> I'd just like to point out that Darkness and Chaos actually have some very similar traits, which would make sense if we consider that Chaos existed before everything, and Darkness "evolved" directly from Chaos, coming right after it on the elemental descent ladder.
The classic treatise on this (Cults of Terror) emphasizes that there is a difference between the Void - Before Creation - and Chaos (a leak to the Void within Creation). Darkness was the first element, through Separation and Disorder.
The Void is endless potential, and creating was about defining which way that potential would go. It bears some similarity with the Copenhagen school of Quantum Mechanics - a wave front remains pluripotent until collapsing as the result of an observation/interaction.
> Perhaps that is exactly why they are so strongly opposed, though - Darkness has originally defined itself by opposition to Chaos,
By separation from the Void, be Being. Chaos is about leaking Being back into the Void, Unbeing. It came much later.
> to whatever extent Darkness itself could be said to be defined. It too is primal, nightmarish and "chaotic", at least in the way in which it opposes the more structured worldview of Light.
> The Underworld itself is very blurry and difficult to define, it is a place of all three Otherworlds, and also of Darkness AND Chaos. I'm not sure we could state with any confidence that it is a place of Stasis, either.
The Underworld is a place of everything (even Life in its dormant form). Darkness is dominant there, but there are places of Light and Fire that aren't any bit less unfriendly than the dark neighborhoods.
I'm not even sure that the original Wonderhome was part of the Underworld - it appears to have been teeming with life, and may have been a place beyond the Underworld, before the slain sun burnt it and drew it into its own lifeless state.
Death came from beyond Darkness. I don't think that Death created the Underworld - there seems to have been a region which did not create any life or energy. I do think that Death's arrival in the world expanded the Underworld.
> I think trolls would find it harder to be illuminated, but if and when they do become illuminated they may also have a greater risk of plunging headfirst into Chaos, as they would realise how similar they truly are, and would no longer be holding on to that which makes them different from it as strongly.
The same could be said about Storm Bulls.
IMO the trouble with illuminating trolls is that you need to reach them on the id level rather than on the ego or superego level that works for surface dwellers. To illuminate a troll, you have to get to her guts (and get there not through her throat).
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