From: Nick Brooke (Nick_Brooke@btinternet.com)
Date: Wed 05 Apr 2000 - 12:59:03 EEST
Peter writes:
> I don't think that Arkat has a meaningful role within the Loskalmi
Talor = Light (& Right). Arkat = Dark (& Right/Wrong). Gbaji = Light/Dark (&
Whether this is the original Fronelan/Talorian belief or its subsequent
> (and Carmanian) memories of their war against Gbaji. They remember
> Talor as being the hero who saved them from that Great Evil and
> his association with Arkat was only passing at best.
Wrong). [later: Jrusteli = Light (& Wrong)].
Carmanian Dualist reinterpretation, I don't see why we should jettison it
altogether. Your account is like saying that the Fronelans have never heard
of Arkat. I agree, of course, that Talor is their national saviour. I don't
think Arkat is irrelevant to them. Besides, even eliding Arkat, we still
need to consider Gbaji...
I also agree, of course, that the actions and attitudes of the native
Carmanian kings and magi are more important in their religion than these
hoary old stories of Arkat and Talor and Hrestol etc. (Otherwise they're
just cookie-cutter Malkioni with a thin veneer of Pelandanism and Dualism).
But I do see some value in interpreting the dualist roots of Carmanian
philosophy in mainstream Malkioni belief. After all, this is surely
something the Viziers would do, and something Westerners encountering
Carmanians would want to understand.
> Talor was a devout Malkioni as his famous laughter was actually
> an interpretation of Hrestol's Joy (the God Learners couldn't
> understand this and so thought him mad).
Agreed, of course. The God Learners threw out a lot of babies (chivalry,
> IMO [Syranthir's] dualism was a reaction to the intense philosophical
piety, compassion...) in their quest for the ultimate bathwater.
> debates that had ravaged Loskalm since God Learner missionaries introduced
> their revelations there in the past century. Syranthir would have
> been one of those conservatives affronted by the God Learner doctrines
> and saw it as an invention of the Devil. Dualism followed when the
> forces of darkness started winning...
Talor offers a template for struggles of Light (T) vs. Dark (A), and for the
confusion between Truth and Falsehood (not all that is White is Good, not
all that is Black is Evil). I prefer not to believe that all this mythic
baggage was created wholesale by Syranthir and his allies in response to the
advent of the God Learners. It is more satisfactory IMO for it to be a
preexisting theme within the Talorian church of Akem. YGMV. Indeed, YG may
not have Carmanian Shahs, or Viziers, or Magi, or Dualists, or Lions, or
Bulls, or Hazars, (etc.), in it at all. Just watch me care.
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Nick
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