Re: NewSpeak, Trickster

From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu
Date: Mon 06 Jun 1994 - 22:28:14 EEST



  Paul Reilly here, commenting on manipulating thoughts with the structure of the language.   

>The Russian language once
>had the same word for "Red" and "Beautiful" (hence Red Square); something
>similar would be really appropriate for the Lunar's tongue... maybe on an
>obvious moral level, like Red equals Good, or maybe something more subtle...?

  Yes. Of course our own society would never stoop to such blackhearted manipulation of people through language. It's might white of us to even speak with people from other cultures, much less approve of them. There's something sinister, almost unmanly, about a society that uses the fabric of laguage to propagate cultural or religious prejudices. People who would stoop to such a thing have no Christian charity in their hearts. Etc. ad nauseam...

  It's interesting to note that this goes on at a more subtle level of omission. For example, Americans are constantly bombarded with 'facts' from their news sources like '69% of people have sex before age 16" or "98% of people live in housholds with a television set" - `people` here meaning USA residents. Evil.



Alex Ferguson writes, quoting John Hughes quoting Chaosium:
>> "THE FIREBRINGER: many people agree that Trickster, in one form or another,
>> stole fire from the darkness. Among the Pentans he was Raven, in Pamaltela he
>> was Hare, and for the Theyalans he was a Lightbringer. "

>While contrariwise, the Dara Happans certainly don't.

  I think that the DH might agree that Rakenveg, the carrot-headed Trickster, snuck in and stole Fire during the Darkness - FROM THEM.

  Note that this means that there is a flaming Carrot-headed god on Glorantha who is a Trickster. DOes anyone else read Dark Horse comics? Rakenveg would in this scenario offer spells like :
DISTRACTION
  The caster pulls forth and shows some unusual but essentially ordinary object, calling attention to it: "Look! A bee head!" If the caster overcomes the POW of anyone within range of his voice and sight of the object, they must pay attention to it for one round, as per Xiola Umbar's Attract Attention...


  Eurmal is definitely a Murderer. No question. Who unleashed Death?

  It looks like Runegate is to small for my story. I am thinking of changing it to Alda-Chur or Bagnot. Would anyone with a 'proprietary' interest in either of those cities contact me (paul@minerva.phyast.pitt.edu). I am sure that someone ahs been backgrounding Alda-Chur.

  -Paul



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