I'm afraid that I must agree that violence<=>humor connection rings true to me. I think that Violence fascinates the UZ the same way that humor fascinates humans.
Most humans love to laugh, enjoy joking and see value in humor -- in it's place. However, humans don't TRUST comedians, and there is nothing so annoying as someone who Cannot stop joking. Normal people realize that too much humor is bad and dangerous, but we all enjoy it in moderation. Thus the trickster, though an outcast, is vital to the human psyche.
Humans almost universally fear violence, and at best consider it (or at least Pretend to consider it) a nescessary evil, something to be used to get your way when all else fails.
The Uz, on the other hand love violence. Smashing through the shell of a Ham beetle, nibbling the toes off a live elf and sucking out the sap, watching a Really Good game of Trollball, or even just getting in a fist fight in the hall -- its WONDERFUL! in moderation. No one wants to deal with a Death Lord in a foul mood... too much violence is, well, too much. ZZ is just too much of a good thing for most Uz. In (IMO) exactly the same way that Eurmal is too much humor for most humans.
Uz are willing to resort to humor to get out of a bad spot... but I think they are rarely comfortable with it, and it is frowned upon. Enlo will do something amusing to avoid being eaten, or a Karrgs Son will laugh off his defeat by the afore-mentioned Death Lord, but having to resort to humor is (again IMO) frowned upon by the bulk of Uzdom.
So, in much the same way that human societies rarely have a single god devoted to Violence for the sake of violence, but most human gods use violence in one way or another, I believe that the Uz have no Trickster God, or god of humor for humor's sake. Many troll gods will have trickster attributes in varying degrees, in the same way that many human gods are violent, but I think that a Really Funny troll is regarded by other trolls with much the same nervousness and contempt as a Really Violent human would be by you or I.
with all this ZZ-trickster stuff making me think about such things, I was wondering if Eurmal might not be a troll or some such thing... In our world, Loki was a giant, or enemy god... makes sence that Eurmal might be something similar... ( a chaos entity of some sort?)
Am I just ignorant of his lineage... or is it actually unknown? Seems like a fun thing to play with at any rate. Basically my thought was, why would the trolls bother with an uz trickster when they can catch, torture, kick around and laugh at good ol' Eurmal. He appears in some of their legends (well, the one about death at least), and obviously spent non-trivial amounts of time (or pre-time <g>) in the underworld... and I think He of all people would ENJOY being called a "nose-hurting-loper." just a thought...
danm
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