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Duality-that-is-unity is huge theme in Mesoamerican metaphysics, characterized both in the two-that-is-one (such as the male-female uniduality) and the fourfold unfolding...as the division of the amorphous supreme deity Ometeotl into the four Tezcatlipocas -
"red" Xipe Totec/Mixcoatl - representing sunrise and the east, and the creative and sustaining powers of man's sustenance
"black" Tezcatlipoca - representing midnight and the north, and malevolent power set in opposition to man
"blue" Huitzilpochtli - representing high noon and the south, a warrior caretaking human fate
"white" Quetzalcoatl - representing west and sunset, and the creative forces that produce human life
Now, in Maya and Aztec (as well as other Mesoamerican groups) religion, there is no sense of conflict between seeing these forces as at once together and seperate: in the pantheon, the four Tezcatlipoca are played out as seperate deities, but at times the four further "unfold" into quarters, creating new deity-aspects that sometimes further divvy their attributes and sometimes interweave the aspects of the four. All of this division is resolved in the ending of each World-cycle (We're on the Fifth World, by the way), when the two calendars align on a single day (once every 52...referred to as a "bundle of years"), as it does on the fated day in the Invisibles plot.
I would assume, given the centrality of Lord Fanny to the overall plot, that GM did his research and played out many of these themes consciously in the Invisibles. (If not, I'm just a nutter and this is an epic piece of fan-wank) While my brain is a bit too fuzzy to play all the changes, it seems to me that a lot of the roles in the Invisibles move around characters assuming those four positions on and off throughout the plot.
Sir Miles is interesting because he skates along the edges of the divisions...although he primarily fills the position of the black Tezcatlipoca set in opposition to Jack's (returning savior, Bodhisvatta) position as a Quetzalcoatl, but as a member of the Outer Church also possesses aspects of Huitzilpochtli (The Outer Church is, in a sense, black and blue, signifying both the maintenance of a human order and a terrible malevolence toward man). In a crazy way, since Miles is the mouthpiece/expositioner of the Outer Church for most of the plotline, he is in a way the symbolic tlatoani (lit. "speaker," a term for the emperor-priest of the Aztecs) for the group.
As a finisher, Barbelith is represented by red and white. |
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