Guenevere (WIP)

Hosted Games Works In Progress
3599

@GloriaRose Unfortunately.

But as relates to Arthur’s virtues (not Arthur=virtues), Arthur actually would like Guen to be happy, whether she regards her marriage to him as a good thing or not, simply because he cares about her. He is sensitive and thoughtful, whatever else he is.

I deeply hope that Mordred is at best less so in any possible set of choices - Jean is already making him extremely gray (as opposed to black) as it is. At some point that has to have a darker hue or its just going to be outright a good thing.

Not going to be - with what Jean is writing - an outright “unambiguously villainous dink” no matter what, but there’s no good reason to my mind for it being set up so that Guen should ever be sure of his affection without any reason to doubt.

3600

@Elfwine the thing With Arthur as i see it is that he cares about everyone.

Hes so singel minded in his trust that he cant and wont, see The things around him (even when Guen tells him that Lance might have feelings for her in part 1 he denies it completly without any thoughts)

And The thing with my main MC Guen hating him is because hes so ignorant and ironic and a dreamer. That it annoys her because she cant stand thoose things. For she sees that as weakness…and she never even wanted to marry him in The first place, she was forced thus belives a marrige with force will never be a True marrige.

And The thing with you saying and i quote (" i deeply hope that Mordred is at best less so in any possible set of choices") Actually makes that hope of yours in my eyes, ignorent since everyone cares and loves in different ways and just because one, is White or black doesnt mean that they are 100% good or 100% bad.
Mordred might seem as The bad guy but is he really the villan here?

3601

@GloriaRose Yeah, Arthur loves everyone. How does that make his love for Guenevere less sincere?

As for Mordred:
I would certainly hope that he is the villain here instead of that being subverted simply for ambiguity’s sake.

Failing that, not being 100% bad doesn’t mean he actually cares about Guenevere on a personal level anymore than not being 100% bad meant that Peter the Great cared for his first wife.

3602

@Elfwine On the flipside, though, a villain can still be awful to people he considers beneath him and genuinely care for someone in his personal circle. Which could be the case with Mordred. I don’t think you have to write someone as completely unfeeling to make them genuinely villainous.

2 Likes
3603

@Elfwine i never said anything about Arthur’s love being less sincere. The only thing i said was even close to love is, and i quote “the thing With Arthur as i see it is that he cares about everyone”

Well then continue on hoping (Thats your option) but as i see it there is no hero or villan. For me there is only a lot of people struggelin with their emotions and their fate/dreams and so on.
And a “villian” for you, i might see as a “hero” and vice versa.

(doesn’t mean he actually cares about Guenevere on a personal level)= We shall see, its way to early to debate that.

3604

@GloriaRose

Sure. But that doesn’t mean that all characters care equally for the well being of others.

So I think it would be an extremely bad thing for the game to have that happen. My opinion, you can call it, but I think at some point this stops being recognizably Arthurian if Mordred isn’t even more selfish than Arthur.

3605

@Elfwine no human cares equally, thats what makes everyone their own persone.
What is actual Arthurian? There is so many version that leaves ones mouth open.

1 Like
3606

Um… I’m just trying to figure out how dangling someone over a volcano would prove their love… like, do you hold them over the lava and ask if they really love you, and if they say yes, you know they mean it? Or are you hoping they’ll say “Go ahead and kill me if you want; anything to make you happy, my love?” :stuck_out_tongue:

Assuming you mean in the actual game and not in the volcano scenario, probably by giving up something he genuinely wants at Guen’s request or for her benefit. And then cursing himself for his weakness.

As for Mordred’s evilness: His ideal government will indeed seem rational and appealing and not really evil to some people (and totalitarian to others). It’s the means by which he attempts to achieve those ideals that will be capital-e Evil. He’s a “end justifies the means” sort of guy.

5 Likes
3607

Could you please explain this? :confused:

3608

He means you can be a somewhat ok guy and still not care about someone you know, and on the alternate side you could be the scourge of humanity and still have people you love

3609

@GloriaRose Not sure if serious.

Yes, there’s too many versions in modern English alone to count. But if Merlin is the village idiot, Sir Kay is Arthur’s court jester, Arthur is a schizophrenic despot, Guenevere a guy in drag, Mordred a white knight, and the setting resembling medieval Sicily (in climate and customs and neighbors and so on), I think it’s pretty clear it’s not recognizable.

Would that be a bad story on its own merits? No. But it’s certainly hard to say that’s of the same tradition as T.H. White and John Steinbeck’s stories - and they’re definitely not the same story as each other despite that.

@Jeantown Your assumption is correct.

I mean, we can always ask you the author if X is that signal, and we could potentially get a straight answer - but it’s harder to tell just from the story alone, since he could always be faking it.

And good to know on the means. I’ll admit it, I want someone satisfying to hit at some point in this story (not to say all things should be solved by violence, but it is nice to have enemies you can genuinely want to see lose in a story). Mordred being such a someone matters.

@WulfyK Pretty much what Interestedparty said. Mordred doesn’t have to be 100% bad to not care about Guenevere.

I used Peter the Great as an example of someone who wasn’t all awful, but who still was a terrible husband to his first wife and a terrible father to his son Alexei to make matters worse.

3610

@jeantown haha xD i hadent thought that far, it was more off a joke :smiley::joy::laughing:

@Elfwine i was serious -_- anyways there is no such thing as original Arthurian legend since its more like a fanfiction over The centuries.

1 Like
3611

@GloriaRose Sure. It would be considerably less likely to get the fans this game is getting if there was a particular “This is the true story, everything else is wrong”.

But speaking for myself, if someone told a story using the characters above, and claimed it was “a real Arthurian story, Camelot and all”, I would say they’re being misleading at best, dishonest at worst - even if you could probably still talk me into giving it a chance simply in the sense of what kind of story would involve that cast.

3612

Well, actually, Elfwine…

Merlin as village idiot: Maybe not ‘Merlin’s official job is village idiot’ but as being the dumbest member in the cast, that’s been done, ESPECIALLY in parody versions like King Arthur’s Disasters. Mark Twain’s A Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur’s court plays that too in a serious way. And I’ve only seen a few episodes of BBC Merlin, but he was usually portrayed as being unreliable and kind of dumb, even if he was only faking it.

Sir Kay is Arthur’s Court Jester: Generally Dagonet is court jester, but if we’re going for ‘who is the useless comic relief’ type role in the cast, Sir Kay ends up as joke of the court quite a bit- him being the cowardly complainer people laugh at, or the bad at his job knight who gets defeated constantly to everyone’s amusement. He’s not even always seneschal- he was in charge of the kitchens only in Arthur Rex, though it’s been a while since I read that.

Arthur’s is a schizophrenic despot: Hoo boy, this pops up a lot- making the famously virtuous king actually an evil sob is a relatively popular reversal, ESPECIALLY if the ‘Mordred as a white knight’ aspect is included.

Guenevere a guy in drag: Okay, never seen this one specifically, but I’ve seen lady Guinevere pretend to be a man in at least two ‘Guinevere is a warrior/tomboy and wants to fight’ versions, and if there is an Arthurian story where she’s a man who dresses in drag I’m sure it does or will exist. Fate/Stay Night had a female arthur dress in male drag and pretend to be male. Going outside this realm, many Arthurians stories do gender switches, especially in fanart. Going into ‘the character is transgender’ there are a few Arthurian stories with the mains being transgender, the most recent one popping into my head being Jean-Luc Istin’s Lancelot series. Tristan from Camelot 3000 is a very famous transgender character (though due to the magical nature of the situation, it’s complicated).

Mordred a white knight: Jesus H. Christ, so many. Mordred as being a perfectly good guy who has been maligned is REALLY popular and recognizably Arthurian. A lot of modern famous ones go this route, esp. Mary Stewart’s.

Setting resembling medieval Sicily: Actually, Arthurian Lit has a very lovely and popular history in medieval Italy, and there are a variety that changes the setting to medieval Italy- or the setting is in England, but everyone acts with the same social customs and language of Italy so it’d be accessible to readers, kind of like how Ace Attorney game implants it into California. I’ve seen Arthurian stuff take place in a bunch of settings- the far off future of Camelot 3000, multiple theatre interpretations of Camelot that have it in a renaissance, barbarian/viking era, tudor-esque, etc setting. There are many American setting versions of Arthurian lit. The webcomic Arthur, King of Time & Space had a multitude of AUS- M.A.S.H au, Buffy au, western au, space au, modern day america au, etc, etc. The album High Noon Over Camelot is a steamunk space western and it’s the coolest thing ever!

S-Sorry to basically take this time to rant about different versions of Arthurian lit, but yeah- what I’m trying to get at, I think that these all are still pretty recognizable! Heck, a lot of these combine those aspects or have even WILDER stuff in them. For any of those suggestions that don’t have a perfect example in something, you can bet it will be made at some point!

A lot of these, like Mary Stewart’s and Arthur Rex and Conneticut Yankee or the Camelot musical are definitely considered of the same tradition of TH White and Steinbeck- I think that Arthurian myth is so long, so varied, that you can pretty much do whatever and people would still know it, and whether it’s considered as legitimate as the older stories depends on how the audience takes it. I mean, Lancelot’s technically an OC who just got really popular…in 500 years, maybe any of those things you listed will be considered part of the mainstream tradition and recognizable.

(ESPECIALLY Mordred as a good guy, that’s so popular already and been around for such a long while that I’ll eat my foot if it doesn’t become the norm at some point.)

4 Likes
3613

Holy crap, I want to make a Guen based around This Day Aria. It’ll probably just be an incompetent, flamboyant villain with a penchant for secrets, but in my heart I’ll know what she’s singing. Also, that song is now stuck in my head.

1 Like
3614

@thesunfloweramazon

More Arthurian lit:
http://london.sonoma.edu/Writings/GodLaughs/steak.html

@Kinruush Dooooo ittttt.

3615

Will Arthur ever express anger towards guinevere?, because so far I’ve never seen him react badly to anything a mean guen says to him

3616

@thesunfloweramazon As always, I stand in awe of the vastness of your knowledge. You’re totally my hero. :smile:

@Illmaster It will be possible in the future. Arthur’s not spineless and does have a breaking point.

3 Likes
3617

Ooh I want to see this breaking point. It always seems more scary and meaningful when someone gets angry who rarely does. Probably because you know you’ve really done something wrong. :smiling_imp:

I’m sorry this month has been tough for you, I hope it gets better and not worse.

1 Like
3618

@AJ_ I’m looking forward to writing it, because it will be so different from everything I’ve done with Arthur so far.

Thanks for the sympathy! My Darth Vader mask seems to be working, so at least the allergy issue is better. I’m resisting the urge to run around telling everyone I’m their father.

2 Likes