Dragaera

Gods, gods, demons, and monsters (spoilers for Issola)

Sat Sep 7 22:08:40 PDT 2002

There are probably spoilers for _Issola_ in this post,
in case you are interested in avoiding them.

--- Damien Sullivan <phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
[...]
> By contrast, Godslayer presumably wipes out a god, 
> period, no more manifestations anywhere.

Why?  "Godslayer" is a loose translation from the
Serioli.  A strict translation, as we learn in
_Dragon_, would be "Remover-of-Aspects-of-Deity." 
That sounds to me at least as likely to be the result
Miklos achieved (by different means) in _Brokedown
Palace_, as described by Verra in _Issola_: one aspect
removed = one place in (or manner; the concept of
place is flexible) in which the deity cannot manifest.
 Reducing the number of potential manifestations to
one would then remove the status of godhood; to zero,
would be analogous to human death.  In this way
Godslayer's creators could have achieved part of the
result they desired, to destroy the Lords of Judgment.
 (Perhaps Pathfinder was necessary to locate each
manifestation?)  Whether they could have replaced them
is a different question.

As I read _Issola_, Godslayer's unique property is
that it negates sorcery (in the Serioli's words,
"useful for interrupting the flow of energies from"
the Orb, or the Great Sea of Chaos, depending on how
one looks at it) -- thus breaking the closed loop of
Orb, Emperor, and Lords of Judgment that protects the
Great Sea from external encroachment (Serioli as well
as Jenoine).  At the battle that ends _Issola_, the
Jenoine had succeeded in creating a smaller such loop
involving the Lesser Sea but were thwarted by (1)
Vlad, wielding Lady Teldra / Godslayer; (2) probably
more importantly, Adron.

I wonder if the Serioli who created Pathfinder and
Godslayer were originally working with, or were tools
of, the Jenoine.  I also wonder if there is a
consciousness (or more than one) in the Greater Sea.

-- Greg

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