Been goat-grinding on Hunter’s keep and I’m actually curious about the full stories of the sisters. They’re definite periphery to lot of the Neath mysterious, but no less intriguing. Here’s some points I gathered and considered.
-They invoke the triple goddess in their charades (the Graces number in three, as do the Furies, and Hecate has three heads and is a goddess of the crossroads), but don’t fit the traditional maiden, matron, and crone archetype.
-all their names are related to light in some form. Phoebe is "bright", Lucina "light", and Cynthia refers to a place Diana/Artemis was worshipped - thus, Moon.
-Who is the one that wrote the dull dairy? It puts one, or all of their stories of romance into question. Cynthia is probably the most suspect, as her stories are the vaguest out of the lot.
-Phoebe’s story indicates these romances likely took place prior to the Fall, but again - this is suspect.
-The Maid. What is she? She has eyes like a Deviless, but eats glim like a Rubbery, And she makes her displeasure at the player getting close to the sisters well know… is she jealous? Or does she have another reason to keep the sisters isolated?
-Ambition. The Sisters know about your ambition and will constantly hint at you to find it. How do they know? Why do they care?
That thought came to mind - especially when they all presented a spinning top as a token of his affection and how they broke up (and the dairy) points to ‘got drudgery work because of his dad’ (Lucina and Dairy explicit, Phoebe hints at the lost of innocent in ‘soots and gray suits’, while Cynthia’s a drama queen about it).
The simple, and perhaps dull theory is the the guy triple-timed the sisters and made the mistake of using the same token. But it doesn’t… quite fit.
But part of me thought ‘what if the sisters are the same person’ (e la Jeanette and Therese in V:tM Bloodlines), but that was quickly discounted with all the scenes where all three of them are in the same room.
Personally when I was still there with the sisters, I always thought the Maid was a Deviless who ate the glim just to freak your character out or just because she could. Had a suspicion she didn’t like it a lot when you tried to poke your nose around the island and the stories in it.
To the point she’ll eat glim for show/laughs? Maybe. Stranger things happened in the Zee.[li]
I also like to think it was Cynthia who wrote the dull diary. It would make sense of her to want to spice up her version of romance when presenting it to other people but be frank about it in her private writing. She did strike me as the type of girl who wanted adventure, fun and excitement in life but ended up in the middle of an island with her sister and a Maid as company instead. edited by ArtRulesAll on 1/27/2014
Is it the Deviless-Maid who eats the glim, or the other creature in the well? Why is the maid hang out in the well with the creature, anyway? …and why is there a creature in the well? THIS ISLAND IS STRANGE.
If memory serves me right, and it usually doesn’t, Lucy never made it clear who ‘she’ is when she tells you to come back in an hour after ‘she’ eats the glim.
[li]
And I keep a rule of thumb that anything involves wells = suspicious and something to avoid if possible. So far I haven’t been proven wrong!
I assume it’s the maid - law of conservation of detail and all.
But the sisters’ presence on the isolated island and the maid seems to be sharply connected, and they seem connected to the well, but not quite as involved as those of Mutton Island are.
Looking at the text, it’s more explicitly unclear - our character wonders whether the “she” who eats the glim and who’ll eat us in one gulp is the maid or the vast furred shape lurking at the bottom of the well. And, if we fail, we don’t even get a glimpse of which one of them bites us. And, of course, it’s entirely possible that one of them eats glim, and the other eats people.
maybe the maid’s some kind of vampire that only morphs into moths and feeds on glim and nightmares? or something else related to the masters and mister eaten?
As Cynthia, Lucina, or Phoebe, sister of Phoebus Apollo, Diana rules the moon; as Hecate, she rules in Hades. Because of her three functions, she is sometimes called the ‘three-formed goddess’ (diva triformis); allusions to her in one form often include the other two.
That island is steeped in mythology, no mistake. Even the air smells of thyme, beloved by the gods.
I LOVE the mysteries on the island, it’s probably my favourite place on the Zee for intriguing story. I just wish we could continue that story further and find out more. It has an almost fairytale air to it, as well as the mythological things. I always assumed the deviless was there to keep them on the island, and make sure they didn’t go and find their beloved (beloveds?) in London. It seemed to me he was the same man, but I don’t know if he was tricking them, that doesn’t feel right, I think maybe he was in a relationship with all three, with full knowledge on their part? Mere speculation of course. edited by Inky Petrel on 1/28/2014
There’s another thing I just realized. At Time passing in the Southern Archipelago 6 or less, not only all the sisters will talk about a spinning top as a love memento from a lover, but the three options requiring Dramatic Tension also mention a goat (in Phoebe’s tale, the lover winning the contest is a goatherd; in Lucy’s, the lover has an incident with a goat and a Constable; in Cynthia’s, the lover’s father is described as a vicious old goat ). I’m starting to feel like there’s a hint the mysterious "Patrick" could have some connections to Hell and/or the goat demons? Sure the maid was a pretty strong hint to a Hell connection already, and this all but reinforces the hunch.
[quote=LadyTarvish]
But part of me thought ‘what if the sisters are the same person’ (e la Jeanette and Therese in V:tM Bloodlines), but that was quickly discounted with all the scenes where all three of them are in the same room.[/quote]
This is Fallen London; I wouldn’t count this possibility out. Even if you do see them as three distinct people.[li]
my guess is they all got caught in one of the stories of the bazaar - the tales it, by its presence and influence, spins and breaths into life to create new romances for it to consume. why they’re all sent to the island, and what the maid is about, that’s another question. But I think the sisters got caught in the love-story equivalent of an advanced profession.
Fantastic find on Diana, Mr. Glyden. Made me go do some refreshing on Diana/Artemis. The light from the well, associated with the moon repeatedly in the text on the island, goes well with Diana’s ties to the moon.
I have a strong hunch that while all of the sisters’ stories seem to involve London, that’s only metaphorical, and they’re being adapted to London as the contemporary conception of other previous cities. (Much the way mythology gets adapted from one civilization to the next.)
All of the various stories of the sisters’ admirers and beloveds have interesting echoes in the various men who courted Diana – most famously Actaeon discovered Diana bathing nude and was turned into a stag and killed by his own dogs. One of Lucy’s stories tells of her lover in London who was a “Young Stag,” evidently referring to the club, but, well, it’s all very allegorical at this point. One that I would love to be relevant but probably isn’t is the story of Sipriotes, who either sees Diana naked or tries to rape her and she turns him into a girl. I would LOVE it if that were the origin story of the maidservant on the island…
Going back to my obsession with the historical cities, I’m just going to point out one of the oldest texts on love and Neathy places is Inanna Descends to the Underworld. Inanna/Ishtar is not generally associated with Artemis/Diana, but it’s not too far a stretch. There are aspects of, say, Lucy’s story about losing her lovers’ inheritance at Chimes’ place which have some similarity to Inanna’s story.
We always assumed they were aspects of the thing in the well that were being projected into reality by it. It would explain why Hell has a vested interested in keeping people away from them and keeping them on the island, as well as explaining why they all have similar memories of their lover.
This is purely speculation, of course. We have nothing to back it up.
And again I am reminded of my love for this community, as Trodgmey’s message lead me to check out Inanna’s story and the "descent to the underworld" theme in mythology. But to check the relevance of this story, I will need to go back to Hunter’s Keep. It’s been a while.
[li]
Ishtar’s a good goddess for Neathlore, whether or not she comes into Hunter’s Keep in particular.
[quote=Gilgamesh]You loved the lion, perfect in strength,
and dug out seven and seven pits for him.
You loved a horse, famous in battle,
and ordained the spur, the belt and the whip for him.
You decreed for him to run seven double hours
and to drink muddy water,
and for its mother Silili you ordained to weep.[/quote]
I always assumed the deviless was there to keep them on the island, and make sure they didn’t go and find their beloved (beloveds?) in London. It seemed to me he was the same man, but I don’t know if he was tricking them, that doesn’t feel right, I think maybe he was in a relationship with all three, with full knowledge on their part? Mere speculation of course.