Talk:Granfalloon

(Similar dictionary word)
there's a "real" (dictionary) word which has an almost exact meaning to granfalloon. anyone care to help me remember it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.158.229.246 (talk) 07:11, 17 July 2005


 * Gregarious? Herd oriented? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.172.169.15 (talk) 10:34-:35 (3 edits), 29 August 2006


 * I think you are mistaken - - - there is no equivalent word. "Granfalloon" is a unique tool in the quest to understand the human condition. It rightly implies a mild comic contempt for groups larger than Dunbar's number. It more than holds its own, and it would be a significant mistake to demote it to a sub-topic elsewhere. --LRW  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.77.75.26 (talk) 11:18, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * "Mild"? Not w/ KG KV using it! Consider that a karass is a group of people doing a job for god, and a granfalloon is a false karass. Belated sig--Jerzy•t 04:46 & 21:08, 17 May 2010 (UTC)


 * This is not what you described, but could it be what you meant? How about ganfalone/ganfalon gonfalone/gonfalon, with fools confidently following a foolish banner into battle? That's an image that IMO KV intended to evoke in his coinage. --Jerzy•t 04:46 & 21:08, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Castlevania information
I've removed the lengthy description of the video game monster as it has very little relevance to the article itself (the boss' name was properly translated as "Legion" in all subsequent games) and replaced it with a simple note. I suggest that whoever wrote this find a more appropriate place to put it. Guermantes 23:27, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
 * There is a boss in the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn video game Castlevania: Symphony of the Night named Granfalloon. In keeping with the rest of the game's heavy horror theme, including other bosses such as Dracula, Medusa, and the Grim Reaper, Granfalloon is a giant floating ball of naked, hairless human bodies (in other words, "a proud and meaningless association of human beings").  It attacks by shedding these bodies, which shamble toward your character in an attempt to obstruct and damage him.  Defeating Granfalloon involves destroying the outer layer of bodies to reveal an inner core with tentacles that shoot lasers, then destroying the inner core. In the original Japanese version of the game, the monster was known as Legion, a reference to the New Testament demon who was "composed of many."  When the monster reappeared in subsequent Castlevania games (Harmony of Dissonance and Aria of Sorrow), this name was kept even in the English language localization.


 * In Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, Legion's description in the bestiary reads "He is many, he is one" in an obvious allusion to the biblical Legion.

Picture?
Can we put a picture of Granfaloon from Symphony of the Night. I know this is about the author's word, but I'm willing to argue that it's worth having an example of how that word gets appropriated and interpreted visually by popular culture in a postmodern world (it's sociology!!) I don't think it was a mere mistranslation in the game either, there are a lot less obscure words (and less cynical and amusing terms at that) that would have ended up there if it was just a case of incorrectly translating it from the Japanese. I'm not talking about going on at length so that it overshadows the primary definition, just stick a little picture of the corpse ball in for visual interest and to show the impact of the word on popular culture. PLEEEEEAAAAASE???Rglong 21:02, 18 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Eh, I know the Wikipedia Nazis are never going to allow a picture, but I did add a second line to the video game boss description because its form - a big ball of mindless zombies - is pretty obviously a literal interpretation of the author's idea of humans mindlessly massing together. I think it's worth it to know that naming it that wasn't arbitrary and that it really does reference the author's ideas.Rglong 21:07, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Vonnegut Coinages
How about an entire page of Vonnegut coinages? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Doc Martian (talk • contribs) 01:16, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Granfalloon Technique: See, also: affinity scam —Preceding unsigned comment added by AaronAgassi (talk • contribs) 14:01, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Fictional religion?
I don't see why Vonnegut's religion is a 'fictional' one.... It's no different than any other religion, and the word 'fictional' adds nothing to this entry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.198.248.57 (talk) 14:34, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Excuse me, but i'm obsessive compulsive, and your socially-but-not-legally-transgressive disrespect for others' stubbornness clearly causes you trouble in distinguishing between un-thought-thru questions and trolling. A religion is a delusion. Most of them are real-world delusions. This one is a hypothetical delusion, invented for the sake of writing a satisfying fictional work and/or making a point, and thus constitutes a fictional religion. Yeah, i suppose he may have said he believes it, and ya pays yer money and you makes your choice. But i think most of the world can see his tongue in his cheek.  But a much more interesting case is the Flying Spaghetti Monster, (IMO!) intentionally made up, and presented differently, so that it highlights the slippery slope between setting aside ones dark nights of the soul -- i.e., describing oneself as "relying on faith" or "believing it bcz it's impossible" (having made up an arbitrary but equally unfalsifiable belief), then explaining that you too "rely on faith", or are equally entitled to "believe" something you know is impossible). --Jerzy•t 21:18, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Grammatical number of "Hoosiers"
"Hoosiers" in this context means not "all the Hoosiers, considered as individuals" but rather something along the lines of
 * "the entity supposedly constituted by all the Indiana people who would answer at least 'Well,yeah,sure, i guess you'd have to call me a Hoosier.' "

So "Hoosiers [the class] was [and not "were"] a gr-fln.", OK? --Jerzy•t 21:18, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

New improved sentence remains suspect
Sadly, what follows is the much improved version:

As quoted in And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life (2011) by Charles J. Shields, Vonnegut writes in his introduction to Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons (1974) that a "granfalloon is a proud and meaningless collection of human beings"; Shields also comments that in the same book, Vonnegut later cites the demonym of 'Hoosiers' as "one of [Vonnegut's] favorite examples" of what the term embodies.

I think this is giving all too much attention to Shields' book for a sentence that presently amount to half the total lead. &mdash; MaxEnt 18:40, 6 April 2020 (UTC)