Gor....what exactly does it mean ?

[Agentorange]

No jokes about dodgy s and m porn please......

Joking aside ...I did run a search for Gor and there's 1,100 plus mentions of it. So if this has been done just point me in the right direction.

So, Gor seems to be a Suffix denoting the darker grimmer female  aspects of  the earth  pantheon: Babeester Gor, Maran Gor, Ana Gor. Thus more of a title than a name ?

Which leads me to ask are there any  male Gor's at all ? if not is there an equivalent male category or mythological niche ?

are there more Gor's other than the ones we know about, could there be more if we wanted there to be ?  And how small would the cult be, could you have a Gor the size of a spirit or local cult. Both Babeester Gor and Ana Gor are pretty niche anyway ( in the grand scheme of things )

[Eff]

15 minutes ago, Agentorange said:

No jokes about dodgy s and m porn please......

Joking aside ...I did run a search for Gor and there's 1,100 plus mentions of it. So if this has been done just point me in the right direction.

So, Gor seems to be a Suffix denoting the darker grimmer female  aspects of  the earth  pantheon: Babeester Gor, Maran Gor, Ana Gor. Thus more of a title than a name ?

Which leads me to ask are there any  male Gor's at all ? if not is there an equivalent male category or mythological niche ?

are there more Gor's other than the ones we know about, could there be more if we wanted there to be ?  And how small would the cult be, could you have a Gor the size of a spirit or local cult. Both Babeester Gor and Ana Gor are pretty niche anyway ( in the grand scheme of things )

I don't think there's a masculine Gor equivalent, though perhaps with Deshkorgos and Deshloltralas we could imagine "Desh" as a similar prefix, with "Deth" (as in Gerendetho) being a variant like the "Kor" in Ty Kora Tek seems to be of "Gor". Insofar as an equivalencies of categories- no, not really, the Gor category (which also includes Gorgorma, the Dara Happan Ty Kora Tek equivalent Annara Gor, and the very minor name Errantha Gor) is built very strongly on conventional Western understandings of gendered roles and the -gor entities exist as feminine transgressions of those roles- violent or truly dominant in their own sphere. The closest masculine equivalent would be a distaff class of entities that exists as a masculine transgression of conventional gender roles. The closest equivalents are probably Arroin, possibly Issaries, very very vaguely Lhankor Mhy or Barntar-of-Heroquest-2003-days*.

Now, could there be more Gor entities if you want them to be? Yes, absolutely, please add as many as you like, and feel free to tell me about them!

 

*Alternately, going by Gorgorma's vagina dentata motif, Babeester's interesting relationship with sex, and the emphasis on virginity associated with Maran, the distaff equivalent might be masculine entities who vary in their approach to sexual intercourse- which is to say, whichever male gods you think are hard bottoms without a hint of being vers would be in that category.

Edited December 14, 2022 by Eff

[jajagappa]

6 minutes ago, Agentorange said:

Thus more of a title than a name ?

Yes - in the case of Maran, she definitely took it on as a title, and Babeester seems to have been born with it as her purpose as the Avenging Daughter.  (And don't forget Gorgorma, who doubles the word's usage, and may be the ultimate source.)  There seems a connection with the word "gorgon" as well.

8 minutes ago, Agentorange said:

Which leads me to ask are there any  male Gor's at all ? if not is there an equivalent male category or mythological niche ?

Not to my knowledge.  The equivalent are the male protectors of the Earth, i.e. Genert and Pamalt (don't know if there were similar for the east/west).  

13 minutes ago, Agentorange said:

are there more Gor's other than the ones we know about, could there be more if we wanted there to be ?

I noted Gorgorma who is the other obvious one.  

There could be more, but do you really need any more?  

[Agentorange]

2 hours ago, Eff said:

 

Now, could there be more Gor entities if you want them to be? Yes, absolutely, please add as many as you like, and feel free to tell me about them!

 

*Alternately, going by Gorgorma's vagina dentata motif, Babeester's interesting relationship with sex, and the emphasis on virginity associated with Maran, the distaff equivalent might be masculine entities who vary in their approach to sexual intercourse- which is to say, whichever male gods you think are hard bottoms without a hint of being vers would be in that category.

Errantha Gor ? Not on the Well of daliath that I could see - can you point me to a reference ?

Now I've never really given much thought to the sexual implications of the Gor's. To me the focus has always been the vengeful , almost obsessive focus of their other attributes. it's not that they transgress the expected sexual or gender roles. it's more that they see them as totally irrelevent to their purpose and function - a distraction if you will. But i do know what you mean. it's one of the reasons I was a bit disappointed that Vinga had been subsumed back into being a subcult of orlanth. I just like there being a well rounded female warrior archetype that didn't descent in cliche at either end of the extreme - earth mother vs homocidal virgin etc etc

But all of which is to wander off my intended topic a bit. if Gor is more of a title than anything else  and on the basis that YGMV ( or  rather MyGMV 😁 ) is there any reason why I couldn't have other Gor figures in my Glorantha where Gor would  signify  a more brutal .violent female  earth diety, without  of neccessity all the stuff about transgression of accepted gender roles etc

[scott-martin]

5 minutes ago, Agentorange said:

Vinga

If you or your players are eager to chase a variant figure "Vin Gor" back into the shadows of mythology and then come back, your Glorantha can definitely vary.

I used to think the benign/malign earth system was essential and eternal . . . just a technique the Esrolians use to distinguish between bicameral aspects of the feminine mystique, masks of goddess. Summer Queen / Winter Queen. Stepmother / Evil Stepmother. Soft Mother / Wire Mother. Good Girl / Bad Girl. Grandmother / Crone. The gor/kor particle signified that distinction like a detachable organ passed around a coffin floating down the Nile.

But now I'm kind of thinking this was a separate pantheon or the vestiges of multiple pantheons assimilated into the modern great goddess cult like the vanir were absorbed into the aesir. In this scenario a lot of gors died before time. Some might come back. Baroshi may be a lost gor. Korang may have been a lost gor. It's the hero wars, ladies.

[JonL]

Ana Gor = Sorana Tor, which has the same suffix as ur-conflict god Kargan Tor. Gor ͌͌ Tor? Maybe.

[JRE]

Breaking the fourth wall, I would say that Gor is a gendered add-on to indicate female deities which are outside their "traditional" mythical roles, mainly used by patriarchal societies. In my opinion Maran Gor does not have the Gor epithet in Esrolia, and I would expect they also snip it from Babs. Probably coming from the Gloranthan ur-patriarchs, the Yelmites, but widely spread during the Theyalan expansion.

Now, etymology is never consistent in Glorantha, but I like the Tor-Gor link, and I am sure sometime in the first council days people argued whether Orlanth's proposed daughter-alternative female path should be called Vina Gor, Vin Tor, Vic Tor or Victoria, till the actual users settled on Vinga with a pseudo-romance A ending denoting a feminine noun.

So for me it is an outsider's epithet, not how the cults or the deities refer to themselves. After all, our subjective view of Glorantha is mainly based on the views of Orlanthi young adults. predominantly male, even if some writers are doing a great job of presenting other points of view.

 

 

[David Scott]

10 hours ago, Agentorange said:

Errantha Gor ? Not on the Well of daliath that I could see - can you point me to a reference ?

Erantha Gor is mentioned in King of Sartar: Erantha Gor, a terrifying incarnation of the Tarshite War Goddess in apparently mortal form. In 1455 Erantha Gor was defeated and killed by Blond Arim...

A version of her helps Argrath bring down the Moon (from the 5th direction).

[JonL]

15 hours ago, Agentorange said:

But i do know what you mean. it's one of the reasons I was a bit disappointed that Vinga had been subsumed back into being a subcult of orlanth. I just like there being a well rounded female warrior archetype that didn't descent in cliche at either end of the extreme - earth mother vs homocidal virgin etc etc

The erasure of Redalda as part of the deprecation of Elmal is also a loss in that respect. I preferred the Sartar that had just as many Redaldans as Humakti.

[mfbrandi]

17 hours ago, Agentorange said:

I was a bit disappointed that Vinga had been subsumed back into being a subcult of orlanth. I just like there being a well rounded female warrior archetype that didn't descent in cliche at either end of the extreme - earth mother vs homocidal virgin etc etc

I won’t do the whole boringly vanilla Vinga but interesting Vinga cultists thing again, but maybe put in a word for Maran Gor (at least until the Cults books come out and try to ruin it): who wouldn’t want to join a cult of dangerous eunuchs and strange women (Storm Tribe, pp. 220–221)? Of course, it may be a failure of editing and they may have meant strange men (eunuchs) and dangerous women (fighters) — but I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I imagine Maran Gor temples as (having) underground chambers with huge magically enhanced bronze gongs making some very post-Stockhausen music.

[David Scott]

2 hours ago, JonL said:

The erasure of Redalda as part of the deprecation of Elmal is also a loss in that respect.

Redalyda is in the upcoming Prosopaedia as the Orlanthi Pantheon: Goddess of Horses, Goddess of Saird.

[M Helsdon]

On 12/14/2022 at 6:53 PM, Agentorange said:

So, Gor seems to be a Suffix denoting the darker grimmer female  aspects of  the earth  pantheon: Babeester Gor, Maran Gor, Ana Gor. Thus more of a title than a name ?

If I recall correctly, Greg wrote once that the derivation of Gor was Gore (in its usage as blood, murder, bloodshed, violence). 

Edited December 16, 2022 by M Helsdon

[mfbrandi]

20 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

If I recall correctly, Greg wrote once that the derivation of Gor was Gore (it its usage as blood, murder, bloodshed, violence). 

And is it too much to see the male devotee of Maran Gor’s castration as a symbolic menarche?

That my spellchecker just wanted to “correct” menarche to archenemy tells us what?

Are the Gors indicating menstrual taboo? This seems depressingly plausible when we consider the many aspects, one earth goddess line of attack interpretation. 〉〉Sigh!〈〈

[Agentorange]

6 hours ago, svensson said:

Well, it was a really lousy series of bondage-fantasy novels by John Norman in the 70s and 80s... 🤣

Fifteen year old me was a fan of them, thinking of them as 'Conan' style pulp. I picked up one at a local thrift store a couple years ago out of a sense of nostalgia and tried to re-read it and it was awful. The thing aged like a raw egg. And, for those of you who are as guilty as I am of lousy taste as a teenager, the novels are now being marketed to the BDSM 'Fifty Shades' fanbase. Be appalled.

No, that's not a comment about someone's personal life. That's a comment about how much of a hack John Norman was.

Anyway, we now return you to your regularly scheduled Glorantha discussion.....

I refer you to the very first line of my first post 😆😃

But since I am the thread starter...the first 2 or 3 were ok  John Carter of Mars style books, but then as you say.......🤔

We now return to the discussion proper......

[jajagappa]

On 12/14/2022 at 1:53 PM, Agentorange said:

are there more Gor's other than the ones we know about, could there be more if we wanted there to be ? 

I forgot to note my own addition to that list:  Balur Gor, a minor land/earth goddess of the Saird region who survived the Great Darkness/Dawn through blood sacrifice/horticulture.  Her name is also contracted to Balurga.

See: Guide p. 711: "They practiced sacred horticulture and worshiped a local earth goddess called Balurga and her husband/ son Verhil with rituals that included human sacrifice"

[JonL]

8 hours ago, Agentorange said:

But since I am the thread starter...the first 2 or 3 were ok  John Carter of Mars style books, but then as you say.......🤔

It's kind of like the Anita Blake books, where the series started out as Urban Fantasy mysteries with some steamy elements, and then kind of became its own erotic slashfic as the series progresses. Those are less gross though, because Hamilton's thing for banging supernatural hotties is not painfully misogynistic like Norman's "Male-dominated sexual enslavement is how things should be." thing.

Edited December 16, 2022 by JonL

[scott-martin]

1 hour ago, jajagappa said:

Balurga

-ga

Now that's a particle to conjure with, the abstract Great Goddess who anchors one corner of the earth square being elusive in the sources but theoretically linked to Cybele over here in our world. Hungry girl.

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, scott-martin said:

-ga

Now that's a particle to conjure with

Ga Ta

Gor Tor

[Agentorange]

30 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Ga Ta

Gor Tor

Gor Tor sounds as though is should be somewhere on Dartmoor.

[jajagappa]

32 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Ga Ta

Gor Tor

It's also not a great leap to reverse and go across the two sets to yield:  Ty Kor 

[scott-martin]

13 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Ty Kor

Taka
Taka "Fal"

[jajagappa]

4 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Taka

Or a variant of Tek. 

Does make you wonder if there's a stronger connection between Daka Fal and Ty Kora Tek?  One the Judge and the other the "place" of Judgment?

Edited December 16, 2022 by jajagappa

[scott-martin]

16 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Does make you wonder if there's a stronger connection between Daka Fal and Ty Kora Tek?  One the Judge and the other the "place" of Judgment?

By definition I suppose the Widow is the grandmother whose grandfather died and so she would be the site of the sorrow. But we probably need the hardcore Ernaldans to make these insinuations.

[Agentorange]

16 hours ago, jajagappa said:

I forgot to note my own addition to that list:  Balur Gor, a minor land/earth goddess of the Saird region who survived the Great Darkness/Dawn through blood sacrifice/horticulture.  Her name is also contracted to Balurga.

See: Guide p. 711: "They practiced sacred horticulture and worshiped a local earth goddess called Balurga and her husband/ son Verhil with rituals that included human sacrifice"

Sacred horticulture......growing giant enchanted carrots and the like ? 😄

[Agentorange]

9 hours ago, ArmchairPI said:

Isn’t there a part of the forum just for that?

it's ok, I'm the thread starter and I don't mind the occasional wander off topic as long as we stay on track most of the time.

Talking of which having read the various contributions here I'm going to go with the notion of having other Gor's in my Glorantha. As I suggested previously I'm going for more of a focus on the bloodthirsty, earth cult aspect of the meaning of Gor rather then the transgression of expected gender roles aspect. Which is ok because as we all know YGMV.

Edited December 17, 2022 by Agentorange