>It is not a political calculation they are making, it's a moral
>evaluation. Even if it is politically desirable to keep Pharandros
>on the throne, his bastardy (if he is one) will arouse negative
>reactions among the Nobility that he needs to impress.
I take your point. The marriage options for the Tarshite upper classes must be considerably more constrained than those of the less-Lunarized (Solarized, really) classes.
on Eels:
>Different writing systems.
So both are correct, but -eel is gauche? What a great detail!
All the Eels are part of the same clan, the
>Eel-Ariash, and connected in some way to the serpent Berneel
>Arashagern, the Divine Seed of Yelm.
I'm still having trouble with fitting HonEel into this -- are the Eel-Ariash all related to the Emperor, or is HonEel's mystery mother (who was a commoner, right?) somehow related to the clan?
>This PoV [human sacrifice for corn] however arouses deep revulsion among
other Lunars.
>[snip] This is the origin of the grudge against the Red Emperor.
[much more snipping]
>the Emperor's death could be a plot to remove the Emperor
>permanently from the scene. OTOH it could be a simple accident
Thanks, this is sort of what I thought, but I was afraid I was missing some important piece. HonEel seems like quite a loose cannon -- she helped the Empire a lot, but it seems like her own agenda was much more important to her. Or is this a side effect of linking/proving herself to Maran Gor (She got into Tarsh, but at the cost of gaining Dark Earth connections)?
A few more questions:
HonEel seems like the Lunarized Earth. Assuming this is true, how does she relate to the Young Elemental Earth? Also, is her worship a Hero Cult, or has she actually become the Maize Goddessfor the Empire?
Somewhere (Wyrm's Footnotes, I think) JarEel is described as a reincarnation or second coming of HonEel. Is this still the case? If so, JarEel seems surprisingly wholesome (yes, she killed all those Sartarites, but she doesn't seem to have the malevolent qualities of HonEel and seems much more loyal to the Empire and Emperor).
I'm finding HonEel more and more interesting. It doesn't look like being closely related to the Red Emperor is all that good for your health. His daughters doesn't seem to live all that long (although they get to be Gods after death). Yara Aranis looks like the big exception, but I have my doubts if she's really a daughter of the Red Emperor (there's a spider-like horse-eathing demon in (the Fortunate Succession?) who soulds suspiciously like her). The Lunars like adopting horrible things (the Bat's another example), don't they?
Peter Larsen
End of The Glorantha Digest V8 #234
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