text (sn: seiros)

[immaculate_one]

This is a question I have yet to see asked on this network, though I only have the slightest hypothesis of why.

How have you viewed religion or faith from your home? Has it changed drastically before coming here, or since?

I have been thinking about this lately...

Comments

[necroyalty]

This was never a god that I had personally worshiped, but let me tell you a story.

When I was young I met a fellow mage during my travels. He was half-starved and nearly dead, having fled his city in the dead of night after his family had been killed by a rival house.

The city-state he came from was a theocracy, dedicated to the worship of a goddess who had been cast out of her consort's favor. She brought the mortals who worshiped her underground, and beneath the earth they began to change as generations passed. Smaller, quieter, abhorring the sunlight. Like shadows.

Which is not in itself too concerning, but the same goddess told her people that the other races of the land were only fit to serve as slaves or food for their beasts. That any trust they indulged in was foolishness.

Her people had been brought low, both metaphorically and literally speaking.

I suppose she wanted to hold on to them, to give them hope... but instead of raising them up, she chose to drag others lower, and encourage the same among her children.

The mage I met then eventually realized how he had been so deluded.

But that only happened because he was forced to abandon the society that poisoned him so.

[immaculate_one]

So the gods can be misled as much as humans?

[ No way. Her mother was not misled. But Rhea was, and frankly, maybe she shouldn't have been fixing her child's mistakes...

But no, that wasn't even Ambrosine's point. Rhea shook her head to shake out the darker thoughts. ]

No, I suppose it takes perspective to truly understand the outside world. I admit I had been plenty insular as of late, before I came here.

[necroyalty]

In my world, at least, the gods may be outmatched in power, but they are just as fallible as mortals are.

Still, I've heard clerics where I'm from speak of the relationship in more familiar terms. You know that your mother or father is not perfect, and you know they have their vices, but unless they're rotten to the core, you still hopefully see them as an example.

Such as it is with the gods.

[immaculate_one]

[ She just lets that thought settle in, because after a while, it makes too much sense. The progenitor god is her mother after all. Maybe it's like Byleth said. ]

I suppose it is the best way to carry on.

[ At some point, Rhea might very well confess that fact to someone outside of those from Fodlan. ]