(no subject)
Dec. 4th, 2006 09:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynWell, I'm awake, which is more than I wanted to be this morning. Awake and at work. Dunno how late I'm going to be here tonight, depends on how much the coding people need me. Had a nice little panic this morning when the offsite backup service said 'no restorable data for $YOUR_FILE_SERVER_BWAHAHAHA', but I got into work and found that it was just an idleness issue over the weekend, not a comms failure or something.
Still darned unnerving.
On another note, I've recently started playing a god at Milliways. The god in question is Belar, the bear-god of the Alorns, from the Belgariad and Malloreon books by David and Leigh Eddings. I'm playing him post-canon, once the Prophecy is resolved and the majority of the world's responsibilities have been put on the newest god's shoulders. It's my belief that as long as people outside the new god's immediate responsibilities believe in and pray to the original gods of that world, the original gods are still responsbile for their people- there's a point in the books when Garion is told 'you'll probably live to see the day when he's god of the entire world', which sort of implies that even though the original gods pull out at the end of the series, they're still at least bound to their people. Belar's essentially been on vacation since the end of canon; as long as he still answers his people's prayers regularly, he's free to do as he likes. Since he's been through around ten thousand years of division and strife and being God of people who used to have clan wars at the drop of a hat, he's been mellowing out for the past thirty-seven years with the snowboarding, skiing, and surfing communities of the Pacific Northwest.
Yeah, I know, his people were some of the most enthusiastically warfare-prone people of his entire canon, but ten thousand years. That's enough war to slake anybody's thirst, except for Torak (crazy) or Chaldan (a war god from the get-go). He's allowed to decompress.
Anyway, I've been playing him as pretty mellow in temperament and boisterous in enthusiasm. He's not an Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent god whatever the Bear-cult might've thought of him; he's the God of his people, and he's not about to go out and stump for converts or steal some other god's worshippers. He gets irritated by things like waste, unnecessary killing, anybody lifting a hand against his chosen people, and disrespect for the north country (the Alorns were not circumpolar only because they didn't want to freeze their butts off along with the demon worshippers of the far north, I think) and the sea. Probably other things, too, but they haven't come up yet. He likes beer and blondes; that's canon. He's also amazingly even-handed. In Belgarath the Sorceror the Alorns don't join in the war against Torak for- I think- two years, because they can't decide who gets to lead the warhost and Belar refuses to play favorites by choosing one clan-chief over another. I think that's part of his nature. He will not- can not- favor any one group of his children over any others. When clan wars or feuds break out in Alorn society, I don't think he gets involved at all; they can fight as much as they like and say what they like, but he's not going to take sides in a dispute like that.
This is relevant largely because a meme came up recently. One of the creepier Milliways denizens has been trying to figure out what love is, and not doing very well at it. The meme was to say what your character would define love as. Since I don't think Belar is even capable of romantic love on the individual level- it just doesn't seem in line with the nature of most of his world's gods- I answered the meme for him as follows:
Okay, love is- okay. Uh, let me see if I can explain this, okay?
Sometimes you see people- one or two people, or thirty or forty, or a hundred or a thousand or hundreds of thousands- whatever. You see people, and you talk to them, and hang out with them, and you get to know them. And you really start to see, you know, you really start to see stuff about them that reminds you of you. Only it's more than just you. It's better than just you. There's stuff in them that's all the parts of you you ever were proud of. There's stuff about them that's like stuff about you that you haven't thought about in years, but it's all god stuff, even if you never really thought about it before. And there's stuff about them that's stuff you don't like, because it kind of reminds you of you- but the parts you aren't proud of. It's the places where you made mistakes, because you did make them. You know you did. We all do, it's nothing to be ashamed of.
So there's all that stuff that reminds you of you, the good stuff and the bad, and there's other stuff about them that you see too. There's things about these people that make you say, "Wow! I never would've thought of that! That's so cool!" Stuff that just keeps on growing and changing and isn't like anything you ever knew about before. Stuff that really makes you think, and that makes you totally proud that you knew these people because look how cool they are! They're cooler than you! So there's that. And yeah, there's bad stuff you never thought of either, because your mind just doesn't work that way. It's nasty. You wish it'd go away.
Love is when you say, "Wow. I really admire you. There's just so much about you that's so great, I wanna see that become even greater. I wanna see that be the most impressive part of a person ever. I wanna be part of you being wonderful. I wanna see you overcome all the bad things about yourself, and you know, I know they're all there. I'm cool with that. I want to help you overcome those things, because I think you're worth it even if you never even thought about it that way before. So I want to help you do all that, and I wanna be there for you and see what happens next."
And then, and this is the important part, love is also and mostly when you actually DO all that stuff. Because anybody can say those things, but you gotta follow through if it's gonna be the real thing.
And if they don't want you there, well... that happens, you know? Love is respect. You can't say you love someone if you don't respect them for what they are, or at least for what they could be, and if they don't want you in on that, you gotta respect that too. Help 'em when you can, but if they don't want you around, don't force it. That's just not cool, ever. Just make sure they know where to find you, if they ever change their minds.
And, uh, don't be a jerk when they do. That's not love. That's rubbing a puppy's nose in his stuff, and that kinda doesn't work. Trust me on this.
... I should probably mention that Belar's PB is Owen Wilson. This may have affected his speech patterns somewhat.
Still darned unnerving.
On another note, I've recently started playing a god at Milliways. The god in question is Belar, the bear-god of the Alorns, from the Belgariad and Malloreon books by David and Leigh Eddings. I'm playing him post-canon, once the Prophecy is resolved and the majority of the world's responsibilities have been put on the newest god's shoulders. It's my belief that as long as people outside the new god's immediate responsibilities believe in and pray to the original gods of that world, the original gods are still responsbile for their people- there's a point in the books when Garion is told 'you'll probably live to see the day when he's god of the entire world', which sort of implies that even though the original gods pull out at the end of the series, they're still at least bound to their people. Belar's essentially been on vacation since the end of canon; as long as he still answers his people's prayers regularly, he's free to do as he likes. Since he's been through around ten thousand years of division and strife and being God of people who used to have clan wars at the drop of a hat, he's been mellowing out for the past thirty-seven years with the snowboarding, skiing, and surfing communities of the Pacific Northwest.
Yeah, I know, his people were some of the most enthusiastically warfare-prone people of his entire canon, but ten thousand years. That's enough war to slake anybody's thirst, except for Torak (crazy) or Chaldan (a war god from the get-go). He's allowed to decompress.
Anyway, I've been playing him as pretty mellow in temperament and boisterous in enthusiasm. He's not an Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent god whatever the Bear-cult might've thought of him; he's the God of his people, and he's not about to go out and stump for converts or steal some other god's worshippers. He gets irritated by things like waste, unnecessary killing, anybody lifting a hand against his chosen people, and disrespect for the north country (the Alorns were not circumpolar only because they didn't want to freeze their butts off along with the demon worshippers of the far north, I think) and the sea. Probably other things, too, but they haven't come up yet. He likes beer and blondes; that's canon. He's also amazingly even-handed. In Belgarath the Sorceror the Alorns don't join in the war against Torak for- I think- two years, because they can't decide who gets to lead the warhost and Belar refuses to play favorites by choosing one clan-chief over another. I think that's part of his nature. He will not- can not- favor any one group of his children over any others. When clan wars or feuds break out in Alorn society, I don't think he gets involved at all; they can fight as much as they like and say what they like, but he's not going to take sides in a dispute like that.
This is relevant largely because a meme came up recently. One of the creepier Milliways denizens has been trying to figure out what love is, and not doing very well at it. The meme was to say what your character would define love as. Since I don't think Belar is even capable of romantic love on the individual level- it just doesn't seem in line with the nature of most of his world's gods- I answered the meme for him as follows:
Okay, love is- okay. Uh, let me see if I can explain this, okay?
Sometimes you see people- one or two people, or thirty or forty, or a hundred or a thousand or hundreds of thousands- whatever. You see people, and you talk to them, and hang out with them, and you get to know them. And you really start to see, you know, you really start to see stuff about them that reminds you of you. Only it's more than just you. It's better than just you. There's stuff in them that's all the parts of you you ever were proud of. There's stuff about them that's like stuff about you that you haven't thought about in years, but it's all god stuff, even if you never really thought about it before. And there's stuff about them that's stuff you don't like, because it kind of reminds you of you- but the parts you aren't proud of. It's the places where you made mistakes, because you did make them. You know you did. We all do, it's nothing to be ashamed of.
So there's all that stuff that reminds you of you, the good stuff and the bad, and there's other stuff about them that you see too. There's things about these people that make you say, "Wow! I never would've thought of that! That's so cool!" Stuff that just keeps on growing and changing and isn't like anything you ever knew about before. Stuff that really makes you think, and that makes you totally proud that you knew these people because look how cool they are! They're cooler than you! So there's that. And yeah, there's bad stuff you never thought of either, because your mind just doesn't work that way. It's nasty. You wish it'd go away.
Love is when you say, "Wow. I really admire you. There's just so much about you that's so great, I wanna see that become even greater. I wanna see that be the most impressive part of a person ever. I wanna be part of you being wonderful. I wanna see you overcome all the bad things about yourself, and you know, I know they're all there. I'm cool with that. I want to help you overcome those things, because I think you're worth it even if you never even thought about it that way before. So I want to help you do all that, and I wanna be there for you and see what happens next."
And then, and this is the important part, love is also and mostly when you actually DO all that stuff. Because anybody can say those things, but you gotta follow through if it's gonna be the real thing.
And if they don't want you there, well... that happens, you know? Love is respect. You can't say you love someone if you don't respect them for what they are, or at least for what they could be, and if they don't want you in on that, you gotta respect that too. Help 'em when you can, but if they don't want you around, don't force it. That's just not cool, ever. Just make sure they know where to find you, if they ever change their minds.
And, uh, don't be a jerk when they do. That's not love. That's rubbing a puppy's nose in his stuff, and that kinda doesn't work. Trust me on this.
... I should probably mention that Belar's PB is Owen Wilson. This may have affected his speech patterns somewhat.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-12-04 05:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-04 08:23 pm (UTC)I should think, given the Eddings' reliance on historical precedence, what you're looking at is something analogous to the relationship between the Germanic peoples of Scandinavia (Drasnia ~= Norway/Sweden/Finland, Riva ~= Iceland, Cherek ~= Denmark, Algars ~= Rohirrim and thus ~= Anglo-Saxon+OMGHORSIES) and the shamanic peoples of the circum-polar complex (compare Sáami, generally but incorrectly referred to as "Finns" in the source material, to Morindim).
Which is to say:
As far as we know, the several Germanic peoples alternated between being rather scared of "Finns" and their magic, hiring "Finnish wizards" to do their dirty work, and nicking magical practices that looked cool--as often happens with peoples with bordering lands.
But, the Alorns (and, by extension, Belar) probably wouldn't have much to do with true tundra, taiga, etc. You can't raise cattle or grain on it. Game should be reasonably plentiful, and I suspect the several Morindim clans of lots of reindeer herding, etc. It'd be a drastic lifestyle change, back to hunting/gathering with mild herding from agriculture/husbandry, and on extremely marginal land, besides.
You're right--economically, they wouldn't want it, but there would be some memetic interchange, which would produce, well... Vordai and the Bear-Cult, really. Alorn religion would not be shamanic, per se, but there would be some shamanistic practices on the fringe.
*cough* Sorry, you pressed play. 8-P
-- Lorrie
no subject
Date: 2006-12-11 02:01 pm (UTC)(Although I did sort of prod Belar in my head about his opinions on human 'alternative' sexuality. All I got out of him was 'dude, what happens at sea stays at sea'.)
no subject
Date: 2006-12-11 06:24 pm (UTC)Oh, stars, yes.
Although I did sort of prod Belar in my head about his opinions on human 'alternative' sexuality. All I got out of him was 'dude, what happens at sea stays at sea'.
And what happens in the hall when all the menfolk are at sea similarly stays in Vegas. 8-)
-- Lorrie
no subject
Date: 2006-12-05 11:41 am (UTC)