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The Talon House

The Origins of the Vosh


dioscuri

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These could be two of the most prominent factors. We do know they were treated poorly. Promises made and promises broken.

True enough, however, the promises and treaties that were broken and over which the Vosh call the Xanamarians Oath Breakers all happen after the fall of Kuronos and during the period of stasis. They seem to have no legends save the Prophecies which seem to point to Jamie as the one to fulfill the broken promises.

It seems odd that they have no history before that since they seem at the present time to be keeping such careful documentation of their history.

That they are somehow related to the Kalorians seems logical. Also keep in mind that the Kalorians had only limited immunity to the virus that infected and killed the humans or removed their capacity for higher level thought processes. It could be that the Vosh are descended from those Kalorians who's memory was affected by the plague but were not killed. There is so much room for speculation!

cheers,

dioscuri

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I agree that there is a Prison of Pain/Vosh connection, most likely the original Vosh adopted the dress in honour of the sacrifice made by the rescued prisoners. In truth I doubt we will ever hear the story of what actually happens as it is probably of no importance to the story, not to mention that as far as we know the Vosh had lost most of their early history.

On the other hand, perhaps Jamie.wri will be moved to writing a Silmarillion-like addition after TSOI completes. I am sure there would be great interest, here and publicly if Jamie.wri does ever publish the story.

Speaking of the Silmarillion, I just happened to have my copy handy! As I thought I had remembered, what was published as The Silmarillion was published after his death and consisted not only of the Silmarillion itself but many other interesting fragments.

I remember reading comments by Tolkein himself in which he stated that his motives for creating LOTR sprang from his invention of the Elvish language. As he pointed out, every language develops in a culture and has a history. Much of the Silmarillion is just that. It was written over the entire span of his life.

Jamie.wri being quite another person will not have conceived his tale in the same way. The only thing I would much like to see is some more bits of the Icarian language. We may still since it will likely be used in the ceremonies surrounding the Wizard and the King assuming their stations.

I'm sure Jamie.wri has never quite experienced the amount of questioning and speculation which is taking place during the time he is writing the next chapter! As you may have noticed, I have found another story about which I think I'm just about as passionate about as TSOI.I am truly puzzled about the "Enigma of Flatness".

I think whoever made those Farships, may have made a gay one! Dreamer sure is attached to his male crew members.

Hmmm, Odd, I had not considered that flat was enigmatic, but I know others do! Einstein on the other hand was sure that time was bent and twisted in a kind of corkscrew! Now all we need is a shape for space itself; just a small insignificant problem!

Thus endeth my speculation and thoughts on TSOI and LOTR (and the Silmarillion of course); they are birds of quite a different feather!

That reminds me to write to the author instead of just talking behind his back.. even though everything I've said is nice and complimentary. Oh, and I'd like a date with Dreamer to! By my twin stars! His farship could jump through those cracks in space and be here in no time at all! You know it is those binary star systems which produce a plethora of jump points to!

cheers,

dioscuri

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Tolkien's academic interests were in philology, particularly European philology and his works were an attempt to create an English mythology, something he thought was of great importance to a culture and was distressingly lacking in the English culture. He put this lack down to the indigenous culture's destruction first by the Romans then by the Anglo-Saxons followed by the Nordic incursions and finally completed by the Normans. I think he was quite successful in creating an English mythology, a little too late to be of any real cultural influence, but the colossal and the completely unexpected scale of the success of the LOTR films throughout the English speaking world showed just how much his mythology had entered the English consciousness. Success in spades.

The construction of Elvish itself was an attempt to create a language based on a 'known' culture, i.e. an attempt to quantify how culture would influence the development of language.

He also loved to write, both prose and poetry, of course. Just as well as else we would not have had the LOTR cycle.

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Tolkien's academic interests were in philology, particularly European philology and his works were an attempt to create an English mythology, something he thought was of great importance to a culture and was distressingly lacking in the English culture. He put this lack down to the indigenous culture's destruction first by the Romans then by the Anglo-Saxons followed by the Nordic incursions and finally completed by the Normans. I think he was quite successful in creating an English mythology, a little too late to be of any real cultural influence, but the colossal and the completely unexpected scale of the success of the LOTR films throughout the English speaking world showed just how much his mythology had entered the English consciousness. Success in spades.

The construction of Elvish itself was an attempt to create a language based on a 'known' culture, i.e. an attempt to quantify how culture would influence the development of language.

He also loved to write, both prose and poetry, of course. Just as well as else we would not have had the LOTR cycle.

Many people wanted there to be an English mythology, hence King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Apparently the field of philology has morphed into something a bit different these days. These days a philologist might even be called a linguist. But never forget that the English have a particularly rich folk song tradition which seems in some people's minds to have tended to push down the number of influencial English composers from the Rennassaince to the 20th century.

Tolkein was (interstingly) a member of the Inklings, a small group of English academics who gathered together and talked about things English and things religious to. C.S. Lewis was a prominent member of this group as well. They shared writings some of which were never published and many that eventually were.

If you read C.S. Lewis' creation story, then read Tolkein's from the Silmarillion, you will see the similarity. But Tolkein's interest in language went far beyond just English and English mythology and history. He shows definite influences from many Nordic mythologies. One page a read stated that elvish bore great similarities to Finnish of all languages (which is not Scandinavian).

Several times I've seen mention of the Edda Eldar, and other ancient Nordic lays. Oddly enough, this material seems to have also been of interest in Germany to E.T.A. Hoffmann who's opera Ondine is considered by many to have been the first opera in the Romantic tradition (unfortunately the sets and scores were burned in a fire which ended its successful run and it has only recently been reconstructed from orchestral parts and notes). Hoffmann is where Wagner gets much of his material for his operas. The link I've mentioned is interesting, it has much material that I've never read (yet) and was not available when I was sleuthing things out.

I think that Tolkein's interest was in language and then came to understand that languages grow out of cultures or grow out along side the cultures and their histories. His stories are attempts to put histories with the languages he invented. There are, apparently quite a number of them in various states of completion. The Elvish ones seem to be the most complete. Language, a culture and its history walk together. Shakespeare is impossible without Elizabethan England, and it was also that he stood on the cusp of a radical change in the English language. Our language benefited greatly from his genius. The influence lingered on and moved into Europe in the 19th century where every composer I've studied about or learned about knew and had heard Shakespeare's plays ether in English or in translation.

This, of course brings us full circle back to J.R.R. Tolkein and ostensibly Jamie de Valen (writer)!

cheers,

dioscuri

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  • 8 months later...

Hmmm... I, too, as you might have guessed, am also rather fond of speculative fiction and fantasy, especially the latter. I would say that TSOI definitely has the power to grab and hold a reader with any appreciation for this kind of story, and many with no appreciation for either genre. There are passages in TSOI that are achingly beautiful and make me cry when I read them, and there are other parts that make me laugh aloud still, even after editing them.

But, for me, the most important thing about TSOI is what I call the distillation: If you strip away the details and boil the story down to it's most important elements, what is it about?

It's about coercion, and how men and women of honor resist attempts to force them into a mould of someone else's choosing. That is what the story is really about, at least for me. Of course, there may be as many distillations as there are readers, and that is a good thing.

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I've known since the beginning of my reading of the story thru the Awesomedude forums and from Jamie himself that this story encompasses a lot of the issued faced by mankind. Religion, Politics, war, peace, slavery, freedom, just to mention a few.

Using the United States as an example, it is said that ten percent of the population is gay. In this story, roughly ten percent of the Icarians prefer the company of females and they are not looked down upon.

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