It is the Western methodology of viewing the progression. While the GL could make the other cosmologies fit it, it isn't a part of the others' stories.
>However, the serial structure of the monomyth actually isn't incorrect :
>the Young Elementals of Lunar mythology appeared in exactly that
>same (Darkness > Water > Earth > Fire/Sky/Sun) sequence.
Of course, this is a Lunar interpretation of the elementals, which came to
them via the GL theories, and magic.
>Weird critters like Aldryami, Voralans, Uzuz, and the like probably have
>variant perceptions and memories.
This is a key to understand why this can not be understood.
>Yes, I agree : and it's important not to detail this too precisely, because
>the ambiguity and mystery are important to the game.
This too is important, as a fact.
>I'm actually interested in the Time Before People, and in understanding
>the finer points of the GL elemental cosmogony, & how it does and
>doesn't relate to the other Creation myths. I'm _not_ interested in
>interpreting all other myths according to the GL model, except that I
>find it interesting to know what a GL would think about these things ;
>partially because many Genertelan myths and cultures were influenced
>by GL RuneQuesting ; partially because the GL model is an accurate
>description of early 17th century mythic cosmology (derived from GL
>RuneQuest Sight).
Here is the key:
NO ONE can understand anything before the creation of people.
Sure, something existed before People. But no one can go back thre because
individual consciousness did not exist.
>From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_cs.ucc.ie>
>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.
Do any other mythologies (that I have written) have any statements about
the elemental progression?
>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.
All stories of the earlier creation of the world in all mythologies is
guesswork, philosophy and vague impersonal recollection.
>> 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.
GL philosophers do speculate that there was a Darkness Age, a Water Age and
then a Green ago. No one can prove it though. No one. If you "go to the
era" then you have lost your personal consciousness and can not act or
return to the current time/space from which you began.
If you retain your individual human consciousness, then you ave changed it
from the Green Age to the Golden Age.
>> 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.
They were concurrent because no consciousness existed to separate time and
space.
>> 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.
Me too.
>> > 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
Yes, basically because the Green Age ends when humanity's human
consciousness begins.
>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.
Yes, this is part of advanced HQ. You have to "set" the time and space you
are in.
>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.)
Actually, the do have some philosophy of earlier than Green. But they
cannot prove it.
>
>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).
This is pretty much correct.
>> 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.
Note that if they do get to the "blue age" then they disappear as
individuals.
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