A brief reply to Peter Metcalfe, trying to avoid the tone of debate
point-scoring. Peter, I'm not trying to be aggressive or impolite, and I'm
sorry if you took offence. If I really did
>take some of my sentences out
>of context, paraphrase some other sentences of mine and use them to
>dispute what I have written in a slipshod matter
then I apologise. It seems I did indeed misinterpret what you were trying to say on Shargash - but if we don't really disagree then, why not say so less aggressively? But a summary of what you really meant would have been clearer than your point by point attack on me.
>What on earth has colour got to do with one's relationship to the
>transcendant world?
Damn good question. In the case of the Moon goddess, colour certainly seems to symbolise something.
And to summarise my point of view on the whole Gerra issue - I believe the stories told of Gerra are stories about suffering - parables and myths, rather than stories about the Gerra cult hierarchy - history. There will be some cross over, but mostly because Gerrans, like other Gloranthan cults, strive to emulate the path of their deity (it just hurts a whole lot more for Gerrans - ouch!).
>The person he
>marries was _newly_born_ in the reign of Lukarius's father and
>adopted by him.
Possibly. Certainly there was a Gerra mentioned in the flood myth. I have no idea whether this is the same Gerra who marries Lukarius later or not. There are other Gerra's as well - the Gerra who tries to enter the Dome of Manarlavus was mentioned in Gregs address at RQ Con DU, for example, who though mythically is the Emperors ex-wife, is unlikely to be literally the same person. I suspect that all the stories attributed to Gerra are not at all necessarily the same person, nor do I think it literally refers to things that happened to the high priestess of the cult.
But I don't think there is particularly good evidence either way. For a start, it depends whether you accept literally the time scale (i.e. was there less than one generation between the beginning of the flooding and the start of Lukarius' reign? Yes, if you take GRoY literally. Less than a lifetime between the start of the flooding and the building of the Roof of Manarlavus? Yes, if you take all the Gerra stories as referring to one human being.).
>To preserve the relationship with
>the Suffering Goddess, I postulate that she is the High Priestess
>of her cult. Now David does not think this interpretation
>is 'relevent'!
OK, perhaps 'relevent' was not the right word. 'Necessarily correct' was what I meant, but I was trying not to cause offence, to no avail. When GRoY talks about or depicts mythic beings on the earth, it might be really a history, and always referring to deeds of their priesthood. Or it might be myth to be interpreted in a rather looser fashion, allowing for some use of metaphor and so on. Or it might even be a mix of both. Peter comes down heavily on the history side, I tend to come down more towards the mythic side. Perhaps never the twain shall meet, I don't know.
>Perhaps David could list the source for his claim that the Blue Moon
>Plateau is ruled by a man.
Its mentioned in several older sources as a Duchy, implying a Duke. And I hate to play the 'access to obscure sources' game, but I mentioned it because I read it in the Gloranthan Encyclopaedia, which Rob McArthur was kind enough to let me have a look at last week. Which is also were the bit about Duke being an unusual title comes from. Which has quite probably all since been Gregged of course. But it was just an aside anyway.
Peter then takes issue with my theory that the Emperor Lukarius actually married Cerrulia, the Queen of the Blue Moon Plateau, and that the wedding was politically motivated and Cerrulia suffered.
>Lukarius marries Gerra before the
>troubles with Mernita started. Furthermore his reason for doing so
>have nothing to do with any 'campaign' against the Moon Religion.
>Mernita revolts effectively by refusing to send him a gift at the
>birth of Lukarius's First Son.
All very true, but we know so little about the context of this event. A longer term cultural and religious building of tension between the two, which the Emperor attempted to resolve by a forced marriage to cement his rule, may well have been the context for a sudden outburst of political revolt.
> But if Gerra was really Cerulia, then
>Mernita is effectively revolting against an heir who would unify
>their nations.
A Dara Happan controlled patriarchal heir, who exists only because the Emperor has taken steps to aggressively subsume the leadership of Mernita within his own house? Yeah, they may well revolt. Which doesn't mean my theory is necessarily correct, merely still retaining some plausibility. It remains only a wild theory that I happen to like.
>And if David took the trouble to actually read what I was replying
>to,
and if both of us had paid more attention to Rule 3 such misunderstanding would not occur as often, would be more easily resolved, and the resultant message would be more intelligible to anyone not closely following every thread. I think its a good idea for everybody (particularly those of us more often involved in flame wars of one kind or another) to look upon flame wars as a sign of communications problems, and think what might be done to stop it happening, rather than to take every outraged reply as a personal affront. I am, of course, no less guilty than anyone else.
Anyway, I intend to let the issue rest here largely because I don't think it is of general enough interest now.
Cheers
Dave
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