(urth) Long Review Essay on Wizard Knight

Stanislaus sbocian at poczta.fm
Tue Sep 25 13:36:18 PDT 2007


Hello Roy,

Tuesday, September 25, 2007, 9:51:13 AM, you wrote:

> That's a nice theory, but it doesn't fit the facts as sketched in TWK, as I
> pointed out two years ago.

> The Aelf have no souls. When they die, they die *dead*. But for the sole
> possible exception of Disiri, when the Aelf die they cease to exist at all.
> (As does Mani, after his ninth death.) The Aelf will not rise again, to
> Mythgarthr or anywhere else.

> The overwhelming majority of humans in Mythgarthr aren't going to rise to
> the next level, Skai, either. Only very few, the chosen slain, get to go to
> Skai. I don't know where, if anywhere, humans in Mythgarthr go when they
> die, but that is the way things are set up in the Seven Worlds cosmology of
> TWK.

> To anticipate possible argument; I could make a case for the eventual
> humanization of the Aelf by way of human blood, but that would drag
> Christianity back into it. And even then, I find it rather difficult to
> imagine any significant portion of humanity ever getting picked to go to
> Skai. And it's harder yet to imagine the denizens of a Norse afterlife being
> on the career path to a Christian heaven.

> -Roy

Apokatastasis -the universal return to the Source, universal salvation - is often connected with Neoplatonism, but it is by no means a necessary part of it.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01599a.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocatastasis

Here is a quote from Plotinus on reincarnation:

http://www.folklore.ee/folklore/vol9/plotinus.htm

"Those, then, who guarded the man in them, become men again. Those who lived by sense along become animals [---]. But if they did not even live by sense along with their desires but coupled them with dullness of perception, they even turn into plants; [---] and they were taking care to turn themselves into trees. Those who loved music but were in other ways respectable turn into song-birds; kings who ruled stupidly into eagles, if they had no other vices; astronomers who were always raising themselves to the sky without philosophical reflection turn into birds which fly high. [---] but one who has a lesser share of it a creature that lives in community, a bee or something of the sort. Who, then, becomes a daimon? He who was one here too. And who a god? Certainly he who was one here. For what worked in a man leads him [after death]. Since it was his ruler and guide here too."



Neoplatonism doesn't teach that everyone will commune with God. To the contrary, this is the fate of the chosen few - the greatest philosophers. Those who have ascended to Skai (heroes and warriors) are nearer to the One than we, but  the distance is still infinite. 

The important point, however, is that everyone (that means all men, not all cats) could commune with God- if they do not, it is their own fault. If they suffer, it is their own problem. 

In Wizard-Knight the Aelf are an equivalent of magical cats (only lower, of course). They have no souls, so there is no possibility of them ever ascending. Kulili, on the other hand, could do it, at least theoretically.

When Disiri receives her soul, she is created anew, as a categorically different creature. She can remember her previous life, certainly, but  memory is not identity.




-- 
Best regards,
 Stanislaus                           mailto:sbocian at poczta.fm


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