The people of Mesopotamia had many gods. They were called dingir in Sumerian. These gods and goddesses possessed supernatural powers and acted human-like. Every single city had its own patron god or goddess who owned everything and everyone in the city. They were expected to sing hymns, say prayers, make sacrifices, and bring offerings to the local temple (ziggurat) for the gods. The people trusted the priests to tell them what the gods wanted, and they dutifully carried out their wishes. They believed the gods could be annoyed at what you did and punish you, or they could be pleased and reward you. THIS made the leaders in the temples almost as powerful as the kings. In some cases the king was both the highest governmental authority AND spiritual leader. Because early Meso-civilizations did not have a one-on-one relationship with their deity, it was easier for the people to live the concept that all they needed to do is meet the basic necessary requirements.

Judaism, Islam, and Christianity because fast growing faiths due to the ridding of the middle person. Each of these faiths offered a deity that wanted to have a personal relationship with each individual. This distinct characteristic was a great factor in their popularity. God, became a father figure. They became a monotheistic society. These faiths were the only ones that offered a COVENANT. Their God said, "If you do this, I will do this other." This concept was incredible because this meant they had some sort of option, will, power, decision in the way things played out. Contrary to the Sumerian and Mesopotamian, these people new what awaited in their future. It was not by chance anymore. It was not based on whether their god was annoyed, pleased, or in a bad mood (acting human-like).

So, in today's society, we work hard to still erase the authoritarian residues of religion abuse. No one wants to mention that God is a fearful God. God can and WILL say, "enough!" God at one point did regret, due to their wickedness, creating mankind, and almost wiped out the entire earth. God, our Heavenly Father loves us enough to even get us upset to the point that we might not believe that He has the best for us, but at the end cause us to make a better choice.

Today's Word at my church was about God speaking to us over and over, and we just ignore Him. We worry about our own things. We have enough to spend $10 a day at Starbucks or McDonalds ($300 per month on junk food), but we "can't afford to give to the church or pay for class or a conference". How sad that God is in our low priority list. We prefer to pay PG&E, ATT, Cingular, Verizon, TMobile, Honda, American Express, and Country Homeloans thinking that they will sustain our peace. But, guess what? When God is even just 2nd on our list, all of our money goes into a pocket full of holes. America's economy has taken several blows throughout the life of the nation, but the one we are experiencing now on a "slippery slope" fall. Why? Were we not one of the most powerful nations in the world? Is this not the land of abundance? Is this not the place that promises a dream for everyone? What happened to the nation that used to help others? What happened to the nation that sent out missionaries by the dozens to proclaim the Good News? A Nation in Revival? Azusa? PensaCola (Brownsville)? How is it that churches across the nation are closing down due to financial distress while Iron Man makes $100.8 Million in ticket sales in 3 DAYS? Other entertainment industries make outrageous profits withing seconds. Where does God fit in all this? Where is He in our list of priorities?

Do you believe God loves you enough to strike that which keeps you away from Him? God is calling out to America to wake up from our somber. To turn our ways back to Him. America wants to get rid of God from their judiciary system, from their education system, from their legislative system, and any other system that might compromise with the current trends.  YET, WE WANT TO CONTINUE BEING THE #1 BLESSED NATION IN THE WORLD! In a culture where tolerance is a driven force for religion, education, and relationships, GOD is portrayed as INTOLERANT. He is portrayed as insensitive to the needs, desires, and weaknesses of the people. He portrayed as a demanding, authoritarian, single-minded, ungrateful God. OMG! Ungrateful? People feel entitled to God's blessing and favor while they live a immoral lifestyle that neither honors nor respects God. If you were God, what would you do? What do you do with your teenager who begged for a new car, and you gave it to him. After some time he turns disrespectful and leaves you out of the picture...until he runs out of gas, brakes, or money to pay for the insurance? What if he is using this gift (the car) to constantly go against the rules of the house? He constantly comes in late at night drunk. He leaves early in the morning and does not report himself for days, weeks, months, years? Then comes back into you home expecting you to bail him out from his distress? Yet he defies you and basically has turned his back on you? Would not say, "ENOUGH!"

Well, ladies and gentlemen, God has said, "Enough!" He has in a way lifted his hand from our economy in hopes to catch our attention and return us to the path of righteousness and blessing. The Word of God says that it is because God loves us that He takes action in disciplining us so that we do not make the same mistakes over and over again; so that we may not perish.

God will chastise His children for disobedience (Psalms 89:32)

God chastises for our profit (Hebrews 12:10)

God chastises because He loves us (Hebrews 12:6)

So, if when you reach into your pockets and wallets, you feel the pain, maybe it is a good thing to examine yourself. Check to see that you are in rightstanding with your Lord. Check your daily priority list, and make sure God is number 1. Do not think He does not love you when He allows suffering to touch your life. Sometimes, discipline is the best medicine to cure the rebellious heart. He is a loving Father who will, even when we have fallen astray, be with us.

Note that typos are mine, but I've made a direct transcript, meaning that I don't clean up Tammy's stuttering or "Ummm"s or anything. I've written everything I hear on the tape.

Introduction and Questions 1 & 2

The questions adressed in this section are:
+ Can I record this session?
+ Can we take pictures?
+ What happens between Daine and Numair (NEW INFORMATION!)
+ Do Daine and Numair get married?

Questions 3 & 4

The questions in this section are:
+ How do you pronounce Alan? (a-LAHN or AL-an)
+ Where do you get ideas for your names?

Questions 5, 6, 7, & 8

The questions in this section are:
+ Are Aly & Nawat going to get together, even though he's a crow?
+ Why did Buri leave the Riders when she married Raoul?
+ Where did you get the idea for girl heroes in general?
(note: Tammy rambles a LOT in this last question - v. interesting things!!)
+ Why did you create Briar, if your emphasis is on girls?

Questions 9, 10, & 11

The questions in this section are:
+ Will Varice be in the Numair-book?
+ Which was your favorite/least favorite book to write? (NEW INFORMATION)
+ Why did Leaf have to die? (NEW INFORMATION)

Questions 12 & 13

The questions in this section are:
+ Who would you recommend as publishing companies?
+ What was your favorite fantasy book growing up? (v. interesting for a Pierce vs. Tolkien assessment!)

Questions 14, 15, 16, & 17

The questions in this section are:
+ Where did you get the idea for Ben Ladradun?
+ Do you have a say in the cover art for you books?
+ Where did you get the idea for crystal-coated coal?
+ Where did you get the idea for Joren?

Questions 18, 19, & 20

The questions in this section are:
+ Where did you come up with the shikusen?
+ How do you keep your plots from repeating themselves?
+ Where did you get your ideas for the gods and goddesses?

Questions 21, 22, & 23

The questions in this section are:
+ Why did Alanna and Jonathan have to fight?
+ What is your favorite mythology?
+ In CoM, which element matches which character?

SOURCE: [LJ P#199184]

Mithros started as Mithras of Persia with a spelling re-set, but in looks he resembles James Earl Jones
The Goddess is the classic three-form Goddess: Maiden/Mother/Crone (the Greeks broke her up into Artemis/Demeter/Hecate)
The Graveyard Hag is a combination of Hecate and Baron Samedi, the voodoo god of cemetaries and crossroads (Hecate is also a goddess of crossroads)
Kyprioth is a classic trickster, a combination of Loki, Raven, Coyote, and my friend Bruce Coville

I've studied all kinds of mythology over the years, so my gods are drawn from world myth and legend. Even in recent years, when I start to create more independent gods, I base them on some idea drawn from world mythologies.

Tammy: Kidunka is a Banjiku god, the great snake who made the world and all things in it (you don't want to know from what he made them, trust me), and made the ultimate sacrifice to hold it all together by biting his tail as he wrapped himself around the world. The End of Grazing Time will come, the Banjiku say, when Kidunka's great enemy, the Fire Ant Queen, will send her soldiers to cover him and climb into his nose and mouth. The great snake will gasp and snap as they bite him, releasing his tail, and the world will fly apart.

SOURCE: [65232]

By viewing her through the lens of emotional instability, something of our time, we overlook something: Daine is not a girl of our time. Technically, she's not entirely even a girl--she's a demi-god. It's like saying Hercules was emotionally unstable.

The Carthakis needed a lesson that would stick, not that Daine was thinking of that at the time. They had destroyed, either through participation or allowing it to go forward, thousands of lives in the Eastern lands as Ozorne and his agents and his mages freed the immortals and sent them to do their worst. They had done nothing while his navies ravaged the coasts of his neighbors, and turned a blind eye while he sold their stolen property in his markets. He had made his palace a showplace with the loot of his victims. It was a symbol of the wealth and power of Carthak, a power that its nobles thought could be wielded without punishment from anyone. Daine was simply the instrument of the gods, and she acted with a god's rage. Her scope was made greater by the Graveyard Hag, but she wouldn't have gotten very far if the other gods hadn't agreed. And she was able to do all that damage because she was part god in the first place.

Gods aren't very discriminating in their wrath. They're clubs, not lasers. And a palace is the symbol of a nation's power. Daine smashing it was like the gods saying to the entire empire, "There are powers greater than you, and this is a sampling of what they will put on you if you don't start behaving yourselves."

Of course they let her go with a slap on the wrist. They were afraid of what she might do if they kept her. This was the person who reminded them why it was bad to mess with the gods in the first place.

Maybe gods are emotionally unstable by human lights. I just wouldn't want to be the one to try and put a god on medication and maybe hospitalize one for six weeks or so.

SOURCE: [54974]

He's also extremely rare among gods in that he married his mortal love interest. Not only that, but he called in an awful lot of divine favors to have her made a goddess, too. It should tell you something about how very wonderful Sarra was to him, to make him so devoted and steadfast, when gods aren't the most faithful of creatures, and to make him believe he wanted a relationship longer than a century or two.

In other words, expect the different from Weiryn. It's these mountain men--or gods. In the long run, you never know what they're going to do, and you hardly ever know why, because they're not exactly chatterboxes.

SOURCE: [54636]

Defeat, yes. Kill, no. Unless you want to kiss the mortal realms bye-bye, in the case of a Great God. If you kill a lesser god, like Weiryn, prepare to see the lands in which he's worshipped be destroyed--in which case you've got all the other gods with responsibilities there looking for you. Best to think of something else.

SOURCE: [53519]

Tammy: The critic Lionel Trilling said, "Immature artists imitate. Mature artists steal." I steal with a happy heart and a song on my lips. When I stole Mithras, though, I hadn't learned to file off the serial numbers on my thefts as well as I do now, so some things in the Alanna books you can still trace back to the original manufacturer.

SOURCE: [37353]

What's different is that people for the most part respect other ways and other gods. They don't diss other people's beliefs (except for odd abnormalities like Yahzed worshippers, or the true believers of the Flame and his Prophet). It's my idea of an ideal world, where people grant others their own beliefs and don't slam each other over religion, for the most part.

SOURCE: [17897]

As far as why Mithros and the Goddess came into the Isles, it was just another move in the game to them, another way to screw the kid brother who was being kinda lazy with his humans. Look at the way Juno treated Zeus's affairs and the offspring of those affairs, or the way the goddesses bribed Paris to give them the prize for most beautiful (isn't the bribing of the judge so not kosher?). Or the way Hanuman scampers off with his sibs' belongings. And while the gods' strength comes from the strength of their worshippers, they can only influence so much of their worshippers' behavior (the crossroads in time, when humans must decide what will influence the power in the Divine Realms). It makes things a little more even between humans and gods.

Besides, the Goddess doesn't even show one face to her believers--she has three official ones, after all. Alanna's only ever seen the Mother, but that's just one case. And I can see Mithros having his off days.

These aren't monotheistic gods, but pantheistic ones, dreamt by people to cover each of life's many facets, instead of being responsible for all of them, like the monotheistic gods are. That sort of thing leads to never being able to figure out why God let something like the death of a child happen.

SOURCE: [26037]

Tammy: I'd think they would scatter throughout the Divine Realms and form their own packs/herds/forests, etc. And I'd imagine that some break through into the Mortal Realms and settle and die after a much longer lifespan than the purely mortal animals. They would be smarter than mortals, too, but since they're animals, humans wouldn't notice in most cases. (I bet a lot of them settle far from humans, for that matter.) Or if a god tires, s/he lets one of her/his offspring take over and s/he journeys into the Black God's realms (or the mortal world).

The First Oak isn't lonely--it's surrounded by its children. There has to be a First Forest, yes?

Everything has to change. If the mortal realms are a reflection of the divine ones, change has to be allowed there, too, though it won't take the same form as the mortal ones. Change is just more structured in the Divine Realms, since they're about order. Uusoae's realms are about change for the sake of change, which is why order and chaos have to balance--both are needed for life, but having one more powerful than the other makes life meaningless.

SOURCE: [19275]

SOURCE: [12332]

He's also a constellation, don't forget. And to answer the following question, he took mortal form to live with Alanna, so the shell died. He's still very much with us, pouncing on meteors and giving his advice to the great gods whether they want it or not.

SOURCE: [449]

A royal wedding in Tortall is performed by a priestess of the Goddess and a priest of Mithros, and involves attendants, long trains for both the king and queen, incense, candles, and earth in the bride and groom's shoes to remind them of their connection to the land.

Alanna and George were married before the Goddess, with their close friends in attendance. The Goddess showed up to bless them, which is something nobody talks about, because it's kinda scary to meet a Great God in person (unless you're Alanna's daughter, getting in the face of a trickster).

SOURCE: [2591]