Or, per my personal interpretation, literal statements about the Supernal Truth of reality and unreality that just sound like metaphors.
While this is, broadly, true, I do feel compelled to point out that Eilind would object to that phrasing on the grounds that talking about "Supernal Truth" makes one sound like a Deceiver; and Eilind's opinions about Deceivers, even when she was a loyal member of the Host, both start and end with "fuck them."
On a more meta level, Eilind doesn't use metaphors because it is
structurally necessary that the readers be able to treat the things she says as true, since Eily laconically mentioning something absurd off-hand is the only way I have of delivering exposition about the nature of the setting.
Has she considered that, in forming an internally consistent magic system, she has Created a Thing-That-Exists? If so, how does she feel about it? [snip]
Has she, in fact, created a thing-which-exists? [snip]
I'd argue that things like her tea or baking are primarily transformative rather than creative. [snip]
This is a thorny, complicated, and very much
not settled topic of debate within the Host. Eilind, for her part, largely doesn't care.
Like many Strategists, she sees arguing about, like, the relative merits of existence or nonexistence as ... kind of irrelevant? Like, yes, she'll trot out some canned propaganda phrases sometimes, toe the party line; but ...
A weird piece of
Nobilis/Glitch trivia which hasn't really had a good spot to come up is that Strategists
generally speaking don't have philosophical objections to
existence; but rather, to the existence of the world
in specific; because it is
specifically wrong.
Eilind was trying to kill the world because the world is a) built out of the desecrated bones and stolen land of her people, and b) literally trying to kill her at all times for no actual reason.
It
doesn't matter to her, at this time, whether "existence" is or is not fundamentally wrong - what matters is that this
particular set of existent things are wrong.
Worlds should not be arranged like this. The way the world is structured is bad, and causes bad things; therefore, contend the Strategists, the world should not exist.
Maybe that's because worlds shouldn't exist at all, in general; but that's not the
point.
Is the study of Nictian Alchemy inherently Anti-Christmas or was it a neutral tool she invented in order to be used to destroy Christmas?
The latter. It is simply a thing, without moral valence; in much the same way that knives, torches, or nuclear physics lack moral valence.
The earlier short story chapter header about three princesses, a prince, and a bunch of ants, that was clearly about Excrucians. So was that about the local Chancery or a larger allegory about Excrucuans in general?
Shrug.
Like, even normal ordinary writing can be about whatever the audience can read into it; and that's before we involve this having been written by a Strategist and thus it being potentially ambiguous and impossible to concretely resolve which, if any, of the possible readings is 'correct'.
