Cultural Associations
The Bible refers to it as "the seven stars" (Amos 5:8).
Book XVIII of Homer's Iliad mentions it as "the Bear, which men also call the Wain."
In Tolkien's Middle-earth mythos, it is called the Valacirca (Sickle of the Valar), the sign of Hope signifying doom for Evil, while in T.A. Barron's Great Tree of Avalon series, it is called the Wizard's Staff, symbolizing Merlin's staff.
It is a prominent symbol in the Fist of the North Star manga/anime series; Kenshiro, has scars on his chest in the Big Dipper's configuration. It is identified as an omen: "When the great bear appears, violence will follow."
In the video game Devil Survivor 2, the seven stars of the Big Dipper (known as Septentriones) appear as the primary antagonists of the game, while Polaris serves as the game's final boss.
In the video game Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, the player has to find the big dipper in the sky.
In addition to appearing on the flags of political entities, the Dipper has also been used in corporate logos.
Read more about this topic: Big Dipper
Famous quotes containing the words cultural and/or associations:
“They’re semiotic phantoms, bits of deep cultural imagery that have split off and taken on a life of their own, like those Jules Verne airships that those old Kansas farmers were always seeing.... Semiotic ghosts. Fragments of the Mass Dream, whirling past in the wind of my passage.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)
“Hardly a man in the world has an opinion upon morals, politics or religion which he got otherwise than through his associations and sympathies. Broadly speaking, there are none but corn-pone opinions. And broadly speaking, Corn-Pone stands for Self- Approval. Self-approval is acquired mainly from the approval of other people. The result is Conformity.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)