Matin :
>Hes a social loner as hes social suicide. Hes not a mythic loner in my mind
>but then you and I are looking on the stories from very different contexts.
>When I reread my writing, I think that I've captured his Humakti nature as I
>intended. You disagree with my concept of Humakt and so do not think he's
>mythically linked.
I think Humakt can be many things to many people. I imagine there are a lot of Kingdom of War guys very much like Onslaught. However I do not think Onslaught is in any way a typical Humakti, certainly not in a Heortling context anyway. If I were a Humakti, I would say that Onslaught overemphasises the act of killing over the role of death in the world.
Onslaught's deathbringing is deliberately amoral. I think most Humakti see death as having a clear moral context. Onslaught is death for it's own sake, without regard for reason or consequence. I think most Heortling Humakti believe that the resons for dealing death and the consequences of it are of prime importance and that Humakti myths demonstrate this.
We know very few Humakti myths, but those we do know do emphasize moral context. Makla Man's Lead Cross quest is a fine example. He did not slay the healers in healer valey simply for being healers, but because they had 'missused' their healing powers to resurect those unworthy of it. Here there is a very clear moral judgement as to who deserves to live and who does not. Without the moral context the myth is robbed of much of it's meaning.
The Raven Banner is another good example. Any force carrying the banner into battle is guaranteed victory, but the bearer of the banner is always killed. How important is this battle to your people? How important are your people to you? Will you bear the banner? The exchange of death for life, and not simply for it's own sake, is what is important and sacred to the god.
The Lismelder Humakti tradition is also of note here. They have a very strong tradition of Humakt worship, centred about their struggle with the undead of the upland marsh. I realy don't think there is much Onslaught can teach them about the role of death in the world.
>>Perhaps she just benefits from Cool Ambiguity; the more I read about
>>Onslaught, the more I think a) 'Well, _that_ wasn't a very Humakti
>>thing to do; this isn't the Truth of Death, this is just more ad hoc
>>violence',
>
>You see ad hoc violence, I see him doing his mythic job - killing people.
That's a valid way to worship Humakt, and a powerful one, but also a monstrous one and not IMHO a way that is in any way condoned or supported by the majority of Heortling Humakti, or their myths. People like Onslaught are the down side of death worship in the same way that Gagarthi are the down side of storm worship. It's not big, and it's not clever.
Simon Hibbs
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