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Foxed's Crazy Theory Emporium

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Serack:

--- Quote from: Foxed on January 29, 2015, 03:54:26 PM ---Citation, please? I'm honestly curious, because it makes more sense that Baba Yaga is a name for Mother Winter and yet I'm straining trying to peg the original beings behind the retired Mother Summer and the current Mother Summer.
--- End quote ---

I believe the WoJ says essentially,

yada yada, "Mother Winter, who is essentially this Baba Yaga figure"

I took it to mean that Baba Yaga is one of the mortal interpretations of her aspect.  Mrs. Duck did a little victory dance when she saw that though.

Mira:

 Overlooked here in my opinion is Rashid..  It's not for nothing that his title is "Gatekeeper," yet don't you find it a bit odd that he tells Harry in Cold Days at the Gates that there is a whole lot about his job that the Senior Council doesn't know...  All though the series, Rashid has alternately tested and aided Harry apart from the Council even in spite of the Council.  Rashid has his own standard that he is measures and tests Harry by in Summer Knight, even to the point if Harry hadn't gone a step further than what the Senior Council wanted he would have killed him himself.  He aids Harry covertly as much as he can, shows up at the right moment to save his bacon in front of the Council.. Does pretty much the same thing in Proven Guilty, but this time not only saving Harry, but Molly as well.  In Turn Coat, again, thought he cannot step on the island, he meets with Harry before the Council shows up, asking pointed questions, again testing and even possibly scanning him for Nemesis.   Yes, Rashid was friends with Harry's mom and looked out for her, but I doubt that that is the only reason for his interest in Harry.  Rashid also seems to be able to see into the future..  It is strongly hinted at in Cold Days that his false eye was given to him by the Mothers.  He definitely seems to be in charge of what goes on at the Gates .  So here is a question, is there any Arab or Islamic mythology that would fit his role?

Yuillegan:

--- Quote from: Foxed on January 29, 2015, 03:54:26 PM ---Well, the Romans brought Olympianism to the isles, was my guess.

Serack has a wonderful grand unifying theory about mantles and power. The gist of what's relevant to this theory is that the more power one has, the more spiritual gravity one has, and the more the material world bends and breaks around you. The idea is that Hecate found herself with too much power, and spun it off into a trinity to have someone who can operate in the material world (the maiden), someone who can operate in the spiritual world (the crone), and someone who can straddle both worlds (the mother).

Citation, please? I'm honestly curious, because it makes more sense that Baba Yaga is a name for Mother Winter and yet I'm straining trying to peg the original beings behind the retired Mother Summer and the current Mother Summer.

Sounds like you're on my crazier Magna Mater theory. Which... no... could it be that Hecate is just another name, another aspect, and further down the rabbit hole lies the Mother Goddess Herself (whom Joseph Campbell cheekily calls Our Lady of Mammoths)?

Oh, no worries here. Peer review helps develop my theories into something truly crazy.

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That does work, the Roman angle. Had not considered that. I feel there must have been an important reason that she went there/convinced the Romans to go there. Apart from the losing power thing. I'll have too look at the Roman conquest of Britain again and see what stands out.

Yes I just read his theory. It is quite excellent, I think he's really onto something there, especially in relation to the Amber Chronicles stuff. I don't know if I agree about Hecate spinning off her power though, even if she was clever enough to get it. While I think it fits the theory (having some with real Power, some that can do both and some that do the almost-mortal thing) I just don't get why she would spin her power away. Could you quote/explain the part of Serack's GUCMT that examines that? I couldn't really find it. Also, what Serack said about the Baba Yaga quote. I can't find the link, but it's around if you search for it.

I would rather like to read your Magna Mater theory. Could you link it? I suspect I will agree that all these names/forms lead to one big Mother Goddess type thing. Good good, we'll get some really wild theories going then!

I honestly think everyone should look at Pathfinder in terms of Baba Yaga, the Artosa, Morgannan, the Fey, and definitely a look in on the First World. I have my own theory about Jim borrowing/being influenced by his love of D&D stuff.   

Yuillegan:
Sorry to double post. But in answer to Mira, I remember this PC game my sister used to play about faeries, and I'd have to help her past some of the levels. There was a gatekeeper in that, he guarded the cave of time or something like that. I doubt Jim has even heard of it, but still I wonder if the game had some basis in lore. As for whether he has a counterpart in Arabian Mythology I found nothing. BUT how about this!


--- Quote ---Crone, the (Pan-Celtic) One aspect of the Triple Goddess. She represents old age or death, Winter, the end of all things, the waning moon, post-menstrual phases of women's lives, all destruction that precedes regeneration through her cauldron of rebirth. Crows and other black creatures are sacred to her. Dogs often accompanied her and guarded the gates of her after-world, helping her receive the dead. In Celtic myth, the gatekeeper-dog was named Dormarth (Death's Door). The Irish Celts maintained that true curses could be cast with the aid of a dog. Therefore, they used the word cainte (dog) for a satiric Bard with the magic power to speak curses that came true.

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http://www.druidcircle.org/library/index.php?title=List_of_Celtic_Gods_%26_Goddesses

Includes some links between Mother Winter and Crone/Death and the Moon (Hecate) and even the fabled Triple Goddess (Hecate again, norns, fates, queens). But the bit about Dormarth was interesting. Cerberus guards the Greco-Roman Underworld. Hades has some link to the Queens. The Queens have a Gatekeeper. I wonder about the links there... Also in Celtic mythology, Dragons were gatekeepers to other worlds and guarded the secrets and treasures of the universe. Lots about Gatekeepers, but not much to do with Arab Mythos I am afraid.

Serack:

--- Quote from: Yuillegan on January 29, 2015, 09:56:13 PM ---Yes I just read his theory. It is quite excellent, I think he's really onto something there, especially in relation to the Amber Chronicles stuff. I don't know if I agree about Hecate spinning off her power though, even if she was clever enough to get it. While I think it fits the theory (having some with real Power, some that can do both and some that do the almost-mortal thing) I just don't get why she would spin her power away. Could you quote/explain the part of Serack's GUCMT that examines that? I couldn't really find it. Also, what Serack said about the Baba Yaga quote. I can't find the link, but it's around if you search for it.
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Griff wrote some interesting thoughts on this in a reply to that topic, and then I responded...


--- Quote from: Griffyn612 on June 23, 2014, 10:12:43 PM ---The question, at least for me, is whether or not Hecate still exists in some form of higher awareness, or if Hecate ceased to exist in order to bring the six queens about.

My guess is that Hecate was too powerful to interact with the world.  She decided to divide herself into three aspects: one that was still to powerful to truly interact with the world, in order to retain as much power as possible; a second that was a balance between the real world and the never-world; and a third that was particularly weak, in the great scale of things, that can interact abundantly with the real world.

Traditional beliefs dictate that Hecate was One, and then she became the Triple goddess.  Perhaps she became three, and then those three further divided as she took on more Power due to her expanded roles.  She then became two of each, for a total of six.

But in my interpretation, that initial being, Hecate, is no more.  The Queens can be collectively referred to as Hecate, and they may serve the roles that she served, but I don't think she can be reconstituted.  I think that's the price she payed for more interaction with the real world.

Others, like Hades, never broke apart their power, so they cannot act upon the real world.  They are the original Aeon spawn, given shape and purpose by faith and belief.  I think the compromise is that Hades, as a shapeless and nameless Aeon, already bore characteristics and traits that he has now, but faith and belief gave him the shape and name he has.  Whether he recalls a time before he was what he is, or whether he truly existed before that, is hard to argue.

I swear, a while back, there was a WoJ that Uriel might not be an archangel that has existed from the dawn of time; instead, he might be a being that believes he is. 

That would play into the faith/belief aspect of shaping Aeons.  Uriel might be an upper-level Aeon that hasn't divided, or spawned, but he didn't have a Uriel personality or purpose until after humanity thought of him.

I understand the desire to try and keep the theory focused on the Fae, rather than other houses and pantheons, because it gets all jumbled.  How could Uriel only be 2,000 years old, and remember everything that happened before as if he were there?  It would be as if an Aeon existed that entire time, but wasn't shaped until after Christianity gave him shape.

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--- Quote from: Serack on June 25, 2014, 01:48:36 AM ---@Griff
I really like how you discussed how Phenomenal Cosmic Powers (my term, PCP... oooh, I like that acronym) splinter their power to address mortal issues more directly in a tiered approach.  It follows closely on my own ideas on how things could be working according to this theorizing, but from a slightly different tack that works well.

Excellent points about the dilution of power.  I think part of my future comments in Reply #3 will include references to the Vadderung comments in Changes that support this.

I am dubious about the concept that the dilution is irreversible though.  It was said in CD that the beings that run around on All Hallow's Eve can snatch power from each other, which to me implies that there are mechanisms for consolidation of power after distribution.

Also, I think it is likely that the PCPs are so powerful that the "Aeons" are really only representative of a disproportionately small piece of their power, and that in a way, although the original being may be effected by having that power distributed, in another way, because that power is out there effecting things, the power itself is no less significant.  I point to the Blackstaff as a poignant example of this type of thing at work.  Some aspects of Mother Winter (Who in some ways is the same being as Mother Summer, hence my saying some aspects, also I am sure that when she is wearing different hats, she gets to follow different rules much like Vadderung) are more restricted by the lack of her "walking stick" but at the same time, her power is out there ripping life out of people and stuff and doing all kinds of interesting things that we only have a limited perspective on, all because it is being wielded by a Mortal with Free Will.
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The end thoughts to that post were supposed to lead to the conclusion that as a higher echelon being spins off power, the resulting power becomes more influential on the ground level, and thus although the original being might be even more restricted, that being's power has a net effect of influencing things more.

Edit:  I'd like to add that one of the more Meta underpinnings of how that theory works is that Mortal Free Will is what determines how these "PCPs" manifest in the mortal realm but also that these choices also are places where alternate realms split off and diversify causing these powers to manifest differently (to varying degrees).  The higher echelon "aeons" span larger degrees of realities, while the lower echelons are more limited in what realities they interact with.  It seems to me that these lesser echelons are the means through which these higher echelons do interact with the various realities.

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