All this talk of personalities is a great opportunity for me to talk about my Guens! I have 4 main ones right now-
Good Girl Guen- pretty much her in a nutshell. She’s sweet and kind and slightly naive (not quite as much as Arthur though ). She, like Arthur, believes in seeing the good in all people and supports his vision whole-heartedly. She also tends to get carried away quite easily. Her main specialties are Dark and Light Magic. She loves Arthur and is totally devoted to him. She is fond of Lancelot but his affections make her a bit uncomfortable, and she’s very good friends with Morgana. She’s off to Michaelsmount to save Arthur and sent Lance back to Camelot.
Canon Guen- this is where I tried to stick with traditional Arthurian legend. This Guen is concerned with carrying out her duties and being a good queen, but she just can’t get around the fact that she isn’t attracted to Arthur. She felt sad at the prospect of being sent from home, but she tries to make the best of the situation. She’s well-meaning and practical, and is often quite calm and level-headed. Her main skills are Leadership and Light Magic. She considers Arthur as a slightly annoying friend but she isn’t in love with him. At all. On the other hand, she tried to ignore her feelings for Lancelot but just couldn’t deny her love for him, so they’re now having an affair. She also has a good relationship with Morgana. She is going to Frankmarch to form an alliance with Radagund and also sent Lance back to Camelot.
Manipulative Guen- this one is my favourite. She’s clever and perceptive and has always been good at getting people to do what she wants. She likes power and she wants a lot of it. She has a good heart but DO NOT get on her bad side or she’ll make you pay (more of a Margaery Tyrell than a Cersei Lannister). She’s pretty sarcastic and likes flirting and teasing people. Leadership and Combat are her thing. She thinks Arthur is far too trusting and idealistic, but despite that she actually surprised herself by falling in love with him; she steers him towards her line of thinking whenever she can. Too bad she also fell in love with his sister- someone she absolutely respects and admires. She has no intention of telling Arthur about their relationship; she finds the secrecy quite exciting, and is glad that her and Morgana can be with someone they weren’t forced to be with. She likes Lance a lot but has made it clear that it. Isn’t. Going. To. Happen. She’s going to Camelot to show what a great ruler she is and sent Lancelot to Michaelsmount to save Arthur’s butt.
Token Evil Guen- this one I have yet to play through and develop properly because I hate being horrible to the three mains (I love them a lot, OK?) Basically she hates everyone because they’re all too stupid and trusting, she’ll turn everyone against each other while making sure they all love her and then inevitably screw them over. She’ll probably get with Mordred and then have a good laugh at everyone else’s misery.
English is a language too much filled with acronyms And felt like gibberish to me, I read Sybjv rthvf Wefxr Like all were written in Chinese. No idea of all of you are talking about. In Spanish we don’t use half of them.
Sadly that’s not part of the plan, but it would be a fantastic twist.
OK, I wouldn’t have given those hints if I hadn’t been hoping you’d guess correctly. I actually never played the Persona games, so I have no idea what I’ll be invoking for some people, but Vivien’s wife’s name is Vathac, and her mother is Scathac. But (again) Vathac’s story is nothing like the one traditionally assigned to Scáthach’s daughter.
That’s very true. I guess I’m using “success” as shorthand for “the more difficult-to-achieve outcome.” I suppose that means I may get some resentment from people if I ever assign achievements – because a “triple success” achievement, though difficult to obtain, may not actually be the desired outcome for some Guens. I guess I’ll have to be really careful about wording.
Is that a Spanish idiom? I love it.
Woohoo! NOT that I will read it and steal your ideas, of course. Just that I’m excited for it to exist.
Definitely okay with me. I hope you will start a trend of things I can’t read.
For the moment, the army still views Guen as subordinate to Arthur, and Arthur’s word is still law regardless of what Guen might say/think. But if Guen starts to take over more immediate management of the army, perhaps that could change…
I don’t have a specific plan for that at the moment, but I’m certainly not ruling it out. It could be one of a lot of alliance-affecting things that could happen in part 6.
Actually, at the moment I’m not planning to make that an option. My intention is to have Meligaunt serve Guen from the shadows, with no one else knowing. But I’ll have to see how things are, going forward. I’m not opposed to the idea of Guen shocking and confusing everyone else by keeping her new bodyguard on hand at all times. (It’s just a question of how much extra work it might be to include that.)
Yes, probably. Vivien and Vathac know Lancelot very well, and it’s not difficult for them to guess what he’s up to most of the time. The real question is, how will they react to a suspicion that Lancelot and Guenevere are involved? And the answer is… well, I don’t have that totally figured out yet, but I doubt that either of them would tell anyone else. (PS They also know Morgana really well, too.)
I can certainly try. Thanks for giving me a specific suggestion for places to do that – it shouldn’t be difficult to add a few more “don’t touch me”’ moments. Are there any other specific places where you think a more ruthless dialogue option would be good to have?
@Feather Aw, thank you so much! I’m very happy to hear that you’re enjoying it.
Unfortunately, poor Lance is in for more angst in the future, and tbh the “ladies man” behavior wasn’t really his best self anyway. In part 3, whether or not he’s romantically involved with Guen, he’ll have to deal with someone who previously broke his heart showing up again, and in part 4 he’ll be marrying Elaine… so we probably won’t be seeing that side of him again (or at least not much of it). But he will go through a lot of changes, and some of them will likely help him get over his feelings for Guen, if that’s a desired outcome. So… yay character development? I hope?
Yes please please please!
Sounds like a plan to me! And the whole thing sounds really interesting. Are you doing the art yourself?
In fact, I have, and I recently made a huge conglomerate file of character notes which includes MB types, which I will share with the understanding that these aren’t set in stone; they’re just what I jotted down in a coffee shop one day. Anyone is welcome to interpret the characters differently! As @OtherGrimm says, the MBTI is kind of a moving target anyway, and works better for some people than others.
Arthur: ENFJ, actually (though @guen’s interpretation makes sense, too). I’d say Arthur is almost exactly on the introvert/extrovert borderline, but leans just a smidgen extrovert. He’s also close to the borderline of judging vs. perceiving, but I decided that his ideals make him lean more toward judging – he thinks the world should be a certain way, and he imposes that way on others. Yes, he’s sweet-natured and generous, but he also has a strong sense of rules, and he plans ahead for things. The 16personalities page says this about ENFJ (“The Protagonist”, which Arthur certainly thinks he is):
“The interest ENFJs have in others is genuine, almost to a fault – when they believe in someone, they can become too involved in the other person’s problems, place too much trust in them. Luckily, this trust tends to be a self-fulfilling prophesy, as ENFJs’ altruism and authenticity inspire those they care about to become better themselves. But if they aren’t careful, they can overextend their optimism, sometimes pushing others further than they’re ready or willing to go.”
and
“People with the ENFJ personality type are passionate altruists, sometimes even to a fault, and they are unlikely to be afraid to take the slings and arrows while standing up for the people and ideas they believe in. It is no wonder that many famous ENFJs are US Presidents – this personality type wants to lead the way to a brighter future, whether it’s by leading a nation to prosperity, or leading their little league softball team to a hard-fought victory.”
…both of which seem appropriate for Arthur.
Lancelot: Yeah, definitely ENFP. Almost any description you read of ENFP mostly works for my interpretation of Lancelot.
Morgana: I put her down as ISFJ, but I think she’s on the borderline of feeling vs. thinking. Here’s some text from the ISTJ page that seems to suit her:
“ISTJs need to remember to take care of themselves – their stubborn dedication to stability and efficiency can compromise those goals in the long term as others lean ever-harder on them, creating an emotional strain that can go unexpressed for years, only finally coming out after it’s too late to fix.”
@poison_mara ESTJ sounds good to me! Those websites usually describe the personality types in flattering-sounding ways to make people feel good about whichever one they got, so you have to read between the lines a bit when applying the descriptions to a non-goody-goody fictional character.
@TheSiren Thanks for sharing your Guens! I enjoyed reading about them.
No, It’s not a Spanish idiom it’s a Mara one. In Spanish there’s Sano como una manzana or like a toro. Apple or bull. Cereal sounds better. Also Meliagunt is dry as a cereal too. And long as a day without bread (a direct translation)
Well, how about these:
(1.) During the battle with the Romano-Saxons, when Arthur comes into your tent and asks when you will be ready to be intimate ( if you didn’t do it on the wedding night), can we get the option to say “well if you wanted an heir so badly you should have picked a more willing wife?”
(2.) When Arthur asks you to formally introduce Meligaunt, how about the option to say “sure, maybe we can discuss our mutual distaste of you”?
(3.) At the end of part one, when Arthur tells you about his vision and says he hopes that you will think more highly of him, how about a option to say “or I could still not like you”?
MBTI? ENTP.
I am a lot more understanding of others emotions than most descriptions portray, but that probably has more to with my life experience rather than my base nature. Other than that? Totally accurate.
And the only reason no one in internet-land would clock me as one is because I like to stay out of it online… because it’s pretty much the only place I can… because fingers move slower than mouths with no filter. XD.
I want to, but I think I’m going to end up trying to get a partner when I actually get the story to a publishable state. Because while I am a decent artist. I’m just not a very consistent one. Like I can draw three things on one page in what I think is the same style, but when I’m finished it looks like three different people drew each one. They all look nice, but it’s just weird. Lol.
Maybe you could add a single time check for the dagger on the boat and if Gwen has it it could be used to cut the ropes or add a second chance to cripple Malignant as part of their escape plan before he heads off to Michelsmount?
You could also have Malignant throw it overboard afterwards so that you don’t have to worry about it coming up again and that way people don’t feel like it’s a fake choice to take it but it’s not a huge advantage if they do or don’t.
I always figured it wasn’t totally unreasonable for Gwen to keep a dagger of some sort on her person since she has several recent attempts at her life! Kinda like keeping a mini thing of Mace in your glove compartment or pepper spray in your purse – you hope you never need it but it’s on your person just in case.
I don’t know if there are any Cubans here, but I recently was rereading about Che Guevara and how he started. He was this university kid travelling Latin America, got disgusted by the unfair poverty and became a revolutionary and eventually a war guerilla.
He killed and executed (unfortunately) to achieve his goals, but was always more of a romantic philosopher before anything else. I’ve yet to see any idealist like Arthur to not go down this part.
Anyone here really detailed in Arthurian history (the lore and actual history)? Is is possible to him to continue in his dreams without being ‘hardened’?
As a Spanish he was everything except a philosopher. If he is one Stalin and Hitler are Gandhi and Buddha. He was a ruthless killer with no problem with rape women and take the children away to being “educated” by the state. He was a master in propaganda and that’s give him that romantic halo he still have in many places like a hero. His books are terrible and no philosophy in them instead a rage tantrum against Capitalism with no logical sense and conclusion. Marx was a philosopher and a economist. Lenin was a clever politician. Che has been just a butcher terrorist with good image propaganda. If he was today, killing prople and putting boms masacrating half colinies, would call him Terrorist not hero…
Arthur could be maintained as an oblivious hippie you could even cheer him to stay stupid to keep him easy to dominate
Yes, thank you for being an opinionated Spanish person. Most people don’t realize this side of Che.
When I say philosopher I actually meant that when he started out, he liked Karl-Marx and JP Sartre and that became his first inspiration. And then gradually over time…Castro… and then he kept trying to go back to his ideals but he was already a changed man. When he died and that picture became iconic, people wanted to remember his early ‘rebel’ side. Wish he didn’t turn out the way he did.
I’m sad about Arthur. If he stays the same ‘hippie’ (hahah) then he would have a hard time ruling, or people would eventually riot against him.
My take on the romantic and traditional medieval Arthur: Even with his death at the hands of his son, he was the Paragon of Virtue ideal.
My take on the “historical”/“realist”/“revisionist” Arthur: His knowledge and mastery of that knowledge facilitating his success led others to see things in Arthur which they wished to see.
“Hardened” in my view applies to his father not him.
I’m not so sure hardening Artir would help him. In many Atthrian stories it is true that him not seeing what was right in front of him and in some cases being too idealistic was a large contributing factor to his fall. However, just as large of a factor in the downfall is the scheming of Knights that went away from chivalry. So perhaps serving as a shining example would be better. Additionally, in stories where Arthur does make hardened decisions he does not often accomplish anything. Just look at the May Day Massacre which resulted in the death of those infants, but did not succeed in preventing Mordred.
I don’t want help him, I want help my character… Totally different topic. I think depending of Guens doings in all books and alliances she made Arthur would be better Hippie than Hardened. My Arthur is screwed hard, he just have a minimum probability of survival hardened. Hippie Arthur would be killed in the instant plot armor disappears. Like ploff Poison time
). She, like Arthur, believes in seeing the good in all people and supports his vision whole-heartedly. She also tends to get carried away quite easily. Her main specialties are Dark and Light Magic. She loves Arthur and is totally devoted to him. She is fond of Lancelot but his affections make her a bit uncomfortable, and she’s very good friends with Morgana. She’s off to Michaelsmount to save Arthur and sent Lance back to Camelot.
(I don’t understand a word from it but it looks good enough xD)
OK, I wouldn’t have given those hints if I hadn’t been hoping you’d guess correctly. 
I actually never played the Persona games, so I have no idea what I’ll be invoking for some people, but Vivien’s wife’s name is Vathac, and her mother is Scathac. But (again) Vathac’s story is nothing like the one traditionally assigned to Scáthach’s daughter.
