Board Thread:The Last Sovereign Discussion/@comment-27713488-20170707041037/@comment-31808207-20170819080611

DukeLeto7 wrote: LordCyberForte wrote: DukeLeto7 wrote: LordCyberForte wrote: In that vein, if the Soul Shards really are the fragments of a divine being's soul, I would tend to think it would be a "god" as opposed to a true divinity. Socrates would have a field day on that sentence. How so, out of curiosity? My familiarity with Socratic thought is admittedly fairly limited, but my impression was that he was foremost concerned with sharpening definitions... It's very close to being the verbatim statement of charges made by Meletus that resulted in his forced suicide, which Socrates laid into during his defense. (Or at least the version of his defense that was written up by Plato, which Snopez.kom didn't exist to fact check.)

Plato wrote (Apology 24b): So once again, as if this were another prosecution, let us take up their deposition. It goes something like this: "Socrates," he says, "is a criminal corrupting

the youth, and he does not observe the gods whom the city observes, but rather new spiritual things." He then goes on for a few more paragraphs claiming that it is a contradiction in terms since "spiritual things" = "gods".

That was intended as an allusion rather than a criticism, modern linguistic philosophy post-Wittgenstein basically understands meaning as synonymous with usage, so your differentiating separate usages of of "god" and "true divinity" is fine, although maybe not ideal from a point of clarity. Socrates' religious views, again through Plato, were similar to Sarai's, basically being a monotheist believing in "true divinity", precisely because the traditional Greek gods were "petulant brats" a la Orilise.

The idea that TLS "divinities" have variable powers is interesting, but I think it's been fairly clearly telegraphed that the Anak is the one attempting to "climb the tower". Another question is what exactly is a "soul" in the TLS world? The person with the most practical experience with the things, Trin, seems to think they're material and perishable...

FWIW, I was going optimistically by the July 30th update...

SierraLee wrote: I am hopeful that we'll see the end of the war and of chapter three in August, and I don't mean the very end of August. As that was the last time anything was said with respect to a timeframe. Ahhh, I definitely see the relevance, then. Sorry for the misinterpretation there, haha. Admittedly maybe using quotes to differentiate between true and false gods isn't perfectly clear, but false isn't a perfect descriptor either. I don't necessarily consider the "goddesses" false so much as... Well, to draw on TvTropes, Physical Gods. Powerful enough to be reasonably considered gods by most standards, while at the same time lacking certain characteristics that I would consider (akin to Sarai, Simon, and Socrates, as it seems! Or at least Plato) necessary to truly consider them gods.

Regarding souls, Sierra did a $10 patron post regarding some of that info a while back. The short version of it is that the soul is definitely something tangible and related to life force, and there's only speculation as far as what actually happens to a person's soul after death.

As far as a timeframe, in the last weekly update, someone said asked if the update could be expected early, to which Sierra replied that she was still doing raw creative work. But when I looked back at the comment just now for the quote, Sierra actually confirmed the 25th in a further reply: "Yes. The 18th was a very distant possibility, but now I can see that won't happen. But by the 25th, I should definitely have everything done. I will probably be able to expand some stuff a little instead of rushing, too." I didn't quite realize that that does actually push it quite close to the end of the month, though.

And yeah, I have no doubts about the Anak being the one climbing the tower--I really think he'll be the final boss, as things stand right now. Also, I can't help but notice that the name of Philon's capital makes me think of the word "Apotheosis." I was asking instead why people would think Hester had similar motives/inclinations, and using him as a frame of reference for the only reason I could think of for that (ie, he seems like a pretty reasonable guy if you don't pick up on all the theology). Sorry if I was unclear there!

I'm very interested in what the tower actually is, though, considering Robin's speculation about that after the forests. An actual structure? A mental construct representing an underlying truth about reality? Both together because there's more to the spatial view of magic than is known? It's probably the mystery I'm most interested in the development of and also the one I feel least able to meaningfully speculate about.