Connections
- By the Old Law, even the most heinous curse must contain the seed of its undoing; Azoth could break the burdensome cycle of undeath through ten thousand selfless acts; he reckons if pet care counts, he might be at one
Context
The Old Law is a 17th century tragicomedy written by several playwrights, published in 1656. The phrase "old law" is a play on words, because the central law in this fictional story (executing men at age 80 and women at age 60) is new, but refers to old people. Therefore, "old law." Kind of clever, but not what we're looking for.Those familiar with the Bible will probably have heard the terms "old law" and "new law" when talking about the Old and New Testaments. Many of the divine laws in the Old Testament are different from the commandments given in the New Testament because the "old laws" of Moses' time was meant to prepare God's people for the arrival of Christ, at which time He would give the "new law" and do away with the older laws of animal sacrifice, etc.
A couple of other things come to mind regarding the idea of an "Old Law." First, the The Deep Magic from the world of Narnia. This set of laws, carved into the Stone Table, has many parallels with Christianity, just like every other aspect of C.S. Lewis' Narnia books.
But Azoth is not related to Christianity. Rather, he's involved with deep, dark arts, like necromancy. The Great Old Ones from Lovecraftian stories (like Call of Cthulhu) come to mind. The "Old Law" could just be an intimidating term for forbidden magic and rituals, or even for magic in general and not just for evil purposes. After all, it is the Old Law that states that there must be a way to undo any curse, no mater how heinous or severe.
Recently I've been thinking that this Old Law might be more revelant than it seems. On your Nix post you had theorized about an all emcopassing "force" or "rules" that would affect any type of being, idenpedent of the pantheon or magic they're involved with, and that these rules would define what are "cosmological coldcases" and "metaphysical rulebreakers". Theoratically, this could be what the Old Law refers to.
ReplyDeleteBut we could go even deeper, another legend associated with Nix, Artemis, also mentions something similiar in her lore, the possibility of a "conciousness above even gods". Her lore also basically confirms that Orion is in someway not of this universe, to the point where the universe needs an "immune response" to him, coincindentally, Nix lore considers him a "metaphysical rulebreaker" to the point where Artemis and Nix bonded over the frustation over Orion's existence.
So what I want to get to is, what if these are all connected? What if the universe indeed has a "will" that applies over any kind of magic, being and pantheon and this will created a set of rules reffered to as "Old Law" that defines life, death, afterlife and magic, with Artemis and Nix being enforcers of this law.
All of this could just be unassociated ideas which I'm overthinking on, but it's fun to theorize about it.
I almost forgot to mention, Onyx lore also mentions something similiar
Delete"Binding herself to the stone of the castle, she pledged service to the great fortress. And cosmic laws being what they are, she could not be taken from her post – even by the forces of darkness themselves."
This has some interesting implications too. If Valhalla is Onyx castle currently then the only way to destroy it would be Onyx allowing it to fall or breaking cosmic laws. Could this be revelant when the Ragnarok happens? Nix was unable to end 11 of Nai's deities and they're seemlingly destined to end Asgard, could they also be "metaphysical rulebreakers" and therefore able to bypass the cosmic laws surrounding Onyx's oath? What about the theories that Orion is Ragnarok's harbringer?
If these laws really are all connected the implications are very interesting.
My theory about Orion in particular is that he's norse god Baldr that travelled back in time. In mythology he dies because of Loki before Ragnarok happens and is destined to be reborn after the event ends to rule over Asgard (or what's left of it). And since time travel is possible in Brawlhalla then it's pretty obvious he'd do that since most of gods who where Baldr's family are destinied to die + Baldr was pretty powerful god or at least became one soon before he died (basically indestructible to everything except one thing, a bit like Achilles but x1000), so he'd for sure be able to change the outcome of battle.
DeleteAnd well since Orion(Baldr) tries to change timeline (and possibly even exists in 2 places at same time, because after his death he stays in Hel until Ragnarok ends) then Artemis came to be to not allow the changes to the fate of gods. And well Artemis is the most powerful legend in Brawlhalla lore-wise, gods are limiting her power, but at Ragnarok she'll rather have all of it. If I'm not wrong then Odin is the 1st god to die actually and it's probably his powers over Asgard that let him change reality there so much.