Emperor's Spears covered by A D B

[HeritorA]

Fortune trust upon you actually the best explanation. Thanks Sandlemad.

'Shows you're able to walk this tight rope of multiple prohibitions/obligations, getting status or honour or even a kind of sanctity.' - I think that's exactly what we would see in A D-B book.

Plus - that will make a truly unique and interesting Chapter to read about.

 

Curious what the Chapter should do if the geas would be interpreted as 'Stop fighting the hereteks. Let them kill you, cause if you will save that planet - in 300 years great daemon would be born here and warp storm will cover all sector and Terra would fall'

[A D-B]

Macbeth had a good geis, from the three witches. "No man of woman born shall harm Macbeth." And he totally thought he was on top of it, the silly fellow. Didn't he realise he was in a Shakespeare play? 

 

A lot of them were tied to death - either how not to die or how you were destined to die - but I like some of the happier/more convoluted ones, too.

[Kelborn]

Ah...now I go it, thanks pals. :tu:

[Sandlemad]

Macbeth had a good geis, from the three witches. "No man of woman born shall harm Macbeth." And he totally thought he was on top of it, the silly fellow. Didn't he realise he was in a Shakespeare play? 

 

A lot of them were tied to death - either how not to die or how you were destined to die - but I like some of the happier/more convoluted ones, too.

 

Oh I'm not saying the characters should wise-up and realise they're in the grooves of the narrative. That's half the fun. We know what's down the line for Oedipus but his confidence that he's got it under wraps is what drives the drama of the situation. I don't think prophecies or prophecy adjacent-concepts destroy tension but geasa feel more grounded, if that makes sense?

 

Like they're a specific and fairly defined cultural practice that foregrounds social obligations, not something handed down from fate/destiny itself or written on extra-temporal Elder Scrolls or slipped into the epigraph of a fantasy doorstopper. The tension of how a character bangs their head against the limits of their geas is still there, sure, but that character has cultural precedent. Someone else can explain it to them, they can see other heroes (or battle-brothers) with geasa, an enemy can use it against them by putting them in a bind between differing obligations. They're living it every day.

 

That seems to me to highlight the contrast between geasa as (i) a practice in the characters' world, and (ii) geasa as a literary device. Prophecy in, say, Tolkien or Martin or Rowling doesn't seem to highlight it in the same way, so you can get away with slipping it in to Dumbledore's speech at the end of a book, putting a  gloss of in-universe justification on your plot, and more or less ignoring it the rest of the time.

 

Like, it absolutely seems like something cool and fresh but also something uniquely difficult to implement in a novel. But then I'm not the one writing it.

[A D-B]

 

Macbeth had a good geis, from the three witches. "No man of woman born shall harm Macbeth." And he totally thought he was on top of it, the silly fellow. Didn't he realise he was in a Shakespeare play? 

 

A lot of them were tied to death - either how not to die or how you were destined to die - but I like some of the happier/more convoluted ones, too.

 

Oh I'm not saying the characters should wise-up and realise they're in the grooves of the narrative. That's half the fun. We know what's down the line for Oedipus but his confidence that he's got it under wraps is what drives the drama of the situation. I don't think prophecies or prophecy adjacent-concepts destroy tension but geasa feel more grounded, if that makes sense?

 

Like they're a specific and fairly defined cultural practice that foregrounds social obligations, not something handed down from fate/destiny itself or written on extra-temporal Elder Scrolls or slipped into the epigraph of a fantasy doorstopper. The tension of how a character bangs their head against the limits of their geas is still there, sure, but that character has cultural precedent. Someone else can explain it to them, they can see other heroes (or battle-brothers) with geasa, an enemy can use it against them by putting them in a bind between differing obligations. They're living it every day.

 

That seems to me to highlight the contrast between geasa as (i) a practice in the characters' world, and (ii) geasa as a literary device. Prophecy in, say, Tolkien or Martin or Rowling doesn't seem to highlight it in the same way, so you can get away with slipping it in to Dumbledore's speech at the end of a book, putting a  gloss of in-universe justification on your plot, and more or less ignoring it the rest of the time.

 

Like, it absolutely seems like something cool and fresh but also something uniquely difficult to implement in a novel. But then I'm not the one writing it.

 

 

No, no, I wasn't disagreeing, dude. I just like Macbeth's one a lot. It walks the line between silly and arcane, but ends up taking itself seriously, which is ultimately a good thing. That's a hard balance to walk. Cú Chulainn's is a bit esoteric, by contrast. "Never refuse a meal offered by a woman" and "Never eat dog meat." It's hard to understand why it's a bad thing if X and Y happens, without a lot of context. So I like that one a bit less.

 

Definitely not disagreeing, just musing out loud.

[lordhellblade]

Looking forward to this.

 

Hope ADB does that Crimson Fists novel too.

 

And the Minotaurs need some love.

[HeritorA]

Macbeth had a good geis, from the three witches. "No man of woman born shall harm Macbeth." And he totally thought he was on top of it, the silly fellow. Didn't he realise he was in a Shakespeare play? 

 

A lot of them were tied to death - either how not to die or how you were destined to die - but I like some of the happier/more convoluted ones, too.

 

Again just me being curious - so what will happen if geis would be like 'Do not fight hereteks. Or Terra would fall' '?

Looking forward to this.

 

Hope ADB does that Crimson Fists novel too.

 

And the Minotaurs need some love.

A D-B doing Crimson Fists novel? Wow - that's something new

[Cleanse And Purify]

They're usually not that straightforward. The Macbeth thing, strictly speaking, isn't a geis. Geasa are a particular cultural artifact of medieval Ireland, and Shakespeare was a 17th century Englishman basing most of his work off the chronicles collected by other Englishman. Had you said the word geis to him, he would have thought you sneezed. Or, if he somehow recognized early modern Irish, he would peg you for a dirty Irishman and call over Edmund Spenser to write some annoying propaganda about you ;)

 

The geasa as they appear in medieval Irish literature are often rather less straight-forward, though occasionally they make quite a bit of sense. Some are just puns. For example, in The Destruction of Damage Derga's Hostel, one of the main characters geasa is that no banditry may go unpunished in his reign. However, banditry was an accepted practice for young Irish noblemen: they would serve as mercenary warriors in roving bands, and oftimes they would simply attack whomever was nearest to them, if they were not retained by a local chieftain. And the main character, a king, refuses to punish some noble bandits because they are his foster brothers, and instead exiles them to Britain rather than killing them as he was bound to do. He breaks his geis by refusing to honor the commitment he made to protect his people from banditry. Having broken this geis, he is then forced into an unfortunate set of circumstances that lead to him breaking ALL his geasa, and eventually leads to him dying in battle against his foster brothers (whom all also die).

 

There's some important cultural rhetoric at work in this story, about the duties a king has to his people and the dangers of letting ones personal love for individuals (foster brothers were often closer than blood brothers in medieval Ireland) override ones responsibilities as a king. But notably, many of the geasa the king labors under are quite farcical: for example, one of them is "you must not let three reds precede you into red's house." An apparently nonsense statement, and yet as the king makes his circle of his land, he finds three red haired men on three red horses on the road. He speaks to them, and then let's them on their way. The king is on his way to the hostel of Da Derga (providing a dwelling and food for a king was an important, and prestigious duty, of certain noblemen in medieval Ireland) and when he arrives there, unbeknownst to him, the three redheads on their red horses have arrived there before him and are already seated at the mead-bench. And Da Derga, the hospitaller of the hostel, has a name that means something like "the red one" (derg is Irish for a particular tone of red, sometimes interpreted as the red of blood or wine, though not always, while another word, ruad, is used for red hair, such as in the name Brian Ruad max Brian, which would be Brian the Red, son of Brian). And so, due to his fate (set in motion by the wilful breaking of that first geis) the king has been forced to break another geis. And so it goes, until all his geasa are broken, and war comes to Da Derga's home, and all within (barring one hero from Ulster) and all without (the kings foster brothers and their warband) die in blood and fire.

 

So the geasa, even if they seem innocuous or banal, are often accompanied by more serious or meaningful ones that a character breaks willingly, or is forced to break (often in the process of performing some heroic deed, or maintaining their honor), which typically dooms them to death. Sometimes, such as in the above instance, there is a clear rhetorical purpose in the text and the character dies for that reason. Other times, a character breaks a geis in a more honorable manner, knowing they may doom themselves, but because a proper Irishman (in medieval times, at least) scorns death, they embrace said doom and break their geis.

 

Other times, geasa are used to exploit a characters honor. In The Exile of the Sons of Uisliu, the eponymous sons were bound to not eat until they had partaken of the king of Ulsters food. Since the king of Ulster wanted to kill them, but was afraid he could not because they were mighty warriors, he had his nobles drag the Sons to feast after feast, knowing they couldn't eat until they reached Conchobars (the king of Ulster) fort. This weakened the Sons and also let Conchobar gather enough warriors to kill them. Which then happened. So the brothers died because of their geis, which freed Conchobar to steal their sister (whom they had sworn would never marry while they lived) and force her to be his wife.

 

In doing this though, Conchobar violated the honor of one of his greatest chieftains, Fergus mac Roich, whom had sworn to protect the Sons. Fergus, enraged that the Sons had been murdered his own king, slew their killers, and then left Ulster for Connacht, and became one of Conchobars greatest foes. The woman, btw, kills herself.

 

All because of geasa!

 

"This unnecesssry lesson brought to you by Cleanse and Purify, esq., who totally didn't write his master's thesis on this very topic"

[A D-B]

They're usually not that straightforward. The Macbeth thing, strictly speaking, isn't a geis. 

 

It is and it's not. It's not, because no, it's not in the strictly Irish literary sense. But I'm not dumb (well, actually, that's up for debate on many subjects); it's commonly accepted and described in a fair few texts as an example of a geis - of what they are, how they work, and so on. It's like calling a vacuum cleaner a hoover, and a thousand other linguistic shortcuts. (The Wikipedia page, which I linked to the other day on my social media, says that it's a similar example of the narrative trope, not an actual geis. But you know what I mean.)

 

The problem is that a lot of the deeply involved ones aren't particularly evocative or interesting, let alone applicable to how people actually behave. Irish mythology and spirituality is something I've looked into a fair bit (anyone who's read my webcomic or seen my friends list on FB will find that no surprise), but sometimes you have to parse things down to their core.

 

There's purity, and then there's pedantry. Purity serves a story, fleshes out its characters, and aids immersion. Pedantry over-explains and takes the reader out of the story, for the cheap kudos of the author getting to show off.

 

EDIT: See below, with all the other edits.

Edited August 10, 2017 by A D-B

[A D-B]

"This unnecesssry lesson brought to you by Cleanse and Purify, esq., who totally didn't write his master's thesis on this very topic"

 

It was awesome, so I'd definitely not consider it unnecessary.

 

EDIT: Also, oops, split my posts up. 

 

EDIT II: Oh, Jesus, I wasn't calling you a pedant, C&P. I meant in terms of every single warrior in the Chapter having a convoluted geas like a bunch of the less-famous Celtic ones. Sorry, this is what happens with TW:Warhammer open on my other monitor. 

 

EDIT III: Actually, if you feel like sharing your dissertation? I'd sincerely appreciate the chance to read it and learn more. (aaronwdb@gmail.com)

Edited August 10, 2017 by A D-B

[Cleanse And Purify]

Well, Norsca did release today and if I wasn't at work, it would be distracting me too :D You're correct, the concepts are quite similar, and for anyone without an interest in medieval Irish culture and literature, the difference is probably negligible. The concept of a taboo assigned at birth, or as a literary plot device, is of course not in anyways restricted to a medieval Irish context.

 

As you may have guessed, the idea of a space marine chapter influenced (in whatever fashion) by medieval Irish culture and literature is quite awesome in my opinion, and I'm rather looking forward to reading the final product :)

 

Edit: I'm always willing to share my research! It was a thesis, not a dissertation (this may indeed be pedantry but PhD students write dissertations and I was but a lowly master's student) and I warn you, it's dry and dusty academic stuff. Also, I'm a rhetorician by training and so the thesis focuses on early medieval Ireland as a site for cultural rhetorical inquiry: the stuff about geasa is only one chapter, and even then, it's not the whole chapter. So, if you still wanna wade through all that gobbledygook, I will send you a copy once I'm home from work.

Edited August 10, 2017 by Cleanse And Purify

[A D-B]

Well, Norsca did release today and if I wasn't at work, it would be distracting me too

 

It's good! But I think I'll always enjoy the Empire most. 

 

And seriously, I'd love to read your thesis (see EDIT III above).

 

TEACH ME THINGS, DAMN YOU.

[A D-B]

Well, Norsca did release today and if I wasn't at work, it would be distracting me too You're correct, the concepts are quite similar, and for anyone without an interest in medieval Irish culture and literature, the difference is probably negligible. The concept of a taboo assigned at birth, or as a literary plot device, is of course not in anyways restricted to a medieval Irish context.

 

As you may have guessed, the idea of a space marine chapter influenced (in whatever fashion) by medieval Irish culture and literature is quite awesome in my opinion, and I'm rather looking forward to reading the final product

 

Edit: I'm always willing to share my research! It was a thesis, not a dissertation (this may indeed be pedantry but PhD students write dissertations and I was but a lowly master's student) and I warn you, it's dry and dusty academic stuff. Also, I'm a rhetorician by training and so the thesis focuses on early medieval Ireland as a site for cultural rhetorical inquiry: the stuff about geasa is only one chapter, and even then, it's not the whole chapter. So, if you still wanna wade through all that gobbledygook, I will send you a copy once I'm home from work.

 

That's not pedantry. That's.... accuracy. The devil is in the details.

 

And yes, please, that would be freaking awesome of you, man. 

[R_F_D]

Edit: I'm always willing to share my research! It was a thesis, not a dissertation (this may indeed be pedantry but PhD students write dissertations and I was but a lowly master's student) and I warn you, it's dry and dusty academic stuff. Also, I'm a rhetorician by training and so the thesis focuses on early medieval Ireland as a site for cultural rhetorical inquiry: the stuff about geasa is only one chapter, and even then, it's not the whole chapter. So, if you still wanna wade through all that gobbledygook, I will send you a copy once I'm home from work.

 

Totally get the irony of this post (it's like "goldy" and "bronzy" only it's made out of iron) but it's the other way round in England - Thesis for PhD, dissertation for Undergrad + Masters.

 

Anyway I digress away from pedantry.  A-DB, did you make c.1,000 geasas? (is that correct plural?) 

[Cleanse And Purify]

I have clearly outed myself as a yank! As if it wasn't obvious anyways: all scholars of medieval Ireland are either the Irish, or Americans who wish they were Irish ;) (my family is from Italy anyways, plot thickens, etc).

 

Geasa is the plural, geis is the singular. Geasa, IIRC, is pronounced a bit like "gaw-sa" or "gay-sa" while geis is "gaysh". My Irish is pretty rudimentary unfortunately, I have just about enough to struggle through some of the primary sources (if someone else has transcribed them for me, because reading the actual medieval script is it's own unique challenge) if I have a dictionary handy.

[A D-B]

Received, C&P! Thank you, dude. I'll put it to good use.

 

And R_F_D, nope, but the main characters all have one or two. It's one of the Emperor's Spears' rites for every warrior to have at least one, however.

[Taliesin]

 

So, I think ADB mentioned somewhere, that this blurb is quite revealing. What have you all extrapolated from it about the chapter? Barbaric? Chaotic plight? What does it mean?! I'm certainly no detective... Smurf or Raven Chapter tactics? Or wolves...

 

This looks very good. I could be more intrigued by this than the Black Legion series even.

[R_F_D]

And R_F_D, nope, but the main characters all have one or two. It's one of the Emperor's Spears' rites for every warrior to have at least one, however.

 

Cheers!  Had been kind of hopeful you had tried to do a Chapter's worth and began to descend to Bart Simpson chalkboard levels..... 

[Rathamanti]

So, I have a question for you all. I have no knowledge of this stuff and I am a history noob.

 

I was watching Wagner's opera Götterdämmerung and it hit me: Wotan's (Odin's) spear is inscribed with all his treaties, and spear is called Geirr in Old Norse ('From Proto-Germanic *gaizaz' https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/geirr).

 

Before this wonderful thread, I knew nothing about all those geisa, geis and whatever else you guys call them, but I would like to ask you whether there's a connection between Wotan's spear with the treaties that serves and curses him (Wagner's musical leitmotif for the spear makes it pretty clear, that Wotan is doomed to fail, and that there's some prophecy type thing going on with the spear), spears as symbols in general, the name Geirr and the stuff connected to the Emperor's Spears by ADB? At least the names sound alike...

 

Or is it only Richard Wagner and Aaron that makes the connection between spears and weird prophecies?

 

I am sorry I can't explain what I mean more smoothly. As you can see, English isn't my first language...

Edited August 13, 2017 by Rathamanti

[WarriorFish]

The B&C isn't here to discuss Wagner, please respect the rules and what their intent is - a similarity or common aspect to something in 40k is not enough to discuss it here.

[Rathamanti]

The B&C isn't here to discuss Wagner, please respect the rules and what their intent is - a similarity or common aspect to something in 40k is not enough to discuss it here.

What do you mean, WarriorFish? We are discussing the inspiration and culture of the Emperor's Spears, and I am asking whether some of the symbols of Norse mythology and the Ring of the Nibelung has either been an inspiration for ADB or if they are in other ways connected to the thing called geasa (or whatever it is actually called) that ADB has mentioned as a part of the Spear's culture.

 

I am certainly not here to discuss Wagner. There's plenty of other places to do that. I was a hundred percent focused on understanding the background of the Spears chapter.

 

And please don't be one of those types, that would suggest

that Wagner is a nasty and evil subject, just because a certain European dictator were a fan of him. He lived longed before that jackass.

Edited August 14, 2017 by Rathamanti

[WarriorFish]

I am requesting you honour the rules you agreed to follow when creating your account. The use of geis in an upcoming book is not an excuse to talk about the concept in all and sundry, the connection for Wotan's spear's writing and his ultimate fate is not what this topic is about.

 

Finally, please do not create aspersions on my opinion of Wagner when I made absolutely no comment on him further than inappropriateness for this forum. I don't want to have to explain the rules again, please stay on topic so others may enjoy discussing this upcoming book otherwise they may need to be removed. Thanks.

[Deadlight]

Spears + geasa = spears of destiny?

[Rathamanti]

The use of geis in an upcoming book is not an excuse to talk about the concept in all and sundry

Sure, I will stop writing, but why didn't you warn Cleanse & Purify when he wrote his long (and awesome) lecture on Geasa earlier in this thread? If I went to deep into a subject by suggesting a connection to Wagner's stories, Cleanse & Purify certainly did as well? That's why I thought it was the specific subject Wagner that was the problem.

[HeritorA]

Spears + geasa = spears of destiny?

Awesome suggestion.

 

A D-B we need your approval