[Jorram]

Didn't have the time to read it all, but just a question - like said in the first post, the Tasse did not have pelts. The Eres'al goddess did. How is this going to work then?

[bhok'arala]

maybe the eres'al goddes was a vegetarian. so what.

(said in a sarcastic tone)
maybe since she was actually pure, there is no pelt becuase that would require killing it probably without the rhivi's method. thus unpuring her.

[Jorram]

Apparently the sarcasm was so much, it didn't leave space for sense...

[Abyss]

Jorram;319355 said:

Didn't have the time to read it all, but just a question - like said in the first post, the Tasse did not have pelts. The Eres'al goddess did.....

Neither did the Nerek.

- Abyss, *sings* Ya say ya want some evolutionnnnnn...

[bhok'arala]

the last eres was suppoed to be the last pure eres'al.
maybe killing the creatures was against their code cause they are a peaceful bonecasting race.
kill an animal? become impure and ask for forgiveness.
the goddes would then be pure because she has no animal skin.

as i said above about the t'lan feeling they had to punish themselves: they got into a fervor of bloodlust and killed a bunch of animals. they wear these skins as an eternal reminder and as a sign of respect and regret.

[Aptorian]

I seriously doubt that theory. Innocense doesn't mean that the Eres couldn't or wouldn't kill. Death is as a part of lifes cycle. The Eres'al aren't described as Herbivores so I'm sure they hunted to survive. I doubt all of them ran with the Deragoth.

I believe a good example of the difference between the Imass and Eres'al could be Onracks Emlava kill in the Refugium. After he kills her, he realises his hubris. Finally alive again, in a world restored. He immediatly returns to the Imass old ways, hunting for sport, to prove himself. It was that practice that in the first place doomed among others, the Ay.

[bhok'arala]

so, nowhere does it say they hunted. nowhere does it say they liked to kill little kitties.

[Abyss]

bhok said:

so, nowhere does it say they hunted. nowhere does it say they liked to kill little kitties.

Reread the MoI prologue.

- Abyss, because re-reads are your friends...

[Jorram]

Abyss;319379 said:

Neither did the Nerek.

- Abyss, *sings* Ya say ya want some evolutionnnnnn...

Abyss, are we still talking about the Eres'al being the saved Tasse child? Whats got the Nerek, and their supposed Eres ancestry, to do with it? Yes, they evolved, so they've got no pelt. Say the Tasse evolved from the Eres, so they've got no pelt, too. All perfectly fine, until we go on suggesting that the last Tasse child was the goddess whom we know to have pelt. What, she de-volved?

[D'rek]

Or she just took off her clothes...

The connection to the Nerek is that the Eres weren't technologically developed enough to have boats, so the Nerek must've been spawned from the Eres'al, hence how they claim lineage from her. That is assuming the Eres'al is the only time-travelling, continent-teleporting Eres.

As far as innocence and all that... well it's a lot like how Togg and Fanderay ascended from being the first beasts to run with sentient human-ancestors. Being the last 'innocent being' was not much of a virtue at the time, but from then on all the Imass and Humans would occasionally reflect on how their world seems a bit cruel and they long for the good ol' days. Of course those folk from the good ol' days were doin' the same thing, and so it progresses like a chain reaction until you reach the Eres, and behold, they were living in the now and did not think back to how things might have used to been betterer.

[Abyss]

Jorram;319404 said:

Abyss, are we still talking about the Eres'al being the saved Tasse child? Whats got the Nerek, and their supposed Eres ancestry, to do with it? Yes, they evolved, so they've got no pelt. Say the Tasse evolved from the Eres, so they've got no pelt, too. All perfectly fine, until we go on suggesting that the last Tasse child was the goddess whom we know to have pelt. What, she de-volved?

Clarification:

- if we're talking about whether the Tasse are descended from the Eres, my point is that is doesn't matter whether they had pelts or not.

- if we're talkings about whether the rescued child IS the eres'al, then, however unlikely (very), i'd note there are enuf shapeshifters around for it not to matter, but that said, it seems EXTREMELY unlikely.

- Abyss, always wanted a fur coat...

[Jorram]

We're agreed then

[OtataralDragon]

bhok said:

in that quote bottle said our race. is there any link between eres'al, imass, and human? couldn't the people who didn't go through with the first ritual become humans? t'lan like onrack and t'oolan are "broken". so what about those who were never joined? they can't be "broken if they were never together.

if some logros and kron imass tok part of the ritual, they would become t'lan right? or are all those groups 'undead'? it was my understanding that the ritual created the t'lan; the same way the ay became t'lan ay after the ritual. if this is so, could there be a possibility that there is another imass group which undertook the ritual wholly?

In HoC, the Whirlwind Goddess, aka Onrack's wife, says that humans are the children/descendants of Onrack's one night stand with Kilava. Sure she was crazy, but we know that Kilava did have a child by Onrack...

[bhok'arala]

how is the whirlwind goddess onrack's wife? im guessing you mean the one thats been sitting in the middle of a desert for seven years only to have her brains blown out.

onrack was t'lan at time though, right? with that act, he broke away from the ritual. i didn't know t'lan could reproduce.

[Dolorous Menhir]

Cougar;319166 said:

Imass were not innocent from the point they became fully sentient since they fought and killed. No being genuinely possessed of mind, in the human sense can be innocent.

To back up Cougar's point - it's been all but stated for certain that the Imass were the aggressors in the racial war against the Jaghut, and that their pogroms could not be totally justified (thoughts of Adjunct Lorn during her conversations with Tool - GotM).

They were losing that war, which is why the Ritual was necessary in the first place - it freed them from the threat of extinction by Jaghut-created ice age.

So there's no question over whether or not the Imass were innocent before the Ritual. They were not.

bhok said:

how is the whirlwind goddess onrack's wife? im guessing you mean the one thats been sitting in the middle of a desert for seven years only to have her brains blown out.

onrack was t'lan at time though, right? with that act, he broke away from the ritual. i didn't know t'lan could reproduce.

bhok'arala - no offence, but you've been talking a great deal of rubbish in this thread. As fas as this particular point goes: Dhryjna was the Whirlwind Goddess, and she was the ex-wife of Onrack, consumed by rage after he cheated on her with Kilava. It's clearly explained in House of Chains how she came to be the Whirlwind Goddess, and her demise at the hands of Korbolo Dom's ersatz Talons is also shown.

You are mixing her up with the first Sha'ik, who can be considered a prophet of the Whirlwind, or whatever term you want to use for the mundane leader of a divine movement.

Finally, Onrack's dalliance with Kilava occurred before the Ritual, so both were flesh and blood. There's no reason to believe that the T'lan Imass can reproduce, but that's not an obstacle here as we're talking about pre-T'lan Imass.

[bhok'arala]

point taken. (gracefully i might add)

ok, in RG with the whole flashback with kilava/onrack, i was under the impression that they were ritualized.

its been a while since ive done a reread and i still haven't done one for the last three books. plus, i do most of my reading at night, when my brain is all fuzzy. sorry for the rubbishly stated posts.

[OtataralDragon]

Onrack went through the Ritual shortly after his night with Kilava - possibly even the very next morning, but I couldn't swear to it. Kilava didn't go through the Ritual at all; she even killed most of her family to break free from the clan. And so Kilava had Onrack's baby, who we got to meet in RG, and he may even have contributed to the birth of the human race.

[Aptorian]

Ewh, I now have a mental image of a pregnant Imass... that's going to hunt me.

[bhok'arala]

do imass wear apt skins? i thought it was just furs, not scales.

[Ain't_It_Just_]

Aptorian;319603 said:

Ewh, I now have a mental image of a pregnant Imass... that's going to hunt me.

Pregnant Imass.... a terrifying image. That's like a Karsa Orlong in a tutu and throwing flowers everywhere.