From: David Cake (davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au)
Date: Wed 23 Aug 1995 - 06:00:47 EEST
I know find myself argueing with Sandy about psychoanalysis of the Uz - how
do I get into these things...
>David Cake doesn't care for my version of the trolls. Apparently at
>least in part because he doesn't accept Freud.
> Dave, get a grip. This is a magic cosmos in which
>phlogiston is used to power dwarf engines; the world is flat, for
>Heaven's sake; and the greek elements have validity.
Well, as long as we understand that Freudian psychoanalysis probably
has about as much validity as phlogiston does in physics :-). For a
horrifying moment I thought you actually believed it. Sorry, you just
touched one of my buttons, horribly traumatized during a Philosophy of Mind
course, and ever since the mention of Freud sets me off.
> But you see, a troll doesn't have a "moral sense" by my
>interpretation.
But I am convinced they do, it is just so alien that we fail to
recongnise it. We assume that if they are quite happy to say that they
believe the strong should dominate the weak, that you should bully if you
can, that you should eat anything you can get away with, then they have no
moral sense. Well, I disagree. Even that crazed ZZ Death Lord has a moral
sense. Why else would he risk his life frequently in order to vilely murder
and mutilate what he morally diapproves of? Of course, he will vilely murder
and mutilate just for the fun of it at times as well, but killing chaotics
is a moral calling.
Of course, you could say that he only does this because of the
benefits his social position brings, but you could say much the same of an
Arhcbishop (about moral codes in the abstract, not murder and mutilation in
the specifics. Well, not usually).
I also think trolls have some sense of family as well, which most of
them have managed to exclude trollkin from, but there is definately
something there.
I think that for trolls, their moral code is just a whole lot more
in tune with their base desires. It is not that the superego can not
overrule the id, it is that the superego and id have much less cause for
conflict than they do in humans. Which might make them sociopathic by our
standards, but even sociopaths have some moral senses. I think the Freudian
bit is perhaps clouding your perceptions - what do you want trolls to be
like? I agree with all your examples of how trolls behave and think, and I
suspect that over a more natural conversation we could arrive at a position
we both agree on. However, I also agree with a lot of what I read in Troll
Gods, and find that very difficult to reconcile with your explanation of
your position.
Anyway, just to point out a certain inconsistency in your arguments,
might I note that only a paragraph above you were conceding that there exist
altruistic broo, yet here you are claiming that trolls have no such
altruism. Given the overwhelming evidence in favour of some altruistic
elements in troll society (Xiola Umbar being the most glaring, but there are
many others), forgive me if I find it very hard to accept your thesis. Hey,
some Sazdorf trolls even end up as Humakti, and I assume they pay at least
lip service to the strong moral code of that cult.
>>I do think trolls exonnerate different values, and stress the more
>>primal values, but I don't think the difference is THAT drastic.
> If trolls aren't exceedingly different, then why even have
>them?
What, happy cannibalism, exonerating murder from ambush, finding
terror the preferred mode of social interaction - this doesn't count as
'exceedingly different'?
My problem is that if trolls have no moral sense whatsoever, then I
really find half of what I know about troll society unfathomable. I can
accept that much of troll society is psychopathic, by our definition, but
not all of it.
> Anyone that wants to have trolls be humans in rubber suits
>is fine by me, but I prefer to have the differences be much deeper
>and vaster than just cultural. Your listing for trolls, David, makes
>them sound no more different from me than an Andaman Islander or
>Yanomamo Indian. I think a troll is more different from _any_ human
>than any human is from any other.
I want trolls to be something I at least have some hope, as GM or
player, of understanding the motivation of. If they have no altruistic
instincts at all, I no longer understand what I already know. Personally, I
think trolls are weirder than any human culture I know of, and they are
already about as weird as I can manage to play. Lets be honest - humans in
rubber suits is all that I feel I can maintain as a GM or player, and I am
going to do my best to make it the most interesting human in rubber suit
that I can, but claiming that trolls have deep, fundamental differences in
thought processes when I am the one that has to try and simulate and
understand those differences is not something that I am confident I can
really live up to. Especially when that claim conflicts with some of what I
already know.
I think we have two disagreements here.
2) are trolls different psychologically from humans to such an extent that
1) do trolls have any altruistic sense at all? I think this is a minor
disagreement, but only because I am so confident of my own position - trolls
definately exhibit altruistic behaviour of some kind from time to time, even
if they do so to a lesser extent and in a way difficult for humans to recognise.
they cannot think the same way? Is this a good thing from a roleplaying
point of view? I think this discussion is essentially insolvable, and much
more suited to a late night long rambling conversation than a public debate.
Cheers
David
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