I think that none of these are probably true. He is killed and chopped into bits.
This is different from complete and utter obliteration, but not much. I don't think he is thrown into the same hell as Sheng. I think that is a very special Hell.
>At the end of the Entekosiad,
>the author inserts "Our Red Goddess is not Entekos." But...isn't she?
>Or wasn't she?
She just isn't. The Red Goddess and Entekos are different goddesses, different planets, and about different things. They do have some things in common, though.
>Or didn't she take something from Entekos?
They followed some similar paths. I think
>Did the
>author realize that, indeed, the Red Goddess is Entekos, but was so
>frightened by the thought that he denied it? Surely the Emperor was
>going to read the book, so best be sure about these things...
Best read it a good deal more carefully. The author of the Entekosiad is a woman, Valare Addi. She originally preached that the Red Goddess was Entekos, but was corrected by the Red Goddess herself, whereupon Valare Addi set out on a heroquest to discover the truth about Entekos.
And the Entekosiad was written during the lifetime of the Red Goddess - the Red Emperor probably did not exist when it was written, while the Emperor Yelmgatha was an ally and friend of the Red Goddess, and probably agreed with whatever she said about her own origins.
>What, precisely is the relationship between the following people:
>Yelmgatha<->Red Emperor<->Sheng Seleris<->The Pharaoh.
As you said, Sheng is the Shadow of Takenegi. I don't think the Red Emperor is the Shadow of Yelmgatha. They are too similar, and too friendly. You don't set your shadow on the throne next to you! And I personally don't think the Pharoah figures at all. If you really want to fit another sacred ruler into the scheme, look at Godunya, who fought against Sheng even more than Takenegi. Its just that Godunya, when he finally defeated Sheng, simplied exiled him to a foreign land, as the Kralorelan emperors are wont to do.
>Or worse, she was identified completely after the fact by the Red
>Emperor using God Learner techniques. The Emperor, having no authentic
>claim to the scepter and crown, manufactured the Red Goddess to provide
>him the wherewithal to rule.
Well, its pretty hard to reconcile with known history. What is more likely is that the Red Emperor manufactured ajustification for his own place as head of the Lunar hierarchy and simultaneous head of the Dara Happan Empire, embedding himself within the Lunar theology. The ancient cults that the Red Goddess drew on for her mythology were historically female dominated and opposed to the Dara Happan Emperors, if anything. Its not at all unreasonable to suggest that the Red Emperor has seized power in a way very different to the original intention of the Red Goddess, and then invented excuses to explain it.
And there are the contradictory accounts of the changeover from Yelmgatha to Takenegi in TFS. At one point he is said to die peacefully, at another point he collapses in a ceremony, and all those that rush to assist him have their heads mysteriously explode (think a super Mind Blast).... As TFS is a modern Lunar document, I think its safe to assume that the Red Emperor is covering up a rather brutal changeover with propaganda.
There are also the numerous people that attempted the ten tests, but aren't Red Emperors, whose names are conveniently expunged.
Cheers
David
Powered by hypermail