For explication to the player? I mean I know it would be terribly unfashionable to consider the player instead of the mythic integrity, but it might be worth a go sometime.
> The Orlanthi (like most other cultures) believe their myths are
> _the_ truth and thus there's no need for them to attach riders
> to the myths saying that "since the missionaries of the red moon
> say a different thing, everything said here might be wrong".
> Relativist understanding is not a normal thing for _gloranthans_
> to have.
Exactly so. But I the player know that realtivism exists. Sigh. To go round the mulberry bush again one more time, the big book 'o myths does not tell me what the peopolke necessarily do or believe.
> Wrong. Myths are part of the information of the culture's
> experience of life. They inform people how society expects
> them to act. They describe what magics that their gods
... except personal relativism means that they are NOT so obliged to act. No-one can make you do anything.
> So because the Orlanthi has a myth that Orlanth throw lightning
> bolts, we should not conclude that the Orlanthi can throw
> lightning bolts because the myth is _only_ a psychological
> descriptor? Can you see the problem with your statements?
No. I think it is quite correct to say that merely becuase the Orlanthi hold such a myth, we have no exoectation that they can throw lightning bolts. Perhaps you could explain what you mean here better.
> >There is no reason you should not assume it.
>
> Then why have you been writing to say that people should not
> assume such a thing? Y'know with statements such
Because people keep conflating mythology with culture.
> But since the Orventili peacemaker myth does not speak about
> invisible elephants, while it _does_ speak about the Rug of
> Peace, it is far more probable that her worshippers will use
> rugs rather than invisible elephants in their rituals, no?
Is there a way to distinguish the two? It might be personal realtivism - no, in this town we use invisible elephants; or it might be mythic relativism - no, in this incarnation of Orven-something, we use invisible elephants.
> But I do have evidence of the actuality, namely the
> description of the Orventili cult in Thunder Rebels
> p196-197 which mentions the Rug of Peace in her magic.
What does that have to do with hoertling material culture? You are defaulting to precisely the evasion I identified while claiming its non-existance - you ARE substituting mythic knowledge for actual.
> >And there is implication that all magic really comes from people
> >anyway - remember the relativism?
>
> What does that have to do whether magic comes from the people?
> Glorantha is not a world in which people make reality. The
So if people make reality, there is even less reason to assume that merely becuase person X is a member of Culture Y, their behaviour will have any realtionship with Cutlture Y. Because they can make and thus define their own "magic". It also renders logically implausible that we can can learn anything from culturally-provided magic; becuase people make their own.
> Gods are _real_ in glorantha and Thunder Rebels makes it clear
> that the Orlanthi magic comes from the Gods of the Storm Tribe.
I thought you just said that people make their own magic; what evidence do we then have of the existence of the gods? We doubt, and your claim to "know" through the existence of a living Orventili is merely a logical Orouborous.
> Hence your conclusion:
>
> >- so there is still absolutely no reason to thibnk that Orventili
> >is a living goddess.
>
> is wrong.
Excapt you gave me exactly that point above.
>
> >Thus, the data point that Orlanthi women throw rugs on swords is
> >a separate data point from the content of that or any other
> >myth.
>
> Wrong, Garreth. Heortling women throw rugs on sword because
> that is how Orventili makes peace in Heortling myth.
Why, and what basis do you have for saying so?
> >Knowing the myth does not imply that is actual Heortling
> >behaviour; as you said, we know that this is what Heortling women
> > do because the author says so, not becuase it is found in myth.
>
> I never said anything of the sort.
Then WHY are you able to be so confidant just a line or two above? And the message I replied to did say that we know this becuase thre author said so in the text.
> Yet at the same time you have no problem with fictional information
> about how a fictional people pay their fictionally large taxes to
> a fictionally brutal occupier and how they are fictionally angry
> about it. So I have no idea why you have no idea about this issue.
Yes, its much easier - I have real world analogues to call on, and it is not governed by two sepearet forms of relativism. This question is much, much easier to answer, and the asnwers are more useful.
>
> > > You are making a much stronger argument: that we should not use
> > > mythology as a pointer for behaviour in any way whatsoever.
>
> >That might have been concluded or extended from my argument, but it
> >is not my argument.
>
> It is your argument whether you like it or not. By seeking to
<shrug> No, it is a dishonest extension of my argument. But tally ho.
> buttress your claim that there is little cultural information,
> you are forced to into the absurd position of claiming that
> myths are useless as cultural information.
They are indeed useless for actual, on-the-ground information. They are very informative for the psychology of the situation.
> Whether the RW is too relativist is irrelevant to this forum,
> glorantha OTOH _is_ a place in which actual behaviour can be
> drawn from myth (not "moral principles" as you portray them
Ah, so there in fact is no personal realtivism after all, and I can expect every initiate of the Imperial Moon or of Ernalda to behave in a stictly cult-appropriate manner? Interesting news.
> as). The issue of cultural relativism does not arise because
> it is only the myths of a particular culture that determine
> how it behaves.
Uh, yes. So, when are we gonna be told how they actually behave, rather than what they consider the ideal to be?
> Thunder Rebels etc. notwithstanding, i.e. another sweeping
> statement with little to support it.
Clearly, I was not made happy br TR, no.
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