A thought about Wonder Woman's timeline

[minoanmiss]

Ugh, my fandom experience/participation recently seems to be entirely 'Discourse' aka wank. I'm tiresome to myself let alone my long-suffering friends. While I get myself away from that malarkey, here is something actually fannish, some thoughts on Wonder Woman (2017)'s timeframe.

These are... just thoughts I've been toying with about the timeline of Wonder Woman (2017).

1) So, Word of God is that Diana is around 800 years old.

2) The Mediterranean and Mesopotamian Bronze Age civilizations underwent massive upheavals (invasions, falls of civilizations, etc) in about 1200 bce, 3200 years ago.

3) suppose Themiscyra is like Brigadoon, only in the world 1 day of each 4 or something like that. Steve is noted by Etta and his superiors as being incommunicado for weeks -- what if part of that is that when he was on Themiscyra he was on its 'schedule', out of phase with the rest of the world, hopscotching across time so that 2 days spent there was 8 away from the rest of the world, and so on?

4) 3200/4 = 800, so Themiscyra and its denizens have aged 800 years or so while the world has aged 3200 years.

5) The wars the Amazons fought to free themselves were part of the Bronze Age-ending upheavals in 1200 bce, and Diana was born shortly after that.

Comments

[darkmarcy]

Nooo not the feared Disc Horse! Don't let it ruin fun things for you :/

But a nice Wonder Woman timeline, that! Bonus weird clickbait screencap of tumblr advertising that I saw on tumblr that made me think of you :D

[acelightning]

Sounds plausible to me! If a person can spend one night in Faerie, dancing and feasting with the Fae, and come back to mortal realms a hundred years later, time could certainly pass at a different rate on Themyscira :-)

[thnidu]

Your icon reminds me: I was delighted to see in the movie several variant zigzag designs in the tiaras. That theme provided a logical precursor to the "WW" motif in WW's tiara and costume without actual W's (which would have been a definite Duh, NO!).

[acelightning]

At no point in the movie is the name "Wonder Woman" ever used. Everybody from her mother to Steve Trevor to the "Chief" to Ares calls her Diana. So it wouldn't make sense to allude to "WW". It is explained that the design was Antiope's tiara, and Diana wears it in her memory. (I do kinda miss the great big five-pointed star from the tiara she wore in the early comic and the old TV show, though.)

[thnidu]

Good point, I do remember that. But she's extremely well known to readers, though of course not all who see the movie, and the movie costume carries the zigzag theme very close to "W"s.

[acelightning]

The zigzags at the top and "waistband" of her armored leather onesie look much more like Ws than her tiara does.

[thnidu]

True. I guess I was misremembering or overgeneralizing.

[acelightning]

The picture you included very clearly shows the W-shapes on her garment. The whole movie is full of nice little subtleties like that :-)

[corylea]

Your theory sounds reasonable.

It's also true that the movies generally only show us the highlights of the characters' lives, so it probably took them longer than overnight to get to England from Greece in a tiny boat, and Steve was probably on the island for longer than they showed us, healing up from his wounds and all.

I remember when I was a kid watching Star Trek, I was feeling sorry for the characters, that they were ALWAYS in terrible trouble. And my mother said, "They have lots of missions where everything goes just fine, but they only SHOW us the ones where something strange happens." I figure we didn't see every day that Diana worked out or every day of the boat trip; we only saw the parts where something different happened.

[minoanmiss]

True. Also, I would watch 2 hours, or 2 years, of Diana working out.

[corylea]

I would watch 2 hours, or 2 years, of Diana working out.

Oh, YEAH. :-)

Nitpick

[thnidu]

Very nice reasoning up there.

«The wars the Amazons fought to free themselves were part of the Bronze Age-ending upheavals in 1200 bce, and Diana was born shortly after that.»

Made? Sculpted?
Made of clay, and (Zeus?) brought her to life.

But yeah, born for all our practical purposes.

Re: Nitpick

[corylea]

In the comics, Diana WAS made of clay and brought to life by Zeus, but in the movie, this is the story Hippolyta tells Diana in order to cover up the fact that Diana was actually the child of Hippolyta and Zeus. So Minoanmiss is correct that in the movie, Diana was born.

Re: Nitpick

[thnidu]

Oh! I don't remember that in the movie at all. Where is it?

Re: Nitpick

[corylea]

It's revealed towards the end of the movie. I've only seen the movie once so far (because I'm mostly too ill to leave the house, so I don't get out much), so I can't tell you the exact line of dialogue that precedes it or anything. But if I remember correctly, it's Ares who reveals it to her.

During the first half of the movie, Hippolyta says things like, "She can never know what she is," so they did set up a revelation about Diana's origins that's at odds with the story she was told as a child. (I think she's also the weapon designed to kill gods -- rather than the sword she was told was the Godkiller -- which is another thing she's not supposed to know about herself.)

Personally, I think the comic-book version, where Diana IS made from clay and is given gifts by all of the gods (e.g. flight by Hermes), is more interesting than having her be a demi-goddess. But I guess the backstory in the movie says that all of the gods except Zeus and Ares are dead, so that origin story wouldn't work with the new backstory, because where would she have gotten all of her special powers, if the gods that were supposed to give them to her are already dead.

Minoanmiss has seen the movie more than once, so she might be able to tell us exactly where in the movie the revelation is.

Re: Nitpick

[thnidu]

I think she's also the weapon designed to kill gods -- rather than the sword she was told was the Godkiller
Yes I remember that.

It's revealed towards the end of the movie. I've only seen the movie once so far (because I'm mostly too ill to leave the house, so I don't get out much),
I'm sorry to hear that.

so I can't tell you the exact line of dialogue that precedes it or anything. But if I remember correctly, it's Ares who reveals it to her.
It would have to be: he's the only god who's around in the latter part of the movie. Thanks!

Re: Nitpick

[minoanmiss]

beams I think you remember accurately, and thanks for laying this out!

Re: Nitpick

[corylea]

*smile* You're welcome!

So, do you suppose Hippolyta kept her liaison with Zeus secret because heterosexuality is strange and deviant in her world? I don't actually want any form of consensual sexuality between adults to be seen as strange and deviant, but I do admit that it would be kind of refreshing to have heterosexuality be the strange thing for a change. :-)

Re: Nitpick

[minoanmiss]

Hee, there is the turnabout factor.

I dunno. Maybe she's not into males at all but it was Deemed Necessary. Maybe she didn't want to be accused of nepotism. Maybe Zeus was really bad at it. :D

Re: Nitpick

[acelightning]

When she's on the boat with Steve, and they're working out the sleeping arrangements, and Steve is trying awkwardly to talk about sex, he says that, since the Amazons breed animals, surely Diana must know what sexual intercourse is. She replies that she's read all seven or eight volumes of some historical Amazon's treatise on the subject, and the conclusion is that for reproduction, males are necessary, but for pleasure, they're irrelevant. ("Irrelevant", of course, does not mean "useless", as she finds out later!)

Re: Nitpick

[minoanmiss]

Ares tells her that during the expository conversation after he breaks the sword and explains that SHE is the Godkiller because only a god can kill another god.

Re: Nitpick

[thnidu]

Ah, grazie!

[baranduin]

Love the Brigadoon idea you got going there .

[minoanmiss]

beams puts prev comment where it belongs

[stranger]

The Brigadoon theory seems good to me, except that I'd twist it a little and say it's like Avalon -- Themiscyra becomes accessible when it's needed and lives in its own timeline otherwise. It doesn't have to be an even 4:1 timeline, but might be very detached as to how the 800 years (don't) match up with the 3200 years.

[thnidu]

Yeah, I like that one better. Especially because if it shows up every four days, it is very very very unlikely that NOBODY would have accidentally stumbled into it during those 3200 mortal-world (so to speak) years.

[minoanmiss]

Oooh, I like that. "Whenever it's needed." Fits with the Amazons' mission.