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Post by Rosie on Jan 4, 2019 21:15:13 GMT 10
What do you think of religion in Tortall? It seems that the gods are revered but there doesn't seem to be a consistent culture of worship? Is this just because our 'in' is with the knights? The convent appears to be run by the Daughters of the Goddess, and the initial scholar/mage route for men is in the City of the Gods, so it seems that other people might be devout, if not our protagonists. I know that Alanna's lot were taught by Mithran priests, but the education was not religious if I recall correctly.
In Carthak, you see the penalty for not worshipping one's goddess. The Copper Isles show the effects of god interference. Alanna and Daine have met several gods themselves, and Alanna basically kept one as a pet.
Do you think Tortall is becoming less devout? It's possible to see the influence of religion creeping into Beka's time, with the Cult of the Gentle Mother (and how interesting to have gods with two or three faces), but by Alanna's time, the temple has female guards.
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Post by Lisa on Jan 5, 2019 6:14:25 GMT 10
I think it's incredibly difficult to determine. Our scope of the world in SOTL is through a very narrow lens, but I would think that the fact that Mithran priests are teachers is due to the power of religion. (kind of like Jesuit scholars in our world? they were once THE group to go to for learning in the Christian world.) I think we see the results of a religious society without the main character being much of a practitioner.
As Tammy grew as a writer, I think she began adding more and more religion and philosophy into her books. We went from vague mentions of temple districts and priests & priestesses as teachers and healers to a world where it was acceptable for the training master to lead prayer with the pages before meals. I'm guessing that this isn't because Wyldon is conservative (that seems to be more implied by his never including the goddess in his prayers?), but because Tammy decided to depict a full-fledged training regimen for the kids, compared to the haphazard "this is what pages have to do" descriptions in SOTL.
I could see Tortall becoming less devout over time, and certainly in comparison to places like Carthak or the Copper Isles, where the gods have taken a more, er, proactive approach in driving events. (really, someone needs to stop the Graveyard Hag.) But given that divine presences have made themselves known in Tortall to people like Alanna and Kel, and possibly George, it's likely that many people have had religious experiences, and are less likely to abandon faith in a world where the Goddess might show up and chat. It could be waning (especially if there are cycles of gods, and some of them are nearing their end??).
I would love to see fic that delves into the Tortallan people accepting a queen who recognizes the Horse Lords if they do not.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Jan 6, 2019 10:17:30 GMT 10
Great topic, Rosie. I feel like religion in Tortall is a fascinating and sort of complicated topic since we get some interesting details (some of which sometimes feel contradictory) and a general picture of how religion operates in Tortall but there is still a lot of room for our individual imaginations to work.
In general, I tend to imagine Tortallan religion as having a lot of the trappings of medieval Catholicism (statues, incense, elegant houses of worship, institutional/social power, control of education, ritualistic prayers, etc) but with polytheistic theology that does produce some theological and social differences.
As far as a consistent culture of religious practice, I think there do seem to be certain major holidays like Midwinter (which I believe is described as the rebirth of Mithros in one of the books or something similar) that almost everybody in Tortall seems to celebrate that are religious in nature. Beyond that, I think some people are consistent in which deities they worship and that overall the Tortallans acknowledge all these deities even if they might have a particular deity or two they are particularly likely to worship.
I also have the impression that almost everyone worships what I will refer to as the major pantheon of Mithros, the Goddess, and possibly the Black God (though maybe that is the god people fear more than love since he is the god of death) and then varying in what minor gods who seem to be patrons of certain places or types of people they worship in addition to that pantheon. I also get the idea that women may be more drawn to the Goddess while men (particularly warriors) are more devoted to Mithros, which might make sense if the Goddess helps women in major life events such as childbirth (though mortalities in childbirth don’t seem as high in Tortall as they were in medieval Europe due to magic) and Mithros is the god of war.
This works for me in the context of a polytheistic society but also reminds me a bit of how in medieval Catholicism people regularly prayed to various patron saints with the important distinction that in Catholicism saints aren’t understood to be gods in their own right unlike in Tortallan theology where the minor gods are indeed gods. Still, medieval women were very devoted to saints like the Virgin Mary and Margaret (patron saint of childbirth) so that is somewhat of a parallel to the love a lot of women in Tortall seem to have for the Goddess.
In medieval Europe, noble girls were sometimes raised and educated in convents in preparation for marriage (as opposed to those given to the convent to be nuns) so I saw the Daughters of the Goddess training noble girls as sort of a broader extension of that custom. I didn’t picture the education provided by the Daughters of the Goddess being too much dominated by religion (I imagine the girls having to go to some religious services and having to pray before meals). I feel like most lessons would be in things like managing accounts, reading, and writing, as well as dancing, embroidery, and other “ladylike” behaviors. I picture the Daughters of the Goddess who run the convent as being similar to the orders of nuns in Catholicism devoted particularly to education.
I also don’t really think someone would have to be amazingly religious to send their daughter to the convent for training as a lady. They could just think it is the best spot for her to be educated in how to be a lady, similar to how some people send their children to Catholic schools today for the quality of education not so much for the religious instruction (which in the US now tends to be pretty minimal anyway).
As to the priestesses themselves I pictured some of them as being priestesses out of religious fervor (feeling a sort of sacred calling), some being priestesses since it might be a chance for them to have power that they might not be able to possess outside a religious order, and some because their parents (if nobles) wanted them to rise to positions of power in religion or (if poor) wanted to not have another mouth to feed. I sort of picture the same for the priests. Some have a calling, some want power, and some had parents who basically gave them to the religious orders. For nobles, I think many later born sons would be pushed into the various priesthoods because of the desire to consolidate family power by not dividing family lands. The families might also want the prayers of the sons and daughters they give away to religious orders since theological reasons can often be melded with more practical or political goals. I also picture different temples being richly endowed by noble families when their sons and daughters are given to those temples and also maybe to secure the prayers of the priests/priestesses in those temples. At least that would be similar to what occurred in medieval Europe.
I personally saw the Mithran priests being Alanna’s (and Kel’s as well, if I’m remembering correctly) academic instructors as reminiscent of the monks being among the best educated people of medieval Europe. Monks tended to be literate even when some nobility weren’t, and they also transcribed many classical works, not just religious ones. Some monks would even devote their whole lives to copying these manuscripts. So I thought it was believable that Mithran priests were relied on to educate the pages. I agree with you that their instruction didn’t seem to be particularly religious in nature. At least the subjects we see them teach are all academic like mathematics.
I don’t really see the Tortallans in the books becoming less devout but I do see the manners of their devotions changing over time. In Beka’s time, the Cult of the Gentle Mother seems to be worshipping the Great Mother Goddess in a way that focuses on one aspect of her (the mother one) to the exclusion of her other traits, while in Alanna and Kel’s time worship of the Goddess seems to embrace some more violent aspects of the Goddess with the female guards. It wouldn’t surprise me if the ways that Tortallans worship continued to shift over time.
Carthak struck me as a place that seemed to be exceedingly tolerant of a huge variety of religions possibly because they are a multiethnic empire that seems to welcome talented outsiders like Varice and Lindhall into their society to utilize their gifts to Carthak’s advantage. The worship of many different gods seemed to be tolerated more so than even in Tortall except during Ozorne’s reign. I tend to imagine Carthak being like the Roman Empire in integrating different cultures and religions into their society. I see Ozorne as sort of the lunatic exception that proves that rule, suffering from his delusion of grandeur that he was the only god who should be worshipped in Carthak. It might actually be surprising that the Graveyard Hag was the only deity angered by Ozorne’s presumption, ha ha. Under Kaddar and Kalasin, though, I totally picture Carthak as a place where people are essentially being free to worship however they want. In that way, I see Carthak as probably being even more “modern” than Tortall.
The Copper Isles are definitely an interesting case study, showing how large groups of people and countries can be effected by gods jockeying for position in the Divine Realms. It sort of reminds me of Greek and Roman myths where the gods are treated as being very human in motivation. To return to Tortallans, I always wanted to learn more about Bazhir religion and spirituality, especially how compatible it seems to be with worship of gods like Mithros, the Black God, and the Goddess. Questions like how do the Bazhir feel about their Voice also having to show respect for gods like Mithros (I think Jon even says to Daine in Wild Magic how a king is expected to partake in all important religious rites) and how Zahir feels listening to Wyldon’s nightly grace are ones I come back to a lot.
Sorry this post got so long but fantasy religions always interest me!
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