From: Alex Ferguson (alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk)
Date: Mon 15 Aug 1994 - 21:15:52 EEST
Devin Cutler:
> While he accepts only one wife, it seems he keeps concubines (e.g.
> Galgarenge). It also seems there is some precedence for DH wives having many
> husbands (e.g. Esvenratha...."For I have many husbands already"). This seems
> very un Darra Happan.....is it possible they go by this?
Not likely, though other historic Pelorian cultures may have. I'm sure that for Dara Happa as we know it, the ration is one wife plus as many concubines as you can... keep (or whatever), for men, and Only One Husband for women.
> Finally, I wonder how, if the concept of marriage was being created for Yelm,
> how Esvenratha could already have husbands. This seems strange, since as I
> read GRoY, Lodril invented marriage and sold it to Yelm as a novel new idea.
This myth is of course explaining Proper Dara Happan Marriage, as it was instituted by Yelm; that various other types, like the Lodril-worshippers and other Pelorian riff-raff already have some sort of soi-disant marriage would hardly be worth explaining away...
> b) The Evil Empire mentioned is obviously the Lunar Empire. But it states
> that the Lunar Empire was one that "had withstood the sun fallign down from
> the sky, and invasion of monsters, and an ice age".
> I can't seem to tie these three items with the Lunar Empire. Can anyone tell
> me what these three events are?
The sun falling from the sky escapes me for the moment, but the other two certainly occur (post 1625) during Argrath's Saga. The return of the ice is Valind getting his own back for being clobbered by Kalikos for all those years, reasonably enough.
David Cake is quibbled with by me thusly:
> >I'm a bit confused about your Analogues here: from the G:G illos, I'd have
> >said Dragon style was something (ever so vaguely) like aikido, while
> >Centipede was faintly shotokan-ish.
> Both are standard karate stances, not restricted to shotokan, but probably
> not used in aikido. I used to know their names.
The Dragon style stance is very like the usual "Ten" stance used in aikido. Why I suggested the comparison, unsurprisingly enough... Having lots of Assorted Pseudo-Karate Styles would be Very Boring, I think.
> Well, I kind of like the idea that hsunchen ideas are still secretly spread
> by many martial arts schools, but I also like the idea that many schools
> are named after non-hsuchen animals to demonstrate their purity. Perhaps
> the hsunchen schools are secret underground organisations in most places?
I'd imagine that most MA styles weren't exactly encouraged by the exarchs, anyway. Who wants a bunch of peasants running around getting uppity? On the other hand, doubtless some are at least tolerated, or allowed to certain social groups. Maybe there's a Badness scale, with Dragon likely to be at the top, and Tiger the obvious candidate for being at the bottom.
Alex.
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