On 07/03/2012, at 6:11 AM, Daniel wrote:
> Thank you for the detailed response.
>
> I rather prefer the "twisted perversion of the Brithini caste system" variant. It does make sense to me. The Tradetalk article did have "Yellow skins", but those were given to Vadeli slaves - I suppose that would likely be retconned, though.
>
> I'm not sure if Vadeli won't be even more monstrous for somehow lacking a "yellow" caste, but if the Yellow Vadeli leaders do exist, then one association that comes to mind (via both Dostoyevsky and the King in Yellow) is madness. Which, to the Westerners, must be even more horrifying than the things that would precede it.
I don't think the Yellow Vadeli themselves would be mad, but it might make sense that they have turned the normal Talar virtues of influencing the minds of others to via persuasion and debate, and perverted them into the ability to derange and confuse the minds of others and lead them to madness.
> It may seem wrong for a Logical people to embrace the loss of reason, but it seems to fit the peculiar Vadeli paradigm of boundless exploration. All the logical, reasonable, sane things have already been mapped...
It could certainly be that they are willing to explore some concepts that seem insane to others. I also think they are even more sociopathic than other Vadeli, seeing even the rest of the Vadeli as pawns. That kind of cold, brutal, solipsist logic is considered a form of madness to most. I think of them as potentially being sort of Hannibal Lector like - capable of causing horrendous havoc just by a word in the right few ears, capable of talking someone into suicide, cold logical genius on the surface, but with the horrible grotesque desires that they will indulge if given the chance. And each one also a natural tyrant and dictator The blue Vadeli are like a whole organisation of sorcerous Josef Mengeles.
> About them being Enrovalini, though - I thought they were Viymorni, and so a different tribe? Or is that no longer such a valid distinction?
That was my error. Ignore it. They were Viymorni as far as I know.
> Also, I'm not sure if Brithini code of conduct could be really said to be moral. I suppose this may just be ingrained influence of old material on me, which keeps stating that they're very much amoral. Ethical feels more like the right term, here, or even lawful. That might all be splitting hairs, though.
I'm sure you are right there too.
> Frothing Brithini rage is excellent, though. It does not seem like standard Brithini behaviour at all, and so would be very thought-provoking to someone only recently introduced to this side of the setting.
I think it comes across pretty clearly in MSE in the rant about the Vadeli there. The Brithini hate the Vadeli so much because they were once like them, and blame the Vadeli for pretty much everything that ever went wrong with the original Malkioni society, ever moral flaw, every departure from the ethical code of Zzabur. Note that the Vadeli are clearly blamed for moral evils - even though the Vadeli did horrific acts of war and violence against the Malkioni, it is the moral corruption that really bothers them. Despite the horrible acts and the untold loss of life they have caused with their warfare, they are still hated more for who they are than what they have done.
Cheers
David
PS it is particularly funny that the Brithini blame the Vadeli for being the ones to let Arrogance come among the Malkioni, given that Zzabur would appear to be the most Arrogant being in Glorantha.
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