Wow, Wuk Lamat is really single-handedly ruining the DT story...

[PaleYonder]

At the harvest float, I was still in an overall good mood if slightly bored, but foolishly optimistic that we'd get a turn of the narrative soon, so this would just be a kind of stupid and unfortunate episode. I was still making light-hearted jokes to my friend then about the "cultural sensitivity", see also: Our culture is, we like fair trade and alpacas.
But I lost it at the dead baby dilemma in the third zone, when for once there seemed to be a darker turn to something in the story, and it's solved within 5 minutes by the classic method of: "Did you know you have bad magical rocks in your forest? But it's okay, we have foreign scholars and science so we can give you better plants, use those. Now you don't have to get all those babies killed anymore." And everyone's happy.

[Seymour_Rainecourt]

At the harvest float, I was still in an overall good mood if slightly bored, but foolishly optimistic that we'd get a turn of the narrative soon, so this would just be a kind of stupid and unfortunate episode. I was still making light-hearted jokes to my friend then about the "cultural sensitivity", see also: Our culture is, we like fair trade and alpacas.
But I lost it at the dead baby dilemma in the third zone, when for once there seemed to be a darker turn to something in the story, and it's solved within 5 minutes by the classic method of: "Did you know you have bad magical rocks in your forest? But it's okay, we have foreign scholars and science so we can give you better plants, use those. Now you don't have to get all those babies killed anymore." And everyone's happy.

If I recall, the attempted breeding between the blue and the tan mamool jas to create a two-head was what spelled the babies' fates due to being incredibly incompatible with each other; the aether meteor chunks and bananas were something else. The importance of producing a/the two-head mamool ja took extreme priority over all else in their culture.

There's the set dressing of the general "aw geeze we don't like eating this one thing but it's the only thing that grows" and then the actual plot of their society: the dead offspring of mostly incompatible species.

(Haven't read further than this so I apologize if I'm either incorrect or if others have pointed this out.)

[BakoolJaJa]

If I recall, the attempted breeding between the blue and the tan mamool jas to create a two-head was what spelled the babies' fates due to being incredibly incompatible with each other; the aether meteor chunks and bananas were something else. The importance of producing a/the two-head mamool ja took extreme priority over all else in their culture.

There's the set dressing of the general "aw geeze we don't like eating this one thing but it's the only thing that grows" and then the actual plot of their society: the dead offspring of mostly incompatible species.

(Haven't read further than this so I apologize if I'm either incorrect or if others have pointed this out.)

Hmm, the way I understood it, those things are directly connected. Aka the breeding was because they wanted to get the hell out of the forest they consider cursed. They explain it themselves in the quest where Wuk Lamat is looking for a solution. They thought the blessed siblings would give them the power necessary to conquer territories outside the forest.

So while technically the siblings, conquest and bananas are three different topics, the chain looks like this - they didn't want to only eat bananas, hence they wanted to get other territories where better things grow, hence they needed super powerful warriors, hence they kept on breeding siblings.

Wuk Lamat's solution is therefore to address the first part. And I assume the implication is that from now on they will not be breeding them any longer.

[Raven2014]

Hmm, the way I understood it, those things are directly connected. Aka the breeding was because they wanted to get the hell out of the forest they consider cursed. They explain it themselves in the quest where Wuk Lamat is looking for a solution. They thought the blessed siblings would give them the power necessary to conquer territories outside the forest.

So while technically the siblings, conquest and bananas are three different topics, the chain looks like this - they didn't want to only eat bananas, hence they wanted to get other territories where better things grow, hence they needed super powerful warriors, hence they kept on breeding siblings.

This is another thing that I feel the story felt incredibly short. The current situation of the Maamoja beg the question what the hell Gulool Ja Ja has been dong in the past 80 years? So he showed up, kick their arse and tell them to play nice with the power of friendship and a meal ... and that's it? He did nothing at all whatsoever to address the very reason they went to war to begin with? Doesn't make any sense.