As you later acknowledge, I think, the parts are not identical with roles. However, it would be true to say that in a sense, certain roles are 'functions of' particular soul-parts. Identifying portions of ones being with portions of Yelm's, to chose one outstanding example, the six portions of Dara Happan Emperorship, and what have you. This doesn't mean, though, that in Dara Happan belief if he has more than seven roles, he has more than seven soul-parts, rather it means that (DH Classic) we don't given a monkey's about those other roles, bleedin' unwashed barbarians, what do they know? and/or (Hippy-Dippy Lunar) those are just perceptions of the greater whole, which we perceive as the Seven (blah, blah, etc).
Thus I don't think that he has more than seven soul-parts, but I do think that each part may itself be formed from, or augmented by, a number of 'sources', and that each may be identified or part-identified with a rather confusing range of
Of course, outside of the DH worldview, and the DH-derived Lunar worldview (and whatever bits of the Pelandan worldview survive worthy of the name) all this guff about 7 (or 6 or 5) soul-parts is just so much lowlander mental masturbation, as I'm quite sure the Carmanians, the hill barbarians, the Char-Un, and whomever else will gleefully tell you, so take all this viewpoint-itis with a pinch of salt...
> He was not born a DH, we do not see
> lots of Takenegis running around. He is not part of a race, or a people. He
> is singular.
You keep saying that, and if you know precisely what it means, then I certainly don't know what you mean by it, to grossly paragraph some movie or other. That he's unique? Obviously. That he's an unchanging continuum? Obviously not, surely.
> >Myself I think it's ('just') a gestalt,
>
> You seem to think I'm spounting definitive answers that are "true" but I'm
> not. I am open to argument, that is why I am bothering to post this, even
> when I have flu so bad I can barely see.
You have my sympathy... Though not necessarily any actual mercy, mind you. (It's a hard Digest, and then you get mail-bounced.)
You seem very keen to state in definitive terms what's not so in many cases (not a noble, not a gestalt), if you're not certain what _is_ so. Maybe if you were a smidgen less so, less heat and more light would be generated... Not that you shouldn't be as free as the next person to shout their mouth off, naturally, but you'll surely also appreciate that a well-flagged distinction between 'here's a funky thought...' and 'Greg has said that anything other than the following is something up with which he will not put, and I'll go to the wall (and to press) to back him up on it!'.
> > > [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.
>
> How can I agree with something if I don't know what he means by it? Bloody
> hell! I am TRYING to work this through.
If you think that 'I disagree with this' is synonymous with a mere absence of immediate agreement, then I need some stronger term than 'disagree' to express my difference of opinion with this interpretation...
I don't know, perhaps the reaction to your posts has reached the point of feeding frenzy, or at least a wee shady over-reaction. At least you've been willing to engage in some subtle 'row-back' where indicated, and indeed to thrash all this out in public in the first place, for which you're to be commended.
Personally, I won't be upset in the least if this stuff isn't nailed down in the short-term here, or in the medium-term in She Guards Us. As Martin says, Imperial Succession isn't likely to be much of a HW theme, though perhaps Imperial Seccession might be. If we get a decent description of the role(s) of the Egi, and some hints as to the Funky Complications that _could_ occur (or may have occurred) I'll be more than happy. I say this in at least as much a spirit of not wanting to camp out all over Martin's page-count, as of constructive ambiguity... (All this extra-Gloranthan nonsense about gestalts I'd be mildly appalled to read there, for example, even if it is my current mental model.)
Good health,
Alex.
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