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Thread: The Mind of A Six-Year-Old
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2020-04-22, 03:10 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Mind of A Six-Year-Old
Interestingly, in Switzerland, we saw them as two distinct, but kind of similar figures, when I was a kid. There was the guy from TV (TV was almost entirely dubbed American TV), who we knew as "The Christmas Man" (Weihnachtsmann). He has a flying sleigh, comes on Christmas and brings gifts. He lives at the north pole with a race of kobolds who build his gifts (they arent' elves. Clearly. Elves are entirely different. Elves fly. (I think my only context for elves at that point was Peter Pan, where the version of the book I had read to me translated "fairy" as "elf".)
Then there's Santa Claus (Samichlaus), who's a different, but similar figure. Dresses a lot alike, at least. He lives "nearby in the forest" (We could go visit his cottage! It was really magical!). He comes to your house on December the Sixth, reads you a list of what you did well and what you did wrong this year and then hands you a small bag of sweets. He doesn't have a flying sleigh, he walks with a donkey or horse who carries his bag of gifts. He also doesn't have elves, he has a single grim servant in a black cloak who always threatens to beat up or abduct "bad" kids, but never does.
I remember it taking me years to really figure out that they were supposed to be the same guy.Last edited by Eldan; 2020-04-22 at 03:14 AM.
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2020-04-22, 03:39 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Mind of A Six-Year-Old
Actually they are not. In Belgium and the Netherlands we also have two figures. We have 'sinderklaas' (Saint Nicholas) who comes on december 6th with presents and then you have Santa Claus on Christmas (who is a lot less prevalent here).
Actually the way I've understood it is that Santa Claus is a hybridization of figures like Saint Nicholas and Grandfather Frost and some others. When immigrants moved to the US, they took their own figures with them and in the course of time a hybrid figure emerged, which is what we now know as Santa Claus.Clacks-Overhead: GNU Terry Pratchett
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2020-04-22, 10:19 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2013
Re: The Mind of A Six-Year-Old
Really, what we know of as "Santa Claus" pretty much comes from a poem by Clement Moore and a book by Baum.
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2020-04-23, 07:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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2020-04-23, 08:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2007
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2020-04-23, 11:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2013
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2020-04-24, 06:32 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Mind of A Six-Year-Old
Mind, all the Santa Claus, Saint Nicholaus, Sinterklaas (in name if not always as a character) are all variations of the original saint, St Nicholas who probably did not spell his name any way like that either.
THe resulting character combines probably a dozen aspects of folktraditions from various parts of (mostly I assume) Europe.
It is kinda curious to watch how some places recombine Santa into existing traditions that he in part originated from. I think the Dutch now have both a St Nicholas and Sinterklaas visiting in december just at different times?
In Finnish he is known as the "Christmas Ram" which makes no sense at all until you figure out that the modern Santa has effectively entirely replaced an older figure that IIRC is more akin to the Krampus except for retaining the old name.
I'm sure there are entire humanities departments devoted to the study of how culture travelled and changed this way.
And because I'm already randomly off track I'm gonna mention my favourite weird one, St Lucia's Day celebrated in the Swedish speaking world (it's not a big world) which really owes itself as a thing today more to early 1900s beauty pageants than anything else despite most today think it has ancient tradtions.
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2020-04-24, 06:53 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2017
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Re: The Mind of A Six-Year-Old
Pretty much, though it differs per family, of course. We get Sinterklaas the 5th of december (as well as the three weeks running up to it) and the 'Kerstman' (literally: Christmas Man) the 25th of december. The Kerstman is pretty much the American Santa Claus as far as I know.
Jasnah avatar by Zea Mays
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2020-04-25, 01:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2011
Re: The Mind of A Six-Year-Old
I think we are missing a couple things.
First thing though is yes it is entirely reasonable. Most kids mature at different rates. SO yeah at 6 depending on a lot of things a kid think that. Who know this could be one of those things that causes the kid to develop further along.
But, what you neglect to tell us is what happen in said manuscript that causes the child to think this. I mean what would you say, if I asked, "'Is it reasonable to a child could think he could see dead people.... after watching a movie?"
I mean, within the context of the movie it is entirely possible given what goes on in that setting. So we need to know what's going on in the setting.
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2020-04-26, 09:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2004
Re: The Mind of A Six-Year-Old
I don't think I knew magnetic north and true north were different until I was like 10, long after I'd accepted Santa as fiction.
As for the milk and cookie diet, it depends on the degree to which you think Santa is even human. I know that the "jolly old elf" line in The Night Before Christmas is meant pretty literally. I don't know if I really understood the distinction as a little kid, but you can get away with a lot of the Santa mythos by just saying "MAGIC!"
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2020-04-26, 11:08 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Mind of A Six-Year-Old
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2020-04-27, 03:10 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Mind of A Six-Year-Old
Speaking as someone who found Santa deeply implausible as early as preschool - the logistics of the traveling were what seemed really dubious, along with the north pole thing. Milk and cookies? Apart from the sheer amount of milk and cookies consumed (a problem that is not ameliorated by going to meat pies) that made sense then and it makes sense now. I certainly didn't give up cookies on my 18th birthday, and I'm not sure I know anyone who did.
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2020-04-27, 06:46 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2013
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Re: The Mind of A Six-Year-Old
Context definitely is everything.
To add to the Santa discussion, a little. As someone who grew up in the Netherlands I strongly believed in Sinterklaas, because of all the effort that was put in to making him real. Stuff like it being big TV news when his boat arrived in the Netherlands for the first time that year all added to the illusion. Sinterklaas was definitely real until the sad day someone told me he was not.
At the same that I was believing in red-and-white bearded man that brought presents to all the Dutch children in one night I would watch american children shows that would have Santa Claus episodes and I would think: "how can anyone belief in this red-and-white bearded man that brings gifts to everyone in one night? How stupid are these children."
As a child, I never thought about just how similar the two figures were I just knew that one was clearly real and the other one stupid make belief. Part of me wants to argue that more effort gets put into making Sinterklaas feel real so it makes more sense to belief in that version, but really I think it comes down to just two factors:
1) I was told by everyone that he was real
2) He gave me presents and as someone from a poor household who knew not to expect anything extra there where really only 2 days a year I got presents: my birthday and Sinterklaas. So I probably chose to believe in him because if he stopped being real the presents might stop.
So when it comes to a 6 year old giving a statue a bandage, if the child was told it would work I could totally see them believing it, but I doubt that one would try that themselves. But then if someone asked me to come up with a scenario in which that specific instance was plausible I could come up with 1 or 2 so it really does depend on the context of the action.Remember: Offence is taken, not given
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2020-04-27, 12:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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2020-04-27, 12:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Mind of A Six-Year-Old
“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
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2020-04-27, 07:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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2020-04-28, 03:37 AM (ISO 8601)
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2020-04-28, 02:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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2020-04-29, 02:37 AM (ISO 8601)
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2020-04-29, 06:01 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Mind of A Six-Year-Old
Oh, I thought you were aiming for "the Dutch are really tall".
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2020-04-29, 09:39 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Mind of A Six-Year-Old
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2020-04-29, 11:27 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Mind of A Six-Year-Old
Average dutch height is just above six feet, and is the highest in the world, yes.
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2020-04-30, 02:41 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Mind of A Six-Year-Old
I have lot of tall friends. I'm not impressed.
And I never heard of Dutch being tall.
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2020-04-30, 10:34 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Mind of A Six-Year-Old
The Dutch are the tallest people in the world. On average.
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2020-04-30, 10:36 AM (ISO 8601)
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2020-04-30, 10:50 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Mind of A Six-Year-Old
Eh, you're a dragon. A couple extra centimeters on the peasants polishing your claws really don't matter, do they?
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2020-05-01, 07:45 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Mind of A Six-Year-Old
Last edited by Scarlet Knight; 2020-05-01 at 10:52 AM.
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2020-05-01, 08:25 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Mind of A Six-Year-Old
I heard a similar variant of that one before, where it was implied the Dutch had to be tall to keep their head above the water until the dikes were built.
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2020-05-10, 08:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Mind of A Six-Year-Old
Absolutely not. You're talking about a kid in 1st grade. A kid that old who couldn't tell a statue was a statue and not a person would be referred to the school counselor to be evaluated mentally. They might stick bandaids on a statue to play (because stickers are fun!), but not because they genuinely believe the statue is a person. They know dolls aren't real babies but they are happy to pretend to feed them and hold them. If the statue isn't lifelike enough to fool an adult, then a normal 6 year old isn't going to think it's real either. A kid might be more sensitive to the uncanny valley effect from a creepy statue, but that's not the same thing.
I could see a 6 year old thinking a bandaid would be a good way to tape together a broken statue because you can tape broken things together and bandaids are tape made for sticking on arms and legs. I don't think any normal 6 year old would expect the statue to heal, but they might be overly optimistic about how well the bandaids would hold it together.
Kids have experience with "statues" and other artificial people in the form of dolls and other toys. They do arts and crafts projects with tape and glue and get bandaids put on their own little injuries. Very few kids have any direct reindeer experience, they are never allowed to do a close inspection of Santa's sleigh, and adults that they trust tell them very earnestly that it's true, so they accept the Santa story.The Curse of the House of Rookwood: Supernatural horror and family drama.
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2020-05-15, 11:55 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Mind of A Six-Year-Old
Even many adults have a very poor grasp on biology and think modern medicine is basically DnD magic. (DnD magic, because they also think there is no price to pay apart from the financial one. Which is not the case in many other fantasy universes. And happens to not be the case with many things in modern medicine, either.)
That said, if those adults were not all too real and everywhere on the internet, I would not believe they exist.
Since six year olds are not often on the internet and therefore the extent of their foolishness is unknown, I would err on the side of intelligence when describing them.