> >Me> Read the myth before trying to suggest that all Celestial Court
> > > members are equally associated with disorder.
>
> >They were all of them equally affected by Disorder.
>
> No they weren't. Uleria is the only goddess to actually control the
> boggles while all the others were thwarted.
.And ... ?
I said that they were all both equally and variously affected by Disorder. This includes Uleria.
> >Uleria's association with Disorder is no more and no less
> >important than her association with, say, Movement,
> >or Illusion, or Earth.
>
> So why is her high holy day in disorder week then?
So what ?
Uleria's connection with Disorder is no more important than the connection of the entire world with that Power. Which is to say that it *is* important. But not in the way you suggest, IMO.
Uleria's ability to deal positively with the boggles certainly helps explain why her ancient cult endures, under modified forms, but you should also realise that this ability was derived from her own Runic Powers, ie Infinite Love, and not from any especially deep mingling of her core nature with that of the boggles.
She *did* mingle her nature with theirs, but no less than the other GC members did. The difference is that she loved the boggles, and therefore had a positive experience with them. Her disruption by them was deep and powerful as you suggest, but the disruption of the other GC Powers and Elements by Disorder was no less deep and no less powerful. The stagnant perfection of the GC was totally and completely disrupted.
That Uleria loved (and loves!) the boggles is a story about cosmic love, and cosmic hope. There is also an allegory here, that Living Glorantha was born from the monolithic crucible of the GC when Life and Disorder mingled with each other, and multiplied. This is a powerful story, but you shouldn't let it blind you to the fact that the powers of Truth, Illusion, Movement, Earth, Water, all of them all affected each other, in just as deep and powerful ways as Life and Disorder did in this myth.
Myths always have more than one meaning, and we shouldn't tie ourselves too strongly to any single interpretation.
Many modern Gloranthan Uleria cults certainly partake of disordered forms of Love that were engendered when the boggles had it off with her, but IMO these disordered forms are precisely NOT defiant ones. Uleria's defiant nature comes exactly from the fact that the primal, unifying power of cosmic love endures.(**) Broken forms of love partake instead of specific otherworlds, so that Zoria for instance, who partakes of a disordered form of love, is a sorcerous entity.
The fact remains that during the GC period of cosmic one-ness, people could mix magic quite freely, and the Torvald myth shows that it was the cosmic mountain that provided this ability, viz. the GC, ie the source of Uleria's Defiant nature is her connection to that original cosmic unity.
For more info about how ancient entities like Uleria are Defiant, see UZ p. 32.
> > > Uleria's association with disorder goes well beyond what the
> > > others (except Ratslaff) did.
>
> >I'm sorry, but I cannot agree with this.
>
> >Ratslaff caused a huge chunk of indestructible cosmic Law
> >to break off the Mountain, thus ruining it forever. (snip more in the
> >same vein
>
> Read what I wrote again. I specifically excluded Ratslaff from
> the comparison.
The point is that Ratslaff disordered ALL of the ancient Runic Powers, not just Uleria, and Uleria not more than any of the others.
It also seems a little odd to exclude Ratslaff from a discussion about Disorder. Anyway, Ratslaff's own association with himself didn't exactly have happy consequences for him, snot-wise ...
> Hence the connection with the myth of Uleria and the Boggles is
> plainly intended and thus Uleria is affected by disorder.
Obviously, but what I disagree with is your theory about the degree to which she was so affected, and your statements to the effect that Uleria was more affected than other GC members, which are clearly wrong. The entire cosmos was affected by Disorder. All constituent parts of the cosmos were deeply disrupted by it, even Ratslaff himself, if you look at the ST Eurmal write-up.
May I point out that Disorder is a GC Power, and that its ability to foster Defiance is *also* a manifestation of the primal one-ness of the Court ?
Julian Lord
--__--__--
Powered by hypermail