The people making completely unreasonable posts about how the prince is an asshole and was "rude" to us and so we're totally justified in killing him were all in thread.
Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)
- Thread starter yrsillar
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This is literally not how Sublime Ancestors work, tho
The Horned Lord is the literal ancestor of the Weilu themselves, and Sublime Ancestors generally don't give a damn about morality or anything involved in such conflicts because of "MUH PACK RIGHT OR WRONG" which is why they exist as WMDs of last resort in the first place.
We have the Lu Sublime Ancestor sacrificing itself to stop the Twilight King, Grandmother Snake in the depths of the lake to serve as a final deterrent, the various Xuan Wu who act to support their own family members, Grandfather Fortress who literally lets his descendants live on him, the Imperial Dragon which doesn't care about Imperial Politics other than ensuring that the Empire itself remains intact, and so on and so forth.
Theyre highly territorial.
That's what informs their actions, not agreements with outside parties they don't really care about.
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Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
Xi clan was actually a Weilu clan, too:
My impression about 'Oathbreaker' thing is that, well, Weilu is not just about deers but probably had quite a lot of tree spirits too.
Based on the notably objective Imperial History Keepers and Not At All Propaganda Meant To Hype Up The New Duchess Her Rule Be Peerless.
Jensaarai
Sing Victory Everlasting
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Sure, but then you could say that any part of the timeline that @yrsillar gave is just Pro-Imperial rhetoric, and that doesn't really take us anywhere in terms of speculation and theory-crafting about what happened in the past until we get 'the real story'.
Yes, they are literal descendants, but that doesn't preclude the existence of a pact keeping them allied. Different strokes for different spirits.
We know the original White Snake was impressed with a Fisher offering up the heads of kings for their marriage.
But what did Lu the Diviner offer to marry the Horned Lord? Was the arrangement unconditional or was it bound by contractual terms(not that a contract, an alliance or a marriage had that much difference in feudal times, aside from severity)
SOMETHING got the Horned Lord to just decide that their descendants wasn't worth aiding any more.
We already know that mortal debaunchery and excess are...not going to impress such a spirit enough to actually leave. Likewise, we know many spirits give approximately zero shits to territory or heritage, their descendants do not warrant unconditional support like it would for many people.
But if their ancestor made oath with the Horned Lord and their descendants broke said oath, they may well be compelled by their nature never to come back.
Its a classic in the Fox Wife/Yuki-onna Wife legends. Or I suppose, the Faerie Knight legends.
However minor a way they broke the promise made on marriage, it remains broken and thus they must go.
Not that this is anything more than a theory, but its possible within what we know.
Antlers look like branches!
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No it just kinda makes them irrelevant. Blood relations are a much tighter bond than verbal agreements or whatever.
I've got a few issues with this logic:
-You suggest the spirit's elemental nature makes them temperamental, but then also take their accusation of Oathbreaking at face-value in terms that we might find actually relevant. The alien thought patterns of spirits make value judgments, which whether an oath is broken often is, unreliable at times.
-You're capitalizing "mad beast" and ascribing to the term entirely more meaning and implication than it's really valid to suggest the prince meant by it. It was an invective, an insult, etcetera, not a meaningful component of the prince's request.
-The prince coming after us after he beats the spirit is entirely unknowable on multiple levels. He might not win. He has stated other priorities. He may never find us even if he tried to.
-Suggesting that the choice to explicitly seek out information wouldn't give us any useful information is a bit silly, about as silly as assuming that helping the spirit would cause the spirit to attack us because he told us to go away. (It could happen, and it'd be hilarious, but probably not likely.)
-Glossing over the potential consequences of firmly committing to a side via combat, which yes is a more concrete commitment than coincidentally doing as the spirit requested in the pursuit of other objectives..
That kind of depends on the spirit in question, honestly. Supposedly there was some pact between the Diviner and the Horned whatsit, and then their kids intermarried, leading to the Weilu as the Horned Lords. It's possible that the right actions could be viewed as a breach of that ancient accord and lead to the big guy wandering off. However, nobody actually knows what happened soooo.
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As in, the spirits' elemental nature makes it straightforward, and direct in its nature. It'd be impulsive, but genuine.
Oathbreaker, when offered by such an entity, is a pretty serious accusation.
Still counts to their detriment. Perhaps it'd be more persuasive if we knew the prince, but describing your opponent with an immediate, provably untrue invective would be contrary to actually getting someone on their side.
Now, not a BIG detriment, after all we ourselves called Liling a top-heavy bimbo, when she's demonstrably intelligent(if not exactly slim), but its a terrible way to get some randos to help you.
There was some stats analysis that says he'd win.
Granted the same analysis says he'd take forever so we'd probably never see him again.
We have two information sources right here, which leaving means we would not take either part's information but would rather find out for ourselves. Laudable, but its basically wandering around looking for clues in an unknown space.
Anyway thats just my personal value judgment on the scenario. Its intended to be an attempt at being objective and factoring in points on both sides.
My first impulse prior to discussion and analysis was to just wander off and let them spend the next hour beating on each other.
Basically. Certainly it's not done LIGHTLY, but we know at least one Cyan fox whose idea of treating her descendants is "lol, whatever". Blood ties are a big deal to humans.
Spirits, particularly the Sublime Ancestors, don't necessarily care the same way.
I mean, I could think of one easy way to piss off your Sublime Ancestor: if someone cracked open the memorial of Lu the Diviner and looted their stuff that'd probably not be very kosher for the Deer to see their lover's goods misused.
The thing is, the breach of the contract could have been done by any minor thing the Weilu did.
That's the problem with spirits and their inhuman perspective
So, a possible chain of events:
Weilu break their Pact, possibly by as so minor a thing as picking berries from the wrong tree (up to really big and nasty stuff).
Spirits then "go mad", behaving irrationally from human POV and with spirits maybe even punishing the Weilu beyond any proportion and possibly without explanation.
Weilu strike back, hard. Escalate to purges, perhaps even, feeling justified.
And this is where we come in.
An escalating cycle of vengeance (oh hi bloody moon) between two former allies and kin, without any proper context to let us judge for ourselves, only a gut feeling.
That's the problem with spirits and their inhuman perspective
So, a possible chain of events:
Weilu break their Pact, possibly by as so minor a thing as picking berries from the wrong tree (up to really big and nasty stuff).
Spirits then "go mad", behaving irrationally from human POV and with spirits maybe even punishing the Weilu beyond any proportion and possibly without explanation.
Weilu strike back, hard. Escalate to purges, perhaps even, feeling justified.
And this is where we come in.
An escalating cycle of vengeance (oh hi bloody moon) between two former allies and kin, without any proper context to let us judge for ourselves, only a gut feeling.
Origami Clock
Right twice a day
- Location
- Brighton, UK
Don't diminish what the Weilu did. Their whole thing was being more spirit than human, going full Fae to the point that their cultivator vassals thought they were going too far. They, more than anyone, would know how to behave appropriately with spirits, and understand just how massively bad breaking not just arrangements but capital-O Oaths would be.
The Horned Lord left them for being cowards and embarrassments, not for being idiots. My guess, is that one of the clauses had a 'firstborne child' clause, though probably less for sacrifice than being raised by the spirit side of the family in exchange for an adorable little sun/moon babby and eventually they wound up with a clan head who said no.
Hm, citation needed on the Weilu being cowardly?
Other than Sixiang implying that Weilu had serious spirit affinities (which can btw be claimed for any Great Clan), there's no reason to portray Weilu as having perfect occult knowledge on par with the spirits.
Through the ages, a lot of things (esp the little things) could have slipped through the cracks and been forgotten.
Other than Sixiang implying that Weilu had serious spirit affinities (which can btw be claimed for any Great Clan), there's no reason to portray Weilu as having perfect occult knowledge on par with the spirits.
Through the ages, a lot of things (esp the little things) could have slipped through the cracks and been forgotten.
- Location
- United Kingdom
That's not a point in the tree's favour, nor a point against the prince. He's not conscripting Shen Hu/Lanhua, he legitimately thinks they're his soldiers. In that respect, what's wrong with giving his subordinates orders?
Coherence and madness aren't mutually exclusive. If anything, that statement has just as much legitimacy as the Tree's accusation of Oathbreaker.
Yeah, someone showed me a video on this thing called TemplarOS and hooooooollllyyyyy shiiiiiiit is that true
Smfh
Scary shit
Ngl
That wikipedia page is proof positive that that site is absolutely terrible for putting together the full story for controversial topics.
- Location
- scrabbling
how dare the prince not say please and thank you
now we must destroy him for this slight, like a true xianxia protagonist
now we must destroy him for this slight, like a true xianxia protagonist
- Location
- somewhere over there.
- Pronouns
- They/It
Yes, that's a very helpful post with lots of insightful, well-reasoned points. I'm sure it will make resolving the current disagreement easier and isn't just taking shots at the other side now that it's too late to matter.
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Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
Well, the big thing is that if we take "what seems apparent", what's happening is the equivalent of if we met CRX in the woods fighting a spirit beast, she asked us for aid, and we decided to slaughter her instead.
Or, to give more context.... if we met CRX in the wood and she asked for aid, if we don't give it we better make sure no one learns of it. "Not giving it" is insane in the real world though, and the only reason we can arguably argue to do it in the dream world is "because we won't be hounded for centuries by the entirety of the empire for doing this".
Ling Qi: "look, when we're out there in the real world we'll be obliged to fight the spirits. Just this once though, I wanna try being on the spirit's side."