Dragonlance Dragonlance cataclysm and a bit about Paladine

[Hussar]

I have to admit, I find it baffling the resistance to this. The fantasy pedigree of a "cataclysm from the gods" is one of the oldest themes I can think of. This is not like it's some bizarre take on mythology. This IS mythology lifted pretty much whole cloth. No one is claiming that the Cataclym was a good act. Unavoidable? Maybe, but, there's nothing in the text that celebrates or even shies away from showing the horrors of the Cataclysm. It's seen in the text as a horrific act.

I guess I just don't get it.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I have to admit, I find it baffling the resistance to this. The fantasy pedigree of a "cataclysm from the gods" is one of the oldest themes I can think of. This is not like it's some bizarre take on mythology. This IS mythology lifted pretty much whole cloth. No one is claiming that the Cataclym was a good act. Unavoidable? Maybe, but, there's nothing in the text that celebrates or even shies away from showing the horrors of the Cataclysm. It's seen in the text as a horrific act.

I guess I just don't get it.

Can we move this to the other thread? This one is to discuss the video, not the Cataclysm Controversy.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

I have to admit, I find it baffling the resistance to this. The fantasy pedigree of a "cataclysm from the gods" is one of the oldest themes I can think of. This is not like it's some bizarre take on mythology. This IS mythology lifted pretty much whole cloth. No one is claiming that the Cataclym was a good act. Unavoidable? Maybe, but, there's nothing in the text that celebrates or even shies away from showing the horrors of the Cataclysm. It's seen in the text as a horrific act.

I guess I just don't get it.

The issue, as I see it, is not with the Cataclysm itself, but with how it interacts with the overarching "Balance of Good and Evil" theme Dragonlance tries to pull off.

The whole thing is shaky and incoherent, and depends entirely on your ability and willingness to redefine the word "Good" to mean whatever they need it to mean for the premise to function.

If you want to do a "The World Needs Balance" scenario, then the world being in balance is the ideal (i.e. "Good") state that should be strived for, whereas drifting to the either/any of the extremes is bad. The Moorcockian concepts of Law vs. Chaos, FFXIV's Light vs. Dark, etc. - the precise nature of the extremes may differ, but allowing the world to tilt too far in any either direction results in bad things happening.

When "Good" is made one of the extremes in this kind of setup, then it by definition has to be bad for the model to remain coherent. In Dragonlance, Good has to be recognized as a bad thing in order for "Balance/Neutrality" to become the ideal. Not even just "Oh, that kind of good can result in bad things", but the fundamental, axiomatic truth that, in Dragonlance, Good equals Bad - just a different and generally more palatable kind of Bad than Evil.

The gods punishing the Kingpriest (and mortals in general) for hubris isn't the problem in and of itself, though I find the "Good" gods' justifications for the Cataclysm to be pretty flimsy and the reactions of mortals left suffering and abandoned in its wake painfully unexplored.

It's when the setting tries to say that "Things were too Good, which is Bad, so the gods had to knock the pendulum back in the other direction, which is why Evil, which is a different kind of Bad, is dominating now and you must rise up to fight back against it in the name of Good (which is, again, Bad)!" that the framing of the Cataclysm loses me.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I have to admit, I find it baffling the resistance to this. The fantasy pedigree of a "cataclysm from the gods" is one of the oldest themes I can think of. This is not like it's some bizarre take on mythology. This IS mythology lifted pretty much whole cloth. No one is claiming that the Cataclym was a good act. Unavoidable? Maybe, but, there's nothing in the text that celebrates or even shies away from showing the horrors of the Cataclysm. It's seen in the text as a horrific act.

I guess I just don't get it.

Right. The entire world turned away from the gods. The gods. The gods who had just spiked an asteroid onto the planet like they wanted its lunch money. The people of Krynn were so angry and in pain and horrified and traumatized that they said, “No. Absolutely the frack not. Id rather be potentially violently punished for turning away from you than ever serve you again.”

Like…

The setting doesn’t act like what the gods did was good. The Good Gods feel bad about it, the Evil gods think it was rad as hell and should totally happen again, and the Neutral gods I’m pretty sure think the Good and Evil gods are all idiots.

300 years later, the gods only “come back” because the queen of evil jerks forces them to by trying to take over the world and manifest physically in it.

Also, I always got the impression that the Kingpriest was trying to become not a god, but God, or else trying to directly control the gods in order to mind control the entire planet, or whatever, in the form of eradicating Evil on a cosmological level, which by the cosmology of DL means an end to free will. You’re Good now because there isn’t a different option.

Idk I’m tired. /Ted talk

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The issue, as I see it, is not with the Cataclysm itself, but with how it interacts with the overarching "Balance of Good and Evil" theme Dragonlance tries to pull off.

The whole thing is shaky and incoherent, and depends entirely on your ability and willingness to redefine the word "Good" to mean whatever they need it to mean for the premise to function.

If you want to do a "The World Needs Balance" scenario, then the world being in balance is the ideal (i.e. "Good") state that should be strived for, whereas drifting to the either/any of the extremes is bad. The Moorcockian concepts of Law vs. Chaos, FFXIV's Light vs. Dark, etc. - the precise nature of the extremes may differ, but allowing the world to tilt too far in any either direction results in bad things happening.

When "Good" is made one of the extremes in this kind of setup, then it by definition has to be bad for the model to remain coherent. In Dragonlance, Good has to be recognized as a bad thing in order for "Balance/Neutrality" to become the ideal. Not even just "Oh, that kind of good can result in bad things", but the fundamental, axiomatic truth that, in Dragonlance, Good equals Bad - just a different and generally more palatable kind of Bad than Evil.

The gods punishing the Kingpriest (and mortals in general) for hubris isn't the problem in and of itself, though I find the "Good" gods' justifications for the Cataclysm to be pretty flimsy and the reactions of mortals left suffering and abandoned in its wake painfully unexplored.

It's when the setting tries to say that "Things were too Good, which is Bad, so the gods had to knock the pendulum back in the other direction, which is why Evil, which is a different kind of Bad, is dominating now and you must rise up to fight back against it!" that the framing of the Cataclysm loses me.

What you’re missing is that DL posits that mortals have free will as a result of the balance. They can choose to do good or evil things because both good and evil exist as fundamental pillars of the cosmos. It isn’t that Good is bad, it’s that Good without anything else is just a pleasant clock.

 

[Hussar]

Can we move this to the other thread? This one is to discuss the video, not the Cataclysm Controversy.

Sorry, yes. Totally my bad.

 

[Hussar]

Right. The entire world turned away from the gods.

I'M sorry, just this one last one then I'll leave it alone.

This is largely the problem I have with this discussion. The world turned away from the gods BEFORE the Cataclysm, not after. It's right there in the text. The reason for the Cataclysm is BECAUSE the world turned away from the gods to worship the Kingpriest. It's not like the whole world except the Kingpriest was going along, business as usual with their worship. They abandoned the gods in favor of the Kingpriest.

This, right here? This is why the conversations can never move on. People insist on interpretations of the text that aren't actually supported by the text.

But, yes, @Levistus's_Leviathan is absolutely right. Let's take this conversation over to the other thread and not pollute this one. Again, I'm very sorry.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'M sorry, just this one last one then I'll leave it alone.

This is largely the problem I have with this discussion. The world turned away from the gods BEFORE the Cataclysm, not after. It's right there in the text. The reason for the Cataclysm is BECAUSE the world turned away from the gods to worship the Kingpriest. It's not like the whole world except the Kingpriest was going along, business as usual with their worship. They abandoned the gods in favor of the Kingpriest.

This, right here? This is why the conversations can never move on. People insist on interpretations of the text that aren't actually supported by the text.

But, yes, @Levistus's_Leviathan is absolutely right. Let's take this conversation over to the other thread and not pollute this one. Again, I'm very sorry.

Eh I disagree that what they were doing before the Great Yeeting qualified as turning away from the gods, but the response to getting dunked on so hard the world blew up was very much to reject the gods.

But I don’t care enough to open the other thread much less participate in it, so I’ll just leave it at that, I guess.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

It's not just modern day religions, mythologies all around the world deal with the gods punishing humans. Greek and Egyptian myths all have that motif, great floods are so common in world mythology that I wouldn't be surprised that there's more than one instance of a god flooding humanity (maybe that was also the Greek one?).

The fall of Istar is a great moment in the history of the setting because the gods raining down punishment is so prevalent around our real world mythologies that it resonates with a lot of people, even those that have only read them in passing.

I disagree

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I wouldn't be surprised that there's more than one instance of a god flooding humanity

You are probably thinking of the Epic of Gilgamesh (Sumerian).