snark reminds us of "The Parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant" by John
Godfrey Saxe.
Fair enough, but it doesn't really get at my point (whether I
expressed my point clearly or not is, naturally, another question). There
are many things in Glorantha that I don't need to see reconciled. Here are
a few catagories:
- Too trivial: Every theistic culture that has baskets probably
has a god or hero associated with basketry. Every one (or nearly so) no
doubt claims to have created basket weaving. Now, this can't be true,
objectively, but what does it matter? It makes some sort of mythical sense.
- Not trivial, but not much of an issue: Anaxial's flood
supposedly covered the world. Other cultures don't record it, or record
different floods. Is it untrue? Not at all. Anaxial's flood covered
Anaxial's world; therefore it covered the world. A Heortling or Kralorian
might dispute the story and mock the Pelorian who told it as vain and
silly, but the story is mythically true.
- Can't be resolved: Arkat, Nysalor, and Gbaji - what the hell
happened there? Who was good? Who was evil? What, exactly, did each of them
do/try to do? Frankly, most of those in the know are dead or way beyond
dead; this will remain a mystery, I suspect, forever. (Or the subject of
more or less unsubstantiated theories). The secrets of the Godlearners and
the EWF fall into the same category.
- Myths changed by Heroquesting: this is, I think, what happened
to the Yelm/Emperor myth: these two cycles were separate at one time (both
reflections of an unknowable original source) which were reconciled within
history. Now they can't be teased apart; there is an "objective mythic
truth." I imagine that it would be insanely risky to try to heroquest to
one of the older myths.
- Provided by biased/misinformed sources: Jane Williams does a
great job on her website of trying to make sense of the contradictory
narratives about Agrath in KoS. She may or may not have the right answer
(YGMV), but she identifies where the sources coontradict. Similarly, the
several versions of the Hill of Gold, all told by different cults, can be
seen to roughly dovetail together but are interpreted differently to fit
different agendas.
All of these fit the Blind Men and the Elephant model - you might
describe it differently based on your position and outlook, but if you go
further afield, you can also (possibly) appreciate the other points of
view. I'm concerned more with Blind Men who feel a wall, a rope, etc and
proclaim that they've found an elephant. I can see how Yelm and Kargzant
can be the Sun (Theist vs Animist), or whoever/whatever the sun is in
Pamaltela or Vithia (different Solar tribes, I suppose, or radically
different understandings), but I'm still having trouble with Yelm and
Elmal, especially since Elmal is from the Solar tribe originally - doesn't
he know about Yelm? Or is he entirely part of the Orlanthi myth structure -
from the evil Emperor's homeland, reconfigured to be a relative of Yelm's
during the 1st Council?
Peter Larsen