POLL: Who's the "Jesus figure" Poe was talking about?

[Alberich]

In fact, the only reason I didn't include Meji as one of the poll choices was that it would be believable for her to play a great-teacher role.

Until you started listening to the stuff that actually came out of her mouth . Which wouldn't be compatible with Church thinking, even if it was more profound than Sarine was giving her credit for at the end.

But is the person above mistaken, who said that Ian and Meji had already (according to Poe) been recast as some kind of joint Satan? Because if he hasn't said that I still like Ian for the role - suitably dead, suitably unknown, and suitably spectacular that they might have a reason to want to co-opt him instead of ignoring him.

I mean, I'm thinking in part from the Church's viewpoint of why they are formulating the new doctrine - assuming they are cynical and trying to explain things to the masses while holding power. I get why they'd make Luminosita's own death into a Christ-like sacrifice...everybody saw it and a lot of people died, and you can't ignore it or call him up anymore, so you spin it. They wouldn't need to tell the truth about who did it or how. But why would they want to create another martyr figure out of the elf slaughter?

The best I could think is that word has gotten around about it, and they want to make sure the people don't know about any other spectacular god-like beings except Luminosita...unless said beings have been co-opted by the Veracian Church, and are described as Sons or Avatars of Luminosita himself, so that their displays redound to the Church's benefit. Instead of being seen as independent of their theological view of the world.

So that puts Ian either as Christ or a Satan figure...in which case Paul or Anita comes out as a suicide St. George. But Ian as Christ works out cleaner for me - if he hasn't been disqualified.

P.S. - My only view on Ensigerum "religion" is that the monkish devotion part - like meditating under freezing waterfalls and mortifying the flesh and all -- ought to be required to develop the time magic; because that would at least explain why nobody else ever invented it.

[Graybeard]

But is the person above mistaken, who said that Ian and Meji had already (according to Poe) been recast as some kind of joint Satan? Because if he hasn't said that I still like Ian for the role - suitably dead, suitably unknown, and suitably spectacular that they might have a reason to want to co-opt him instead of ignoring him.

Well, it's ... weird. First, look at what Jon says:

after Luminosita created the first of mankind, the Darkness or shadow or abyss or void or whatever created the trolls and the elves to mock Luminosita's creation.

And then, what Poe says in the note:

I really never put that much thought into Veracia’s actual religious myths, hence never even naming this vague shadow thing that is mentioned from time to time. Ultimately, after much revisionist restructuring of the Church’s doctrine in the centuries after the events of Errant Story [my emphasis added -- GB], Ian and Meji both get labeled as being it anyway (and you won’t believe which character they peg as their eventual Jesus figure), so I suppose it really doesn’t matter what they’re calling it at this point in their history.

So going back to Bytemite's statement --

I thought it had already been said that the church had recast both Meji and Ian as Satan figures born from the same darkness that created the evil elves.

-- I'd quibble with some terminological inexactitude (it's not that the church "had recast" them, the recasting is well in the future, and they arguably weren't "born from the same darkness," more likely they were the darkness), but it's generally right on the mark. That seems to disqualify both Meji and Ian as the Jesus figure, even though in many regards it would make sense.

Two points. One, as noted above, Poe is putting this doctrinal development well in the future, "centuries after the events of Errant Story." That's plenty of time for the details of what happened in Praenubilus Astu, and even the skies over Emerylon, to get muddied, garbled, or downright lost. It still strikes me as something of a stretch for their memory to get so mistaken about at least Meji's role -- Veracia at the time of Errant Story has more in common, information-management-wise, with modern society than with Israel (or even Rome) of two thousand years ago -- but we're not talking about the doctrine being developed by people who were there when it actually happened. That leaves plenty of room for error.

Second, the more I think about it, the more I think an important candidate was left off the poll: Sara. Think about it. She Walks The Earth after the Ianilis stuff gets resolved; Sarine said so. Her origins, from the Veracian point of view, are mysterious. Eyewitness accounts will confirm that she herself actually offed important bad guys, and it would be easy to (inaccurately) transfer that to having offed Ian himself. She's human, therefore long gone by the time this doctrinal development happens. And so on. I've almost talked myself into wishing I'd put her in the poll so I could vote for her myself.

Whatever the answer, I'm sure gonna be happy to see those sequels...

[Alberich]

Oh, I getcha. 's what I get for not reading the problem more carefully. With "centuries after" to play with...yeah, there's a lot they could do with the long-dead characters.

[erejnion]

We know from this moment in Sara's backstory that there's a temple in the village and that it is central to the Ensigerum's rituals, but we don't know who or what it's a temple of.

For me that was intended as an eastern type temple, not exactly of a God (or god(s)). Assume details lost in translation: "temple" is used for the lack of a better word in English, as contextually "temple" would call out to the "warrior monk temple" trope. Also Poe probably didn't even consider that back then, and we are trying to read too much in what's just a word, but that's other question.

Second, the more I think about it, the more I think an important candidate was left off the poll: Sara. Think about it. She Walks The Earth after the Ianilis stuff gets resolved; Sarine said so. Her origins, from the Veracian point of view, are mysterious. Eyewitness accounts will confirm that she herself actually offed important bad guys, and it would be easy to (inaccurately) transfer that to having offed Ian himself. She's human, therefore long gone by the time this doctrinal development happens. And so on. I've almost talked myself into wishing I'd put her in the poll so I could vote for her myself.

Oooh, exactly my point! Not that I expressed it at all, in the sleep-deprived state I was in when I wrote my previous post.

Also, while characters like Meji will generally make sure to leave for the ages what their intentions were exactly (I am exaggerating a little, but you see my point), Sara cares less about such things. In this light, it would be easier to build a canon around her figure.

[Bytemite]

As far as I can guess... it's a matter of the after story. To peg any character as "Jesus", that character needs to reform said church, right? That being said, my guess would go "one of the native veracians", but... there are no alive named characters originally from Veracia, eh?

No, not necessarily. Given the way Poe treats religion - that person would only have to become a major mythical figure whose death is treated as a spiritually significant martyrdom, so that the Patriarch and the hierarchy can spin whatever doctrines suit them out of that person's fictional life and death. Remember, for a living character to serve that role, the hierarchy would have to let someone new take over -- and no one we're listing has the power or the pull to do that. Or else they'd have to make a mythic hero out of someone who wasn't even a member of the Church...and who was still alive and would deny Church doctrine at every turn.

In sum, a dead "Jesus" is a lot easier to manipulate than a living one. The "Jesus" version of whoever-it-is would not have to bear much resemblance to the actual living person; in fact, I'd expect Poe to extract maximum pathos out of that.

Technically all the Ensigerum were from inside Veracia, and it's never really specified what religion, if any, their "monkishness" is connected to. From the list in this poll, Paul and Anita are actually not bad choices, if the Church really wants to publicize that they existed at all. (And if the Ensigerum is now history, who knows? They might. They could serve a mythic role.)

Paul may be a better choice than Anita because (1) he's a dude, and (2) he was the usual envoy to the Patriarch, had friends and relatives in Emerylon, and was apparently well liked by the hierarchy. On t'other hand, Anita was voted "most evil character in the comic" back when that got polled and maybe Poe would have extra fun making her the Blessed Martyr Who Died For You, or whatever. It wouldn't be any harder than recasting Meji as Satan after she helped rebuild their city (if that's what Poe really said they were doing).

Hmm. There is something to be said about the church recasting a Man!Anita as their Jesus (Since I still don't really see them being female-friendly enough to have a female savior figure) and basically getting everything completely wrong about her and about the conflict.

And for Chris to fit that he'd have to die in a spectacularly stupid way - which he could conceivably do, but which Anita already has the monopoly on. You have swayed me.