The poor dragons

Roy C. Lackey · 02 Oct 2007, 19:46 · from 2007-October.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2007 14:46:40 -0500
Subject: (urth) The poor dragons
Message-ID: <000c01c8052c$f75805a0$85cb5a42 at rclackey.stic.net>

Thinking about the amoral Aelf and the problems attendant on their
problematic position in a hierarchical cosmology between men and dragons
leads logically to some other difficulties. It stands to reason that
dragons, native to an even lower level, are also amoral and without an
eternal spirit. Otherwise, how could beings with souls be expected to
worship amoral, soulless, animated debris? What benefit could they possibly
derive from such worship, intrinsic or otherwise? What could the Aelf, given
their nature, possibly do in their capacity as gods to or for the dragons
that the dragons would find beneficial?

What of Setr, who was somehow half human? Was he morally culpable for
anything? If No, then the epic struggle against him is diminished to the
level of a struggle against a particularly dangerous snake or rabid animal,
neither of which bear any responsibility for any harm done by them to men.
If he is morally neutral, then he is just a bogeyman, a cardboard embodiment
of something that can't really be called Evil because it lacks the moral
component associated with Lucifer. If Yes, if he had a human soul, what
reasonable hope had he for salvation, apart from divine grace, a concept I
see no provision for in Wolfe's Seven Worlds cosmology? Did he owe reverence
to the Overcyn or to the Aelf?

-Roy

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