It's so difficult, because I genuinely do want to understand what the whole deal with Christianity is, but Christians are so apposed to any line of questioning about their belief system (in a way that no other religion is) that if you say anything they don't like they shut down and accuse you of being a sinner.

And it's like bro, I'm not trying to be insulting, I'm trying to understand why this religion is even appealing to you. How do you manage to get so many converts when you're not even willing to answer basic questions about your theology?

Everyone I've found who's actually willing to discuss Christian theology with me is an ex-Christian which is super unhelpful, because ex-Christians are people who have deconstructed Christian belief and come to the conclusion that it doesn't work for them. They're always very cynical about the whole situation. That's not what I'm looking for.

I want to talk to someone who's still into it. I want to understand what actually draws people to this religion ( I do not want to be trauma dumped at - I don't know what aspect of Christian belief confuses y'all into thinking that trauma dumping is an appropriate substitute for theological discussion, but it absolutely isn't).

Like you would really think for one of the most popular religions in the world finding answers to this stuff would be easier. Why can't you guys just talk about your beliefs?

Oh, and I had questions, likely unrelated to each other.

1) How do you think transgender Drow are viewed in their society (both transmen and trans women)?

2) Are there any other education paths available to noble women besides priestess/paladin?

These are very interesting questions! I will try to answer, making references both to Lolth-sworn drow culture and to drow societies that do not follow Lolth - because of some fundamental differences between them.

🕷️ Foundations of a Lolth-sworn drow society are heavily woven around male-female axis: drow who is born as a male will be raised as a male and expected to identify as one; drow who is born as a female will be raised as a female and expected to identify as one.

As far as I know, a typical Lolth-sworn drow culture does not really offer a person other options - and does not even allow them.

🕷️ Male-to-female transition (social, legal or physical) would probably be seen as an unthinkable sacrilege: an unworthy jaluk (male) trying to usurp the female's power and higher station. Female-to-male transition, on the other hand, could be perceived as a sacrilege of even worse kind - since it would be connected not to elevating, but to drastically lowering one's social status. For a typical Lolth-sworn drow, ambitious and constantly focused on "climbing the ladder", the very idea would be hard to understand.

In a Lolth-sworn drow society, a drow longing for transition of any kind would likely end up being punished, sacrificed or simply killed after being revealed. The same probably goes for drow who would be discovered using magic or magical items that alter their body and make it look like the one of the opposite sex.

The safest option would probably be to escape and start a new life away from Lolth's influence.

🕷️ Fel'rekt Lafeen is an example of a young male drow who was born female. We do not know much about his background, though - only that he was not happy with the treatment of males in his society (Lolth-sworn, most likely), so he decided to join Bregan D'aerthe and later became one of Jarlaxle's most loyal lieutenants operating in Waterdeep. He is mentioned in Waterdeep - Dragon Heist (5e).

🕷️ Corellon's blessing - according to Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (5e), some elves blessed by Corellon can assume whatever sex they like and this rare ability can sometimes also manifest among drow:

Dark elves find this ability to be terrifying and characterize it as a curse, for it could destabilize their entire society. If Corellon's blessing manifests in a drow, that elf usually flees to the surface world to seek shelter among those dedicated to Corellon.

🕷️ I imagine that in societies that do not follow Lolth - but Eilistraee, for example, or Vhaeraun, or Ghaunadaur - transgender drow need not fear persecution and are treated as equals.

In fact, Vhaeraunan societies often lean towards patriarchy and they oppose Lolth and everything she represents - so I suppose that among followers of Vhaeraun, especially female-to-male transition might be celebrated in some way. It might be perceived as a big f-you to Lolth, especially when concerning a former Lolth-sworn.

🕷️ Professions For Noble Females - in a Lolth-sworn drow society, noble females are typically priestesses.

There are rare cases of female drow wizards of noble houses, but a noble female practicing arcane magic instead of divine one is generally seen as an oddity. In Menzoberranzan, there was a whole noble house once that produced female wizards of considerable power (House Shobalar), but it was ultimately destroyed - as a punishment for teaching their females arcane magic instead of one given by Lolth.

Liriel, daughter of Gromph Baenre, was exceptionally skilled in arcane magic, but still, she was forced to enroll into Arach-Tinilith (academy for priestesses of Lolth).

In House Oblodra, some noble Lolth-sworn females were priestesses and psions, like Matron Mother K'yorl Odran - but in the end, this house was destroyed too.

Matron Mez'Barris Armgo of House Barrison del'Armgo loved battle and she was a formidable warrior... but still, she was also a priestess.

🕷️ So generally, in a Lolth-sworn drow society, the best (and the safest) option for a noble drow female is to finish her obligatory training as a priestess - and then pursue some other career, in addition.

🕷️ In drow societies that do not follow Lolth, no restrictions of such kind apply, most likely.

Among followers of Vhaeraun, almost entire clergy consists of male drow, so noble females are likely encouraged to choose a different career path.

Hope you will find this information useful in some way 🙂

Aqw’s Structure of Existence Theory Pt2

Upper Planes dont have a better name

Funny enough this is the more simpler one to explain, despite having only a bit of info on them. 

True gods that are also considered alien to Lore if Fimbul calling the Hero an interloper holds any weight. They can influence existence as a whole through their domains depending on what it is, either through their power alone or through their followers (ie Infamy and doom spirits). Their realms on different planes of existence and can’t easily be accessed unless a god is the one opening the way, but another god could block access (Malgor keeping the Hero out of the Timestream for a bit). 

With the exception of EDoT and Adimonde, all of the gods are considered dead and mostly forgotten. EDoT for obvious reasons and Adimonde for some other reason that hasn’t been shown yet (probably from just chilling in his realm or a special Fiend Shard). Adimonde could also be dead since we’ve been shown them as a floating mask, and they just manage to escape being tripped in the Mana Core. The OWO isn’t completely forgotten since the Mysterious Stranger still remembers Infamy (if they’re the god of Doom, but thats all but confirmed at this point) and their goal, so there’s probably others factions that would remember the other gods either on Lore or in space.

There had to be some sort of council or a criteria to determine who to ascend to godhood pre Reset. Also there’s issue of how the power is distributed, like is it taken from the original god, is it formed from the newly made concept and needs to grow in strength, or is it from worship of followers. Kathool did seem to get a boost in power from their ascension but the Hero didn’t seem to be affected (tho thats probably because they had so much power to begin with, it was more like a drop in the bucket), and quickly gained followers that could increase their range of influence. The fallout of that will definitely come last after things with OWO is settled, when everyone isn’t threatened with getting snapped for existing without OWO’s approval.

Infamy and Adimonde most likely weren’t ascended by another gods, so there has to be a way for them to ascend by themselves if they didn’t just show up out of nowhere in the beginning of everything — probably by killing and taking the godhood from a god since their goals boils down to conquest. Law and Tranquil are more difficult to determine how they got their godhood, but Law feels like they had it from the beginning and Tranquil would have gotten theirs through diplomatic means or worship. EDoT most like was born with their pre Reset power since time one of the more fundamental concept for the universe. 

Kathool would be a minor god of sorts, if only because of the Hero tying them to their existence. They were ascended the same way that OWO would ascend other gods, but with the small changing of wording got placed under the Hero’s control by tying them to their existence. There’s probably going to be a way around or getting out of being tied to the Hero’s existence to be a proper god, but probably a problem for another story arc.

Malgor and the other Speakers would also be demigods of sorts, not ascended to godhood but being born with divinity that allowed them access to the Timestream and the ability to control it. 

Theres possible identities for 2/3 gods we do talk to in OWO. Infamy is all but confirmed in game to be the God of Doom — them taking such offense to Gravelyn and Sepulchure ruling the Shadowscythe Empire, stating the shadows came from their throat (weird way of saying creating them), and Gravelyn’s wound being confirmed to be Doom. Law is probably the God of the Creatioux Dragons (maybe the Decadere Dragons too since they’re part of the same species of Void Dragons) — mostly because dragon face mask shape but also since their views regarding Chaos aligns with what the Creatioux’s view is on the Decadere’s use of Entropy from DF. Tranquil is a bit hard to figure out, mostly due to that it was stated in the merge quest for the Mana Core that they were part of a pair with someone else (neither Law or Infamy tho, probably another god that didn’t get the position of being the mouth piece of OWO). It also worth pointing out that these three feel like the representation of the other main games’ timelines that were merged into Aqw’s, and their identities are probably tied to things that hold importance to the stories — Infamy for Mechquest, Law for Dragonfable, and Tranquil for Adventure Quest.

It's also worth pointing out that once someone becomes a god, that position cant be taken away, and the only way to remove them is through killing them — ie Nulgath wanting to usurp Adimonde as Fiend God. Silencing is more a less permanent solution (and a whole other theory post) that still keeps the god alive enough so that they’re not a problem anymore but don’t get rid of their domain or disrupt their influence on the universe. This probably why OWO hasn’t straight up killed Einsolf since there power would mostly go to one person rather than spitting it up between all the dead gods, then that god would be put to sleep/killed and that devolves into a cycle of infighting until there’s not enough gods left to keep that one down and they all get killed.

Another speculation, but gods don’t seem to be by the powers of other gods, or at least not like how it affects mortals. The OWO are aware of the EDoT’s death and the Reset that came of it and seem to be aware of the cycles Malgor went through and the outcomes of it (probably how they know about the 3 threats but not knowing who they are if they aren’t lying about that). Which is good thing since the Hero can become the Champion of Doom, something thats toootally going to work out well and couldn’t go wrong at all what so ever /s. 

Space as an element 

This is on here solely for the fact that the dragon egg in the Mirror Realm hasn’t been mention in years and thats thing is technically the counterpart to one of the most powerful being in the universe. And with space being set as the counterpart to time in the game, Space Dragon God. 

A fun headcanon I have is they play a similar role to the EDoT and the Reset and created the Mirror Realm indirectly — either by just existing or dying in the past. 

Mana Core

Just as confusing as the Elemental Planes 

A realm that was created from the Reset and condensation of timelines and universes, and an 'Avatar’ that was immediately put in baby jail for just existing. 

Contrary to the Elemental Avatars probably just being Champions that raised to the position, Einsof sees more like the personification of the Mana Core. Calling him an Avatar is probably easier to explain or its current way of trying to make sense of him (since the creation of the Elemental Avatars hasn’t been explained yet). It's literally taking all of OWO to keep him asleep and will start waking up if any three of them lose focus, while they were ably to Silence Neso with ease — seems a bit of an understatement and insult to compare him to the regular Avatars. 

It feels like Einsof is more the god of all creation than Mana with how powerful he should be (being the personification of mana in a universe that thrives because of mana would do that) and would be above the Hero in terms of power, even with all the stolen power and authority from OWO. There’s also a good chance that actually kill him would also lead to all of existence ending if someone doesn’t take that mantle, probably similar to the Mana Affliction but on a wider and more devastating scale. That’s probably what happened in the Ultra!Malgor timeline, with the Hero taking Einsof’s authority over Mana after killing him.

A fun headcanon of mine is the reason Einsof is basically a child in terms of god years is the fact that he’s technically the embodiment of how old the timeline is, since Aqw’s is technically fairly new.

Invasion of The Day of Black Sun Was Terribly Planned and Here's Why

Okay, I'm going to come at this from an angle that you might find surprising, but hear me out.

The Invasion was terribly planned not because the invasion force was defeated. It was terribly planned because it had NO plan for what would happen in case they had won.

Let’s look at some of the scenarios that could have played out during the invasion:

Dealing with Fire Lord Ozai. In the show, this question is raised by Zuko at the end of The Southern Raiders. What are you going to do when you face my father?  But I struggle to believe that nobody would have considered this before the invasion.

What does defeating the Fire Lord mean anyway? In this context, we have to assume that Ozai would be deposed either by being imprisoned or killed. But killing Ozai runs into the same problem for Aang as it becomes during Sozin’s Comet. I mean, you would assume that, right? And if the invasion plan had gone off without a hitch, they would have ran into Ozai when he can’t bend and is powerless. Do you expect me to believe that Aang would be okay with executing a defenseless man? I don’t buy it.

Let’s run with the other scenario, deposing Fire Lord Ozai and imprisoning him somewhere. What’s the problem with this scenario? Well, to me it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of divine right to rule. The people of the Fire Nation would not accept any other ruler than someone from the royal family. For people to accept fundamental changes such as rise of a new royal house or an altogether different form of government, there has to be certain social transformation that precipitates it, such as lengthy discontent with the ruling class. And we have no evidence of that being the case in the Fire Nation, because at that point the war has been going great for the Fire Nation. During the Ember Island Players episode, we saw that Ozai and his regime enjoys a lot of support from general population. (And that is after the capital was invaded by a foreign force!)

There are only two candidates who would be accepted by the people of the Fire Nation – Zuko or Azula. They are the only ones with any legitimacy, but the problem is… at this point in time, neither of them would be acceptable for the rest of the world, so this isn’t a solution either.

I suppose another option would be a permanent occupation of the Fire Nation, but I don’t think this is feasible because the occupying force was too small. Perhaps the Earth Kingdom with time could muster enough forces to permanently occupy the Fire Nation, but because King Kuei decided to bugger off at the end of Book 2 instead of rallying the troops and organizing resistance, I don’t see how this could be organized fast enough.

Still, even if they could manage to occupy the Fire Nation, how do you make sure that the Fire Nation does not strike back on the day of Sozin's comet? I guess you’ll just have to imprison or kill every firebender. But do you still bring balance at that point?

The invasion plan is clearly not a good one. It needed the support of some kind of anti-war faction within the Fire Nation, someone with at least some legitimacy that could take control after the invasion and hopefully not be overthrown immediately. Historically, invasions like these require some kind of local collaboration to work. If complete occupation/subjugation isn't a feasible goal, then I don't think deposing the Fire Lord makes much sense, because you have no idea if the new boss won't be the same as the old boss or even worse. Also, you've just pissed off the Fire Nation right before they get their power boost from the comet.

Sure, the eclipse is still a very unique strategic opportunity that begged to be used. So, what would have been a better way to use the eclipse? Well… I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I’m actually going to point at Bumi and Omashu. He had the right idea! The eclipse would have probably been better used to free large swathes of land currently occupied by the Fire Nation. This would have been a great opportunity to reclaim Ba Sing Se. Like… why not do that?

Anyway, that’s my take on it. The Day of Black Sun is still among my favorite episodes of the show, but I think if looked at more critically, there’s a lot to be said about this invasion plan. And like… you don’t have to look at it this way. You can just have fun with it. But eh, for me, picking it apart like this is part of the fun. 😉

Musings on a Prince of Dreams

Since I am now mercifully unburdened by obligations, but way too tired to do anything - plotted, for lack of a better word, I thought I'd finally get around to writing a bit about Daedra, Dreams, and meaning. CW; dark themes, nothing in particular, but 'generally dark.' And remember, we shall not abandon the dream...

I. A brief overview of Daedra and their role; Daedra are often crudely interpreted as 'bad gods.' Part of this is through authorial intent, but a great portion is through reader intent, and reader interpretation. I want to state of course that the latter is entirely valid, it's one of the reasons we're all here, but authorial intent matters as do the tools given to us to interpret. From a modern perspective, the Daedra offer very little. No matter how much power and how good the terms are, it often seems a difficult proposition to approach the Daedra for a bargain, even if you are fundamentally amoral. The cost for entry is high; you will be asked to do something that is either abhorrent, or difficult, and often both. In return, you get - something, perhaps powerful, but in a setting where it is possible for a farmer to trip over tools of great power; perhaps beyond their understanding, yes, but still present. So, why not turn to active gods who are actively good or at least benign, instead? Understanding this means understanding Tamrielic theology. That would be a post several novels in the making, and one I do feel qualified to write, but over time. What we can boil it down to here is this: * Daedra offer extraordinary power for those who take the greatest devotionals, but offer subtler gifts to those of more common bent and desire. * We rarely see these common gifts, but they are described and implied in every game the Daedra are present in. * In-universe, the Daedra are not universally viewed as 'bad gods' or even demons. It is important to remember that the structured pantheism of most Nedic religions, the ancestor cults + gods that are found among some Mer and Beasts, and the very funky Hist are entirely apart from how we understand religion, not just in our present, but in our past. * Though comparisons can be made, suffice to say that it is unlikely that pocket dimensional entities will offer you a cool stick that zorches your enemies into pecan pie right now. If they do, you probably voted for Ted Peterson in the sexyman contest, and it's a proper reward for devotion granted. * Even in areas where Daedric worship - any/all - is soundly rejected, there are regions that, either philosophically or openly, do not denounce them entirely. In Cyrodiil itself, traditionalist Colovian and Niben Valley philosophers will come to very different conclusions on what should or should not be worshipped - or propitiated - and that is right in the Empire. Now know that people like this are scattered everywhere, and so even where Daedric worship is stamped out, it is only done so on a very surface level.

So why do people worship Daedra if they aren't interested in a skull that is arguably one of the most useless artifacts of the game? Daedra grant relief from life. II. Daedra and their teachings; People see Molag Bal, look at his* divine profile, and immediately retreat. People see Mehrunes Dagon, see through his clear bluster, and immediately retreat. You can repeat this for almost all the Daedra without exception, but to a lesser extent to the more 'harmless' ones. But there is no harmlessness in life. Molag Bal's cruelties may effect a fraction of Dagon's chaos; does that make the one worse then the other? If Namira sends a pestilence that kills all of their followers, but many innocents as well, who is 'good' here? Who is 'least vile?' (If you immediately went 'Clavicus,' you can pause here for a brief chuckle. You've earned it.) What the Daedra offer is relief. And you might roll your eyes and think that few would be tempted to petty cruelty to scratch an itch on existence, but think about how many people use words like kill with - obviously hyperbolic intent. Hyperbolic. They'd never. But let's pretend that they really wouldn't; the Daedra are not monoliths. They are Princes, whose demesnes are vast, as the names of the gods have epithets. Namira's domain of pestilence and decay also feeds into rebirth. Canny farmers might look to their gods or ancestors for good harvests, but observe the worms in their gardens, and know. Sanguine's hedonism leads to decadence, sloth, pride, and loss; there are always dark undersides to his revelries. But those who endure them become more disciplined, more aware of the self, and more worldly in turn. The blood-hunts of Hircine are violent and primal; but that is life, a constant struggle for existence where vitality and skill are rarely enough to make it another day. Hircine teaches honour and a degree of understanding, not just of the natural world - but of the shunned, and those that cannot make it. At the end of the hunt, it is their blood that stains the spear; and that is of value, too. None of these are 'good' nor are they 'easy,' but they happen. In a world where gods and spirits, mages and planar powers regularly interact with the world, accepting them is almost as important as our own. So, what then of Vaermina? III. VAERMINA Widely considered to be one of the most undesirable Princes for a follower, Vaermina has almost-total control over the realm of Dreams. This demesne is unfathomably wide; all creatures, perhaps, dream. And even if you view that only 'sentient' souls dream, craving a dividing line between things that think and things to eat, how many souls does that remain? Countless. Countless souls who feed into the power of the Prince, herself. Yet Vaermina often comes across as simultaneously impetuous and shortsighted, authoritarian - even for a Daedra - and almost weak-willed, which seems peculiar. Surely, with such a wide net to draw from, she should be considered one of the most powerful and terrible of the Daedra, and treated accordingly..? We must backtrack, for a moment. Daedra are not wholly evil, nor or are they particularly acknowledged by the known gods. If it were a contest, any of the Aedra could probably one-versus-one them; but the Daedra to the Aedra are as we are to the Daedra.

Unworthy of notice.

Each, despite having unfathomable power to us, is limited by how cunningly they can interpret their domain, and the rules within. This is dangerous; Sheogorath famously 'cursed' himself and Jyggalag, or perhaps the inverse. It hardly matters; if Jyggalag truly saw and understood the situation, I think you will find that relevant as we discuss Vaermina.

'Safe' Princes attempt to hew to their boxes of sky, or merge them into our known material world. Both of these are less risky then expanding too quickly, and being struck down by powerful gods - or Men, or Mer, or Beasts - for there are heroes who might challenge even Daedra and win. (Also, the Argonians. Dagon, you absolute clown. Get fucked throughout all kalpas.)**

'Aggressive' Princes dream of how they might use their powers to greatest advantage.

But Vaermina rarely dreams; they are for others. Her actions see her most often acting like a petty-tyrant. I don't think I need to detail her quests, here.

And yet...

People continue to seek her out. Why?

Life is hard; life is often terrible. There are countless people who might dream of horrible tortures, alien skies, cruel and unknowable creatures and think -

ah this gentleness is a relief

and i would stay here, forever, if i might.

Is it so strange to think that - if your dreams are demon-haunted realms, but they are a momentary reprise from things you do not, cannot bear - That even the faces of imagined tormentors might one day be thought of as friends..? The gentleness of nightgaunts is not something everyone would understand. Vaermina does not need this; after all, she has a near-monopoly on dreams - though that is not enough, of course. For there is one last thing to mention. This is entirely my personal thought, and though I'd strongly defend the above as - at the very least - canon-adjacent, this next bit is guesswork. A dream, if you will. IV. the death of dreams Dreams have special significance in Elder Scrolls. All of the world is a dream, or perhaps the dream that is all of the world. The edges of the world are a dream, and when you forget what they look like, you forget what you look like in turn. Some think that the Dwemer understood the dream, and were destroyed by it; or destroyed themselves. What matters is that Vaermina, as master of all dreams, must surely be aware that no matter how great and powerful she is, it is in fact just another dream inside a dream. What is the most infuriating thing you could imagine? How would it feel to be aware that reality is fake, lack the words to articulate, lack the creativity to depict it in anyway, and be bound to holding up the corners of the illusion, forever? Might you grow cruel, and vicious, especially to those followers who worshipped the fake reality, their idealised and painful dream, over the dreams you might even wish to grant them..? This maze of dreams goes incredibly far; farther than I could do credit. Blessed as I am by the Prince, I notice these things. How could I not? After all, when you first start a certain journey, born under a certain star, one of the first things you hear, is... As all Princes can be aspects of - if not good things, things that inspire growth - I think it is worth taking a look at just how fittingly ironic the shackles that hold the Daedra back are; self-inflicted flaws in their plans or schemes, or perhaps Vaermina being stuck in a quagmire she cannot quite escape from. Her frustrations leading to her relying on the quick fix of nightmares, of terror without purpose, ends up closing the door on followers who seek anything BUT nightmares, even if just as a balm. These are the least likely to understand her own frustrations and limits, leading to further frustrations - a fittingly Sisyphean punishment, one ensuring that the end of the dream will ever be out of reach. But to those few whose affections reach her, Vaermina can be generous, even kind - and perhaps even the cruel and mercurial Prince wishes, at times, that she might grant sweet dreams - or even just the peace of a night without thought, adrift in a starless sea. * Obviously, Daedra are sex/gender agnostic. I use the pronouns they are most known by; but they're Daedra. ** I just love the canonical lore of the Hist being like 'hey little lizard buddies/pollinators/friends/serfs (interpretation may vary), could you go fuck the ever-loving shit out of the weak planar parasite bothering me i'll give you buffs owo' and then it does. I'm not saying the Hist is the best true divine/intercosmic entity, but......... *** Here's the punchline. I have a diagnosed sleeping disorder, it's quite manageable, but my eyes are dark portals into the void and my (likely former) roomie pointed out I was clearly in with Vaermina. So that's it. That's why I'm here to talk to you about Our Prince of Nightmares.

Fantasy Race: An Essay

You can read this post on my website here

In high fantasy, we have this idea of a peculiar little thing called "race". We don't use the term in the same way as in the real world, we're instead talking about Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, and any other more original races that authors come up with.

In this post, I'd like to explore what fantasy race is, looking at both its history in the fantasy genre, and its real world "counterpart" — ultimately to try and figure out how we should present race in fantasy.

Heads-up: This post was born out of a pet interest I had a while back, and it isn't the most well-researched or academic. It's just some ideas that have been floating around in my head that I would like to put to paper.

Race in Fantasy

Before Tolkien, before George MacDonald, and before the Brothers Grimm, we didn't have the genre of fantasy. What we had was folktales — stories not told by any singular author, but instead passed down through oral traditions; stories which are intimately linked with religious beliefs and cultural practices.

In folklore, there aren't fantasy races. There are spirits: Fairies, Yōkai, Jinn, Nymphs, Yakshas, Angels, Demons, and so on. These spirits aren't parallel civilisations to humanity; they're beings that comprise entirely separate cosmological groups. They're not seen as people, but more so as things that are to be, in some cases, revered, and in others, feared.

In the Renaissance, folktales began to be written down. There were collectors like Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, and that's not to mention the other writers who adapted the style of folklore to spin their own tales. Through them, a new genre was born — the literary fairy tale — a genre which later writers like George MacDonald expanded into the genre of fantasy.

But race as it is found in modern fantasy didn't really begin until Tolkien. Earlier writers still talked of elves and fairies as spirits, but Tolkien took those spirits and slotted them into his world as parallel societies. They still have different fundamental natures to humanity — Tolkien's Elves and Dwarves are connected to nature and divinity in a way that Humans are not — but he also gives them unique societies, languages, and cultures.

Tolkien's works use the term "race" to refer to this combination of cosmological nature and societal culture — and by being the prototypical example of high fantasy, they set the precedent still used in almost all works of the genre today.

Race in the Real World

I find problems in how Tolkien writes his fantasy races, and to frame this, I'd like to look at it in context of what "race" means in the real world, to highlight how fantasy race is different. I am, by no means, qualified to explore this topic, and so I am leaving out a lot of depth here.

At its simplest, race, in the real world, is a category of people created based on perceived physical qualities, such as skin tone, eye shape, or facial structure. These are features which, on a biological level, have no significant impact on people's lives. They're as inconsequential as hair or eye colour is.

However, there is no doubt a cultural significance applied to these perceived qualities. This significance is constructed, often for some purpose. In the best cases, it's to allow people to create identities for themselves and find a sense of belonging amongst their peers. In the worst cases, it's to let people exclude and categorise others. To vilify, control, and justify killing and stealing from them.

The other consequence of race being culturally constructed is that different people will understand it differently; they'll categorise people differently, and see different traits as being typical of a particular race. How one person understands race is necessarily different to how people from other cultures will understand it.

Returning to fantasy, there are two ways the Tolkienian style of fantasy races are significantly different from this.

Firstly, Tolkien's different races actually are of different natures to Humans, both biologically and cosmologically. Elves live thousands of years and grow wise in their old age. They have a connection to magic and divinity, and cannot survive without it.

Secondly, Tolkien's races aren't portrayed as culturally constructed. He doesn't discuss how different people understand race, or why and how it's constructed as it is in the first place. Race is instead created and presented by him, the author. Race is almost god-appointed; impressed upon Middle Earth by a divine creator. Tolkien's races aren't quite spirits, but they aren't quite people, either.

How Should We Present Race?

With this in mind, fantasy races feel a bit iffy, to me, at least. I don't want to write fantasy race, which shares a name with the real world construct, as being other than culturally constructed.

The obvious solution to this dilemma is to cut off that comparison. Change the name; you can call it "species" and be done with it. This has been done in the past, and like, I guess it works. It's fine. But to me, it still feels icky to talk about different people having different natures, even if we choose to call them different species. Unless they're completely alien to the human experience, they still appear as people.1

So, in my worldbuilding, instead of disconnecting race from culture, I instead emphasise that it is culturally constructed, or at least culturally influenced. The main idea is to only ever describe race in the fiction as it is perceived by the people of the fiction. There is no god-appointed authorial description of race, only the mudded cultural perceptions of it.

In my worldbuilding project, Ittoril, I have four main "races": Humans, Dwarves, Elves, and Orcs. Together, I describe these as a single biological species, but the individual groups are constructions of culture. Of one culture in particular; that of the Leonid Empire. The Leonids use "Elf" as a term of reverence to describe the people of the seafaring nation that used to live on the Meridán. Leonids will brag about any slight Elven ancestry they might have to assert their superiority over other groups, calling themselves "Half-Elves" even when in most cases, the vast majority of their ancestors would've been thought of as Humans.

With this method, I can still have and explore biological differences, but only insofar as people in the world conceive of them — I portray these differences as culturally invented, or, when that's not possible, I maintain that the significance of those differences has to be culturally interpreted; Elves in Ittoril have demonstrably longer lifespans than Humans, but while The Leonids interpret this as making them glorious and powerful beyond the other races, other groups completely disagree.

And, at least for me and for my worldbuilding, I find this a better, more meaningful way to construct fantasy races, rather than just calling them "species".2

But like I said before, this isn't at all an academic essay, and I, frankly, don't really know what I'm talking about. You don't have to pay mind to any of what I'm saying; you can live your life how you want, and you can write your own silly little make-believe elves however the hell you want.

Footnotes

The polar opposite to this approach is to write fantasy race as analogous to the real world social construct, and abandon the idea of having races be biologically different. I dislike this, because it cuts us off from some interesting worldbuilding opportunities. Tolkien's Elves aren't like people, sure, but that means he can look at the ways they're different. He can explore how they are immortally tied to magic, and what that means, how that does affect people's lives. If fantasy races didn't affect people's lives, why have fantasy races at all? ↩︎

Tabletop RPGs further complicate the issue, because race also serves a game design purpose, in that it allows players to better understand the world and integrate their characters into it. It doesn't help that TTRPGs are derived from wargames, which require all things to be reducible to numbers and categories, including race. I think the best solution to this is to do something like what Pathfinder 2nd Edition does; combining species and race into "ancestry", which retains the benefits of being quickly picked up by new players, while also only giving suggestions of characteristics; never having it be absolute or fundamental. ↩︎

Think she assumes he's waiting until he feels he's done enough for humanity's redemption and calls down the Gods, which she doesn't want success or fail, and if my brainworms are right Salem's grand goal for having all the Relics is to, sit on them so no one else can put them together. Like Ozpin. Because both of them thinks the other is gonna end the world and Salem is going around terrorizing the world because that's her best idea for making sure Ozpin never believes he's achieved the terms.

oh i’m 100% certain salem believes ozma is still trying to fulfill the divine mandate and is debasing himself in service to the gods generally; there’s also no doubt in my mind that salem thinks there is zero chance under any circumstances that the gods will rule in humanity’s favor, because she knows exactly what the brothers are like. so while it’s clear that this level of destruction is new for her—ozma wouldn’t have been able to keep her a secret if she was knocking kingdoms down on the regular—i assume she’s been fucking with every significant peace he’s been able to cobble together so as to prevent him from ever deciding humankind is sufficiently united to bring the relics together.

but the impression i get is that salem thinks ozma has A PLAN, not in the nebulous sense of “summon gods once unity is achieved” but a specific series of actions that he has prepared and is executing, or his followers are executing on his behalf, right now. which he does, sort of, in the most general sense of “keep the relics locked up” but—she obviously thinks there’s something more complicated afoot. (4.3 she hears from summer rose her mystery lieutenant and seems to be concerned that 1. ozpin might have survived or 2. the crown might not be at beacon; the last thing she says in that scene is a puzzled “what are you planning?” like—her perspective of this conflict is that ozpin has an agenda she is trying to figure out and get ahead of, and she’s wrong because we know he has no plan? but this fascinates me bc it suggests salem has a fundamentally different understanding of what she’s doing than the heroes do.)

anyway,

if all salem wanted was to make it impossible for ozma—or anyone—to summon the gods, all she’d need to do is get one and bury it somewhere. she doesn’t need all four. ozma went after all four because 1. he did in fact intend to see his task through, which meant he planned on triggering judgment day eventually, 2. he thought he might be able to use them to destroy salem, and 3. he didn’t want other people misusing them. the latter two are of no relevance to salem, and she could foil the first objective merely by securing one of the three; that she self-evidently IS going for more than one suggests that she is in fact planning to use them—either the relics themselves, or by putting them together to summon the gods.

personally? i think she’s still on the defeat-and-usurp-the-gods plan, and she’s making her move now because she thinks she’s found a viable way to do it. the relics are bait to get them to come back so she can kill them—or whatever it is specifically she plans on doing. (though i’m not yet ruling out the possibility that the gods are already returning and salem 1. knows about it and 2. assumes ozpin summoned them on purpose; it’s been shown that magic—the staff—can’t just blink stuff from point a to point b, there’s travel involved, so a divine return across astronomical distances could very well take a significant amount of time!)

i don’t think she would ever be satisfied just keeping one or all of the relics and staying in this holding pattern; she’s not like ozma. the core of her character is relentless and increasingly desperate efforts to free herself—first from her father, then from the tyrannical gods and the torment they’ve inflicted on her. by necessity immortality has made her very patient and methodical but whatever her intentions might be specifically, they’re definitely moving forward towards a goal of change; “and so we must press on.” etc etc

Jewish and Muslim children of gods & biblical figures

hello! this blog has been an amazing help as a white, pagan writer and i just wanted to say thank you for that! 

i have a book i’ve been working on for about a year now, and the short summary is that it takes place in a world where if enough people believe in something existing, it does. from urban legends, cryptics, and religion.

the main story plot follows a group of teenagers who are the children of biblical figures (and later hellensism, since those are the religions i used to worship and now do), but several characters are different religions than that. i can’t believe it’s taken me so long to realize this, but isn’t it kinda… off? to have jewish and muslim characters be children of greek gods and biblical figures? i don’t want to completely erase that part of them, and its also stated in the story that the religions they believe in are true, also, but i’m neither muslim nor jewish, so i don’t want to just assume it’d be okay.

(also, for context, the plot causes such a diverse cast of characters. they are brought together because of they are their children, like percy jackson, i guess)

Here is a recent post that listed our concerns with inclusion of Jewish characters in settings where polytheism is literally true: Can Jewish authors write polytheistic settings?

One way I might fix the awkwardness of having the child of a "Greek god" convert to Judaism (lol backwards Chanukah?) is if, as in the linked post, the "gods" aren't actually on the same level of divinity as the entity in our prayers, but are just like, mortal superbeings that just happen to have way more power than regular humans. As for biblical figures, well, there are tons of Jewish biblical figures so if you want to write fanfiction about them that's legit, just do your research to make sure you're using Jewish interpretations about them that aren't filtered through Christian analysis. (And there are also Jewish characters in the New Testament.)

Honestly as a Jewish person I would not feel left out if I was not included in one of those polytheism-is-true stories. I may off-hand wonder where we fit into the worldbuilding, but that would be less distressing than some kind of depiction of being stubborn, wrongheaded, backward, and ignoring the reality in front of our faces, which is hard to avoid unless it's clear the gods are just, as I said, mortal superbeings and not literally divine and on the same level as HaShem. Which would be the other way of making me cool with it.

--Shira

Shira’s answer covers most of it for me, but I did want to come back to this part:

>>it takes place in a world where if enough people believe in something existing, it does.

There are a couple of things about this that don’t seem quite compatible with our theology, at least as I’ve been taught it.

First of all, this seems to be suggesting that Hashem was created by humans, through their belief? I don’t love that. I pray multiple times a day to the ‘Master of the universe, Who reigned before any form was created.’ Proposing a deity that exists simply because people believe in it doesn’t answer many of the questions that religions set out to deal with, such as ‘How did we get here?’ and ‘What does it all mean?’ And it’s fundamentally not the God I pray to.

Secondly, although this is pretty much what Shira already said, I want to point out again that monotheism and polytheism are obviously not compatible, unless you add certain caveats. Our prayers and other sacred texts repeatedly emphasise the ultimate Oneness of Hashem. Judaism just can’t be right in a world where Hellenism is also right, unless you go with the Greek gods being nothing more than humans with superpowers. In the post that Shira linked to, we already talked about including Jewish characters in polytheism-as-fact settings, and we highlighted the diversity of Jewish opinions on this (Shira and Dierdra: Yes, IF…; me: Pass, BUT…). I thought this was important to bring up again, because this sounds like an ‘all religions are true’ story and I wanted to highlight that these are not as inclusive as they may at first sound. They’re actually very difficult to pull off respectfully. Usually (not always), people who write that kind of story are the folks who have never had to fight for their beliefs or have them seen as anything other than the norm.

Finally, I’m curious about what this premise means for racism and other bigotries. Many people believe in a type of monster called a Jew who controls government and finance and kills babies for fun. Does that exist in your story, too? I’m not saying you can’t go ahead with this premise, but just something to think about: maybe there should be some checks and balances on the it’s believed = it’s true thing.

On another note, as Shira touched on, I was confused by this part:

>> to have jewish and muslim characters be children of greek gods and biblical figures?

According to our own traditions, we are the descendants of Biblical figures? I’m not sure what you thought would be off about that, but it would be kind of cool to see a character being singled out Percy Jackson style because they were a descendant of Yitzchak and Rivka – as long as it was well-researched and executed in line with how we view these figures.

--Shoshi

The Muslim portion of this character is open to followers. Muslim mods are not active at the time of this answer. We’ll recruiting for more mods; Muslim writers, feel free to apply anytime! https://forms.gle/qywJmrwcZj3E28nh8 

SHINGEKI NO KYOJIN #139 - THE IMPOSSIBLE FREEDOM ?

Here is the English translation of the post I wrote here in French.

I apologize in advance for my mistakes, I'm not good in English but I hope that will be understood.

---------------

Shingeki no kyojin is finished. A leading manga of the 21st century has just ended in tears, blood, mourning, disappointment, frustration… and love. So many emotions come to me when I read this final chapter, I needed to express them as clumsily as it is. I’m sure it’s going to get lost in the Internet, but whatever— it is necessary to remove both the joy and the frustration that I feel to pay tribute to Isayama who offered us a work as powerful as it is cursed.

As intense as it is uneven, as perfect as it is imperfect.. like his tragic hero Eren Jäger, who shows us that men are so weak and pitiful in the face of time and the cruelty of the world. How much even if this hero possesses in his hands the power of a God. My analysis will surely be clumsy, I apologize. And I will not fail to point out at the end the bitterness felt on the final development of some characters including that of Misaka Ackerman.

Eren like “CryBaby”

What a slap for the reader to witness such an emotional picture. Yes. Isayama reminds us to what extent Eren isn't a brave knight, not a charismatic hero, not the genocidal demon of this story but a child.. whose weight of Destiny is too heavy to bear. Scan 139 reminds us to what extent we have lost ourselves, just as Eren has in the way, forgetting the very essence of the story that has been told to us from the beginning. It’s not a story of geopolitical warfare, a biological parasite, titanic monsters, a northern deity, or a philosophical-esoteric trip. It's the story of a boy who wants to emancipate himself, to live for himself, tasted of the thirst for adventure, the tranquility of his loved ones but born in a cruel and alienating world that leaves room only for death, abuse of power, betrayal and despair .

A journey where the child becomes an adult at the cost of his or her life. Learning the most painful lesson… To be an adult is to renounce one’s dreams, to bend one’s knee in the face of the servitude of one’s mortal condition, to be content with one’s cage in order to enjoy the little that one can have at one’s disposal, to mourn those who may disappear from one’s life.

A young boy who dreamed only of freedom, surrounded by people who love him. A child whose inspirations, as impulsive, unreasonable and immature as they may be, will push him to his limits. A child who grew up too fast, who could not mourn his mother, aware of her physical and spiritual weakness, who was confronted with the violence of this world which reminded him of his condition of being insignificant, a pawn on the chessboard of the "Way".

A child whose powers worthy of a God then gives him the possibility to realize the unthinkable, almost the absolute fantasy of every Man : to shape a world in his image, to be as free as a bird flying above the clouds without reddish stain to touch the sky. Move forward, Move forward whatever the price… move forward for an illusion of freedom, for an infantile obsession.

And by assuming the role of the wicked “demon” of tales so that the brave knights can free this world from the evil that eats it.

Lost between the present, the past, the future.. time no longer makes sense. Only finality counts, annihilating its titans whatever the price. They have to pay for his mother. They have to pay for his fallen comrades. They must pay for reminding us of our pitiful helplessness as human beings.

But the Demon also has a heart, remorse, feelings, there are people who attach him to this world. Therefore, what to choose?

Divine Freedom or Mortal Love? The impossible equation... Although Eren may have travelled the road in search of the answer, how can freedom and humanity be reconciled? Free your people and protect your loved ones, though imperfect?

______

He will not find the answer— neither by searching the past of the goddess Ymir, not by consulting the other Titans carriers, not by creating the different alternative realities that led to the same observation… only death can free the bird from its cage, only the death of Humanity is able to reconcile the sublime and the hideous. Or rather, a common enemy that will crystallize all their ills. But who would be crazy, brave enough to accept being the victime ?

Like a Christic figure, Eren will assume this role. But not without having to confide his last wishes, his last secrets that can no longer contain… because yes, the demon is limited by his adult condition of 19 years. Yes.. the child has grown up. Recklessness, impulsiveness, daring in the face of death, the omnipotence of the child leaves room for a teenager who is now afraid of dying, who has succumbed to love, who doubts, who is aware of his weakness.

Eren has finally become a man...in pain. He finally accepts his feelings, his weakness in the face of death that awaits him.

He’s not a running child anymore. The plates are only explicit about this. The power of narration.. we come back to the fundamental of this history, which is human psychology. The feelings, the relationships that unite all people between them. Friends or enemies, men or women, child or adult, Eldien or Mahr... Despite our differences, our disagreements, we are all equal and weak in the face of death... but also in the face of the love we can bring to others.

Yes, Eren is a weak hero. Yes, he admits to loving Mikasa. He admits that until the very end, he didn't know how it was going to go. That he was himself a pawn in the divine game of Ymir. Another puppet at the service of a little girl who is also blinded by her duality, by her toxic love for her executioner. One cannot remain insensitive to this remarkable development of the character of Eren whose death was inevitable. For whoever plays with divinities can only lose his humanity, his freedom too. By the ultimate sacrifice of his selfish and human desires finally. Eren alone became the true savior of this world. He will also have kept his promise to his friends, to the beings he loves by offering them last memories through the “Way”.

Selfless Love or True Freedom

As Mikasa said: The world is cruel, but also … Very beautiful.

Whoever sets a glance without hatred on the world, with compassion, with love for his neighbor will be able to claim to touch with the finger this Freedom so sought.. a selfless love, not turned to satisfy one’s own selfish desires.

Because Love, like hate, takes different forms.

Love connecting us to our roots, our family of blood…

Love binding two beings who love each other, desire each other, cherish each other, seek each other….

Love that binds us to his comrades, his battalion, his family of choice, his heart…

Love that life brings to us in all its forms…

Love… this power that is unpredictable and uncontrollable.

And that can become the obsession of a lifetime. It is by becoming an obsession that love becomes as destructive as hatred, and sends us back to our condition as an alienated Man… locked up in his “Path”, in his cage.

It's by demonstrating resilience and self-sacrifice that man can taste freedom. We can find redemption in the love that others have for him, that we also have for him. For a few hours, a few years…

At the cost of a renewal of the cycle of hatred, because man remains selfish, not all are ready to make sacrifices. Therefore, Mikasa and Eren have made the greatest of sacrifices for the survival of their comrades and the world: they give up their chance to be happy together, sacrifice their desire to be together for the rest of humanity. As in tragedies, the main heroes are victims of Destiny, are those who will pay the price so that others can flourish and live. The children have become adults.

Just as Armin is no longer the whiny little boy to protect. Unlike Eren, he managed to learn from his mistakes, grieve, face his own fears, confess his love to the girl he loves. It is finally he who will raise the wounded little boy, who will comfort him.

The frustration

Mikasa is the main character of the story. It's through her that awakening is made, it is through her hand that she closes this long journey. In Eren’s memories, it is always central. It is the key, the final solution.

It's his psychological, his emotional journey that we will follow throughout the manga. Eren is only a complement, the character who crystallizes his goals. In a world where men are “dominant”, the woman must bend her knee, support her prince so that the light shines on him. Isayama knew how to play perfectly on this classic code of narration. Whether one agrees or not with the conclusion of certain female characters, the work often highlights the fact that men are only victims of their passions and obsessions.

-------

Only women seem to emerge victorious in the face of the cruelty of the world : they take up arms (Historia), continue to fight in the face of despair (Mikasa), enjoy life and bring joy around her (Sasha), support other women in their emancipations ( Ymir with Historia) question their education (Gaby) disobey (Annie), go against the “moral” principles to survive (Ymir Frizt who continues to love his executioner), sacrifice for the common good (Hanzi Zoe)… But of course… without also paying the price of sacrifice and making concessions.

Historia bears a child of a man whom she does not seem to like but assumes the role of the mother whom she would have liked to have while assuming the heavy attribute of the office of Queen in a country plagued by nationalist tendencies guided by fear. With Eren’s help, she did not give in to the temptation of self-sacrifice but decided herself who she would save or not, what path she wanted to follow. Her desire was to be a mother, a good mother. Whatever the father, it was an indestructible motherly love that she wanted to offer to a child. The one she never had.

Mikasa agreed to kill Eren because, if she had given him another answer, their life as fugitives would have been but a fleeting dream and Eren’s death was inevitable.

Despite her powerful love for Eren (as addicted as he may be, explained by the power of the Ackermans?), she will break the chains of her servitude by killing her only Love. She is the light. She accomplished the journey of a true heroine by demonstrating resilience, by giving of herself for the world.

She had only eyes for Eren.. was open to others, to show empathy, a desire to continue living for other comrades who are dear to him.

-------

Mikasa also leads the way in Ymir Fritz… you can love a monster, you can be a prisoner of a toxic relationship but you can free yourself from it. One can become free, but the price to pay will be to carry this infinite sadness, this frustration of having been able to live another story if things would have been different. By her kiss, she showed what true Love is.

Although the frustration is present, although we would have liked her to turn the page and rebuild her life, she must also pay the price of her “freedom”, of her “survival”: haunted by the sacrifice of Eren, guardian of her memories, from her grave as if to preserve her existence as long as she can live.

Once again, women show that they are stronger than we think. So Ymir was also able to free himself of his toxic link with the King by making the Titans disappear.

In the image of the bittersweet end of the chapter, which shows us that the disappearance of a monster, of a divine force “responsible” for the horrors, is not the long-awaited salvation.

The vices, the human fears will remain the poison, preventing us from reaching this illusory freedom. Men do not need deities to dig their own way to death.

-----

From "occidental" point of view, it is true that this is a blow to the “strong” women of the work still alive. Reduced to being collateral victims of Love, as toxic as this link may be (Ymir-Mikasa). Reduced to attaching themselves to winning or losing romantic figures depending on whether their love-interests is the villain of the story (Mikasa-Annie). Reduced to their role as mother-benefactor (Historia-Gaby).

It’s awkward, but I think Isayama wanted to show that no one is spared. That no character can claim complete tranquility and sweet freedom.

Everyone has had to sacrifice something to survive, and women and men are equal in this judgment. Women also remain victims in a world that remains dominated also by the cruelty of Men (the human race in general). They are not completely free, they are also trapped in roles.

Everyone carries the weight of his choice. That characters have a duty to remember, to pass on to future generations the horrors they have lived to try not to reproduce the same mistakes. Even if their new life choices are imperfect, disappointing for those on the outside.

Levi sacrificed many of his comrades to fulfill his promise to Erwin in his quest for truth and to continue the fight for Eldian freedom.

Armin and Mikasa sacrificed Eren: their friend, their love, the dearest being to fulfill their promise to discover the outside world and touch that freedom.

Like Levi Ackerman and his love for his battalion comrades. As for Mikasa and his love for Eren (because she saw the human behind the monster). She has been waiting for a sign for 3 years to see him again in order to follow up on “see you later Eren”.

Finally, a bird comes to give him his wrap. To encourage him to go forward again. To continue to live…

--------

The most free people are those who honestly and sincerely love someone. Those who are able to see the beauty of the world despite its ugliness. Who give without waiting for return. Those who continue to look at the world without hatred, those who do not succumb to its cruelty. Tears are running down…

Boohoo-Boohoo, The Thing In The Branches

So I relistened to The Silt Verses last week, and something from Chapter 6 that I had completely passed over on first listen has stuck in my mind: Not-Yet-Katabasian Mason's story of his childhood encounter with Boohoo-Boohoo, The Thing In The Branches.

(Interestingly, when I went to look for a canonical spelling, the name Mason gave the thing isn't in the transcript. Did Jamie Stewart improvise the name, I wonder?)

So, a quick summary of the story. When Mason was a child, he and his sisters discovered a Thing In The Branches that sang like a bird, but was not a bird. They fell in love with it, and tried to interact with it, but it was too quick and clever and apparently uninterested in them. So they interact with the songbirds instead - Mason calls them its "disciples" - killing them, destroying their nests, and generally being shitty little kids. This causes The Thing In The Branches to sing songs of mourning for the pain of the songbirds in its flock - and so we have the mocking name, Boohoo-Boohoo.

The children never hated The Thing In The Branches - they craved its love, but if they could not have it, they would settle for its attention. Because when you adore someone in that childish, selfish way, you'd rather cause them harm than have them ignore you.

Now, we have to assume that this story is relevant to the overall story of The Silt Verses. Because Muna Husen & Jon Ware could have filled that conversational space with anything, but they chose The Thing In The Branches. Why?

This story could be relevant mostly thematically. The theme of attempting to connect with something you worship, but are so fundamentally different from that it's almost impossible to really communicate, is obviously all over The Silt Verses. As is the harm people(?) will do in the name of their gods, just to earn their favor.

But I wonder if the greatest presence of this dynamic in TSV is the other way around. So much of the harm done to people in this show is done by gods at the request of humans. Maybe the gods crave the love of their worshipers, and the gods try to reach out and connect, causing devastation. Maybe over time the gods have come to understand prayer-marks as like, arrows drawn to show that if they throw rocks at that tree in particular, the humans will be happy, and will praise them. Maybe the gods are reaching out to humans just as much (or sometimes more than) humans are reaching out to them, and the destruction they wreak is their clumsy way of trying to love them.

Then, of course, there's the possibility that this is story is relevant less in broad thematic sense and more as direct foreshadowing. If Mason tried to connect with Boohoo-Boohoo by killing its disciples, and now he is a worshiper of the Trawler-Man in a position of power over disciples of the Trawler-Man...

And my last big takeaway from the story, which is less about relevance and more about worldbuilding, is that it is Big If True. Because if this story is literally true, the implication is that the young Masons found a local god of birdsong, with songbirds for disciples. Which. Uh.

I'm so used to stories involving objectively-real divinity drawing a hard line between sapient and non-sapient creatures that it didn't even occur to me to wonder if nonhuman animals could call gods into being. Once that possibility is in play, I have to ask:

Is the Trawler-Man originally a God of Crustaceans, adopted by the humans of the River secondarily?

No, really, hear me out. On top of all of the crab+ imagery associated with the Trawler-Man, in episode 8 Roake the painter claims that he learned the prayer marks of the Wither Tide by studying the symbols drawn into the silt of the river by actual, literal, not-supernatural-as-far-as-we're-aware crabs. And in episode 11, Brother Wharfing notes that the Trawler-Man is an especially strong god. But gods require sacrifice to stay strong - who made the sacrifices necessary to keep Him going through the decade+ after the Faith was decimated and the Parish scattered? Was it the crabs, making their little crab sacrifices, dancing prayer marks of worship into the silt?

And you know who I bet would reallly like the Wither Tide?

Pepe Silvia.

...

No, obviously it's crabs.

im getting a little too in my family feels today and so INSTEAD of feeling those im just going to ramble for a second about why i fucking love paladin!aelwyn because. im. just like this i guess im coping leave me alone

cw for discussions of child abuse, maladaptive coping, drugs and alcohol, self harm, destructive tendencies, basically everything we see in canon and the implications

aelwyn is ... SO interesting to me because for as much of her interiority as we see, as much of her as we think we understand, as much as i could ramble about her character for hours, we know ALMOST NOTHING about her in actuality?? (besides ... one key thing)

(this is like 2k and probably incoherent someone please stop me)

okay. listen. almost everything we see aelwyn do in s1 is maladaptive rebellion against her parents and home life. the drinking, the drugs, the partying, perhaps some of kalvaxus (though i dont think we fully understand how much of that was forced on her as well, kalina WAS watching her when she was talking to adaine about it). you can say like, oh aelwyn is a party animal, she's impulsive, she makes risky decisions, she's bitchy and rude, and its like. okay but IS SHE ACTUALLY. because under her parents thumb she had an EXTREMELY limited amount of freedom, and usually when people are suffering from very little control over their life, they WILL act destructively over the tiny bit they can, either harming themselves or their environment or people lower than them in the pecking order, because in a way, that feels like a reclamation of autonomy. saying "you have so much power over me but can you stop me from hurting myself and destroying what you havent managed to claim yet?". its just like, kind of what human brains do and frequently has little to do with a persons actual personality or impulses, its just. desperate brains trying to control SOMETHING because autonomy is a fundamental human need and when thats taken away we get. very bad off. (this is one big reason eating disorders are SO common with abused kids.) so i think a lot of the s1 aelwyn we see is like. this is a very desperate, abused teenager "acting out" in the only way it is possibly somewhat safe for her to do so because, on a psychological level, the self destruction is weirdly the only emotional tether and its either this or just dissociate all the time (something we do see she has problems with in canon)

and yes, she did treat adaine horribly in s1. she fully did. obviously what we get in canon is what happens but a moment thats interesting to me is in episode 1 where adaine has attacked aelwyn several times, who either does nothing or just bounces it back, when she says "i never cast spells at you" and siobhan immediately retcons it and says "yes you do, all the time" (i havent gone back and watched this bit so i might be wording this wrong). obviously its an improv show and the canon is built between performers as they go, but that was interesting to me. that brennan hadnt intended for her to have fought back in that way. she definitely feeds into the emotional abuse from their parents and participates in all the toxicity there, but we know in canon that she did that because of overwhelming fear and self preservation. and that her self hatred because of it just fed back into the cycle and made her feel like she wasnt good enough to even try to break free from it. this is very common in golden child/scapegoat sibling relationships where the golden child SEES what the parents are capable of and becomes a participant in the abuse out of fear for their own standing. in any way siding with the scapegoat child not only directs abuse at themselves as well, but frequently makes things WORSE for the scapegoat because the parents will take out the challenge to their power on them even more. so, if aelwyn DID ever try to defend or help adaine when they were small, she would have VERY QUICKLY learned that made things worse for everyone. and just. sectioned that part of her brain off, as she's done with so many other things. (and i dont think im reading too much into the forest scene with the abernants to say their parents were VERY QUICK to turn abuse towards aelwyn if she stepped out of line even a little. like, you dont flinch when a hand moves unless. you know. dont need to say it just something to think about. as far as we saw in canon, she had done everything they asked of her leading up to the forest, and we DONT KNOW what happened in it but we do know brennan specifically called out how in broken spirits she was when adaine was summoned, even though they did the ritual to avoid all of the nightmare bullshit)

(the house party is literally a whole separate post but i think its fair to point out that 1) she was super under the influence when that was happening which DEFINITELY is in no way an excuse for her behavior but worth remembering when trying to analyze that 2) her losing that fight did canonically have DRASTIC consequences for her and even if she didnt know exactly how that was going to turn out, i think she knew how bad it might be. and she did not know adaine or any of the bad kids were going to be there in the first place)

all that said, it feels in some ways counterproductive to say that aelwyn is an extremely devoted and protective person (yes we're getting to the paladin shit i know i've been rambling a while) but i think that thats strangely ALL WE ACTUALLY KNOW ABOUT HER. because we've established that her self-destructive and abusive behavior in s1 is almost entirely psychologically scripted for her by her parents, we dont know how much of her villain shit in s1 was LITERALLY UNDER THREAT OF DEATH because we know at least killing the oracle was and we dont know how much of the rest of it was mandated by either her parents or kalina other than that she probably was under orders not to tell adaine the truth, and we know participating in all of this caused extreme self loathing in her that she refused to show to anybody and was too terrified to act on in any way

so, like. what does that actually leave us?

here's what we do know about aelwyn:

- of all the schools of magic, she went into abjuration

- the entire bbeg plan from season 1 hinged on aelwyn's complete faith that her level 1 sister was the most prodigious diviner in the world

- right after (?) the house party, she locked her memories where only adaine could find it with a note basically saying "theres so much bad blood between us but i know only you could find this"

- she desperately wanted to protect adaine and the fact that she was too afraid to do so made her hate herself (and her knowing that adaine now knows this is the turning point in their relationship)

- despite everything, even in the nmk forest, she still loved her parents

- the SECOND she is shown genuine love and affection and care from adaine, and adaine says whatever you do, i am here with you, all her actions from there forward are just about protecting adaine from their father, very nearly at the cost of her own life

- with what she probably thought were her last words (and would have been if adaine hadnt given her the tincture), all she wanted to communicate was how to help adaine and the bad kids, and how despite everything she had always believed in her

- at five levels of exhaustion, unconscious, she used her first spell slot after nine months of torture to build a shield around adaine

NOW we get to paladin!aelwyn. because, once everything is stripped away, the abuse and the control and the maladaption and the threats and the torture, EVERYTHING we ACTUALLY can glean about aelwyn's personality and inner core is that she's protective and devoted. and of course classes arent locked by personality, but that just screams paladin to me. its her WHOLE THING. adaine even says "wizards dont have heals, we dont care about other people" and of COURSE that isnt true for either of them, but? mechanically? aelwyn chose the wizard school that DID let her protect, and DID let her help, but i dont think, at this point, going forward, thats really going to be enough for her (and we could also talk about the parallels between them, how often adaine uses her portents to help other people)

i think a lot of the different reads on aelwyn come from this fundamental disconnect between her actions and displayed personality vs who she actually is and what she actually wants. and i think there are very different interpretations of what thats going to look like for her going forward. but i think, for a girl who's most hated characteristic about herself was her self preservation at the detriment of others, her perceived selfishness, and her fear ... isn't choosing to be braver and more selfless and more protective and shedding that self-preserving instinct for the betterment of others ... and MECHANICALLY being able to act on all those things ... the logical next step? i think its going to be a LONG TIME before aelwyn can love herself, but what other way is there to try? if adaine loves her, and adaine believes she can be better, isnt being better because she trusts adaine kind of a form of self love? saying, i dont believe in myself, but i believe in the person who believes in me, and maybe, in a roundabout way, thats the same thing. she was never able to TRY to be better before, because trying to improve even a little, even when people arent watching, when a harmful force has so much power over you and your actions ... like, the mental dissonance is honestly TOO much to even try, thats WAY more terrifying than letting yourself be bad, to the point where thats psychologically impossible for a lot of people. but now she actually has space and freedom and CHOICE and she CAN embrace the instincts she always had to shove down, she CAN be the person she knows her sister needed her to be

i dont know, i think theres an inherent love letter to yourself in wanting to be better and wanting to improve, even if you justify it by saying its for someone else. and now aelwyn actually CAN improve, and thats probably going to be extremely awkward and scary and there will be set backs and backslides for sure. but. i dont know. i think she wants to make up for lost time. because she never wanted the time to be lost in the first place. and if a protector is who she always wanted to be, whats stopping her from being that now?

thoughts on Nier: Replicant ver. 1.22 Ending E and an explanation for people playing Replicant ver 1.22 going "Oh its that thing from Nier: Automata"

spoilers for ALL of Nier: Replicant ver 1.22, Automata, Drakengard, and Drakengard 3

so let’s start of the beginning. God is evil, that’s the Flower in DoD3 and the angels DoD1. When Caim and Angelus brought the Beast Queen in our world/another iteration of our world, that caused all the problems of Nier. Researchers as we see in the notes on Project Gestalt, the Hamelin Organization, etc. learned to integrate magic from that world into our world’s technology which is how replicant/gestalt and android technology. The big tree you see in Replicant/gestalt is like a cloud storage server that contains the data collected from people from Project Gestalt. Project Gestalt also developed the androids used to manage the whole system. Like 10,000 years or something in the future aliens invade and develop the machines you fight in Automata. The machines continue after the aliens die out and develop a obsession with humanity and replicating humanity. Some way or another the machines managed to get a hold of the data which is what we see in the final endings of Automata.

As such the reason we see the angelic language throughout all of these games is because they all come from the same source and have been transmitted/infected throughout the course of these stories. So to reiterate Caim and Angela brought the Grotesquerie Queen and magic to the Nier world which was then integrated into the technology used in Project Gestalt and thus both the androids and the divine tree. the remnants of gestalt data continued to be used for android development and project yorha and at some point the machines managed to get a hold of it and remade themselves around it in the pursuit of becoming human.

This why in Ending E of Replicant ver 1.22 we see an area that resembles the Copied City shown in Automata, or more accurately the copied city resembles the data within the divine tree because it is data that Adam copied/derived from that original data that was originally stores in the Divine Tree. The Divine Tree stored data on humans from their memories to their personalities to their bodies, but it also stored data on all of human civilization, the world. You can see the cityscape in ending E, its data the Tree has stored on cities of the 21st century.

This is also why the digital environments we see in Replicant ver 1.22′s ending E and the digital environment/hacking zone from Automata look the same. Its like navigating a windows 7 and a windows 10 pc. they mostly work the same because they’re both windows. androids were made as a part of project gestalt and so the androids, the yorha server, and the big tree are running on the same thing. And then the machines copied the androids/corpse of the big tree which is why their hacking space also looks the same.

Its the same with the big flower at the end of Ending E. When I first read that a the end of the short story I remember being like... wat. but yeah same deal is going on.

also. In nier replicant/gestalt some people seem to have confused the robots in that game with the machines in automata. To those people I say remember that nier replicant/gestalt was published many years before automata was even conceptualized, so the writers didn’t know that the term “machine” would gain a very specific definition. the robots in nier were developed alongside the androids. They might not have had the same developers just like an iphone and a boeing 737 don’t share a development origin but they are of the same technological era. Though given the capability for intelligence and emotion that even simple mining security robots like beepy show, maybe robots and androids do share the same origins. idk and its not important. the aliens and thus machines did not come for many thousands of years later. the point is that THE ROBOTS OF NIER HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ALIEN MACHINES OF AUTOMATA.

and now finally to my closing point. coda to my previous posts of what it means to be human and my monogatari series post on which is more valuable the original or the imposter, existence precedes essence. humans are gone and we are all that remains the repeatedly recreated body data that was never meant to gain a will of its own, the human souls whose data will inevitably be corrupted, and the androids who were created in the image of humanity. and then we have the machines who literally have an origin that is out of this world. and the origin doesn’t matter. its the juxtaposition of those lines that are drawn the result in the end. that’s where the oof of 9s finding out yorha and machine cores are the same. the games start us off with the assumption that were is some fundamental underlying difference between human(replicant) and shade, android and machine. but those differences are arbitrary, both shades and replicants are are capable of loving, protecting, hating, and killing. I doesn’t matter that replicants were suppose to be empty shells, that they were never suppose to awaken. That’s why its powerful that we play through the game as something that was never meant to be a person. Then the player realizes that they are fighting the version of the protagonist that they played as in the prologue, because in the end there is no meaningful difference between the two, neither is more right or wrong than the other and neither is less a person than the other and the tragedy of it is that this confrontation will end in the annihilation of one of them.

(oh and last thing, the in lore reason we see nier bosses in the yorha dark apocalypse ffxiv raid series is because memories of those bosses were recorded by nier and kaine and stored in the divine tree who’s data the machines eventually got their hands on.)

“…First and foremost, one of the strongest and most fundamental influences on medieval scholarship about women throughout the entire Middle Ages was the bible. Christian writers relied on the bible because of the fact that it represented God’s holy word, and as such offered important and (at least theologically) irrefutable ideas about women, the majority of which cast women in a decidedly negative light.

To be sure, there were (and still are) biblical verses that portrayed women in a more favourable – even militant – light, such as Deborah, a prophetess and leader of Israel who helped guide the Israelite army to victory over the Canaanites, and Jael, who it is written killed the Canaanite general Sisera, but the overall image of women is a negative one. Various passages throughout the bible reiterated how women were supposed to be, for instance, silent in public, submissive to their husbands, periodically unclean to touch, and scheming seducers of men.

Yet it was the Genesis story of creation and the Pauline Epistles which were to exert the most influence upon medieval conceptions of women. Indeed, Paul himself used the Genesis creation story, specifically the idea that women were created of man and that they caused the Fall of Man, to justify man’s superiority over women and show how women cannot be trusted and require male guidance. Similar concerns about women were displayed by the early Church Fathers, whose writings bridged the gap between the biblical and the medieval period and helped formulate much medieval Christian doctrine.

Their thought is indicative of why later medieval conceptions of women were primarily negative. There is, for instance, the uncompromisingly misogynistic view of writers like St Ambrose (c.338- 397) and St Jerome (c.347-420), who contended that ultimately women were the root of all evil and defined them primarily as lustful beings who must strive for the ascetic life in order to be reconciled with God. Only through a life of reflection and controlled living could women achieve salvation, for nothing else would suffice.

A slightly more temperate view is that of St Augustine of Hippo (354-430), whose writings, for various reasons, were highly influential in shaping the attitudes of the western Church in the Middle Ages and beyond. He adopted a more subtle approach to the issue and argued that although God only made man in his image and not women, both sexes resemble God at the level of the soul, a level which occurs whenever anyone from either sex contemplates or spiritually seeks out God through prayer and religious devotion. In that activity gender becomes redundant, and they both resemble God’s likeness.

Nevertheless, despite this spiritual unity of the sexes, women still differ from men physically and can only ever hope to be man’s helper, as noted in Genesis, thus it is only when a woman is together with her husband that she forms the image of God. By identifying women’s inferiority in their bodies therefore, Augustine was free to highlight the inherent sinfulness of the body and hence argue that women were more prone to sin and must be under male control.

Patristic and biblical sources, therefore, were highly influential in shaping High and Late medieval conceptions about women. Yet in order to understand one of the key writers in this area during the high medieval period, Thomas Aquinas, it is necessary to understand the work of Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), whose ideas about the nature of women remained virtually unknown in Europe until the mid-thirteenth century, but which then became an important base for later medieval discussions about women. We shall come to the rediscovery of Aristotle shortly, but first it is necessary to explore the essential elements of his thought.

He was, of course, the student of another great classical philosopher – Plato (c.428-c.347 B.C.), but unlike Plato, who suggested that men and women could to a certain extent participate equally in political life and military matters, Aristotle’s work left no doubt as to the subordinate and inferior role women should play in society. The clearest expression of this inferior status is found in Aristotle’s Politics and his ideas about the natural hierarchy of beings. This book described a natural order of ruler to ruled, where he contended that just as tame animals are by nature better than wild ones and should be ruled by humans if they are to be preserved, so ‘the relation of the male to the female is by nature that of better to worse and ruler to ruled’.

Such a statement leaves little doubt as to the subordinate role women naturally assumed in relation to men. Nevertheless, evidently trying to clarify and further distinguish the nature of this male-female relationship, he states that within the household the male rules over the female ‘for by nature the male is more fitted for leading than the female’. The male’s right to rule ‘by nature’ stems from the fact that, although women have the ability to deliberate and make decisions, they are nevertheless ‘not in control’ of this ability. In other words, women are able to reason, but they are unable to control their passions, unlike men, who can both reason and control their passions, and who therefore should rule over women.

Moreover, nature makes things for only one purpose; for women, their natural role was in bearing children and tending the household, which left the men free to practise politics – a role that accorded with, and was dictated by, nature itself. As a consequence, women must also be excluded from military participation, since, as Aristotle notes, ‘the political way of life...[is one]...divided between the needs of war and peace’. In other words, war was a political – and by implication – male-only affair. Women’s natural procreative purpose and inability to be in full control of their reasoning capacity shut them off from any political rule or military participation.

Important as these ideas would become in later medieval thought, however, they found no traction in medieval political thought until the mid-thirteenth century, when firstly the Nichomachean Ethics and then the Politics were translated into Latin in 1246/7 and c.1260/65 respectively. Their translation formed part of the larger rediscovery of Aristotle’s philosophy in the medieval West at that time and coincided with the flowering of Aristotelian studies in the universities at Paris and Oxford during the 1240s and 1250s.

Amongst the first to engage with this rediscovered material was Thomas Aquinas (c.1225-1274), whose Summa Theologica (written 1265-1274) is notable for the way in which it wove together the patristic writings of the early Church with the emerging naturalistic Aristotelian world view into a text which has been described as ‘at once more androcentric and less misogynist than the patristic inheritance’. More specifically, Aquinas helped synthesise the rediscovered works of Aristotle with more traditional Christian notions regarding the body-soul duality, and in so doing offered a new foundation and justification for male superiority in the physical world.

Adopting the Aristotelian idea of a natural hierarchy, in which those with more rationality ruled those with less, Aquinas applied it to the Christian tradition by placing God at the apex of a divine order of beings, over which He had supreme control. In this divine order man was possessed of a better intellectual capacity than woman, and although both sexes had a rational soul, men’s greater ability to reason made them naturally superior to the female sex, and the logical rulers of society. Women, on the other hand, were a sex created solely for purposes of reproduction and no other, since procreation was the only task which unquestionably required male- female cooperation, and in all other tasks man would be better served by another man in fulfilling that task.

Moreover, although women help ensure the survival of the species, Aquinas maintained that ‘man is yet further ordered to a still nobler vital action, and that is intellectual operation’, as man’s ultimate goal must be in striving for rationality through the perfection of the soul. Thus, in his conception, women serve an inferior bodily-related function, unlike men’s role as leaders and the natural rulers of the world in which they live. Furthermore, while both sexes have a rational soul and are formed in the image of God, men nevertheless have this image in a superior form to that of women.

In essence, therefore, Aquinas used Aristotle’s ideas on natural order to assert that the inferiority and subjugation of women was a natural state of affairs, and in so doing he helped reinforce the biblically based arguments earlier Christian theologians (such as the Fathers) employed to justify the subordinate position of women. Additionally, it is clear that his conception of women’s avowedly domestic social function left no place for women to fight in medieval militia or command troops.

In Aquinas’ view, women’s only true hope for equality with men lay in the resurrected state (after death) where, because both men and women are possessed of a rational soul, both sexes are able to come together in worshipping and loving God in a place where there is no need for any form of carnal expression or coitus. Thus, only once free of all bodily processes and temptations is Aquinas willing to afford women equal standing to that of men. For all his efforts to reconcile Aristotelian philosophy with the bible, however, it was not Aquinas but rather one of his students, Giles of Rome (c.1243-1316), who in fact made Aristotle’s ideas accessible to more than just a university audience.

His lengthy mirror-of-princes work De regimine principum (c.1281) – dedicated to the future French king Philip IV (1268-1314) and intended to help guide him in governance as well as princely conduct – was highly popular and widely translated into numerous languages (even today more than three hundred Latin manuscripts still survive). Indeed, it has been described as ‘the most successful product of the mirrors for princes genre’, probably because it was one of the few such works to bridge the gap between lecture theatre and noble household. This success can be attributed to the way in which Giles distilled the ideas contained in Aquinas’ work and presented them in a very readable and systematic format.

While the specifics of Giles’ arguments as far as they relate to female militancy are presented in the third subsection, for now it is enough to note that it was his work that provided the most publicly accessible expression of Aquinas’ political thought and of women’s supposed inferiority to man. Examining the development of political and theological thought up to its fusion in Aquinas’ work, therefore, there was evidently a generally negative, even hostile, attitude toward women, combined with a broad denial of any possibility that they could be useful for any public leadership role. It is fair to ask then what prejudiced these men, and many others not mentioned here, against women, why they were so unwilling to acknowledge that women could reason, and why they were so quick to denounce their sinfulness.

Although it is possible that individual experiences may have influenced what these authors wrote, the clearest explanation for such attitudes is that women’s roles were classified on the basis of their biological differences from men, and they were held to a different standard because of it. As Susan Okin notes, philosophers and theologians were led to define women ‘by their sexual, procreative and child-rearing functions within [the family]’, thus theoretically constraining the roles which women might perform outside of private life. Moreover, by linking women to temporal and less rational bodily processes, Christian theologians could argue that women were more prone to suffering a loss of control or reason (for instance, during sex), just as the first woman, Eve, was the one tempted and who caused the Fall of Man.

Invariably this line of argument led them to conclude that all women were inferior to men in practically every way and that their only conceivable temporal purpose was as an aid in reproduction. Such sweeping generalisations suggest that there was a subtle, if ill-defined, male fear of ‘female sexuality and reproductive functions’, perhaps because the vast majority of medieval authors were members of an educated but celibate clergy who rarely came into contact with women and were, consequently, quick to point out the supposed faults and weaknesses of women.

Furthermore, we cannot rule out the role patriarchy had in shaping negative views of women in the High to Late Middle Ages. Patriarchy emphasised a certain core set of male-centred values and beliefs that included such qualities as strength, logic, rationality, calmness under pressure, control and toughness – all of which were well suited to the political and military arena. In medieval times (and even today) this meant that more traditionally ‘feminine’ values, such as cooperation, equality, compassion, and emotional awareness, were not emphasised and consequently less valued, especially when it came to war.

As a result, medieval authors espoused a general belief in the universally passive or timid nature of women, as opposed to the ‘active’ nature of all men, which they used to help delineate the differences between the turbulent (but logical and rational) male world and the more tranquil female domestic sphere. Thus, female involvement in public affairs would have challenged or compromised the traditional image of men as the ones who engaged in public activity and who defended those believed to be unable to defend themselves, namely women and children.”

- James Michael Illston, ‘An Entirely Masculine Activity’? Women and War in the High and Late Middle Ages Reconsidered

Okay, Okay. Here is my personal pet theory about what the Luxon is.

What if the Luxon is the metaphysical equivalent of a Virtual Intelligence?

Everything we’ve learned about the beacons, from Caleb’s personal dives into understanding them to Essek’s illuminating yet heretical musings on them to whatever else Matt has thrown at us, has clearly shown us that a core feature of the beacons, the strongest narrative flavor, revolves around possibility.

These beacons supposedly freed the dark elves of Xorhaus, and later other “evil” beings from the chains of Lolth and the many other Betrayer Gods. But from what I’ve come to understand about the beacons, I have a very hard time thinking this was by the Luxon showing them the “right” path, but more so that it showed them many paths, all different to the one they already walked. I don’t think it gave them guidance, I think it gave them options.

And there’s this sensation I’ve gotten every time the beacons are used or discussed, especially when considering the many boons from gods and demigod’s we’ve seen, that this thing, if divine, provides so little compulsion to its user. It has no will, no desire. I can’t imagine the Sword of Fathoms not coming into the hands of someone without Uk’otoa thinking its every use will bring him closer to freedom. I think to the tomb that held the Deathwalker’s Ward, set to kill instantly any who sought to steal it from its resting place, and how I find it hard to imagine any unlocking its full power without either doing something specifically in service to the Raven Queen, or something she has deemed in her interest.

But these beacons, this Luxon, seems to be without a will of its own, without an intent, as we have seen with every other instance of a divine being. It can do as the divine have led us to believe they can, warping the very fabric of reality at its most fundamental levels, but it does not do so as a boast of its power or as a grand chess move in its Machiavellian schemes, it would seem. It doesn’t control or encourage. It simply introduces new possibilities. It’s not a lecture but a library, not a signpost but a map. And that’s not really what I’ve come to expect from a god.

So what if it isn’t a god? What if it’s another sort of remnant of the act of creation. A piece of the blue print. The command prompt of the universe. To bring more of the beacons together is the same as upgrading your PC with more RAM or a better graphics card; it increases its processing power, and so more of the universe is unlocked for you manipulate.

Even its role in extending the lives of the Krynn through consecution feels like a task being handled by a virtual intelligence, like an Alexa making a purchase for you or updating your schedule with a new reminder; it takes in souls as they depart their bodies, and then introduces them into a new body. It only does this when a soul has been consecuted, which can be assumed under my theory to be the equivalent of setting up your account on a new computer or website. If you’re registered, this service is available to you. It even feels like a computer’s solution to the problem of death; “Oh your hardware is failing? Let’s just upload a backup of your software on a new device.”

I don’t know if this is a particularly illuminating idea for anybody else, but it certainly feels like a handy metaphor for really wrapping my own head around the Luxon. Now to sit and wait for Matt Mercer to prove me horribly wrong.

Today in Tolkien - March 14th

Minas Tirith, despite exceptionally strong defensive fortifications and extensive food stores, comes to the brink of falling to the enemy after only two nights and one day of siege, largely due to a collapse of morale.

“There is no news of the Rohirrim. Rohan will not come now. Or if they come, it will not avail us. The new host that we had tidings of has come first, from over the River by way of Andros, it is said...They hold the northward road; and many have passed on into Anórien. The Rohirrim cannot come.”

The Rohirrim, in fact, are very near the city, passing through the Drúadan Forest on ancient and little-known roads, led by Ghân-buri-Ghân and his folk. They set off near dawn and travel all day; by noon they are already near Amon Dîn. In order to arrivd at Minas Tirith rested and ready for battle, and since 7 leagues (21 miles) of open ground still lie between them and the out-wall of the Pelennor, they rest and sleep in the afternoon and set out at night, aiming to arrive the next day near dawn.

Aragorn, too, is on his way to Minas Tirith, travelling upriver with the captured fleet; there is no wind, and the men row all day and into the night to come to the city as fast as possible. It is 42 leagues (126 miles) from Pelargir to Minas Tirith via the river. But in the night a wind comes up from the sea, and their pace increases.

This illustrates the vast significance of fog of war to everything that is going on. All the necessary forces for Gondor’s victory are already in place and close approaching the city, but the defenders of Minas Tirith know nothing of them and think their cause is hopeless. This is one of the reasons (there are many others) why the ability to hold onto hope even beyond reason, and to keep going even when hope is gone, is such an important virtue in The Lord of the Rings. Despair is a form of pride (as expressed in the later exchange between Gandalf and Denethor) because it assumes your own omniscience, that you already know everything you need to know and can perfectly judge that there is no chance. Moreover, it disregard the will and volition of others. Tolkien’s ideal of virtue, in this situation, is to do your duty to the best of your abilities, even if you don’t know what anyone else is doing, and leave it to others to do theirs to the best of their ability.

This form of faith in other people is seen in many places, not least in Frodo’s determination to continue with the Quest even after he sees the army rude oyr of Minas Morgul and thinks evrwhere else is doomed, and Aragorn’s march against Mordor to distract Sauron and give Frodo a fighting chance (and, for that matter, Aragorn looking in the palantír to challenge Sauron, and trusting that Minas Tirith can hold out until he can get there). And that last-mentioned gambit is a massive and crucial success - today and yesterday, the forces of Mordor actually have the Ring-bearer (though not the Ring) in captivity, Sam is walking around Mordor wearing the Ring, Sam gets past the strang Watchers of Cirith Ungol (which is highly unusual) and Sauron - who can generally sense when the Ring is worn, as with Frodo on Amon Hen - doesn’t even notice because he’s so focused on fighting Gondor.

Conversely, Denethor’s despair is the flip side of his previous firm self-reliance, because when his own resources and plans give out and everything looks hopeless (granted - again, he thinks Sauron has the Ring, and if that were true things would be pretty hopeless), he doesn’t trust in the initiative of others to make any difference. But his assumptions about what he knows are still based on the assumption that he’s not being deceived or manipulated in any way.

Not that I think Sauron specifically orchestrated Denethor seeing Frodo’s capture in the palantír - as I mentioned, Sauron at this moment is not aware of the capture or its significance. Rather, there’s a general air of malice and deception around the palantíri that are under Sauron’s influence (the Orthanc-stone is safe for Aragorn to use once Aragorn has taken control of it) that will manipulate their users and influence both the things they see and their interpretations of what they see, in ways that broadly serve Sauron’s purposes.

(Nonetheless, it’s hard for me to blame Denethor for using the palantír in the first place. The very fog-of-war that I mentioned makes long-range intelligence-gathering immensely tempting.)

Returning to Sam and Frodo, the narrative gives us a sense of concurrent events when Sam wakes from unconsciousness:

Out westward in the world it was drawing to noon upon the fourteenth day of March in the Shire-reckoning, and even now Aragorn was leading the black fleet from Pelargir, and Merry was riding with the Rohirrim down the Stonewain Valley, while in Minas Tirith flames were rising and Pippin watched the madness growing in the eyes of Denethor.

This is the closest Tolkien comes in his story to genuine narrative contrivance (rather than the real sense of eucatastrophe in the arrival of the Rohirrim at the Battle of Pelennor Fields, and even later in the the victory at Mount Doom, which are very much founded on the characters’ prior choices combined with actions of divine grace), in the orcs of Cirith Ungol killing all of each other off and enabling Sam to rescue Frodo. That said, it is fairly typical orc attitudes, exaggerated by a prize of phenomenal value in the form of the mithril-shirt. (Or, if I wanted to be glib, I could say that orcs were once elves and retain their general magpie-like predilection for shiny objects.)

Sam’s song in the Tower is one of Tolkien’s most beautiful poems, and it and Frodo’s reply is almost certainly inspired, for Sam, by the tale of Beren and Lúthien, which he and Frodo were discussing only a few days ago. Even Sam’s song is similar to one later in the Leithian recalling the beauty of nature as talisman against despair (compare In western lands beneath the Sun the flowers may rise in spring to Farewell now here ye leaves of trees, your music in the morning-breeze!). I’m not suggesting a romantic connection between Frodo and Sam, but rather that Tolkien doesn’t see anything fundamentally less close or less important or less moving in a deep and close friendship than in Middle-earth’s greatest epic romance. The centrality and strength of friendship in his stories is one of the things I love so much about them.

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo.

5 stars.

“No mourners. No funerals. Among them, it passed for 'good luck.” If we added as soundtrack Gimme Gimme by ABBA to this book, it would fit. Can y'all imagine Inej, Jesper and Wylan stealing the tank and running away with that song on the background? Masterpiece. *chef kiss* Six of Crows is by far one of my favorite books. I read it two years ago, after the Grisha trilogy and I have to admit that Leigh Bardugo has improved tremendously as a writer. I consider this a much better story than her main trilogy. The plot, the characters, the writing, the pacing, the descriptions, the worldbuilding and the breadth she has given it is perfection. I'll go in order to describe how much I loved this book. In Six of Crows, we follow six misfits who have a common goal: thirty million kruge. They have to go to the Ice Court in Fjerda, the "safest" prison in the world and rescue, or kidnap, Bo Yul-Bayur, a Grisha who accidentally created a drug called jurda parem, which sharpens and increases the Grisha's powers, taking them to high and unknown levels. We have a sharpshooter who can't stay away from a good bet. A wayward son who was kicked out of his father's house and is underestimated, but is very smart. An ex-convict accused slaver, the world's most handsome, lovable, and idiotic fjerdan brute, out for revenge. A lost Grisha who makes a living healing people and trying to get the fjerdan out of the jail he put him in. A suli girl who is basically a ghost, the Wrath, a spy who defies the laws of gravity and is a sweetheart of a person. And finally, our favorite swindler: the Bastard of the Barrel, someone whom legends have turned him into a monster, someone without scruples, without morals or conscience. Will they be able to unite to achieve their goal and come out alive? Or will they end up killing each other before they reach Fjerda? Plot. As I said, compared to the Grisha trilogy, Six of Crows is perfection at its finest. It's not the first heist book (I've only read this one, sorry), but it grabs you from the first moment. I love that Leigh has taken up the Grisha again - I must confess that I love the Grisha order and how she has placed them - and that in this book she continues to include them as a fundamental part of the plot. Just like the first time, Six of Crows grabbed me, although I never understood why Joost and his chapter, I did feel bad that he was all dead. Each chapter had me hooked and begging for more. Even the very end left me screaming and crying like crazy. I have to repeat it: Miss Bardugo, this is a masterpiece, an exquisite and divine piece. Every plot twist had me in suspense or saying "I need more". It's a more radical departure from what we were given in the Grisha trilogy. They steal, explote things, destroy places and make great entrances, lol

Characters. Kaz "killer cane" Brekker. I want to protect him, and at the same time beat him with his cane. His story is touching at a certain point and makes you understand how or why Kaz became who he is now, why he is such a bastard, arrogant and fearless at the same time. There is never a challenge hard enough for him as he dares to prove otherwise. He shows us that he is one step ahead of the rest, and if he runs out of tricks, our demjin manages and invents more. Dirty Hands is a magician, a monster thirsty for revenge for the death of his brother, Jordie, thanks to a scam Pekka Rollins pulled on them when they were just kids. Kaz is full of secrets, tricks, schemes and more that it's scary to know what he's thinking. He's a bastard forged in the very cauldrons of hell, a seventeen-year-old kid who worked his way up through tooth and nail, using his brother's corpse to swim and get to where he is. Inej "The Wrath" Ghafa. Inej was captured and sold as a slave to the cursed Tante Heleen, who owns a brothel. Inej has the ability to go unnoticed, so much so that Kaz Brekker did not feel her approaching him. In any case, Kaz pays Inej's contract with Heleen and joins the Undesirables, becomes Kaz's right-hand man and his spy, or spider. Kaz and Inej are obviously in love, but they don't confess it to each other because it's complicated, and I don't know if I want to yell at them to kiss, or punch them to make them realize it. Inej deserves the whole world. She can stab me and I would appreciate it. Nina "my queen" Zenik. Nina had joined the Ravkan Second Army and was captured before the civil war in Ravka, she was imprisoned by the drüskelle to be taken to Fjerda to be tried for her crimes, which are basically: having powers. She is a heartrender, order of the Corporalki. She met my other goddess Zoya Nazyalenski. Well, anyway, Matthias was one of the drüskelle who imprisoned her and when their ship sinks, she saves him. Nina and Matthias wander around in each other's company and in the end, she brands him a slaver and Matthias ends up imprisoned in Kerch. One can feel the tension between them: enemies to lovers vibes, yup, I live for that. In the end, to save them all, Nina decides to consume jurda parem and knows that she will experience drastic changes in terms of her power and herself. Matthias "the tulip" Helvar. He is my beautiful baby, the most adorable bear and the cutest brute of all. You don't know how much I have laughed for him, he is so innocent in many things that I want to protect him from everything and everyone. Yes, I have a thing for blond brutes (Nikolai Lantsov, I'm talking to you too). From the first time I read Six of Crows, I instantly fell in love with Matthias and will be in love with him until I die. Amen. I already know what happens to him in Crooked Kingdom and I don't want it to come to that. Seriously he deserves all the love in the world, and even though I wanted to punch him many times, I also wanted to hug him and tell him that everything is going to be okay. In the end, Matthias renounces the beliefs that were instilled in him, accepts reality and becomes a Dreg, fighting against his own people. Jesper "crazy hands" Fahey. Jes is a Zemeni boy who came to Kerch to study at the university, but by chance, he ends up becoming a gambler. Jesper is a Grisha, a Materialki, and only Kaz and Inej know his secret. He is a fairly agile sharpshooter and a gambler who can't resist a good game without knowing he will lose. In a slip of the tongue, Jesper confesses what they are about to do and as they are about to leave Ketterdam, they are attacked. Jesper is a baby and I must protect him from all evil and danger. Plus, I really ship him with Wylan. Wylan "little merc" Van Eck. Another baby. I want to protect him from everything and everyone, especially his bastard of a father. Ugh, I hate him. When Jan Van Eck proves to be the jerk he is in front of his son, I wanted to cry with rage because my little baby boy doesn't deserve any of that. Wylan is smarter than others give him credit for, and

even Kaz thinks that just because he can't read doesn't stop him from doing amazing things; he doesn't put it that way, but I do. Worldbuilding. We find ourselves in a totally different country from Ravka. In the Grisha trilogy, we focused more on a description of Ravka, but now, we have two different places: Kerch and Fjerda. Although Shu Han, Novyi Zem, and Ravka are mentioned again, Ketterdam is a fairly fixed point. The description of the places is incredible: you seriously imagine it as a Dutch city in the Victorian era. Tell me I wasn't the only one. I don't know what else can I say about these assholes that I haven't already said. They're so chaotic, funny and you attach to them really quick, even if you want to kick them. I can't really believe they're 16-17-18 years old: they feel really older and "mature", but once you know them, you realize they're a bunch of kids trying to make a heist. Anyways, I loved Six of Crows with my entire life. I'm a sucker for this masterpiece and I'm really looking forward Crooked Kingdom, but knowing what happens to my tullip makes me wanna cry, scream and destroy the world. We stan Kanej, Helnik and Wesper, bitches. I love my Dregs. :')