Jadon on 22/4/2009 at 02:29
Quote Posted by ganac
The second half is that people still drank it, even though they could see the people around them dieing.
I thought, after a certain point they had to start forcing people to take the kool-aid, or am i thinking of another instance?
jtr7 on 24/4/2009 at 08:07
I keep forgetting to mention that between the Mages, the Keepers, the Pagans, and the Hammerites, only the Hammerheads don't have prophetic visions, not even delusional ones. Karras, the Mechanist leader, had delusional ones that seemed based mainly on his knowledge and experience, a deifying of his own plans. The others listed (and even the gypsy-like Carmen Cantata with her crystal ball!) were very accurate in their predictions. Might this also put emphasis on the argument that the Hammer god, the Master Builder, is not a real deity, even though the Hammers believe he is? They are blinded to the future, while the others are tapped right into a real source and go with it against their fears, trusting it implicitly.
Bulgarian_Taffer on 17/5/2009 at 12:54
Quote Posted by jtr7
...and the blood runs down their masks...
Oh, this was something I haven't noticed... until now! I don't know how I missed it...
addone on 17/5/2009 at 13:00
Quote Posted by Bulgarian_Taffer
These so called servants really look like the zombies of Half-life 2: "God, help me", "My eyes sting..."
Yabba my icing!
KuBiLaY17 on 17/5/2009 at 20:04
its so easy to talk about islam for a non-muslim....
Iceblade on 19/5/2009 at 04:17
One wonder's though how specific there prophecies really are however....most are so vague and wishy-washy that they will fit a number of possible eventualities of which one will actually occur....also these keepers are so intent on allowing and forcing events to occur as they were "written" that the prophecies seem to become more self-fulling than actual predictions.
Also we have to remember the fact that this is a game with magic gives a lot of license for prophecies becoming true in every instance....that and what about all of those zillions of other prophecies...did they come true...a good question if the game world was real.
Interestingly enough, the keepers seem to know the order of events (ie the dark age or whatever the dark project was referred to as by the keepers comes before the metal age).
ShyGreenMoon on 19/5/2009 at 05:58
Quote Posted by Jadon
I thought, after a certain point they had to start forcing people to take the kool-aid, or am i thinking of another instance?
It was a combination. Specifically in Jonestown, some took it because they felt they had no choice, as they had been rounded up by men with guns. Some took it because they could not imagine life outside of the cult. Some even killed themselves after they had been rescued from the kool-aid party because they could not live without the cult. Some tried to escape and were killed in the process. It's never black and white, and it's a tragedy. But we see it happening over and over again, so there must be some draw to it in the human psyche.
I think T2 did a pretty good job representing how it could come about in the Thief setting. The fact that the Mechanists branched off from the Hammers parallels how these groups branch off from organized religions questioning when religion turns to fanaticism and the occult.
Guardsman on 19/5/2009 at 20:29
Part of why cults are so powerful is that people want to believe because they often invested their lives and livelihoods in it. Even in Doomsday sects many people stay after the date of the doomsday passes. Jehovah's Witness had a couple of doomsday dates before and they are still strong. Now they just say it is "someday soon", lol.
And there is no point to single out Islam here, all religions work this way to some extent.
Maddermadcat on 20/5/2009 at 03:40
Quote Posted by jtr7
Might this also put emphasis on the argument that the Hammer god, the Master Builder, is not a real deity, even though the Hammers believe he is?
What makes me think otherwise, personally, is the holy water. It's blessed by the hammerites, the builder's power is within it -- and it really does destroy the undead. There's got to be something at work there, right?
While I'm at it, I'd like to throw a crazy theory of mine out there. I recall finding a readable in escape -- Constantine was doing some reading about magic, of all things. You'd think that a god wouldn't need it.
This suggests to me that maybe Constantine channeled the trickster, and was just an ordinary human at some point? I'm thinking along the lines of demonic posession, maybe he went into it willingly.
Stath MIA on 20/5/2009 at 04:22
Quote Posted by Maddermadcat
What makes me think otherwise, personally, is the holy water. It's blessed by the hammerites, the builder's power is within it -- and it really does destroy the undead. There's got to be something at work there, right?
Ah, but what if the Hammers created holy water on their own? What if the Master Builder was simply an ancient chemist/architect?
Quote:
While I'm at it, I'd like to throw a crazy theory of mine out there. I recall finding a readable in escape -- Constantine was doing some reading about magic, of all things. You'd think that a god wouldn't need it.
This suggests to me that maybe Constantine channeled the trickster, and was just an ordinary human at some point? I'm thinking along the lines of demonic posession, maybe he went into it willingly.
That's what I've always guessed, that Constantine was just some high level Pagan who performed a ritual for the Tricksters indwelling.
