> At 02:54 p.m. 24/04/2007, you wrote:
>
>>> The specific example is Kajabor turning on Wakboth or vice versa,
>>> not Tien turning on his own father.
>
>> So? All I was pointing out was that chaos fought chaos. I can see no
>> reason why Tien couldn't fight his father.
>
> Except that in the Thanatari myth there is no awareness that he was
> fighting his father. The battle is a particularly well-known one (the
> Glory of the Black Sun) yet the people west of the wastelands and
> the Thanatari themselves do not know that the other side is the Devil
> of Kralori mythology.
So? We have many examples of worshippers having an imperfect knowledge of the myths - even to a significant extent. I think the situtation portrayed in King of Dragon Pass, where worhsippers have lost significant portions of mythic knowledge, is far from unknown. And the chaos cults would be more prone to this, as their worship is often disrupted, with many of those knowledgeable in cult secrets being killed by non-chaotics. Or disrupted by cult higher-ups simply too greedy of knowledge to pass it on. Greedy of knowledge sounds like Thanatar, no? So that Thanatar worship in the late third age might have significant (even to the extent of not knowing Thanatar having a fight with his dad) holes in its knowledge appears a reasonable possibility.
Not saying it is so, only that it could be.
>> Could there have
>> been one, who had shifting characteristics in different mythic places?
>
> Even to the extent where he is chaotic in some places and not
> chaotic in others (Kralorela, Pelanda)?
See above. Why might a myth not feature a being not recognised as chaotic but actually is? Western myths paint the trolls as choatic, so we know that way round is possible, why not the other?
To repeat, I'm not trying to say anyone has to have a singular devil, all I'm saying is it that far off the mark taking it as such if that's what you want?
Of course, there's yet another way to look at it. Is it "the devil, the one and only" or "the devil, the one we fought"? If the devils are multiple, that does not mean they had nothing to do with each other. *Perhaps* Wakboth was the biggest, badest one and the rest were followers, lackeys, etc. Or maybe just let into the world by Wakboth's birth? So the entity's may have been multiple, but the root cause was the same? Again, just a possibility.
Could be one devil
Could be multiple devils, but on the same team (knowing it or not)
Culd be multiple, completely separate devils.
I don't have a problem with someone using any one of these.
Michael
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