> > What I am saying is that the Pelandans
> > and the Dara Happans have different understandings of the same
> > goddess and indicated how this might be treated in Hero Wars
> > terms.
>I might be prepared to stipulate that they were "the same entity
>in some sense", but "same goddess" goes far beyond what the Entekosiad
>foreward is saying about their "connectedness".
Even in the bit where it says "Thus, it appears one Pelandan goddess became two when the cult moved to Dara Happa; or else two Dara Happan goddesses merged when the cult moved to Pelanda; or else an original goddess divided or was divided into parts in Dara Happa"?
Anyway what's the difference between saying the "same entity in some sense" and the "same goddess"? Nobody has any problem with the different aspects of Orlanth being the same god.
>(It refers to
>them throughout as "goddesses", plural, for example, is is throughout
>a description of the befuddlement of the parties involved as to the
>nature of this connection.)
It is at best a befuddlement of philosophers and mythographers how this connection came about. It matters little to everybody else since they recognize it as the same goddess in the same way that Orlanth's aspects are the same god.
> > >and then gives her/them a set of
> > >overlapping aspects to explain why they appear different;
> > So giving Orlanth different aspects to explain why Orlanth
> > Adventurous, Thunderous and Allfather appear different is
> > a "problem"?
>How is that remotely similar to your vague outline of a "solution"
>to the entity of Dendara and Entekos?
You are claiming they are not the same goddess because they appear different. I'm pointing out that the aspects of Orlanth appear different yet nobody has any problem with them belonging to the same god. That's despite some people recognizing the aspects as different gods (Wyrms Footprints p74).
>The different aspects of
>Orlanth is something the Heortlings explcitly recognise, not just
>a game-mechanical convenience, or a piece of externally imposed
>cosmological surmise.
The Heortlings recognize Orlanth's multiple aspects in the same way that they recognize the sun shining and the moon being red. It is a cosmological _truth_ which appears far back as Wyrm's Footprint and not a "cultural construct".
> > How else would you explain the relationship as described in
> > the foreword of the Entekosiad if they were two separate
> > goddesses and conforming exactly as possible to the published
> > Hero Wars?
>You're entirely missing the point of my objection that "divine
>identities are problematic" if you assume that I'm simply asserting
>that they're "different goddesses".
If you are not asserting they are different goddesses then what are you asserting?
>My entire point is that "same goddess/different goddess" is not
>necessarily something that has a "crisp" answer.
In the same way that one can never be sure whether the different aspects of Orlanth are the same or different? Sure the Heortlings might think they are, but how can you be sure? And what need have we to ever be concerned about it?
>A HW description isn't difficult, however, one can simply describe
>the (single) Pelandan goddess, and the (two) Dara Happan goddesses,
>as seen by their respective cults.
But how do you explain the fact that the Dara Happan Priestesses can participate in the Pelandan Rites and the Pelandan Priestesses can participate in one or the other but not both. My fused aspect explains this, yours solution does not.
> > Whether the fused aspect is one aspect or the other? Half and
> > half.
>The latter. It simply "moves" the issue of identity of the goddess
>to that of identity of the aspects. Your answer implies that they're not
>identical, as seen by their cults, so either this variation is a purely
>subjective cultic thing with no objective basis whatsoever, or it presents
>exactly the same problem of "is this one thing, or two?" as you claim to
>have definitively answered at the "goddess" level.
I'm sorry, but I don't understand what the problem is. The fused aspect implies by its name that two aspects have become melded into one to create a third aspect. I believe that the actual aspects of a Great God is fixed, no amount of worship can change this. Thus Entekos has two aspects at a cosmological level.
Normally worshippers of the Goddess would understand two aspects (virtue and atmosphere). But the Pelandans have managed to acquire an understanding of the Goddess with half of one aspect and half of another and that this understanding was stable (i.e. her worship didn't fission into two aspects over the years).
> > I disagree because
> > I've asked you to provide examples of "such matters" actually
> > existing and most of your examples were found wanting, the
> > single exception was not because there wasn't enough information
> > about Oria to decide either way.
>I entirely disagree about my examples; that it was the sole example
>you refrained from speculating about does not negate my objections
>to your "solutions" in the other cases.
I did not speculate, I provided references about how gods were different because they had different magic (in the case of Elmal versus Yelmalio) or different godplane locations (in the case of Orlanth versus Shargash). If you think that these are not conclusive, one wonders why you still object to Dendara and Entekos (whose differences are far smaller) to being the same goddess!
> > I do agree that Gloranthans will argue whether X is right or
> > wrong but I also believe that there are many things that they
> > can determine. The existence of Great Gods is one.
>The issue isn't their existence, but their precise identities.
Well, looking at the list of Great Gods since times passim, I find it extremely difficult to understand how one could be mistaken for another.
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