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Looking through a book I had bought some time ago for my NaNoWriMo, I came across a very interesting discovery- the runic language. While normally one would ask why I even bothered looking through it- let alone went through the time to type this up and report it to the entirety of FEF- the fact is that I found something truly remarkable within this book’s pages and uncovered quite the fascinating discovery.

The characters for ‘beorc’ and ‘lagu’ were in the book, accompanying their symbols. To quote the book, The Pagan Path: The Wiccan Way of Life, the character for ‘Beorc’ means “The Birch Tree: birth, mother and child, project in the early stages.” The character for ‘Lagu’ means “Water: Psychism, the unconscious, art, music, imaginative writing.”

Now, this discovery by itself still doesn’t warrant its own thread. However, when one thinks about how these symbols interact with one another and truly begin to paint an entire picture of Tellian society… perhaps you’ll be glad I wasted subforum space, after all.

Let us start with the Laguz. Countless books in the realm of psychology and the Pagan paths will often bring up the issue of the subconscious, or the Younger Self, respectively. A force that acts through actions, not words, one that reacts to sights and visions more than the cold logic that our vision is often tainted with. A force that is primal, fierce, yet brings out the best in us, if we can communicate with it- not an easy task, of course, seeing as many of us today can’t see past logic’s course! …Which may not be such a bad thing, to be truthful.

The Younger self is often seen as violent in its childish wants and energetic way of asking for them. The Unconscious knows no social boundaries, cares for little but the necessities, and often butts heads with logic.

Sound familiar?

The Laguz are Tellius’s answer to the subconscious mind- or, rather, the communing of the conscious and subconscious. The more simple form of beasts lets them show the ferocity and raw power of the subconscious mind, acting rather than speaking diplomatically… notice a pattern? Think for a moment to Skrimir. A strong lion, one that could not easily talk to others at first but threw the battlefield into chaos as soon as he lay a paw forward in his beast form. He butted heads with the logical Soren before eventually giving in, and they found it difficult to see eye to eye- the true epitome of subconscious vs. the truth of logic.

The Laguz as a people surged forward to take what they saw was rightfully theirs- and whether their path was the ‘right’ one or not didn’t matter. Logic meant nothing; all that mattered was the next skirmish, devoid of the complexity of beorc warfare and straightforward on the battlefield, mindless of the ‘cowardly’ beorc traps of logic and ingenuity. This isn’t to say that they were stupid- far from it- but most of the Laguz represented the most primal of the subconscious impulses, with very few (as an example, Ranulf) bothering to bridge the gap and adopt the more beorc’s logic-driven thought patterns to the extent that he did.

See it, kill it. Attack with what you have, not what you have to acquire. Fight with your own strength, not something you had to steal from a beorc! All straightforward thought patterns, all driven by physical sensation, with their human forms only partially linking them to the almost purely logical beorc mind.

To turn to the beorc, the younger race. From the initial race (which I can’t be bothered to spoil) to the split into beorc, these were the younger of the two main races. Forced to combat forces much stronger than they, the beorc struggled through infancy before using cold logic, politics, and backstabbing to ascend into positions of power. Dying at an infant’s age compared to the dragons, the beorc constantly renewed itself through constant generations- a cycle of crude rebirth that forced them to retrace their steps, generation after generation, building on the bare bones of their predecessors.

Every time they start, life stops, and they have to build some more.

In Path of Radiance, show of discrimination against the laguz by the beorc can be tied to the real-life Western way of thought, where materialism and logic are highly valued; adversely, the Younger Self is subdued, as letting it out is considered a sign of immaturity.

In Radiant Dawn, the unconscious fights to assert its place alongside logic, only to realize that both need to cooperate in order to once again bring a sense of order into the world where a system of unspoken laws suppresses both forces in day-to-day life.

...Sorry, yeah, this whole thing dawned on me in just one reading session. No doubt it's full of flaws, but I want to see how far we can expand on this ideal- or, on the flip side, refute it.

How many parallels can we draw between these magical elements, a work of fantastic fiction, and societal boundaries in our current urban lifestyles and thought patterns?

That's actually really interesting. I like all these ideas... Sounds like you've put quite a bit of thought into it. But I'm left wondering - if the Beorc and Laguz are the logical and the unconscious, as you've stated above, then where does that put the Branded? I know you mentioned Soren as being a force of logic, but sometimes he does act without logic (like when Lethe angered him in PoR, just after chapter 8 ). There's also the other Branded, who don't act like Soren in many ways - Micaiah can act without thinking sometimes too. So, would the Branded more or less be a mix of the two? Or do you have other ideas about them?

Oh, no. You did a very well job on that.

Well not only do I agree but so does Serenes Forest http://serenesforest.net/general/mythology5.html

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