Subjective experience of group heroquests

From: roko_joko <roko_joko_at_K96vilde4FjdToWZusx04zzfS1M6xPQf309wiFEOsl1gTACyzM05_FpauS_1h3mCgo>
Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 01:18:05 -0000

I'd like to know what other people think about this. I think when people participate in a supernatural event together they can perceive it differently and afterwards, disagree about what happened.

One way can be in the amount of detail. Casual participants might not experience all the details and might even skip over parts of the story.

It can be superficial. If some ducks and humans did a rain dance together, the ducks might come back having seen Orlanth as a superduck where the humans saw a superhuman.

It can be deeper. In a ritual where elves and trolls fought in a forest, the elves could think they were defending a wood forest from a troll attack, but the trolls thought they were defending a mushroom forest from an elf attack. It's easy to imagine how two cultures can both remember a border clash as an act of defense. Maybe little creatures crawled out of the forest and helped the trolls, but the elves saw termites corrupted by troll influence, or because the trees weren't tended properly, and the trolls saw friendly mushroom slugs. Or maybe both sides thought they were being helped, and where the elves saw termites biting the trolls, the trolls saw slugs kissing their wounds.

You can take it as far as your imagination will go. All the different perceptions somehow refer to the same magical experience, but the sharedness of it can be as figurative as you want. Unexplained differences can add mystery or plot interest.