Me>>Moreover the fact that the Giants are humanoid effectively dates
>>them to after the appearance of the Man Rune rather than the Dragon
>>Age (which I view as akin to a Dinosaurian Age upon Earth).
>The fact that they are humanoid in form is meaningless - Gonn Orta is
>150 metres tall and made of Stone, hardly linked to the Man Rune.
He has two arms, two legs and a head? Remember Dwarves and Elves have been claimed for the 'Man Rune'. And he's not made of stone, he's turning into stone.
>Bear in mind that Dragonewts are bipeds like humans and could equally
>well be claimed to be "humanoid" thus linking them to the Man Rune,
>not the Dragonewt Rune - utter balderdash.
Naturally as they are lefthanded and have a tail, unlike say dwarves, elves, trolls, humans etc.
>The Gods generally take the form of
>humanoid creatures and are also not linked to the Man Rune.
Which proves nothing as they appear in the race of their worshippers. Zorak Zoran has a human form (Old three-eyed man making a magical gesture) as well as a Troll form. Arkat has a Troll form as well as a human form.
>Alakoring must have had
>access to Dragon-Fighting HeroQuests and obviously used them to
>destroy Drang. Nobody can seriously persuade me that he was swallowed
>and managed to cut his way out of the stomach, being immune to the
>stomach acids or that he merely throtttled the dragon to death or any
>other mundane methods.
Perhaps you could try reading the Dragon-slaying myths which written down and find out that Orlanth simply did a variation of being swallowed and cutting his way out when he fought Aroka?
KoS p70 'Orlanth strode into its mouth and seized the upper jaw
with his hands and place his foot against its lower jaw, and with a shout of victory tore the dragon asunder'.
And it is not mundane methods that he used, but heroic methods.
Stephen Martin:
[Giant/Dragon War]
Me>>Merely altering the date at which it occurred
>>and playing down the hype (yes, it was a big war but it was not
>>the First War) seems to be the lesser of the two evils.
>I disagree -- why alter the date just so you can claim to understand what
>is very essentially a metaphysical confrontation? This smacks more of
>misguided to me. It smacks of God Learnerism as well -- We can Change
>what doesn't Agree with us.
Put it this way. Something must have occured to make the humans believe that the first metaphysical confrontation was between Giants and Dragons. Since humans don't interact with either side very much nor have a chance to analyse their myths, it seems to me that they had observed this conflict from a bystander's point of view. 'All was peaceful until the Giants and the Dragons started fighting each other'.
>>If you want to posit a primal battle between two opposed forces
>>when Glorantha was *really* young, that's find by me but I deny
>>that the two sides were giants and dragons. The Elves and Dwarves
>>have a similar concept of a First War but strangely the participants
>>are the Elves and the Dwarves.
>It may or may not be the same battle -- I could probably be convinced of
>either view. Certainly, the Maker and Grower concept cannot be applied to
>Elder Giants and Elder Giants, since neither really fits into one or the
>other.
Ah. But the Elder Races (Elves, Clay Mostali and Trolls) arose with the advent of humans and are related to humans. Surely you don't expect them to have a much clearer understanding of the first metaphysical conflict than humans? So I don't believe the lack of fit between Maker/Grower and Elder Giants/Dragons is a serious objection. They are projecting themselves into the duality much like the humans believe that giants were involved in the first metaphysical war.
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