Aphrael's True Form
John Lofgren
I am a long time lurker. Here's an inconsistency that immediately occurred
to me when I first read The Hidden City and I'm surprised that no one else
has brought it up.
In The Hidden City Aphreal spends a lot of time switching forms between
Flute and an adult female form. She explains that this is her "true" form
and that there are some things she can only do in this form. But how can
the form of a 30-year-old woman be any more true than that of a 6-year-old
child?
Aphrael is tens of thousands of years old. Thirty years old isn't any more
valid than six years old. The only reason I can think of that the
30-year-old woman form may be more true than the 6-year-old child form is
that Aphrael is an adult spirit and therefore an adult form is more valid.
The gods do not sexually reproduce. (Aphrael has a conversation with
another god about how silly sex is and that the gods don't have the same
desires.) Do gods really have a gender? Their personality may be more
masculine or feminine, but that doesn't mean they have sexual organs.
Similar questions arise about Azash's castration/mutilation. How could
Azash have sexual organs to be destroyed?
Bhelliom and Klael both appear as spirits before they begin their battle.
Aren't all the gods truly spirits, including Aphrael?
Or does Eddings just like to titillate Sparhawk and the reader with the
appearance of a nude, adult goddess?
Your opinions will be appreciated.
Rumor
A sound was heard, drifting upon the winds, that nestled in my furred,
wolven ears. "John Lofgren" <John.L...@Unisys.Com> had spoken such
sounds, and what I perceived of them was thus:
>I am a long time lurker. Here's an inconsistency that immediately occurred
>to me when I first read The Hidden City and I'm surprised that no one else
>has brought it up.
Upon reading your post, I must say I hardly consider this an
inconsistency. More like a puzzling reference, depending on your point
of view. I, personally, did not have a problem in believing that
physical _form_ was very important to the gods. I'm not going to
attempt to explain why it should be that way, because I don't know.
We're never told. But it's true just the same, because Aphrael says
so.
>In The Hidden City Aphreal spends a lot of time switching forms between
>Flute and an adult female form. She explains that this is her "true" form
>and that there are some things she can only do in this form. But how can
>the form of a 30-year-old woman be any more true than that of a 6-year-old
>child?
She _appears_ as those ages, but you _know_ that niether of them are
accurate. Ages have no meaning - it's the _from_ that matters. Perhaps
Aphrael willed herself into existence as an adult. We know she prefers
child-like forms because she can better manipulate mortals. If ushc is
the case, perhaps none but here original, "true" form can be used to
release her full power.
>Aphrael is tens of thousands of years old. Thirty years old isn't any more
>valid than six years old.
*sigh* First of all, you're guessing at those ages, and they're
irrelevant anyway. She probably hasn't aged at all in her adult from
-meaning that it was always appearing as it did - and yet,
technically, she's inhabited that body for what's likely to be
millenia.
>The only reason I can think of that the
>30-year-old woman form may be more true than the 6-year-old child form is
>that Aphrael is an adult spirit and therefore an adult form is more valid.
Well, I told my theory, but how can either of us pretend to know how
the body channels the power of a goddess, how physiology even works in
a goddess' body, or just what 'spirit' has to do with anything?
Validity, just like this so-called inconsistency, is arbitrary,
because we are never told why. There are probably coutless valid
reasons that you _can't_ think of. I thought of one... only one. With
so many possibilities, this is hardly an inconsistency at all.
>The gods do not sexually reproduce. (Aphrael has a conversation with
>another god about how silly sex is and that the gods don't have the same
>desires.) Do gods really have a gender? Their personality may be more
>masculine or feminine, but that doesn't mean they have sexual organs.
Oh, no, they have gender. Aphrael says to Sparhawk that the difference
between them is that he's a boy and she's a girl, and that difference
is "much, much more profound than you can imagine."
She most definitely has a gender.
>Similar questions arise about Azash's castration/mutilation. How could
>Azash have sexual organs to be destroyed?
But we don't _know_ that they were destroyed. All we know is that
Aphrael referred to an emasculation, which could be spiritual or
physical, and that the _idol,_ carved to _represent_ Azash's
personality, had a burnt spot where his organs should have been.
Besides, who says the gods don't have the parts? Azash was certainly
showing off _something,_ and I'm sure Danae and Flute have all the
working systems, so why not Aphrael's true form? Doesn't mean they
have to work the way we expect them too. And even if the Younger Gods
lack reproductive equipment, that does not necessarily imply that the
Elder Gods do. Considering Azash, he may have purposely created his
form to include such organs, if you take his nature and personality
into account.
Again... soo many possibilities.
>Bhelliom and Klael both appear as spirits before they begin their battle.
>Aren't all the gods truly spirits, including Aphrael?
Umm... that's a rather broad question,, ne? What is a 'spirit,'
really? And it could be argued that Bhelliom and Klael were simply in
forms of pure energy, in which case, they were still on a physical
plane. The gods _do_ have spirits, as represented by the Powerless
Ones, but these could be fundamentally different from the nature of
the world-makers (assuming they even have "spirits"). And even if all
gods are spirits, they appear to require a physical form for their
power to be used, and how does being a spirit in _any_ way preclude
having sexual organs? And even if there _aren't_ sexual organs, what
does that have to do with the difference between the abilities
inherent in Aphrael's adult/native form and her other forms? As I
suggested, perhaps it's not the age that matters, but that it's her
native form.
Being able to have sex has no bearing, I'd imagine, on the complex
powers of gods. Or maybe it does? How would it? Who knows? Where's the
inconsistency? Nothing is contradiocting anything else here...
>Or does Eddings just like to titillate Sparhawk and the reader with the
>appearance of a nude, adult goddess?
Tittilate Sparhawk, perhaps. I don't think he was trying to grab
readers with it. Honestly, would people go around saying, "You've got
to read the Tamuli! There's this Goddess who gets naked on a couple
pages (out of how many?) and we don't even get an explicit
description! Cool!"
I thought the situation was curious and yet rather humorous at the
same time, like many moments in Eddings. I don't see anything _wrong_
with a goddess becoming naked once or twice, especially considering
the anything-but lewd reaction of Sparhawk.
>Your opinions will be appreciated.
I suppose I shall see...
-- Rumor
(the fantasiacal-metaphysical wolf, High Mammal Priest her Holiness,
the Whimsical One)
Rumor
>(the fantasiacal-metaphysical wolf, High Mammal Priest her Holiness,
>the Whimsical One)
Oh, goodness, I'd better insert an "of" in there, before Aph sees
this... should read, of course, High Mammal Preist _of_ her Holiness,
the Whimscal One.
Whew... good thing I caught that one; people might be thinking I'm
getting delusions of grandeur... and transsexuality. O_o
-- Rumor
(the simple, humble GreyWolf of old times... at least, for now)
Dom Wynn
Rumor wrote:
>
>
> >In The Hidden City Aphreal spends a lot of time switching forms between
> >Flute and an adult female form. She explains that this is her "true" form
> >and that there are some things she can only do in this form. But how can
> >the form of a 30-year-old woman be any more true than that of a 6-year-old
> >child?
> >30-year-old woman form may be more true than the 6-year-old child form is
> >that Aphrael is an adult spirit and therefore an adult form is more valid.
> Well, I told my theory, but how can either of us pretend to know how
> the body channels the power of a goddess, how physiology even works in
> a goddess' body, or just what 'spirit' has to do with anything?
> Validity, just like this so-called inconsistency, is arbitrary,
> because we are never told why. There are probably coutless valid
> reasons that you _can't_ think of. I thought of one... only one. With
> so many possibilities, this is hardly an inconsistency at all.
>
but an interesting point nevertheless - conjecture, even when based on
very little literary evidence has never seemed to hurt this newsgroup!
The form of Gods in the E/T always has intrigued me. In many ways the
Greek deities always seem to be a very good reference point when I try
to think about them - there seem to be many points of similarity. I
would have assumed that a form of a child would be Aphrael's natural
form, but is obviously not. As you say the form of a child is most
convenient (for manipulation, and also to remain inconspicuous if need
be), but obviously Aphrael's natural form is different. If, as seems
logical, the original form was one which was created as she willed
herself into existance, it must presumably be 'appropriate' to her. My
point would be that I always imagined the younger Styric Gods as somehow
representative Gods (there is a phrase for this but I can't remember it
right now!), and the form they would take somehow reflects their role.
For example I imagined Aphrael (in natural form) to be similar to
Artemis or Athena - a hunter goddess, or one that in literature was
quite close to mankind. Similarly the few other younger Gods mentioned
also, for me, represented a facet of mankind - there is a young fellow
(memory is not really on the ball today) who seemed like a droopy kind
of Apollo as well - a bit on the dappy romantic side.
- I think the phrase is actually anthropomorphic but I'm not sure...
<snipping of sexual organ bits!(so to speak)>
<Aphrael unclothed bit snipped>
> I thought the situation was curious and yet rather humorous at the
> same time, like many moments in Eddings. I don't see anything _wrong_
> with a goddess becoming naked once or twice, especially considering
> the anything-but lewd reaction of Sparhawk.
>
In fact it probably was more embarrasment - bearing in mind Aphrael's
position as his child...
Dom
John Lofgren
Sigh, I don't know how much of the previous post to trim. I guess I'll
cut it all.
Rumor,
You made a good response.
I'm so used to my Christian (Lutheran) god with omnipotence, omnipresence,
and omniscience that reading about gods with limitations bothers me.
Especially gods which act like characters out of a P. G. Wodehouse story.
The PoL and PoD of Bel/Mal acted much more godly. Even though they had
limitations, they were self-imposed. (I guess Bhelliom and Khael are like
this too.)
Again, the Christian god is a pure spirit, so a god having a physical form
is odd.
The Hidden City was a disappointment to me. Although I enjoyed Ele/Tam
more than Bel/Mal, I thought that much of tHC was just stretching the story
out...too much bouncing around the continent. That, and Sparhawk had so
much power by the beginning of tHC that the conclusion was never in doubt,
just when Eddings was going to get around to it.
--John Lofgren
Aphrael
My keen Divine ears detected a voice echoing through the halls of my
Temple. Upon investigation, I discovered that it was "John Lofgren"
<John.L...@Unisys.Com>, articulating thusly:
>I am a long time lurker.
Good to finally hear from you , then. :+)
>Here's an inconsistency that immediately occurred
>to me when I first read The Hidden City and I'm surprised that no one else
>has brought it up.
>In The Hidden City Aphreal
SPELL MY NAME RIGHT, DAMMIT!!!! ;+)
>spends a lot of time switching forms between
>Flute and an adult female form. She explains that this is her "true" form
>and that there are some things she can only do in this form. But how can
>the form of a 30-year-old woman be any more true than that of a 6-year-old
>child?
>
>Aphrael is tens of thousands of years old. Thirty years old isn't any more
>valid than six years old. The only reason I can think of that the
>30-year-old woman form may be more true than the 6-year-old child form is
>that Aphrael is an adult spirit and therefore an adult form is more valid.
That could be it, with the addendum that "30-year-old" is merely an
estimate based on our conception of aging. I would imagine that
female deities reach a certain maturity in their physical human forms
and remain there for eternity, for the same reason that Polgara never
looked older than 25 or 30 -- society looks upon aging differently for
men and women, and probably no one would take Aphrael seriously if she
looked ancient. Besides, there is no human form for someone who is
several millenia old, since humans customarily can only live to be a
little over 100 at the longest.
Another thought is that essentially the Gods don't even need a human
form. But they have them so that they can better understand their
children. They tend to naturally take on (not consciously form) human
forms that best represent their personalities. Now, Sparhawk notes
back in TRK when he first heard Flute speak that there is something
about her that seems a lot more mature than her form indicates. So my
theory here is that Aphrael's child-form is not her true form because
it belies her maturity and is, in fact, a form that she chose herself
in order to get her own way with people by being cute and lovable.
Good Lord, if she were a cartoon character, she'd be Dot Warner from
Animaniacs. (And come to think of it, Setras would make a good
Wakko.) <grin>
>The gods do not sexually reproduce. (Aphrael has a conversation with
>another god about how silly sex is and that the gods don't have the same
>desires.) Do gods really have a gender? Their personality may be more
>masculine or feminine, but that doesn't mean they have sexual organs.
Again, they naturally take on the physical elements to represent their
personalities. And there's a lot more to gender than just genitalia,
anyway. If the only difference is whether you have a penis or a
vagina, why do men and women act so differently?
>Similar questions arise about Azash's castration/mutilation. How could
>Azash have sexual organs to be destroyed?
Azash's sexual organs represented an ugly aspect of his personality.
I'll have to check and see if I still have the argument I posted a
while back about the penis and the phallus, but the point of it is,
the penis is really only an appendage, but psychologically it becomes
symbolic of much, much more. For Azash, although he had no
reproductive ability to lose, it was a symbol of his manhood and
power, and that was why it was so painful for him to be emasculated.
In fact, think about the term "emasculate." It essentially means "to
take away one's masculinity."
>Bhelliom and Klael both appear as spirits before they begin their battle.
>Aren't all the gods truly spirits, including Aphrael?
In theory, yes. But Gods are much more involved with a specific world
and its people than Bhelliom and Klael normally are, and that's the
major difference between the Gods and the world-makers.
>Or does Eddings just like to titillate Sparhawk and the reader with the
>appearance of a nude, adult goddess?
The nude part, I think, is purely for humorous purposes, since it's
rather amusing to watch Sparhawk try to handle seeing a Goddess who
happens to be his daughter walking around as a naked, full-grown
woman.
Aph
Please note that my e-mail address has been modified to prevent spam.
To reply by e-mail, change "antispam" to "microserve."
------------------
Aphrael
aph...@microserve.net
Co-Founder and Spokes-Goddess, ACETS
"Conservatives wouldn't even change their underwear if they didn't have to."
--Aphrael, "The Shining Ones"
Félicitationes à Céline -- Falling Into You, 1996 Grammy Album of the Year!
Aphrael
My keen Divine ears detected a voice echoing through the halls of my
Temple. Upon investigation, I discovered that it was
>>(the fantasiacal-metaphysical wolf, High Mammal Priest her Holiness,
>>the Whimsical One)
> Oh, goodness, I'd better insert an "of" in there, before Aph sees
>this... should read, of course, High Mammal Preist _of_ her Holiness,
>the Whimscal One.
> Whew... good thing I caught that one; people might be thinking I'm
>getting delusions of grandeur... and transsexuality. O_o
Hehehehehe.....I ain't gonna say nuthin'! ;+)
Ya know, you might've been better off jsut leaving it alone, though.
I didn't even notice it until you pointed it out. (Even Divine eyes
get tired at the end of a long workday. ;+))
Aphrael
My keen Divine ears detected a voice echoing through the halls of my
<domini...@conted.ox.ac.uk>, articulating thusly:
>but an interesting point nevertheless - conjecture, even when based on
>very little literary evidence has never seemed to hurt this newsgroup!
True, true. I personally enjoy pulling things out of thin air,
applying them to the books and speculating on them. ;+)
>The form of Gods in the E/T always has intrigued me. In many ways the
>Greek deities always seem to be a very good reference point when I try
>to think about them - there seem to be many points of similarity. I
>would have assumed that a form of a child would be Aphrael's natural
>form, but is obviously not.
Well, we never hear about her "true form" until TSO, but there are
numerous references to the fact that, although Aphrael appears to be a
child, she is not one. I think Eddings wants us to realize all along
that Aphrael is not quite what she appears to be.
>As you say the form of a child is most
>convenient (for manipulation, and also to remain inconspicuous if need
>be), but obviously Aphrael's natural form is different. If, as seems
>logical, the original form was one which was created as she willed
>herself into existance, it must presumably be 'appropriate' to her. My
>point would be that I always imagined the younger Styric Gods as somehow
>representative Gods (there is a phrase for this but I can't remember it
>right now!), and the form they would take somehow reflects their role.
That's similar to my theory, except that I think it has more to do
with personality than role. I mean, in what way does a beautiful,
beguiling young woman reflect Aphrael's role? But her personality, on
the other hand, fits very nicely with her true shape, as well as her
self-imposed child shapes.
>For example I imagined Aphrael (in natural form) to be similar to
>Artemis or Athena - a hunter goddess, or one that in literature was
>quite close to mankind.
Interesting. I'd never really thought to associate Aphrael with
Athena.
> Similarly the few other younger Gods mentioned
>also, for me, represented a facet of mankind - there is a young fellow
>(memory is not really on the ball today) who seemed like a droopy kind
>of Apollo as well - a bit on the dappy romantic side.
>- I think the phrase is actually anthropomorphic but I'm not sure...
Yep, that's the word. From the Greek anthropos, "man" and morphos (or
it might be morphè), "shape." And the dopey God you're thinking of is
Setras. :+)
>In fact it probably was more embarrasment - bearing in mind Aphrael's
>position as his child...
Yes, I agree. The intent of this little scene, IMDO, is purely to
amuse the reader with Sparhawk's rather awkward situation.
Aphrael
My keen Divine ears detected a voice echoing through the halls of my
<John.L...@Unisys.Com>, articulating thusly:
>I'm so used to my Christian (Lutheran) god with omnipotence, omnipresence,
>and omniscience that reading about gods with limitations bothers me.
>Especially gods which act like characters out of a P. G. Wodehouse story.
>The PoL and PoD of Bel/Mal acted much more godly. Even though they had
>limitations, they were self-imposed. (I guess Bhelliom and Khael are like
>this too.)
Ah, but the PoD and the PoL weren't supposed to be Gods, non? Neither
were Bhelliom and Klael. They were all supposed to be above the Gods.
But nevertheless, these are closer to the modern, monotheistic view of
an all-powerful God that is the basis for Christianity, Judaism and
Islam. To me the Gods all seemed like some sort of intermediate level
between the mortals and the ultimate powers of the universe.
>Again, the Christian god is a pure spirit, so a god having a physical form
>is odd.
Maybe it's easier to think of the Gods as being like angels in
Christianity, then.
And besides, Jesus was God in a physical form, non? (At least we
Christians believe that.)
>The Hidden City was a disappointment to me. Although I enjoyed Ele/Tam
>more than Bel/Mal, I thought that much of tHC was just stretching the story
>out...too much bouncing around the continent. That, and Sparhawk had so
>much power by the beginning of tHC that the conclusion was never in doubt,
>just when Eddings was going to get around to it.
Well, actually, Eddings sets up some interesting possibilities at the
beginning of THC. When Klael shows up, it seems that we finally have
something that might give even Bhelliom some trouble. The problem is
that Eddings follows through relatively weakly on the situations he
sets up. Even the attack on Sephrenia -- the one moment of real
suspense in the book -- is resolved rather easily. There's no one on
this newsgroup who is more pro-Elen/Tam than I am, but even I'm
willing to admit that THC was weak compared to Eddings' other books.
All the same, it ended with the wedding of my favorite couple, so in
the long run I enjoyed it despite its weaknesses.