Re: The God Learners Secret

From: Paul Chapman <estarriol_at_uYulPMmldg6gQzZNKwDF7GqI28XHMN6zIzhToJ_Sldv-PyY6zVE-HMdsrERagwmsNU>
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 21:05:47 +0000


>> One logical
>> answer is that God Learners knew that the myths were made be men, not
>> gods.
>
> The myths were not made by men, they were made by gods. The retelling
> of them, the remembering of them, and the reexperiencing of them were
> done by men. But the gods did them.

Damn, that was my favourite theory too, for those who were curious as to what I was talking about on Saturday. :-)

To elaborate on what I thought was the GLS, and what may still be true in My Glorantha:-

Having been "gifted" the Runequest Sight, and walking the paths across myths that Arkat had and more, the Godlearners came to the conclusion that Myths could not be logically reconciled (having spent absolutely bloody ages trying to fit it all in a Monomyth), and thus came to the rational conclusion that the myths of a single god could not actually be the result of the actions of a single embodied entity, but rather the actions of heroes etc (they didn't believe in non-linear time, having plenty of evidence to suggest that time was perfectly linear before the Dawn). This led to the conclusion that the myths and gods "didn't matter", being just faces of the Runes formed from the irrational inability of men to comprehend the Face of God, and thus the feeling of freedom to mess around with them as they pleased.

It all failed because, whilst it had been true, they lacked the understanding that the Gods did matter, and neglected to understand the changes wrought by the Great Compromise - whilst there had been linear time before the Dawn, and the Gods did not walk the earth before the Dawn, the Compromise changed things so that some of their facts were not *and never had been* true, and their attempts to prove their beliefs to be universally true led to a Truth Contest of them vs the rest of Glorantha, which they lost in a big way.

Arkat knew the same secret as the God Learners, having realised it before them, and that's why he didn't want people messing with Heroquesting, in case they came to the same realisations without inherent respect and ultimately did just what the God Learners actually did.

As an aside, it appears to be a Gloranthan theme that the events that conclude each age result in the direct defeat of the Devil's plan, yet allow him a subtle victory that sets up his next plan. He fails to totally destroy the world, and yet in order to defeat him, people have to do things that change the world in a way that enables a different, more insidious form of corruption, and of course degenerates spirituality, which is "his thing".

Gbaji won at the Dawn because the Gods had to change the world into a state where they had no free will to later oppose him, and could change the gods if they so wanted. Humans attempted to rectify the problem of having Gods that are unable to act by creating one.

Gbaji won in the battle between Nysalor and Arkat because in defeating Nysalor head on, Arkat had to unearth secrets that would pave the way for the GodLearners - he attempted to correct the problem but failed miserably as of course he must. An unclosable can of worms was opened.   Was Nysalor going to hell and illuminating Gerra a result of this too?

Gbaji won at the end of the Imperial Age in so many ways - aside from shitloads of people dying, lands were shattered, a great magic was enacted to purge the oceans and seems to have rebounded and removed some of the greatest sorcerors from the world, the Ban created by Snodal ultimately led to the Kingdom of War and helped set up conditions to make the Lunar Empire possible, the Dragonkill set up the formation of a barbarian kingdom in Dragon Pass to fight the Lunars, etc etc etc.

Gbaji wins at the end of the Hero Wars because magic is largely stripped from the world (maybe) and what do humans have to defend themselves the next time he comes?

What about the pre-Dawn ages?

Cheers,
Paul C            

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