This strikes me as so bogus as to merit the theatre-deployment of the word 'totally'. Only humans have 6 or 7 soul parts, divinities being totally different? Yelm obviously being a human, then.
If you're going to adopt a straight face and tell me that according to Dara Happan and Lunar belief the Red Emperor _doesn't_ have seven soul parts, then I'm going to seriously emphasise with, if not formally join, the 'Bugger the (official) Lunar Empire for a game of soldiers, then' camp.
> No, but that body was destroyed by Sheng and rebuilt but after his raid on
> the moon, he had to create a new form, which I think is what slowed him down
> after the raid. He was crippled for some time. Perhaps his body was given
> to him by a willing noble and this started a tradition of this kind of thing,
> but I mentioned this before on the digest and the response was that it was
> similar to the Pharoah and was a big yawn. So that's out.
So what are you saying his body is formed of, then? Myself I think it's ('just') a gestalt, which pretty much holds true for the rest of him, too. Nothing like the Pharoah, nothing much like the exact mechanic of LoM, totally consistent in fact and spirit with everything Greg has ever written on the topic, and still compatible with an pretty arbitrary amount of confusion when he reappears. (And with total clarity, also.) I don't much care if it's Correct at this point, but with all due modesty it seems streets ahead of the competing ideas as regards actually fitting the world.
[tFS]
> However, this is the only source I have for working on the RE that goes into
> any depth and I am trying to use only what it says literally as fact, before
> I start putting spins on it.
Apart from when it talks about him having distinct soul-parts, of course. How does remotely square up?
> Philipus Arabus, Julian the Apostate etc etc. They were all extant before
> they attemted to be Emperor. They had a past. Whereas all we have is that
> Takenegi "appeared" in those places. The literal interpretation is that he
> wasn't there before, then he was.
That's right, that would be the literal interpretation. If Glorantha was full of nothing but 'literal interpretations' at this level, I doubt I'd play there, and I'll bet you any money that _Greg_ wouldn't...
> > [MOB comment]
> I disagree with this, if only at this stage, because I'm unclear as to what a
> Lunar initiate is, at least in your estimation..
You're not sure what he mewnt, but you'll disagree in any case? Sort of sums up this whole debate.
> He is alien to humanity, like other demigods such as Lord
> Death on a Horse.
Not the most reassuring comparison in the whole wide world... The RE is clearly a far more rounded individual than LDoaH, so regardless of the Credo-isms, I don't see him being alien in any meaningful sense, but rather fully able to partake of the full range of 'human' experience. (And then some.)
Cheers,
Alex.
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