Your Dumbest Theory

[Nick Brooke]

5 hours ago, scott-martin said:

The Vadeli appear to have already won long ago.

Absofuckinglutely, dammit. (The fact that this sentence can be spoken in the once-pure Language of Logic is sufficient proof that the Vadeli are the hidden masters of Glorantha)

[Nevermet]

My ideas are not informed enough to be as glorious as these, but here we go

• Ganestoro is Lodril
• Argrath is Gagarth reborn
• The white moon is Gerra vindicated
• Old Malkion's last citadel is in Maniria or off its coast
• Daak and Daxdarius are the same deity

[scott-martin]

46 minutes ago, Nevermet said:

• Old Malkion's last citadel is in Maniria or off its coast

Yeah, a lot of these are just commonsense interpretations of available data! Are there no dumb fans?

Edited June 14, 2020 by scott-martin

[Akhôrahil]

All the oddball weirdo munchkin “heroic” characters (oh, so many, even in canon!) that don’t seem to fit the setting or behave like Gloranthans are in fact dimension-travelers from our world who try (poorly) to pretend that they’re natives.

Edited June 14, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[DrGoth]

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

All the oddball weirdo munchkin “heroic” characters (oh, so many, even in canon!) that don’t seem to fit the setting or behave like Gloranthans are in fact dimension-travelers from our world who try (poorly) to pretend that they’re natives.

Who played Runequest back in the 80's

[soltakss]

9 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Are there no dumb fans?

Yes

[Sir_Godspeed]

Belintar is actually a Yeerk from the Animorphs books.

[Eff]

This is not a dumb theory, but it is a fairly galaxy-brain theory:

Argrath orchestrated the death of Gunda for the same reason that a character in a shonen anime will "release their power limiters" or take off concealed weights on their ankles or whatever. Similarly, Great Sister orchestrated either the death of Beat-Pot Aelwrin or a breakup between him and Jar-eel to fully unleash Jar-eel's abilities. 

What do I mean by this? Well, older material (Digest answers) suggests that the "superhero" chits in Dragon Pass are individuals who have achieved a level of connection with a Rune more profound than a standard Hero does. Regular Heroes (indeed, even regular people) can straight-up heroform deities, including ones who are understood to represent pure incarnations ("owners of") a particular Rune, like Humakt or Orlanth or Ernalda. Harrek is associated with Death, and Jar-eel with Harmony. 

So what makes them more profound than temporarily being their god? They present a hidden face of the Rune to the world. 

Harrek is Death as separation in the sense of total selfishness and self-absorption. Harrek kills without thinking, tosses away vast treasures without a care, moves entirely on his whims because Harrek's universe consists of himself and the White Bear, who are the same person (after all, they have the same skin!) and that's it. Everything else is of dubious reality. 

Jar-eel is Harmony as total selflessness. Jar-eel has, from the moment of her infancy, done everything for the Lunar Way and the Empire and the Red Goddess. Her selflessness is to the point that in the only definitely canonical material that gives her dialogue, Prince of Sartar, Sedenya spends more time talking  through her than she spends talking. 

But both of them have key anchors that prevent them from a bizarre apotheosis- Harrek has his only real friend, Gunda, someone whose relationship with him is completely selfless and devoid of transactionality, and Jar-eel has her lover, Beat-Pot, and their relationship is entirely about their selves and their personal, intimate connection. 

And then Gunda dies, Beat-Pot seems to outright disappear (unless we're to presume that he makes an appearance at Dwernapple and Annstad merely used his Fertility magic to send Jar-eel back to ride Beat-pot into the ground or something) and we have the Battle of Heroes, where Jar-eel dies and Harrek... stops being Harrek. He leaves the battle, returns to the kingdom he carved out of Fonrit, and never does anything more until possibly participating in the Moonfall. 

So how did the Battle of Heroes go down? My suspicion is that it was like Alakoring Dragonbreaker fighting a dragon- Jar-eel and Harrek were performing (in game terms) immense Identity Challenges of each other, tempting each other with actions that would go against their mythic resonance and break the magic that came from being themselves as hard and totally as they possibly could. So Harrek offered Jar-eel a chance to retreat with her life at the cost of losing the battle, to indulge in selfishness, and Jar-eel refused. Because she instead tempted Harrek into engaging with the world and behaving selflessly by killing her, and so he carved her heart out... but she maimed him with unhealing injuries and sliced the Berserk out of Harrek the Berserk, leaving behind a ragged edge. 

Whether or not Jar-eel comes back after that (before she arrives to defend the last days of the Monster Empire), she managed a clear and total victory over poor Harrek. 

EDIT: I think this speculation is somewhat independent of when we date the Battle of Heroes to, but there may be some holes in it. 

Edited June 14, 2020 by Eff

[scott-martin]

17 minutes ago, Eff said:

But both of them have key anchors that prevent them from a bizarre apotheosis- Harrek has his only real friend, Gunda, someone whose relationship with him is completely selfless and devoid of transactionality, and Jar-eel has her lover, Beat-Pot, and their relationship is entirely about their selves and their personal, intimate connection. 

Can't recall if the digest brains lingered on how Ethilrist (to return to the thread start) appears to be consciously trying to engineer a Best Friend bond with Keener Than or whether they're an example of a potential superhero dyad that failed. I always liked the evocative line about how "Androgeus' best friend is the Twins," which suggests that someone truly old and transactional can game the dynamic and just pick someone who fits reasonably well.

But back to the matter at hand, the longer I look at them, the more Gunda starts getting in the way but we still don't know a lot about what went down on the cradle. Beat Pot either gets sidelined or simply left in the dust (I can see a final break out of jealousy, which might hurt Harmony more than Death). Toward the end of all things I wonder if Argrath figures out how to game the Best Friend system in other ways.

 

[Nick Brooke]

2 hours ago, scott-martin said:

I always liked the evocative line about how "Androgeus' best friend is the Twins," which suggests that someone truly old and transactional can game the dynamic and just pick someone who fits reasonably well.

Androgeus is male and female; the Tarsh Twins are female and male; I don’t see the problem, myself.

[Nick Brooke]

(Politely refrains from sharing “Argrath was Harrek’s Cabin Boy” theory, because that’s too dumb even for this thread)

[Nevermet]

17 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Yeah, a lot of these are just commonsense interpretations of available data! Are there no dumb fans?

Truly "dumb" theories require a deep and wildly idiosyncratic reading of the setting.  I gotta learn more to truly get dumb. 😎

[Austin]

8 hours ago, soltakss said:

17 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Are there no dumb fans?

Yes

My New Dumb Theory: There Are No Dumb Fans.

Lecture series coming soon to the University of Glamour...

[Eff]

Not quite a dumb theory, again, but probably close:

Sh'hakarzeel is Draconic Orlanth, just like Aroka is Draconic Heler, and the First Dragonslaying was Orlanth killing the Inner Dragon and settling firmly into the shape of a god. 

[Sir_Godspeed]

The Earth Cube is a D6 floating in some nerd's red solo cup of Mr. Pibb's (other beverages are available).

[John Biles]

Sor-Eel isn't the embodiment of the Harmony Rune; she embodies the *Moon* Rune, which is how she warped Beat Pot Aelwin into her lapdog and how she was able to pull off killing Belintar.  And it's how she wrecks Harrek so that he quietly fades away... she traps him in the wax/wane cycle.  Unfortunately for her, Death trumps the Moon Rune and her defeat by Harrek opens the way for Argath to kill the Red Moon itself.

The God-Egg used to make Nysalor was actually the Orb of Authority and they didn't realize it.

Alternately, Nysalor is actually Chicken Boo.

 

[Richard S.]

The God-Egg was, as the dragonewts claimed, a True Dragon egg, and Nysalor was originally a draconic being who had it suppressed by the council to further separate from the dragonewts. Of course, you can't really kill a dragon, and that's why his curse on the dragonewts didn't work - his dragon mind rose up to eat it in a draconically circular fashion. Similarly, all forms of illumination ultimately derive from the draconic origin of the universe, Ouroboros.

I may also believe that dragons are the only things that have everything "right" and are in some way connected to and partially responsible for everything.

[qws2]

God Forgot people's dead god is really Genert, not Malkion. They were Earth-worshiping Logic people, and now pretend brithni. 

Zistor was just a effort to reconstruct Genert. Unfortunately, machine was not solution.

[MOB]

Wow, this has been my favourite thread here at BRP Central for a long, long time - and I feel like by reading it I've added a significant percentage on to my chance of Illumination next Sacred Time.

Here's one from me, it was found scribbled in the visitor's book at the Jonstown Lhankor Mhy temple:

If you are reading this, then I have finally succeeded. My name is unimportant, but my dire warning is. I speak of the return of the God Learners, for their foul seed lies within us all - and we must forget it! The language we call Tradetalk is their seed. Do not mock! Think! Is it not convenient that there is one language which all can speak, that reduces the problems of communication between nations across all of the continents, known and unknown? Is it not unnatural or unusual that while Tradetalk exists our own languages exist too? It is because it is, was, and will be, the language of the foul God Learners! It contains within it their secret - a secret which must not be known lest they return and the world be destroyed and Chaos reclaim all. I have warned the peddlers of this doom, the cults of Issaries and Etyries, but they paid me no heed, and their leaders have tried to poison and kill me to stop my warnings from reaching you. Can those cults be God Learner constructs too? My last chance before the assassins reach me is this book. We must forget Tradetalk, we must embrace our own languages again! Before it is too late..

Edited June 15, 2020 by MOB

[Sir_Godspeed]

2 hours ago, qws2 said:

God Forgot people's dead god is really Genert, not Malkion. They were Earth-worshiping Logic people, and now pretend brithni. 

Zistor was just a effort to reconstruct Genert. Unfortunately, machine was not solution.

I kinda love this idea.

[Tindalos]

On 6/14/2020 at 1:26 AM, scott-martin said:

Yeah, a lot of these are just commonsense interpretations of available data! Are there no dumb fans?

Well if that's too sensible for you, my theory is that it's actually Hrelar Amali!

Malkion and his followers had no particular hatred of the gods age Enerali, and so they were able to live together in harmony. Malkion had his way, they had theirs.

The attack where Flamal was slain by Eurmal/Zorak Zoran is the same event as the attack on Malkionwal by the Demons of Matter and the Krjalki of Entropy, and likely The Great Victory seen in Trollpak (number 9 of the Eleven Troll Battles) just seen from different sides.

Malkion may have even been the original "Chief of the Court" said to be created by the gods of the Spike (and obviously thus connected to Law) and who acted as a spokesman for the Nine Great Gods, recorded in Revealed Mythology's story of Malkion the Sacrifice as Malkion's Guardians.

Naturally, the inability of the Malkioni to recognise this sacred city as the same from their own legends is a great tragedy, and it's possible that true unity will only come to the West when it's restored.

(Also as a side note, the Seshnegi peninsula is also the remnant of Malkion's Expulsion Walk, with Kanthor and Jorestl's Forests as what remains of the Green Woods grown to hold back Malkion's foes.)

[French Desperate WindChild]

 chaos doesn't exist

it is just a smoke screen from Rastlaff to hide some hateful crime he did (when his fart destroyed the spike)

That's the best explanation I have to explain gorps acidity origin

 

 

[Fedman Kassad]

Belintar isn't dead...  The reason that the Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death isn't finding a new body for the God-King of the Holy Country is that the divine essence of Belintar is on vacation at a nice B&B in Pamaltela and doesn't want to go back to work...

[Austin]

Bouncing off of Jeff's comments over in the Kallyr's LBQ thread...

It's suspicious to me just how similar the Seven Mothers' story is to the Lightbringer's Quest, and I believe there's some canon/apocryphal stuff about God Learnerism and using the LBQ or whatnot, but here's an extra Theory: they didn't just use the LBQ, they actually did the LBQ. The LBQ brings back what's needed for a Good Cosmos. For some reason, what was needed when the 7M did the LBQ was the Red Goddess.

[Richard S.]

12 minutes ago, Crel said:

Bouncing off of Jeff's comments over in the Kallyr's LBQ thread...

It's suspicious to me just how similar the Seven Mothers' story is to the Lightbringer's Quest, and I believe there's some canon/apocryphal stuff about God Learnerism and using the LBQ or whatnot, but here's an extra Theory: they didn't just use the LBQ, they actually did the LBQ. The LBQ brings back what's needed for a Good Cosmos. For some reason, what was needed when the 7M did the LBQ was the Red Goddess.

That ain't even a dumb theory. Based on Argrath's LBQ in KoS, it allows you to bring back whatever the celestial court can reach.