RuneScape Forum Archive | Seren, Zaros, or Armadyl?

Dec

2020

Sepulchre

Posts: 3,525 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

DS Abolish said :
Many months later, I am still split between Armadyl and Zaros. I like Armadyl and Zaros a lot. I do not really like Seren very much, for multiple reasons, the biggest one being that she seems to be too Guthixian/too influenced by Guthix, and I despise Guthix's ideals regarding "balance." Guthix would let a volcano destroy a civilization just to restore "balance." Okay fine.
You prevent the volcano from going off, or warn the people very early on, allowing them to all survive.
About a month later, their leader comes to you. "Sir. We have a problem. There's an overpopulation. With the amount of crops growing, we won't be able to feed our entire population into the next season. Some of us are going to go hungry, starve."
And there you are thinking "Y'know I bet if that volcano hit and killed off a few of them, I'm sure we wouldn't have this problem now."

The point of balance is well thought-out. Gods with powers like what they have does disturb the balance. I'm not particularly Guthixian by nature, but to say that Guthix's views of "balance" were flawed or wrong.. is flawed and wrong. A

World Guardian

must learn to find

Balance

in themselves.
Only then can they

Control

themselves and forge their own

Fate .

02-Jun-2016 07:52:02

Dec

2020

Sepulchre

Posts: 3,525 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I'm gonna go with Zaros here. Not that you should follow or worship Zaros, I'm going to tell you to do what Zaros will tell you.

"Follow whatever god or philosophy you want. Do as you would have done, had we never met." "I do not ask for your fealty, though I shall accept it, should you choose to give it."

The easiest way to answer the question is this:
What do you want to be the way things work on Gielinor? A

World Guardian

must learn to find

Balance

in themselves.
Only then can they

Control

themselves and forge their own

Fate .

02-Jun-2016 07:58:09

DS Abolish

Posts: 5,575 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Sepulchre said :
DS Abolish said :
Many months later, I am still split between Armadyl and Zaros. I like Armadyl and Zaros a lot. I do not really like Seren very much, for multiple reasons, the biggest one being that she seems to be too Guthixian/too influenced by Guthix, and I despise Guthix's ideals regarding "balance." Guthix would let a volcano destroy a civilization just to restore "balance." Okay fine.
You prevent the volcano from going off, or warn the people very early on, allowing them to all survive.
About a month later, their leader comes to you. "Sir. We have a problem. There's an overpopulation. With the amount of crops growing, we won't be able to feed our entire population into the next season. Some of us are going to go hungry, starve."
And there you are thinking "Y'know I bet if that volcano hit and killed off a few of them, I'm sure we wouldn't have this problem now."

The point of balance is well thought-out. Gods with powers like what they have does disturb the balance. I'm not particularly Guthixian by nature, but to say that Guthix's views of "balance" were flawed or wrong.. is flawed and wrong.

Yeah, no. Absolutely no. No civilized nation on Earth deals with famine by killing off its citizens. And a god has much more power and many more tools than mere humans do in order to solve the problem. From magically growing crops to safe *** education to improving the means of production to even conquering other lands (I could go on), there are tons of ways to deal with this problem rather than allowing a volcano to destroy a civilization. That's barbaric and stupid.

So yes, I am quite happy to say that Guthix's views on balance were very very very flawed.

02-Jun-2016 09:01:49 - Last edited on 02-Jun-2016 09:03:17 by DS Abolish

iXavior

Posts: 390 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Be the second ever to join the Mah faction

By joining Mah, you are a blend of Serenist and Zarosian. You see, Mah made Zaros and Seren by shedding a portion of her powers, in a similar matter to how Tumeken made his four aspects and how Seren made Haluned and Eluned.

According to lore, Tumeken's aspects are said to represent his core beliefs. They were his avatars. Likewise, Seren and Zaros are both avatars of Mah!

When Zaros and Seren were born, they were pre-programmed with different mindsets, Zaros was always the more critically analytical person, and Seren was the emotional, kind, passionate side. Unbeknownt to them, Zaros and Seren are Mah, polar opposites of her personality (again, her avatars.) Above all, despite being polar opposite personalities, what both Seren and Zaros share in common is that they have this innate care towards mortals, which is the core thing of Mah. Zaros wants mortals to live freely and reach their full potential. Seren wants mortals to live freely and have love, respect, and compassion with each other and the world around them. I think Mah is the only Elder God that feels this way towards mortals. Unlike the other Elder Gods, who believe sentient life are a pest to their food, Mah thought differently.

In a post somewhere by a jmod, a jmod said Mah was the only elder god who had the power to cease the existence of sentient life, given the notion she wasn't starved of anima. Mah is also said to have a childlike mind, filled with wonder who always preferred to be alone. I have this conspiracy/headcanon theory that Mah purposely starved herself because she adored mortal life and didn't want to be forced by her sisters to cease the existence of mortals. She is our hero, saviour, maker, and we owe our existence for her sacrifice. She is my lord and savior. She should be yours too. All her ideals lie within Zaros and Seren. They must join together...! I worship Mah, for she is mah homegirl! The correct adjective for Mah's followers are: Mahomies, Mah-homeboys, or Mah-homegirls.

02-Jun-2016 09:09:31

Dec

2020

Sepulchre

Posts: 3,525 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

You call it barbaric and stupid because you miss the point. The world must have Balance. It's been an accepted fact in basically every manner of fictional canon. Without good, there is no evil. Without darkness, no light. With no rainclouds, sunshine would mean nothing. Joy would mean nothing if people couldn't feel pain. Yin and Yang. It's a basic and widely accepted principle.
You completely missed the point of my example as well. Future problems prevented by an act of maintaining the balance. The whole concept of Balance itself is for the universe to maintain itself, and only interfering when more powerful beings inevitably break that balance. Look at it this way... if Guthix stops the volcano from erupting, or gives fair warning to the people.. what have they learned? How have they learned to defend themselves? They haven't. They've come to rely on a deity to take care of them, rather than take care of themselves. Leaving the universe to balance itself out, for people to learn.. that is the way a truly good god would act.
Balance can also represent fairness. If you have a meeting of 5 races, and 4 representatives, one from 4 of 5 races, there is not balance. The 5th race is not represented, yet the councils are in sets of 4. You say "We don't need Balance." yet here there is unfair lack of representation that could be fixed by Balance. A

World Guardian

must learn to find

Balance

in themselves.
Only then can they

Control

themselves and forge their own

Fate .

02-Jun-2016 11:36:13

Ancient Drew

Posts: 5,732 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

The way I see it, Seren and Zaros are personifications of different sides of the same symbol, the Manji. This symbol represents the harmony between heaven and earth, and Yin and Yang, with the 'windmill' in the middle represents the force created by these interacting forces.

There are two different variants of it; the left-facing Omote Manji representing love and mercy (Seren), and the right-facing Ura Manji representing strength and intelligence (Zaros). Zaros wants mortals to achieve their best potential by learning and growing in strength, as he says,

"One must strive to increase in power, but also in knowledge of how to wield that power."

And Seren is a being of pure emotion and empathy, so love and mercy would play a key part in the harmony she seeks.

Armadyl seems to me as someone who had witnessed atrocities as a mortal, and may have become traumatised. He claims that he ascended using two Elder Artefacts, one being the Siphon. However, he wouldn't say what the other Artefact was. Could it have been the Stone of Jas, and could he have seen visions which scarred him? He also tells Sliske that he had seen the Dragonkin destroy Kethsi, which happened to be close to Abbinah. This, along with fights between the aviansie for basic needs and Zamorak levelling Forinthry, shows that Armadyl had witnessed a lot of horrible things as a mortal and as a god.

I'm Zarosian, but I confess that I sympathise with you and Armadyleans in general. And I would happily help Seren with her problems, particularly in saving the elves. I actually started off in 2009 as a Saradominist, when things were simpler. I did some quests, learned about other gods such as Armadyl and Zaros, then I got the ancient powers. I was interested in Zaros for a while and I liked Azzanadra who seemed nice, but I didn't really become properly Zarosian until ROTM when he and Wahisietel helped me out with Lucien. Prepare for hell on RuneScape in Naval Cataclysm!

Pokemon battle? Friend Code: 4614-0426-2439

02-Jun-2016 16:10:15

DS Abolish

Posts: 5,575 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Sepulchre said :
You call it barbaric and stupid because you miss the point. The world must have Balance. It's been an accepted fact in basically every manner of fictional canon. Without good, there is no evil. Without darkness, no light. With no rainclouds, sunshine would mean nothing. Joy would mean nothing if people couldn't feel pain. Yin and Yang. It's a basic and widely accepted principle.
You completely missed the point of my example as well. Future problems prevented by an act of maintaining the balance. The whole concept of Balance itself is for the universe to maintain itself, and only interfering when more powerful beings inevitably break that balance. Look at it this way... if Guthix stops the volcano from erupting, or gives fair warning to the people.. what have they learned? How have they learned to defend themselves? They haven't. They've come to rely on a deity to take care of them, rather than take care of themselves. Leaving the universe to balance itself out, for people to learn.. that is the way a truly good god would act.
Balance can also represent fairness. If you have a meeting of 5 races, and 4 representatives, one from 4 of 5 races, there is not balance. The 5th race is not represented, yet the councils are in sets of 4. You say "We don't need Balance." yet here there is unfair lack of representation that could be fixed by Balance.

No, it's basically barbaric. It's far from an accepted fact that there must be a ying and yang between good and evil- most people are not Taoists, and most fictional canons do not even touch the subject- but even if it were, that would just mean the popular opinion is wrong. The version you propose does not seem to be that without evil, you could not perceive good, but rather that without evil there would be no good. This is a completely unjustified claim. We could easily conceive of a world (call it Heaven, perhaps), in which there is no suffering at all and everyone...

02-Jun-2016 16:59:21

DS Abolish

Posts: 5,575 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

... experiences eternal bliss. It is not difficult to call such a world perfectly good and without evil. But suppose we were to shift to a different version of this theodicy, which claims that evil is necessary to perceive good. Minor evils like the stubbing of one's toe or minor interpersonal conflicts could be sufficient for this purpose. Starvation, genocide, volcanic eruptions, malaria, etc., would not be necessary to know the difference between good and evil. The above reasons are why theologians in real life are relying more on the "skeptical theist" theodicy in response to the problem of evil- the "good needs evil" response simply is not convincing.

Sepulchre said :

You completely missed the point of my example as well. Future problems prevented by an act of maintaining the balance. The whole concept of Balance itself is for the universe to maintain itself, and only interfering when more powerful beings inevitably break that balance. Look at it this way... if Guthix stops the volcano from erupting, or gives fair warning to the people.. what have they learned? How have they learned to defend themselves? They haven't. They've come to rely on a deity to take care of them, rather than take care of themselves. Leaving the universe to balance itself out, for people to learn.. that is the way a truly good god would act.

Preventing the deaths of thousands or millions to volcanic eruption is more than adequate compensation for the beings to not have "learned to defend themselves." Imagine if Barack Obama decided not to help out in a wildlife fire disaster because people need to learn what it means to have their lives and their property threatened. Imagine if Kim Jong Un justified the death of thousands due to famine because people need starvation to understand the good. We would proclaim both to be insane, maniacal leaders. Gods are not exempt from such standards. That is why Zamorak is an evil god.

02-Jun-2016 17:11:38 - Last edited on 02-Jun-2016 17:12:03 by DS Abolish

DS Abolish

Posts: 5,575 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

... which is why Zamorak, Sliske, Bandos, etc., must be opposed at every turn.

Sepulchre said :

Balance can also represent fairness. If you have a meeting of 5 races, and 4 representatives, one from 4 of 5 races, there is not balance. The 5th race is not represented, yet the councils are in sets of 4. You say "We don't need Balance." yet here there is unfair lack of representation that could be fixed by Balance.

This is a completely different conception of balance than what we have been talking about, so it does not merit a response.

02-Jun-2016 17:13:42

DS Abolish

Posts: 5,575 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Ancient Drew said :
The way I see it, Seren and Zaros are personifications of different sides of the same symbol, the Manji. This symbol represents the harmony between heaven and earth, and Yin and Yang, with the 'windmill' in the middle represents the force created by these interacting forces.

There are two different variants of it; the left-facing Omote Manji representing love and mercy (Seren), and the right-facing Ura Manji representing strength and intelligence (Zaros). Zaros wants mortals to achieve their best potential by learning and growing in strength, as he says,

"One must strive to increase in power, but also in knowledge of how to wield that power."

And Seren is a being of pure emotion and empathy, so love and mercy would play a key part in the harmony she seeks.

That is an interesting take on the two gods. As I said, by this point I think Seren is too Guthixian and a weak leader by this point for me to follow. Zaros's logic and intelligence is very appealing, but I have mentioned problems with his religion in this thread. Armadyl seems to be on the side of good, but he has far far less lore than Zaros.

02-Jun-2016 17:19:06

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