Nils:
> In fact, using the terms of Black, Blue, Green and Golden Age
> as general designations of the mythic eras is quite misleading
> as it implies that the succession of elements cosmogony is the
> only (correct) view of this distant mystic past. That is obviously
> not true as there are competing views, which can also be visited
> through heroquesting.
Certainly the elemental progression is just one viewpoint, though to be fair, if you chose to regard it by elements, then there does at least seem to be some agreement as to what "order" they come in.
> I'd say the number of mythic ages, and their
> labels will differ from culture to culture.
Evidence so far is on a fairly consisent number, but certainly a variation in terminology. Though the sample size may be fairly small...
> The split and remix of the otherworlds can most likely mapped to
> all the cosmogonies.
Presumably, otherwise one of them is Wrong...
Julian Lord:
> Yeah well, here's why this sort of thread is called "speculative".
It might help if you mark your speculations as such, especially where they might otherwise resemble assertions.
> > > Oh, and the Subere write-ups etc, especially the lovely one in UZ, for
> > > the crunchiest sources of all.
> >
> > Is that "crunchy" in the Lawsian sense?
>
> You * did * demand printed evidence ...
Still waiting for it, too! The version of Subere I have to hand (Troll Gods) dispenses with "everything before the Storm Age" in one paragraph, which is conspicuously free of anything that would distinguish clearly between "Green" and "Golden" Ages, much less anything that would imply a separate Blue or Black.
> We know the GL order of creation of the 5 Elements, and it would
> seem odd,
> at best, if there weren't a "Darkness Age" (as there was a Blue Age, a
> Green one, etc.), a period that I call Black Age as a distinction from the
> latter "Darknesses".
So, pretty much sheer supposition and overlay then, eh? ;-) I would have the same reservations about "Blue Age", incidentally.
> What's funny-looking about a "waveform" showing the Union of Earth
> and Sky, producing Storm, being the Highest Event of the Golden Age
> and the Death of Yelm as its Lowest and Final one, and a direct
> consequence of what happened at the "apex" ?
So you're now _agreeing_ that the Death of Yelm ends the Golden Age, contra your earlier quibble? And likewise for the related point about the Green Age?
> I do agree that there is some undesirable confusion here, and one of my
> purposes in this thread is to try and identify exactly where it springs
> from.
Your bogus terminology, in large part!
> The real problem here is that it appears from the sources that the
> "elemental progression", the actions of the Gloranthan Court, the Five
> Movements, the separation/devolution/"re-mixing", were actually
> concurrent processes ; which is, of course, _why_ the elemental eras
> prior to the Green Age are so hard to understand.
Which is why any systematic attempt to "split up" the Green Age/Creation Age on a "elemental" basis isn't going to get anyone anywhere. What characterises an "age" is some sort of understanding of: when it "starts"; when it "ends"; and what happens "during" it. We can do this for the recognised Ages; occassionally different religions and cultures even agree! I don't see that you have done this for your "early Ages" -- or even that one could.
> OTOH, the Black Age is _exactly_ like a Hero Plane in many ways,
> including the facts that you can try and go there from the Blue Age (via
> the Styx for example), that it is a borderland between the otherworlds,
> and that many otherworld roolz mechanics can be used as is in that
> place
Which is equally consistent with it being part of the "Green" Age HP.
> (we all know that the _real_ definition of "Hero Plane" is :
> "otherworld place where HeroQuest characters can go heroquesting
> without having to worry about the tedious Alien World modifiers
> roolz"). But pre-Green Age Glorantha is so _weird_ that the Alien
> World modifiers would simply _have_ to be used.
Hey, take it to herowars, bub. ;-) Again, I see no real (and certainly no "crisp") distinction with the Green Age here at all. It's not so much alienness in that specific sense as "infeasible difficulty". In so far as it's meaningful to talk about interacting with "entities" there, or performing "tasks", these would be immensely difficult. (though in effect this _is_ what happens at later stages of mystical practice, as I understand it).
> Which is a _very_ roundabout way of saying that calling the prehistoric
> "Ages" of Glorantha "Hero Planes" is an extremely confusing and
> ultimately untenable proposal, IMO.
Well, I'm with you on that, certainly.
> > I note that Greg has hedged his bets on when the
> > "separation" happens, and indeed when the "re-mixing" happens, so good
> > luck trying to make this distinction in any way systematic.
>
> Aye, there's the rub. Proper distinction is just about feasible for pre- and
> early- Green Age Glorantha
Distinction of what? I'm re-lost...
> are there various separate parts of
> "Golden Age" existing as separate parts of each otherworld, and why
> then don't the Alien World modifiers apply within their bounds ?
I think it would be misleading to say the "parts" of the Golden Age were separate; it would certainly be wrong to call them parts of the Otherworlds. But equally, some portions of the G. age (say) are "more one thing than the other", both in terms of which "system" best describes something, and within a system, which particular corpus of mythology does.
Ideally what you need are a series of myth-maps, which tell you "where" and "when" you are in myth, or in several possible competing myths for "the same" point. Skulking around near Kero Fin, under the rule of the Emperor, what mythic understanding best describes this? Mystic or liturigical? Hardly at all. Animist not great. Yelmic theism, fairly well; Orlanthi theism better. All you need to go is repeat for every "place" in every "time", in every mythic understanding -- whee! So you can see why there's an attraction to neat tables of -20's, or equally of disavowals of same, evn if, as I believe, they're neither of them cut and dried universal cosmological truths.
> Saying that the _early_ Black Age has "undifferentiatedness", as I have,
> isn't the same thing as saying that the pre-differentiated cosmos _is_ the
> Black Age. Not so. If it were, the "Black Age" term would be 100%
> unnecessary, which is of course your not-so-secret agenda, I-smell-a-rat-
> wise ...
No, I think there's a "thing to be described" (which is why I mentioned Atrilith); I just think "Black Age" isn't a useful such description.
> ... "tip-toe around" rather than "use", but ... some Gloranthan sources
> mention pre-material "Philosophical" Entities (Mover, O, Thought,
> etc.). I think that these "beings" are most likely just another God
> Learner fallacy.
I see what you mean, I think; if the being "beyond" the gods (the C. court, the runes, what have you) are "Philosophical Entities", then you might say that "time" before "Myth" (in any useful sense) was "Philosophical Ages". Cunning, but horrible!
> > No culture that springs to mind (and I'm open to correction here, of
> > course) makes such a construction of, or regards in this way the "Black
> > Age".
>
> The God Learners did so, in their abstract elemental progression
> mythology, although the term itself is non-canon (as pointed out, fairly
> exhaustingly).
But the God Learners did _not_ identify (this part of) the elemental progression with "Ages", in any account I'm familiar with. (Any discrete set of Ages, quite aside from the terminology.)
Chris Lemens:
> Just to throw in a completely different twist, I
> always took the Blue, Green, and Black Ages to be the
> collective memories of the water-, earth-, and dark-
> peoples respective, but that they were all the same
> "pre-Time" (except in some versions of the monomyth,
> which incorrectly places them serially).
Makes a darn sight more sense to me, I must say. (I thought I'd alluded to a similar notion, at least vaguely, but then, I've vaguely alluded to a lot of things...)
> All I need to know is that the merpeople, for example,
> don't have to tramp "through" the Green Age to get to
> the Blue Age, nor do the Uz get wet to go to the Black
> Age.
Quite.
> The only thing that does not match up is that the Uz
> experience no Golden Age in the sense of
> sky/light/fire domination. Instead, they have an
> interminable period in Wonderhome.
As Julian says, this corresponds to their "Golden Age", in the other sense. And it also can be rationalised that it happens "concurrently" with the Golden Age proper, but in a different "place". (Since there is no clear distinction in mythic topology between time and place though, good luck with trying to think about this too hard. <g>)
> I do wonder what the skycaptains remember of the Green
> Age. Do they remember a White Age?
I think "White Age" could once again be regarded as a Celestial version of the "Green Age". Zaytenara, and all that jazz.
Cheers,
Alex.
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End of Glorantha Digest
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