Myth direction and magic diversity

From: Nils Weinander <niwe_at_ppvku.ericsson.se>
Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 16:07:05 +0200


Me:
>Then we are on the same track (I think).

Pam:
>But at the heart of this myth is authority/status quo vs
>youth/change. "Storm" sought its own path and finally had to violently
>break with tradition to attain it, with both good and bad consequences.
>"Sun" tried to keep the world together for the good of all, but impatience
>and greed finally wore away at it. Any figures concerned with these
>concepts will fit into this myth.

We are not quite on the same track. Interpreting the myth like that looks to me very much like a real world modern western educated way of seeing myths: work your way back to find an explanation of a psychological or physical phenomenon, a personification of something etc.

That is very much what I want to avoid. Instead, by working backward, you will find a (pre)historical event which really happened. If the myths of gods and ancient heroes are just backward extrapolations, Glorantha would become more mundane and loose some of its luster.

I am certain that neither a Heortling nor a Dara Happan would think of this myth as being a story about breaking with traditions but as a part of their own history in ancient times.

Well, correct me if I'm misreading something. This stuff is semantically slippery.

Me:
>I try to avoid speaking of
>Orlanth killing Yelm etc. preferring instead to say that Storm killed
>Sun

David Dunham:
>This isn't what it says in GRoY, and it doesn't fit the original Orlanthi
>myth of the Evil Emperor.

OK, GRoY says that Rebellus Terminus killed Yelm's son Murharzarm and that Yelm disintegrated out of shock and disgust, but that doesn't contradict what I said, does it?

I have to call these gods something. If I wrote Dude A killed Dude B it would be rather difficult to understand which killing I meant. Thus Sun and Storm.

What do you refer to by the original Orlanthi myth?

>As an example, note KoS.57, where Umath goes against not Yelm, but the Emperor.

Umath/Storm, Emperor/Yelm/Sun isn't too far fetched I think.

>I think you'll find in the Broken Council Guidebook that the two myths
>(Orlanth killing the Evil Emperor, the Sun being slain by Rebellus
>Terminus) were joined as part of the Council of World Friends cooperation.
>One could argue that it always was one myth, simply not properly understood
>until that point.

I think both myths refer to the same mythical/prehistoric event. Then they diverged and were finally merged again by the Council work when the peoples met again after long isolation and collated their stories and legends.


David again:
>Frex, I believe the East Ralian hsunchen didn't
>know spirit magic until they were contacted by the Theyalan missionaries
>(they dealt with totem spirits and spirit friends; see the Pendragon
>supplement Beyond the Wall for one way this could work). They quickly
>adopted the more flexible spirit magic, even when they didn't convert to
>Orlanth.

I like this a lot. I think there should be lots of different approaches to magic, not just the artificial spirit magic/divine magic/sorcery division.

When hsunchen are the subject I think that treating their animal transformation magic as rune spells feels wrong. I'd prefer to say that a hsunchen 'initiate' (adult) may transform into his totem animal once a year. A shaman may do it more often if he seeks out a totem spirit on the spirit plane and bribes it to possess him.


P.S. Apologies for a slight belligerence. Real Life has played some pranks

     on me lately, so I have probably vented some frustration here.


Nils W				| And in the east the sun is rising...
Office: niwe_at_ppvku.ericsson.se	| 

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