glorantha-request_at_rpglist.org wrote:
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2002 09:24:49 -0500
> To: glorantha_at_rpglist.org
> From: Peter Larsen <peterl_at_admin.stedwards.edu>
> Subject: Cultural relativism and Chaos
> Reply-To: glorantha_at_rpglist.org
>
> >> We know that there are plenty of Gloranthan cultures with unsavory
> >>practices -- Aramites, Uz, the Carmanians, the Char-Un and their
IMO the Char-Un (and the Pentans) practise no more unsavoury practices than anybody else does. People seem to be fixated on a Char-Un propensity for rape. I don't know where this comes from.
IMO this is a repuation that they have developed - in certain places - over centuries of fanatic service to the Goddess being used as terror troops in the Empire's conquests. I don't think that there is any more rape going on in CHar-Un homelands than there is in Glamour or Sartar (in fact there is probably a lot less of if there as the population density is much lower and the woman's relatives all have horses and bows as well).
I think that this reputation is the same type of thing that led medieval people to describe the mongols with horns and tails. It is born of ignorance and fear of the unknown. IMO, you have more chance of being raped by a drunk Uroxi than you do a Char-Un. The Char-Un are a little less disciplined than the Imperial regulars and are more likely to rape and pillage while on campaign - but all soldiers will rape and pillage to some extend on campaign.
The rest of Peter's ideas, though interesting, are not relevant IMO for the reasons I have described. The Char-Un are rumoured to be rape-mad. They are not.
> The CharUn are, in my opinion, an evil culture, but they are not,
> as far as I know, obserably chaotic. Their viciousness and acceptance of
> acts like rape (at least within some context) does not apparantly lead to
> the wide-spread appearance of observable chaos among them as it would if
> those cultural values were transplanted to a Heortling clan. Some possible
> reasons:
>
> 1. The CharUn are "lucky" and they "only" strengthen Thed
> generally, not come to her direct attention.
> 2. The CharUn have spirits that send chaos elsewhere, the
> Gloranthan moral equivalent of floating garbage scows out into the ocean.
> The CharUn may or may not know that their gods/spirits do this for them.
> 3. The CharUn Shaman are very vigilent and act swiftly to destroy
> anyone who does attract Thed's attention.
> 4. Something in the CharUn culture protects them from the personal
> consequences of some evil, at least to a point greater than some other
> cultures.
> 5. Certain members of CharUn society belong to traditions that
> protect them from the personal consequences of certain acts the way that
> Maran's devotees are protected from the personal effects of cannibalism as
> long as they do it in a holy and ritual way.
> 6. Some combination of the above.
Don't forget that most atrocities committed by any army, including the Char-Un, are not done at home. They are done in somebody else's city or village. So if there is a general rape of somewhere the chaos that is birthed/grown/summoned by that act will be drawn there. By the time that it has manifested the Char-Un that did it is long gone.
\\/
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