Previously, on Mad-sterpiece Theater:
: For the newbies who haven't read all the evidence before,
: I figure I'll back my statements here.
: The A/B reincarnation thing comes from a statement in
: GURPS...
: Now, as for where people came from...
: However, the comet has not always come from the east...
: I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge Tharsis...
: Now, with death and birth and reincarnation....
Coming up next, on Mad-sterpiece Theater: chaos, order, and balance; the dueling spirits' and good and evil's innate tendancies; and everybody's favorite subject, geography!
I'm taking a lot from SiliconDream in these ramblings here, so if it makes no sense blame him ;-)
Chaos: the destructive tendancy. Order: the constructive. Typically, chaos is considered to be pure evil, and order pure light. But I would tend to disagree. The Nazis were extremely orderly, yet I don't think anyone here would consider them anything but evil. Likewise, so were Balor's armies of the undead, all thoughtlessly bound to a single master, acting in unison. Star Trek fans will immediately recognise the similarity to the Borg, who are also considered evil. So order is not always a good thing.
Then what is good? Balance. The order of civilization without the oppression of martial law or a hive-mind. The chaotic freedom of individuality without the self-centeredness of viscious animals.
If we look at the Leveller, the incarnation of evil in Myth, we see the same thing. Moagim was pure chaos; his Myrkridia were, quite literally, viscious animals, each acting in pure, hungry self-interest. Balor, on the other hand, was pure order; every single thing undead and linked as an extension of his own mind, with well-structured orders and chains of commands filtering down through Fallen Lords, Shades, Trow generals and such, down to the individual Thrall. The forces of the Light, on the other hand, have always had a good balance between order and chaos.
An interesting pattern appears in here. Balor was pure order, as we have already established. But look at his actions as Connacht. He established a great empire, brought law and civilization to the world, and did generally orderly things. Even his destruction of powerfull artifacts could be seen as trying to disempower the individual, to have the government, "the system" keep things in check.
Look at Alric now, the reincarnation of chaotic Moagim. He is, more or less, the only guy in charge of the Light. Everyone else below him is quite a ways below him, to the point that no single individual is really that far above another in comparison to their lowly stature next to Alric. He seems to run allow things to run in a rather democratic way outside his direct orders. That smacks of freedom and chaos.
Tireces, likewise, headed the "Age of Reason". This sounds much like the European Renissance, an age filled with individual empowerment.
We come to the conclusion, therefore, that the A-spirit (Tireces, Moagim, Moagim Reborn, and Alric) is the embodyment of chaos and freedom, while the B-spirit (Connacht and Balor) is the embodyment of order and control. The Leveller simply pushes their natural tendancies overboard, into the extreme; they would naturally be fairly balanced.
Now, on to geography! Can I get a "yay"?
Lets look at the map. Everybody pull out your manual and open it to page 1. Now, imagine, off to the west, far across the ocean, a land called the Faraway. This land is perfect light and balance. Imagine, also, more lands to the east, with undead monsters and orderly Trow to the northeast and the chaotic Untamed Lands to the southeast. These are the lands described in GURPS.
Now look at the map itself. Where are the most civilized lands? To the west. Where do big viscious evil guys always come from? The east. Considering that the perfect Faraway is to the west and all sorts of evil lands are in the far east, it's reasonable to conclude that west is good and east is evil.
Now lets look at the order/chaos spectrum. The Trow, an extremely orderly race, are to the north. The Ghols, an extremely chaotic race, are to the south. The dark lands to the northeast are dominated by undeath, which is orderly. The dark lands to the southeast are the Untamed Lands, which are, obviously, chaotic. So it seems that north is order and south is chaos. There are many exceptions to this division, however; the Mauls in the north versus the Dwarves in the south, for example. But it seems to be there.
If we look at this on a global scale, we see an interesting picture. Imagine, if you will, a sphere. Imagine, drawn on it, latitude and longide lines. Call one of the latitudes "0", and the one opposite it "180". Place the Myth map so that the Cloudspine lines up with "90". Somewhere on 180 is the Faraway. All of the 180 latitude is the same - perfect balance. As you travel east or west of it, however, the chaotic elements begin to concentrate more toward the south, and orderly elements toward the north. When you reach 0, you have an absolute division; all the north is pure order, and all the south pure chaos. Presumable, there is a gargantuan struggle between them constantly raging at the equator. In one of the two areas directly between balance and extremes is where Wyrd placed his vision, the known lands of Myth.
A funny thing about this picture, though; if you were standing on either pole, you would be in pure chaos or pure order, right? But a step to one direction could put you on 180, where it should be perfect balance. So what are thing like on the poles? Absolute extremes, perfect balance, or some weird mix of it all? Or is there just nothing on the poles to be concerned with?
