Alex:
>> Carl Fink posts his bimonthly demand for Similar Gods to be Equivalent,
>> Equivalent gods to be Identical, and Identical Gods to be More Similar.
Carl:
> Demand? Nah, more like "insistence".
Alex:
>> (And implicitly, that they all be as Objectively Real as possible, and
>> to desist with this aberrant similarity to RW mythology.)
Carl:
> Yup, as far as Objectively Real. And again, why bother with Glorantha
> if you want real-world mythology? The real world *already* exists.
But... while I can sympathise with Carl's evident desire neatly to package Gloranthan deities into easily-labelled categories, I don't see how doing this helps me write about Glorantha, or role-play in Glorantha. (Clearly it might help a referee write quick'n'dirty scenarios in parts of the world he didn't want to detail, but I'm not sure I want to encourage that). Any more than a scholarly understanding of the relationship between Judaism, Islam and Christianity would help me role-play a Crusading scenario. We're in Free Will country here: whatever the Truth is, it clearly can't be obvious to anyone in Glorantha (except the late, unlamented God Learners), or how'd you explain the way the world so patently *is*?
The Truth may be Out There, but Out There ain't In Here. If standardising each Gloranthan god into one objectively true version (per Carl) would mean losing anything that's been written into Glorantha (frex: Elmal; the Dara Happan religion; Kralorela; Pamaltela; Malkionism; the animist perspective; my last folk-tale), then I'd like to know what's going to be affected, in its proponent's view. If it wouldn't make any difference to the world as we see it (and write it), then I'm really not that bothered by the whole thing: it'd be like arguing over angels and pinheads.
It's only if two views of Glorantha become radically incompatible that this kind of argument presents problems. So, Carl: what would have to be changed or lost if we adopted your vision of divine objective reality? And which Gloranthan sources support this version (scenarios, supplements or stories, not rules-mechanical approximations, please). Just a few examples will do.
Powered by hypermail