[Glorantha] Fwd: The Missionaries

[Jeff]

Forwarded to a more appropriate forum than the RPG list.

Jeff

--- In HeroQuest-RPG at yahoogroups.com, Greg Stafford <Greg at g...> wrote:


>   From: David Dunham <david at a...>
mentions

> Common sense to you perhaps because your ancestors have been doing 
it.

This is a cue to remind people of the natural conservatism of people 
who live on
the edge of survival. I hesitate to use the word "prmitive" people, 
because this
carries the cultural baggage of modern people thinking they are less 
intelligent
than modern people, which is patently false.

>   From: "Jane Williams" <janewilliams20 at y...>

>> Remember that the events in this story took place after the Great
>> Darkness. People had lost almost everything. And now the entire 
world
>> is open to them again.
>
> There's that - as someone else said, they even had to adjust to the 
idea of
> night and day. Maybe they hadn't seen a working fruit tree for a few
> generations.

Or more likely, only for a couple of generations. The missionaries 
reached
Talastar within the first half century after the Dawn.

>   From: Peter Metcalfe <metcalph at q...>
joins the scepticism train with

> And the people survived in the Great Darkness because of hunting/
> gathering/scavenging lifestyle.  Which makes the inability to 
recognize
> edible material come the dawn rather odd.

I'd suggest their lifstyle was more of scrounging/hiding.
But whatever we call it, recognizing edible materials is not a 
natural, 
in-born
ability for humans. Numerous examples of this can be pointed out. I 
suggest
tomatoes as a starter.

In response to my
>> But the important point is that they were INCAPABLE of knowing or
>> understanding
>> this--and many other things--before the magic and subsequent
>> teaching had raised their consciousness to the knowledge.

>   From: "Jane Williams" <janewilliams20 at y...>
responds

> Now *that* is a fascinating concept, and a completely new one on 
me. So
> their understanding, their basic intelligence, had somehow dropped 
from the
> standard human level?

In modern terms, this is true. But in Gloranthan terms, pehaps the 
term "soul
loss" or "god loss" would be more accuate.

> That explains why the missionaries couldn't just use
> normal teaching methods, simply telling them "These red things 
taste nice,
> those other red things kill you".

Trust was not something that existed in the Great Darkness.

> But how? And why? And how on the lozenge had they survived the Great
> Darkness in the that state? Is this something to do with falling 
back on
> animal instincts as a method of survival?

It is easy to lose knowledge. Happened all the time in pre-literate 
cultures.
Especially when certain types of knowledge were kept to certain 
classes of
people. Compound this with a 99% population loss and total ecological 
disaster
(the Darkness) and you see wher they "forgot" things.

Then remember that in the darkness even the known things that 
survivived were
often warped and corrupted. So we have these ragged, fearful 
survivors 
who know
a few safe things to eat, and they live upon those, and are rightly 
afraid to
try anythign new, since it is a tremendously hostile environment.

>   From: "Jane Williams" <janewilliams20 at y...>
proves that modern comparison are not really acceptable comparisons

> True. The exotic fruit counter is fun. But I've learnt all this, by
> experience as you say, with no magic required. And no necessity or
> starvation to drive me to it.

That is not a fair comparison at all. You have built upon the 
learning of
generations of change.
Let's see, here are some exotic frits from the far corners of the 
world, brought
to a place where you have learned that the foodstuffs are safe, by 
methods that
are so fast that they are still ripe and edible.

It is simply not a fair comparison to compare a modern grocery store 
to living
in a hostile environment where even a small wound or small amount of 
poison can
disable a person.

>   From: Labrygon at a...
provides some suitable examples of the difficulties of learning

> By primitive we could compare them with several
> RW cases where they are 'ignorant': the first white settlers in 
australia who
> almost failed to survive due to the peculiar condition(ignorant of 
the
> conditions) ; with children from those orphanages where they lack 
any 
> affection and
> are deeply psychologically scarred as a result (ignorant of 
emotion), with
> 'wolf children' who are reared by wolves, with modern people with 
irrational
> phobias, with religions where there are food taboos.

and also some insight on the conservatism of peoples

> These people survived the darkness but it was probably so 
horrifying that
> they dare not try anything other than what they did to survive. 
> Perhaps they eat
> the meat of squirrels because they are the only beasts that did not 
poison
> them, perhaps they never saw fruit growing on trees before but only 
> managed to survive by digging up grubs, chewing on roots, or 
> cannibalism.

> The lightbringers are teaching these people how to live again, 
rather than
> merely existing is misery. The darkness really was as bad as it 
could get
> without them all dying. They must have been tough, or good at 
hiding, 
> and resilient,
> but they did not have the luxury of innovation, or nice food, or 
any sorts of
> real pleasures.
>
> That's just my view.

And mine as well.

>   From: "Jane Williams" <janewilliams20 at y...>
brings up a fairly tyupical materialstic perspective by wondering

> And from what Greg says, this is because the
> people they were teaching had been brain-damaged, somehow. And the
> missionaries hadn't, somehow.

First of all, I never said they were brain damaged. That is your 
interpretation.
Please careful about differentiating between what I said and what you 
have
inferred.

They were not brain damaged. They were soul damaged.

>> They must have been tough, or good at  hiding, and resilient,
>> but they did not have the luxury of innovation, or nice food,
>> or any sorts of  real pleasures.
>
> And certainly not the luxury of *not* trying to eat anything they 
could lay
> their hands on.

This is just overstatement. Most things in the world are not edible 
at all.
Couple this with--I say it again--the fact that most things were 
poisonous or
dangerous, and your assumption here is groundless.

> "Necessity is the mother of invention" is a proverb
> for good reason - because it's true.

Only in particule, perhaps peculiar, circumstance. We need plenty of 
things even
today that have not been invented. Humanity went for millenia without 
things
that might have improved their lives. And without trying to invent 
them.

Also, available materials are the father. The survivors had enough to 
survive,
miserably and in fear. They certainly had experiences of tyring new 
things and
failing for the vast majority of times.

>   From: "Jeff Richard" <richaje at g...>
reminds us

> I don't think that the non-Lightbringer survivors of the
> Darkness were "brain-damaged".  They just couldn't see or understand
> that the Great Darkness was over.  I remember one story where they
> couldn't even see the Sun in the sky.

Some could not "see" it. Others could not recognize it for what it 
was. Heck,
they'd been getting by for ncounted generations, and suddenly this 
new demon
appears that burns them and simultaneously their world begins to 
change, with
strange new growths appearing all over...

> Glorantha is a magical and mythical world - there is not always a
> material explanation for things.

>   From: "Jane Williams" <janewilliams20 at y...>

> Exactly. Their brains were damaged. Or their eyes, though that seems
> unlikely. In this case, they'd lost the ability to understand and 
to learn -
> brains.

Brain damaged is a materialistic explanation. Materialsm does not 
work here.
If they were brain damaged they could not have learned afgterwarfds.

>   From: "Jane Williams" <janewilliams20 at y...>
again

> Let's take a look way, way back at what Greg actually suggested.
>
> "So first, recognizing food is not simple. But the important point 
is that
> they were INCAPABLE of knowing or  Understanding this--and many 
other
> things--before the magic and subsequent teaching had raised their
> consciousness to the knowledge."
>
> Yep. Looks like brain damage to me.

And that cluster of apples looked like poison to the Hagolings. 
However, what it
looked like was not so.

> Whether induced magically (eating the
> wrong root), mythically (do a HQ that trades brains for the ability 
to
> digest anything), or whatever, what they'd lost was the ability to
> understand things. And the missionaries, somehow, gave it back to 
them.

Yes. They reopened or healed or recovered the parts o their souls 
that 
had been
damaged by the overabundance of Darkness in the universe.

This is a change in consciousness.

>   From: "Rob" <robert_m_davis at h...>
ends this issue of the digest with a legitimate insight

> Actually I think that they were INCAPABLE of knowing or
> Understanding this--and many other things for spiritual or magical
> reasons, not impaired intellect, which I think is Jeff's point.
>
> I think that just because you can infer something, it doesn't mean
> that it is the explanation.

Especially when it is based on an incorrect interpretation of 
Gloranthan
reality.

========================
Sincerely,
Greg Stafford

Issaries, Inc.
2140 Shattuck Ave., PMB #2030
Berkeley, CA 94704 USA

--- End forwarded message ---