Re: Imminence

From: Greg Stafford <Greg_at_...>
Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 11:35:53 -0700


At 09:08 AM 6/12/2001 -0000, you wrote:
>> This brings up an important point to keep in mind when discussing
>these things:
>> When your god is imminant your actual success is less important than
>> manifesting his presence.
>
>Yeah, I have some trouble with this. Perhaps its due to the cultural
>training of the judeo-christian cosmology which means I implicitly
>associate things like the shepherd trope with gods, but this is not
>appropriate for this sort of religious feeling. I'd appreciate
>thoughts on how to handle, discuss,describe this sort of thing in
>play.

This is absolutely one of the more difficult things to understand about mythology. The problem will arise when people complain about having to lose an encounter on a Heroquest just because their hero did. Can't they do better than Orlanth on it? And the answer is, "No." Our monotheistic conditioning has inured us against understanding this, as well as several other critical points of mythology. Here's an effort to explain something about it, but as to handling it in play I am afraid that I can not really help much. You can't penalize players when their heroes act "modern," or else they'd be penalized all the time. I suggest just playing. After all, Hero Wars is not intended to be a mythological primer, just a game.

Imminence , not Gods and Goddesses
[Polytheistic mythology is the actual subject here, but many of these characteristics are also applicable to monotheism. ] Deities are imminent, which means that they are present here and now in the physical world. Monotheism has taught that God is "out there" someplace. Polytheism recognizes that (many) deities are right here, right now. Living mythology doesn't deal with gods and goddesses. In Homer, for instance, Zeus is never called the Thunder god. He is Thunder. Aphrodite is not the love goddess. She is Love. Ares is War. And of course the deities are actually much more complex than being a single thing. Athena is not just wisdom, but is the creative urge of domestic powers, the power to defend and fight, and the feeling that Athenians have to be a part of their city.
By inserting the word "god" or "goddess" into the equation we have automatically created a distance between the person and the mythic power that does not exist for the participant. This distance makes the divine power to be something other than what it is. Thus when Odysseus is inspired by Athena there is not a goddess there disguised as a passing merchant. It is the passing merchant who serves as a vehicle for Odysseus' inspiration. Yea sure, Homer says that the merchant disappears in a whirlwind and Odysseus realizes it had been Athena. This is poetic metaphor.



Greg Stafford, greg_at_...
Issaries, Inc. 900 Murmansk St., Suite 5; Oakland, CA 94607 Phone: (510) 452 1648 Fax: (510) 302 0385 Publisher of Hero Wars, Roleplaying in Glorantha See our site at: <www.glorantha.com>

Powered by hypermail