True, but then, Bell is a Goddess First Class, Unlimited and the Pillar is, AFAIK, merely a very powerful mortal. Personally, I have trouble keeping my car keys in existence, so I can only imagine what it would take to pray for the Tenth World and keep it intact, even if there is only one planet of significance...

-Z

---
We are Dyslexic of Borg. Your ass will be laminated.

-Z

Here's where I get a bit wild with the speculation --

Perhaps Cephiro is a piece of Underhill (the Fae Lands) that seperated during the Ragnarok? That would account for it actually having both a new and old aspect to it's character. It would explain why it needs a Pillar to support it, why it has weird reflections of things that exist in Midgard. (Having a Christmas, for example). Maybe aspects of it's history that would point to it being older than the time of the Ragnarok are memories of the time when it was part of the larger Underhill? Except that, due to warpings of the separation, the inhabitants of Cephiro don't remember that.

Maybe Akio's ability to mess with people's memories is an example or a dim shadow of what happened to the people of Cephiro as a whole earlier. If correct, would Akio even know this himself? Would Dios?

Maybe Dios was so burned out by saving so many people because of the chaos of the separation of the Ragnarok. If going by my theory, that would have to be a messy affair. Perhaps he was helping to hold things together in Cephiro while things were getting settled and Emeraude was becoming the pillar of Cephiro.

Mind you, I'm working on less than complete knowledge of both Revolutionary Girl Utena and Rayearth here (*Snort* Try almost _complete_ lack of knowledge) and more on what has been presented in UF piecemeal.

Anyway. I'll stop here and toss this out as food for thought.

-Logan
-------------------------------------
"I need to selectively edit my mental images.
Please hand me a fork."

William K. "Bushmaster" Bushway
-------------------------------------

Why would some one make Cephiro? It's clear that Dios and Anthy didn't...so who would and why? Dios somehow inherited it after his parents weren't around to help. And what does the Prince of Cephiro do?

>Perhaps Cephiro is a piece of Underhill (the Fae Lands) that seperated
>during the Ragnarok?

You've been reading Misty Lackey, haven't you?

>Maybe Akio's ability to mess with people's memories is an example or a
>dim shadow of what happened to the people of Cephiro as a whole
>earlier. If correct, would Akio even know this himself? Would Dios?

I suspect Akio knows who and what he is. Afterall, how could he tie Anthy into knots? My question is Why do Dios and Akio look completely different?

>Maybe Dios was so burned out by saving so many people because of the
>chaos of the separation of the Ragnarok. If going by my theory, that
>would have to be a messy affair. Perhaps he was helping to hold things
>together in Cephiro while things were getting settled and Emeraude was
>becoming the pillar of Cephiro.

Why would Saving people cause him to burn out? Dios' mysterious illness is a very odd side effect. And if Dios succumbed to it...wouldn't Utena?

t.
she looks healthy to me...

Trigger Argee
trigger_argee@hotmail.com
Manon, Orado, etc.
Denton, never leave home without it.

Trigger Argee
Manon, Maccadon, Orado, etc.
Denton, never leave home without it.

They don't. Dios looks a lot like Akio - a younger Akio, with a different hairstyle and without Akio's veneer of cynical sophistication.

>Why would Saving people cause him to burn out?

It's a lot of work, especially if one neglects one's own health and does nothing but pursue it. A little selfishness is essential for life and health. Dios never learned that lesson.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

I don't mean "made" as in someone deliberately made it. I mean as in certain details make more sense in terms of allegory or symbolism than they do if looked at scientifically. Think of the Land of Oz or other "storybook" lands as a general idea of what I'm talking about.

>>Perhaps Cephiro is a piece of Underhill (the Fae Lands) that seperated
>>during the Ragnarok?
>
>You've been reading Misty Lackey, haven't you?

The last thing I read recently was Doc Sidhe and Sidhe Devil by Aaron Allston.

Which isn't to say that I am not a fan of certain of her works.

But I could just as easily have said "The Dreamtime" or "The Fair World" and I would have meant essentially the same thing.

>I suspect Akio knows who and what he is. Afterall, how could he tie
>Anthy into knots? My question is Why do Dios and Akio look completely
>different?

>Why would Saving people cause him to burn out? Dios' mysterious
>illness is a very odd side effect. And if Dios succumbed to
>it...wouldn't Utena?

Gryphon covers these two questions sufficiently elsewhere.

-Logan
------------------------------------
"I need to selectively edit my mental images.
Please hand me a fork."

William K. "Bushmaster" Bushway
-------------------------------------

Gotta go, they're fighting again...

Well add Vigdis last words from Interlude in the Golden City and guess who is the one they're going to send there...

Pangaro, Especulation is good...
Paying attention to the wrong part of the speech since 1986...

*sputter* *choke*
Trial of Ascension? Y'mean like the one Corwin will be undertaking before too much longer?
This makes Utena's calling him her Iron Knight in the latest release seem even more likely a foreshadowing of Things To Come. *dramatic thunder in the background*
Hold on... Have to go yell at the guy in charge of sound effects again...

The Pillar spends all her time praying to maintain Cephiro. The problems there could be chalked up to a few things-

1: From what I know of the orignal Rayearth (Admittly very little) all the problems there came from the Pillar trying to deny her feelings for Zagato. The same could be happening here, causing the Pillar to turn some of her attention away from Cephiro.

2: Like the world engine, the Pillar is praying for Cephiro to continue existing, and letting the people of the world shape it themself. As such, the problems are the fault of the people, not her's.

3: Akio is really starting to fuck things up.

4: Sunspots.

>> Now, how could a world like that have been created? For that we'll
>>have to go back to the Ragnarok. Remember that Yggdrasil was wrecked
>>by Loki and then it had to be repaired? well I guess that like in any
>>kind of project with such a strict timeline, there could have been
>>mistakes or bugs that had not been noticed nor corrected, small stuff
>>like an extra world for example.
>
>Well, we've seen the universe rewrite itself, shrink to 30 meters, and
>almost come to an end. I guess that's possible, but not probable. I
>suspect it's been there for a long, long time. Afterall, Utena is how
>old? Ragnorak is when? How old is Anthy? The universe doesn't deal
>well with these paradoxes, and has neatly written itself to prove that
>it existed prior to 1991. Since Ragnorak is part of the post-end of
>the universe event, I'd say it has nothing to do with Cephiro.
>
>On the other hand, if you want to argue that the end of the Universe
>in UF4 spawned Cephiro, you might have my support.

When the author versions of Gryph, MegaZone and ReRob threw themselves into the End of Reality, the universe was rebuilt according to their visions. This effect moved backwards and forwards through time, rewriting reality completely once again. It's more then possible that Cephiro, even Asgard, were results of this rewrite.

Matrix Dragon
"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger." --J.R.R. Tolkien
"Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for obvious reasons." -Matrix Dragon

>>Yggdrasil is what keeps the nine worlds there, Corwin described its
>>functioning by saying that it prays for the continuation of Time and
>>of Life, then we safely ass-u-me that the pilar's job in Cephiro
>
>Can we? According to Anthy, the Pillar is supposed to pray for the
>safety and peace of Cephiro. As she notes, it doesn't seem to work
>very well.

I think the inhabitants of Cephiro don't know exactly what the pillar is praying for. The World Machine prays for the existance of the 9 worlds, that does not prevent bad things from happening within them, similarly, the pillar praying for the existance of Cephiro wouldn't prevent bad things from happening. No matter what the pillar is supposed to be praying for, it takes all of her attention to do so (or at least, it took all of Belldandy's who is in all probability far more powerful than the pillar).

The problem in Rayearth came from the fact that the pillar fell in love, and started to neglect her duties (at least thats the way it went in the RPG)

>So, if the Pillar is holding up the world, does that make the
>pillar...a goddess?

the Pillar, the Prince, the Master Mage, the Master Priest, and the Master Smith all appear to be powerful mortals in the roles of deities. In their godly role, they recieve godly powers, but they are mortal and the office passes on from one person to another.

>>Also Utena has pointed out that the
>>people of Asgard remember her of Cephiro
>
>I missed that when I read through it. Now, she said the buildings
>reminded her of some things on Cephiro...

And then there is Urd, who reminds Utena quite a good deal of Anthy, but doesn't look like any of the other Asgardians...

-----------------------------------
Chris can't handle Master Zombies

This reminds me, actually...in canon A!MS Urd is actually the half-sister of Belldandy and Skuld. The question is, is this true in UF as well?
The other question is, will we get a straight answer, or a "wait and see" :)

Being a half-sib raises all sorts of interesting possibilities for the other half...

You already got a straight answer in another thread. Yes, Urd is Bell's half-sister. (In the canon, at least the manga, it's not certain that Bell and Skuld are full sisters either; the way Bell words the revelation in Terrible Master Urd seems to indicate that they may not be. "We all have the same father... ")

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

I must have missed that, somehow... a thousand apologies, mem sahib

>(In the canon, at least the manga, it's not
>certain that Bell and Skuld are full sisters either; the way Bell
>words the revelation in Terrible Master Urd seems to indicate
>that they may not be. "We all have the same father... ")

mmm...haven't gotten to that arc of the manga yet... iiiinteresting
Oh, the possibilities :)

Actually, once I get home from work, I'll put up a link to an image I found of Urd's mother Hild....

....the Queen of Hell.

--
Geoff Depew - Mephron
Haberdasher to Androids, Malakite of Lightning and Angel of Tech Support Professionals
(They won't give me LARTs, they say that's restricted to Michael.)

Sort of like Piers Anthony's "Incarnations of Immortality"...

-- Bob
---------------
"I am an ethical being," the daemon explained. "These people expected to be eaten. When one is in a strange place, the most ethical thing is to treat people as they expect to be treated". -- John Benson

AAAAH!

(shrivel)

(die)

--G.
(compared to Piers Anthony! Woe, lament!)
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

Whoever Piers is, is he really that bad?

We need Utena over here....

>>(compared to Piers Anthony! Woe, lament!)
>
>Whoever Piers is, is he really that bad?

Back in 1991, when I first arrived at WPI and joined the Science Fiction Society, SFS dues were "three books or three bucks" - with the caveat, added in one of the first meetings I attended, that the SFS Library was no long accepting Piers Anthony's books as dues, because they already had at least three copies of every single one. It seemed everyone and his duck was using the SFS dues as a way of getting rid of the Piers Anthony they bought in junior high and then found themselves wondering why the hell they gave somebody actual money for it. :)

(Wow... been a while since I got to do an Elder Days Story Time. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

Hnh, thats bad. Maybe I might look up a bit of his work for curiosity's sake.

>(Wow... been a while since I got to do an Elder Days Story Time. :)
>
Don't feel bad about it, you're what..ten years older than me?

Oh crap, they're fighting again!

If you insist on reading any of the Incarnations of Immortality series and want to spare yourself needless brain hemorraging, stick to "On a Pale Horse" (which is actually pretty damn good) but GO NO FURTHER!!! The rest of the series goes down in quality, and the books detailing the incarnations Time and War are particularly execrable.

(Although, speaking of execrable, I'll give "Bearing an Hourglass" credit for the single funniest example of "potty humor" I think I've ever read. The 1st episode of 3rd Season Red Dwarf did a scene so much like it that I suspect them of swiping it. Not that this is a _bad_ thing, mind you.)

-Logan
-------------------------------------
"I need to selectively edit my mental images.
Please hand me a fork."

William K. "Bushmaster" Bushway
-------------------------------------

I read 'On A Pale Horse' and liked it.

I attempted whatever the next one was, and never managed to finish.

I was warned off of trying any others.

-MegaZone, megazone@megazone.org
Personal Homepage http://www.megazone.org/
Eyrie Productions FanFic http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
eBay listings - updated 12/09/01

*shudder* I don't ever need to read a story about demonic possession as an excuse for a SEVERELY underaged kid to be "consenting" in sexual matters again.

And no, I don't mean 15 years old. I don't even mean *ten* years old, and that's why I swore off Piers Anthony. For life.

Ard Sumhenner
Ronin Research, Sacramento, CA

Waitaminute, if this guy is that bad to hell with it.

Ignoring on general principle....

I read as far as Being a Green Mother before I realized that he was beating a dead, pale horse. He's not that bad, for someone who's primary audience, as I perceive it, is middle-school-aged girls. He writes teen romance, mostly, and even his other stuff smacks of it.

Ebony the Black Dragon
aka Draco Draconis Ebenium
known to Ballantine, DAW, Baen, and Avalon as Aaron F. Johnson,
Senior Editor, Living Room Games
http://www.lrgames.com

Yes. Reasons:

(1) His worst sin- he is unable to write any symapthetic character without preaching through them. He loves to have the story stop dead for a bit while characters debate morality, honor, etc. in situations where absolutely nobody would ever do so.

(2) He almost never develops his 'evil characters,' when he has them. Whenever he does turn his attention to a heavy, that character ends up becoming good, and usually allied with the 'good guys' before the end of the book. If he can't redeem them, then he shows them as little as possible... 'Incarnations of Immortality' is the worst example of this, seven books in which the true bad guy is referred to at second hand, but NEVER SHOWS UP ONCE.

(3) Inordinately fond of the quest-formula story- mismatched characters seeking something for whatever reason. It isn't much of an exaggeration to say of his works, 'fifty books, one plot.'

Despite this, he does occasionally produce a readable work here and there. The one I would choose out of 'Incarnations' is -not- 'On a Pale Horse,' which suffers far too much from preachiness, but 'For Love of Evil,' where the preachiness is either less or adds to the plot itself. (The worst of the lot is 'And Eternity', which is just a fucking drug trip, period.)

Other recommendations, although mild ones, include the Bio of a Space Tyrant series (which is the fictional autobiography of a man who went from being a refugee from poverty to being absolute ruler of the Solar System), the very first (and ONLY the first) Xanth novel, 'A Spell for Chameleon', and Anthony's own biography, 'Bio of an Ogre,' in which Anthony pretty much justifies being a crusty old man who doesn't take shit off of anyone.

I should point out, though, that I no longer have a single Anthony book of any sort on -my- bookshelves, and never plan to buy any more.

Redneck

Red wizard needs money badly...
www.wlpcomics.com
White Lightning Productions - don't tell the Pope

Not exactly what I had in mind, especially since I've managed to avoid reading his stuff (admitedly, the premise behind the particular series has been thrust down my throat often enough to know about it).

I hope they have a clone of Gryphon somewhere. I'd hate to be partially responsible for stopping his tremendous output of late.

-----------------------------------
Chris can't handle homicide

No. I no way did I compare you to Anthony. All I compared were concepts -- and concepts/ideas, as every writers' magazine will tell you over and over again, are a dime a dozen. It's the execution thereof which is the telling factor.

And while I'm at it, before someone comes to the conclusion that I am a raving Anthony fan, I am not. Pale Horse was extraordinary; Hourglass was interesting just for the unusual twist he tried. The rest (at least those that I bothered with) I looked at simply to see if he managed to recapture what it was that had made Pale Horse work so well. Sadly, he didn't.

-- Bob
---------------
"I am an ethical being," the daemon explained. "These people expected to be eaten. When one is in a strange place, the most ethical thing is to treat people as they expect to be treated". -- John Benson

And depending on what you're comparing, that may or may not be a bad thing.

Piers Anthony writes to pay the bills; he makes no bones about that. His Xanth novels, the cotton candy of the mass market fantasy world, inevitably sell quite well, and he can write three or four of them a year, so he does. Or he can spend a year writing a "serious" novel (the first three or so Xanth novels are actually quite good, especially when taken out of context of the massive monotony of the series as a whole; the real problem is that he hasn't bothered coming up with any new ideas for the Xanth series since somewhere around book six), which may not sell as well, and it'd be only one book instead of three anyway.

I've read all of the Incarnations of Immortality novels, a baker's dozen of the Xanth novels (mostly in junior high, though I periodically reread the first three every few years), his novelization of Total Recall (which was as good as the film, though in different ways), three of the four Geodyssey novels (haven't gotten around to picking up Muse of Art), one of the Cluster novels (keep meaning to find the other two), and a couple of other random works (Tatham Mound, for instance, which I strongly recommend).

Piers Anthony is very good at coming up with a good idea. He's also good at running it into the ground (witness Xanth). Personally, I found For Love of Evil to be the best of the IoI novels, followed closely by On a Pale Horse. The others are mostly worth reading if you enjoy the world he's created there (I do). He's a competent writer who's had a long time to hone his craft; his work is polished, well-executed, and not terribly deep. In other words, as a writer, he's more of a craftsman than an artist. And his books read quickly, so the investment of time is never significant.

As a rule, if I'm looking for something for a quick, light read, the equivalent of, say, a well-executed but hardly significant action film like Tango and Cash, just to take my mind off of things for a few hours, a non-Xanth Piers Anthony novel, picked up on the cheap at a used bookstore or borrowed from the library, usually works fine.

-- Sean --

http://www.thebrokenlink.org The Broken Link 4.0 is live!
"All tribal myths are true, for a given value of 'true'." -- Terry Pratchett
Follow my random thoughts
Follow my creative process

As has been noted elsewhere - the World-Engine is a creation of the Gods; Belldandy /is/ a goddess, with unlimited power. It would appear that the Pillar of Cephiro is little more than a mere human tasked with a thankless, endless job; hence, while her prayers might keep the world from unravelling the way the UF-universe did before the direct author-avatars threw themselves into the void (and spawned Hopelessly Lost), they're likely not enough to ensure Peace and Prosperity For All.

Just my 2 cents
-Khirsah
-"Look! A Wild Fnord!" *runs the other way*