MY ASSESSMENT OF THE RESULTS
Since the way I played often left at least two columns of the victorious side’s pieces untouched, it made me think of a standing person in a few instances. Particularly striking was the last five rounds of the game. White won three of the five contests, but only by one piece. So the forces of light win, but just barely. Also with white, in four of the rounds where it won, it one by a solitary game piece, so no pictogram was possible. In none of the rounds where black won was there a solitary game piece left—black always had company.
Above I have posted a picture the score sheet from this round of Fanorona, but if I had to sum-up the divinatory results, based on the remaining game pieces in each round, here’s how it would go:
White tosses a ball out there to elicit a reaction. Black also tosses a ball in the air in response, but with the intent of starting something. Black’s ball lands in a conduit and travels, while white is trying to get results from a vending machine. Black’s attempt results in scattered results, while white decides to take two dogs for a walk. Both dogs want to go in separate directions, which complicates things. White makes another attempt at success by playing pinball or a video game; either that or white is standing in a bus shelter, waiting for a bus. White’s bowl knocks down a single pin. Black has a high ball and a low ball and it has both poised to knock down the hapless pair of pins at the end of the lane. Why is black bowling with two balls? Who knows–black is playing this game by its own rules. Whether it’s a vending machine, a video game or a bowling game, white seems to play by the rules—it follows the established protocol and expects a predictable result. White knocks down just one more pin. Puh-thetic. Black appears to score an own-goal (yes, I realize I’m mixing sports metaphors, but stay with me here) as its efforts rebound on itself. White knocks down just one more pin. White wins, but weakly, and mainly because black managed to sabotage itself, no matter how hard black tried to win.
Your results may well vary from mine. You may finish fifteen rounds of Fanorona, only to find you have dueling runes or stick figures. This is where your intuition will need to come in. Look at the pattern of the remaining game pieces on the board after each round—what do they make you think of? The source material said the Malagasy interpreted the results in terms of geomantic symbolism, meaning more along the lines of Feng Shui, so you may want to ask yourself if the disposition of the remaining game pieces remind you of any geological formations.
My experience with this score sheet made me realize I wanted to come up with an alternate design for the score sheet as well, so it was possible to more clearly mark the lay-out of the winning side’s remaining game pieces on a diagram of the game board. That alternate score sheet is page 5 of the PDF.