Sunday, 14 September 2008

Shiny New Artefacts for Shiny New Places

I have recently replaced my old and cheap green lightsabre with a more extensive and remarkable version.

Advertised as the 'Ultimate Lightsabre' it is fully adjustable, blade colour and all. As a result I have had a world of fun playing about with colours and styles which suit me. After much and constant deliberation, I have settled (at least for now) on a comparatively lightweight style of hilt (perhaps a subconscious homage to fencing) and either a white or green colour blade.

But there are more metaphors hidden under my choices than meets the eye. If i look at it from the correct perspective, it is a case of me aspiring to be something resembling a figure of good intentions and somewhat of a force of light. I do try to be a good person (but am still wondering quite what that means) and make every effort to lay aside emotions and clouded judgments, but they will inevitably find me eventually, like the white colour of my blade is only so because one third of it is red, the commonly Sith (and evil) colour. Is one third of me thus a darker part of my personality, countered by the other two?

Now I've asked more questions than I've answered, and so shall endeavour to come up with suitable responses.

Sunday, 7 September 2008

Lerriano- One name for Strength

My computer annoyingly broke the first time I wrote this article, which is why this is late.

I write creatively, often of a fantastic or adventurous nature, and Lerriano is an important and recurring name.

Commonly, the Lerriano is a powerful sorcerer who rules (in a scarily powerful autocracy) over a race of giant lizards known as the Volsis. This great spellcaster represents a feral and old world which is constantly under threat from modern technologies.

A more relevant use is that of a different world, set in a mountain fortress (inspired largely by Salamandastron, the Redwall badger castle), called the Northern Rock. Lerriano the Hunter is the eighteenth Lord of the Throne (although he expands the rank to that of King), who overthrows the tyranny of piety and reforms religious orders into factories of science. He and his dynasty are largely attributed with recreating the Citadel of Faith (from whom he had retrieved power) to be a grand palace to Technology (a culture called "Machinism").

The second use of this name within the same world is that of the 37th Lord, Lerriano Galebringer. This Lerriano was also attributed to a huge shift in public attitudes, but for the wrong reasons. He is the last of his dynasty, and so brought about a regime change by defeat in a duel at the hands of a foreign nobleman. His own contributions to Machinism were huge windmills which create gales that made battlefields impassable. It is also a reference to his ability to aggravate negotiations without losing his own cool.

The humans called Lerriano are metaphors for aspects of my own personality: the Hunter is a metaphor for my distrust of conventional concepts of Faith, and reinterpreting such concepts in my own way. It also represents ambition, but only on a minor technicality, as Lerriano the Hunter was never a crowned king, but paved the way for others to become so.

The second Lerriano represents the fundamental weakness of my faith in technology, and how it is possible to be defeated on a minor point even after staving off all the odds in other circumstances.

Ponder at will, and consider the nobility of Lerriano.