Just some of my thoughts about some aspects of Balimora. I know that these thoughts aren’t shared by anyone else but me, but this is how I interpret them. I was inspired to write this after reading Viv, Remus Oracle, and Robert’s works so I thought I would join in.
The Castle of Vines
As we all know there are 6 guild “houses”; Weatherwatch’s Airship, Gossmere’s Rythms Hearth, Thornmouth’s Tower, Flinterforge’s Workshop, the Castle of Vines, and Ebenguard’s Castle. (Correct me if I’m wrong here. I’m not entirely for sure if these are their names.) These houses are in a way their guild’s physical reflection. An instance of this would be the chaos inside the Castle of Vines. Inside the main area, it appears to be just a large room with wooden walls and ceiling. Further exploring you across parts of castle hallways from different eras, almost as if someone had rebuilt the castle a number times. Continuing onwards you will find even more inconsistencies. The paper walls from a Japanese shiro will become apparent or you will find concrete hallways with long metal pipes that appear and disappear into the Tree’s wood. Sometimes you’ll find the hallway lined with lockers like a school or one lined with pictures with a stairway leading upwards like you’d find in a house. Or more disturbingly, the blackened burned areas that have a thick layer of ash on the ground. What if these aren’t part of just the regular Balimoran Chaos, but memories from the Tree itself? What if the Tree isn’t just a gigantic, magical tree, but a sentient being with memories that instead of storing in a brain, it stores in its limbs?
The Great Tree of the Castle of Vines
We appear to be the most recent Mountaineers to visit Neithornoor since the 1940’s, probably even before that. I don’t think the group of Mountaineers before us in '94 even discovered it, but my memory isn’t that good at remembering the finer details surrounding them. At the very base of the Tree there is one thing that is for sure: the ruins it grew on top of are old. These appear to be just as random as the passageways throughout the Tree are, with pieces appearing from the modern age to the 1600’s. Why is this important you may ask? From what I have gathered, maybe the Tree not only uses its memories but the memories and feelings of its inhabitants. Now, this got me thinking. What if it’s not only the Balimoran guild house but all of them, that have are sentient beings. What if they all remember their past inhabitants? The Tree might not be capable of talking, but maybe it uses these pathways to tell us what it knows.
Chaotic Groupings
I would do something on The Great Chaos, but I feel I’m a bit inadequate to do something that I myself don’t understand very well. Also because Robert’s treatise is a far better than subject than something that I could write. But something does concern The Great Chaos are the people who make up Balimora itself. If you look into it, there is very little that would normally bind us together. Robert’s thoughtfulness, Itsuki’s creativity, Cheyy’s kindness and gentleness, and my love of working with animals.It seems that instead of each individual possessing the traits of being Balimoran that The Great Chaos chooses a group of individuals that make-up what it means to be Balimoran together.
There are no laws. Natural rule is a lie. The world heeds a higher law. Whether you know it or not, you have been called to tend that deeper balance, The Great Chaos of the verdent world.
Look into that. As I said earlier, it appears The Great Chaos chooses it’s own, banding them together as one.
Looking into Balimora’s description, it talks about the need not just for sentinels to protect, but also seers and caretakers all working together to uphold the mantle. I’ve been thinking about the Balimoran’s of old. What did they do? How did they react to the world around them? I like to think they were a community, each supplementing the others weakness, making it impossible for one to work without another. This by iteslf goes against what you would think The Great Chaos would represent, but this is where a community differs The Balimorans of old didn’t have a leader but instead relied on the nature around them to set their daily tasks. If a storm came and knocked over a massive amount of tree’s during the night while also destroying the home of a rare creature, they would make sure that nature takes over, keeping the natural balance of the environment while making sure its beauty was still there for everyone to enjoy.
This is why I think the poem “The Law for the Wolves” or The Law of the Jungle as I prefer to call it from the Jungle Book fits so well.
"NOW this is the law of the jungle, as old and as true as the sky,
And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk, the law runneth forward and back;
For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.