Tonight I got to go to the San Francisco Arcanum Unbounded signing with the magnificent Sebastian @flowercrownsandshardblades and the lovely Silver @valkyriesneverdie (btw, Silver, when I finally got to get my book signed he had that super cute Shallan you gave him propped up on the table and I was like ah yes Silver did an art)
I don’t know if a video of the q&a etc has been posted yet (probably not! I like, just got home practically!), but I did get to ask a question!
I actually wrote myself out a script beforehand because otherwise I knew I’d forget what I wanted to say, it reads:
The fact that Vorinism was partially inspired by Judaism and Jewish mysticism means a ton to me, a Jew. So that you so much for that! It’s not often that my people get fantasy representation other than, like, dwarves, and that’s all stereotypes. On that note, could you please elaborate on some of the specific influences Judaism had on Vorinism?
This is definitely not an exact transcription, and he expanded a lot on most of these, but he listed
*numerology
*the Double Eye of the Almighty is inspired by the Sephirot
*the names/phonology are very Hebrew, and he cited the fact that Kholin is pronounced properly with the Hebrew ch/kh sound (at which point I interjected to ask whether Kholin was deliberately similar to kohen/Cohen and I got a resounding yes, so congratulations me)
And then he pretty much said that he was going to stop talking now because otherwise he would not stop
During the signing line, though, he recognized me as the excited Jew in the grey sweater, and he gave me a few more examples! (also, like four different people came by and complimented me on my question and they were probably all Jews, but that’s neither here not there)
*most notably, he said that the Vorin outlook on the afterlife is very Jewish, the whole what you do while you’re alive is what matters, the afterlife is less important, just do your best to live in accordance with the Ten Names of the Almighty
*and tying into that, he mentioned that Journey Before Destination is, in that sense, very Jewish! which I totally agree with!
*then he talked about the influence that the laws of Shabbat (well, he said the Sabbath, but like,) had on the rules in Shadows for Silence, most notably the law against making a fire (it’s work!) and also he mentioned the eruv, the line that serves as a symbolic extension of the home on Shabbat (though, it’s been ages since I’ve read Shadows, so I can’t quite place where it ties in)
*I actually saw someone post a quote about the Shadows thing a couple days ago in the tag, but hey! may as well type it up here too!
Anyways, I had a great time, it was great seeing him and also seeing Silver and Sebastian! I had fun!
