Re: Shadows Dance and the GIant Land adjacent

From: Peter Metcalfe <metcalph_at_K8fpCq_JsaWoxD5oYQCDpSDwS3KsuXkoElaL0c_IOmGvMXzMNo-V22zujq8YlerHAUM>
Date: Mon, 03 Sep 2012 20:24:38 +1200


On 9/3/2012 5:48 AM, jorganos wrote:

>> In the beginning was the World Giant, the Gloranthan Ymir. By
>> an unknown process, he splits and in his wake there are several
>> or several dozen great giants. We could probably reconstruct
>> the names of some of them - He Who Moves, Genert, maybe Lodril etc.
> Why not take the giant bit of the Annilla myth for the first giant? Gets killed, has lesser offspring, and a soulless child inhabited by its mother.

Because the possession of a soulless child is redolent of bad fantasy writing rather than anything suitably mythically awesome or creepy. As far as I'm concerned, it's a bullshit interpolation by Thorloss the Scribbler to reconcile two different mythic fragments (ie one which had Annilla as the daughter of He Who Moves, another which has her as his Wife). There's a similar device in the Kralori tale of Gilam d'Estau who apparently does something similar when he dies prematurely and possesses his unborn child. But if you consider how it might look from the God Learner point of view, all you have is that Gilam d'Estau had a son, who was also called Gilam and became Shang-Hsa. Ask yourself how the Kralori might know about what happened and they most probable answer is that they didn't, they made it up to defame Shang-Hsa.

More to the point, the Gloranthan Ymir is the only giant around when he exists. There shouldn't be anybody else, certainly not Annilla. The multiple giants and the known world should only come about after his death.

> The Vingkotlings, the Tada-Shi and other peoples of that era apparently were able to take greater stature - at the battle of Luathela the Vingkotlings fought the Luatha on eye level.

We are only told that 49,000 Vingkotlings fought an unknown number of Luatha. From the other side, it might have been that Aklor the Patrol Leader discovered seven spies, captured them after defeating their phantom army and sent them to Rausa to be executed.

--Peter Metcalfe            

Powered by hypermail