Real Set and Set the Vampire

[CTPhipps]

Just out of curiosity: Which 'Gibbons' do you mean? I hope you are not referring to Edward Gibbon. That would be vile and strange

You mean, the man who claimed that degenerate sexuality and Christianity caused the Fall of the Roman Empire? The guy who ignored the Byzantine Empire because it didn't fit his view that changing Roman values caused the end of Empire and that Empires are, by themselves, inherently good? No, I can't say that I am insulting him at all.

Gibbon is a guy that, as an academic, I have been forced to deal with his romanticized Rome for decades and it is a reactionary militant patriarchal view of history that sadly has influenced centuries of thinking after.

[DrHappyAngry]

You mean, the man who claimed that degenerate sexuality and Christianity caused the Fall of the Roman Empire? The guy who ignored the Byzantine Empire because it didn't fit his view that Roman values had caused the end of Empire and that Empires are, by themselves, inherently good? No, I can't say that I am insulting him at all.

Gibbon is a guy that, as an academic, I have been forced to deal with his romanticized Rome for decades and it is a reactionary militant patriarchal view of history that sadly has influenced centuries of thinking after.

I find it funny that he tries to hide his disdain for Christianity with the term superstition, when the old pagan Romans were incredibly superstitious. If you stubbed your toe getting out of bed or leaving the house, that was a bad omen. Did you put the wrong shoe on a foot, that was a bad omen. Didn't sacrifice to the gods, then you could be tried. Was there lightning, that was an ill omen.

I'm glad to find someone else who dislikes Gibbon, most people seem to love him and his interpretation of Rome.

[CTPhipps]

I find it funny that he tries to hide his disdain for Christianity with the term superstition, when the old pagan Romans were incredibly superstitious. If you stubbed your toe getting out of bed or leaving the house, that was a bad omen. Did you put the wrong shoe on a foot, that was a bad omen. Didn't sacrifice to the gods, then you could be tried. Was there lightning, that was an ill omen.

I'm glad to find someone else who dislikes Gibbon, most people seem to love him and his interpretation of Rome.

Thanks. I remember being taught a Gibbons Roman-view of history that always annoyed me, It wasn't that he was completely wrong it's just that his agenda constantly contradicted facts and thus led to them being ignored.

"The Romans were a true tolerant culture of religious diversity."

"Didn't they persecute Christians, the cult of Bachuus, Druids, destroy the Jewish Temple,. and use the Carthagians religion's human sacrifice as part of the reason to wipe them out?"

"Yes, but those threatened Roman values."

- Actual conversation

Fun Fact: Caesar's Legion in Fallout: New Vegas makes repeated reference to Profligates, which is Gibbon's word. Josh Sawyer said that Caesar was inspired by Gibbon's view of Rome and that was his primary guide to creating the Legion.

[Trollroot]

I thought Typhon was a name for Lasombra.

It is possible there was more than one, but Osiris ended up with Potence, Presence and the ability to make the Nile run backwards (Temporis?) in 1 ed, and Potence, Presence and Celerity in revised.

Anyway, in my view the Antediluvian Set is older than the old Egyptian religion, so I expect it grew up around his family squabbles. Making him a vampire who later became worshiped as a god. Amusingly the Kindred term for that is "an Osiris" Exactly how old Set is, thats something I've wanted to do a post on for a while.

[Saturno]

Gibbon had the whole "White Man's Burden" thing going on. As well as a tendency to ignore the plight of anyone that wasn't of the nobility.

[...]

He also wrote a book about the Pelopponesian War that took an extremely anti-Athenian slant, because he hated Democracy so much.

I also personally can't stand Gibbon's writing. He rambles and meanders and goes off for 2 pages about how much Commodus sucked, but manages to not even actually say why.

Yeah, the White Man's Burden thing is a problem, but it's something a modern reader can/should historicize. Not being a fan of an author or not being able to stand his style is of course perfectly ok, but I take offense at calling someone a proto-fascist light-heartedly, because he was unmodern (not even anti-modern). Dimitrov would be turning around in his grave.

The critical position against Athens is one of the things that makes reading him worthwhile, especially today, because many modern readers tend to see athenian democracy as something that is directly related to modern liberal democracy and tend to overlook that athenian democracy was dependent on externalization of dissensus and expansionist warfare to a great degree. Sparta might not be great either and being a helote sucked probably more than being an athenian slave, but women had probably a better life in Sparta than in Athens. So from a progressive perspective both were problematic, but it's not like being an opponent of Athens is an automatic red flag. (Modern militarist fans of Sparta are a whole other thing and are probably as far away from the truth as people who figure themselves proud democrats and value Athens for it.)

You mean, the man who claimed that degenerate sexuality and Christianity caused the Fall of the Roman Empire? The guy who ignored the Byzantine Empire because it didn't fit his view that changing Roman values caused the end of Empire and that Empires are, by themselves, inherently good? No, I can't say that I am insulting him at all.

Gibbon is a guy that, as an academic, I have been forced to deal with his romanticized Rome for decades and it is a reactionary militant patriarchal view of history that sadly has influenced centuries of thinking after.

You will find particular position which are no liked today or even outright wrong with every author. The question hower is, how a persons work is to be judged in essence not concerning accidentals. Although many single points of Gibbon's Decline and Fall are not sufficent or partly wrong from todays point of view it doesn't change a thing about the fact that without his work the better one, who followed in his footsteps, might not have existed. His work was one of the first great source-based works on the late antiquity. And yes, it's funny to pretend all he said in his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was that Rome fell just because of Christianity and sexual depravity. The book had six volumes. And he even changed his position on Christianity later. (Although I find it funny how attacking Christianity seems to be on par for you with his other flaws. I always found his attacks against Christianity amusing, but that's neither here nor there.)

Calling him reactionary, militant and patriarchal is extremely ahistorical and funny if one looks for alternatives. The only reactionary trait of his (in the true sense of the word) I could see would be his opposition to the French Revolution. If he would have written the same book 80 years later, we could at least argue about him being 'reactionary' and 'patriarchal'.

Normally I avoid political/historical discussions in the internet, because it's a problematic medium for level-headed and rational exchange of knowledge and tends to lead to two sides just throwing opinions at each other. And for this reason I try to avoid forums on those topics and am only active in RPG forums. But to be honest: I am sad and feel literally physical pain, when I'm trying to relax reading RPG forums and then someone slanders great scholars as proto-fascists. (I mean...really? What kind of concept of fascism is that supposed to represent? Probably not italian and german.)

P.S.: I know that this doesn't belong in this thread and you're welcome to remove it (in fact I would be advocating its removal) together with all the other mentioning of Gibbon. I really wish not to discuss this here. It feels like work and I don't want to mix work and my favourite hobby.

Sorry for the lengthy response. I hope, you didn't feel insulted by me. English is not my first language and tonality is sometimes tricky.

[DrHappyAngry]

Saturno for someone who doesn't want to talk about it, you seem to have a lot to say. I'd be happy to discuss how British Imperialism and the idea of "White man's burden" were influential to fascism in off topic if you wanted to repost your last post there so we don't keep spamming up the thread for Set with talk of Gibbon.

[CTPhipps]

Saturno for someone who doesn't want to talk about it, you seem to have a lot to say. I'd be happy to discuss how British Imperialism and the idea of "White man's burden" were influential to fascism in off topic if you wanted to repost your last post there so we don't keep spamming up the thread for Set with talk of Gibbon.

Given the role of Rome, imperialism, and mythology to the Setites I'd argue it'd be a valid tangent here. It also would be a good Off-Topic thread if you want me to start one.

[DrHappyAngry]

Given the role of Rome, imperialism, and mythology to the Setites I'd argue it'd be a valid tangent here. It also would be a good Off-Topic thread if you want me to start one.

I'll leave it up to Saturno.

[Saturno]

I'll leave it up to Saturno.

Don't need to. But thanks for the suggestion. Going back to topic seems ok to me. If we want to discuss this further I'd suggest DMs or a voice chat. I could try doing it in english. (And I mean this in all seriousness, because of course the influence of colonialism on fascism is a hugely important topic and I don't want it to seem as if I just tried to take a conservative standpoint and swipe away your point in a polemical fashion.)

[CTPhipps]

I created an offshoot thread: http://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/g...sm-and-gibbons

[Shakanaka]

The way I see it is that the Setite Antediluvian isn't the Egyptian God Set because he's 3th generation. If we go by formulations of certain religions from a IRL standpoint, Egyptian mythology-religion was active WAAAY (practically since prehistory and the Early Dynasty Period) before the formation of the Abrahamic ones and as we know in the series, all Vampires descend from Caine- which was explicitly cursed by the Abrahamic God. There is no way he has anything to do with Set the God other than analogizing the deity to himself. Even barring all of that its nonsense to believe a God would be a mere Vampire, no matter how powerful a Vampire can get.

[CTPhipps]

The way I see it is that the Setite Antediluvian isn't the Egyptian God Set because he's 4th generation. If we go by formulations of certain religions from a IRL standpoint, Egyptian mythology-religion was active WAAAY (practically since prehistory and the Early Dynasty Period) before the formation of the Abrahamic ones and as we know in the series, all Vampires descend from Caine- which was explicitly cursed by the Abrahamic God. There is no way he has anything to do with Set the God other than analogizing the deity to himself. Even barring all of that its nonsense to believe a God would be a mere Vampire, no matter how powerful a Vampire can get.

In-universe versus out of universe, Jewish mythology is merely relating a much older story in the Bible.

[Shakanaka]

So? It still wouldn't mean the Egyptian pantheons wouldn't not be older. Actually I'd go with the notion that Humans through use of the Consensus and Ideas make Gods like how Mage explains it via the High Umbra. In any case by that margin they would still be older. Also not only that even before humans, there is the Mokole and as far as that extrapolation that means we even have an older benchmark to look at. Humans (collectively) and the Awakened can change the Tellurium by so much, but there is still an "Earth-Bones" reality described in Mage where certain things remain constants.

That means with things like the Dinosaurs and such, it means humans went through regular evolutionary development and that means the Umbrood Gods were made later with the development of the human psyche manipulating things metaphysically. This is also the same factor of how the Elder Darks from Changeling came into existence, then the Tuatha as human norms began to advance.

By all these margins the Vampire Set couldn't possibly be the Egyptian God set, because that pantheon was conceived by humans into the Consensus via organize religion and rituals well before the Abrahamic God was active to then curse Caine (who couldn't possibly be the first murderer because human warfare or intra-tribal intrigue based killings was waged well before his existence). The Vampire Set is 3th generation, which means he is a descended-embrace back to Caine. He most-likely took up Set as an avatar.

[Resplendent Fire]

Vampire Set is 4th generation what the what now?

Who sired all those 4th generation Followers of Set?

[Shakanaka]

Ah my bad, he's actually 3rd generation.