From: Barron Chugg (bchugg@leland.stanford.edu)
Date: Fri 01 Jul 1994 - 13:23:49 EEST
Hello All.
Still catching up on past dailies...
Alex F. (responding to Sandy):
>> Now looky here, Alex: having men and women have different
>> society roles does Not Necessarily deprive the women of all cultural
>> import.
>
>Hence if you think the above is a role of "great import", it disposes
>neatly of the argumentum ad Greg you present that we should have female
>knights, wizards, and rulers, Left, Right, and Loskalm.
>
There seems to be a difference of perspective here that I'd like to comment on. I can certainly postulate a culture where men's and women's roles are seperate, but equal (note: charged language). I can even retool Western society to make men and women equal in "power" (not easy, but doable). But then the eternal question comes back, "Will it work in game?". IMHO, no. No offense to traditional, women's roles, but they aren't exactly the stuff of legend. (Note: I asked a friend who studies Comp. Lit. what the Woman's Heroic Path was. "Well", she said, "at least in European mythology, there is none.") Yes, I think this is a cultural problem for us. So Sandy (and I) want women to have a wider choice of roles so that female characters can run in any game I choose to GM (without having everyone of them be some weird outcast). Reasonable culturally? Maybe not, but it plays better, and that is my bottom line.
>Colin Watson, commenting on Barron Chugg's Runepaths:
>> There was a time when the gods walked their paths for the
>> First Time. At that time the gods could be thought of as
>>"independant" of their paths. But today the gods *are* the paths.
>
> I think this is too exclusive.
One main thing to keep in mind is that I have offered this interpretation as a way for the GM to look at runemagic (et al.). I believe that few, if any, people in Glorantha think about (or would even consider) Runepaths as the basis for runemagic. So, I guess the question of whether the god is seperate from their paths is sorta moot. It's up to the GM to decide how this choice would effect their campaign (if it would at all). I am becoming much more at ease with the paradox of "free gods vs. bound gods" than I was. Everytime it bothers me now I just put myself more in the world and remember that no one would even consider such a question (well, no one but an evil, GL scum).
What I am saying is, the deep question about the gods is less important than the myriad of other questions about how this approach would work. But then, it does bring out the latent philosopher in me...
> I think that, as Barron suggests,
>beliefs _do_ have power in Glorantha. The fact that the
>worshipers of a god believe that their deity is a person makes it
>so, even though the god may be in essence a natural force, or
>whatever.
"Makes it so..." for that person and their life and interactions. I believe that a person is powerful enough (in the mystical landscape of Glorantha) to influence the world around them to make their beliefs a local truth. Heroes are people able to spread their belief over a wider area, in some cases, over the entire world.
> I find it especially hard to believe that a living hero
>is going to meekly turn into an abstract construct of rituals as
>the price of apotheosis.
I guess this is the main place where the question of whether the god is a free entity comes up. I tend to believe that as the hero becomes more and more powerful and well known they tend to fall into more and more of a role. This could be the side effect of gaining their power, or it could be a response to the many people that hold oppinions about them. I see the hero as often _not_ in control of their destiny (a classic literary idea). This plays well into the idea that they are leaving the world and entering the realm of the gods. Remember, it is the hieght of naivete to believe we can fully comprehend the gods.
>
>> God, Cult and Path are somewhat unified.
>
>I agree with this, but I would place considerably more emphasis
>on the "God" portion than you seem to.
Then for you it will be so (see above). That is, I think, one of the best parts of this idea. It gives a sensible framework and then allows the GM to choose their particular variation on it.
> I haven't thought too much about Illuminates, but I would
>suspect that they have the inner balance to understand and to
>truly "believe" in the manner required by the spell they wish
>to learn.
I have always looked at illuminates as being somehow dissociated from them selves. This seperation would allow them to believe passionately in whatever they chose without having that belief influence their actions at all. That is to say, they are so fluid they can shift positions with no friction. There should be a good psychological way to look at this, but my training is not in this area. Any psych students in the audience want to tackel it?
>
>Alex Ferguson, bitter foe o' the Monomyth:
>>But was it _really_ true?
"True"?!? In Glorantha?!? Isn't that oxymoronic? :-)
I'd venture that if the GLs quested hard enough and converted enough
people to their ideas, then sure, the Monomyth was true for a lot of
people. But it couldn't be a global truth. I think that the more the GLs
tried to force the godplane into their nice, tidy plan, the more pressure
that built up. Finally that pressure exploded and the GLs were wiped out.
Let's face it, the Monomyth breaks Arkat's rule BIG TIME. Going into every
myth with the plan of beating into your preconcieved ideas is neither
humble or respectful.
>>That it "worked" for a while, and in a
>>limited area, merely shows that it was a useful working model, or
>>approximation, within that domain.
> 'Twas never claimed to be more than a useful approximation.
>For all your nitpicking, the Monomyth concept still works better than
>any other way of trying to understand the Gloranthan universe. The
>fact that the myth had "bugs" in no way invalidates the basic idea.
>
I'd think of the MM as the zeroth order approximation to the mythology of Glorantha. On large scales of distance and time it doesn't do a half bad job. In fact, for a starting GM/Gloranthan Scholar, it is a god send (as I think Sandy once commented). Once a person gets deeper into the world they are able to create first and second order approximations that better define more limited mythologies (cult variations and the like).
>I wisely propound
>>> [...] the God Learner usage of creative heroquesting demonstrated
>>>the essential unity of Gloranthan myth and made sense out of the
>>>jungle of fairy tales and legendry
>Alex retorts:
>>Just like turn of the century earthly "scientific" mythography did
>>the same for us? Like Lewis Spence "proving" that Ancient Eygpt must
>>have gone through a shamanistic phase of worship?
> Exactly.
The error is not so much in using the framework as confusing it with absolute truth. I use physics all the time that is at best a weak approximation to what is really happening. In fact, in many cases the "truth" may be too complex to model at all. But I use my 0th order approximation to get a basic idea of what's going on and then add levels of approximation as needed. Does this make sense?
>>I rather like the idea having such a figure (St. Elleish), but I
>>don't think she'd cause a riot of popularity among the hierarchies
>>of either of the main Malkioni sects.
>
> I absolutely concur. No doubt women who've adopted Elleish as
>a patron are considered mildly (or severely) suspect by the
>establishment, much as followers of St. Francis were not always
>appreciated by the Medieval Catholic organization, who responded by
>trying to make the Franciscans as otherworldly (i.e., impotent) as
>possible.
Sure, Malkionism is a pretty conservative religion, after all. There are no doubt Elleishi ( Elleishites? How about Elleishim (that's almost exactly Michelle backwards)? ) that are more radical and others that as conservative. The crucial thing, in my mind, is that they exist at all within the Western social framework.
>I think that you have to be devoted to a god to learn their magic, or 'fool
>yourself' that you are (which only the illuminated can do). However being
>devoted to the god and obeying the cult strictures are NOT the same thing.
Yes, I agree. You can imagine the cult strictures as the cultural/social aspects of the cult. They are no doubt related to the god's ideals, but they have been filtered through human minds. Devotion and belief are the keys to runemagic, not an adherence to some mundane laws!
Loved the notes on the campaign!! Sounds like a lot of fun. It's pretty rare for players to invest their energies in a community and I think you should take full advantage of it. Do any of your players read the Daily? I told my wife about the game and she had heaps of suggestions.
(On women adventurers)
Tee hee... Well put.
A little more on female, heroic archetypes: I saw a stage production of Maxine Hong Kingston's "Woman Warrior" the other night. (Very good, highly recommended. I saw it at Berkeley Rep, but it is going on tour.) For those who haven't seen/read it, the crux of the story is a parallel between the author as a young, chinese girl growing up in america and her identification with a chinese folkloric heroine (Fu Ma Lan). I'll leave out the details, but the point that really drove home to me was that all through the play the girl looks at Fu Ma Lan as a symbol of freedom. But then, near the end, we see more of the legend. In the final part the heroine has become a mighty warrior, but cannot lead men unless she disguises herself as a man. And, it is not until she meets a man who is her equal that she is trully happy. This is a pretty limited view of freedom, one filtered through the cultures predispositions and beliefs. I'd prefer Elleishim that are not an extension of patriarcal culture and have an archetype all their own.
In conclusion: MonoMyth...Good. Sexism...Bad.
Barron
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