>It's a record in the sense that a descriptionin a book is a record,
I'm willing to admit that from a GL perspective my "recording" analogy breaks down to the equivalence of saying that a mountain is a recording of itself...
>but in a heroquest you interact with those forces directly
Given.
>, now.
Not convinced. I'll come back to this...
>I'm convinced that the historical component of myth is imposed by
>mortals due to the fact that myth, or at least mortal understanding
>of it, evolves through historical time. So we have the history of
>the poeple and a record of their experiences in myth and these
>get fused together.
Again, I agree this is the GL perspective, but I don't think that it is necessarily correct. There are plenty of people who regard their pre-history myths as a genuine part of history, just as we regard 1066 and all that. For instance, the Orlanthi normally claim descent from a silver-age hero, who in turn is claimed to be the son (grand-son, etc.) of Orlanth. I have no idea how'd you begin to tell whether this historical component is historical, mythic, or some combination. And I don't think it matters - elements of history and myth have combined, have become myth, and can be heroquested.
So I think it is perfectly valid to model the heroplane as a record of an earlier time, albiet one which can be acted on via the heroquest.
But I don't think that is the only possible model, by any means...
> >It's also a given that those questing from different historical
> >periods can interact within the heroplanes at appropriate stations.
>
>I think that where this is true, it's because you're interacting
>with the consequences of those past hero's effect on the world.
>A great Troll hero may have made the Troll people of Dagori Inkarth
>stronger, and effect that persists to this day. If you quest against
>them, you may have to overcome the increased power of the trolls,
>which manifests itself in the form of this hero from long ago.
>The quester, the questor's deeds, and their long term effects
>become blurred together at the metaphysical level - we are our
>actions, and the consequences of what we do define who we are in
>this sense.
I don't think this is quite right. If I heroquest, an opponent can be drawn from the past, quite possibly in the manner you describe - I like this model. But what if there is no suitable opponent from the past? Or put another way, who does the Troll hero face?
So, I like the model, and think it says something useful, but I think the ripples can flow both ways. So the great Troll hero of my distant past can face an opponent that includes the potential effects I will have in his future on the heroplane.
But, I do think the flow is imbalanced. We know the heroplane can change with time, so echoes from the future are probably more limited than those from the past.
All wildly speculative...
> >I would like to go back to the denizen question - does the
> >heroplane itself actually have inhabitants? Does that even
> >make sense? Or are all beings encountered drawn from the mundane
> >world?
>
>The hero plane is our world, but experienced through an altered
>state of conciousness. The distinction between a person, their
>ideals, their intentions, fears, etc are percieved in a different
>way. For example whe you fight Zorak Zoran in myth you are fighting
>Hate because that's what Zorak Zoran is. You could be fighting the
>Hate of your enemies, or the 'Hate' of darkness for light, or
>even your own* Hate of something depending on the mythic context.
>The hate you are fighting exists in the world, but while in the
>material world you can't (normaly) interact with it as a
>personalised entity, but in a Heroquest you can.
Agreed, but I'm not sure that this answers the question. Would you agree that anything encountered in the heroplane has its roots in the mundane world? Or are there beings that have no relationship to the mundane at all?
Cheers,
Graham
-- Graham Robinson graham_at_albionsoft.com Albion Software Engineering Ltd. --__--__-- End of Glorantha Digest
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