The Blue Wizard strikes in vain

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From: Joerg Baumgartner (joe@sartar.toppoint.de)
Date: Tue 06 Sep 1994 - 09:03:14 EEST


The Blue Wizard Peter Metcalfe in X-RQ-ID: 6037

> My attempts at exigesis make me think that Minaryths history is more acurate
> than the history in the CHDP. He was writing from year to year on the most
> important thing that happened that year.

Not necessarily. IMO he collected his memories and connected each event or cluster of events to a date. In doing so, he might have associated events that occured in one season to one entry, but events three seasons apart can well be confused with events in separate years, especially if viewed in hindsight.

> 1) Moraides dies in 1631 ST. The scribe wrote 'lived' where he should have
> written 'ruled'.

This agrees roughly with the Sartar section of CHDP. Pharandros is mentioned as king for 1632, so no problem there. However, for the 1625 events the Sartar section of CHDP blames Moirades, not Pharandros.

> 2) Neither Moraides, Sartar nor Tarkalor were ever Kings of Dragon Pass.

I have tried to convince Peter in private that this is nonsense, but I'd appreciate some help by others doing so in private.

> 3) Illaro died in attempting to become the King of Dragon pass. As a result in
> tarsh, Coitus interruptus is known as Illaroism.

Illaro died as part of the seven-year-king ritual introduced by the bloody earth cult of Old Tarsh. Their cult seems to combine worship of Maran Gor and Kero Fin in that they use the destructive earth aspects of Maran Gor in battle, yet they also receive fertility from this worship through the sacrifice of their sacred kings _or their challengers_. Maybe we have to invent the male subcult of the sacrificial king for the earth cultists as the bearer of Fertility and Death. A very different form of Orlanth Rex...

According to the currently prevalent theory about the demise of the Pharaoh, the old Esrolite Earth worship had a similar, but annual, ritual, which had been taken upon himself by Belintar (who thereby became the reusable Year King and de facto ruler of Esrolia), until he was slain irreversibly in one of these annual sacrifices (1616) by Jar-eel. Jar-eel could use the proven methods of her quasi-ancestress Hon-eel who did the same to the last Illaro king of Tarsh. It isn't recorded whether Palashee Long-axe took up this custom again, but considering his origin, it is highly likely, and unlikely that anyone could best him.

For a non-Gloranthan version of this kind of sacrificial kingship read Poul and Karen Anderson's "King of Ys" series.

> 4) Any idea that the Ilaro dynasty of Tarsh practiced a sacrifical reign of
> seven years is complete crap. For an idea of what really happened,
> calculate how old Marofdul must have been at the time of his fathers death.

Since we have no date of birth, and marriage among Orlanthi occurs between age 15 and age 20, Marofdul could have been just 18 years younger than his father.

> 5) Part six of the Argrath Saga is actually a fusion of two seperate phases.
> One pulls down the Red Moon and the other is connected to another fragment
> in the book. Ask yourself this: Why does Argrath send for help from the
> six directions when His gods are already walking with him?

To reenact the monster-slaying quest, in which the Storm gods always summoned help from all directions.

> 6) The Feathered Queen of the Kerofini temple is not the same as the feathered
> horse queen. To become King of Dragon Pass does not entail marrying them.

Another bit of wild speculation I try to hammer out of Peter's mailings. The Kero Fin temple would not have a _feathered_ queen. Peter seems to ignore p.113 of KoS, where it is stated that the leader of the Grazer wives' cult (La-ungariant in her aspect as horse, i.e. Arandayla) went deep into the earth and returned with powers alien to the Solar horse people. These powers were the powers of Kero Fin, whose avatar the Feathered Horse Queen had become in her heroquest. The former avatar, Sorana Tor, had been changed to Maran Gor and could no longer grant the fertility of the kingdom after Hon-eel had stolen these powers for the Lunars.

> 7) Argrath had nothing to do with the Awakening of the Brown Dragon.

> By Argrath, I mean Argrath Venharlson who later became Prince Argrath in 1631
> ST.

This includes two statements of Peter: the first statement he makes is that Argrath wasn't one of the seven dancers. Given that Argrath has a reputation to be a dragonfriend, and versed in EWF magics, he would be a likely candidate to participate in this ritual. As CHDP says, some of them prayed (e.g. Minaryth Purple), some of them concentrated (Orlaront), and some of them killed. Garrath Sharpsword of Pavis seems the ideal candidate for the latter category.
However, Peter goes even further and denies any friendly connection between Argrath and both Minaryth and Orlaront prior to his enthronement. Peter argues that Minaryth was known as a staunch supporter of Kallyr in the 1613 rebellion, and that both Minaryth and Orlaront are mentioned as Kallyr's companions in the 1625 short LBQ.

IMO this only indicates that both Minaryth and Orlaront are good Sartarite patriots who lend a hand to whoever tries to free the land.

--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de

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