to me:
> > The more I think about it, the more I think the LBQ isn't about
>> resurrection at all. It's the source of CA's resurrection powers, but it's
>> real purpose is to change the world. The "get a dead guy to help you"
>> effect is not the major one.
>
>Note that Orlanth's purpose is to right a terrible wrong (see
>Gloranthan Visions or King of Sartar).
Well, yeah, but you could say that the LBQ, as a resurrection quest, was a tool that answered Orlanth's needs. After all, although Orlanth's purpose was to right his wrong, Lhankor Mhy, Issaries, etc all had their own reasons that are only tangentially related to Orlanth's. Lhankor Mhy, if memory serves me right, was looking for Truth. Yelm's return is related to LM's goals, but it isn't the central point. Similarly, if Orlanth could have corrected his error without resurrecting Yelm, that would have been OK, too. (For Orlanth; Yelm may have felt differently.)
Ben Waggoner says
to me:
> > If you can get your killer to come to Hell after you, don't they
> > have to repent? Or suffer some terrible calamity. Assuming you have Justice
> > on your side, of course.
>
> Yeah. It seems that this would be enormously difficult to arrange.
>It'd require forcing an involuntary HQ on your killer, which wouldn't be
>easy being dead. There's some MGF in here somewhere!
You'd have to set up a very long term quest where you tricked your enemy into playing the role of Rebellious Terminius. Then he'd have to bring you back or wreck everything. Maybe you could do this if you were sure you were going to be killed. Of course, if your enemy is using a Shargash myth, he can kill you with impunity, assuming you've lost Justice.
> That doubled quest thing would be a very odd thing to creep into the
>myth after the fact.
Maybe you're right. On the other hand, maybe Agrath got to the gods, discovered that they couldn't help him, and went on from there. Agrath's Saga is not exactly an unimpeachable source after all. Even for fairly straightforward events in mundane Glorantha with witnesses, it's kind of squirrely. For something that pretty much only Agrath saw and returned to report on, the truth could be anything. Most of what is in King of Sartar isn't myth; it's history written by biased, confused, wrong, and ignorant authors. I'm not saying your take isn't correct; just that the Agrath Saga is a complicated hook to hang an argument on.
> This match how I've felt about Arkat and the developments of his myth,
>which that he was probably a decent guy underneath, cursed to evil and
>betrayal by his unique understanding of the greater evil of the betrayer he
>faced.
Of course, this is assuming that the defeat of the Empire is a Good Thing. Similarly, the defeat of the Orlanthi by the Bright Empire might have been better for Glorantha. Arkat and Harmast are not exactly disinterested bystanders. after all.
> As for Harmast's LBQ, how did the world change after Talor's return?
>Perhaps that was also to remove some of the "fire with fire" bitterness
>Arkat (necessarily) brought to the world.
Got me. I don't really know enough about Talor to comment.
Gianfranco Geroldi says:
>Godlearnerishly I could argue that maybe when Shen was
>defeated and killed, phisically, his entire soul was
>not trapped. Why?
>Because his cult continued among the Pentans and so in
>a sense, a part of his being (the
>immortal/worshippable part) was still free and alive.
I don't think this is correct. When Sheng was killed and captured, his worshippers lost all access to his power. (Which explains the rapid collapse of the Pentan "empire.") I think Sheng, by the time the Lunars did him in, was an Anti-god (in the Vithian sense), and not a man at all. As an Anti-god, he could offer his followers immense power, kick the crap out of the Lunars, cow the Kralori, etc. This was balanced by his need to follow divine protocol, which he seems to have failed to do (I seem to remember that actually stepping onto the Moon was an error, but it might have been Lunar propaganda). Similarly, whatever Belintar was before he became Pharaoh, becoming God-King left him with mythic weaknesses as well as mythic power. Becoming a god is a mixed blessing....
Anyway, I don't think there's a Sheng-the-man and a Sheng-the-deity; there's just Sheng, first a slave, the a Mystic, then an Anti-god, then a damned force, then whatever (an Anti-god, I suppose). But that's my opinion.
Peter Larsen
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End of The Glorantha Digest V8 #470
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