I was going to post this this morning, but then my connection went down and when I got back there were already other replies. So some of the stuff in here will be redundant. Sorry.
First of all, let me congratulate you on an extremely original and innovative theory. (I'm going to start arguing with you in a second, and I want to get you off guard. Shh, don't tell!) It is very interesting, though. I was starting to think the Asylum had seen the last of the revolutionary theories and it was all down to fine-tuning now.
: The TFL instruction book mentions that 'their enmity with
: the Trow goes back for centuries.' Centuries being a
: rather vague term, and the timeline for the world
: being rather vague itself, I've often speculated that
: the Forest Giants could've been created at the same
: time as the Trow, and perhaps even faced their own
: trials and tests from combative younger races even as
: the Trow were tested.
Vague as the timeline is, we know from the Myth "Tales" comic that the younger races are at least 15 centuries old, and from the Leveller phenomenon that humans and their kin (who are younger races) are at least 4,000 years old. (Forest would say 6,000.) So a hatred whose duration is measured in centuries is actually pretty recent. I grant you, though, that they could have meant "5 million centuries" or something like that. Also, there are young Forest Giants ("A young one showered the man...") and as far as we know there are no young Trow; they don't reproduce. So this would seem to lump Forest Giants with the reproducing younger races. This is based on negative evidence, of course.
: Based solely upon 'modern' human maps of Myth and the
: information I've seen I see no reason to think that
: the Trow ever held lands in the 'west' (Re: West of
: the Cloudspine), not to mention the ever unseen south
: and east (Out towards 'Gower'). This leads me to
: speculate that perhaps the Trow are not the ancient
: chosen of the gods that they might first appear (And
: would *certainly* present themselves as, all cultures
: do this), but simply a regional variation of over
: sized races that were being tested all over the world
: of Myth.
It seems quite true to me that the Trow were never globally distributed; among other things, the discrepancy between their timeline for the younger races and the Leveller-based one indicates that the younger races were around for millennia before they strayed into the lands of the Trow. And your point about every culture making itself the most important is well-made. However, the Trow story isn't sufficiently egotistical to make me suspicious. All they claim is that a) a god made them at the beginning of the earth, as other races were more or less simultaneously appearing and b) they're very very pious. They don't actually claim to be the favorites of any god; in fact, they sort of make a point of the fact that they build all the temples to Nyx out of pure piety and don't get anything in return. Also, they don't seem to express any feelings of pride whatsoever. They don't ever pat themselves on the back for their technological and magical accomplishments, and they do chastise themselves for their battlefield atrocities. Of course this could be false modesty; "Alas, we're just too powerful and skilled in battle for our own good." But they do seem to have genuine self-esteem problems. Anyway, I don't think they'd lie about encountering other giant races, but it is quite possible they just never met them.
: And let us never forget that there are regions to the
: South and East that we never see, and potentially even
: lands across the oceans with wholely different races,
: not to mention the far world that Fetch are drawn
: from.
True, although the Myth gods apparently don't control the planet of the Fetch, so they wouldn't have created a giant race there.
: What got me started thinking about this? The classic
: four/five elements and their relations to the known
: and unknown Myth world. Consider: Trow clearly
: represent 'earth' (Though it could be argued, because
: the Forest Giant's claim to worship the earth in their
: TFL caption and their claim that Trow 'poisoned the
: soul of iron (By perverting it into steel with
: *fire*?) that the Trow is fire and the FG is earth)
: Forest Giants probably represent 'fire' (Their god is
: referenced as the 'lava god' in the TFL tags and their
: special attack appeared to involve jerking something
: explosive from the ground. Their only appearance in
: TFL SP was on a level with a large stone object with a
: fire burning within, which they appeared to be trying
: to reclaim from the Trow.)
Wouldn't you expect a fire elemental to be made of fire? The Forest Giants not only aren't made of fire, they're actually vulnerable to it (they were originally intended to be as vulnerable to fire as the Changelings, but then fire never got implemented in TFL). And why would they look so much like trees? And like you said, "the earth is their faith."
: The 'Drowned Kingdom of Yer K's' remains uninhabited by
: humans, perhaps because it is defended by a giant
: water race? Perhaps that recently released new giant
: unit from Bungie is this water race, or an
: interbreeding of Forest Giants and the water race (The
: new unit lives in a swamp, highly suggestive of the
: combination of fire-as-energy and water (Or,
: alternately, poisoned earth and water))
We know the origin of the Changelings; they're just ordinary trees inhabited by the demon servitors of b'Y'laggo. And the Drowned Kingdom is uninhabited by humans because it's drowned! No one wants to camp out on top of it in a boat. If you want a water elemental, I'd suggest the Skrael, as the only Myth unit which cannot travel over dry land. They share (in a sense) the longevity of the Trow; although they have lifespans comparable to humans, they reincarnate.
: The Southern realms, where SoulBlighter goes to learn new
: and terribly arts in TFL, would logically be the
: strongest area for an 'air' (Tropical currents, heat
: making air perceptable, etc.) elemental.
What about b'Y'laggo? It's described as a "profane elemental" and "residing in the air."
: Finally we have the far east where The Great Devoid
: (Void) is present, and hints at a true 'void' beyond
: it and Gower, whence Connacht came (Could Connacht
: have been an avatar of void, sent to create balance
: with the Trow and the young races (Heck, could the
: younger races represent the new, combination of all
: others, element 'flesh?'). What sort of giant unit
: would the gods have created from Void to amuse them?
The Great Devoid seems to be some distance from the Edge of All. Shouldn't the Mahir be the incarnation of the void--black, immaterial, sucking energy from their victims?
: Whew, to be brief, does anyone else think the Forest
: Giants could be just as old and powerful as the Trow,
: but less interested in the keeping of records, or the
: development of complex societies? Is the origin of the
: Bre Unor and Fir Bolg races in ancient combat tests of
: the Forest Giant?
Combat tests? Why? The Forest Giants never fought with the fir'Bolg or the bre'Unor, as far as we know, although they must have fought some humanoid race in the past ('cause of their Tathlams.)
: If only we knew *when* the Trow 'poisoned the soul of
: iron' (Could this even be a metaphor for the Trow
: race's development of a complex, city building
: society?) we could reasonably assume the age of the
: Forest Giant...
From the comic, it seems to be roughly coincident with their conquest of the Oghres, which was about 2,000 years ago. I don't think the Forest Giants have any problems with cities; they just don't like the fact that the Trow used iron implements to kill, log, and destroy the environment.
My personal feeling is this. The Forest Giants are a younger race which are just what they look like; a species with both plant and animal characteristics which can move but also photosynthesizes. Since the only things they need to survive are sunlight, fertile soil (maybe they eat it) and water, their main mission in life is to preserve the environment so that these things will be plentifully available. The same simplicity of needs kept them from developing civilization; there isn't anything technology can give them that would counterbalance the damage done by the pollution.
The Forest Giants have a burning idol either because, like many societies, they worship the most dangerous thing known to them and try to win its favor, or for the more practical reason that they occasionally have to perform controlled burns to replenish the topsoil so they need a permanent source of fire. And they hate the Trow not just for the environmental damage the Trow personally performed, but also because everyone else probably learned how to use iron tools from the Trow, then went off and logged.
Once again, interesting theory. Any ideas on where the Forest Giants went in Soulblighter? That's the biggest question.
--SiliconDream
