Re: Mythmaking

From: Simon Phipp <soltakss_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 02:15:01 +0100 (BST)


Simon Hibbs:
> Matti:
>
> >IMO, for example the Brithini can remember events happened
> >before the Sun rose. Malaskan Phillippe, Ruler Talar of
> >Arolanit, was born in the Ice Age, so it would be strange if
> >he couldn't remember those times and events.
>
> And yet many myths of the ages 'before the dawn' talk about
> days and nights. Because the sun rose in 'mythic time', you
> can experience sunrise 'before' the Lightbringer's Quest.
> Cause and effect aren't linked in the same way, therefore
> talling about such things as occuring before the dawn
> doesn't work as well as it should. The Dara Happans don't
> seem to think anything special happened 1600 years ago and
> I don't see any obvious reason to suppose the Brithini
> would think so either.

Hmmm, during the Godtime there were periods when Yelm ruled, the days, and periods after he had died, the Darkness, but they were long eras. During Time, these alternated with Day and Night following each other. A major change there, I think,

Also, technicaly, the Sun rose during Time. Aranea Solara gave birth to Time at the culmination of the LBQ and released it onto the world at the Dawning, followed by Theya, the Sun (some say Yelm, others Antirius) and all the rest of the revived gods. Another major change - gods were all dead, gods were alive again.

> 'The Dawn' was obviously a significant magical and mythic
> event that occured so far as the Theyalans are concerned
> but honestly I don't know much about what that realy was.
> Perhaps it's something to do with the Elmal cult.

From the Dara Happan point of view, the LBQ was never really important. Yelm merely summoned his enemies to him to make amends for the wrongs they had done to the world. When Orlanth atoned for his actions, the gods defeated chaos and left Hell. Presumably the gods then became distant, for no explained reason, and no longer acted in the world. The last thing the Yelmic gods want is for Orlanth's role to be emphasised and the Compromise to be well known, but I personally think they are still bound by it, even if they don't acknowledge it's existence.

As for the Brithini, I don't know enough about their background to make any comments.

Benedict Adamson:

> As a Western philosopher might phrase it:
>
> Take your average Heortling barbarian. He measures time by the rising
> and setting of the sun. So of course, in his thick skull, before The
> Dawn and the Cosmic Compromise that alternated day and night there was
> no time. More sophisticated peoples (that is, most of Glorantha's
> population) have enough sense to recognise that many other things mark
> the passage of time (for example, the passage of sand through an Hour
> Glass). Just because the oral tradition of some hairy barbarians can't
> remember whether event A followed event B does not mean that there was
> no cause of effect before the Lightbringers Quest.

Hmmm, after te Dawning, Time has been pretty much linear, with the possible exception of Sunstop. if C follows B which follows A then C follows A. During GodTime, things were sometimes linear as above, sometimes cyclical where C follows B follows a follows C and sometimes neither.

Simon                                   



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