in_nomine-digest Monday, February 18 2002 Volume 01 : Number 2548 In this digest: Re: IN> Celestial Hockey League Re: IN> Re: Jordi's Choirs Re: IN> Celestial Hockey League Re: IN> Celestial Hockey League Re: IN> Re: Jordi's Choirs Re: IN> Celestial Hockey League IN> Re: Jordi Re: IN> Jordi revisited IN> Re:Jordi's view of humanity IN> Gloriana Re: IN> Re: Jordi's Choirs IN> Jordi (rant) Re: IN> Re:Jordi's view of humanity RE: IN> Re: Jordi's Choirs Re: IN> Jordi (rant) Re: IN> Jordi (rant) Re: IN> Jordi (rant) Re: IN> Jordi (rant) Re: IN> Jordi (rant) IN> "Evil" Archangels Archangels and being wrong (was Re: IN> Re: Jordi's Choirs) Re: IN> Jordi (rant) Re: IN> Jordi (rant) Re: IN> Jordi (rant) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 22:13:12 From: "Charles Glasgow" Subject: Re: IN> Celestial Hockey League >From: Maurice Lane >Reply-To: in_nomine-l@lists.io.com >To: in_nomine-l@lists.io.com >Subject: Re: IN> Celestial Hockey League >Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 14:04:09 -0800 (PST) >Especially when the Roses that are out of range are >gleefully demonstrating that Novalis has a fairly >progressive view on what constitutes 'necessary >violence' in regards to hockey games... > >;) Out of range? Moe, with Mom in the bleachers the *entire stadium* is in range. *eg* And it can't be called cheating. Technically speaking, fighting *is* against the rules -- that's why there's a penalty box. So Novalis is merely *enforcing* the rules by dropping her attunement on the entire rink and keeping it there for the entire game... so it's not cheating. Or at least that's what she keeps saying whenever they have a league meeting to try and pass a resolution to make her stop doing it. *vbeg* - -- Chuckg _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 14:38:20 -0800 (PST) From: Michael Walton Subject: Re: IN> Re: Jordi's Choirs - --- Ryan M Roth wrote: > Humans are primates only by their own > labeling system, which I'm sure Jordi cares little for. Good point. > I therefore think that it would make much more sense if > the choir > associations were made along terms of animal function in > the ecosystem, > rather than by species classifications that humanity > invented. Hmmmm... that idea has merit. ===== Michael Walton, #9805-068 "In a world without women, what would men become?" "Scarce, ma'am. Mighty scarce." -- Mark Twain __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Sports - Coverage of the 2002 Olympic Games http://sports.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 17:33:10 -0500 From: Mike Bruner Subject: Re: IN> Celestial Hockey League > While very few will speak of the teams now gone, some of the older > Archangels will nod in respect to the Deluge, the Harmony (champions for > a century after the League was established), and the Scholars, among others. Call me crazy, but wouldn't at least some of these be impossible, since the Archangel in question died before hockey was born? Or did Heaven invent it before humanity? - -- Mike Bruner-- mbruner18@home.com Give a hobbit a fish and he eats fish for a day. Give a hobbit a ring and he eats fish for an age. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 18:13:30 -0500 From: Cameron McCurry Subject: Re: IN> Celestial Hockey League Mike Bruner wrote: > > Or did Heaven invent it before humanity? Or played something similar. We aren't quite sure, since we can't get a straight answer. -:-) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 17:46:01 -0500 From: Mike Bruner Subject: Re: IN> Re: Jordi's Choirs >I think Jordi's main problem as written is that canonically he's >wrong. In IN humans are special. Jordi has some good reasons, as opposed >to Lucifer's lunatic prideful ones, about why they aren't special but he's >just plain wrong. The entire host of Heaven can't convince him otherwise >and his wrong headed thinking is well represented in how he's >presented. Having an Archangel whose just wrong is going to bother >players who like his Word or other parts of his write up but just wish he >wasn't wrong. There's also the game problem that as written it's hard to imagine how to integrate his servitors into most IN games easily. If their boss doesn't have many interests in human society, why should he have people there? The only justifications for doing so seem to boil down to one-note "eco-terrorism/enviromental activism", unlike other angels, whose Words are more flexibly defined so they allow for more reasons they might be somewhere. They just don't overlap enough with the other angels. - -- Mike Bruner-- mbruner18@home.com Give a hobbit a fish and he eats fish for a day. Give a hobbit a ring and he eats fish for an age. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 18:44:35 -0500 From: Amanda Kilgore Subject: Re: IN> Celestial Hockey League > Call me crazy, but wouldn't at least some of these be impossible, since the > Archangel in question died before hockey was born? Or did Heaven invent it > before humanity? Heaven's had it long before humanity. It could be that humanity learned it from the Grigori, way back when. You never know. :-) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 11:15:32 +1100 From: "james walker" Subject: IN> Re: Jordi > Comments? > > Ryan Roth I *liked* the idea that the Grigori were responsible for were-beasties, and expanding the Ofanim to cover all migratory species was a good idea - it's no wonder the dodo became extinct - how much effort is an Ofanite going to put into defending a bird that cannot fly, swim or run? Cherubim shouldn't have any prey animals under their wing; otherwise they're just going to exterminate the predators to protect their attuned (and the havoc that causes...shudder) Malakim - have only been around for 22,000 years - the same amount of time as domesticated animals. Besides, they can't Fall - who else if Jordi going to trust dealing with humans? Also, their codes of honour help them understand & judge the loyalties that dogs/horses etc feel towards their owners. Cheers, James. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 10:59:10 +1100 From: "james walker" Subject: Re: IN> Jordi revisited > I did some thinking the other day about Jordi, after watching "Crocodile > Hunter" on TV, and I realized that the Canon portrayal of Jordi doesn't > really please me at all. Way too much "When Animals Attack" Eco-terrorism > in it's approach. And the whole "Jordi Hates Humanity" approach doesn't > please me either. I figure Jordi might be happier if Humanity was just more > friendly to the Animal kingdom as a whole, rather then extinct. Seems more > poetic in justice. Something I've been toying with is the idea that Jordi's actually the most reasonable AA - consider: a Soldier of God, serving anyone else; does your angel understand about your need to sleep? to eat? how's the angel going to react if a Lustie seduces you and tricks valuable information out of you? If the Soldier serves Jordi, though, he's treated as any other animal - of course he needs to eat, to sleep, the angel will point this out before the Soldier notices! Seduced by the demon? The angels response would be - "wretched demon, how *dare* it exploit an animals' mating rituals!" The angel wouldn't trust a human with a case full of money, any more than we'd trust a dog to guard a plate of sausages. And the angel wouldn't hold it against the human that he can't be trusted with money, any more than we would hold it against our pets that we can't "trust" them with food. Jordi's rep as being anti-human could just be other AA's - notably Laurence and Jean - disliking Jordi giving humans so much slack! And remember, Jordi is Allied with Novalis & Eli - not the Allies you want if your real goal is to destroy humanity! > > Also, Jordi's Choir Attunemens... don't make a lot of sense to me. His Malakim are a problem for me. Who was defending the wolves etc *before* the Fall? Makes more sense to have them defending domesticated animals. Cheers, James. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 11:08:10 +1100 From: "james walker" Subject: IN> Re:Jordi's view of humanity > Jordi's perspective on humans, actually, is not all that far removed > from Lucifer's. They both believe humans are talking monkeys who are > held in unreasonably high esteem. What makes Jordi different (and > prevents him from Falling), is that Jordi feels humans are a threat to > _creation_, and need to be reined in for the good of the many. His > reasoning is selfless, even if one believes it's misguided. two points: Firstly, this is going to mean that many of the First Fallen have a lot of time for Jordi. Baal, for example, might compare Jordi to the geese who warned the Romans that they were under attack; sure, Jordi hasn't joined the rebellion, but then the geese didn't fight, either - Jordi fulfilled his obligations to the other Superiors when he warned them of the threat humanity posed. Secondly, if humans are the only animals who go to Hell, then exterminating humanity would be an efficient way of interdicting Hell's supply of Forces. This point would be made by anyone who considers humanity a threat to creation. Cheers, James. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 17:46:58 -0800 (PST) From: Maurice Lane Subject: IN> Gloriana I saw Shakespeare in Love again last night. Hey, what can I say? I've already _done_ Shakespeare, and besides, I've always liked Elizabeth I. Weird of me, but so what else is new? :) Moe "Somebody else can do Oliver Cromwell, though." Lane Elizabeth Blessed Soul (Serving Stone) Corporeal Forces: 2 Strength: 4 Agility: 4 Ethereal Forces: 3 Intelligence: 7 Precision: 5 Celestial Forces: 3 Will: 7 Perception: 5 Skills: Artistry/1 (poetry), Emote/5, Knowledge (British History/4, How to Rule a Patriarchal Society Without Becoming a Figurehead/6, Literature/1, Politics/4), Languages (French/1, Latin/1, Spanish/1), Savoir Faire/6, Seduction/1, Singing/1 The traditional problem regarding rich people, Heaven, a camel and the eye of a needle is even worse when the rich person in question happens to be a fairly-absolute ruler in life who had to do quite a few unpleasant things for the greater good. Fortunately for Elizabeth, her Fate would have been to die a penniless exile whose actions had destroyed her country, while her Destiny was to inspire a great work of poetry, so things pretty much worked out satisfactorily. The worst part was trying to find some meaningful way to apologize to Sir Walter Raleigh about her choice of heir... but Elizabeth managed, somehow. Actually, she made it look easy - but then, she always did. Elizabeth fairly quickly gravitated into Stone's human organization, and has stayed there to this day. For the most part, she works with the Granite Madams as an advisor on human psychology, specializing in the field of how to properly handle males without them ever quite noticing. She also regularly teaches a course in practical politics that routinely attracts individuals who do not serve David: her teaching style can be fairly dry, and Elizabeth is a merciless grader, but the combination of innate experience and diligent post-mortem study makes her classes quite popular. In her copious free time, Elizabeth keeps in regular contact with several other blessed souls who happened to be crowned heads of state in their lifetimes. There is, of course, an ulterior motive (beyond the simple need for companionship): Elizabeth is of the firm opinion that monarchy is a necessary and useful form of government, and wishes to encourage its resurgence on the corporeal plane. To be sure, today this would probably mean some sort of constitutional monarchy (no sense in wasting talent), but the blessed soul has a dim view of any sort of government that has no mechanism for a firm, prompt action to a crisis, and monarchy has the best track record for that sort of thing. She also recognizes that such a program requires allies, which is one reason why she enjoys good relations with Blessed Churchill (and his own organization). He has wide access to all sorts of ears: she has a similar influence within Stone. Arrangements can be made. The afterlife has had several beneficial effects on Elizabeth: she has essentially worked through her vanity and put aside her suspicious nature with a deep sigh of relief. However, she remains flirtatious (in a seemly manner, of course) and is perhaps still a bit too conscious of her dignity. Woe to the entity who pushes Elizabeth too far; she remains quite good at verbally flaying the presumptuous (the pithiness of her retorts are legendary among Servitors of Stone). Aside from this, the blessed soul is still fairly easy to get along with; civility and courtesy goes a long way with her. The possession of artistic talent goes a bit longer, though: Elizabeth is always ready to make allowances for a good poet or dramatist. One final thing that should be noted: one of the major reasons why Elizabeth has stayed in the lower Heavens to this day is simply because she remains fascinated - completely, totally fascinated - with the Archangel of Stone. After seventy years of careful, constant maneuvering around male vanity, male preconceptions, male sheer bloody-mindedness, it was quite the relief to encounter a being with penultimate power, but without gender biases of any kind. Not that Elizabeth has ever demonstrated this fascination in public, or ever plans to. Occasional scraps of half-finished poetry don't count. ===== Liber Licentiae Moeticae: http://www.stormloader.com/users/moelane/innomine.html Last updated 01/01/02(this is usually way out of date) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Sports - Coverage of the 2002 Olympic Games http://sports.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 20:48:09 -0600 From: David Edelstein Subject: Re: IN> Re: Jordi's Choirs Timothy Groth wrote: > > I think Jordi's main problem as written is that canonically he's > wrong. And numerous other Archangels are, at least potentially, wrong on their stances. (Is Yves really up to no good? If not, Michael is being hostile for no good reason. Is Eli derelict in his duties? Is Gabriel heretical? If not, Dominic is wrong.) > In IN humans are special. Which is why Jordi has acknowledged that he CAN'T just wipe them out. And he isn't trying to. But that doesn't preclude trying to winnow their numbers. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 19:57:19 -0700 From: Julian Mensch Subject: IN> Jordi (rant) Jordi is broken, badly. In my opinion, he is the single stupidest Superior in the entire game. Yes, Final Trumpet!Khalid could be offensive to Muslims and presented a very one-sided aspect to Islam, as well as being a... unique Elohite, but ultimately he could be reconciled into the game. I really don't think that's true, at all, of Jordi. If/when I run a game, I'll probably either not use him, or use the Tattered Jordi transplanted into canon as a Druiel-style nutzoid Archangel instead. You have to understand, IMO, where Jordi came from. The French game was highly satiric, and many of Derek Pearcy's AA's seem to be thinly-veiled pop culture architypes. Mike is the Schwatzanegerrian ass-kicker, Novalis is a hippy, David is a drill sergeant, Laurence is Galahad, Andrealphus is a pimp, Eli is a cool-guy stoner, Dominic is a stick-up- the-ass Christian prude, and so forth. It seems reasonably clear to me that the game is set up to play of these common comical architypes, as per the main book. Then, In Nomine evolved. Moriah, and later Beth, got a hold of it, and decided to shift it more to telling stories that have more depth and resonate to a greater degree with the human condition. All the Superiors became a lot less superficial -- Novalis stopped being *only* a hippy chic and became a powerful maternal architype, a symbol of peace and compassion. Michael started living up to his hype as the fittest angel in mind, spirit and body. And so forth. The game became much more High Contrast, and good and evil were put forth as serious ideas rather than things to be lampooned at every oppurtunity. This, IMO, was good. The game kept it's comic edge, but gained depth. Jordi, IMO, was a catering to political correctness. As soon as you take him out of "silly eco-terrorist" mode and seriously consider what he's about, any thought of him as a viable Archangel falls apart. I'm not even sure there *should* be an AA of Animals, but if there must, he should not be anything like Jordi. My case against Jordi is as follows: 1. Jordi is an entirely modern architype. There were no hippies 20,000 years ago, but maternal healing figures are ageless. Ecoterrorists, on the other hand, are new in both image and *concept*. Per the GMG, Jordi wanted to exterminate humanity prior to the Fall in 20,000 BC. WTF?!?! How was humanity abusing animals in 20,000 BC? They didn't have the *technology* to hurt the enviorn- ment until two centuries ago! If Lucifer was so darned tempting that he managed to sway Love, Fear and Valor, how did he manage to miss Animals? If he just gave up on humanity recently, that would at least make a little sense, but as written, his perspective is just warped as if he's completely solipsistic about his Word. 2. Modern, canon In Nomine is about moral absolutes. I'm not against shades-of-grey games, being a huge WoD fan, but David E. has made it very clear in the past that that's not what In Nomine is about. Fair enough. Cases like Nicole and Druiel aside, angels are the good guys and demons are the bad guys. Now look at Jordi, not from Jordi's perspective, but from a balanced, outside perspective as a player of the game. Jordi, plainly put, is *evil*. It makes me a little sick how much sympathy he gets, just because he has a very PC cause. I'm not saying that testing cos- metics on bunnies is a good thing, here, but look at Jordi's dissonance conditions! That's a *false* moral imperitive no matter how you cut it! Not "avoid excess cruelty to animals" or "punish humans when the mistreat animals," but VALUE ANIMALS ABOVE HUMAN LIFE. Even most intense eco-terrorists aren't willing to kill innocents to protect animals! 3. Whenever Jordi comes into the books, he seems to drag with him a whole steaming pile of new age dung that flows out to pollute the rest of the game, further diluting the Abrahamic mythology that underlies it. In Heaven & Hell, we find out that animals have souls, Destinies and Fates. Again, WTF!? Selfishness and selflessness are utterly alien to animal behaviour. There's instinct and family and even maternal care, but there's no real moral cognizange, and whenever humans attribute good or evil to animals, they're anthropomorphizing them terribly, and usually letting feelings of cuteness, disgust and fright interfere with real moral awareness. I'm not against exploring issues of animal rights, the animal perspective or totemic spirituality in an RPG; Werewolf: the Apocalypse does an outstanding job of this. But I do ask for a sense of thematic appro- priateness, and that's just completely absent from Jordi's presentation in IN. Jordi is living in his own little corner of the universe, fighting for a completely different cause than the rest of Heaven -- and then the authors indulge him by giving us moronic ideas like animals getting to Heaven or Hell. The thematic terr- itory of the War is pretty much unique to humans. Trying to apply it to animals does both the themes of In Nomine and the nature of animal issues a disservice. 4. Jordi's relations make no sense. How is it that Novalis manages to condemn Michael for fighting to defend the innocent and drive back evil when necessary, yet can cozy up to Jordi, who wants to exterminate humanity, as an ally? It makes sense if Novalis is the hippy chic and Jordi is the radical campus enviornmentalist/animal rights activist, but it makes no sense at all if you look at the game seriously. Similairly, Jordi's outlook on humanity is basically the same as Lucifer's, as David noted, and yet Dominic just lets this slide? Again, Jordi is *evil*, and yet none of the other supposedly good AA's ever seem to call him on it. You can't put an evil guy on a good team, and then just ignore the situation. It makes it look as if every other AA is tacitly condoning the things Jordi wants to do, and that tarnishes their role as the heros of the game, all so that Jordi can get away with his politically correct crusade. (And he was doing this long before the issue was relevant, let alone PC!) Laurence, Michael, Dominic and anyone else responsible for keeping crazed Archangels under control really dropped the ball here, especially in contrast to the amount of flack Eli gets. Rant over. There's my take on Jordi. Suffice it to say that he if to me what Belial is to Moe. :) - -- Julian Mensch ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 20:59:37 -0600 From: David Edelstein Subject: Re: IN> Re:Jordi's view of humanity james walker wrote: > Firstly, this is going to mean that many of the First Fallen have a lot of> time for Jordi. Except that Jordi has little time for them. And they couldn't care less about the parts of creation that Jordi DOES think are special. > Secondly, if humans are the only animals who go to Hell, then exterminating> humanity would be an efficient way of interdicting Hell's supply of Forces. Of course the same might be true of Heaven. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 20:03:52 -0700 From: Julian Mensch Subject: RE: IN> Re: Jordi's Choirs << > I think Jordi's main problem as written is that canonically he's > wrong. And numerous other Archangels are, at least potentially, wrong on their stances. (Is Yves really up to no good? If not, Michael is being hostile for no good reason. Is Eli derelict in his duties? Is Gabriel heretical? If not, Dominic is wrong.) >> But Jordi crosses into a whole new level of Wrong, by closing himself completely to the possibility of corrections, and being willing to kill innocents to serve his deluded cause. Every nuanced hero is wrong about *something*; what pushes Jordi into the villian category is that A) his wrongness is inherant even in his dissonance condition, and B) he seems so completely divorced from any perspective outside his Word. If Michael was surreptitiously trying to kill Servitors of Yves, or Novalis condemned all violence, and was willing to show utter contempt and manipulative malice toward the other AA's who endorsed it, they might be getting close to the same level of wrong. It's not just being wrong; it's being a fanatic about a wrong viewpoint, to the point where innocent people die. Cross that line, and AA or DP, you're a villian. - -- Julian Mensch ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 22:13:16 -0500 From: "Eric Bertish" Subject: Re: IN> Jordi (rant) > Jordi is broken, badly. Well, yeah. But that's why you, the GM, have Innate Godlike Power (tm) within your game. > Hell, we find out that animals have souls, Destinies > and Fates. Again, WTF!? Selfishness and selflessness > are utterly alien to animal behaviour. I can only make two arguments here. 1. Animals never ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Thus, they aren't tainted by Original Sin. It could be said (but not argued effectively, I think) that as they exist in a sinless state, they *cannot* know the difference between selfishness and selflessness. 2. Heaven is a wonderful place. If my dogs aren't waiting for me when I get there, I'm not going to perfectly happy. Thus, I could see it that animals go to heaven for the sake of the human souls there. - -- Casca "Many people hear voices when no-one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing." --Margaret Chittenden, writer ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 19:26:46 -0800 From: "Bevan Thomas" Subject: Re: IN> Jordi (rant) > >1. Animals never ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Humanity as a whole does not stem from Adam and Eve in In Nomine. Eden was a special experiment, which humans predate by a few millennia. Therefore, humans as a whole are no more tainted by the Tree than other animals. - -Bevan - ------- "We've always been under siege. The 'Real World' keeps shoving us into corners -- so we've built some worlds of our own. Now whoever's controlling this... wants to take those worlds away. Well, I call that interplanetary war." -T. Campbell, "Fans: the Fandom Menace" _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 22:35:40 -0500 From: "Eric Bertish" Subject: Re: IN> Jordi (rant) > > > >1. Animals never ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. > > Humanity as a whole does not stem from Adam and Eve in In Nomine. Eden was a > special experiment, which humans predate by a few millennia. Therefore, > humans as a whole are no more tainted by the Tree than other animals. Right. I was forgetting that whole bastard-child fusion of creationism and evolution. That'll teach *me* to use Catholic dogma as a basis for argument.... - -- Casca "Many people hear voices when no-one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing." --Margaret Chittenden, writer ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 20:39:12 -0700 From: Timothy Groth Subject: Re: IN> Jordi (rant) >1. Animals never ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Thus, they >aren't tainted by Original Sin. It could be said (but not argued >effectively, I think) that as they exist in a sinless state, they *cannot* >know the difference between selfishness and selflessness. In IN neither did the majority of human ancestors. Adam and Eve were an experiment not the source of humanity. Humans, to the surprise of angels, developed faith and the mentality that leads to it. How it got there isn't explicitly stated, but what is known is that it makes them special. Part of the reason for fuzziness is probably to let the ethereals have a chance of being right. Regardless animals as a whole have no impact on the War, they hey don't create Tethers for instance. >2. Heaven is a wonderful place. If my dogs aren't waiting for me when I get >there, I'm not going to perfectly happy. Thus, I could see it that animals >go to heaven for the sake of the human souls there. This is a good point for animals being in heaven. Especially their authenticity. In a game where heaven is very nice and shiny there should be some sort of way for animals to get there. Of course human souls are supposed to go up to the higher heavens, not hang out in the lower ones. There they commune with God or what not. Animals have no place or purpose there. That implies that the lower heavens aren't really a paradise. They're pleasant because angels are nice but it is geared mostly to functionality and angelic aesthetics. Humans are in heaven because they are selfless and ready to go up to the Higher Heavens not to be rewarded. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 21:42:40 -0600 From: David Edelstein Subject: Re: IN> Jordi (rant) Julian Mensch wrote: > Jordi, IMO, was a catering to political correctness. Har. > 1. Jordi is an entirely modern architype. There were no > hippies 20,000 years ago, but maternal healing figures > are ageless. Ecoterrorists, on the other hand, are new > in both image and *concept*. Per the GMG, Jordi wanted > to exterminate humanity prior to the Fall in 20,000 BC. > WTF?!?! How was humanity abusing animals in 20,000 BC? He didn't want to exterminate humans because they were abusing animals. He wanted to exterminate humans because he could see THEN that humans were uniquely capable of expanding, consuming resources, and damaging the ecosystem in a way that no other animals could. > They didn't have the *technology* to hurt the enviorn- > ment until two centuries ago! Uh, this is very wrong. > If Lucifer was so darned tempting that he managed to sway Love, Fear and Valor, > how did he manage to miss Animals? Some angels were more strong-willed than others, and I've always figured Jordi probably has the highest Will of any Archangel, save maybe Michael. > If he just gave up > on humanity recently, that would at least make a little > sense, but as written, his perspective is just warped > as if he's completely solipsistic about his Word. Most Archangels are pretty solipsistic about their Words; Jordi's worldview is just less compatible with anything resembling a human worldview. > 2. Modern, canon In Nomine is about moral absolutes. No, it's not. > I'm> not against shades-of-grey games, being a huge WoD fan, > but David E. has made it very clear in the past that > that's not what In Nomine is about. I've never said it's all black and white, either. (Not to mention, I don't dictate what In Nomine is or isn't "all about.") My personal opinion is that In Nomine works better in high contrast, but I never wrote in the GMG that the canonical IN universe is high contrast! > Now look at Jordi, not from Jordi's perspective, but > from a balanced, outside perspective as a player of > the game. Jordi, plainly put, is *evil*. No, he's not. > It makes me a > little sick how much sympathy he gets, just because he > has a very PC cause. Huh? Jordi isn't going around slaughtering people. Yes, he'd like to get humans to abandon industry and go back to the woods. So would a lot of people who voted for Ralph Nader. ;) > I'm not saying that testing cos- > metics on bunnies is a good thing, here, but look at > Jordi's dissonance conditions! That's a *false* moral > imperitive no matter how you cut it! Not "avoid excess > cruelty to animals" or "punish humans when the mistreat > animals," but VALUE ANIMALS ABOVE HUMAN LIFE. Incorrect. Nowhere do his dissonance conditions say to value animals above human life. They do imply that human life shouldn't be valued above animal life, but that's not even an imperative -- an angel of Animals _could_ be fond of humans and willing to, say, kill a bear to prevent it from mauling a human. > 3. Whenever Jordi comes into the books, he seems to drag > with him a whole steaming pile of new age dung I thought that was Eli, Blandine, and Novalis. ;) > that flows out to pollute the rest of the game, further diluting > the Abrahamic mythology that underlies it. In Heaven & > Hell, we find out that animals have souls, Destinies > and Fates. Again, WTF!? Well, yeah, I thought that was kind of poorly reasoned, but then, what kind of Heaven wouldn't have animals in it? > Selfishness and selflessness > are utterly alien to animal behaviour. There's instinct > and family and even maternal care, but there's no real > moral cognizange, and whenever humans attribute good > or evil to animals, they're anthropomorphizing them > terribly, and usually letting feelings of cuteness, > disgust and fright interfere with real moral awareness. Actually, there's considerable evidence that several species of animals are pretty close to being sapient by any reasonable definition (and I'm not just talking about chimps and whales here), and also evidence that many animals DO, in fact, feel actual emotions. This evidence is not conclusive, and short of animal telepathy, will probably never be proven either way, leaving people to believe whatever their political stance dictates. However, stating baldly that all animals are purely instinct-driven machines whose behavior is entirely deterministic may be your opinion, but it's not objective fact. > I'm not against exploring issues of animal rights, > the animal perspective or totemic spirituality in an > RPG; Werewolf: the Apocalypse does an outstanding job > of this. But I do ask for a sense of thematic appro- > priateness, and that's just completely absent from > Jordi's presentation in IN. In fairness, about the only thing we have on Jordi is his basic rulebook writeup. > 4. Jordi's relations make no sense. How is it that Novalis > manages to condemn Michael for fighting to defend the > innocent and drive back evil when necessary, yet can cozy > up to Jordi, who wants to exterminate humanity, as an > ally? Because Jordi has long since accepted that humanity shouldn't be exterminated, and he does nothing cruelly. > Similairly, Jordi's outlook on humanity is basically the > same as Lucifer's, as David noted, and yet Dominic just > lets this slide? The reasoning is entirely different. Jordi is serving his Word and defending God's creation. His methods may seem extreme, but he's not trying to overrule God's will or remake the universe in HIS image. > Again, Jordi is *evil*, No, he's not. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 21:55:34 -0600 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> "Evil" Archangels Another thing to keep in mind -- As has been pointed out, a lot of the more nutjobby Archangels are the products of Derek Pearcy's original vision. A vision I have never considered sacred. (I wish I still had the e-mail in which he flamed me privately when I criticized his Khalid writeup.) He wrote Nicole. He intended Khalid to be a fanatical bomb-throwing Muslim, the Archangel of Rag-Headed Terrorists. He also once said that Dominic was the kind of Archangel who wouldn't think twice about leveling an apartment building and killing all human occupants, if it would slay one demon. He probably did intend Jordi to be a nutjob who'd happily exterminate mankind, too. All of those Archangels have been "softened" since then, and so will Jordi, I should imagine, when/if he ever gets an expanded writeup. In the meantime, I know of no canon that has actually said he goes around killing humans for no good reason. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 22:02:43 -0600 From: "Charles Glasgow" Subject: Archangels and being wrong (was Re: IN> Re: Jordi's Choirs) - ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Edelstein" To: Sent: Monday, February 18, 2002 8:48 PM Subject: Re: IN> Re: Jordi's Choirs > And numerous other Archangels are, at least potentially, wrong on their > stances. (Is Yves really up to no good? If not, Michael is being hostile > for no good reason. Is Eli derelict in his duties? Is Gabriel heretical? > If not, Dominic is wrong.) True. But the thing that the later IN vision does so well is show that even when angels are wrong, they're still angels. For example -- Michael doesn't trust Yves as far as he can throw Gabriel's Volcano... errr, as far as a reliever could throw it. *g* But that still doesn't produce more in Heaven than a moderate drop in working efficiency re: joint operations. No attempts to backstab or murder the other, no active sabotage (1), no "My Servitors will bomb and strafe your Servitors if they can get away with it", nuttin' like that. Because disagree as they might, they're both still angels. Likewise with Dominic and Gabriel. Much as I'm the resident Michael fanboy, I've never been particularly anti-Dominic -- the SOB is tough, but he's also fair. Heck, his Dissonance condition *requires* him to be one of the fairest entities in all Creation... if also one of the strictest. And why is it being done the way it's being done, instead of being done as how Asmodeus would pursue a possibly-Renegade Prince? Because they're both angels. As you can tell from the above, I prefer a high-Contrast game. And I think that the proper 'feel' of one can be explained by the above examples, and a comparision of them to their demonic counterparts. - -- Chuckg (1) And before somebody mentions "Liber Reliquarum" to me, allow me to state that IMC, I don't use that adventure as canon. YMMV. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 04:05:09 From: "Daniel Gallagher" Subject: Re: IN> Jordi (rant) >>They didn't have the *technology* to hurt the enviornment until two >>centuries ago! > Uh, this is very wrong. >>Modern, canon In Nomine is about moral absolutes. > No, it's not. >>Jordi, plainly put, is *evil*. > No, he's not. >>Look at Jordi's dissonance conditions! That's a *false* moral >>imperitive no matter how you cut it! > Incorrect. >>Again, Jordi is *evil*, > No, he's not. >-David You go Dave! Put her in her place! Daniel _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 22:17:21 -0600 From: David Edelstein Subject: Re: IN> Jordi (rant) Daniel Gallagher wrote: > You go Dave! Put her in her place! I'm not trying to "put her in her place," I'm trying to refute what I consider to be an incorrect opinion (as I explained in the much lengthier bits of explanatory text that you didn't bother to quote). - -David ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 22:18:38 -0600 From: "Prodigal" Subject: Re: IN> Jordi (rant) From: "Julian Mensch" > > 1. Jordi is an entirely modern architype. Not at all. Nature as something that is beyond man's control is a concept that has been with us as long as humans have huddled around fires or in enclosed areas for safety against things big and fierce enough to eat them. > Now look at Jordi, not from Jordi's perspective, but > from a balanced, outside perspective as a player of > the game. Jordi, plainly put, is *evil*. I have yet to see a convincing case for this, yours included. > I'm not saying that testing cos- > metics on bunnies is a good thing, here, but look at > Jordi's dissonance conditions! That's a *false* moral > imperitive no matter how you cut it! It is only false if humanity is morally entitled to do whatever they want to animals, without any regard for other species. And it was that exact mindset that convinced Jordi that humanity was, as a species, overstepping its bounds. > Not "avoid excess > cruelty to animals" or "punish humans when the mistreat > animals," but VALUE ANIMALS ABOVE HUMAN LIFE. That is a misreading of the actual dissonance conditions, Julian. > Even most > intense eco-terrorists aren't willing to kill innocents > to protect animals! Neither are Jordi's angels. > 3. Whenever Jordi comes into the books, he seems to drag > with him a whole steaming pile of new age dung that flows > out to pollute the rest of the game, The operative word here is "seems," as that is only what he does when a GM chooses to portray him that way. > In Heaven & > Hell, we find out that animals have souls, Destinies > and Fates. Again, WTF!? They're mortal beings, are they not? > 4. Jordi's relations make no sense. How is it that Novalis > manages to condemn Michael for fighting to defend the > innocent and drive back evil when necessary, yet can cozy > up to Jordi, who wants to exterminate humanity, as an > ally? Because he *doesn't* want to exterminate humanity, Julian. The worst Jordi can truthfully be accused of is wanting to thin the species out to some degree, in order to restore the balance they have abandoned. > but it makes no sense at all if you look at the > game seriously. It makes perfect sense if you read the text closely enough. > Again, Jordi is *evil* Again, you are misreading his writeup. ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #2548 ********************************