cold toward Ahouva (no pun intended). Woody basically went against the grain of things by choosing Ahouva over the beautiful village princess, and I expect it is her position as woodies wife that grants Ahouva respect from her neighbors but also dislike.
ReplyDeleteYeah, he is pretty horrible to look at and be around. Less the be around, unless he is in one of his moods. But he is a one armed monster.
DeleteThat's negative Epic Appearance he's rocking - they're all pretty petrified of him.
DeleteMore to the point, though, Woody knew he wasn't going to be husband of the year. He's very seldom there and has way too much world-saving to do to be hanging out with his wife very often. Most importantly, he didn't want those young ladies to end up stuck in an arranged marriage - sure, there are perks to being married to a god, but they might have young men they were in love with (or might fall in love with later). Ahouva was already over and done with all that.
Her neighbors are probably pretty envious, especially when he leaves her with tons of meat that they would have to spend months busting ass and almost dying to get, but they don't dare be disrespectful lest his wrath descend upon them.
Unless love marriages are more common than arranged among the Inuit, those girls will probably be stuck with some one they didn't have a choice over anyway, so why not be arranged to a god than Joe Shmo in the next igloo. As for the loneliness, I wonder how many would trade that for the security and eternal youth of being his wife, and if he is a one armed monster, then the less he is there the better (and who's to say the young ones wouldn't cheat on him, probably another big reason he went with set in her ways chaste Ahouva).
ReplyDeleteWell, it's modern-day - arranged marriages aren't exactly the norm anymore, though they do still happen. It'd be just as common for them to choose their own spouses or move out to cities in Canada or Alaska (something that more and more young Inuit people are doing).
DeleteIt would probably depend on the woman. Some might be fine with getting god-perks if they were going to be married to someone they didn't care about anyway, but others might much prefer to be married to someone who wasn't a terrifying monster.
I think, also, that finding an older woman made Woody feel a little less dirty. He's a bit of an old man.
Also, as aurora always says, its about choice. Everything comes down to choice.
ReplyDeleteas long as they are at least content more power to them. And considering the first war Woody ever fought was the American Revolution, I would call him a bit old. that must have been interesting, especially for the American members of the band meeting a man who met George Washington in person, or at least fought for him.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't that get extremely quickly over shadowed by the fact that you can meet actual gods? If I for some reason thought guy who met George Washington was more impressive than... Zeus, the game is still full of historical figures as ghosts, demigods and gods. I mean if you go with canon Aztec Scions and punch the face of the man who destroyed their people.
ReplyDeleteyeah, but I'm talking about when the other players were still mortal hero's meeting a man who had lived for over a hundred years.
ReplyDeleteThey had at this point met at least one god!
DeleteAnd it's not like they knew how old he was when they first met him. The Eternal Youth knack had him locked in his fifties for several centuries.
DeleteWoody's not exactly a forthcoming, let's-talk-about-our-lives kind of a dude.
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