Argraths

From: Peter Mcaveney <pmcaveney_at_...>
Date: 7 May 2001 11:23:06 EDT


TTrotsky_at_... wrote:
>And even if Argrath does triumph, he doesn't have to do it anything like >the
way he did in KoS, nor does have to be the tyrant that KoS portrays >him as once he's on the throne.

I heartily agree with everything you said - 'cept that last bit.

I remember a passage from Joseph Cambell's "Hero With a Thousand Faces" where he describes what happens to the hero in his/her elder years. (Don't have my copy handy so I cannot give a page number.) The hero is fine while she struggles against the tyrant, but once victory is hers she becomes the tyrant Holdfast, who clings to the power she has acquired. She becomes, in the end, the villain.

This facet of the hero is an important ingredient in Glorantha. Consider what happened to Arkat, and Nysalor's speech about darkness at the edge of the light. My guess is that six out of seven Argraths surveyed end up as tyrants.  (Put utuma in an interesting light, too.)

This is getting awfully GDish, so I'll shut up now.



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