Firelions: Lions of fire or just lava via creative writing?

[Horrim Carabal]

I can't understand people who think SRD would make up the term "Fire-Lion" for just regular old lava flows. Like the people of the Land were clueless bumpkins who had never seen molten rock before and would anthropomorphize it like crazy.

Like I said, if that were true then someone should have mentioned all the Fire-Lions at Hotash Slay.

[Holsety]

I can't understand people who think SRD would make up the term "Fire-Lion" for just regular old lava flows. Like the people of the Land were clueless bumpkins who had never seen molten rock before and would anthropomorphize it like crazy.

Like I said, if that were true then someone should have mentioned all the Fire-Lions at Hotash Slay.

Two possibilities spring to mind!

1: SRD, like many authors, has a talent for allowing room for both the literal and the figurative. I remember WF once harangued me (maybe not quite the right word) for continuing to harp on Barlowe's illustration of Drool as a peculiar creature with almost literal cudgels for arms, instead suggesting that a more natural creature would resemble an actual cave wight. I still prefer the illustration, in part because it guided me to the book itself (long'ish story). I dunno how much intent to attribute to SRD here, but maybe he wanted to create a word that for some would resemble some strange hybrid fantasy creature, and for some would be magma itself, because to them magma is powerful and potent enough.

To be honest, the truth is that imagination has some power. Even if SRD didn't think that much about these two words, we would have done some lifting and had some creative ideas of our own. I like the book more as a whole than just as a series of individual words, not because of two words, myself, and I'm not willing to fight too much to pin the meaning down one way or another.

2: Hotash Slay...ain't that in the realm of FOUL'S CRECHE!? Such a malignant yet magnificent cradle of darkness, why, the lava would not even properly be lava itself, but some more grandiose expression of despite and snarling indifference objectified by Foul's grim extension of his hatred in that limited construct. Nor would it be the same primal but beautiful or essential, natural, participatory form of molten rock that the fire-lions of Mount Thunder are.

In fact, the only reason Foul moved to Mount Thunder is because Fire Lions were (for his purposes) the best he could do in place of his standard lava on short notice (millenia are short notice for Foul).

3: SRD didn't want you to associate the fire-lions with hellfire (and bloody damnation)

[Horrim Carabal]

In fact, the only reason Foul moved to Mount Thunder is because Fire Lions were (for his purposes) the best he could do in place of his standard lava on short notice (millenia are short notice for Foul).

Actually I've often wondered why Foul didn't rebuild the Creche. It can't be because he didn't want to be reminded of his awful defeat - since he suffered an even worse defeat in Kiril Threndor and did return there only to be defeated again.

Plus, doesn't the text say the Illearth Stone was recovered under Mount Thunder? So why drag it all the way to the Creche if you don't mind hanging out in a chamber under the *same mountain* anyway?

LF sure is an odd fellow.

[wayfriend]

I think he didn't rebuild his Creche because, first, it fell into the sea, and second, because his subsequent plans didn't require a seat of power to command armies from.

[Holsety]

In fact, the only reason Foul moved to Mount Thunder is because Fire Lions were (for his purposes) the best he could do in place of his standard lava on short notice (millenia are short notice for Foul).

Actually I've often wondered why Foul didn't rebuild the Creche. It can't be because he didn't want to be reminded of his awful defeat - since he suffered an even worse defeat in Kiril Threndor and did return there only to be defeated again.

Plus, doesn't the text say the Illearth Stone was recovered under Mount Thunder? So why drag it all the way to the Creche if you don't mind hanging out in a chamber under the *same mountain* anyway?

LF sure is an odd fellow.

Maybe the creche in some way created a limitation on him he was glad to surpass. Maybe.

[Horrim Carabal]

He had all those empty rooms and apartments in there too. TC saw them when he wandered through. All meticulously cleaned and carefully arranged.

LF may be OCD.

[DrPaul]

I think he didn't rebuild his Creche because, first, it fell into the sea, and second, because his subsequent plans didn't require a seat of power to command armies from.

And perhaps also because those plans did require a suitable vantage point from which to generate the Sunbane. It is plausible to suppose that, like Kevin's Dirt later on, the Sunbane might have been powered by the baleful power of the banes, and The Bane, under Mount Thunder.

[wayfriend]

I wonder if all those cold, unused rooms meant that Foul, at one point, had meant for FC to be a seat from which to rule the Land, in a way similar to a king or the Lords, rather than as an archetypal evil demigod.

[Horrim Carabal]

I wonder if all those cold, unused rooms meant that Foul, at one point, had meant for FC to be a seat from which to rule the Land, in a way similar to a king or the Lords, rather than as an archetypal evil demigod.

I agree. I was thinking something like that also. He obviously intended them to be used, else why construct them? But never did use them, perhaps because his attitude changed.

Did the Creche exist before the Desecration?

[wayfriend]

Did the Creche exist before the Desecration?

It's spoken of in the context of the great battles before the Desecration.

The hordes issuing from Foul's Creche could ascend in scores of places to bring battle to the Upper Land. So it was that the first great battles in all the Land's wars against the Despiser occurred across this ravaged plain.

[Horrim Carabal]

Did the Creche exist before the Desecration?

It's spoken of in the context of the great battles before the Desecration.

The hordes issuing from Foul's Creche could ascend in scores of places to bring battle to the Upper Land. So it was that the first great battles in all the Land's wars against the Despiser occurred across this ravaged plain.

Right. I guess I have a bit of trouble seeing Foul as "that guy". A Sauron or Maugrim type, crouched in his citadel, commanding vast numbers of lackeys and sending them off to war against the "good guys".

Seems to me Foul would get bored with that stuff rather quickly. He did some of that in the First Chrons, but thinking of him doing similar stuff for dozens of centuries before the First Chrons is just disconcerting.

[wayfriend]

Seems to me Foul would get bored with that stuff rather quickly.

I think so, too. But we know he changes his methods as he learns. Perhaps this was when he tried out the evil overlord thing. Ah, the impulsiveness of youth!

Back to the OT ...

[Amok said] "If any drinker were to say to the Fire-Lions of Mount Thunder, 'Leave your bare slopes, attack and lay waste Ridjeck Thome,' they would at once strive with all their strength to obey."

Another line which suggests they are not merely lava flows.

[Horrim Carabal]

Seems to me Foul would get bored with that stuff rather quickly.

I think so, too. But we know he changes his methods as he learns. Perhaps this was when he tried out the evil overlord thing. Ah, the impulsiveness of youth!

That gave me a laugh!

"If any drinker were to say to the Fire-Lions of Mount Thunder, 'Leave your bare slopes, attack and lay waste Ridjeck Thome,' they would at once strive with all their strength to obey."
Another line which suggests they are not merely lava flows.

Yes! Nice find, I had forgotten that line.