Let's Talk about Cardinal Richelieu

 Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla is working just fine after the last update, and that’s pretty darn cool! Especially because it has the Yule Festival and now a crossover with Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. I’m pretty excited for that.

Also I’m hoping that I will FINALLY finish putting up Puerto Rico pictures this weekend.

AND season two of The Witcher is now on Netflix wahoo!

Anyhow I saw the 1993 Three Musketeers from Disney and I had thoughts, mostly about Richelieu. My movie review is here but let’s talk about one of the greatest literary antagonists of all time.

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Let’s Talk About Cardinal Richelieu

My biggest issue with the 1993 Three Musketeers is that it does Cardinal Richelieu all wrong. Which is a shame. Mind you, their Cardinal Richelieu is still a blast to watch because he’s Tim Curry, and he’s having a ball chewing all the scenery and out-hamming every other performer on the set.

But the entire Plot of the movie is about stopping Richelieu’s plan to take the throne of France for himself, and… no. Just no. This isn’t Cardinal Richelieu’s thing! The entire movie is him walking around cackling and talking about how he’s so excited he’s going to be a tyrant and that’s not who Cardinal Richelieu was, in fiction or in reality. So… let’s back it up and explain Cardinal Richelieu.

Alright in the days of King Louis XIII of France, Cardinal Richelieu was appointed Chief Minister. Think, like Prime Minister. And despite the fact that a clergyman should definitely not be in charge of these things, Richelieu was actually really good at his job? Kings of France did not, at this point in history, have as much power as you’d think from the king of a major country, and Richelieu made sure that the royal court (or, himself, really) had a butt-ton of power to make sure the country ran smoothly. He also kept France going in wars against other countries, making the interesting choice to have alliances with Protestant nations despite being a cardinal and wars of religion being A Thing at this point (still had the Huguenots in France persecuted though). He had a reputation for being a conniving mastermind, which is probably based in truth considering that it’s him who brought the Rossignols into court, who went on to make an unbreakable cipher.

Richelieu was immortalized in literature as the villain of Alexandre Dumas’s The Three Musketeers. Except while he is the villain, he’s not… okay, he is that bad of a guy, but he’s not a cackling supervillain. He’s utterly ruthless and unsympathetic, but he also keeps the country running smoothly, and his plot is to have it publicized that the queen is having an affair with the Duke of Buckingham–which she IS, by the way (in the book). The Musketeers stop him because they think this will end in disaster. And when they foil his plot in the end, he actually offers them a promotion because he’s impressed with their work, and he knows that talent like that shouldn’t go to waste.

Richelieu cares about what happens to France. That doesn’t mean he can’t be petty or have other motivations–I believe in the novel it’s suggested that he once made advances on the queen, and she rebuffed him, and so he’s held a grudge against her ever since. Fine, whatever–but first and foremost is that he keeps the ship sailing smoothly. Everything else comes second to that, or at least he can spin it that way.

His plan in the 1993 movie is to take the throne. Why? Ignoring the historical impossibility of how that would even work (because who watches movies to think about history anyway?*), why would he want that? Richelieu’s entire schtick is being the power behind the throne. The movie justifies it as that the king’s becoming more independent and Richelieu doesn’t want that, but he’s also running the country pretty terribly as it is–it’s mentioned more than once that a lot of people are starving in the countryside, and already know it’s Richelieu’s fault.

Not only would a version of Richelieu faithful to the original story not want the throne, he’d never get the country to the point where average people are starving–and if he did, they certainly wouldn’t think to blame him.

I don’t like that the second season of the BBC Musketeers killed off Richelieu, but the actor they picked went off to be the Doctor so I get it. But I really, really like the first episode of the second season, in which they heroes all suddenly realize that even if Cardinal Richelieu was a scheming bastard, he kept the country pretty safe, running well, and the king from making too stupid decisions, and with him gone everything could quite easily go off the rails (which it does when Rochefort comes back).

In short, people seem to think that Cardinal Richelieu is Jafar or Mordred, a figure trying to take power for himself by whatever means necessary. No. He’s more like David Xanatos or Grand Admiral Thrawn. It’s not just hard to beat him, it’s hard to imagine what beating him would even look like, because he can easily turn any defeat into a victory by staying far enough from the action and taking notes on how to beat the heroes next time.

There’s a character in Invisible Library based off of his archetype, simply known as the Cardinal, and in his debut novel the heroes don’t have to defeat him–they can’t, he’s way above their pay grade anyway. It’s about convincing him why killing them would be against his best interests.

Cardinal Richelieu is this really complex and interesting villain. I would say I’m frustrated that not a lot of writers get that, but it seems that plenty do, actually. So it’s more frustrating when I see that someone doesn’t get it. I understand that the 1993 movie was probably trying to make the Plot a lot more accessible by simplifying the Plot to make it easier to understand to average moviegoers, and I can’t fault it too much for that. And again, Tim Curry is a lot of fun to watch. But the cackling Richelieu plotting for the throne? That feels so against the idea of who Richelieu is supposed to be that it seems like they could have, and should have, written an entirely different character there.

*Okay, sometimes I do that. But I try not to get bogged down by it.

Protagonist Power Levels

 Yesterday finished A History of What Comes Next! And supposedly there’s going to be a big announcement for Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla on Monday! Let’s see if I can get the game working by then.

The idea of doing a Note on Spider-Man and why the MCU version struggles to gain cookie points with me was considered, but a quick look through my Google Drive showed me I had already written a Note to that effect back in August 2019. I may revisit that topic, but I think it might be best to first watch No Way Home. Though it may devolve into gushing how amazing Into the Spider-Verse is.

Also I started jotting ideas for another Note but then saw I did that one too. Maybe I’ve written about this too and forgot, but who cares? We’re doing this.

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Protagonist Power Levels

So I’ve been working on my Iron Druid sporkings again and once again, I’m struck by something very frustrating with Atticus as a character: he’s way too powerful to start with. Even if we ignore that in the second chapter of his debut book he’s made practically immune to death (I’m not kidding) he’s still absurdly powerful from the get-go. And he’s more intelligent by miles–the villains are really bad at coming up with plans to kill him. The final battle with his longtime enemy, Aenghus Og, has him reveal that he’s so much more skilled at swordplay and so Atticus quite easily dispatches his foe.

It’s pretty stupid.

Really good hero/villain confrontations require the writers to work out a delicate balance of power. If the antagonist is not a challenge to the protagonist’s on physical terms, he must be in some other way. I’m not saying that the protagonist has to be a wimp compared to the antagonist–though it’s more relatable to the average reader I think–but being more powerful right off the bat? Probably not the right track. Hounded tries to hide this by having a lot of stupid subplots that kill the time until the finale.

Part of the difficulty of writing Superman, for instance, is writing a story in which he fights someone because, well, he’s Superman. When he fights someone, it tends to be someone who is in his weight class, power-wise, like General Zod, Doomsday, or Mongul. Or someone with kryptonite. And then there’s Lex Luthor, who isn’t as strong as Superman, but is wickedly intelligent and uses that brain of his to start evil plots that Superman has to stop. Also he carries a butt-ton of kryptonite (which actually gave him cancer in the DCAU).

In the conflicts in which his strength isn’t enough (which is more often than people think), Superman has to think of some other way to defeat the villain.

Or in the case of long-running serieses, it’s good to see how the protagonists grow over time. In something like the webseries RWBY. When we start the series, the main cast members are all incredibly skilled fighters by normal people standards, and the usual monsters they mow down with ease. But they’re still teenagers, and as the show goes on and they come across bigger monsters and other humans who are much more experienced, they’re very clearly outclassed. It’s not until about Volume 8 or so that our heroes even come close to fighting Neo on something like even footing–and even then, it’s a team effort. The only ones who clearly manage to completely trounce her are someone with godlike magical power, and someone who has decades of experience on her.

I think a good balance is Dresden Files? Harry Dresden is a very powerful wizard, and can take out mooks easily enough, but he’s still mortal, and many of the villains he faces aren’t, and are several levels above him. Most of the big villains are nowhere near characters he can beat on his own–and if they are, they’re smart enough to not face him alone. Again, it’s not about being able to out-magic his enemies, being more powerful than them. It’s about out-thinking them on many occasions, and he has to think of ways out of the conflict that don’t involve a straight-up fight. Sometimes that involves invoking the enemy’s weakness (like with faeries and iron), or it’s about getting someone else to take care of the problem (like summoning Mab or the Wardens to clean up a problem).

The point I’m making is: you absolutely cannot have your protagonist be superior to your antagonist in every way and still make it feel like a satisfying story. Maybe your hero is stronger than your villain! But then you have to work out why that villain still poses a challenge to the hero, in a way that’s not “Because the Plot refuses to let them meet until the end.”

And this doesn’t mean your heroes have to be weak to begin with! But there’s a difference between ‘hero starts out strong,’ and ‘hero starts out, and continues to be, able to curbstomp his problems with no difficulty.’ Leveling up the hero as the story goes on is one way to do it. Making your hero have to outsmart or outmaneuver the enemy is another.

Just don’t try working with an invincible hero from the start. It’ll either be really boring or really annoying.

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On Character Descriptions

 Today is my dad’s birthday and the plan is to cook him a jambalaya and cobbler tonight. So I have that to look forward to! I also hope to get a good walk in, some Christmas shopping, and get a bit further with “Tombs of the Fallen” in Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla this weekend, but the game keeps freezing when I get to East Anglia so not sure how that will go!

Also I read a comic that had been on my to-read list for ages on Goodreads, and sadly it wasn’t as much fun as I hoped. Oh well.

And I think at least some Puerto Rico pictures will show up on Facebook this weekend.

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How to Tackle Character Descriptions in Prose

I’ve been thinking a lot about this and I figured this would just be a thing I talked about verbally, until I sat down Thursday and figured, hey, this would actually be an okay Saturday Note topic. But basically: I’m starting to get kind of fascinated about the ways in which authors of books decide to design and describe characters. 

For example, I think most of the writing guides I’ve seen in the past decade or so try to discourage the notion of you stopping the action to describe what a character looks like, especially the main character. The surprisingly popular way of doing this, which I’ve seen almost universally condemned, is the Mirror Scene, in which the protagonist is getting ready for his or her day and looks into the mirror, and explains to the audience what he or she looks like. And I get that halting everything to give a description, especially if it’s not a good one, can be incredibly annoying, but how else are you going to get this information across?

And there ARE ways, but then you have to work to spread that information out in a way that’s not an infodump, or accept that not all the details you have in your head are going to make it into the text. If you DO put that much detail, you have to make sure it’s applied fairly consistently. I’ve noticed that sometimes authors will put plenty of detail into describing one or two characters but not work on the others. Kevin Hearne in the Iron Druid books (at least the first two) has attractive female characters described in pretty excruciating details in their outfits and the way they look, whereas most of the male characters are given much more basic descriptions--in that case it’s pretty obvious what’s caught the author’s interest.

Something I find really interesting is how a lot of authors manage to describe a character really well without actually giving you a ton of details? They hand out abstract ideas more than concrete information. Moist von Lipwig is, for instance, said to be really average-looking with no obvious distinguishing facial characteristics, and other than maybe his hair color and a couple of basics we’re not given much to go on. Which is part of the point, as Lipwig uses his nondescript appearance to avoid the authorities as a con man and thief.

I first started really noticing this with a blog post from Rick Riordan ages ago, when he mentioned that he doesn’t do detailed character descriptions in his books, citing that he wants readers to make their own images from imaginations, as they’re probably going to do that anyway while reading. And he’s right? Percy Jackson isn’t given that much of an obvious description--we’re told he’s got dark hair and green eyes, and maybe he looks mischievous. The sequel series tells us he’s apparently attractive for a guy his age, and that he looks a bit like a skater kid. And it’s said in a roundabout way that he’s white. I think my favorite description though is Annabeth--Percy tells the audience she’s pretty, with blonde curls first when he’s flitting in and out of consciousness, but then when he’s fully awake that she would look like a stereotypical California girl, except that her gray eyes ruined the image.

And right there, you probably have in your head a very solid image of what she looks like, to you, but the author managed to get that picture in your head. It works really well when he’s describing the gods as well, because with the Greek mythology theme he’s depicting them as archetypes that are adapted to American culture. Telling you that Ares is a mean-looking biker, or that Poseidon is tanned and wearing Hawaiian shirts, or Zeus is in a pinstriped suit--this all gives you a better picture, one that feels better for you, than if he did paragraphs upon paragraphs giving you exact body proportions and facial features.

Also going on character descriptions: I don’t remember exactly covering this one point in a creative writing class, but there’s a tendency to try to make sure that characters fit our expectations in that they way they look “fits” with their personality traits. And that’s not bad in and of itself, and there are ways in which it really works. But I also really like when character descriptions subvert your expectations?

Right now I’m slowly working my way through the Witcher books, for instance, and there’s a character, Sigismund Dijkstra, who we are told is fat and bald and large, and dresses flamboyantly, giving the impression of a well-dressed pig. And you know what his job is? He’s head of Redanian intelligence--and he’s darn good at his job. It’s a bit wasted because from the beginning of his appearances the viewpoint characters all know exactly who he is, so it’s not as if the discrepancy ever actually becomes relevant.

I would like more authors to really play around with character descriptions like this? To have a character look a certain way that automatically brings to mind a certain personality or archetype and then have the person act in a completely different way than one would expect from the way the person looks. This isn’t that rare in fiction at all (though usually it’s reserved for villains who look like heroes), but I would like it to be more varied in different character types other than ‘Here’s a bad guy who looks like a good guy,’ or vice-versa.

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Different Types of Fantasy Government

 I have sent more letters in the past month than I would have expected. I need to get more stamps though…

It is likely that I will not have a Saturday Note next week--I’ll be a bit busy.

The idea of doing another ‘fantasy based on this historical setting would look like this’ Notes, with Italian Renaissance and colonial Caribbean being the ones that were at the top of my list. I thought I should read Stravaganza before that Renaissance one though.

The last Expanse book comes out soon! 

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Fantasy Forms of Government That Would Be Cool

I was thinking of Saturday Note ideas, and I think maybe I’ve done something like this before, but I’m low on topic ideas and I’m having a stressful week. So this!

You’ll notice that in fantasy, there’s a tendency to do one kind of government: that’s monarchy. Usually a very simple idea of monarchy, based less on history and more on fairy tales of what monarchy was like. And that’s not bad! But even the deconstructions don’t seem to get that there are different ways to do government other than ‘fairy tale monarchy’ and ‘modern day representative government.’ Or dictatorship. I guess that’s a popular trope to use too. 

But not all historical governments were like this! And I think fantasy, by its nature being fantasy, could do a lot better than that. They could show a lot more variety here.

Two (or More!) Kings

You know ancient Sparta had two kings? That always confuses me. They also didn’t have absolute power, as they had to run things by the ephors and other bodies of citizens rather than getting to do whatever they wanted regarding any subject.

Actually Narnia in its Golden Age had four monarchs. I guess we keep forgetting that.

And I’m curious to see if a fantasy author can do something interesting with more than one king in a country. Do they split up the country geographically? Do they have a rivalry (probably)? Do they actually get along very well (unlikely but would make an interesting and unique dynamic)? Does one of them do administration and another one does military matters? Is kingship hereditary or is it elected somehow from a pool of candidates?

Representative Government

Alright this covers a very large number of government types, but I rarely see parliaments or something like the Estates General in fantasy fiction. Sometimes I see a senate, I guess. But that’s something we can do a lot with? People seem to think that if you take away the aristocratic titles that it eliminates the drama of people in power or a ruling class, but, uh--[waves at government in the US]

And there’s this notion that a republic or a democracy is inherently less likely to be incorrupt, or less corrupt, than a monarchy or dictatorship, and so there’s less to be milked out there for drama. Which plainly isn’t true? Part of the reason that the Roman Empire rose up was because the Republic was hopefully inept at cleaning up its own messes due to corruption and civil wars every decade or so.

Have characters be in the representative body! Have them deal with the problems of trying to get a law passed through it! Or the hoops you have to jump through to make something as straightforward as war happen! Or show how fragile that type of government can be.

Wizard King/Queen

Alright obviously plenty of villains are sorcerer kings but what if they weren’t the villains? I’m not saying they’re going to be all good--I think having that much power will not be a great thing for anyone’s emotional stability. But something I think about sometimes is how Saruman in Lord of the Rings is trying to set himself up as a wizard king, and what would that even look like?

Would a wizard king have a court of a bunch of other wizard aristocrats? Would a wizard king value knowledge of magic over noble bloodlines? Or does he outlaw other magicians to make sure he’s the one guy in power? How much magic does he use in his everyday life?

Loose Confederation of Differently-Run States Under One King

The Earth Kingdom in Avatar: The Last Airbender actually has this, which apparently confuses some people because again, their understanding of monarchies is based entirely off of half-remembered fairy tales. It’s a Plot Point in the fourth season of Legend of Korra that Kuvira is reforming them all into a single state under one dictator rather than the loose confederation with their own way of doing things, isn’t it? We didn’t forget this?

And I like this idea of a country in a fantasy world that has several different “states” or provinces or whatever that are all under the same government, but have vastly different cultures and styles of doing things? So one of them has a king, another has a senate, or another has a council, and one is a theocracy or whatever. And trying to get them to all agree on something can take forever.

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King Raven & the English Monarchy

 What’s this? I actually came up with the Saturday Note topic on Monday??? SORCERY!

The last two days of the week have been DOOZIES, and I’m hoping going to YALLFest this weekend will be the healing balm that will make it all okay. The rest of this month is going to kick into high gear, and I can’t promise more Saturday Notes. I don’t know what’s going to happen! Probably one more though. We’ll see.

Oh fudge this is going to kill my word count for the month, isn’t it? And my Christamas shopping….

I finished King Raven though! I personally think it’s Stephen Lawhead at his best.

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King Raven & Royal Power

So Stephen Lawhead, an American Christian author who moved to the UK and became obsessed with Celtic Christianity and pre-Christian mythology/folklore. And he wrote a series about Robin Hood, in which he made him Welsh and set it in the reign of William II because Reasons. (Okay, he does explain it and I think it makes sense but I’m someone who is not a historian or expert or scholar of any sort so I couldn’t say whether or not it’s actually convincing.)

And something I’ve been thinking about ever since finishing the second book, Scarlett, is that Lawhead has a different view of the King of England than a lot of mainstream takes on Robin Hood. To be clear, it’s also a different king--William Rufus rather than Richard the Lionheart. But still, I think there’s something interesting here. Most Robin Hood stories are about restoring the rightful king, and once Richard gets back, or back when he was king (in stories in which his restoration is impossible) everything was much better. An odd take for a story featuring an outlaw, but there you go.

Part of this is because King Richard I has a very popular image in the English-speaking world to this day. Yeah, there are some people who look at him more critically, but overall, opinion of him is pretty good. Outside of the English-speaking world, I don’t quite know for sure--the Arn the Knight Templar trilogy has a whole schtick where the main character declares that the world will know him as an oathbreaker and murderer after the massacre in Acre, but I don’t know if that’s actually how he’s viewed in that book series’s home country.

King Raven does not have a great view of kings in general. Which is not quite what I think most people would expect if I was talking about a historical fiction trilogy with explicit Christian leanings. I don’t think it’s too out there--after all, the Bible is not very kind to kings in general, something a lot of hardcore traditional Catholics seem to forget. When Israel is demanding to get a king like all the other countries, God explicitly tells Samuel to remind them that kings will take all their best stuff and could very well turn out to be a tyrant, as many of them turn out to be.

Lawhead’s books don’t demonize William Rufus, but they also don’t make him out to be that great of a guy? The ending of the last novel has them making their peace with him (after spending like a week filling his knights with arrows), and Bran swears fealty to him, but it’s not because they realize he’s the divinely-appointed ruler of Britain. It’s because that’s the best way they decide to end bloodshed, and William’s got other things he needs to do. Basically, he’s tired of it, and Bran wants an end to the war.

The previous book has another instance in which they help William II by revealing to him the conspiracy against him among his own aristocrats, and use it to try to get the throne of Elfael back. And the characters actually seriously consider siding with William’s enemies. Ultimately they side with William not because they owe loyalty to the throne or English/Norman monarchy, but because they think he’s more likely to be in their corner because of their bargaining chip of information. It’s not out of love, it’s just because William is more likely to get them what they need.

Obviously this is heavily influenced by the characters all being Welsh. Yeah, of COURSE they’re not going to preach about the virtues of the King of England, because the only reason there is a King of England is because of people repeatedly coming in and conquering them. Their attitude is of a people suffering under the colonialism of the Norman warrior aristocracy, after suffering under the colonialism of the Saxon warrior aristocracy. It’s not their king, it’s the king of their oppressors. Their relationship needs a lot more work if it’s going to get anything close to love or patriotism.

Although to be fair other kings aren’t necessarily portrayed that well either. Bran’s father isn’t an evil man, but he’s explicitly distant and he tends to try to use force or stubbornness against any annoyance that pops up around him, which Angharad points out to Bran. King Gruffud (who was a real guy, I just found out???) isn’t evil either, but upon being freed by Bran to get help for Elfael, turns around and says he can’t do that because it’s too much work, even AFTER promising to do anything Bran needs for him. He shows up at the end, basically after he’s convinced that they can win by other folks. And Merian’s father is a good king to his people, mostly, but he bends very easily to the Normans, and he’s happy to send his daughter off to live with a baron who is definitely creepily into her against said daughter’s objections.

Lawhead doesn’t hate kings, obviously--look at his other books and I think that becomes clear. But I find it amusing that a openly Christian author has a much more cynical view of kingship and medieval politics than you’d expect, definitely more so than most mainstream Robin Hood depictions. And I think it’s a more realistic take? And one that, in today’s conversations about colonialism, feels better (though by no means perfect) because it highlights the injustice of the system all the while recognizing the need to work within it.

Or something?

I don’t know, I’m tired. I haven’t been sleeping well.

Maybe the point is that you’re supposed to go into the woods, dress like a bird, and jump on people until you get your house back.

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On Mythological Accuracy

 Hallo! I have had a weird week. When I’m typing this I still haven’t put up all of the pictures from last weekend, but those shall hopefully go up shortly. I have not updated the Book Diary in a few days because I’m currently reading the second-to-last Wheel of Time, which is great fun! I’m also currently watching both Maya and the Three on Netflix and Gravity Falls on Disney+ and those are fun! The former of which is part of what made me think about this Saturday Note idea.

I might see Dune this weekend? That might be cool. I don’t know when I’d see Eternals, but while I like the premise, see my recent Note on Black Widow to see the thought process I’m having regarding that movie.

Maybe I've talked about this before but too bad!

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On Mythological Accuracy in Fiction

I sometimes think about this article written by one of my colleagues on ImpishIdea, back when I had colleagues on ImpishIdea. The thrust of it is that urban fantasy authors often mix up mythologies, get the originals wrong, all in trying to make it fit within patterns of mythology and fantasy creatures established by pop culture, which is itself mostly drawn from European folklore in general and English folklore in specific.

Or in short, calling fantastical creatures that aren’t from European folklore ‘fairies’ is bad because that’s not what other people would have called them.

And at the time I remember thinking it was a good article, and I think it does bring up good points. But I also think that it misses that A) in fiction, you should be able to do what you want with your underlying mythology, and B) the kind of people who just sit and call fiction inaccurate to real life are really annoying to hang out with. There’s not nothing to this school of criticism, especially when an author is claiming to stick to real life or act as if he or she is doing a ton of research when clearly this person has not--Dan Brown comes to mind. And when the author is claiming to try to represent to your different mythologies in a way clearly meant to reflect some level of accuracy, when it doesn’t--like in Angelopolis or in Tiger’s Curse--then yeah, go ahead and make these criticisms.

But this seems to be mostly “You need to be 100% accurate to the original mythologies if you’re going to use them!” and that’s… not that great a take. Because calling non-European extra-human creatures from folklore ‘fairies’ is actually not a bad thing--it gives a point of reference to readers. The idea of “other folk”, or a human-like species that lives alongside humanity out in the wilderness somewhere, and has magic or a connection to nature that we don’t, is a very common idea throughout human history. And no, they weren’t always called ‘fairies’ but it’s a good enough descriptor and gives audiences an idea of what we’re talking about even if they don’t understand the other cultures involved.

The Onyx Court series by Marie Brennan is about a faerie court nestled under London at different points in history, and one of the books set during the 1700’s has them get a visitor from the Middle East, a djinni. And he is described as a faerie, albeit a foreign one which they don’t understand very well. No, a djinni was not described as a fairy in the stories, because the culture it comes from doesn’t have that word, but it fits a similar role in the mythology and folklore that I don’t think that term is unjustified there.

[There’s actually his whole amusing thing because the English/British fae are all hurt by overt symbols of faith and religion, and they’re absolutely baffled by this djinni who is a devoutly religious Muslim down to his name.]

Likewise, I also remember for Aliette de Bodard’s Obsidian & Blood trilogy, she wrote a series of blog posts describing Nahuatl culture and religion to help make the series more accessible, and when talking about the religion followed by the people of the Aztec Triple Alliance, she describes the different gods. And someone called her out in the comments pointing out that it’s not exactly an accurate way to portray the way the people in question thought of their religion. The author agreed, but pointed out that it’s a difficult thing to accurately convey to people from mostly European-influenced culture, and this is also pointed out in the author’s notes in the books themselves. This historical supernatural murder mystery’s going to be a lot harder to tell and make interesting if we have to introduce a completely foreign way of understanding divinity to the audience.

I’m also currently watching Maya and the Three which is inspired by mostly Mesoamerican culture, and many of the deities depicted are named after beings from Aztec and Mayan mythology. Some of which are used in wildly different ways from the original stories. The main villain is Lord Mictlan, the god of war, and if you know Nahuatl mythology you’ll know that Mictlan is the name of the underworld, not a particular deity. Gutierrez did the same thing with Xibalba in Book of Life.

And I don’t care because this is a series aimed at young people that isn’t meant to teach you about Mesoamerican mythology as much as tell an interesting story with a Mesoamerican basis to it. It doesn’t have to be accurate to the myths.

“But how would you feel if they did that to your culture/religion?!”

My dude. Have you seen a horror movie in the past forty years? Most of them display an understanding of Catholicism that might be gained from scanning Wikipedia articles and half-remembered Catholic school classes. I remember there’s a Tumblr blog (notbecauseofvictories, if you’re curious) that refers to Christianity as used in fiction like Supernatural to be “McNugget Christianity”; that is to say, mashed up and processed to make a treat, but not as fulfilling as the real chicken, or even really all that close when you look at the finished product.

Thai isn’t to say that I don’t appreciate it when fiction using mythology is accurate to the myths. The Lighting Thief still has a very special place in my heart because it is one of the first pieces of fiction about Greek mythology that I remember using Hades as a character and not making him into a stand-in for Satan. Instead he’s as he was in the myths--the lord of the underworld, and not someone you want to cross, but by no means evil, and he’s more than a little stressed about all the pressure he has in running a kingdom. And Riordan’s Greek mythology books, while not always 100% accurate, show an understanding of the myths that you rarely ever see in even adult fiction. Riordan has linked to Theoi on his website quite a lot, so he knows his stuff, and just takes liberties for the fiction, or to make the story more superheroic.

But not everyone has to do this. Especially when we’re talking about mythologies that are not as well-documented as the Greco-Roman one is. Neil Gaiman has admitted he extrapolated a lot for his use of Slavic mythology in American Gods, and today a large chunk of what we see there isn’t believed by scholars, but it makes a good story so we let it slide.

Story! That is important above almost all else! Above mythological accuracy to be sure. Again, if you’re stupid and trying to tell the audience that you’ve totally done your homework when you clearly haven’t, that’s a problem. Even then, that can be maybe excused if the story’s still good. If you’re using mythology, telling the story, and making it comprehensible to the audience, is much more important than whether or not you tell each myth accurately. Obviously be respectful of other cultures, but if you’re not 100% accurate I don’t think it’s that big of a deal.

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Dragonwatch vs. Camp Jupiter

 I had this idea, and I didn’t think it was completely fair because I haven’t even read all the Dragonwatch books that are out yet. But I couldn’t think of much else that I wanted to talk about other than that I want Argonian werewolves and vampire dragons in fiction.

I know, lame.

Anyhow I’m playing Discovery Tour on AC: Valhalla, and I’m happy to learn stuff, so far I don’t find it as interesting or as cool as the Discovery Tour for AC: Odyssey, and again I’m more than a little annoyed that it tries to go with “Vikings pillaged, colonized, and enslaved, but they probably weren’t that bad! That was probably just Catholic propaganda! And they probably didn’t even know that monasteries had religious significance!”

Not amused.

Anyway let’s talk about Dragonwatch and Heroes of Olympus.

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Dragonwatch vs. Camp Jupiter

Are you familiar with the Greek mythology books by Rick Riordan? I kind of hope so because I talk about them a lot in Saturday Notes. But basically Percy Jackson and the Olympians tells the story of how the Greek gods survived into modern day, still have demigod children, and those demigods, if they survive long enough, train at Camp Half-Blood on Long Island to learn how to fight monsters and not die. The overarching Plot, told from the point of Percy himself, depicts the return of the Titans and their second war with the gods, and it ends by wrapping up almost everything but teasing more with a quick prophecy that no one wants to deal with.

The sequel series, Heroes of Olympus, introduces a butt ton more viewpoint characters and redoes the war between the gods and the giants. This one introduces the previously never-mentioned or even hinted-at camp for Roman demigods called Camp Jupiter, and the conflict between the Greek and Roman camps takes center stage and drives a large chunk of the Plot.

Got it? Good, okay.

Alright so in the past couple of years I started reading Fablehaven by Brandon Mull. The premise is that there are these sanctuaries that are nature preserves for magical creatures like fairies and dragons all around the world, and the siblings Kendra and Seth Sorenson find out that their grandparents run one called ‘Fablehaven.’ And that’s cool and all, but it also sucks because there’s this organization called the Society of the Evening Star which is hellbent on bringing down the sanctuaries and taking the magical artifacts housed there so they can open the demon prison for nefarious purposes. (Does anyone open the demon prison for benevolent purposes? A clue: no.) To do this our heroes are given magic powers, and join the Knights of Dawn, a group dedicated to fighting the Society of the Evening Star.

The sequel series is Dragonwatch, in which everyone’s like, “Okay, now that the demons are out of the way you guys know that dragons will make their play to take over the world?” And our heroes join Dragonwatch, a group within the Knights of Dawn that tries to make sure dragons don’t take over the world. This involves going to Wyrmroost, one of the dragon sanctuaries, and then going to some other previously-unvisited preserves.

Got it? Good, okay.

In terms of Sequel Series Plots, the point I’m writing this essay to say is: Dragonwatch does it, overall, better.

To be clear, I’m not saying that Dragonwatch is the superior series overall, or that Brandon Mull is a better writer. I think he and Rick Riordan have different strengths. Honestly, there are a lot of characters I have trouble remembering in Fablehaven and Dragonwatch, and I think that Mull introduces more characters than he really has the time to develop them, to begin with. But as a sequel series, I think Mull’s works better.

See, Heroes of Olympus tells us that there’s apparently a completely different, never-before-hinted-at faction of demigods doing Plot-relevant things in the war against the Titans on the other side of the country (in an area our heroes specifically have been around) and we’ve just never heard of them. Neither has anyone else. And in the book that they’re introduced, they’re apparently close enough that it seems like they’re always at least just-missing each other--our Greek-inclined heroes overhear monsters mentioning a son of Mercury, and we’re later told that the Roman demigods led an assault on the Titan fortress, an event never hinted at and no one mentions other than to say that it happened and that Jason was a badass during it. No mention of casualties in that siege, no mention of other events that went down, just… yeah, that happened. There’s also an entire city attached, with a thriving population, its own university--and there are adult demigods all over the country who are happy to play a support role to questing demigods.

It doesn’t fit with what we’ve already been told, is what I’ve getting at here. Camp Jupiter and the Roman faction feels tacked on and it’s obvious that the author didn’t think of it during the composition of the first series.

Compare this to Dragonwatch. I don’t think that Brandon Mull thought of the Dragonwatch organization when writing Fablehaven, but it doesn’t stick out that much. We’re told earlier on that the dragons are dangerous, even when they’re helping the heroes against the demons, and there are plenty of magical sanctuaries we haven’t seen but we know are out there. It’s made abundantly clear that there are a lot of places in the magical world that Kendra and Seth haven’t visited, but are mentioned or alluded to by other characters. In short: it doesn’t come out of nowhere. There is room prepared for this to happen.

Both serieses have this issue of “Everything’s resolved, but now we’re telling you what happens next, and so characters arcs you thought were resolved are back with very little justification.” And that’s frustrating. But when speaking about the main thrust of the Plot and the faction introduced that drives it, Dragonwatch for Mull and Camp Jupiter for Riordan--I think Mull wins out in this case because there is room for this group and this Plot to exist. It doesn’t work that well to just pull another faction out of nowhere and insist they’ve been there the entire time.

And yeah, with long-running series stuff like this is bound to happen sooner or later, but it’s something to keep in mind while worldbuilding. If you have an idea for something to add, make sure you leave room for it in the story you’re telling right now.

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Child Protagonists Again

 My Friday was… difficult because my stomach was giving me trouble, so I was spending a lot of time grumbling and running to the restroom which is Not Fun. And that’s a shame because I was really looking forward to this weekend? Hopefully I’m much better by the time I get to posting this and you get to reading this.

Anyhow I’ve started “Wrath of the Druids” so I’m exploring Ireland in the Viking Age now. And Discovery Tour comes out next week!

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Have a Reason for Child/Teen Protagonists

I know I’ve talked about this before, but every so often these days I see a post on Tumblr that says something like, “Of COURSE YA stories have teen heroes! That’s the genre! That’s the audience! Any examination of why teens or children are the ones saving the world is just being a stupid nitpick!” And I… well, as you can probably guess from my previous writing on the subject, I strongly disagree with that assertion.

Again, I’m not saying that you can’t have heroes who are children or teenagers, and that they can’t do Cool Action Things, but I think it absolutely has to be addressed in the story. I think if you don’t have an explanation for why grownups aren’t doing this, either explicitly supplied to the reader or implied by the subtext, then you’re in an awkward situation and you could have done this better.

Especially considering that there are plenty of reasons why there would be juvenile heroes completing the tasks! It’s not that hard to come up with an explanation of one sort or another. The three that I came up with in my notebook:

ONE--The Adults are dead/busy/incapacitated. Maybe there are capable grownups in the setting, but they can’t handle it because they’re not around. Spy Kids, Young Justice (the season one finale and all of season two), and Avatar use this one. In a couple of those listed examples, the kids are also required to save the adults--that’s the mission at the end of season one of Young Justice and the first Spy Kids.

I give Avatar: The Last Airbender a lot of leeway here too, because from the getgo we’re told all the adults in the Southern Water Tribe are away at war, and it’s lampshaded plenty of times that these kids really shouldn’t have to be the ones to do this, and they go through plenty of trauma because of it, but they’re the ones who have to. Also the Avatar has to be the one to set the world right.

Percy Jackson has this variation in that demigods tend to not live to adulthood, and so of course that kids are the ones who are prepared to deal with the situation. There are no adults, apparently--other than the gods themselves, but we’ll get to that in a minute. The explanation doesn’t feel quite right because it basically means everyone we get attached to is statistically likely to die. The sequel series is worse about that because it straight-up tells us that the Roman camp has adult demigods, they just don’t care about their children marching to war, I guess.

There’s also Wee Free Men in which Tiffany is the only witch for miles. Miss Tick leaves to go get help, and that help doesn’t arrive until the very end of the story. And Tiffany can’t wait that long! She’s got to go save her little brother, even if he’s a bit obnoxious about begging for candy.

TWO--The Protagonists don’t trust the grownups/the grownups are untrustworthy. Basically, the heroes do it themselves because they can’t tell the adults in the setting. Harry Potter runs on this a lot, especially the first installment. The Trio keeps trying to tell the authority figures around them that they just know that Snape is trying to steal the Philosopher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone, and none of them believe them because they assert that the protections around the thing are too strong and that Snape is trustworthy. They take it upon themselves to handle it because no one believes the threat is real.

[And to be fair, it turns out that Snape isn’t trying to steal Stone at all, but SOMEONE is and if they’d paid attention they would have been able to deal with it.]

A notable take on this that I really like is the webcomic Gunnerkrigg Court in which our main character Antimony doesn’t trust the authority figures in the school, and goes on a mission with her friends to solve the Plot, only to require backup. And Jones, one of the good adults in the Court, straightforwardly tells Antimony that if only she bothered to tell her what was going on, Jones could have helped fix everything a lot faster.

You also have things like The Dragon Prince in which many of the adults in these characters’ lives are normally trustworthy people, but the fact is that they would try to stop these kids on their mission if they knew what was going on. General Amaya is a fantastic aunt, but if she knew that the kids were travelling with Rayla to Xadia to return the egg of the Dragon Prince to his mother, she would turn them right around and march them home, and Callum and Ezran know it. This adds the complexity that the adults mean well but still won’t solve the problem and do what the kids know needs to be done.

And sometimes the adults really aren’t trustworthy for different reasons. I cited Percy Jackson above, and the later books reveal that the gods are too divided to efficiently handle the situation. They take forever to really agree that the Titans are returning and that they should go to war with them. And they spend so much time arguing with each other that most of the minor gods defect to the enemy’s side right as Kronos starts recruiting, and bringing many of their less-appreciated demigod children with them.

THREE--only the child/teenage protagonist is equipped with the powers to handle this. There are adults around, and they would gladly handle it if they could, but they can’t because they don’t have the powers necessary. Avatar again comes to mind--Aang is the Avatar, and so he kind of has to do these things because no one else is capable of bending all four elements and being the human bridge to the spirit world.

Or something like Runemarks, in which Maddie is the only person around with any of the titular runemarks and thus, the capability of learning Aesir magic. At least, she’s the only one with a whole runemark--there are other people and animals in the area with partial runemarks, but she’s got a full one, and it’s what lets One Eye/Odin know that she can do what he needs her to do.

It doesn’t have to be powers, as such. The title character of Artemis Fowl doesn’t usually have any sort of powers, but he is the only one with the connections in the fairy world and the intelligence to handle all of the complicated Plots going on. He’s the smartest one in the setting, so he’s the one who gets to fix things. Ir in the case of the first book, the one instigating the Plot because he starts out as a supervillain.

There are, perhaps, variations on all of these situations, and definitely ways to mix and match them. But the point being, there needs to be a something. Maybe it’s a throwaway line. Maybe it’s a quick explanation. Maybe it’s implied more than explicitly stated. Fine, whatever--but you do need to give a reason as to why the kids are doing The Thing, because otherwise it doesn’t make sense! And I (because my criticism is clearly the only one you should really care about, I think) will sit there wondering why a capable adult isn’t handling the problems.

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