(urth) And Now For Something Completely

Lee Berman severiansola at hotmail.com
Thu Nov 17 05:36:52 PST 2011


Lee Berman wrote (17-11-2011 03:41):
> I lean to Antonio's interpretation.  I lean to Antonio's
> interpretation. I lean to Antonio's interpretation that (...)
 
>Antonio: Thank you, Lee. Thank you, Lee. Thanks.

Heh. My typing has been too sloppy lately but I don't even know
how I managed to triplicate that sentence fragment. "Good fishing..
good fishing..., good fishing" on my mind?
 
>David Stockhoff: > What exactly do you refer to? Humans were sacrificed 
>on the Whorl. AFAIK it was the humans who stopped doing it.
 
>Antonio: Lee misremembered it as did you, no need to get angry.
>Quetzal forbade human sacrifice in Viron in an attempt to prevent teophanies
(ELS 124).

>David Stockhoff: Who's angry? Anyway, that's what I said.
 
Yes, no worries. David and I have a history of cordiality when we disagree.
Also, I am least familiar with Long Sun in the Sun series and I don't mind
a little help on it.
 
Actually, the correction might strengthen my argument. It comes from a 
passage  that confused Roy and was addressed in a thread called "The
Oldest Altar". In the passage, Tartaros says:
 
>"When the first people came, Auk, they were shown how we desired to be
> worshipped. Soon, they were made to forget. They did, but because 
> they had seen what they had seen, a part of them remembered, and when they 
> found our altars on the inner surface, they sacrificed as we had taught them. 
> First of all, here."

There are animal bones in this oldest altar but human bones aren't mentioned.
Perhaps it doesn't matter as Scylla's and Echidna's attitude seems to reflect
that there isn't much difference.
 
There has been some discussion recently about evidence suggesting that Tartaros
tracks directly to The Outsider. If so, his preference for animal (and human?)
sacrifice adds to the idea that The Outsider is not our Christian God but 
something more primitive and pagan.
 
It may even refer to the divide between the God of the Old Testament and the
God of the New Testament. The Old Testament God did desire sacrifices (even 
requesting a human one at one point). If I understand correctly, the New
Testament God ended His need for that with the sacrifice of his son Jesus, The
Lamb of God. (is there anything about animal sacrifice in Short Sun?)
 
p.s. it seems clear to me that Quetzal is trying to suppress the gods because 
he hopes to steer the herd to Green while the gods want to corral their meat
source on Blue. 		 	   		  


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