Agree absolutely - well put. I think it's essential to the "seductiveness" of the Lunar way, and to some extent the whole Chaos thing, and what makes the dynamic of the Orlanthi-Lunar conflict so intricate and so richly appealing. There's huge scope for tragedy in what the Lunars are trying to do - doubtless in many cases with the best will in the world - and there's an awful amount of "good" being destroyed and going to be destroyed by the Sartarites (etc) rising up and attempting to destroy them. I think without this ambiguity in the morality and motivation of the key players in this part of the Hero Wars, you'd boil down to a very black & white fight (which admittedly is nice in a dungeon crawl). Tolkien said "in the real world, there are orcs on both sides" - some sentiment like that applies when I view the Lunar/Orlanthi conflict. As the Hero Wars hot up and the conflict becomes bloodier and more apocalyptic, I get the feeling it's going to be more and more difficult to distinguish between the two sides, and easier and easier to lose one's moral superiority in the immediate need for expediency. Perhaps in the last instance this'll just boil down to another I Fought We Won...
Marvellous stuff - sauve qui peut!
Sarah
Powered by hypermail