Re: "Loser" Quests; Lion King; Light

From: Nick Brooke <Nick_Brooke_at_compuserve.com>
Date: Sat, 23 May 1998 10:43:38 +0100



Simon Phipp, keeper of a damn' fine website, writes:

> This is the argument for all "Loser" Quests. "We do it to prove our
> piety". It is, of course, a load of rubbish. HeroQuestors perform
> "Loser" Quests so that the Quest may eventually change to become a
> Victory Quest.

After nigh-on 2,000 years of Christianity, surely nobody believes the Son of God was nailed up in Judaea any more? That would make him a "Loser"! Likewise, surely no Malkioni celebrate Hrestol's Martyrdom; nor do Yelmalions admire the steadfast endurance and obedience of their glorious deity. Orlanthi have entirely forgotten their god's contrition, responsibility and ordeals; Yelm-worshippers quietly ignore the "Underworld bit" of their mythology...

This sounds utterly spurious to me. There is more in life (and myth) than "Winner" Quests and "Loser" Quests. (Though if Gloranthan mythology were a beat-em-up computer game for the Sony Playstation, maybe this wouldn't be so).



Richard, on making up myths:

> Myths are all, ultimately, just a bunch of stories. Waha kills Basmol,
> Tada kills Basmol, Orlanth kills Basmol, Bemurok kills Basmol, Mickey
> The Jackrabbit kills Basmol. Who did it? Is he dead? Did he exist? Does
> he exist (in the underworld)? Does it matter? Different cultures make
> these things up, using _some_ sort of inspiration, and then act them
> out. Their version matters to them, but not necessarily to anyone else.

Theistic thinking follows:

OBVERSE: Lions (and Lion People) exist. Ergo, a god of lions exists. Let's call it Basmol (or Basmola, or some other name in different cultures).

Lions are big and fierce and scary, and they eat people. This is a Bad Thing.

When we know about Bad Things happening, we get our gods and heroes to help out. We learn how they dealt with the Bad Thing, and apply those lessons in our own daily lives.

Ergo, cultures which live near lions will have stories about gods and heroes who have fought and killed lions.

Cultures which live near lions and don't, will be eaten by lions.

FLIPSIDE: Lion People worship the god of lions. (Let's call it Basmol).

They get to be bigger and fiercer and more scary by summoning up the powers of their god. They also eat people, because their god does.

People who live near them think this is a Bad Thing. But the Lion People don't care: they just cast the divine magics that make them into Big and Fierce and Scary avatars of the Lion God, and go around killing people and eating them. Because they can.

Until, some day, they get beaten for the first time. By a big tough hero, or a small wily hero, or a hero dressed in a lionskin, or a hero wielding a thunderbolt, or whatever variant suits.

Thereafter, this kind of thing happens more and more often.

JUNCTION: The Lion People know that their most perfect embodiment of Basmol has been defeated by the local victims.

The local victims know that they can beat the Lion People.

We add another myth to the corpus.

CRITIQUE: Did anyone "make something up"? No: the culture hero (or god) *did* defeat a Lion, and the Lion in question *was* a really tough one embodying all of the powers the Lion God gives his worshippers. These people *can* beat lions. They tell the story in order to preserve knowledge of *how* to beat lions.

Is it "the same lion god" who's killed by all of these different culture heroes? Of course not: any more than "the same first animal" is killed by "the same first hunter" all around the world.

Is it necessary that the lion god be defeated by his opponents? Well, can you think of any cultures today which live in mortal fear of being destroyed by invading lions? I think not. Cultures that don't have a "we overcame the lion god" story are rather pathetic, and may not survive; those that do take this early step towards civilisation are the successful ones we see today.

Consider: Balazarings are still working on beating sabretooth tigers and cave bears. Anyone particularly impressed by the Balazarings? Thought not...



On to Light:

> I think Nick didn't reckon heavenly bodies reflected one another.
> Not sure about Glorantha herself, though. Is Glorantha a heavenly
> body, though?

Couple of observations:

i) Gloranthan heavenly bodies shine by their own light. Moon rock glows red. Here's a piece I carry around. See? Now, do you think the Red Moon only shines with reflected sunlight? Surely, if she's made of red-glowing rock, she glows red?

ii) "Glorantha" is the name of the universe: Underworld, Oceans, Continents, Atmosphere, Sky Dome, and all that permeates them. In what sense can the entire universe be a "Heavenly Body"? Certainly not in the Gloranthan sense: Glorantha *contains* the Sun, and Stars, and Planets, and Moons, and all the other heavenly bodies within it. Even the Blue Moon, bumping around the outside of the Sky Dome, is "within" Glorantha.

iii) In the real world, objects that don't reflect light are invisible, aren't they? But exporting RW physics to Glorantha is usually deeply tiresome, and I don't propose to kick off any such argument. (After Richard's Hawking extravaganza, I was worried he was about to start another ner-ner thread -- "Nick says all of Glorantha is invisible!" -- hence my caveats in past posts).

I repeat, one more time: what earthly difference would it make to anyone in the world of Glorantha, whether or not she "reflects light"?

> Maybe I should commune with a few Lunes myself :-)

I sometimes fear, reading your posts, that you already have! ("How can anyone look at the sky in daytime, when the sun's up?")



Joerg writes:

> Anyway, what's wrong with having Sir Narib as a Pithdaran?

Hear, hear!

Another way of phrasing the (rhetorical) question is, "If we're going to have black-skinned Malkioni, let's at least export some to Dragon Pass where normal gamers can meet them!"

I'm delighted with this.

Nick
:::: web: <http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Nick_Brooke>


End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #632


Powered by hypermail