Re: In Defence Of A Goddess

From: julianlord <julian.lord_at_qwkMyBL1-nFs-gZYb0mq0vv0NcUpR_Pcuo76IHn3TB-vTLp35zZWPWk2--HMky7u>
Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 20:26:49 -0000


LOL this is turning into the Digest, but who gives a fuck --- the real GD's been gregged, and anything appropriate to that list but not to WoG can be posted here LOL
---

John has some interesting gender stuff, and of course Vinga and Heler 
are at the heart of the matter...

--- In ImmoderateGloranthaQuest_at_yahoogroups.com, John Hughes 
<john.hughes_at_...> wrote:


> >Vinga is a Storm cult not a Death cult --- In Orlanthi culture the
> >Storm is one of the prime sources of fertility, and I can see
nothing
> >wrong with the concept of aggressive and stormy female fertility ;
I
> >mean just look around, it's all over the place in RW ...
> >
>
> Stray thoughts ...
>
> Storm actually seems infertile. Sons and nephews and nieces are all
> mixed up, and there is little clear sense of generations as in, frr
> instance, the Earth tribe. Maybe they all split off from Umath.
Also,
> the Storm realm is overwhelmingly 'male'.
Canon-wise, Heler is the "shared fertility of Earth and Storm" --- the Rain God is of course more than just that, but in Orlanthi cosmology he is the go-between. Otherwise, I disagree with you generally. Male Orlanth Fertility might be the Thunderbolt, and a death-dealer, but the Storm Clouds themselves are life-bringers...
>
> (What gender means to a deity who might be a person or a wind or an
> animal depending on what day of the week it is is of course a clue
to
> the whole essentialist confusion: Greg's prognostications
> (http://www.glorantha.com/new/q-and-a/male_female.html) seem obtuse
> at best. Interestingly, he describes Vinga here as "masculine
version
> of Ernalda", not a female version of Orlanth. Jeff R, please take
note). Yeah, badly written fluff...
> (Some have been
> pretending Vinga is pure Storm, but she is the child of Earth and
> Storm).
There are actually two conflicting myths in the canon --- the majority believe as you have described, but a substantial minority posit Vinga as Orlanth's sister, and there are also some very minor alternative other genealogical myths. But Vinga is a Storm Goddess not an Earth Goddess, the facts are inescapable...
> So Storm is a male realm.
Greg would _certainly_ disagree with this -- it's a male realm in Orlanthi culture certainly, but asexual in Malkioni culture, bisexual in Triolini culture, draconic in the East, etc...
> The myths posit exogamy for Storm deities
> (yes?), usually to the Earth tribe, so Storm fertility seems very
> low. It's water/rain/Heler that supplies the non-earth fertility.
YES -- but Heler supplies the same fertility to both Orlanth and Ernalda -- oh, and to many others as well LOL But of course the core Storm Fertility myth is the birth of Umath, as the wind of change I can't help thinking you have a bias equating fertility with its female aspects and not the male... Julian Lord

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