|
Post by Feralan on Nov 21, 2009 16:15:02 GMT 1
Sorry for the long break. Let's see if people are still interested in sharing opinions. Monthly musings #5: Love, sex and bondingLike many other topics, the lore on this is very vague. We know that Kaldorei can form powerful bonds of love that last for millennia, even when the pair is separated, and that such a couple may exchange tokens to signify their bond. We also know that they do not marry, that children are raised communally, and that the family they choose can be as important as the family they are born into. How do you think your Kaldorei, their family or community might view certain related issues -- for example, same-sex relationships, or a bonded pair wanting to separate? Do you think it would be rare, accepted, frowned upon? How does a truly bonded couple differ from more temporary arrangements? How do you imagine two Kaldorei bonding; of course it depends a lot on the individuals involved, but what comes to mind when you think about such an occasion? How would sexuality and love in general be treated, for example rather matter-of-fact or idealized? What role does the Kaldorei faith in Elune and the Ancients play, if any? How do your characters feel about public nudity (NOT sexual activity) such as bathing with others or where others could see? Obviously there are many answers to this and no "canon" right or wrong, I'm mainly curious what everyone thinks individually.
|
|
|
Post by Silathin Starseeker on Nov 22, 2009 13:23:21 GMT 1
Now there's a touchy subject ^^
It is actually very difficult to answer this one from a non personal point of view as there is so little bakcground information on the topic, even in the form of hints. I can only remember the Tyrande-Malfurion affair and if looking at that, kaldorei love is a slow moving long lasting thing.
However, emotions and feelings are iffy and diverse. And love is actually one of the things that for most parts transcend culture and has the same basics everywhere. Only until morals, ethics etc. are brought into it does it adapt to culture.
The way I see it, Kaldorei do not choose partners for life. Mainly because of their former immortality and now "just" very very long lifespan. There is no need to and they do not have religions that enforce such a thought either. Life mate ceremony, marriages or whatever you call it tend to be our world flowing into wow for the attention or inability to separate the two worlds and cultures.
Sex. This is the touchy part because there are many non kaldorei players that see the same sex stereotype every time they see a night elf character (the reasons for that is another discussion). It is not without reason though as there has been many like that too. Actually I dont' see as many here on Moonglade but there was a lot of it on ER. Not meaning cybering (although that was there too) but same gender relationships among female characters. Back on track though.
I think that sex in kaldorei society is viewed upon in many ways because of the many varied influences in their society. Uniformly though, there aren't any morals or religious views there that smite with words and say sex is bad! It is something that happens when both parts feel like it, when desire strikes them and time and opportunity allows. But night elf society seems a duty bound society first and pleasure second. Duty towards the race, duty towards the social circles and duty towards the family. Individual desires take a back seat in place of that and is something that happens after you've gathered around the camp fire in the evening and two kaldorei that have fancied each other might walk into the night together. I look to native american culture for inspiration related to that. Perhaps that is wrong though as much of the kaldorei society has been inspired by asian culture instead (mainly the architecture though). If you look back to greek culture, male-male relationships was perfectly normal and a part of educating a young man socially, and inspiration might be drawn from here too if going down that line. However I do not buy into the whole "all female sentinel army" excuse because of that is the reasoning, druids should be a lot of male-male action too. Many players sadly just misuse that excuse to play it inner thoughts and fantasies. A reason why I stay away from this topic ICly when anything more than fluff. Getting sidetracked again though..
Intimate relations are pleasure and not love. I think many kaldorei would see it as that and intimate relationships can happen with anyone outside the family you are related to in blood. But pleasure comes after duty, not ever before. The tribe is more important than the individual.
Deeper in kaldorei society there are subgroups as varied in colours as leaves on a tree in autumn. There can be deeply religious ascetic individuals living in celibacy (not just Elunites), there can be deeply feral ones that mirror the animalistic way of life, not meaning when in heat (ew) but let their instincts and emotions guide them through everything (ie, I feel like it so I do it). And then there are all the ones in between that.
Love I do not see happening within the same gender though. Not the romantic type that is. Simply because there will be sociological views affecting the base emotions of it, and that would point away from same gender solutions. Romantic love would point in the direction of possible mates for one day to have a child with. Children rarely being born because of the longevity. But I do not see night elf love as the classic 'walk hand in hand, smooch all the time' type of love. That's our human way of love. I see it as a more.. poetic and spiritual thing (for lack of better words) among night elves. They have all the time in the world so there is no rush and no need to be together all the time when there are more important things to do. Love among night elves lies a lot more in special words, gestures, letters, looks for each other, thoughts and moments together. It's not about getting a house together and live there all the time and so on. That is the human person behind the character "playing house".
Bonding. Bonding would be the word to describe that romantic love feeling. But bonding in other ways can also happen. Special bonds being formed with your brother(s)/sister(s) in arms for example. That is not uncommon when you have fought and bled together side by side several times and know each other in ways that few others could ever understand. The same can happen between teacher and student too, when the teacher becomes more than that and in a sense becomes a guide through life for the student and they both share deeply personal experiences with each other. For bonds to happen, you need those deeper "world moving" experiences. Those bonds can be exampled in many ways, spiritual bonds, blood bonds, tokens being carried and so much more.
But common for all three topics is that they are, as I see it, commonly accepted as "as is" in kaldorei society. It happens and it is perfectly fine as long as your kin and responsibilities does not suffer.
The personal side of this. I play a conflicted character when it comes to these topics. She has chosen the ascetic way of life and strongly believes she is pure and strong in body as long as she is untouched. But at the same time she is both young and full of thoughts, dreams and questions and she has chosen a very feral/primal way of life. The way of life does not conflicts as much as you'd think though, because the desire would only happen when a "proper" male shows up. Much fun has been has talking about that ic. A proper male being an "alpha" male in the essence of the word, one that would actively show interest and chase Silathin in the animalistic way and when she is caught, one that can beat her in combat too. Taming the wild one so to speak. The thoughts and questions come from it being a young character that still has not fully found her path in life or her identity even though most of it of course has fallen in place. But Silathin believes that on the day she is tamed, she changes into something else. Loses the wild fierce touch. Will she then be destroyed in person? Who knows. But she strongly believes that it will influence her life from then on and change her away from the warrior path should a mate arrive. She has not had experience with intimate relations at all and her primal view and philosophy teaches that mating, romantic or not, is to have cubs so it is not something that she would otherwise do.
The strong "pure" warrior thought also holds her back when it comes to just being physically close to others. She does not like being touched and does not understand the need for all the touching. A squeeze on the shoulder in meaningful moments, a warrior's grip around the wrist when meeting someone you have not seen in ages or similar has to be enough. It comes from her defensive mechanisms and mental armour.
It is all very difficult to explain as it was thought about years ago and has now been forgotten because it just 'is'. This musing is good though, because it has made me think and rethink some parts of the character that haven't developed since creation and might need a little 'updating'.
All in all that was my, somewhat rambling, thoughts on this.
|
|
|
Post by Alrinthiel on Dec 3, 2009 14:51:39 GMT 1
Sitting and reinstalling WoW as we speak, so I might as well write a bit here as I got nothing but time at the moment.
In my personal opinion I think the kaldorei take partners for life, just take a look at Tyrande and Malfurion, ten thousand years is a long time even for the kaldorei, but they both still love each other even though they have been apart for so long. But of course as for all people some relationships are bound not to work out, and I think the kaldorei take a long time to really "give their heart" to their partners as they have more time to feel out the relationship.
As for same sex relationships, I definitely do not think the Kaldorei think it is a problem, in my belief they rather focus on the love between two people, not really focusing on the gender of them, sex can either be a deep spiritual connection or simply the more feral side of people showing up, the thing with the kaldorei in my meaning is that they both are the most spiritual and feral people of all races in the world of warcraft, which also makes them very diverse in these matters, some mate for offspring, others mate for carnal desires, others just to reach that spiritual highpoint, again be it either with a male or a female. I highly doubt that the kaldorei would look down on sex, most of them worship a goddess of love and to have a goddess of love look down on sex makes no sense to me.
And then we have the bonding, this is a very difficult topic as people tend to have very varied opinions on this, but I think there is no official marriage sort of thing, each couple decide themselves if they are bonded or if they are still in more of a relationship like thingie, I believe some hold some sort of ceremony, some might like the wedding like ceremony, others may have something more private, I think everyone has their own idea's and suggestions for such things.
Well thats all I can think of right now, might write more if I can think of something to add.
|
|
|
Post by Silathin Starseeker on Dec 3, 2009 17:52:41 GMT 1
Tyrande and Malfurion is a singular example and are used as heroic plot devices, personally I do not think they form a good basis for comparison for 'everyday joe average' kaldorei.
However, if looking at the two. They love each other yes but they have not officially taken each other as partners through ceremony and all that jazz. So they have not as much chosen each other as partners for life but rather share a love that cannot be as there are much more important things at stake for them.
|
|
|
Post by Alrinthiel on Dec 3, 2009 19:02:31 GMT 1
Well, there is also the grieving widower at the docks in Auberdine who still weeps for his love that he lost during the sundering.
|
|
|
Post by Silathin Starseeker on Dec 3, 2009 19:45:43 GMT 1
I can't believe I had forgotten about that one, I always liked his story. You have a good point with that one too
|
|
|
Post by Tylfidia on Dec 10, 2009 16:04:51 GMT 1
My view on Kaldorei love is that it is a very slow process and that it is eternal for the most part. Not just because they were immortal but also because they they will be reunited in the afterlife if one of them should die prematurely. They also seem to sped a lot of time apart sometimes for thousands of years and still be madly in love.
I would imagine they spend centuries, perhaps even millennia, courting spending time together and growing together over time. I don't think they declare themselves mated so much as over time they grow closer and closer until their hearts are one. There might be ceremonies but I would think they are deeply personal and only the couple themselves would take part in them. I also don't think they would have only one more many spaced out over centuries where they would reaffirm there love after being apart. A bit like vowel renewals.
Sex I am unsure of. They certianly don't do it as much as mortal species otherwise their population would be huge. If I had to guess I would imagine they do it regularly when they are together but have some form of contraception to ensure their population doesn't increase too much. either that or they only do it once every 100 years and make sure it's not when the women is fertile. It's probably again deeply private but not seen as taboo.
Same sex couples are hard for me to comment on with out projecting myself into it but trying to be unbiased as possible I would imagine they are uncommon but not forbidden( although perhaps in the military) or taboo. The main reason I see for homophobia in our society is religious intolerance. We don't know much about Elune but we do know she's pro love so I can't see her having any objections unless they were demons. Also lets remember they are a matriarchal society so I cannot imagine women would be seen as effeminate or weak. There is also the fact that breeding is not high on there agenda so it's not like they would see something wrong about the lack of child production. The argument that it isn't natural isn't rue here and I'm sure the Kaldorei would of seen some examples of homosexual animals so I'm sure that wouldn't be problem either.
Anyway those are my ramblings on the subject.
|
|
|
Post by Feralan on May 20, 2010 16:15:31 GMT 1
Thanks for the contributions, the "musings" will restart in new threads for each topic.
|
|