So, basically, I have a really skewed vision of Glorantha, because it is formed by my impressions of stray words half paid attention to. Keep that in mind as I describe the following "revelations". Maybe the lies in the following will spark some insight within a more learned contributor
ZZABUR He's a big sorceror, right? Anyway, I seem to recall reading somewhere that Greg described him as "as dangerous and ultimately meaningful as a lion"
I wonder about that. He found a new way through the Heroplane and ended up creating sorcery. And he seems to have created the sea's closing and the Syndic's ban(?).
These changes seem to have tremendous impact on Glorantha. Even if Zzabur doesn't champion a cause like other heroes, he seems more than just the hero who quests for a +100% to himself, because his effects are also very powerful on the rest of Glorantha. Maybe it would be better to say he is as dangerous and ultimately meaningul as a hurricane.
THE GOD-LEARNERS Okay, they did something strange to the Heroplane but it doesn't work any more.
Here's a thought. The God Learners were destroyed in part by Zzabur, and one of the things he really mucked with was communication spirits.
Maybe, like Zzabur, the God Learners found a new way through the Heroplane that led to a new way of affecting Glorantha. Maybe this way had something to do with Communication spirits.
I think that communication spirits must be what really inspire tribal loremasters and storytellers with not only their gifts but also the stories themselves. Stories and lore are living things. Maybe what the God-learners did was discover the Heroic pattern in epic fiction (a la Hero of 1000 Faces) and then messed with the communication spirits in a way that *changed the stories* so that the tribal lore itself changed. People would remember the new stories as having been the old stories and since Gloranthan perception seems to shape the Hero plane, the God Learners' desired changes would take effect.
When Zzabur did his big thing to the seas and started gathering communications spirits (though I never quite understood that last part, except that it led to the Ban), he was basically dismantling the God Learner method of operation so that now their techniques don't work any more.
ARKAT/NYSALOR/GBAJI Arkat fought Nysalor/Gbaji and someone came away from the fight bearing the broken body of the other, but the stories never say which. Probably because it doesn't matter.
But in Wizard of Earthsea, the main character, Ged, releases a powerful entity that really represents the dark urges within Ged himself. Though the entity is external to Ged it is also a part of Ged and Ged defeats it when he accepts that part of himself.
Maybe, spiritually Arkat and Nysalor/Gbaji are the same being and in the fight, they neutralized each other. Then they both won and lost and it doesn't matter physically who was carrying whom.
I think some of these Gloranthan stories would probably make good novels if
fictionalized. Gloranthan historical fiction right now seems to concentrate
on a legend, scholarly folktale kind of style, which is okay as far as it
goes, but such a style sometimes downplays active conflict so much that it
ends up lying.
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Chris Pearce
cpearce_at_incite.com
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