Moral Relativism — Now with Added Bite!

[mfbrandi]

7 hours ago, Ormi Phengaria said:

nobody in Glorantha will gain a chaos taint owing to other people harming the innocent

Putting aside the particular case, why would one say this?

One can certainly gain the taint accidentally (“facts” taken from the usual Greg Sez) :

• Handle chaos tools, etc. 10%
• Eat something chaotic 5% (cumulative)

We are still in the realm of action here, but it can be unwitting action: not everyone will be able to tell — ahead of acting or at all — that the tool or food is chaotic.

But the surest way to gain the taint involves no choice or action by the tainted:

• Be born with it (broos, scorpion men, etc.) 99.99999999999999999999999999999999%

So if by inaction I allow millions to die, no taint, but if I eat just one baby (in the “right” context, of course), then … 😉

Edited June 29, 2023 by mfbrandi
stupid auto-emoji

[Akhôrahil]

On 6/27/2023 at 7:34 PM, mfbrandi said:

Second, does that mean that the amoral cannot acquire a Chaos Taint through committing abominations or breaking taboos — because they cannot see abominations and recognise no taboos — even though they may be able to acquire one via one of the other routes (e.g. handling chaos tools)? Good news for me if so: I’ll be able to slip past those Storm Bulls, no problem.

If we replace ”acquire taint” with ”having a detectable taint”, this is kinda what Illumination does. My personal interpretation is that being invisible to Sense Chaos and to Spirits of Reprisal are two aspects of the same thing - if you’re sufficiently shameless and guiltless about it, the detection shortcircuits somehow.

And I think you’re wrong to think of causes of Chaos on a personal or individual level - it’s a social phenomenon. It doesn’t work to just decide that actually, cannibalism is fine for you - you’re still inside your social and cultural structure. And fundamentally  ”freeing” yourself of traditional values does have an effect - again, it’s part of Illumination.

[Ormi Phengaria]

41 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

One can certainly gain the taint accidentally (“facts” taken from the usual Greg Sez😞

• Handle chaos tools, etc. 10%
• Eat something chaotic 5% (cumulative)

We are still in the realm of action here, but it can be unwitting action: not everyone will be able to tell — ahead of acting or at all — that the tool or food is chaotic.

Not accidental ("devouring chaos is a deliberate partaking of chaos.") They are also estimates owing to being given the benefit of the doubt with not understanding what you are doing. But this is also besides the point, because volition just speeds your way to the taint, and is not its ultimate cause.

41 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

But the surest way to gain the taint involves no choice or action by the tainted:

• Be born with it (broos, scorpion men, etc.) 99.99999999999999999999999999999999%

Yes. They are the products of chaos. When given even the possibility of ethical consideration and understanding from other beings, and then reflecting upon their own existence, their typical reaction is to kill themselves. This is tragic. It's understandable and noble to want to heal this affliction. It's not feasible to do so by pretending that they are something they are not.

41 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

So if by inaction I allow millions to die, no taint, but if I eat just one baby (in the “right” context, of course), then … 😉

Yes. Again, chaos is not any specified form of moral evil, which is why these dilemmas will fail to capture it into our presumed intuitions. This is the argument of Chalana Arroy and Arroin; in the struggle of the Gods War, Chalana chose action (and perfidy), and Arroin chose purity and passivity. Both are well-loved, but Chalana had to redeem herself and also redeemed the world, while Arroin stayed behind and bled himself into nothing eternal.

29 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

And I think you’re wrong to think of causes of Chaos on a personal or individual level - it’s a social phenomenon.

It's a cosmic phenomenon, which is reflected by cult, which is in turn reflected by society.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Ormi Phengaria

[Akhôrahil]

42 minutes ago, Ormi Phengaria said:

It's a cosmic phenomenon, which is reflected by cult, which is in turn reflected by society.

Chaos is. What causes Chaos can and does differ between socieities. There’s a strong tendency for ”Chaos” to be what the society can’t handle (this is why regular murder is fine but secret murder or kinslaying is Chaotic in Heortling society). A troll or a member of the Cannibal Cult can eat people without causing Chaos. Presumably a Dara Happan paterfamilias can kill a family member without Chaos happening, as long as the forms are adhered to.

[DrGoth]

Glorantha isn't the real world.  That can't be said enough.  Glorantha is a place where there are cosmic moral rules, even if we can't capture them properly. Many people still believe that this world has them to, but many people also do not.  if you don't believe their are universal moral rules, you have to invent them. Glorantha ahs them.  What are they? That's harder to answer.  Chaos is slippery.  The Red Goddess isn't 'evil'. Greg repeatedly said that the Lunars are not the bad guys. But he also said quite a few things about chaos.

At least to me, that what causes chaos in Glorantha varies from society to society isn't moral relativism. It's that (like many things) how the rules of the cosmos apply isn't fixed and objective, at least to how mortals can understand it.   Is it intent?  It can be.  Is it action? It can be.  The closest I can come to it is that it depends on the cosmic compromise and how that get instantiated where you are.  break the compromise, risk braking the world and you risk chaos.  And remember, Sedenya is part of the compromise.  Perhaps what is so shocking to other cultures is that the Lunars have proved you can do somethings with chaos and not risk the compromise.

I don't think there's an answer to this question that fits with a 21st century humanist rationalist approach.  We're talking completely different mindsets here.

[Ormi Phengaria]

2 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Chaos is. What causes Chaos can and does differ between socieities. There’s a strong tendency for ”Chaos” to be what the society can’t handle (this is why regular murder is fine but secret murder or kinslaying is Chaotic in Heortling society). A troll or a member of the Cannibal Cult can eat people without causing Chaos. Presumably a Dara Happan paterfamilias can kill a family member without Chaos happening, as long as the forms are adhered to.

Yes, but in the sense that whether I annihilate you by eating every part of your being or annihilate you by burning your soul to ash for light and heat, I am still annihilating you. It's not a matter of social mores, which is why there remains a distinction between chaos and other maligned actions. Actions differ in their chaos across societies because they differ in their consequences across societies. It's not enough to just state the fact of the difference: we must seriously consider uz society, who is most often killed to be eaten there, and what the consequences of this are for uz and the world.

[mfbrandi]

I am confused:

7 hours ago, Ormi Phengaria said:

nobody in Glorantha will gain a chaos taint owing to other people harming the innocent

42 minutes ago, Ormi Phengaria said:

1 hour ago, mfbrandi said:

But the surest way to gain the taint involves no choice or action by the tainted:

• Be born with it (broos, scorpion men, etc.) 99.99999999999999999999999999999999%

Yes. They are the products of chaos.

So in my chaos lab, I feed babies into a magical mincer and I get flying monkeys out the other end:

• I am certainly harming the innocent
• probably my act is chaotic (given the usual examples of rape and cannibalism)
• so I am going to go out on a limb and say my shiny, new flying monkeys are the products of chaos
• so on the one hand we might want to say that my monkeys are chaos tainted because they are the products of my harming the innocent
• but on the other hand “nobody in Glorantha will gain a chaos taint owing to other people harming the innocent”

So I hope you can see why I am confused.

And again, I am not pushing moral relativism, nor the equation of chaos and evil, and I don’t think that one becomes blameless by saying “of course, I don’t think that is forbidden”. But the idea of chaotic action as evil action is surely out there in the sources — unless there is some hidden reason why the tired examples are rape and cannibalism. Not to mention Wakboth as the moral evil of the world: is W’s connection to chaos supposed to be accidental? The game is to explore these ideas, to see where they lead us, even if we end up throwing a bunch of them into the maw of Kajabor.

[Ormi Phengaria]

2 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

So I hope you can see why I am confused.

Not particularly. If it's the literalism of "gaining" a taint by being born with it, I'm not really interested in grabbing a pair of tweezers and entertaining it. Broos have the chaos taint because they are a chaos taint, of Glorantha if you'd like, they are chaos in the same way the Howling Void was chaos. Their existence is a wound.

[Akhôrahil]

1 hour ago, Ormi Phengaria said:

Not accidental ("devouring chaos is a deliberate partaking of chaos.")

I would be shocked if you didn't pick up Chaos from being force-fed Chaotic food or tricked into unwittingly eating it. Possibly less, though.

(Again, Trolls can get away with it.)

Edited June 29, 2023 by Akhôrahil

[Ormi Phengaria]

Just now, Akhôrahil said:

I would be shocked if you didn't pick up Chaos from being force-fed Chaos or tricked into unwittingly eating it. Possibly less, though.

(Again though, Trolls can get away with it.)

There are mythic examples of such. One is in the Entekosiad's Hunter Tales, and it does not result in the victims sprouting extra limbs or eyes etc. because of it. Just torment and despair and incomprehension at the act that had been committed. Then, it transforms into comprehension, power, and conciliation. That is how the hunter gods made peace with their life. Now, if they continually refused to see how the proverbial sausage was made, I would be very confident in the chaos of their actions.

[Ormi Phengaria]

1 hour ago, mfbrandi said:

But the idea of chaotic action as evil action is surely out there in the sources — unless there is some hidden reason why the tired examples are rape and cannibalism. Not to mention Wakboth as the moral evil of the world: is W’s connection to chaos supposed to be accidental?

Sorry for the double notification, but I want to try to condense things down here in case you thought I was just being obstinate toward the premise.

• Rape and cannibalism are near-universally held examples of moral evil in Glorantha. With cannibalism, it's more clear that the nearness of that universalism is meaningful.
• Chaos is associated to evil, and that association continues to be meaningful even as not all chaos is evil and not all evil is chaos.
• Everyone has a different perspective on what evil is, and it is clear that different people experience similar acts very differently in terms of whether or not they are chaotic.
• The Devil is the moral evil of the world and the chief representative figure of chaos.
  
  All of these things are true, and despite that, Wakboth's moral evil remains neither relative nor absolute in its content. Wakboth is the very idea of moral evil itself. The masks and faces he wears are what differ across societies and mythologies, as do his names and actions. But the masks are not the chaos: the Devil is.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Ormi Phengaria

[JRE]

Let's use the examples we have in the literature for the baby example.

Take humans, probably including babies, and transform them into animal human hybrids (EWF): Nonchaotic.

Take Vrimak (bird Hsunchen?) human followers in the Godtime and get them to follow the Lords of Chaos (Malia, most likely, so probably to escape disease, but it could be Wakboth himself offering the power of flight if they subvert Vrimak's gifts, though that could have come later): Chaotic (Harpies).

The case of Zistor would indicate that using a machine to do so will probably bring the anger of the Mostali upon you, but will not make it chaotic either.

Chaos is both a personal choice and a contagious taint that can affect you against your will (surefire way, use Chaos runespells to make someone chaotic). That is what IMO makes it so terrible for the typical Gloranthan culture, as they should be separate effects but they cannot differentiate them. They even influence each other, showing the common source in Primal Chaos, as moral taint manifests physically, and physical taint often brings moral decay. This duality (that I actually think is a triumvirate, see below) manifests in the God Time as the conflict between Wakboth and Kajabor.

From the Guide vol. 1, p. 119-120:

Quote

Wakboth the Devil was the moral evil of the world. This senseless and terrifying entity was caused by wanton disregard for life, and he supported continuous brutal destruction.
[...]
Kajabor was another major enemy in this age. Kajabor is mistakenly called ‘the Devil’ in some older documents, confusing him with Wakboth. They were similar, for both were great gods for a short time, and had many worshipers, and both turned on their followers. But you must know that Kajabor did it because he had to, and that Wakboth did it for delight.

[...]

Prevalent belief says that Kajabor was killed by Wakboth, leaving the world defiler to face the Storm Bull and the god of entropy to face the forces of the dead. This theory has much strength, since the mundane world (reconstructed later) was usually held to be the origin of immorality, while the combination of entropy and existence seem to synthesize into the god Time, who later rules the cosmos.

I would add that there is a third Great god in the Chaos scheme, Pocharngo, which represents Chaotic change, rather than moral chaos or oblivion. But it did not care about conflict or primacy, so it is still with us, and what it touched remains chaotic. The three gods envision the effects we have been discussing: Physical taint, often involuntary, moral taint, tipically voluntary, and oblivion, that normally does not leave a taint, or anything else. Kajabor is part of time now, so it appears not to be active as Chaos within time.

[radmonger]

11 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Not to mention Wakboth as the moral evil of the world: is W’s connection to chaos supposed to be accidental?

 

Perhaps the Mostali perspective would help?.

Chaos is annihilation, meaning there is no statistical correlation between the properties of the annihilated object and anything that may subsequently reform from the primal plasma. Limited exposure to chaos plasma may lead to partial annihilation, where only some properties of the exposed object are lost, but others remain. So a gorp may lose its form, but retain its mass and location. A vampire becomes immortal by annihilating their mortality. The two cases are the same.

Such components  are referred to as 'corrupted'. as they are no longer capable of performing their assigned role within the world machine. Other forms of damage may be repaired by moving and shaping, but corruption normally requires the affected components to be discarded.

While some of the younger races do attempt to copy crude forms of our maintenance and repair abilities, most rely on using their embedded social interaction abilities. for those using that approach to magic, runic power complexes are not truly understood; this would be way beyond their limited reasoning abilities. Instead they are treated as people, perhaps worthy of respect, deference, or shunning.

This means that social-interaction-level concepts, such as 'good' and 'evil', can actually, to some extent, be effectively used to approximately describe the underlying material reality.

During the events of the second Great Malfunction, certain runic power complexes associated with central Genertala and the middle air were terminally corrupted by chaos.  For example, the subsystem responsible for recycling defective components had its discriminatory function annihilated. So now disease strikes the young and old alike. Sometimes the functional are pointlessly weakened, while the defective emerge unscathed.

Lightbringer society reacts to this by labeling the corresponding Goddess, Malia, as 'evil'. And it is certainly true that those who dedicate themselves to Her come to share her nature, in  a away that is trivially observable by even the crudest runic analysis functions. 

Some of the experts in this area think this labelling does serve to limit the number who do so. Others say that it merely ensures that those who choose to be bad, as some always do, will end up sharing the corruption of those they emulate.

Further study, and perhaps a controlled experimental intervention, is required.

 

 

 

[Jeff]

Let's make this simple and start here:

"Every Chaotic creature, every worshiper of Chaos, and every doer of Chaotic deeds (such as rape or cannibalism) is a parasitic wound in Glorantha. As long as the number of parasites is kept to a manageable level, Glorantha can bear Her wounds. The Sacred Time rituals and natural cycles of the cosmos renew Her. But when there is too much Chaos, as in the Great Darkness or the Gbaji Wars, then existence itself is in danger of ending.

Those who have wounded Glorantha are also wounded in turn. Their souls are tainted by Chaos, by that wound in existence, and their immortal existence forever in danger of annihilation. And yet, that taint warps reality, and can give power and vitality to the Chaotic.

This Chaos taint is not a tangible, physical thing. It is a spiritual blemish, known only to the individual and the gods. It cannot be sensed by normal mortals, except by the cultists of the Storm Bull, who can sense the presence of the taint."

Now like everything there are ways to hedge this. The Hungry Eaters perform cannibalism (normally a Chaotic act) within the confines of placating the demands of the Spirit World and so when they eat sentients in this manner it is not Chaotic. If a Hungry Eater decides to start hunting down eating people on the side to sate their own hunger, it likely is Chaotic. Interesting the patron god of the ogres does not care one way or another about cannibalism - Cacodemon is all about personal power at the expense of everyone else.

This is a real thing in the setting. Here's another snippet that might be useful:

"Glorantha is a fragile bubble of existence in an infinite abyss of Chaos. With Creation, order was imposed on formless Chaos. The Gods War weakened that order and admitted Chaos back into the world, where it still exists, but few Chaos gods strong enough to be worshiped as deities survived. The mortal races of Chaos are more now prevalent, hiding in the forgotten places of the world or consolidating in strongholds.

One of the clear distinctions made in the Cosmic Compromise is that Chaos is not of this world. The deities and powers of the world had touched it, and were still afraid of it, and their continued existence required that they remain apart from Chaos. Chaos became the one enemy that must be fought and suppressed by all. With one enemy recognized by everyone, the squabbling deities found a common source of unity.

Chaos always seeks to reestablish itself, which threatens the existence of Glorantha. Though Chaos is in itself formless, mutual corruption of Chaos and the cosmic order occurs at the weakened seams of the cosmos where Chaos leaks in. This corruption is personified and manifested by foul, cruel, and maleficent deities.

Chaos enters Glorantha in several ways. Spontaneous manifestations are rare but do happen—the world arose from Chaos, so Chaos may reassert itself. Once in the world, Chaos will spread. This process is present when a Chaos manifestation duplicates itself, whether by the replication process of the walktapus, the foul breeding of broos, or various Chaotic rituals.

Chaos can also enter the world through the actions of people. For example, in Orlanthi rituals, participants regularly summon and face their foes, overcoming them to recreate the world. If they fail in their trials, Chaos may enter the world. Chaos can also be deliberately summoned, as when the Unholy Trio brought Wakboth into the world. Chaos may enter through violation of divine laws, such as when Orlanthi commit kinslaughter or Dara Happans rebel against an emperor who has passed the Ten Tests. Tragically, even the best of people, desperate to save themselves and the things they love, can unwisely invite evil into the world.

The divine manifestations of Chaos usually parody the gods or forces of Glorantha as they represent corruptions or perversions of the same. Thus, Mallia is the Mother of Disease, yet once she had properties to aid life and growth. However, many Chaotic deities represent concepts incomprehensible to sane and normal Gloranthan life, since these entities originate in the Void, where nothing is sane or normal."

[Squaredeal Sten]

3 hours ago, DrGoth said:

 .......  And remember, Sedenya is part of the compromise.  Perhaps what is so shocking to ...

That wasn't my impression, since Sedenya was not a party to the Compromise, having died before it and been assembled after it.

When did Sedenya become part of the Compromise?

[Richard S.]

36 minutes ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

That wasn't my impression, since Sedenya was not a party to the Compromise, having died before it and been assembled after it.

When did Sedenya become part of the Compromise?

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/conflict-in-the-middle-air/

Near the end of this post it's implied she lost her agency after she ascended. Maybe she's not fully part of the compromise - she definitely wasn't while she still walked the earth - but she's now restricted by it to some degree.

"During her lifetime the Red Goddess was not and she could do things that had not happened in the God Time. But now she too cannot do other than what she is and must fight Orlanth."

Edited June 29, 2023 by Richard S.

[Akhôrahil]

42 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/conflict-in-the-middle-air/

Near the end of this post it's implied she lost her agency after she ascended. Maybe she's not fully part of the compromise - she definitely wasn't while she still walked the earth - but she's now restricted by it to some degree.

"During her lifetime the Red Goddess was not and she could do things that had not happened in the God Time. But now she too cannot do other than what she is and must fight Orlanth."

This seems to be more about the nature of gods than about the Compromise. It likely applies to the other Chaos Gods as well, who never signed on to any compromise.

[Erol of Backford]

7 hours ago, JRE said:

Moral Relativism is baked in the Illumination system. Change your point of view and suddenly you can break the rules, which means the rules are relative.

Very funny, sounds like the the political-social-economic stratification of the US but then again if you bend the rules you aren't really breaking them or should I say make?

Interesting how much Glorantha seems to parallel real world in many ways. 

[JRE]

I have always considered that to apotheosize you are joining the Compromise, as that is the only way to move out of Time's influence from within Time. You can still be changed or altered by mortal heroquesters, but like the internet, there will also remain echoes of what you were before being changed.

Chaos is not normally part of the Compromise, but their prisoners. I assume Sedenya has a part (or several) that is in one side of the net, pulling, and others inside the net, trapped.

[French Desperate WindChild]

22 minutes ago, JRE said:

Chaos is not normally part of the Compromise, but their prisoners. I assume Sedenya has a part (or several) that is in one side of the net, pulling, and others inside the net, trapped.

depends on what "version" of chaos you think

 

The compromise was between the Gods (of glorantha ? 😃 aka those who are not the second party) and the chaos Gods. So they are part of the compromise in some ways.

Note that I was surprised by this information (I believed the compromise was between the "anti chaos" gods) but @Jeff said differently (of course I don't remember if it is in this forum, facebook or elsewhere) and it sounds interesting

 

by the way how should we call the gods who are not the gods of chaos ?

[mfbrandi]

1 hour ago, JRE said:

Chaos is not normally part of the Compromise, but their prisoners.

Well, there are at least two conceptions of the Compromise (GC, because I am lazy):

• It is a handshake, an agreement, a contract, an oath
  — it is broken as easily (adultery is easy)
  — there may be retribution, but that comes after (alimony is hard and divorce courts are hell)
• It is a prison, tough but not impregnable
  — it is hard to break (out of), but not impossible
  — if you believe in variable natural laws, the GC is a rewrite of them
  — if you don’t want to go that far, it is a new cosmological stage that only looks like a natural law rewrite from our parochial perspective
  — “Ye cannae break the laws of physics, Jim!” Don’t ask me, I don’t even work here

You can probably combine the ideas: we signed a contract to lock ourselves in this prison, and we took the rest of you with us, but don’t worry, not everyone is in the supermax cells. Assuming the gods agreed not to try to escape, one then has to be clear when talking of a breach of the GC whether this is (a) an escape attempt or (b) a successful escape — not from the whole prison, but from the part of it which is “meant” to contain you.

If you go promise-only, then claims that the world will end if the promise is frequently broken are your enforcement mechanism: fear. Of course, the doom sayers may believe everything they say about the dire consequences of breaking this oath. (I am not convinced, but I am often wrong.)

If you go prison-only, then claims that there were “mighty oaths sworn” may be face-saving on someone’s part, or they may reflect poor understanding of the situation by mortals and/or idiot gods.

If the GC was chosen, it was chosen because the gods (the inside gang, especially Orlanth and his friends and family: Eurmal, Humakt, …, and Ragnaglar) had shown that they “couldn’t be allowed to have nice things” — they kept breaking them till they let the outside in through one of their cracks. I sometimes wonder whether the compromise wasn’t the binding of evil to time … to spread all the killing over a few billion years. And surely one has to wonder whether the real evil wasn’t Wakboth but the inviting of Wakboth in (if W was invited in and not just the world’s biggest, ugliest chaotic feature/tumour/cytokine storm). It was Faust to blame for the whole sorry mess; Mephistopheles was just the duty demon for the day (or a lab accident made flesh).

Or you could opt for a third way:

• there is no escape from the GC, as one cannot break natural laws and Cosmos is our prison
  — the RG’s ascent to godhood sent her straight to supermax with no possibility of a Mr. Toad-like escape or time off for good behaviour
  — it is not about lack of power on her part, that is just the way the world is now
  — gods, corrupted gods, mortals, things that drifted in from the outside are ALL the prisoners of the new reality
  — the only possible escape is a one-way trip to the Void
  — if we are patient, the Void will come to claim us all

Edited June 29, 2023 by mfbrandi
trimmed (some!) repetition

[DrGoth]

22 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

That wasn't my impression, since Sedenya was not a party to the Compromise, having died before it and been assembled after it.

When did Sedenya become part of the Compromise?

Castle Blue

"The Natural Order had been torn by the fighting at Castle Blue, and after peace came again the universe was made whole once more by including the Red Goddess and her powers." Sourcebook p.159

"In 1245, a series of battles began which over the next two years tore the fabric of the real world raged about the magical Castle Blue on Lake Oronin.
From this turmoil emerged the Red Goddess, intact and woven into the weave of the world. Since then the Red Goddess has been accepted as real and integral to the world of Glorantha." Guide p140-141

"The resultant battle of Castle Blue in 1246 forced the acceptance of the Red Goddess into the world as a deity. It was like an amendment to
the Great Compromise." Guide, p.157

So, yes, Sedenya is now party to the Great Compromise.

 

Edited June 30, 2023 by DrGoth

[RobNic]

I get the impression (happy to be wrong and would welcome being told so) from some posts from Jeff that the Hero Wars are partly a reaction by the cosmos rejecting the Red Goddess, so I am not sure that describing her as part of the Great Compromise works out. In some way, I hope we see some clarification in the mythology book in October. Then the other part of me wants ambiguity in this space so that we can all work it out for ourselves.

[DrGoth]

13 hours ago, RobNic said:

I get the impression (happy to be wrong and would welcome being told so) from some posts from Jeff that the Hero Wars are partly a reaction by the cosmos rejecting the Red Goddess, so I am not sure that describing her as part of the Great Compromise works out. In some way, I hope we see some clarification in the mythology book in October. Then the other part of me wants ambiguity in this space so that we can all work it out for ourselves.

Happy for Jeff to clarify, but I don't I don't see a lot of ambiguity in those quotes.  It's pretty clear to me that Sedenya is part of the compromise after Castle Blue.  I don't remember seeing anything saying the Hero Wars is about the cosmos rejecting Sedenya.  it's a large series of magical conflicts.  Yes, there might be those unhappy with the outcome of Castle Blue, but that's very different to the cosmos rejecting it.  I have difficulty in seeing how the cosmos would reject it. 

[Ormi Phengaria]

2 hours ago, DrGoth said:

Happy for Jeff to clarify, but I don't I don't see a lot of ambiguity in those quotes.  It's pretty clear to me that Sedenya is part of the compromise after Castle Blue.  I don't remember seeing anything saying the Hero Wars is about the cosmos rejecting Sedenya.  it's a large series of magical conflicts.  Yes, there might be those unhappy with the outcome of Castle Blue, but that's very different to the cosmos rejecting it.  I have difficulty in seeing how the cosmos would reject it. 

Because what is given can be taken away. If the status quo remained as it was after Castle Blue, there would be no Hero Wars. But that peace has been broken by the hands of mortals, so the conflict between the Old Gods and Sedenya returns.

To be a little more specific, when two cults (mortal worshippers) are Enemies, they do not abide one another's existence. Each will completely destroy the other given the opportunity. But with the gods themselves, it's different in an important way— that conflict is is a part of their eternal identities, it is a part of what makes up the world of Time and the Cosmic Compromise. If given the power to overcome and vanquish their foe in that struggle, they will, because they can do nothing else. But this outcome is identical to the Gods War returning to the world.

Edited July 1, 2023 by Ormi Phengaria