From: David Cake (davidc@cyllene.uwa.edu.au)
Date: Fri 18 Jul 1997 - 11:57:27 EEST
Clay on the Pharoah's fate
>I've heard three different versions
>of this ("He's in Hell (with Sheng Seleris or is Sheng in his own
>private little hell?)" "He's *gone*." "He's hiding" (a tactic the Red
>Emperor claims to use himself.)
I think that none of these are probably true. He is killed and
chopped into bits.
This is different from complete and utter obliteration, but not
much. I don't think he is thrown into the same hell as Sheng. I think that
is a very special Hell.
>the author inserts "Our Red Goddess is not Entekos." But...isn't she?
>Or wasn't she?
She just isn't. The Red Goddess and Entekos are different
goddesses, different planets, and about different things. They do have some
things in common, though.
>Or didn't she take something from Entekos?
They followed some similar paths. I think
>Did the
>author realize that, indeed, the Red Goddess is Entekos, but was so
>frightened by the thought that he denied it? Surely the Emperor was
>going to read the book, so best be sure about these things...
Best read it a good deal more carefully. The author of the
Entekosiad is a woman, Valare Addi. She originally preached that the Red
Goddess was Entekos, but was corrected by the Red Goddess herself,
whereupon Valare Addi set out on a heroquest to discover the truth about
Entekos.
And the Entekosiad was written during the lifetime of the Red
Goddess - the Red Emperor probably did not exist when it was written, while
the Emperor Yelmgatha was an ally and friend of the Red Goddess, and
probably agreed with whatever she said about her own origins.
>What, precisely is the relationship between the following people:
>Yelmgatha<->Red Emperor<->Sheng Seleris<->The Pharaoh.
As you said, Sheng is the Shadow of Takenegi. I don't think the Red
Emperor is the Shadow of Yelmgatha. They are too similar, and too friendly.
You don't set your shadow on the throne next to you! And I personally don't
think the Pharoah figures at all. If you really want to fit another sacred
ruler into the scheme, look at Godunya, who fought against Sheng even more
than Takenegi. Its just that Godunya, when he finally defeated Sheng,
simplied exiled him to a foreign land, as the Kralorelan emperors are wont
to do.
>Or worse, she was identified completely after the fact by the Red
>Emperor using God Learner techniques. The Emperor, having no authentic
>claim to the scepter and crown, manufactured the Red Goddess to provide
>him the wherewithal to rule.
Well, its pretty hard to reconcile with known history.
What is more likely is that the Red Emperor manufactured a
justification for his own place as head of the Lunar hierarchy and
simultaneous head of the Dara Happan Empire, embedding himself within the
Lunar theology. The ancient cults that the Red Goddess drew on for her
mythology were historically female dominated and opposed to the Dara Happan
Emperors, if anything. Its not at all unreasonable to suggest that the Red
Emperor has seized power in a way very different to the original intention
of the Red Goddess, and then invented excuses to explain it.
And there are the contradictory accounts of the changeover from
Yelmgatha to Takenegi in TFS. At one point he is said to die peacefully, at
another point he collapses in a ceremony, and all those that rush to assist
him have their heads mysteriously explode (think a super Mind Blast).... As
TFS is a modern Lunar document, I think its safe to assume that the Red
Emperor is covering up a rather brutal changeover with propaganda.
There are also the numerous people that attempted the ten tests,
but aren't Red Emperors, whose names are conveniently expunged.
Cheers
David
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