> Hardly. The comments about Tolat are fairly sparse and in
> the only one-line description of his cult (Player's Book:
> Genertela p34), his "cult somewhat resembles a combination
> of the Humakt and Uleria cults".
I'm happy to stipulate to the sparseness of the evidence (though what you've cited _precisely_ supports what I just said, in fact).
> Since Tolat has his origins as the War God of the invading
> Zaranistangi and was only later adopted as the lover of the
> Marazi Amazons, I really see the Love in their cult as being
> Lovers of the Lord of Destruction, rather than Tolat's core
> nature having equal amounts of Death and Fertility.
Since he has a specific "husband" role, including both sexual pleasure and procreation, his Fertility aspect seems to me to be fairly considerable. ("Equal amounts" was not part of my proposition.)
> > > Shargash however is both a Great God and not Humakt. Even
> > > his "death" is not separation and division (ST p90) but
> > > universal destruction. So I do not believe his core
> > > nature corresponds to Death.
>
> >I think this "proof" rests on the (IMO incorrect) assumption
> >that the divine world can be rendered discrete in some objective
> >way. (Obviously it can be rendered discrete in any number of
> >subjectively satisfactory ways: that's more or less a given
> >for successful theistic worship.)
>
> I really don't give a damn about whether the classification
> of the divine world is objective or subjective. If it is
> objective, then there is nothing to worry about. If it is
> subjective, then it joins other subjective classifications
> such as taxonomy, and again there is nothing to worry about.
>
> Insofar as it is easily understood and useful, I have no
> qualms about using a schmobjective classification system
> to distinguish between Shargash's Destruction and Humakt's
> Death.
What do you mean by "the" classification of the divine world? The point is that there are many such. You're clearly appealing to an objective one, and either "not giving a damn" about the subjective cosmologies of cultures where they differ from this, or assuming that _they do not differ_, which I would certainly dispute.
> >The starkest example of the problems with such exercises is perhaps the
> >Dendara/Entekos "problem".
>
> This really has no relevance. The problem with Dendara/Entekos
> has one deity being two, but a goddess having two aspects in
> one land while apparently having a fused aspect in another land
> (a circumstance so far not covered in the Hero Wars line).
On the contrary, it's specifically relevant. You're implying that the "identity problem" can in all cases be unambiguously solved (this god is strictly "the same as" that one; this one is strictly not), and the above account notwithstanding, this is a pretty clear indication that this is not the case, at least for the Gloranthans concerned. The proposed identity _is for them_ uncertain. Perhaps it's possible to construct some meta-theory that resolves this, but about that, to coin a phrase, I couldn't give a damn.
> >It rather suggests to me that he's manifesting a power that would be
> >seen, at least in Heortling eyes, as chaotic.
>
> But he isn't. Shargash is mentioned in Heortling mythos as
> Jagrekriand and there is no indication in TR that he is
> chaotic. Evil, yes...
That seems to me to be highly problematic. If Shargash is universally recognised as being "the owner of" the Annihilation/Void rune, then I can't see how the Heortlings could perceive him as anything other than chaotic. That they don't suggests to me that either he isn't, in any usefully universalist sense, or that the Orlanthi have some quite different perception of said Core Rune (which would rather negate the point of it being a Core Rune).
OTOH, maybe they just haven't noticed yet...
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