Me>>There is AFAIK some first age ruins in Kothar and plenty of Artmali
>>ruins all over the place. But I was talking about Jolar.
> I don't know when we restricted ourselves to Jolar
Talking about what came before the six-legged empire, perhaps. Since that empire only controlled Jolar, I would have thought it obvious that we were not talking about Kothar and/or Tarien.
Me>>Furthermore to deny that Pamalt is an Earth King because he
>>does not manifest the same characteristics as Genert is also
>>unsound methodology (and a tad close to God Learnerism IMO).
> I note with some hilarity that Peter all-but-accuses me of God
>Learnerism, while he is directly defending the God Learner point of view
>against my accusations that it is somewhat incorrect! I am rather impressed
>by the audacity of this rhetorical manouver (degree of difficulty 9.8), and
>I thought it deserved some prominence.
To inject reality back into this debate, I am claiming that the view Pamalt as the Earth King is a natural inference that the Doraddi would make (much like the Dara Happans view Yelm as Emperor of the Cosmos). David thinks the Doraddi for some reason required the assistance of foreigners to make the leap.
> This seems to be the big issue, and it is obvious we are argueing
>at cross purposes. I am argueing that the Doraddi definately believe in
>(d)evolution now, and it moderately accurately represents recent history/
>living memory (probably the last thousand years or so).
Even if this is what you originally meant, I still think it is wrong. It would require the first age doraddi (circa 600 ST) to have been the acme of civilization with the six-legged empire an intermediate stage and the now idyllic lifestyle of the doraddi to have been a gradual process.
Whereas I think Hon's revolt was a dramatic change to return the Doraddi to their memories of a first age idyllic lifestyle that Pamalt had made for them. For him to imagine a brave new lifestyle that Pamalt was not clever enough to developed in the first place makes Hon a Greater Man than Pamalt.
>Another reason I
>don't want to argue about it is that it comes down to how central to the
>Doraddi mythos you want to make the John Hughes stuff, which is largely a
>matter of taste. I like it enough I don't want to throw it away, but I
>don't like it enough to base my whole conception of early Pamaltelan
>culture on it.
As said before we are talking about the society before the six-legged empire. Which means confining our arguements to Jolar. There are Doraddi in Kothar and Tarien and I am not talking about them.
>>Recent? We're talking about the first age Doraddi tribes who were
>>living amidst the ruins of the Artmali Empire and had memories of
>>how ruthless and evil it was.
> What I said was that the recent (by which I mean, in a somewhat
>broad definition of recent, possibly as far back as late second age)
>Doraddi believe that the Doraddi used to more civilised, and now are less
>civilised and happier and better off.
Above you were saying up to a thousand years ago now you are talking about the late second age which is closer to 500 years! Could you make a decision on when the devolution is supposed to have happened?
>I deliberately said I'm not sure
>about whether this is what the First Age and earlier Doraddi thought. SO,
>while you may have been talking about the first age Doraddi tribes, I
>wasn't...
Well you originally seemed to be. This was your statements that originally spawned this subthread thread.
::The Doraddi think Hon Hoolbiktu was a part of their gradual evolution ::towards an idyllic existence in which they have learnt to avoid all ::the bad aspects of civilisation. While I don't think they rode before ::the Six Leggeds came, it is likely that the did have some of the other ::trappings of civilisation that they now lack.
Which implies everything from the Artmali onwards.
> In reference to our last exchange, BTW, I've decided I'm not
>convinced that the Ia Rawthi controlled Dolorofey in the first age or
>earlier, which would explain why they did not expand into Jolar.
Well they also controlled Laskal and there was some huge surplus population from there that managed to overrun the Artmali Empire in the first age.
I'm sticking to my idea that the Ia Rawthi have lived in the Dolorofey since the first age and were no able to expand into Jolar because their (grass) cereals did not grow so good. A similar mechanism lies behind the reasons why the RW Xhosa and Zulus did not expand into the tip of South Africa despite having 1000 years of opportunity to do so - the rain fell in a different season and so their crops were no good - leaving the field clear for the hunter-gathering Khoisans.
>I think
>the Ia Rawthi probably are the sad remnants of the Six Legged Empire, and
>before the Second age the area was controlled by someone else, most
>probably Doraddi.
Doraddi culture does not function well in the forest. And if the Doraddi controlled the forest, then the Ia Rawthi would not end up there without being slaughtered. They would be more likely to end up in Tarien, Kothar or even Zamokil _if_ the Doraddi hid out in Dolorofey during the six-legged empire.
>>OTOH for their degeneration PoV to be valid, they would have to have
>>tales about how wicked and corrupt the first age Doraddi were - less
>>bad than the Artmali Empire but more bad than the Six Legged Empire.
>>Which I find somewhat implausible.
> Wicked and corrupt is not correct. They believe that the first age
>Doraddi were not as happy as they are now, and were worse plagued by evils
>like plague and starvation, because the first age Doraddi where not quite
>as sensible, and had things like permanent townships at the oases, and the
>plains where not all plains originally.
So are you extending the devolution back into the first age or not?
The problem with the first-age Doraddi being civilized (I notice that you are claiming they are all civilized based on the existance of towns at the Oases) is that Pamalt, who was their chieftain, picked up the pieces after the collapse of the Artmali Empire would have given the Doraddi an imperfect civilized existance. Whereas Hon Hoolbiktu managed to go one better than Pamalt and developed the lifestyle that the Doraddi enjoy today. I do not believe that the Doraddi would for a moment believe this. It is more plausible that the Doraddi would view Hon Hoolbiktu's revolution as a _return_ to their idyllic lifestyle that Pamalt created.
>I do think that even the Doraddi think the Great Darkness was the
>worst time, though, even worse than the original Artmali Empire.
Why? Pamalt was their chieftain.
Me>>Pamalt has stronger connections with the Earth than Faranar who is
>>a wife goddess IMO.
> That may true in their current roles. But that wasn't what I said,
>I was talking about their mythic origins.
> To quote from the Pamalt writeup
>"Pamalt was one, a son of Ancient Grandmother. He took to wife Faranar, an
>earth mother, and they had many children."
The Ancient Grandmother is Yanmorla, an earth goddess. So much for Pamalt not being originally an Earth God. And think about Faranar's earth powers in light of the fact that the Doraddi do not practice agriculture.
Me>>...why did the God Learners give Pamalt the (Kinship)
>>Power Rune rather than the Earth Rune that their theory dictated?
> I think the God Learners originally gave Pamalt an Earth Rune, and
>it was revised later by the Six Legged Empire (and word filtered back to
>the Jrustela).
And the Jrusteli would have more probably laughed in the faces of the ignorant six-leggers. Whereas they gave Pamalt the (kinship) power rune from the very beginning in much the same way as they gave the Dragonpower rune (and not the Dragonewt rune) to the cult of immanent mastery and the dark earth rune to the malign earth goddesses.
>I'm pretty certain that the God Learners tried to turn the
>Pamalt pantheon into an earth pantheon, and it seems obvious that if they
>were to do so, Pamalt would turn into the Earth King, being chieftain with
>all those Earth powers.
David. Look at whatever conception of first age Doraddi beliefs that you have and try and come up with ways of not describing it as an Earth pantheon. Hard, isn't it? Then why this farrago of about Pamalt not being seen as the Earth King before the God Learners came?
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