Angelheart Hellraiser March of the Wooden Soldiers (the bad guy is the heroquester) Alice in Wonderland The Time Machine Rocky Field of Dreams Baron Munchausen Star Trek Generations Monster Squad Jacob's Ladder Flatliners The African Queen etc. etc.
All the above and of course many more will spring to everyone's mind. "The African Queen" is a prime example of a fine heroquest. [Hepburn: "You _promised_ to take me down the river." Bogie: "Miss, there's death a dozen times over down that river."]
Alison Place:
Lists an excellent description of why many cultures will accept the idea of opposition, even amongst Runes. I agree with her theory that opposed Runes are not necessarily a God-Learner fiction. But the way different cultures view that opposition will be different, and even the spot wherein they place the difference. It's certainly true that all Earthly cultures know of death, for instance, but there are cultures which (for instance) require a divorce before a widow or widower can remarry -- the dead person's presence is still considered important. In the Andaman Islands, people are buried and mourned whom we (in the US) would consider to still be alive. It's not just a matter of primitive barbaric cruelty - -- death, for them, occurs at a different time than for us. There's a tiny trace of this in our own culture. You know, the mafia boss calls you and says, "You're a dead man." And you are, even though you can still walk, talk, and breathe for a few hours or days.
So while all cultures in Glorantha may recognize the Life and Death Runes, they may not all see them in the same way. I can think of several basic ways to approach a binary rune system:
Peter M.
>I didn't mean to assert the 'opposed pairs' were GL constructs
just >merely say that we don't have to take the GL's word on what
the >realtionship of the runes with each other are as the absolute
truth.
True. I have, however, noticed an irksome tendency on the part of some to assume that if the GLs believed something, this must be evidence of the idea's _falseness_. (And you, Peter, are NOT one of the culprits I'm berating.)
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