TWK: 7 world cosmology

Roy C. Lackey · 13 Dec 2005, 06:56 · from 2005-December.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 00:56:34 -0600
Subject: (urth) TWK: 7 world cosmology
Message-ID: <000801c5ffb2$5e488640$5e3ec6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>

I wrote:
>Michael didn't meet Able in Kleos, so clearly he had come down from his
high
>place. Presumably he was able to return, unlike his brother servants/angels
>who went down to Skai. What's the difference?

hartshorn wrote:
>I suspect the thing that bound the descended angels to Skai was probably
the
>slaying of Ymir and the shedding of Ymir's blood.

That's the answer I was looking for and the direction I wanted to take this
thread. People seem to accept the idea that the inhabitants of Kleos are in
fact angels of one stripe or another; at least none have argued against it.
The exact wording in the text regarding those descended angels is "they
could never go back." The question then becomes, *why* couldn't they go
back?

Was there something related to the shedding of blood that physically (if
such a word applies to angels) prohibited them from getting back to Kleos,
or was it that they were not *permitted* to return, presumably by the
Highest God? I suspect the latter.

Why would God punish them for doing what they did? Remember, they were
trying to cast out the inevitable imperfection of the world God had created
for them, to make that world as near as possible to God's perfection. And
they did succeed in casting out much of the imperfection, personified as
Ymir in Skai.

Able was a hero, a man who sacrificed his life in the course of killing a
monster, Grengarm. He was rewarded by being elevated to Skai and becoming a
god to men. Some angels voluntarily gave up their places in Kleos to go down
and kill a monster, Ymir. They were punished by being demoted permanently to
Skai and forced to accept their brethren who stayed at home as gods. What's
the difference? Why was the one rewarded and the other punished for doing
the same basic thing?

-Roy

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