Path Theory
I've been following some online discussions on the Paths of the Eldar and thought I'd take a quick break from Path of the Seer to explain a little of my thinking behind the Eldar Paths and how I have interpreted them for the novels.
The Paths were created to enable the Eldar to narrow their experience of the universe into bitesize chunks, so that they would not be overwhelmed by their heightened psychic and emotional power, as happened before the Fall. To my mind, each Path has two parts: the overt incarnation and the underlying experience the Eldar is learning to cope with. The easiest example is the Path of the Warrior, developed so than an Eldar can cope with aggression, bloodlust, anger and hate in a controlled manner. Thus as theEldar goes through life, they develop coping mechanisms for many of the experiences they will confront, whilst supressing all others.
Thus the overt incarnation of the path – warrior, healer, bonesinger, etc – is not the aim of the Path it is merely a means to create the mental and psychic disciplines required to deal with life as a super-emotive space elf.
This has led to the following Paths so far:
Warrior – Anger, hatred, bloodlust.
Artisan – The creative urge. This includes poets, artists, artesans. I hinted that this is about expression, so that an Eldar on this Path lacks introspection, doing away with the cultures and traditions that bind their society together without any sense of shame.
Service – The desire to help others. Perhaps think of it as the charitable, selfless instinct. Those on the Path of Service engage in any number of activities to help others, including serving them tea in the canteen, keeping the grass cut in the parks, or whatever.
Dreaming – This is an exploration of the subconscious, allowing the Eldar to explore their hidden motivations through the medium of active dreaming.
Awakening – This is an exploration of self (ego and super-ego) which the Eldar can embark upon to better understand their own goals and desires.
Seer – Seer covers many psychic disciplines, and at its hearts is the safe use of the psychic potential within every Eldar.
Explorer – Eldar have a wanderlust, to see the universe and explore distant stars. This is not the same as being outcast (more in a moment) and includes being a ship's crew, steersman, and so on.
Healing – As mentioned in Path of the Warrior this Path enables an Eldar to deal with hope, that is the continual belief that things will turn out for the best. Unbounded optimism for an eldar could be very dangerous indeed.
Mourning – Dealing with matters of grief and loss as an Eldar is also a very serious business, and so to avoid the brain-melting depths of sadness, most control their grief. Those on the Path of Mourning can give vent to the full darkness of loss they can feel.
There are probably others, engineers and scientific endeavour for example, but I'm sure you get the idea. The point is, by progressing along several Paths during their life, the Eldar both perfect a series of useful skills, but more importantly learn how to manage their psyches in a safe fashion.
The Outcast is to eschew this limitation, experiencing the full range of emotions from the heights of happiness to the depths of sadness and everything in the middle. To be an Outcast is to be free from the burden of all of thos mental controls keeping everything check, but also at the mercy of every passing feeling and whim.
To become trapped on a Path is is give in wholly to the underlying emotional cause, rather than the physical representation. An Exarch is trapped in his or her anger. A Bonesinger is trapped in the creative moment. Others may become locked in selfless devotion or grief. The nature of this is that the trapped Eldar cannot see that they are trapped, because they are locked in a cycle of the same emotion without any context or self-awareness. The oddity is the Farseer, who makes a conscious choice to continue to explore their psychic being, knowing full well that this will eventually doom them to a crystalline experience, becoming one with the energy of the infinity circuit. Another exception are the Autarchs, though whether one can be trapped on the Path of Command is a whole canof worms…
Just some food for thought.
