> In the human soul, the world is protected from our id by
>the sheltering layers of the ego and superego. I believe that trolls
>have no such "shelter" from the primal force of their urges.
>Certainly a troll can refrain from eating or mating if some other
>urge appears stronger, but they have no "finer nature" to appeal to.
>
This is both a gross oversimplification or misrepresentation, and furthermore, Freudian.
I think trolls have an ego and super-ego just the same as humans - for a troll to be unable to refrain from eating or mating when his moral senses told him it was the wrong thing to do is not only much more at odds with our notion of intelligence, but is also contradicted by some things we know of them.
I think the uz place a much higher cultural value on such things - they have very little appreciation of visual beauty, their aesthetic sense is much more primal (and food and mating play a big part).
But they are absolutely capable of deciding that they perhaps shouldn't eat something because it is immoral or not very sensible. They may not always make that decision, but nor will humans. In Freudian terms (which I prefer to avoid) the ego and super-ego can definately overrule the id.
I do think trolls exonnerate different values, and stress the more primal values (the ones Freud associates with the id) more, but I don't think the difference is THAT drastic. Trolls, for example, like to be considered fearsome - while for a human to want to be feared is considered a very bad sign. Trolls also consider gluttony a virtue. They consider hiding from your problems a quite reasonable cause of action, and not necessarily a sign of cowardice (sure, trollkin hide through fear, but other trolls hide to strike from ambush). I think their psychology is weird enough without postulating such dramatic differences.
On another subject, Truestone, remember - in Glorantha, Law is not particularly opposed to Chaos. It is opposed to Chaos, but so is everything else. This is not a Michael Moorcock novel, in Glorantha Law represents the natural forces of the world. If it is opposed to anything, it might be magic in general, not chaotic magic specifically. And to a certain extent Truestone is opposed to magic (when used as a weapon it ignores magical protection) but in other ways it is not.
Cheers
David
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