>On Malkion's nature: I really liked the idea that the malkioni saints
>are bodhisattva-like characters who have postponed Solace in order
>to help us poor common sinners.
Why do you have do _drag_ distinctions between bodhisvattva-hood and arhats into this? Do Christain Saints postpone heaven to help us poor common sinners? The Malkioni State of Grace is Solace not bloody Nirvana! So what if the Souls of the Malkioni are for the most part undetectable by magic after death? Do you imagine a spell of a puny mortal is able to overcome the Invisble God? (No, _don't_ quote the resistance table to say it has a 1% chance of success!)
>This can be applied directly to
>Malkion: what sacrifice could be greater than the great prophet's:
>he shed his divinity and became a man in order to bring the Law to
>the witless mortals.
Prince Hrestol who broke every Law in the Book of Law to bring Solace to the witless mortals burdened by the Yoke of Legalism. And all Malkioni hold that this was a Noble thing.
>Now, I just have to find a suitable heretic sect to pin this theory
>on.
Probably the Aeolians. They are suitably witless, IMO, having identified Orlanth with the Invisible God.
Sandy Petersen:
Sandy wrote a story which contained the following phrase.
>>>Lo Pin Po, who said, "...It is better for him to sin
>>>against God than for you.... "
I commented:
>>I wouldn't have made Lo Pin Po say 'God' here. IMO a Kralori would
>>have been more likely to have said 'Heaven' or after the New Dragons
>>Ring 'Aether' as a result of God Learner influences.
Sandy replies:
> Pshaw. Who's writing the story, me or you? First off, I
>wanted to emphasize the non-standard feel of Kralorela. You'd never
>hear a Theyalan or a Pelorian talk about "God" like that, and I
>think that the Kralori do.
I'm not saying that the Kralori don't speak about God etc. It's just that saying 'sin against god' carries (to me, at least) connotations that the offense was against a moral law (The Beast King should have kept his side of the bargain) whereas Lo Pin Po and other Kralori would not have distinguished offenses like these and, say, self-multilation of the body. He would have thought the evil-doer actions sinned against the natural order of things rather than a moral law laid down by the Great Law Giver in the Sky. Frex one who commits an evil act is on par, in Kralori eyes, with one who cuts his own hand off for fun.
>Is "God" to the Kralori the same being
>that "Aether" is to us. I don't think so, though the former might
>include the latter.
I actually suggested Heaven first and foremost, having in mind the Chinese concept of it as the Primal Dynamic Force of the universe rather than the Celestial Sphere. It is suitably impersonal (as befits a supreme being) and is somewhat divorced from the concept of the Sky to the modern reader. It differs from the Malkioni conception of the Invisible God in that the Kralori do not emphasize (or even acknowlege) its aloofness from the material world but place great stress upon it being the Driving Force of the Cosmos. Aether, IMO, was a God Learner misunderstanding of this concept which probably arose in a situation like this:
GODLEARNER: Say...Where's this Heaven Bloke at?
MANDARIN: Don't you Westerners know not to end a sentence with a predisposition?
GODLEARNER: Fair Cop. Where's this Heaven Bloke at, arsehole.
MANDARIN: All around us.
GODLEARNER: Where is the greatest concentration of this Heaven bloke?
MANDARIN: (points silently to the Sky)
The GODLEARNER writes 'Aether' in his notebook and moves on. When they took over the education system (as well as other things) of Kralorela, the God Learners infected everybody else with this misunderstanding which has proven difficult to wipe out, damn and blast them.
I have a feeling that much of what I have said above, Sandy for the most part agrees with, and all we are squabbling about is how best to convey this. I have merely expounded further because I believed that others might not have understood what I was arguing about.
Powered by hypermail