(note: I have not played this content so I know little)
So we all know of The Seekers: Those mad fools who seek a impossible goal at the cost of self destruction. I am not one of them: I have done too much and achieved too much to destroy my sanity on a impossible goal.
But I post here a radical theory: What if the Name is but a decoy? What if the real questions we should be asking is not "What is Mr Eaten’s name?" but more "What happened to him and, more importantly, why?"
What powers do names have? A man can be called by a different name and still be the same being. Look at the Masters themselves. They have apparently changed names on occasions. So what goal would learning the name of Mr Eaten achieve? NOTHING.
I propose that The Search for the name is nothing more then a decoy, made to destroy those who would find the truth.
But then in that case that leaves us with the questions of What happened and perhaps the most important, why? Why do the Masters tell you not to pursue this? Is it out of benevolence or malevolence?
I cannot say. I do not seek answers to these question and I fear I speak too much on the matter as is. I am happy just trying to become a POSI. But perhaps it is something worth thinking about.
edited by Kylestien on 11/1/2014
Without giving away anything specific about Seeking… it’s a huge part of many mystical traditions that things have "true" names or that naming something or finding out its name gives you power over it, etc. The idea that one name for a thing is the same as any other and that learning a name won’t tell you what happened to its owner and why is a very modern idea.
And honestly? Those modern concepts of semantics and semiotics fly pretty firmly in the face of everything we know about the Correspondence. In the 'Neath, at least, it seems like the ancients were right; if you know the right way to say something, in the true language of the Judgments, you can change reality.
There be a great many theories when it comes to the Name, or Names, or those who seek them… at least as many as there are Seekers - plus one. At least. (I’d give something to get an inside glimpse on the theories the creator of all this must have by now about Us :D). Breckner put it right on track - the idea that Names exist to describe Beings is, basically, a very new-ish twist of things almost akin to a Russian Reversal. The traditional way (e.g. most of human history) makes it the other way around - that a Name defines the nature of Being. You are not only what you are called, but this also makes you be that. A Name is not used to describe, but to shape the form - hence ‘Names Have Power’. Yup, there’s some truckloads of philosophical, religious etc. etc. stuff (most of it on Library shelves) that could be used to fertilize discussions about this… which wasn’t what I had in mind.
I just had to put this up as foreplay - now if you go that route, what will come of it if you were able to give Mr. Eaten back his older, stripped, invalidated Name by finding it and then … Calling Him By It.
There’s just something really, truly most compelling in just the idea - of being able to Ressurrect a Dead … GOD… innit?
Ah, and the implications… :)
Totally worth a couple hundred stat points’n stuff.
(plus the added bonus of larking over the imagination of this whole conundrum’s creator clutching his head in frustration and helplessly muttering to his monitor "Oh g_dd___ it for Christ’s F______ sake…") :D