Why Pandora?

[brianct]

WHY is the planet named Pandora? And what is the Na'vi name?


Pandora opened a box which released many evils onto the worlD, at least this is the received story;while hope was left inside.

But,the following has come my way, and takes a different look at Pandora:

'Her colleague, Northwestern classics professor Dan Garrison, says the "all gifts" interpretation precedes Hesiod's, with Pandora the implied giver, not receiver.

"Pandora was probably a very old earth goddess, a goddess of nature," he said.

"A name like that is implicitly the giver of good things and not the giver of bad things."

The far-from-feminist Hesiod, Garrison continues, likely put a "reverse spin on a very old tradition" and "turns Pandora into a giver of bad things, kind of an Eve figure."

The Eve analogy carries over to "Avatar," as Cameron, in his movie's press notes, refers to the moon setting as "the Garden of Eden with teeth and claws."

At the same time, though, Garrison says Cameron is playing off "the pre-literary tradition" of Pandora as nature goddess. "The sentimental twist of the movie is that nature is all good, and it's a back-to-nature kind of story," he says.

...
Christian termed the movie "absolutely beautiful" (like jewelry!), and Westergren says he was pleased that Cameron created such a positive association with the Pandora moon.

"It wouldn't have been nearly as welcome if the Pandora had been some kind of killer virus," he says.



It's Pandoramonium: Avatar' the latest to name-check mythology's notorious box-opener - Movies AP - MiamiHerald.com

[Kestor]

I don't think the Na'vi have a name for their moon/planet. They don't need one.