Roi de Sartar; KoDP & Personal Identity

From: Frederic Ferro <ferro_at_Princeton.EDU>
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 15:38:28 -0500 (EST)


HCarteau asked
> > I keep hearing about a "King of Sartar" book and would like to get it. Any
> > tips where I can buy it from ?

If you live near Paris, I think there was still a copy in Starplayer recently (3, rue Dante, 75005 PARIS, Subway: Saint-Michel/Cluny-La Sorbonne). And try also Jeux Descartes, 52, rue des Ecoles (Ibidem). It can also be found online (140FF):
http://www.lorweb.com/Oriflam/rune.html

Cian Dorr asked about Individual Autonomy:
> On the other hand, though, there is the idea that to influence the thoughts
> and actions of others using magic is abominable witchcraft, the kind of
> thing that one does only when all else fails, and that if found out would
> make any right-thinking person fear and hate you.

There must be a difference between the attitude toward (what RQ called) Sorcery ("Those god-forsaken Western Wizards mess up with my mind and I'm all confused!") and a True Orlanthi HeroQuest. This latter behavior modification could be almost considered as a kind of persuasion by a clever argument. The intervention on the Hero Plane makes visible another side of the question you had overlooked previously, as if you were swayed by a new "fact". You are not forced by the Issaries Quest to become conciliatory, only more "inclined" to behave in this way because you find out you were always willing to do so. HeroQuests can even be used to strengthen the beliefs of the agent in a self-reinforcing way.

A Heortling would still object to lose his individual autonomy because of the direct causal influence of a Spell except if he chose to alienate his free will in a cult or with a Geas. Psychological continuity must be valued by Orlanthi except for the token Trickster of the tribe. A HeroQuest is sometimes viewed as a paradoxical backward causation (I know Nick Brooke doesn't like this interpretation but that's the version I use IMG) : it produces and reveals a new information which was always "there"...

ff

http://www.geocities.com/anacharsis_2
Three o'clock in the afternoon is always just a little too late or a little too early for anything you want to do. -- Jean-Paul Sartre


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