Trotsky, replying to me:
> >The later seems the more problematic to me. (Though I'd also be somewhat
> >skeptical about the first, at least in terms of "non-recent" history.)
> >In terms of cosmogony, are the two completely different?
> >
> One's theist, the other animist; I'd say that's a fair difference :-)
That that distinction would have primacy is exactly what disturbs me rather. Obviously, it's a large, significant difference, especially in religious _practice_, no argument there.
> >Or a mysterious
> >case of "convergent evolution"? Is there nothing on the Other Side that
> >in any sense corresponds to Primal Raccoonity?
> >
> There might be, but quite where it would be is a bit of a poser, if its
> supposed to be an effective source for both theist and animist magic.
> Strictly speaking, theist racoons and animist racoons are not the same
> creature, so they don't need a common origin. They just look kind of
> similar.
And are magically and characteristically similar, according to your initial, pretty sensible-seeming, assertion.
> Just as Malkioni and Heortlings look pretty much the same, but
> don't have a common origin, or indeed much similarity to each other
> beyond their basic humanity.
But those things are by no means beyond mythic ambiguity. Each could have different, doubtless contradictory, myths of the origin of the other, in terms of _their_ system. Neither is necessarily "objectively wrong" or "objectively right".
I'm sure that anyone aware of the two "different" raccoons (or cats, or whatever) will have a myth to account for the similarity (and differences). Those are as valid, if not more so, than any rules or systematic approach as to the 'true' differentiation between things.
(And surely it's pretty clear, looking at it purely "historically", that not everyone is in the "magic system" as their long-time ancestors "started in".)
> >It strikes me as pretty much contradictory to say that two things are
> >deeply similar in character, but magically/othersidely unrelated.
> >
> Depends exactly what you mean by 'related' really.
Good question, if an annoyingly open-ended one. ;-) Certainly there's no need for an "explicit" connection (extant myths), or for a "surface o/s" connection (i.e. one that "just any" HQer would be likely to happen across. It should surely be possible, as you say, to find/force a connection, though. Ultimately you could in principle Prove that the other guys are "incorrect", and that yours is a One True Raccoon Entity...
> >Shades of the alynx/bobcat model, hrm?
> >
> Just so.
Which is fine in and of itself, but which I'd be wary of "doing to death". (e.g. some sort of meta-rule about four-world speciation...)
Nick Brooke:
> I am not sure at this point if there is anything to be gained from a
> retrospective examination of how well the RuneQuest rules fit Greg
> Stafford's current (or indeed last-but-one) vision of Glorantha. Clearly
> they did not present a world with four *exclusive* magic systems, or
> four *exclusive* Otherworlds, like the one published in 1st edition
> "Hero Wars" (and subsequently repudiated, to a greater or lesser
> degree... let's see).
Possibly not. But when did that ever stop anyone. ;-)
I think the above is an illustration of the perils. To say "these guys are raccoon (sps.) animists; these guys are raccoon (sps.) theists", as an exercise in classification, seems entirely fine. To run it 'backwards', from category to other facts (on the ground, or of cosmogeny) tends to make me that bit uncomfortable.
Cheers,
Alex.
--__--__--
End of Glorantha Digest
Powered by hypermail