Some Thoughts...

Thoughts and Ideas

     Here are some reflections about the Amber universe, cosmogony, whatever:
               The Logrus seen as the collective unconscious or consciousness of the Chaosites.
               Feng-Shui based elemental Patterns.

     The Logrus seen as the collective unconscious or consciousness of the Chaosites

     That would explain its madness. Just imagine. In older times, some people, probably sorcerers or pre-Trump artists, gather in order to create a great Tool. Their motivations could have been more or less benevolent (they could have created it as a means to ease everybody's life). As time passed, the real story was forgotten to all but a few (suhuy might know it, which would probably grant him great power over the Logrus), and the logrus was somewhat divinised, as is the destiny of all things powerful. Created from many people's mind, the logrus as no directing mind. And every time someone crosses it, it lays bare his mind, resulting in madness for the chaosite and increased multiple-personality disorder for the Logrus. It could absorb everything, or just the unconscious mind, and could (or not) update itself every time someone summoned the Sign of the Logrus through the Link created when one assays it.

     On the other side, the Pattern was created after Dworkin's personality, and created for bringing Power. So, it has one mind, which is similar to Dworkin's, but different due to life experience. And when someone assays the Pattern? when, as it was created for power, and is clearly the Logrus's opposite, it could imprint its mind/unconscious/whatever upon the Amberite, slightly or not, which would result in increased loyalty for Amber, yada yada yada.

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     Feng-Shui based elemental Patterns, by SILVERSYLVAIN, badly traduced by The Fixer

     It is funny to see how, as soon as the Elemental Patterns Theory, seen as the first reflections of the Primal Pattern, appeared, it was evident to everyone that the aforementioned elements were water, fire, air and earth. But this is only one of many possibilities, and I'm unsure it was ever dominant outside of new-age and rolistic circles.

     Notably, Zelazny wrote a book, "the demon in the bottle" (? or something like that, as I'm traducing back in English a French traduction -The Fixer-), in which the heroes, demons as immortals as they are Chinese, based their vision of the universe and their magical practices on Feng-Shui. A theory which is based upon the existence of FIVE elements -the word is thrown-: Earth, Fire, Wood, Water and Metal (I knew Death and Black Metal were primal components of the Universe! -The Fixer-). Their interaction produces the two great energy flows that are Yin and Yang, their perfect arrangement having per consequence the Cosmic Order (sounds like Pattern, uhhh).
     But you'll tell me, where the hell do we place Tir Na Nogh't in this shit, and you would be right!! For even if we can easily link Amber to Earth and Rebma to Water, everything's not so easy for Tir. So, we're stranded with Fire, Metal and Wood.

     We'll try an allegoric interpretation, with my (feeble, I recognize) limited knowledge in this matter. Primo, light belongs as much to Fire as it belongs to the Air, and Tir is born from the light of the moon, isn't it? Secundo, I believe, in a number of shamanic traditions, Fire is linked to spirits and divination practices (remember the "Arm of Benedict" affair). Then, Fire is also linked to illusion: changing, temporary... a characteristic it shares with Tir. So, we can reasonably say that Tir could be the Pattern linked to Fire.
     And then, there are Wood and Metal. For the Wood, the last Pattern might very well be located in Arden, or even Arden itself! There's nothing saying that a pattern should be accessible! For Metal, it's born from the other four elements. It is also the only transformed element that doesn't exist as such in the nature (contrary to the mineral itself that belongs to the Earth). It could symbolically represent the human element (I don't beleive I'm the first to say such a thing).
     Moreso, we can note that someone that has asseyed a pattern is thereafter able to mindwalk it. Then, two constatations arise: firstly, nothing (as far as I can recall, at least) proves that these various Patterns have different write-ups, secondly, nothing proves that these characters mindwalk the same pattern that they've asseyed. So, the pattern which is mindwalked by characters could very well be a reflection of the Primal Pattern: the one that exists in the human collective unconscious, the Idea of the Pattern... there would be located the last pattern, the Metal one...

     In order to confront this theory to the facts, let us review the situation of Amber itself: Earth (with the Kolvir), Water (the sea, or rather the seas), Wood (arden), Fire (sunlight or moonlight, especially for Tyr) and Metal (the human implantation in Amber, with or without the royal family), and, proceeding from their interaction, the ordained universe as we know it (notably Shadow), by opposition to Chaos. Thus, before Dworkin, nothing existed save the courts, but if the Courts disapeared, we can suppose that shadows would perdure as perfect reflections of Amber itself.