Orlanth Penitent, the deity-who-learned-better?

[mfbrandi]

Maybe Orlanth still thinks he is living boy-meets-girl or the “little tailor”, but you’d think some part of him would twig that he is in plot three:

Quote

The man-who-learned-better; just what it sounds like—the story of a man who has one opinion, point of view, or evaluation at the beginning of the story, then acquires a new opinion or evaluation as a result of having his nose rubbed in some harsh facts.

(Apologies for the androcentrism; this is Heinlein in 1947.)

Now there is more than one way to take Storm’s breaking the world and subsequently signing up to Arachne Solara’s compromise with death, evil, and entropy — a compromise in which a thinning world slowly slides back into the chaos from which it emerged. One could say that in the world of time, all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, and I have a deal of sympathy with that view. But I don’t think that is the take of Orlanth or the Orlanthi, who continue to rail against (at least two of) the forces they and their kin unleashed, twisted, and created (i.e. death, chaos, and the devil).

So among the other aspects, wouldn’t we expect to see a cult of Orlanth Penitent, worshipping an Orlanth in sackcloth and ashes who is very very sorry? Is there such a cult (or something similar)? If not, is that because neither the Orlanthi nor the Big O his bad self did learn better, or is it because they have another spin on Oedipal regicide and resurrection which enables all concerned to keep their heads held proudly high? I bet some of you have imaginative, illuminating, and entertaining takes on this; hit us with them.

[scott-martin]

Cut through a lot of bluster + blame and you've found the oldest form of Adventurous we have, one of my favorite candidates for "foundational myth" of modern Glorantha. I think what's different is that Adventurous moves past taking responsibility for his cosmic mistakes to focus on how he can fix the world he broke . . . call it less passively "sorry" and more active "atoning." He killed a guy. He made it right. Admittedly, the part in the middle is only implicit. You have to read between the emotional lines and a lot of storm botherers aren't interested in that.

A version of the god forced to take responsibility for the mistakes but not necessarily the solution might be found in modern institutional DX, the for-profit liberation industry that runs the imperial prison complex.

[g33k]

33 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

...

So among the other aspects, wouldn’t we expect to see a cult of Orlanth Penitent, worshipping an Orlanth in sackcloth and ashes who is very very sorry?

Not so much the Christian/Catholic image of "penitence" as a sackcloth-and-ashes (saa), I think.
Your "Orlanth Penitent" idea is an excellent one, IMHO, but it is much more activist.  The saa-style penitence is more passive & accepting.

Orlanth's penitence is more of a "this was my f-ckup, and I need to do whatever it takes to set things right."
 

33 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

... or is it because they have another spin on Oedipal regicide and resurrection which enables all concerned to keep their heads held proudly high ...

Trad-view Orlanthi POV is that Orlanth killed "the Bad Emperor," who was ruling in bad ways.
Then Orlanth heroically restored the sun-god to the role of Yelm Imperator (but obviously Yelm had learned the error of his ways).

Edited November 14, 2022 by g33k

[g33k]

Quote

"... and thereby joined the Lightbringers who..."

Hmmm.

Which definition of "join" is this?  Traditionally, I think the view is that Orlanth "brought them together" or "formed" the Lightbringers -- he performed an act of "joinery."

But unless you're a carpenter -- or speaking of marriage ceremonies -- that's a rather rare usage.

What if Orlanth joined a pre-existing Lightbringer group, already questing?  What if there are other versions of the "Lightbringer" story where Orlanth isn't the central figure?

• Maybe there are western Sorceror-cults who have a Lhankor Mhy cognate as the originator & central figure?  Knowledge is power...
• Maybe some Larnsti still exist in Hendrik's lineage, venerating Larnste's son Issaries as the real leader of the Lightbringers?
• Maybe some  Chalanna Arroyan's point to the LBQ as fundamentally an act of healing, and hold CA as the "primary" Lightbringer (n.b. CA's Harmony Rune was previously held by Harana Ilor... Issaries' mother!)

etc etc etc
They'd have alternate LBQ's in which their own Chosen One formed the Lightbringers, of whom Orlanth was just another participant.

Edited November 14, 2022 by g33k

[scott-martin]

27 minutes ago, g33k said:

What if Orlanth joined a pre-existing Lightbringer group, already questing?  What if there are other versions of the "Lightbringer" story where Orlanth isn't the central figure?

Yeah, this is part of why I find this original (RQ2 rulebook) version so compelling. He's only accidentally the big figure at this stage, only getting caught up in the journey of other people who are at least equally important early on. But because he took personal responsibility for fucking up most egregiously, his ordeal is what saves the world . . . and his status goes from lowest to highest.

It's not too far an oedipal leap to identify him with various local devils in his unreconstructed misadventures . . . all aspects of himself he needs to identify, renounce and reject as he builds a new identity. Too many mysterious bad boys in the prehistoric storm pantheon we never hear about, "dead" gods who went relatively straight.

EDIT BECAUSE THIS IS THAT KIND OF THREAD, WE ERR IN PUBLIC: And at least one mysterious sad girl who falls in order to rise.

Edited November 14, 2022 by scott-martin
7M

[Bill the barbarian]

3 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Maybe Orlanth still thinks he is living boy-meets-girl or the “little tailor”, but you’d think some part of him would twig that he is in plot three:

Quote

Agreed. 

You know, I have always felt this to be true, but I wonder if you are the first to assert this truth since RQ came back (Holy rebirth, Batman!, Precisely Robin, to the batcave! Fire up the Batcomputer and order a slipcase set!).

 

2 hours ago, g33k said:

Which definition of "join" is this?  Traditionally, I think the view is that Orlanth "brought them together" or "formed" the Lightbringers -- he performed an act of "joinery."

Which I believe is illegal in some (unenlightened) states!

 

2 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Yeah, this is part of why I find this original (RQ2 rulebook) version so compelling. He's only accidentally the big figure at this stage, only getting caught up in the journey of other people who are at least equally important early on. But because he took personal responsibility for fucking up most egregiously, his ordeal is what saves the world . . . and his status goes from lowest to highest.

Indeed!

Edited November 14, 2022 by Bill the barbarian

[soltakss]

2 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Orlanth Penitent, the deity-who-learned-better?

Orlanth Lightbringer is the Aspect that realised that he had done bad things, although none of them were his fault, so he had to be the hero to fix them. Being the hero was, of course, his fault.

[Nevermet]

I apologize for the language, but I remember someone calling Orlanth "The God of Fucking Around and Finding Out", which I feel is related to this.

 

It would be interesting which versions of Orlanthi myth are more interested in his penitence.  I get the feeling that 3rd Age Heortling / Sartarite Orlanthi appreciate the entire arc of his history, which means its included but not necessarily emphasized.  Unsure about some of the other Orlanthi populations

[mfbrandi]

2 hours ago, scott-martin said:

I think what's different is that Adventurous moves past taking responsibility for his cosmic mistakes to focus on how he can fix the world he broke . . . call it less passively "sorry" and more active "atoning." He killed a guy. He made it right.

2 hours ago, g33k said:

Orlanth's penitence is more of a "this was my f-ckup, and I need to do whatever it takes to set things right."

Well, he does set out to resurrect the sun, which is the least he can do. But he cannot restore the status quo ante — and he probably doesn’t want to. The murder genie is not going back in the bottle. And if as the Storm King he has to take some responsibility for Ragnaglar, there is the fact that Wakboth is a recurring threat, however big a lump of truestone was dropped on him. What we get as a result of the Lightbringers’ quest is not restoration but a new synthesis. One could make a case that death, time, and entropy are good things — and try to add that Wakboth is a price worth paying for them — but I don’t think that is the Orlanthi line. I think — I could be wrong — that Orlanth and/or the Orlanthi think that the GC is justified because Storm’s place in the world is now recognised, and that any price is worth paying for that.

Alternatively, the Lightbringers’ quest is not over until the conclusion of Argrath and the Devil: Argrath is the agent/tool of Orlanth Penitent (and the Invisible Moon — i.e. of the balance, of which Arachne Solara is the brains), and to save the world for good, OP must die and not rise again: then he will have shown he has learned better and accepted his part in the creation of the world (which is ongoing in the Third Age). It is a matter of whether he understands what the Sun Spider has done and approves, or whether he is just grudgingly going along with it without having much of a clue.

Or maybe Orlanth is a bit like certain real-life politicians (some orange) and the Orlanthi love him because Storm is the id unleashed.

[Nevermet]

Yeah, Lightbringer /Theyalan mythology probably characterized Orlanth in a different way than... I dunno... Ralian mythology characterized Humat in the 1st Age, even though (IIRC) they're the same deity.

Edited November 14, 2022 by Nevermet

[mfbrandi]

26 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Orlanth Lightbringer is the Aspect that realised that he had done bad things, although none of them were his fault

Gbaji cultist: “Well, yes, I gave you the plague, but I cured you of it, didn’t I?  And I brought you to the light. So just be grateful!”

Orlanth: “Well, yes, I killed the sun, and my family and I did all that other so-called ‘bad stuff’, too, but I brought the sun back half the time, didn’t I? So just be grateful!”

And yet, some would have us take very different attitudes to these two cases.

“But, but, but … the Gbaji missionaries haven’t really learned their lesson.” Just so.

[mfbrandi]

9 minutes ago, Nevermet said:

I dunno... Ralian mythology characterized Humat in the 1st Age, even though (IIRC) they're the same deity.

Well of Daliath:

Quote

The Burtae deities are the product of interbreeding between Elementals or their Srvuali. Humat, God of Air, is the most powerful of the Burtae, child of Gata and Zrathus.

Yeah, typical word game: Umath --> Humat --> Humakt. Maybe “learning better” got shunted off to the storm/not storm of Humakt who is/is not Umath the destroyer and Orlanth the regicide. He is Storm’s conscience, and he knows when a job is only half done.

Presumably, at this point the identification of Death and Humakt is complete and every death is Humakt’s work, including the carnage of Argrath and the Devil, which can be seen as Storm’s penance and utuma. And if Humakt’s identification with death is complete, perhaps his staring into the void has gone on long enough for him to realise his identification with Kajabor, too. From Humakt’s point of view, all the resurrected gods are zombies and must be given their peace. The world needs to thin — lose its magic — so that when the sun god returns to its grave, the mundane sun remains to warm us … though it too must eventually die.

Don’t say I never bring you anything cheerful.

[mfbrandi]

54 minutes ago, Nevermet said:

I apologize for the language, but I remember someone calling Orlanth "The God of Fucking Around and Finding Out", which I feel is related to this.

Or “move fast and break things” — Orlanth as Zuckerberg. I can see the Storm King as a tech entrepreneur: gaining wealth, power, and knowledge by doing new things — but maybe learning precious little wisdom or humility.

[AlHazred]

It's worth noting that each of the Lightbringer deities has their own story of "starting the Lightbringers quest and finding these other gods along the way." Chalana Arroy started it to heal the world, Lhankor Mhy started it to recover the Light of Knowledge, etc. The only one who canonically doesn't is Eurmal (of course). I'm not sure what "Flesh Man" cultists would have as that "starting the LBQ" story, since I don't think I've ever seen such a writeup.

[AlHazred]

6 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Or “move fast and break things” — Orlanth as Zuckerberg.

Or Elon Musk!

[Nevermet]

We're basically agreeing, I think: Different cultures will know the same god in different ways, keeping different versions of the same myth, or different myths entirely.  Going 1 step further, exactly what actions are assembled to make 1 god vs multiple gods (Orlanth, Umath, Humakt, etc) can also be a bit fuzzy.  The fact that, according to the Guide, Theyalan missionaries "proved" that Humat was Orlanth to the Ralians doesn't really simplify things.

[mfbrandi]

4 minutes ago, AlHazred said:

The only one who canonically doesn't is Eurmal (of course).

However, if anyone grasps what the Sun Spider is up to, it is the trickster.

[Eff]

1 hour ago, AlHazred said:

The only one who canonically doesn't is Eurmal (of course). 

Or, taking it in a very different direction, Eurmal's starting point for the Lightbringers Quest is found in Revealed Mythologies under the section on "Malkion the Sacrifice". 

[Eff]

4 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Cut through a lot of bluster + blame and you've found the oldest form of Adventurous we have, one of my favorite candidates for "foundational myth" of modern Glorantha. I think what's different is that Adventurous moves past taking responsibility for his cosmic mistakes to focus on how he can fix the world he broke . . . call it less passively "sorry" and more active "atoning." He killed a guy. He made it right. Admittedly, the part in the middle is only implicit. You have to read between the emotional lines and a lot of storm botherers aren't interested in that.

A version of the god forced to take responsibility for the mistakes but not necessarily the solution might be found in modern institutional DX, the for-profit liberation industry that runs the imperial prison complex.

The key thing here for me is the irony of "took upon himself the task to right the wrongs which had brought such disaster about." Orlanth begins seemingly in ignorance of his own role in this catastrophe, but decides to fix the problems anyways. In the later King of Sartar formulation, this is more explicit while also less explicit- Orlanth begins his quest in the role of the storm king. He summons up winds and calls upon his human subjects to fight, he brings along Humakt and Babeester Gor and Lightning Boy and Mastakos and whoever embodies the Shield of Arran and Sandals of Darkness and Scarf of Mist. Even when he reaches the point of sunset and the gates of twilight, he still doesn't seem to understand just what he's in for, though it seems to beggar belief that he handed Humakt off to Rausa casually and was whistling aimlessly when she struck the fatal blow. Regardless, he still retains pieces of that self, and one by one (like with the rest of his comrades), they are all stripped away in the depths of death. 

And then it's only once Orlanth has sacrificed everything he got from killing Yelm that he reconstitutes himself and arrives in the halls of the dead gods. In a very important symbolic sense, what happens in the hall is simply recapitulating what has happened before- Orlanth, full of bluster at the start, is stripped down to nothing to prove his sincerity and willingness to sacrifice, and then rebuilds himself from that nothing. So I think that Orlanth Penitent is perhaps less salient than Orlanth the Fool (though mostly in Tarot terms). Orlanth's consciousness of his deeds comes as he strips himself of being Orlanth, and he comes back to himself as a recognition of his deeds to make good. There's certainly some psychological fruit to pluck there!

[scott-martin]

19 minutes ago, Eff said:

recapitulating what has happened before- Orlanth, full of bluster at the start, is stripped down to nothing to prove his sincerity and willingness to sacrifice, and then rebuilds himself from that nothing. So I think that Orlanth Penitent is perhaps less salient than Orlanth the Fool

Love it. By the way, I find it instructive to keep an eye on Eurmal, especially here. While modern theologians cherish the distinction between Trickster and the character who becomes adult Orlanth, I have it on good authority that this actually gave young Harmast Barefoot a little trouble at first and so I roll to disbelieve mythic economies where two Goofuses have uncannily similar exploits until one grows into a Gallant. Under the right conditions, Trickster resolves into one of the masks or "parts" of the mature storm king. Under others, storm king disintegrates into one or more tricksters and maybe some other interesting derivatives. 

In an irony this evolutionary spiral is largely lost by the time we encounter imperial Sedenya, who suffers and recovers but the missionaries don't seem all that eager to talk about the ways she learns.

[jajagappa]

3 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Well, he does set out to resurrect the sun, which is the least he can do. But he cannot restore the status quo ante — and he probably doesn’t want to.

Well, from Jeff's comments what Orlanth sets out to do is to restore the Grand Order, not resurrect the sun, and that is an important distinction.  The resurrection of the sun is a by-product of the compromise achieved.

 

[Eff]

20 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Under the right conditions, Trickster resolves into one of the masks or "parts" of the mature storm king. Under others, storm king disintegrates into one or more tricksters and maybe some other interesting derivatives. 

In an irony this evolutionary spiral is largely lost by the time we encounter imperial Sedenya, who suffers and recovers but the missionaries don't seem all that eager to talk about the ways she learns.

Orlanth, to Eurmal: "Well, well, well, if it isn't my old friend, the consequences of my actions."

But perhaps that's the key problem- the stable pathways for the many-faced Storm Guy seem total reintegration (the Vadrus complex) or disintegrative expulsion (Trickster is "bonded" to Orlanth, Orlanth takes responsibility for "his" actions, none of which are Orlanth's, and possibly even stronger externalizations of Eurmal*). The Moon is unstable, so instead we have a non-integrating dynamic which cannot be so easily ceremonialized, and which can only be approached through first splintering (or having a pre-existing splintering) and then moving in the same general directions. 

All of which sounds like utter moonspeak unless you're pretty well embedded! Perhaps it would help if Sedenya had a Ninshubur, or more precisely, if we could agree on which Ninshubur/sukkal between Etyries, Valare Addi, Charmain, etc. to use. 

 

*I can't help but think of the Storm Bull/Ragnaglar relationship here, though that would be an incredibly extreme externalization and act of automutilation. It's not surprising Argrath is a bull, but we're maybe lucky Arkat stayed well away. 

Edited November 14, 2022 by Eff

[mfbrandi]

12 hours ago, Eff said:

Orlanth begins seemingly in ignorance of his own role in this catastrophe, but decides to fix the problems anyways.

See also Oedipus.

12 hours ago, Eff said:

Orlanth, full of bluster at the start, is stripped down to nothing to prove his sincerity and willingness to sacrifice, and then rebuilds himself from that nothing.

Is the monomyth really the tale of the culture hero who does something for the people or is it a “me decade” story of “personal development”? I have problems with some myths of the redemption of the world by (any shuffling of) suffering, death, and rebirth. Some make a kind of sense: the sun dies every evening and is reborn every morning, and so the cycle of days is preserved — but really, perhaps, that is just an explanatory myth. Or in other myths, the god will suffer and we benefit, but the suffering doesn’t cause the benefit (e.g. Prometheus). Or the divine being or giant is dismembered to yield the parts to build the world (and so probably doesn’t come back). Those examples are all fine, but a bald “I suffered and died and returned, so the world is saved, so you better be grateful” doesn’t really cut it for me; it just seems decontextualized, a stranded myth fragment. (I don’t say this is what is going on in Christianity — I don’t know enough about it — but from the outside, it sometimes looks that way: as if only part of the myth has survived.) Wakboth — that retcon still grates — and Arachne Solara save the world; the others are bit players, and their suffering cannot make them more important.

If we put Orlanth as saviour aside, how well does the story work as one of personal development? Is the reassembled Orlanth better than the old one? Is new Orlanth sadder but wiser, or just unbearably smug at having done “his” good deed? Or unbearably smug because new Orlanth is exactly like old Orlanth? I don’t know. I do know that Oedipus and Jocasta don’t skip off into the sunset hand in hand.

[scott-martin]

2 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

If we put Orlanth as saviour aside, how well does the story work as one of personal development?

I think the RQ2 version at least works better as a narrative of personal development. Orlanth is only a relatively big wheel in the larger breakdown, never explicitly the devil here but only one of the people who weakened the world to the point where the devil becomes possible. There's always a delicate negotiation in this community framework between that "lesser" darkness or storm age (bad but not awful, bearable, redeemable, not chaotic, I'm a little stinker) and a "greater" darkness that poses a real ontological or ethical threat to everybody. Other community frameworks don't obsess over that particular bit of wiggle room. 

The point is that the really bad stuff is always somebody else's fault. That person doesn't seem to take responsibility or make restitution. Except in the most gnostic and weird fragments we have, the devil never reforms and is by common definition that person who is unreformable. Presumably people tried and tried but he never got any better. Likewise, death never apologizes. What he does instead is sacrifice his personal history in order to eliminate personal responsibliity . . . a species of "illumination." Eurmal, as we've seen, only gets it together through the tutelage of an Orlanth who presumably knows better. Zzabur decides it's the world's problem, he's totally fine actually.

Orlanth and Pamalt are the ones who make it their problem. We can dismiss how well they do at that based on how we see their followers behave themselves, but on the whole the world seems to be holding on so somebody is holding it together. I like to think the Net is truly collaborative and you need all the known gods to keep pulling at every station to hold up the cosmos. Some gods need more outside validation than others.

And I think this is part of the baby boomer aspect of Orlanth in particular. He's one of the first of the gods who didn't make the world. He wasn't around for much of creation. All he really does is live here and arrange the resources of the postwar surplus. He invents rock and roll, gets involved in exotic spiritual systems. But push him and he might get a little bewildered and huffy about why there's suffering. It's not really his fault. He was just born here. The government and human nature did it. 

He's not really a martyr in the texts. We can find room for that in there but on the whole the Bath doesn't even appear in the RQ2 version: suffering is something that happens to other people, mom and dad, and we're going to find a new way that gets them a better deal. The emphasis is on adventuring because this is Adventurous. He could forget what he's learned on his adventures at any time, relapse and go back to being Orlanth the teenage dirtbag until the next time the campbellesque Adventure came calling.

I really do think Harmast is where it changes. What Harmast is looking for in his era when whatever archaic storm man they had was almost entirely suppressed was his childhood god, the god of his fathers, an entity he could embody who was still bigger than himself. Someone to look up to. A grownup. In his era, the storm god had been pushed down to the kiddie table where a lot of people still make Barntar sit today. So Harmast gathered up the dad left in his head, went looking and found some friends along the way. He learned how to emulate that dad, be dad, get married. It turned out the god of his fathers and the father of his god were in a similar predicament. He tried to help out.

They are a pastoral people after all. Herd sacrifice, substitutions, the sins of the fathers are visited. Anyhow his adventure brought them into contact with foreign ideas when they needed a boost. They've gotten pretty comfortable lately . . . I can't imagine Kallyr and her people considering even symbolic sacrifice of the central ego as the key, they were instead just looking for a quick and dirty do ut des in their dogeared copies of Umath Arcana or whatever. If we do this thing, a thing happens. It's so predictable we do it every year. But when it stops working, you need to take a deep breath and get back to basics.

I always liked how it used to be such a surprise that Argrath comes back with Sheng. If you look at it closely, it's not business as usual down there. He really has to push until they come up with something truly unexpected and spectacular. The texts always used to be very clear, very few people even think to try this . . . and very, very, very few of them succeed at this deep level. Harmast did it. Argrath does something like Harmast, apparently. 

[mfbrandi]

23 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

I always liked how it used to be such a surprise that Argrath comes back with Sheng. If you look at it closely, it's not business as usual down there.

RED EMPEROR
How comes it then that thou art out of hell?

SHENG SELERIS
Why this is hell, nor am I out of it:
Think’st thou that I, who saw the face of Yelm
And tasted the eternal joys of Heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells
In being deprived of everlasting bliss?
Oh, Moonson! leave these frivolous demands,
Which strike a terror to my fainting soul.