MERCEDES-LACKEY Digest 2673 Topics covered in this issue include: 1) Re: Velgarth Deities by "Layla Voll" 2) Re: Velgarth Deities by "Layla Voll" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 05:27:04 From: "Layla Voll" To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: Velgarth Deities Message-ID: >DeepRanger wrote: >She already *had* the power, but She didn't >want the tribes to get into the habit of whining to >Her for help over every little problem. She's the >Last Resort, when you can't come up with any other >solution, and you've really, *really* honestly tried >every other option, and you ask for Her help for >others, because you won't be there to benefit from >it... I think Quenten explains it to Skif in the first Winds book, when he's talking about blood magic. When Skif and Elspeth appear at his school, he talks to Skif about how Elspeth's raw, untrained power will attract mages like moths to a flame, and he talks about how an unscrupulous mage would be drooling over the chance to use her for blood magic rituals. But then he also adds the caveat that not all blood magic is bad: that the shamans of the Kal'en'dral practice it, and sacrifice themselves for the tribe in times of great need. Skif is somewhat horrified, but Quenten gives him the same reasoning: that it means you only ask Her help when you've run out of every other option, and it tells Her just how serious your need is. We see Tarma do it once, when she calls "the Warrior's Greater Name" in Oathbreakers (p. 205), and the Warrior comes and says "That you call My Name can mean only that you seek a life. The giving of a life -- not the taking." Obviously, Tarma has called on the Goddess before, so it's not that the Ster-Eyed will only respond to a blood sacrifice, but this use of the Greater Name seems to be the only way to guarantee that the Star-Eyed will come Herself. When Tarma asks for help deciding whether they can trust Herald Roald (also in Oathbreakers, p.179), she uses "the lesser of the Warrior's true names," and is surprised when the Goddess shows up Herself -- she is expecting one of her teachers. Presumably, the Greater Name, and the willingness to sacrifice anything, tells the Goddess that this one time is really, really important. And, at least in Tarma's case, it seems to be the *willingness* to sacrifice one's life that is important, not the sacrifice itself. Tarma is actually not sure what will be required: she says "ask anything of me: take my body, make me a cripple, take my life, even make Tale'sedrin a dead Clan." Layla _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 05:42:28 From: "Layla Voll" To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: Velgarth Deities Message-ID: MidnightRider >I just feel that to cross reference today's real life religions that these >two (Vkandis and the Star-Eyed) are similar to christianity's Holy Trinity. >Just that over time One deity was popularized by the priests of that time >over the other deity. Which almost happened with Christianity: if I remember correctly, the Aryan Heresy in the early development of the Christian church was all about downgrading Jesus's position to not-divine, or at least not-equal to God-the-Father. And if things had developed only slightly differently, one could easily imagine a Marian strain of Christianity which placed Mary on par with Jesus. So it's easy to imagine the survivors of the mage wars taking the same pair of traditional deities and going with one or the other, or both. And the other diety doesn't totally disappear: there's a four-aspected male diety mentioned in a song at the end of Oathbreakers (the note just says that Tarma never mentions Him). layla _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ------------------------------ End of MERCEDES-LACKEY Digest 2673 **********************************