Recently, during the ongoing Arkat thread, Peter Metcalfe wrote:
> He appears to have been suffering the Plethora of Forms before his
> victory. At his initiation into Kyger Litor (in the Troll Gods
> Yellow Booklet), Arkat appears to swarm over an opponent 'as if
> there were four or five Arkats' according to the observer. Food
> for thought.
to which Andrew Behan appended:
>Arkat strikes me as being analogous to King Arthur or Robin Hood. A
>figure of dubious historicity to whom a multiplicity of current legends
>became attached. Either there was no Arkat or his actual achievements
>have been blown out of all proportion in the intervening millenium as ever
>more deeds have been incorrectly attributed to him...
I have to admit that I've tended to think of Argrath as being Arthur's "analog"; Arkat I tend to associate with Alexander for some reason, as the (illuminated) philosopher-conqueror. The troll memories of Arkat's acceptance by Kyger Litor and the description of his (hmm; was it 5? 6?) Companions -- his mace-bearer, his shield-bearer, etc. who became trolls along with Arkat -- always calls to mind Alexander and _his_ Companions, most obviously the quasi-apocalyptic story of Alexander's encounter with Darius' mother Sisygambis. Sisygambis mistakes the more studly-looking Companion Hephaestion to be Alexander and bows down before him; when informed of her mistake, she is horrified and seeks to withdraw, but Alexander soothes her by saying "You made no mistake, he too is Alexander." Indeed, IIRC there has always been speculation that some of the deeds and actions attributed to Alexander were actually performed by one of his Companions, and since the trolls at least have preserved memories of Arkat's Companions then similar speculation about Arkat seems justifiable.
Of some interest might be the occasional translations I've seen of the above quote as "Never mind, for he too is _an_ Alexander" (emphasis mine). In a sense, it might be possible to speculate that "Arkat" is less a personal name than it is a _title_, as one title in a pair of titles, Arkat and Gbaji, that have more to do with delineating narrative positions and roles than in describing actual historical personages; I'm fairly sure I've seen previous suggestions of this kind on the digest.
Of course, given the multiple Argraths, an Argrath-Alexander parallel is perfectly plausible as well (leading, I suppose, to the Orlanthi Argrath the Arkat vs. the Pelorian Argrath the Gbaji). And, come to think of it, the Arkat + Companions, Argrath + Companions schema makes equal sense as descriptions of adventuring PC parties.
Just some thoughts,
Mark
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