From: Alex Ferguson (abf@interzone.ucc.ie)
Date: Tue 15 Apr 1997 - 03:33:59 EEST
David Cake is Mr. Angry about Troll@nochet's Basmoli:
> I loathe them. Am I the only one? To me it rather cheapens the
> whole idea of hsunchen. Are they humans in a unique mythic relationship
> with their animal? Or are they halfway to kzinti/aslan already, and just
> happen to have a cult that gives them some spells to take them the rest of
> the way?
I partly agree with David. I sympathise with the article's bias
towards the subjective Basmoli view of themselves as non-humans,
but yes, I think it goes over the top in both "facts" and tone, by
setting out to make it Objectively True that they're part-lions.
It's a perennial peeve of mine, when some aspect of Glorantha seems
to me to be nicely Constructively Ambiguous, and some... author decides
to go make it hard and fast True in one direction or the other,
completely invalidating the other viewpoint, which up to then may
have made perfect Gloranthan sense, frequently in the name of "MGF",
"playability", whiz-bang manifest magical effects, Objective Truth, or
Some Other. And I don't exclude the Crimson Greg from this tendancy,
either.
> Now, if the changes to Hsunchen physiology are not present at
> birth, but occur as side effect of those of hsunchen blood using the
> Transform self spells, or similar, then I'm a lot better disposed to the
> theory.
One could maintain this was largely the case, but with the occassional
"sport" displaying some such characteristics, or even extreme cases,
as a result of unforeseen maternal magical influence.
Give me Cultural Relativism, or give me-- err, something else;
Alex.
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