From: David Cake (davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au)
Date: Wed 13 Nov 1996 - 16:30:50 EET
>If the gods are so lobotomized
>that they can't even decide for themselves who deserves a spirit of
>reprisal and who deserves an intervention, nobody would worship gods - they
>would worship the priests and brown-nose with gusto to be taught spells and
>to avoid spirits of reprisal and excommunication.
This almost seems to be arguing that Roman Catholics should worship
the Pope and not God, after all the Pope seems to make all the decisions,
decide who gets excommunicated, etc. These people are worshippers. They
don't want their god to go changing on them, they are quite happy for him
to keep doing what he has done. And the priests don't just wield magic -
they wield their gods magic, control their gods spirits of reprisals - they
can't just toss it around for purposes that they don't believe in (except
the illuminates), because they are worshippers too, every bit as subject to
the religious laws.
Think about religions not gods. Think about earthly religions,
except their magic is more reliable. Don't think about Gods as tough guys
with a horde of followers - the followers are the religion. Orlanthi do
Orlanthi things, follow the Orlanthi way, use Orlanthi magics, try to be
good Orlanthi. They don't need Orlanth to come down and blow people up to
do that - Orlanth can sit in heaven doing whatever he does, and the
Orlanthi will continue trying to be good Orlanthi. Of course, the priests
do exercise some control, and they are afraid of the spirits of reprisal -
but the priests and the spirits of reprisal are trying to be good Orlanthi
as well. Orlanth only essential contribution is to keep all the magic
working. And the magic, for that matter, keeps on working the way it used
to - unless some heroquester starts trying to upset the status quo.
>Check the back covers of River of Cradles, Dorastor and Sun County: "[In
>Glorantha] the gods and heroes ward and guide their followers, sharing
>divine magics while pursuing their own enigmatic ends." Does that sound
>more interesting than "Orlanth never does anything on the mundane plane at
>all." Glorantha is a game world.
Here is a deep and subtle point which you have missed - lacking
free will is not the same as lack of power and action. The gods have power.
The gods can act. Indeed, they have to.
IMG the Gods HAVE to ward and guide their followers, sharing divine
magics, encouraging them to follow the laws of their religions. IMG Orlanth
CAN'T suddenly decide to start kicking people he doesn't like, start
denying divine magics to people who follow the proper religious path but
that he just doesn't like, come down to earth and charge about for a
holiday just because hes bored, or start changing the laws of his religion
himself.
A good Orlanthi who follows Orlanths way with average piety will
get Orlanths magics, even if the other Orlanthi he is fighting are a bit
more pious and give better sacrifices and if Orlanth could take sides he
really would.... Orlanth can't decide what is heresy and deserves killing
for himself, either, as long as the 'heretics' are following a hero path
that works for them. Orlanth can't excommunicate people. He can't see your
sins and cast you out. You can know you have done something wrong and make
yourself inactive by doing so, though. If 'Orlanth' knows you've done
something wrong, why can't he just excommunicate you himself? Because he is
just as bound by the forms of religion as the worshippers are - if they do
the right things, they get the spells.
But the gods act on the world all the time. They grant their
followers the ability to cast great magics, they have servants who do their
bidding, they make the world the way it is. Just because they don't act
with independently from their worshippers and their magic doesn't mean a
gods influence is not great. And they act through their heroes, who go to
the heroplane and if they measure up to it gain more powers from the god
and a consciousness more like the gods, and the hero goes and does his gods
bidding because he must.
Now, when you are heroquesting you aren't really on the material
world either. On most heroquests, the gods are still bound to their paths,
just as much as in the material world. But the deeper into the heroplane
you go, the more you get a glimpse of the real gods.
>IMG the gods have
>the same freedom of will as any individual but have placed voluntary
>restrictions on their freedom of action.
If you really want to insist that Orlanth could suddenly start
>Why not instead start with the assumption that the Compromise is real
running around the world himself, changing the rules of his own religion
and so forth, but simply chooses not to do so ever, well, its kind of
undifferentiable from what I am saying in practice.
I say the gods always act as if they have no free will because
they haven't got it, only the gods that are behind the gods, deep in the
Godplane, have it. You say they have got it, and choose not to use it, and
will only act with true free will where the Compromise does not hold, deep
in the Godplane. I'm a Lunar, I think we are both right, its just your way
of seeing is a little clouded. Its really two ways of saying the same
thing. Gods who cannot act in new and unexpected ways are indistinguishable
from Gods that never act in new and unexpected ways.
Because I am not an Orlanthi. What is this 'Compromise' you speak off?
Seriously, the Compromise is NOT the explanation. Because I refuse
to say that every other culture in the world must be wrong, just because
you think the Orlanthi are obviously right. But that doesn't mean it
doesn't have some truth - just stop presuming that it is the literal and
absolute truth. The gods certainly don't go around breaking the
Compromise, at least not often enough for the Orlanthi to be obviously
wrong. But that doesn't mean the Orlanthi explanation for these observed
facts is correct in all respects.
NB while I've been using Lunar terminology (masks, etc.) I don't
think that the Lunars are 'right', they are just a little more
sophisticated. I think Orlanthi heroes come to much the same conclusions as
to how the world works (or Yelmic, Pamaltelan, etc.), its just the Lunars
think about these things more. I think Harmast, for example, knew that
Orlanth could not distinguish between Lokaymadonism and 'true' Orlanth
worship, and that Orlanth was not going to strike down the bad guys
himself, even though to him it was obvious who was wrong. Its not even a
question of the Compromise - Orlanth can not even withdraw his magic from
the heretics, choose NOT to act. Harmast needed to go onto the heroplane
and prove that he was right, because Orlanth was not going to act by
himself.
NB 2 - I also think that this all starts to break down a little at
the end of the third age. The Orlanthi no doubt say this is because the
Compromise starts to break down, and a new Gods War beckons. I think other
cultures say its because the heroplane is closer to the mundane world, and
reality is starting to unravel. I think they are both correct. The Orlanthi
say the gods talk to their worshippers more directly, others say that
worshippers can perceive deeper secrets of the gods path. Much the same.
NB 3 - I hate having to be so long winded about all this. But its
just damn difficult to explain. Perhaps I'll try thinking of a few
different parables or something.
Cheers
David
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