"Andrew Solovay" <asolovay_at_rubberducky.com>:
> I kind of agree. Let me sort out my opinions on this: I think Uz view
> themselves as, well, just Uz, not as a composite of two fundamental forms.
> But I think they *do* acknowledge that Darkness is part of what it means to
> be Uz. Thus, while a hooman God-Learner might say, "Uz are the result of
> merging Darkness with Man", an Uz God-Learner would say something like
> "Hoomans are the result of somehow removing all the Darkness from Uz".
> They'd disagree about which was the archetypal form, but they agree on a
> practical level--that the difference between humans and Uz is the presence
> or absence of Darkness.
Absolutely. I wouldn't disagree with the basic truth of the understanding, just quibbling along the lines of "that's not how the trolls tell it". I tend to be a bit bipolar about that whole thing, mind you... You know how it is, one day a God Learner, the next a Gift Carrier.
> BTW, there is a version of the Kyger Litor story in which KL is originally a
> purely Darkness being who volunteers to "mate with" the Man rune, producing
> Uz. Is this a strictly Human and/or GL story, or do the trolls have
> something analogous?
Interesting question. Certainly they must have an explanatory myth for their shape, since they know that there are many Darkness entities that have a different one (or none at all). It could be functionally the same myth, without the connotations we have from "Man Rune"; it could be something entirely different, such as KL nibbling away at her offspring to give them that shape, or whatever...
> BTW, it's always been my private theory that Greg made the death-rune a
> Latin Cross precisely so he could shoe-horn the "crosses scare vampires"
> thing into Glorantha... any basis for this theory of mine?
I have no actual knowledge(TM) on this, but I'd guess this was useful synergy, rather than the entire purpose of the coinage. I get the impression that often these things happen in the Deeps of Greg's subconscious, though clearly with all sorts of obvious and less obvious influences, before getting... well perhaps to extend the abyssal metaphor, washed up again.
Cheers,
Alex.
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