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What I mean is that the 'chaotic' nature of traditional Faerie is absent
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I finally am seeing what you are driving at Davem! The absense of this element of fairie is deafening in the Legendarium.
The easy way out would be 'translator's conceit', this being a history written by historians (who were mostly existing at the highest levels of their civilizations). I would tend to adhear to your Christianizing theory though. Although it still could be argued that much of the evil / malicious pranks and practices that were attributed to them (or piled on them) may be more of a reflection of the aftermath of humans becoming Christianized. Also, one should take into account how much of the chaotic element of nature was lumped into evil workings of the devil, post Chrisitianizing. The same element that had a persona of it's own for eons, very quickly became a result of sinfull living - we were flooded because we angered God, etc. Before this time, this similar thought might have been there with pagan gods, but not necessarily. That chaotic nature was more personified in the gods back then. They didnt necessarily have to have a reason to flood your crops, they just did - so deal with it....
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This 'cruelty' seems to reflect a sense of wonder, an eternal curiosity. There are stories of Fairies discovering that a human had seen them & blinding them, stealing babies out of cradles, or beautiful young humans to come & live with them to join their revels. Its about an absence of human feelings & emotions (&, not being human, why should they be expected to share our values?)
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That sense of "cruelty" in nature is a good point. Of course, from our point of view, we attribute cruelty to acts of nature. It's more pronounced as we become further removed from nature. Looking through the eyes of a pre-Christian society coping with life, this POV will of course be different. Couple that with the general ignorance of biologic systems and a pre-industrial non-scientific kind of learning of nature in general, then we may start to understand that eternal curiosity that you mention. Nature is nature. The truth is that nature has been doing it's own thing long before we came on the scene. But with our ancestors - back then, just about every aspect of life was cruel - from our POV.
So the unhindered, chaotic, wild and untamed aspect to Faerie is ignored in the Legendarium. Does omission mean the author wanted that separate from
his Faerie, or does it just not fit with the theme and style he was striving for?