InsaneJournal

E-d-d-i-n-g-s
Aki's post.



Oh, yes, the division between the Eosian and the Daresian Elene Churches drove me nuts. If I remember right, it all seemed to be about which knee they genuflected on. Because that's really a legitimate excuse for a giant division in religion. There are so many other things it could have been, and the Christians probably tried most of them at one point or another - there was one absolutely enchanting period of history we learned about in 9th grade (alas, the year before I started on serious epic fantasy) where two people were both claiming to be Pope, and one of them had the other kidnapped and they both excommunicated the other and all the other's followers and claimed the other was the Antichrist - can you imagine being a simple little Christian at the time and thinking you'd just been tricked into following evil incarnate into *glares at auto-censors, which are rendering her theological discussion rather difficult* eternal d*mnation? Oh, the possibilities... And I can't imagine earlier (this was after the Renaissance, if I remember right) being that much different. But no, it's about a trifling little ceremonial detail, because anything else would be complicated.

I actually had an explanation for the Permanent Medieval Existence in the B/M - it's explicitly stated several times that everything is doomed to repeat itself until the Speshul Chosen One fixes the universe, so it kind of makes a little bit of sense that over seven thousand years nothing would change (rant? me? well, maybe a little.) But... but there's no excuse in the Elenium. My best guess is that the Styrics' 40K-year culture just means that they've been walking upright in their current form for that long (would match with actual history), and that Aphrael and Sephrenia - admittedly not the most unbiased sources - are making up the culture culture bit. ...wait, why am I making excuses for sloppy history again?

You may have a point about the limited number of Church Knights so that there's a controlled number of characters. I was about to say, "But why is one from Thalesia?!" when I realized that it's probably because Eddings was writing the Malloreon at the same time and leaving Barak out of it, so he needed someone to run around in approved fake-Viking manner. Or something. Although you must admit that even if there had been more characters, there wouldn't have been fewer countries, since we went through every single darned country on the map - wait, hang on. *dives for book, thinking "Deira! They missed Deira!", then sees that Acie is in Deira and drops the book again in disgust, remembering that there was some major fuss Aphrael was making about the distance to "that Acie place"*

Yeah, this time when I got to Martel's death I didn't actually cry cry, but my eyes were watering. It's still very well done, and the fact that he's very human sort of emphasizes that. You can't sympathize with the ones running around nude smearing themselves with the blood of sacrifices and then running off to orgies, because they're so exaggerated that they're not even characters, as I think I said last time. But Martel... he wanted power, and he went to the wrong place to get it, and then he went further and further towards evil - but even at the very end, when he was in the actual temple of Evil, during the rites that weren't described in detail but were nonetheless assured to be horrifying, having already been planning his rule over a continent entirely given over to the worship of Azash - which is about as close to being evil as one got, in the Elenium - when Sparhawk told him that Adus had killed Kurik, he was genuinely sorry, or at least that's what the reader was told. Even after the whole evil thing, he was still human enough to feel guilty at the death of his teacher, and then he was sorry again about the deaths of the knights with the crystal, and then he asked Sephrenia's forgiveness (well, blessing) and she gave it to him this time, and then he died. *sniff*

I never actually thought about the gaping holes in Angarak society. I think I sort of assumed that Torak made it all work somehow, or something - although, come to think of it, he spent, what, four and a half thousand years sulking and then got put into a coma for the next five hundred, and then woke up and then was immediately killed? Not really very efficient, come to think of it.

Funny thing - when I was twelve, I was immensely impressed with Eddings's worldbuilding. There's still a lot of it ground into me, because The Rivan Codex was my only instruction on how to worldbuild for four years, and it kind of sank into my bones: maps are good for extremely long periods of time; a few paragraphs are sufficient to explain cultural mores; there's nothing bizarre about each country having its own religion; stealing cultures and plonking them down in another world is perfectly legitimate; and so on, but wherever I realize I'm oversimplifying I now try to change it, somehow. Mmf.

.....speaking of Dolmant's election, how in the world did Ehlana so neatly select him? I read that speech four times over this read-through, trying to figure out where she singled him out so clearly, and, do you know, I couldn't see it. The only place that looked even remotely to me like a specific plug for him was the "modestly guiding you even now" bit, but that was just a sentence or so, and I wouldn't have relied everything on that. Stragen and Sephrenia were acting as if it was completely obvious, and Ehlana clearly thought it was, and everyone reacted, after a minute or so, as if it was... but I didn't get it.

I love the church election, I really do. It's important stuff, vital stuff, but most of the vital stuff in the Elenium involves heads bouncing all over the floor, or internal organs ceasing to be internal, and although it's in-character for that sort of stuff to happen I don't exactly enjoy reading it. The election's the kind of important that stretches out for pages and gets more and more... something the longer it goes, and there's math and bribery and psychology and stuff, and it's so shiny, and I'm always almost sorry when they elect Dolmant because it means it's over.

This is really irrelevant to any of the specifics of the Elenium that we've discussed thus far, but I really like the snake-tattoo of the priestesses of Azash. It actually interlocks with the palm-kissing as greeting, which is culture, which suggests an actual coherent societal structure or something, even though that's probably an illusion. shifty look

Belgariad/Malloreon Crossover Note #358902: Observe, not only the similarities between the city of Zemoch and Cthol Mishrak (down to the phosphorescent lichen, if I remember right), but the cunning disguise of our protagonists on the way, involving at least one not-actual-tattoo, and the ensuing conflict of magical power between the protagonist-magic-type and an uneducated native of the area. (Or am I mixing the Belgariad and the Malloreon? I think the whole thing with the demon-magicians was Belgariad...)

I start the Tamuli tomorrow, or at least I do unless real life eats me again (math? English? history? what are those? shifty look), so I will soon be able to discuss that intelligently again too!