> If the Kralorelans do not expect Godunya to care about them
> then why do they acknowlege him as their Emperor? I think
> it is critically important that the Kralori have the perception
> that the Emperor cares for them. He maintains the Cosmos and
> all Good Things on their behalf. If he does not care, then
> why bother to obey?
As long as the Kralorelan Way functions, as long as the crops ripen, as long as the waterworks convey water to the rice paddies, as long as the judges are just etc etc, they _know_ that he cares, because all those things flow from the emperor as the head of the dragon empire. Whether that's really so is of course impossible to ascertain (anticipating your retort) but IMG, there is definitely a very strong connection. Glorantha is a magical, mythical place where the nature of the ruler _does_ affect the well of the land.
When things don't work, there's a drought, a mandarin doesn't do his duty etc etc, I'm sure the mandarins say it's because the divine empire is under attack from outside forces rather than fess up that the Way isn't perfect.
Personally I'd say that most fuckups are caused by the fact that the emperor, powerful as he is, dragon or not, cannot run all the minutiae of the empire. There is after all a reason for the pyramid scheme. If the emperor is somewhat close to draconic perfection, the exarchs are a bit less so and the mandarins a further bit.
Stephen:
>>And every emperor since Daruda has proven in the end
>>to be a dragon (except for Yanoor, but we have good reasons for why he
>>didn't make it), so I choose to have faith that Godunya will as well.
Peter:
>And what about Good Ol' Shang-Hsa May-his-name-be-cursed?
According to Sandy's too-good-to-be-discarded theory, Shang-Hsa turned into Yanoor when his third eye was opened.
>Obviously
>proving oneself to be a dragon in the end (or whatever we chose to
>call it) is not the same thing as being a wise, benign and capable
>ruler.
Against which one could argue that whatever eccentricities were just caused by the need to redress some disturbance of the greater cosmic whole. Which I think is a commonly used rationale. Note that I write rationale. See below.
>So it seems to me that proofs of Kralorela's imperfections are not
>hard to come by.
That I agree with wholeheartedly. The Kralorelan Way _might_ be as perfect as the mandarins claim if and only of Kralorela was the only state in the cosmos. As it is now, it is surrounded by other states and peoples who do not acknowledge the Way, so of course it can't work "perfectly".
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