I'll keep this as brief as I can, as Greg's contribution for me pretty much settles the whole thing (entirely in line with my own understanding, FWIW), and I'm not up right now to doing proper justice to Julian's evident fractiousness...
> Case in point (sigh!) I guess that this is what a theological discussion
> between a Brithini and a Lunar theist might sound like :
Maybe: who of us is which?
> II. Cult Ecology "Subere is the goddess of First Darkness, the darkness
> which has never been pierced by light."
>
> This First Darkness is the Age under discussion.
Have I at any point asserted a lack of darkness in the Uz, or indeed anyone else's, cosmogony? The point when I keep asking you to justify, is why it it "an Age", for one thing, and for a second, in a particular order that _does not correspond_ to anything in (against for example) Uz myth? In effect you're taking a "period" from Uz myth, a "period" from Doraddi (and others) myth, and then insisting that from the GL elemental progression, these all _must_ form a universalist delineated sequential progression. (And then flaming me for observing that's what you're doing, as opposed to either defending this idea if it's correct on its face, clarifying it if I've misunderstood it, or having the good grace to acknowledge what it is you're doing.)
> > I would have the same reservations about "Blue Age", incidentally.
>
> Obviously : and even the fact that the Blue Age is canon won't deter
> your all-encompassing desire to prove me "wrong" here.
It won't deter me from asking for clarification of what part of Canon you might be referring to, if that doesn't seem like an unjust imposition, a browbeating debating tactic, or whatever.
> > 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?
>
> No, no, no (and not "quibble" BTW : I fail to see that a core argument
> can be a "quibble") : the Death of Yelm is a direct consequence of the
> central crisis of the Age : the separation by Umath of Sky from Earth,
> which carries the seeds of that killing and is, cause-and-effect-wise, both
> the core destruction and the culmination of the Age, causing the era to
> go into decline, leading to the Death of Yelm.
What happens at the "core" of an Age is _irrelevant_ here. The point under discussion was when an age ends. If you're continuing to disagree on this point, please do so clear; if you're not, then please desist in confusing the issue with this side-track.
> > 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.
>
> It's _your_ idea that my attempt is a "systematic" one. I'm not
> attempting to be systematic, what I'm trying to do is _understand_ these
> periods, something that your more pugnacious comments won't help
> me do.
You're trying to understand it by first insisting on a particular structure; if that structure isn't correct, in the universalist sense you're assuming it to be, then agreeing with it would hardly be doing a service to your quest for understanding, I should think.
> > Which is equally consistent with it being part of the "Green" Age HP.
>
> Except for the * small detail * that it is of the Underworld, and in many
> ways profoundly unlike the Green Age (inhabited by "formless blobs"
> not "people", connected to the "Cosmos Unknown" (UZ p. 47), is
> "unfathomable" unlike the Green Age, Darkness elsewhere being
> described as "the first of the elements drawn or pulled from the Void,
> [holding within it] the potential for further creation", etc).
None of which are in any sense things that would distinquish it from the "Green Age". The idea of a separate Underworld in the Green Age is an impossiblity; as are people (sez Greg, same ish). And how fathomable do you suppose the Green Age to be, pray?
> Anyways, you are guilty of synecdoque here : yes, the Black Age has
> most of the characteristics of the Green Age for heroquesting purposes.
> In particular, most areas of what the uz themselves would refer to as the
> "Deepest Dark" or whatever would actually be in the Green Age from a
> GL standpoint. To deduce therefrom that there is no meaningful
> difference between the two, ipso facto no Black Age exists, is an error
> of logic, mistaking a part (undifferentiation from the HQing POV) for
> the whole
I'm not claiming to have "proved" the two are identical. Indeed, I made a rather large caveat to the effect that I saw the "number" of Ages being in some sense arbitrary, and conventional. I'm observing that a) they're normally presented as such, in that the states/events you wish to hive off from the Black Age are normally given as "Green Age" or "Creation Age" things; and b) that your alleged demonstration of their distinctness doesn't stand up. Please don't pull this burden- -proof crap on me.
> (many other _vast_ differences, mostly unexplained in
> published sources, difficult to understand, and perhaps unappropriate
> for commercial RPG publication, the fact that it's HeroQuest and not
> D&D notwithstanding).
All this paragraph is missing is an "ineffable".
> The word "discrete" being a familiar Alexism ...
Do you have some objection to the term, beyond the identity of its utterer?
> Whoever said (apart from you) that these Ages were or should be
> "discrete" ?
It's pretty much implied by the terminology, and your _insistence_ on that terminology very much indicates to me some weight being attached to this (or maybe just bloody-mindedness, you tell me). If an age happens "before" another, in a discernable order, and you can in principle identify the "border" between the two, then I'd call them discrete. Which of these are you _not_ claiming for your Black/Blue/Green age-progression?
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?
Good question. Certainly the modern Orlanthi terminology for their ages follows it to some degree, very possibly as a direct GL influence. Or if one wants to be ultra-revisionist, as GL influence in the RW sources... (Though I can't recall if there are identifyable Orlanthi source that are specific as to where water comes in their progression: certainly the very term "Predark" implies that Darkness is their first (real) element.)
Cheers,
Alex.
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