Re: Connecting the dots between Anilla and Zaytenera

From: David Cake <dave_at_N_2ml7DPZudIJJZcCW6MK8jawOojaE2XZ3FCu20Zd_Ko2cT6vBsHfzeMExiPCw5cI8vHGIs>
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 02:40:40 +0800

        After thinking about this one for a while, this is what I think:
- the version of the Blue Moon troll mythology from Mongoose, quoted
by Oliver, is correct
eg
"The plateau is a mystic place formed from the remnants of Blue Moon Goddess who fell to the surface during the Darkness. There are many stories as to the nature of that goddess but the trolls know it is Quatanara the bat winged monster that rose from the ruins of Mernita when Boztakang was besieged by the chaos army of Urkatol and summoned unto himself the feeble life of a dying goddess to bring him aid. The goddess came to life and rescued him and the two mated in secret but then she fell to earth where the trolls found her and nurtured her remains. "

• eg the goddess the trolls revere is a bat winged dead/dying form of Lesilla.
• quite possibly, the Lunars believe Quatanara is to Lesilla as the Crimson Bat is to Sedenya. Quite possibly the trolls agree with this.
• the association with Annilha is then obvious. Annilha is a bat winged death goddess. Quatanara is a dead goddess who appears as a bat. The trolls may not be confused about who is who, but the Dara Happans will be.
• the association with the Blue Streak is because the Dara Happans eventually came to associated Annilha with the Blue Streak much later. The trolls may, or may not, acknowledge this, but it really doesn't matter. They know they live in the ruined body of Lesilla, and they know that Quatanara is not Annilha despite both being bats.
• the question then becomes why does a troll goddess take the form associated with death by the Dara Happans/Rinliddi. That is a question for God Learners, really. It seems more than coincidence, in just the same way as many correlations between myths of disparate cultures seem more than coincidences.
• There may be all sorts of further mysteries here to do with death and the underworld. Trolls know a lot about that stuff.

At 9:57 AM -0700 12/10/10, Roderick and Ellen Robertson wrote: >It may just be my brain malfunctioning, but where does it say that the Blue >Moon Trolls worship Anilla?

        The direct answer to that question is, of course 'an awful lot of material from RQ3 era and earlier', most of which have now been quoted by others (the Troll Gods ref Peter supplied is, of course, the crucial one) but now I think about it, I can't think of a good source much more recent than that. ILH says the Blue Moon trolls worship The Blue Moon, described as 'Rufelzas Mystic Twin', but that could mean anything.

        I like some aspects of the Annilla write up in Troll Gods, but it is very clearly riddled with confusing God Learnerism - assuming that just because the Blue Moon Plataue Uz, the Artmali, and the extinct Loper people all worship a blue planet, it must be the same one, with the same magic (and then there is the confusing detail about Artmal being associated with the colour red there). While I dislike the idea that the trolls of the Blue Moon Plateau are mistaken about which celestial body they worship, I have no problem at all with the idea that the God Learners were mistaken about it. And given the above discussion, the God Learners being confused makes perfect sense (especially as they were almost certainly getting all their information about the Blue Moon Trolls at best second hand from Dara Happans). And the Dara Happans at the time did not know what we know, much of which was revealed by Sedenya and Lunar heroquesters.

        So, I'm quite happy with the idea that the Blue Moon trolls are not confused about who they worship - they know the Blue Moon Goddess they worship is a dead/dying(resurrected?) form of Lesilla. But the Dara Happans are confused. They hear bat, they hear death, they assume Annilha.

        And lastly, to the modern Dara Happans (ones who acknowledge the Lunar cosmology) then, of course there is a connection between Lesilla and Anilla. If Lesilla was formerly Zaytenerus, and Annilla was formerly Falsoretus, doesn't that mean they are siblings?

(nearly wrote a typo about worshipping the Blue Steak at one point there - a different question entirely, but one the trolls would be fine with I'm sure)

	Cheers
		David