RuneScape Forum Archive | Zamorak in the Book of Gods

GuthixSimp

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My question: Doesn't Zamorak's action just prove Guthix's philosophy better than his own?

Moia: He took me to a valley and he showed me the newly forming village below. It was filled with tiny people, each of them moving about the place like ants. We watched them for days and each day I noted the same people walked the same paths, the same routes, simply growing older as they performed the same tasks.

Wordlessly he turned to me and gestured to the village and as he did so the very ground tore itself asunder. Fire leaped from beneath the rock and consumed villagers and their homes alike. As soon as the fire started, it was gone, left in its wake was destruction without sense, reason or purpose. At least, I thought so at first.

I confess, in my ignorance I was briefly horrified. Despite my upbringing and my Mahjarrat heritage, the humanity in me screamed that this was wrong; an act of senseless cruelty. I was outraged, but he simply smiled and pointed once more to the village. As I watched, the people began to move out of their standard patterns, breaking free of monotony and routine. They created a line and passed containers of water from one to another, the last in the line dousing the flames as yet more followed. Leaders sprang up and began to spread order amongst the chaos and healers appeared to tend to the wounded. Suddenly their lives had meaning, and I watched in amazement as they took this tragedy and turned it into the foundation of a stronger society.

What Zamorak has done here is set fire to a village so the people of that village would unite, to get rid of the chaos. And then, Zamorak moved on.

Continued in next post I made a promise to
Guthix
. One I intend to keep.

01-Dec-2017 10:18:26

GuthixSimp

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But isn't Zamorak more of the "Constant chaos for constant progression" type of guy? That village Zamorak set on fire had too much order. Too much peace. That is how society would be under Saradomin's rule. No individuality, the same monotonous thing everyday, stagnation. So Zamorak set it on fire to unite them all - But isn't that more something Guthix would do instead of Zamorak? Zamorak would cause constant chaos for constant progression, as he is the god of chaos. Too much order and peace (Saradomin) - Society stagnates. Too much chaos and destruction (Zamorak) - No society left to progress.

So what Zamorak did, just proves Guthix's philosophy more than his own. There must be a balance between order and chaos, instead of too much of either. Zamorak did not bring too much chaos or too much order - He brought balance to the village. Not constant chaos.

So in this case, is Zamorak closer to Guthix than the other young gods? Or is this a stupid thought of mine? I made a promise to
Guthix
. One I intend to keep.

01-Dec-2017 10:22:14

Snowskeeper

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It's not a stupid thought, but it's also not perfectly accurate, either. Zamorak doesn't want perfect, total chaos, and Saradomin probably wouldn't be super happy with perfect, total stasis. They're not as two-dimensional as their followers make them out to be; they both want to build what they believe will be functional societies. They just don't agree on what a functional society should prioritize. Zamorak seems to prize innovation, willpower and upward and downward mobility; Saradomin prizes order, safety, and despotism (in the technical sense, not the connotative sense).

In a Saradominist society, everything has a place, and everything functions well within that place. In a Zamorakian society, everyone is expected to carve out their own place, but ideally, at least, everyone is given the tools to do so. A Zamorakian lorehound, probably.

01-Dec-2017 10:57:43

Ancient Drew

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Well, Zamorak's philosophy is something that cropped up from his own experiences, like the other gods. As a Mahjarrat, he grew up with the rituals as staples of his culture where the weakest one gets sacrificed to replenish and strengthen the survivors. Therefore, he sought power as a means of survival when he was mortal, and he continued fighting to survive as a god. I don't really think he has an interest in balance, only growth by overcoming obstacles, which is what he wants for his followers.

As for Guthix, he wouldn't have set fire to the village, but if a volcano erupted nearby, he would have let nature take its course. He never interfered directly into the affairs of mortals after falling asleep, unlike Zamorak who took it on himself to set fire to the village. Guthix let nature do the dictating, and taught his followers to respect nature at all times. Perhaps he understood the power of nature and its ties to the Anima Mundi, and was more interested in protecting mortals through a balanced proportion of order and chaos. If order were to remain, Guthix would have let them carry on. If chaos were to ensue and balance out the anima, he would have let it carry on. He only set in measures and interfered directly when said actions would have damaged the anima, such as when Zamorak razed Forinthry.

That being said, what you mentioned is actually the reason why chaos druids call Zamorak the 'true incarnation of Guthix'. But I don't think he has the same interest in balance as Guthix did. Prepare for hell on RuneScape in Naval Cataclysm!

Pokemon battle? Friend Code: 4614-0426-2439

01-Dec-2017 11:04:46

Deltaslug

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It's not that either of them are right or wrong.

Zamorak spent all his time on Frenesakae and dealt with the aftermath of Seren using the races to deplete or regenerate energy into Mah.
Then with dealing with Icthy, then Zaros, he saw what he felt was the stagnation of not just the Mahjarrat, but many others.
The Mahjarrat were never truly in control of their own fate.

For Guthix, he never wanted to be a god.
He lived thru Saradomin, Tuska, and Skagroth waging war on his world.
He killed Skagroth. Then wounded Tuska (or other way around?).
Then ascended. And as far as he knew, he was the last of his race.
He took to shepherding/teaching the other races. But in time, they began to worship him. Something he absolutely did not want.
Why?
He had seen what happened first hand when people just blindly followed gods who were nigh immortal.
He felt the world was better without them.

Something similar can be seen with Saradomin and Armadyl and even Seren and Zaros as to what impacted them enough to influence why they behaved the way they did.
Bandos? He's the most obvious case. You don't need to run much of a psychological profile on him.

It's not necessarily that each is "right" or "wrong".
It's like politics or religion in real life. Each person takes a certain topic and sides one way or another compared to others.

01-Dec-2017 13:20:46

Hazeel

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GuthixSimp said :
But isn't Zamorak more of the "Constant chaos for constant progression" type of guy?

If he was, do you think he would have put out the fire to begin with? The Gods aren't so two-dimensional and one note. Zamorak isn't 100% chaos 100% of the time. Bandos or Sliske would be closer to that.

Guthix isn't "balance of everything" either. In fact, I'd even argue he's one of the least balanced Gods. Guthix doesn't want a balance of chaos and order, war and peace, God and mortal. He wants a world with no Gods, absolutely no fighting, and complete peace. The idea of "a little bit of everything, don't favor any sides" balance came from his fanatical and misled followers, who he didn't want following him in the first place. Runescape doesn't need a hero...it needs a villain. An all encompassing force of evil that will remain ever-threatening and use chaos to make the peoples of Gielinor tolerate each other, grow strong together, and fight side by side against this evil. I am that villain.

01-Dec-2017 17:07:48

Byzantinist

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As everyone knows, a fundamental law of the universe is the natural increase in entropy. Zamorak is not there to boost this chaos himself, he wants to let individuals benefit from it by mastering it an efficient manner.

Remember that it's not just the chaos, but the spontaneous organization that responds to it , resulting in a change, an irreversible process where individual adaptability is increased as opposed to undynamic order.

Now the interesting point is that systems that are close to chaos and systems that are far from chaos respond quite differently to disturbances. When you disturb a system far from chaos, the system goes back to balance, as when you disturb a pendulum.

Despite the fact that we get exposed to an entropic environment, Guthix would like to put things in a bubble and ignore everything on the outside. That's not how systems work, the collective of Gielinor should confront and overcome outer entropy to ensure its survival, overcoming the obstacles set forth instead of isolating oneself before them.

Total entropy can remain constant in ideal cases where a system is stable or undergoes a reversible process. The increase in entropy explains the irreversibility of natural processes and the asymmetry between the future and the past.

But there is another aspect: most other gods' deterministic point of view is that you can control things while changing the initial conditions, so that it would lead to certainty.

On the other hand, by introducing the irreversible processes of chaos, we come to the end of certainty, and the end of probability means the possibility of novelty and progress for optimal evolution.

By exposure to chaos, we get bifurcation points (new "balance" of opposing forces), derived from the nonlinear character of evolution. Then you have many possibilities, and these lead to the appearance of newly forming adaptable structures.

Zamorak deals with mechanism of becoming, unlike preserving what is, as others gods want. Sometimes one must operate within the

shadows

to serve the

light

. For a man makes no noise over a good deed, but passes on to another as a vine to bear fruits again in season, in order that the world may ever be new.

02-Dec-2017 11:23:38

Aeldari

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Hazeel said :

Guthix isn't "balance of everything" either. In fact, I'd even argue he's one of the least balanced Gods. Guthix doesn't want a balance of chaos and order, war and peace, God and mortal. He wants a world with no Gods, absolutely no fighting, and complete peace. The idea of "a little bit of everything, don't favor any sides" balance came from his fanatical and misled followers, who he didn't want following him in the first place. This is actually incorrect, Guthix never wanted total peace as you present here. Guthix was more akin to a nature god, in that he chose to bring the races to Gielinor who had no leaning to good nor evil. He left the world to mortals and allowed things to play out as they should in the natural order with no interference.

~Lore Hound~

/~Enticed Clan~

02-Dec-2017 15:57:20

Snowskeeper

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That's also incorrect. He interfered plenty early on, and tried to teach the mortal races to avoid conflict where possible. He only went to sleep when he realized he was only making things worse, and that many of his 'druids' had begun to worship him. A Zamorakian lorehound, probably.

02-Dec-2017 21:05:49

Aeldari

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Snowskeeper said :
That's also incorrect. He interfered plenty early on, and tried to teach the mortal races to avoid conflict where possible. He only went to sleep when he realized he was only making things worse, and that many of his 'druids' had begun to worship him. Other than bringing in various races through the world gate, teaching them magic, and giving them runestones, how exactly did he interfere?

~Lore Hound~

/~Enticed Clan~

03-Dec-2017 02:01:58

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Zamorak in the Book of Gods