TWK: The Aelf dilemma

Roy C. Lackey · 07 Dec 2005, 07:31 · from 2005-December.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2005 01:31:12 -0600
Subject: (urth) TWK: The Aelf dilemma
Message-ID: <000e01c5fb00$36747220$493ec6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>

Cliff quoted Crush and wrote:
>> This seemed pretty obvious to me. It was a sacrifice. All
>> worshippers desire
>> to have their sacrifices accepted by their gods. What is the
>> benefit to
>> humans to chop up an ox and burn it on an altar?
>
>Well, that makes some sense. Though humans only do this if there is a
>living covenant with their gods. Uri and Baki were Garceg's, so they
>had rejected humanity as their gods. So it seems curious to me.

Uri and Baki *should* have been gods to Garsecg, but the worship seems to
have gone the other way. Btw, if the Aelf had little (if any) hope of
sanguinary salvation, the dragons were really screwed. If the quantity of
blood matters for promotion upwards, the Aelf were little and the dragons
big. I can't see an Aelf giving a dragon enough blood to matter. Maybe
that's why dragons want to eat people (Morcaine), but those people don't
usually give willingly. Stalemate.

The people in and around Toug's village were said to perversely worship the
Aelf. The Aelf scared the hell out of them -- scared Ravd, too. Most of the
Aelf who appear in TWK want humans to give them blood, if only "a drop".
Given the dynamics of the situation, that village should have been a mecca
for every Aelf in Mythgarthr. With willing blood givers and greedy
recipients, it seems to me that sooner or later some theoretical 'critical
volume' of blood ingested by some Aelf must be achieved and a new "soul"
born -- provided that a finite quantity of blood given willingly by mere
humans can do the trick. I remain unconvinced.

-Roy

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