Trotsky:
> I believe that I have said that there is a 'common horseness' - i.e.
> that are certain properties that horses have regardless of origin. Their
> shape, for example. That's why there is a certain similarity between the
> Lotari and Vanchites *even though* they are unrelated. I don't know
> where this horseness comes from, if that's your next question.
My next question is more along the lines of where it "is", if it's not a magically real connection. After all, if it were magically real, surely it would be present in some form in the O/S. But that was also my previous question, so I'll endeavour not belabour the point... Is it purely a "mundane world fluke" they happen to "resemble" each other?
Perhaps what I'm saying boils down to this: if there's a myth in which the grazelanders complain about their beautiful animal being turned into a travesty by the Solar and Orlanthi theists, copied by some bunch of liturgists, etc, etc, then that _is_ a mythic connection (or one waiting to happen, if this "hasn't yet occurred" for some particular permutation). That would then be a magically real "link" between the two, above and beyond the usual "the other magical worlds are genericly wrong and here's why" type of generalised account. Such accounts may of course be only approximations to the "true" relationship, in the grand cosmology.
> >You're telling me flat out that for any _single_ animal, it can only
> >be "correctly explained" in one magical system. If it's an "animist
> >animal", then the theists need hardly bother having a myth for it at all,
> >since they'll ipso facto be "wrong", or at the very least, "less correct".
> >
> That's my understanding, yes. (Barring strange cases like things
> originating in the underworld, I'd imagine).
That's unfortunate, boring, barking mad, unnecessary, inconvenient, and damn well Not True In My Glorantha, then, if it comes right down to it.
> >It doesn't bother me that this would sometimes, or even generally be the
> >case, but as a (purported) universal truth it disturbs me greatly.
> >
> >But why isn't this true of everything in the Inner World? (Please don't
> >tell me that it _is_ now true of everything in the Inner World...)
> >
> Hey, I've only written about animals, so that's all I know for sure.
> Although I'm pretty sure its true of plants and geographic features,
> too. But where, say, the sun fits into this I couldn't tell you - not my
> remit, guv'nor. Note that many animals (and plants and geographic
> features) are just animals (or plants or...) without any particular link.
Maybe I ranted too soon, then. Perhaps this is what Greg meant about most horses being "just horses" -- i.e. they are not really inherently magical beings as such (neither theist nor animist), therefore their "significance" as regards to animist or theistic magic or myth being "imposed" on them is just that -- an external imposition.
(I have no difficulty with the idea that if you try to force a magical Goldeneye specimen into an Orlanthi theist myth or ritual, you're going to have Significant Problems, notwithstanding that it's a Horse Myth you're using, and that there is indeed A Horse. That one common or garden nag will fit brilliantly into Solar theist myth, and not at all into say Pentan animist myth, whereas for another equally "mundane" and not-obviously-very-different dobbin, the reverse would be true, is what I'm struggling with.)
> >Or ignoring the s-word, which may be a red herring (though
> >a fish of long standing, if it is...) -- what are these differences?
> >
>
> The physical differences between Doraddi and Heortlings are, I trust,
> fairly obvious.
Then again, so are the differences between Swedes and Watusi, but they're still trivial in genetic and speciation terms. What I'm trying to see is if you're saying that the "races" of humans or "breeds" of horses are in some concrete sense "more different" than their naive RW analogues might be.
> The differences between ethnic Malkioni and ethnic
> central Genertelans, I'll readily admit I'm not so sure about. Perhaps
> there aren't any beyond the different origin...
This isn't any bigger a difficulty for me, having said that. As far as say skin colour is concerned, consider how genetically "deep" that is in the RW (i.e., not at all).
> >Far from making them equally important, that seems to be precisely what
> >I characterised it as being: making the "details" of mythology explicitly
> >subordinate to the "macrocosmic" split. Myth can say what it likes, so
> >long as it agrees with GL magical taxonomy...
> >
>
> OK, I see what you mean now. Not that its agreeing with GL taxonomy _per
> se_, though, but rather that the GLs happened to be correct about this
> particular fundamental truth of the universe.
The GL cosmogenists as opposed to the GL biological taxonomists, as it were.
> However, with that
> proviso, yes, that would seem to be the case, in 'baseline' Glorantha at
> least Doesn't have to be so in yours, and quite probably isn't in mine,
> come to that. But its baseline Glorantha I write for, so...
My own attitude would be to acknowledge the descriptive and magical power of both, without mistaking either as to the One True Way. (Either with regard to each other, or vs. "native" understandings of myth and magic.)
[E. caballus]
> Good point. I blame that Ocron fellow; he was a GL, wasn't he? :-)
Indeed. Though if we're poo-pooing _everything_ tainted the the GLers, what about this strange business of several sharply discrete disconnected Otherworlds... :-/
[_Bison bison_ x _Bos taurus_]
> Trust bison to be too thick to read the damn text books, though.
Point...
I suppose such problems are inevitable if you want taxons to do "double duty" as being both monophyletic categories, and being zoologically "useful" descriptions; the two are going to disagree on occassion, and until one bunch of biologist bullies the other into submission...
> True. However, the differences may not be anything that would apply in
> the RW - zoologists not being noted for using HQing as a tool when
> assigning taxonomic names. So, sure, take them out of their mythic
> context, and they probably are no more different than two 'breeds'. Its
> just that taking things out of mythic context isn't usually a helpful
> method of reaching understanding in Glorantha.
Sure, but it's the idea that a "mundane world" entity can necessarily have one and only one mythic context (at least at the "which otherworld" level, to be fair) that disturbs me -- or perhaps simply dissappoints.
Cheers,
Alex.
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