Ur....ur....ur...

[wayfriend]

Suggestion about 'ur-viles': Perhaps the Demondim, when they spawned the ur-viles, thought that at long last they had created the Platonic ideal that the Viles should have embodied. To call them 'original' or 'prototypical' makes a good deal of sense in light of what we found out in Runes

However, that seems to go against the grain of 'artificial' or 'corrupt' which the author points out.

I've been thinking that good terms which feels like both of these things are 'suspect' and 'unproven'.

Covenant is the ur-Lord because his position is suspect until it is proven that he saves rather than damns the earth.

The ur-viles are suspect in that they have to prove their worth to the Viles their maker. From which the Weird came.

[Variol Farseer]

The trouble is, 'suspect and unproven' doesn't match up very well with the German prefix ur-. And SRD has said in the GI that insofar as he had an external source for his use of 'ur-', the German prefix was it.

You make a good point about 'corrupt', but 'artificial' I think is wide of the mark. Of course the Demondim-spawn were artificial; Demondim could not reproduce any other way.

There were several popular philosophies in the early 20th century that all revolved around the concept of the 'Life Force' as a thing having a will of its own. Evolution was supposedly the expression of the Life Force's blind groping towards self-perfection. (I suspect George Lucas was more than a bit influenced by this.) With the Viles, Demondim, and ur-viles, this idea becomes quite literally true. (Even the blind groping part, as none of them had eyes except for Vain.)

Maybe the Viles had their own version of Adam and Eve and the apple. Maybe the Weird preserved some legend of an uncorrupted proto-Vile, and it was the ur-viles' purpose to work their way out of corruption and regain their lost paradise. That would make sense of 'ur-vile' in the most literal way.

Just another speculation.

[wayfriend]

VF, all I can say is what SRD himself said. "I twisted that quite a bit [from it's accepted meaning]" and " trying to suggest an artificial and possibly corrupt relationship."

[Ryzel]

In Norwegian, and probably in most Scandinavian languages, the ur prefix still means (among other things) first and original. Either in the sense that this is the first of something, or that it belongs to the original kind of something.

I always assumed that the title ur-Lord was a honorary granted title for Covenant which signified the respect the Lords had for the white gold wielder.

[Variol Farseer]

VF, all I can say is what SRD himself said. "I twisted that quite a bit [from it's accepted meaning]" and " trying to suggest an artificial and possibly corrupt relationship."

An artificial and corrupt relationship doesn't mean that the ur-viles (or the ur-Lord) themselves were artificial and corrupt. A relationship exists between things; it is not the things themselves. (Of course the ur-viles were artificial and corrupt, but we can hardly expect their name to advertise the fact.)

If that's the best SRD can do to explain the point, then I'm afraid 'ur-' was definitely the wrong term to use. It's possible to construct explanations to get around it — I offered a few possibilities upthread, to universal scorn and derision — but in the end, all such explanations are nothing more than fanwank. In my opinion, SRD made a mistake, and it's not our job to cover for him.

Words have meanings. Every time you twist the meaning of a word to refer to something else, something that people who know and use the word will not recognize, you have damaged the clarity and quality of your writing. And worse, you have contributed your small portion, like any counterfeiter, to the debasement of the common coin of language itself.

[wayfriend]

I agree with all that. Unfortunately, SRD admits to picking names that 'sound good'. I'm sure it extends to the words ur-vile and ur-Lord as well as to names like Hile Troy and Mhoram. This is a good example where that can go awry - the author using a sound which incidently has a meaning which disagrees with how he uses it.

But I still think it's fascinating to ponder it from the author's point of view. What exactly did he mean when he implied that an ur-Lord was currupt and an ur-vile was artificial, and what is the relationship with?

[Nerdanel]

I think Amok is a particularly unfortunate choice. I'm sure SRD didn't want to encourate the "run amok" image.