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Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

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Random Shinobi said:
The Sunflower Goddess didn't kill the Sage. That was her mother. The Sunflower Goddess is the Sage's daughter.

As far as I understand it, when the Sage forcibly married the head priestess of the Red Garden, she did some sort of sacrificial ritual that killed both herself and the Sage, and gave birth to some freaky super powerful spirit. Dunno about the exact mechanics...
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While that's pseudo-genetically(I don't think spirits have DNA?) true... I fucking dare you to tell his mom that.
 
The Laurent said:
...there is no way the Empire tries to purge Granddad unless there's literally no other option.

He's an 8th Realm with an entire Province behind him, that would be, uh...
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It is the same situation as with Shenhua. Ideally their heirs and the followers thereof will figure out a way to make them back down and let go. If that fails though a war will happen because neither Shao nor Shenhua are the kind of people who will stop, the former even has someone(Sunflower Goddess) egging it on who definitely wants to screw everything.
 
What is the sunflower goddess's goal?

It seems like it should be breaking the empire the sage made or taking revenge on the dragon who killed her mom? But I don't think we've seen any actual hints that aren't just guessing motives from history. She is in love with war, hostile to just about everything, and... Vaguely expansionist? Idk.
 
Random Shinobi said:
The Sunflower Goddess didn't kill the Sage. That was her mother. The Sunflower Goddess is the Sage's daughter.

As far as I understand it, when the Sage forcibly married the head priestess of the Red Garden, she did some sort of sacrificial ritual that killed both herself and the Sage, and gave birth to some freaky super powerful spirit. Dunno about the exact mechanics...
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His raping ways caught up with him in the end.
At last, it seemed the people of the Red Sun had enough. In the hall of their most holy temple, the Great Priestess supplicated herself in submission before Qin. His greed and arrogance having only grown in the face of defiance, the brute quickly claimed his prize. But in the end, the brute's lust proved his undoing.

By morning, the brute lay thrashing in his bed. The empty streets of the temple city quaked with his choked screams as his own blood burned in his veins and melted his flesh and his own qi seared his soul to ash. Assured of his invincibility, the brute had given the seed of his downfall to the one who could most use it.

Hail to the Great Priestess of the Red Sun, weaver of blood, weaver of life! The blood of the mother and unborn the focus and the blood of a city - all given to end his menace forevermore.
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Good riddance to bad garbage.
 
Karthak Urzak said:
It's amusing in a fucked up way that he's known as the Sage Emperor. Aren't sages supposed to be wise philosophers?
Meanwhile, the guy was a thoughtless brute, a rapist and murderer.
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In fairness, he was apparently actually a gifted scholar who was blindingly charming and intelligent when he didn't let his dick do the thinking. He was also just utterly morally bankrupt and ruled by his urges in certain matters.

As you say, good riddance, the man was a monster, but let's not start acting like he wasn't a competent monster.
 
This front loaded insult and comradery shown Ji Rong towards Ling Qi is always a treat. I pray for the fool that antagonizes both of them. Should this type of cooperation continue they will end up a hidden power couple, just not in a sense both of them expected it.
 
He was also charismatic as hell. Got the Zheng and Bai to follow him, got followers that laid down the foundation of the empire and actually let people take on Ways that long term was very helpful. Like his son that became Angles and that childhood friend that laid down the start of the medicine sect.

Heck, just the fact that the empire did not fall apart directly after his death or during one of his successors tells us that he managed to build something that lasted and had people invested in that. For all his negative flaws he was horrifically talented, which in a way probably made all the bad stuff he ended up doing worse then if he "only" was a powerful brute, rapist and a murder.
 
I think the Sunflower Goddess is a spirit of bloody evolution and upheaval, especially as a counterpoint to the empire's draconically inspired hierarchical obsession
 
Orbmorb said:
I think the Sunflower Goddess is a spirit of bloody evolution and upheaval, especially as a counterpoint to the empire's draconically inspired hierarchical obsession
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So almost a natural ally of the duchess cai. Or at least a mirror of.

Which, yeah. Setting your kid up to have to defeat you, check. Horrendously traumatic betrayal and torture of their kid/grandkid? Check. Kids still working for them but with very ambivalent feelings? Check.

The interesting question this raises to me, is: how much are Ren's dress and the princess's spirit mirroring eachother? The sunflower spoke of being 'real sisters' when liling got adopted, and we know that the dress was made from Renxiang's self, so there's the inevitable but unwanted getting closer aspect, it feels like there's others.
 
Winged One said:
They think hierarchy is good and misdeeds should be covered up, so they very well might. Not to mention their entire approach to marriage.
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Let's not invent atrocities for them (there are real ones, there's no need). Nobody warned Ling Qi specifically about people from the Celestial Peaks in this regard or anything like that (nobles in general, yes, but that's a power disparity thing, not primarily a culture thing, and not restricted to the Peaks at all). And their approach to marriage is contractual, not forcible in the sense the 'Sage Emperor' used.
 
DeadmanwalkingXI said:
Let's not invent atrocities for them (there are real ones, there's no need). Nobody warned Ling Qi specifically about people from the Celestial Peaks in this regard or anything like that (nobles in general, yes, but that's a power disparity thing, not primarily a culture thing, and not restricted to the Peaks at all). And their approach to marriage is contractual, not forcible in the sense the 'Sage Emperor' used.
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Contractual between families, not individuals. And the dragon brainworms mean they think power disparities are good.

...but yes, I meant Peaks nobles, not their commoners.
 
Winged One said:
Contractual between families, not individuals.
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Sure, but the actual parties involved do still have to consent. In some cases that's 'consent or be disowned', but that's true for people like the Bai as well...it's not a uniquely Celestial Peaks problem by any means.

Winged One said:
And the dragon brainworms mean they think power disparities are good.
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Not exactly. They think hierarchy is good, which isn't quite the same thing, though they are adjacent.

Winged One said:
...but yes, I meant Peaks nobles, not their commoners.
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We don't have any evidence that they're worse in this regard than most other nobles even then.
 
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We will be reporting our findings to Cai or others I wonder? This level of politics is way beyond us at the moment
 
Threnodist said:
Bemoaning they ever thought charisma was a dumpstat
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Ji Rong dumped wisdom. He's perfectly charismatic and persuasive, he just doesn't think before he let it rip.

As per the chargen origins, the Prisoner had social skills, the Thief didn't, but the Prisoner would use those skills in ways that makes even more enemies.
Winged One said:
No, the Peaks emulate the real person. Though they claim to emulate the myth.
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The entire Celestial Peaks society is set up so that NOBODY can become a second Sage Emperor. They're channeled into useful cogs of society roles, or pushed out and killed.

One was more than enough.
 
DeadmanwalkingXI said:
We don't have any evidence that they're worse in this regard than any other nobles even then.
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They produced the Hui, and they think hierarchy is good rather than a pestilence of the human mind that any Way worth walking to the heavens will discard as an impurity. Tragically, too many have ascended with it (Unity of Blades, those two fucking Bai who wouldn't let their cousins mutate into something less figuratively toxic, probably more I've forgotten).
 
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