From: Loren J. Miller (MILLERL@wharton.upenn.edu)
Date: Thu 16 Sep 1993 - 14:16:08 EEST
steve@psycho.demon.co.uk (Steve Thomas) writes, in response to Clay
and the Issaries question:
> I don't believe that changes just change themselves
> (at least, not since the great compromise).
Up to here I agree with you. The only changes that occur are at the hands of HeroQuestors, and worshippers, which are the same thing...
> >Certainly avatars of the god existed at the fringe of the GL influence...
>
> What is a god's "avatar" in a Gloranthan sense ? Some kind of super
> cult spirit watching over the cult? If they're spirits they're probably too
> weak, if gods, then their hands are tied by the Compromise. Anyway
> I think that 'certainly' is deeply overstating the case.
I wanted to find out if the god that was worshipped under a name in one place necessarily had to be identical to the god that was worshipped under the same name elsewhere, and how identical it might be, so I asked Greg if an Ulerian priestess from Nochet were to travel to, for instance, Vormain and visit one of the Ulerian temples there, the ones that have a profoundly different vision of the granting of pleasure that is reminiscent of the Hellraiser movies, and if she were somehow able to survive the personality conflicts inspired by the different views of the cult, <gasp for breath> so if this Ulerian were to visit the holy of holies in the Vormaini Uleria temple and pray would she be able to get a divine spell back from Uleria? Greg said yes, she would. The two temples would tell radically different versions of Uleria's myths and the two goddesses would appear almost completely dissimilar, yet they both connect to the same divine source.
Using this theory the easiest way to define an avatar is as a mask of a god, which has access to the true form of the god, but which is not the true form of the god. Usually, this means that the version of the god that we worship is obviously the true god, while the twisted versions that the folks over the hill worship is merely an avatar. They can't be the same, after all, because they don't have quite the same myths. And they can't be all that different because our temples work just like theirs, and when we are forced to visit them for the tribal moot our priests can use their altars for proper worship services. So it's obvious that they worship the true god, but through a mask that distorts appearances slightly and makes the true god more palatable to their perverse minds. Thus an avatar is like a mask.
Now if the preceeding definition of avatar is acceptable to you then try chewing on this. Every worship service is a heroquest, and such worship slowly changes the mythic landscape for a particular locale or bloodline. Thus traditions develop and diverge, so that people worship differently in different places. Another way to say the same thing: In some places cultists worship an avatar and other places have chosen different avatars, and so contradictions in myths are everywhere. In fact, if a myth is extremely consistent across a huge range of lands and cultures then it's almost sure proof of powerful, and RECENT, GodLearner style meddling, or at best a well-organized mythic maintenance squad within the cult, which is still pretty darn scary.
whoah,
+++++++++++++++++++++++23 Loren Miller internet: MILLERL@wharton.upenn.edu "Enough sound bites. Let's get to work." -- Ross Perot sound bite ---------------------
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