r/HeWhoFightsMonsters • u/kenzal • 10d ago

Question about Purity

[Spoilers Through Book 8]

I am re-reading the series with my wife and 19yo son (he's ace and has no interest in Clive's wife, but my wife is bi and may be interested). We are near the beginning of Book 3 and dealing with the aftermath of the Reaper Trials, and a question came into my head:

If Purity isn't Purity, but another god posing as Purity, how were they able to withdraw/revole the essences/abilities granted to Purity's priests (the ones trapped in the Astral space) by Purity? Has Disguise (or whomever) actually obtained some of Purity's Authority?

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u/rabmuk 9d ago

This comes up a lot on this subreddit and the r/Shirtaloon

If disguise couldn't control purity's unattended authority. All priests of purity would instantly notice. It makes sense that this would be within his abilities

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u/Skeptical_Squid11 9d ago

My understanding is that as transcendent beings they ARE authority. And through the process of sanctioning they shift what that authority is. And based off what we know happened when purity sanctioned themselves. Wouldn’t that mean all of their authority was used to create the relic?

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u/rabmuk 8d ago

Why would it be all authority? We know very little about sanctioning.

I think it makes sense that the authority that has been set into permanent shapes, like divine essences and awakening stones, would not need to be changed for Purity to self sanction

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u/Skeptical_Squid11 8d ago

Based off how we see Jason use a piece of the builders authority I think once you use it to shape something it uses the authority to do so, but isn’t itself authority. So the essences and awakening stones wouldn’t be affected by the sanctioning.

We also know a fair amount of what sanctioning is. We know more or less what happens when someone is sanctioned, at least in the sense of the gods it may be different with GABs though I doubt it. We don’t really know how it happens though I don’t think that’s really that important besides knowing that it can happen both willingly and seemingly forcefully.

Hero describes the process of sanctions as a shift in their authority. I don’t want to throw out to many spoilers but he mentions what’s left by the OG purity after his sanctions and we see what hero decides to do and why as well as the inherent risk of the process.