A suiter

Since the Chosen of Eilistraee is a religious oriented player group, naturally there is a place to have theological discussions. That is in-game religions; please leave real-world religion out of it. Debate the fine points of a certain dogma, how a church can enforce worship while staying true to its tenets or simply why one deity is better than another one is. All are free to talk about it here.

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Irennan
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Re: A suiter

Post by Irennan »

I'm not sure where Selune was all over the place, I think I missed it. In any case, by that logic, we would need to exclude Mielikki, because RAS had her act massively out of character and condone genocide because of his personal bias, as he's letting his personal RW belief encroach more and more in his FR work, where those beliefs can't really be discussed. Want to make a story with your own belief? Make you own world, don't use the creations of others.

Or we can believe the *actual* personality of a deity, as written by their creator, and ignore the shitty headcanon of some "author" with 0 integrity, who went to the point of taking *someone else's* work and intentional smearing it. Especially when that smearing is intentional, motivated by puerile reasons (in the case of Eilistraee&Mielikki), and now retconned.

Selune, as she's supposed to be, would be a very enjoyable company to Eilistraee, and a trusted friend. Mystra is best buddies with Eilistraee as well, but I can't picture them romantically engaged.

On a side note, this made me think of my favorite 3 deities from Pathfinder--Shelyn, Sarenrae, and Desna--and how they would IMO enjoy their respective companies. It's wholesome, and I lowkey wosh FR had something like that. Also, incidentally, with her role of nurturing the beauty in the broken, and being a redeemer and an empowerer, Eilistraee has key elements from both Shelyn and Sarenrae, but enough rambling.
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Zaknafriend
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Re: A suiter

Post by Zaknafriend »

Well that's the thing. Every character in the game world passes through a filter that is the reader/gamer. And that's after these characters have been filtered by the staff at WOTC/Hasbro.

Say Author X has an idea for a character Roberto Awesomepants and puts it into the next splat book. However some of the back ground for Roberto has to be cut, say 2 sentences worth so some art for the opposite page will fit. So the editor trims down the entry. When we buy that book, we get Bob Apants. However the splat book doesn't do well and is left in obscurity. Later on a video game company is doing a game and a designer looks at the picture above Bob Apants entry and thinks about how this guy would make a great villain in his game. Sort of a sub-boss working for the main villain. But a translation error changes the spelling, and we get Boba Pants, mid tier villain with an established look from that splat book. In the sequel, we get a new voice actor, who delivers several kind of funny and infinitely quotable lines. He's popular, and there for bankable, so he's put into the latest edition of that splat book. The splat book itself is turned into a full world book entry, as there is a video game set there and so people clearly will want to tabletop there. Then a novelist comes along she writes about the area as the setting for the novel. However the publishing company's editor was talking about it with the game company's licences properties manager, and they both agree that character N-1 in chapters 3, 7 and 19 would be better (more bankable) if he was Boba Pants from the game books. Look at this picture from diveant art where the artist replaced his Las-cannon with a cat that lies about cake. So the author does some cursory changes, she's working on another book and doesn't have time to refit the plot to Boba, so Boba is changed to fit the plot of the book. It's small but it turns what had been a good hearted rakish characters into a incidental child murderer.

In these thought exercises it's hard to find solid ground on the way a character behaves because they are all written by so many hands and change dramatically over time. In relation to the Forgotten Realms we tend to default to Ed Greenwood as our guide (if one goes over to Candlekeep board, his word is treated as near divine law)but he isn't a definitive source in the way that JRR Tolkien would be on a Lord of the Rings. He works for WOTC/Hasbro.

All of this makes it tough to figure out. I can't comment on Mielikki in R.A.'s later novels because I've only read Iwd trilogy and the Homeland trilogy and one book with Wulfgar looking through a prison cell window. Iwd was great, Homeland wasn't bad and last one made no sense what so ever. I also read the spellfire trilogy, which is why I don't give Ed's work too much credit either (that third one... ouch).

A very long way for me to get around to saying I try to stick to just what appears in the game books and they need to relevant to the time period we're gaming in (spell plague? Is that some Netheres thing from the fall? :D ). Sorry for the rant like behavior, but I am the FNG and I wanted to explain myself as to not cause a row.
Bhaern Quel
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Re: A suiter

Post by Bhaern Quel »

Just a few things you should know concerning Ed Greenwood

He does not and never has been employed by TSR or WotC.

By contract his statements about the Realms are canon unless succeeded by printed Forgotten Realms material.

So while Edward Greenwood words are not "divine law", he is indeed near to it as a prophet and sage of the Realms. Heck if WotC defaults on the contract, Ed will own the Realms once again (Not that it appears he wants all rights of the Realms to revert back, just is also part of his contract).
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Irennan
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Re: A suiter

Post by Irennan »

Zaknafriend wrote: Tue Oct 27, 2020 7:56 pm Well that's the thing. Every character in the game world passes through a filter that is the reader/gamer. And that's after these characters have been filtered by the staff at WOTC/Hasbro.

Say Author X has an idea for a character Roberto Awesomepants and puts it into the next splat book. However some of the back ground for Roberto has to be cut, say 2 sentences worth so some art for the opposite page will fit. So the editor trims down the entry. When we buy that book, we get Bob Apants. However the splat book doesn't do well and is left in obscurity. Later on a video game company is doing a game and a designer looks at the picture above Bob Apants entry and thinks about how this guy would make a great villain in his game. Sort of a sub-boss working for the main villain. But a translation error changes the spelling, and we get Boba Pants, mid tier villain with an established look from that splat book. In the sequel, we get a new voice actor, who delivers several kind of funny and infinitely quotable lines. He's popular, and there for bankable, so he's put into the latest edition of that splat book. The splat book itself is turned into a full world book entry, as there is a video game set there and so people clearly will want to tabletop there. Then a novelist comes along she writes about the area as the setting for the novel. However the publishing company's editor was talking about it with the game company's licences properties manager, and they both agree that character N-1 in chapters 3, 7 and 19 would be better (more bankable) if he was Boba Pants from the game books. Look at this picture from diveant art where the artist replaced his Las-cannon with a cat that lies about cake. So the author does some cursory changes, she's working on another book and doesn't have time to refit the plot to Boba, so Boba is changed to fit the plot of the book. It's small but it turns what had been a good hearted rakish characters into a incidental child murderer.

In these thought exercises it's hard to find solid ground on the way a character behaves because they are all written by so many hands and change dramatically over time. In relation to the Forgotten Realms we tend to default to Ed Greenwood as our guide (if one goes over to Candlekeep board, his word is treated as near divine law)but he isn't a definitive source in the way that JRR Tolkien would be on a Lord of the Rings. He works for WOTC/Hasbro.

All of this makes it tough to figure out. I can't comment on Mielikki in R.A.'s later novels because I've only read Iwd trilogy and the Homeland trilogy and one book with Wulfgar looking through a prison cell window. Iwd was great, Homeland wasn't bad and last one made no sense what so ever. I also read the spellfire trilogy, which is why I don't give Ed's work too much credit either (that third one... ouch).

A very long way for me to get around to saying I try to stick to just what appears in the game books and they need to relevant to the time period we're gaming in (spell plague? Is that some Netheres thing from the fall? :D ). Sorry for the rant like behavior, but I am the FNG and I wanted to explain myself as to not cause a row.
Eilistraee's lore gives you solid ground to portray her. Especially when the stuff that has her act OOC has been retconned by WotC, and is no longer canon. Same goes for Mielikki and RAS (RAS has Mielikki saying that orc babies must be exterminated, and the greenkins genocided, while in her lore Mielikki 1)never talks about this kind of stuff 2)has a best friend, Eldath, who's the patroness of a whole culture of peaceful, agrarian orcs, and has another best friend, Eilistraee, who has followers of *all* races. That's obviously something Mielikki would never even think of saying).

Anyway, there's a colossal difference between filtering a character while remaining true to their identity (which shouldn't depend on the author's view, but on the situation the character is in--more on this later), and having the character do whatever the author pleases because it's what thye author needs to make their story even exist (which tells a lot about how shitty their story-building was, since story and character must be built around each other, and if you need to alter a character to make them work in a story, you failed at designing the story). Personal tables, fanart, fanfiction, fan-whatever are an entirely different beast, because they don't affect the published setting, so you're free to do whatever you want with those things, including dramatically altering a character.

You see, a well crafted character isn't a matter of interpretation. If you build a character well, that characer has 1)a guiding theme/premise 2)motivations 3)goals 4)set of beliefs 5)a fatal flaw (which is not a flaw as we intend it, but a flaw in the sense that it lead the character to make mistakes and fail in relation to the so-called premise of his story, using a term coined by dramaturgist Lajos Egri). Moreover, all of that--and especially the fatal flaw--is the product of 3 dimensions of the character--environmental, physiological, psychological (though the latter is more a consequences of the former two). Eilistraee has all of that, even the fatal flaw (requires a long discussion to explain, but you can deduce it from her story; we can discuss it later if you wish). If you inherit a character done like that, you can't have them act OOC and hide behind "muh interpretation". In particular, you can't have that character act compeltely against her core traits and motivations, like it happened for Eilistraee. Also, if you have a piece of lore that tells you that "X character doesn't do Y", you can't have X character do exactly Y, and then hide behind "muh interpretation". You intentionally painted that character in a way that is objectively wrong for that character. There's no going around it.

As for Eilistraee, has a very well established character, and Elaine Cunningham consolidated her in her trilogy, where she highlighted her nurturer/empowerer traits. He's not only established through Ed's lore, but through the work of many who built on it, while being faithful to her character. WotC intentionally tried to smear her back in the 3e->4e transition (WotSQ 4-6 and LP), because they wanted people to dislike her before removing her (even Erik Scott de Bie confirmed that was WotC's intention; they had got to the point where they considered Eilistraee "an internet meme" and wanted to get rid of her forever. Thankfully that shit exploded in their faces), so that Drizzt would be "the only real good drow". So they had Eilistraee be just like Lolth, without the torture (actually, without some of it, since Smedman has Eilistraeans engage in mutilations as punishment) but self-righteous on top of that. Note that's only 2 authors, Smedman and Athans, to do this. Even in WotSQ itself, Baker's portrayal of the Eilistraeans is ok.

One thing I want to address. There's this notion that in crafting narrative everything goes, because "it's subjective". That's utter BS, and the hallmark of not knowing narratology. For something to be an art, there must be objective criteria to judge it, which go beyond "yo, I really dig this". The only thing subjective in narrative is how the character herself filters her world, and the author's choice of the character. The character herself, however, must be treated as a real, objective entity by the writer, and what they do in certain situations must be determined by how the character has been built. That's because you will *never* convince the reader that a character is real, you'll never get the reader to empathize with the character (as in, live the story as if they were the character), if you don't treat that character--and their perception--as if they were real, and not some kind of play-doh that has no shape and can be adapted to whatever you want for your story. So, the only situation where you can "filter" the character, is to put them in a situation that touches something the character has a strong opinion on, and will filter heavily. So, *your* filter is your choice of situation, but even that choice should be something the character gets themselves into due to their flaw, or that has something to do with their flaw. Generally, the character influences the story through their mistakes, and the story influences the character. Those two can't be taken apart. You build a character so that they filter *their* world through the lenses of their ideals, flaws, and perspective, and you build those things so that your character will filter the right details you need to convey your story, with its themes and tone, and so that you can choose the right language (style; in narrative the style *is* the content). You shouldn't take an existing character and alter them so that your story can work; if you do that, as I mentioned before, you ahve failed at screenwriting, and you have failed at basic respect for others if the character doesn't belong to you.
Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.
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