> You compare humans, dwarfs, elves, and trolls to other mammals, and
> say that the humanoids are a lot more like each other.
I do, and didn't find until now a compeling argument against it:
> But you ignore that elves are literally plants, not mammals;
The only plant I know that resembles elves is ginseng (hey, maybe that's
why troll eat elves...) :-)
> that dwarfs are called Clay Mostali for a very good reason;
Since I "love" orthodox Gloranthan dwarfs... (No, I don't want to come back
on this.)
> that trolls have more in common with their giant insects and giant
spiders
> than they do with humans, on many levels at least.
Giant insects are all very different, even more different then human-rune
associated species. Spiders are widely different from flyes, beatles, etc.
It's only us, mammals, that connect them in a single category. Why would
trolls do so and connect themselves with such category? Certainly not based
on their perceptions.
> A human thinks more like a dog or a whale than he does
> like an elf, dwarf, or even a troll, IMO.
I don't know much about what a dog or whale thinks. I know that I'm closer
to an ape then to a dog or whale. If I was a Gloranthan human I would think
that I was much closer to dwarfs, elves or trolls then to any other
species. After all, I could speak with them, I would be phisicaly similar
to them and have some common patterns of behavoir.
Sorry, but I think that there are some misunderstandings here. You can look
at elves (and the same aplies to any other species) in several different
ways or POV that we can decompose into the next categories IMO:
A
1. In-Gloranthan POV - means that we are looking at the species from the
POV of someone inside Glorantha:
1.1 Self culture POV - how the species looks at her self 1.2 Other culture POV - how species look at other species inside Glorantha 2. Meta-Gloranthan POV - meaning how we RW humans conceive and understandGloranthan species
Now, IMO the In-Gloranthan POV of point 1. above would be based on a combination of 3.1 and 3.3. Most gloranthan species and cultures would look at themselves and others based on their mythical culture and common sense. In that case, they could correspond to the pattern you described.
But when I'm discussing gloranthan species and cultures I'm mainly discussing it from the meta-Gloranthan POV in point 2. Here I would base my conclusions on all the point 3. POVs. And on what concerns the biological relationship between species and their mind-sets, I would adopt the Scientific POV.
Conclusion: IMO all those species are related mammals with similar mind-sets. They have minor biological differences (minor in the sense that the difference between a dwarf and a troll is minor compared to the difference between any of them and a dragon), and minor mind-set differences. Most of what makes them different is culture.
Sergio
P.S.
Chris:
>Sergio writes
>> Look, putting
>> trolls to dark places is like imagining monsters under your
>> bed in the night. And like thinking that the abandoned house
>> is haunted. So usual, and, somewhat boring.
No I didn't. Man, don't blame me on things I don't write, I have already enough guns pointed at me...
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