Peter Metcalfe:
>Note that the Aldryami word for Gardener is Gentre (in Elder Secrets).
>Does this remind you of anyone?
<embarassingly long contemplation> Ah! Genert! I read somewhere (I think D:LoD) that Genert was the son of Gata or Ernalda by parthogenesis and was later ger husband in the north. Ergo, the CoP material is either Gregged or GLed. I like the connection, though, at least for Genertelan elves.
Me:
> Alex sees the motivation of elves as being internally driven for the good
> of the forest. I think Alex sees this as being hard wired into their
> brains (or whatever). I see their motivation as being part ideological
> and part institutional.
Alex:
>I think this is at least partly true, yes. The point I was making
>wasn't so much "nature vs. nurture" (elvish answer: Lots of
>both, please!) but mainly that Elven society is impossibly
>"Utopian" by human standards, couldn't be maintained by
>humans, and therefore, their motivations are _not_ the same
>as humans, or entirely comprehensible to them. Therefore
>explanations of their motives in terms of human concepts like
>Property are insufficient, I think, and also unevocative.
>(Someone's else's 'Song of Aldrya' is a more appropriately
>poetic expression of what I was putting in somewhat crudely
>reductionistic terms.)
I think if we can understand trolls and dwarves, we should be able to understand elves to a similar degree (i.e. at least be able to describe them well from a human perspective). Dragonnewts, I'm not sure about. (I have a wierd theory. "Gods" = "giants". This is why we don't have a giant rune. All runes are giant runes. The dragonnewt rune essentially equates to "other". Like I said, wierd theory.)
I like the "Song of Aldrya" bit. I think it's not literally a song. That's just the best a human can put it. I like David Cake's restatement of it as relating to the Elf Sense and the rootless elf not having it. And Peter Metcalfe's linking the onset of hearing the song to the end of elven wanderlust.
It should also fill the gap that I left when I said elves had no institution to enforce territoriality. I previously said the council assigns territories based on gardening ability. Perhaps it is more like a divination. The council gets together to divine who fits with the song as it is sung in that territory. I also like the idea of the song as a chorus; I have been attempting to come to a description of the daily ritual that aldryami and plants perform that magically strengthen the forest. The song fits the bill.
Alex:
>I'll note that Elder Secrets flat-out says they _don't_ barter,
Ambushing me with facts isn't fair. ;-) I still think there has to be some sort of global quid pro quo. It can be something as vague as a sense of obligation. You owe the other elf a favor in the future. Sort of like you do with friends. So long as the flow back and forth is more of less even over the long haul, you overlook the small differences that crop up from time to time. I think elves will be stricter about the flow being equal over shorter period of time the further away the elves exchanging values are. I.e. someone from your grove will pay you back some day some way, or maybe not, but it doesn't matter a whole lot. Someone from that other forest had better have approximate value in hand.
Alex:
>And few are Suspicously Similar, either. Also note your
>argument requires that the Dawn be "too important" an
>event for the elves not to take credit for, and at the same
>time, an "accidental" result of their quest.
Yeah. Nice irony. I think they say that restoring Flamal was the most important, followed by the Dawn. Flamal's resurrection was the _greater_ bonus.
Alex also notes that the allegedly derivative Yelmalio cult does not have the Flamal/Dawn story. I think the human cult has it origins "immediately after" the IFWW battle. The SeedQuest was "long after" the battle. Their paths diverged before the completion of the SeedQuest.
Alex says that the Hill of Gold story is probably from the non-elven part of Yelmalio. I think the ZZ ambush of elven Yelmalio is not necessary in my schema. But it is not necessarily foreign to it. I think that elves exposes to the Hill of Gold story would say that the idea of their version of Yelmalio being ambushed at the Hill of Gold is not foreign, but they would never agree that lost fire powers there (since he never had them).
Alex:
>It surely requires an amazing act of Doublethink to have
>myths that the Protector figure is simultaneously Away Questing.
I disagree. Elven forests are scattered all over the place, yet they all have the protector myths. I think the protectors had to move around, organizing defenses and, simultaneously, gathering the severed parts of Flamal.
On Babs Gor elves, I think they pciked the cult up in the darkness, when they started having things to avenge. If Plamatelan elves worship her, it is a GL transplant.
John Snead:
>I tend to agree that elves grow copper items on special plants.
>One nifty idea I just had was maybe one affect of the Aldrya
>enchant copper spell is to render this (now magical) copper
>more alive. Perhaps it now registers to Elfsense as living and
>that it heals and is repaired using Heal rather than Repair.
I like this. This is why elves don't flinch or wrinkle their noses when touch "dead" metal.
Andrew Barton:
>There is probably a myth about how High King Elf gained
>the use of the power, which Wood Lords can re-enact.
Yep. He won a wager with trickster. Tricksters say trickster meant to lose in order to give death to yet another race. After all, would you take a gift from Trickster?
Chris Lemens, who had to work late on his birthday. :-(
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