16 KiB
[RT][HF] A Practical Guide to Evil: Book 4: Chapter 28: Archaic
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Author: u/Zayits *
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URL: https://practicalguidetoevil.wordpress.com/2018/07/09/chapter-28-archaic/
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Score: 65
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Created: 2018-07-09T04:01:00
Post:
Comments:
u/JanusTheDoorman [+21] (2 hours later)
I'm starting to get AI-in-a-box vibes from the Bard. Black inspires the same sort of feeling except that he's less of a threat because he makes it very obvious that he's hostile to being in the box and that every move he makes is about redecorating the box to be more to his liking and/or burning down the box.
Bard, however, keeps popping up in places and doing things that an ordinary role player in the story has no business being/doing - like the guy who shows up at a house party, introduces himself as a friend of a friend and then you keep finding him walking upstairs or out into the garage, but he insists someone told him it was okay.
Not openly hostile in and of itself, but speaks to a motive that's not exactly above-board. Or maybe the proper metaphor is a story-teller who's realized she doesn't have to tell the story exactly as its written. Or a journalist whose realized they can twist the facts to fit their narrative.
It feels like she's operating in a blindspot of the Gods Above and Below - maintaining the cover/Role of the Bard who monitors the narrative and pushes heroes/villains in the right direction, but actually pushing them to some other, possibly cataclysmic end. I feel like when the Bard's endgame is revealed it'll make both Akua's Folly and Malicia's gambit to sieze it look like child's play.
u/cyberdsaiyan [+20] (39 minutes later)
Wait, fuck, that means that the Bard predates the Dead King? Was she attempting to make him take up a mantle from the heavens? Maybe he did, and maybe him being a powerful sorcerer allowed him to notice that his choices were being ripped from him, and in a fit of revenge and rage, he became the opposite of what Bard wanted him to be, the first of Bard's mistakes...
Or maybe that was part of her plan all along...
u/TideofKhatanga [+34] (2 hours later)
Probably part of the plan. Every story needs a villain. And what better villain than one that is way too powerful to die but is plot-bound to never be an actual threat to the status quo? A sort of Sauron-in-a-jar whose mere existence binds the rest of the world as Good just for balance.
That kind of bullshit has Bard written all over it. Nope out of that story right now, Cat, because nothing good will come out of it.
Edit: eyebleeding typo
u/IDKWhoitis [+12] (2 hours later)
I mean Catherine has been known to break Cycles. So in the long run this may end up actually killing Bard. If cat finds a way to make the dead King not the dead King then maybe a metaphysical Balancing could happen, which will also Kill The Bard.
u/cyberdsaiyan [+7] (3 hours later)
The theory of Triamegistus rejecting The Above because they took away his choice also makes it much more likely that he hates everything that the Above stands for and thus, is the ultimate static villain.
u/Empiricist_or_not [+10] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (18 hours later)
Note the story three beat about choice from Masego regarding his father, the joke between Thief and Archer, then the whole discussion with Hakram about following a sovereign who will impose their choice. I'm betting we will se something big about Choice when we get to Keter.
u/Nic_Cage_DM [+9] (3 hours later)
Could be that the Bard and the Dead King originated at the same time. That would seem typical of the symmetry shown in the Story: Evil can't have some big bad thousand year old lich without some counterweight from Good.
u/cyberdsaiyan [+11] (3 hours later)
Might be the opposite, Good might have been winning a bit too much in those times thanks to Bardic interventions, and so the Big Bad was created to balance it out. Triumphant might have been another such phenomenon when the Good won too much.
u/Frommerman [+5] (16 hours later)
We don't know that. This could have been the Bard's first body, before she became an it. Some friend, relative, or lover of Trismegistus, who became the heroic foil to the Dead King as a result of his Fall.
u/cyberdsaiyan [+4] (23 hours later)
She already has the lute and unlimited alcohol that Catherine recognized, so I daresay she's already come into her name.
u/over_who [+15] Aleph you are going to die (17 minutes later)
So the devil is cunning, and the bard is more dangerous than we knew. How did they manage this, I wonder. Also I like how it runs all their assumptions about what happened.
u/Sarkavonsy [+13] (3 hours later)
My theory gains weight!
The bard is either a god, or a creation of the gods above and below, meant to keep the story going forever. Whenever either side is truly losing, she's there to rebalance the scales. She isn't a hero, she's just recently been acting like one because the Black Knight's new kind of villainy is a genuine threat to the conflict between good and evil.
u/Rheklr [+8] (5 hours later)
So she's the in-game dungeon master?
u/WalterTFD [+4] (14 hours later)
I still think she is a Named, just a very old and mighty one. I suspect that the fact that Good always wins may be more due to her efforts than any particular property of the world.
u/xland44 [+2] (16 hours later)
Ooh, that's a very interesting insight/theory
u/HallowedThoughts [+11] (3 hours later)
Well damn. I thought Bard was gonna be on par with the Dead King in terms of threat level, but it seems I've underestimated her. Also, Black's assumption that Bard's existence had been a response to the Dead King was false too, it would seem. Quite the twist here
u/WalterTFD [+10] (14 hours later)
Calling it now, at some point during this thousands of years old echo, Bard is going to look over at Cat and wink.
u/Ardvarkeating101 [+8] Father of Learning (7 hours later)
Indrani was right! It was a tragic love story between a woman who would rather die for the gods above than turn, and a man who would rather betray them all than lose his kingdom!
Send me gold when it turns out WB and DK were in love all along.
u/Zayits [+5] (10 hours later)
Crazy plot twist: Triumphant was a Bard from Wolof that accidentally ascended the throne of the Dread Empire, and had her brains shorted out by the Role of a mad tyrant the same way she had her normal behaviour was overridden when she was stuck in a schemer Role while talking with the Hierarch. Then she kept escalating and making infernal pacts, until she ran into an obstacle she couldn't just throw demons at - the Tyrian sea. It even fits with her final "Why not?", since the story of a madwoman running everything into the ground doesn't have that many ways to go, and a smallest initial impulse would be enough.
u/Taborask [+6] (an hour later)
does Catherine know about the continuity of consciousness? she cut Black off before he could tell her much about it
u/Zayits [+7] (2 hours later)
She knows at least about her being able to change faces, though I find it strange that the attributes like the lute and the flask persist even though those objects were bound to evolve with the progress of technology on Calernia, slow as it is.
u/HeWhoBringsDust [+7] (3 hours later)
Names are bound to stories, and are shaped by the culture they originated from. However, Bard has been around since forever, and I think it might be because of her meddling that she keeps some aspects. If the first Bard had a lute and flask, then the second one might also get one and so on and so forth until the lute and flask become a part of the archetype.
u/Zayits [+1] (4 hours later)
The very same lute and flask? The ones that Catherine can recognize? Even her Aspects are more malleable (since it looks like the Name "the Wandering Bard" reflects specifically her ability to Wander in asnd out of existence, which implies Miraculous Ministrel or Troubadour might not have had it, or at least had a different form of it). The only thing that bothers me more is how nobody noticed yet that all the Bards ever were female. I know she had tampered with the records and the elves pieced her identity together long ago, but you'd think in a progresive work such as this one she'd be allowed to identify as a bard in a male/female body, with less emphasis on the biological attributes that don't necessary pass over to the next incarnation.
u/HeWhoBringsDust [+6] (4 hours later)
You need to remember that the world is progressive because Evil is a thing. Good is very much founded on “moral” views. Evil on the other hand is more socially progressive due to being both batshit insane and more pragmatic. How on earth can someone in-setting be sexist/homophobic when a large number of the fucking terrifying dread emperors/empresses fit in that category. Hell, of the major characters, the only ones that are openly racist are “good” guys (coughWilliamcough).
On your other point, you need to remember that some Names only appear in certain cultures (Like Warlord for Orcs), so it wouldn’t be too weird if some Names belonged to one sex. Especially if they belong to a body-hopping eldritch abomination whose whole purpose is to fuck with the story.
In addition, it’s highly likely that Wander is an aspect inherent to the Bard Name (Like Learn was to Squire) due to the fact that it’s heavily implied that there’s only one Bard who’s constantly body hopping (If it was unique to this Bard, Black would definitely have made note of it). Along with that, the only people who know what Bard really is are either Genre-savvy (Black, Malicia, Tyrant), long-lived (Saint, Pilgrim) or have narrative breaking powers (Hierarch). To a normal peasant she’d just be another Bard.
u/Zayits [+5] (6 hours later)
You need to remember that the world is progressive because Evil is a thing. Good is very much founded on “moral” views.
Even Hanno is able to tell that Good societies progress despite the teaching of the Gods Above not changing. Things like slavery were viewed as a necessary evil in ancient Calernia. He may be a tool, but he's very much observant.
As for Evil polities being more progressive, remember that Praes doesn’t use it is more the exception than the rule, and a direct consequence of being on the bad end of that stick when they were under Miezan occupation. There are places like Stygia or Grey Eyries in any place where an Evil society becomes stable.
Regarding a Name being limited by its culture - while there were possibilities to play it that way, demonstrating how a different (maybe priestly?) Role sheped itself into Wandering Bard, since Black remarked that the very word used as a Name might have changed its meaning along the way, what the Woe are looking at looks like a fully formed Bard as we know her. Down to the instrument, which definitely should have evolved over time (just google "lute evolution" to see what I mean).
Also, while Wander is definitely something she's used to and tied deep enough into the narrative to create and undo her body whenever it's convenient, I wonder whether the initial versions, with less narrative weight, would be capable of exactly that. It could have started as something like Fortunate Fool's Providence-assisted movement. Alternatively, different versions may have been tailored by the Heavens to have powers relevant to their story: Wandering Bard places emphasis on being in the right place at the right time (boosting Wander to teleportation), Miraculous Ministrel has more misic-related powers (like extending her suggestion-Speaking to her melodies, literally setting the tone of the Story, something like that?
u/HeWhoBringsDust [+2] (10 hours later)
Nah, what I’m talking about is that since the Bard has been around forever, she’s been around long enough to have had some influence on her Name. That or it may be one of those “how you think of yourself influences your appearance” thing that Names have (Like how Cat is always short and has a limp, Masego being fatter/thinner than logical, Black and crew being younger) except because she’s been around forever she’s stopped thinking of herself as who she once was and only truly identifies as the Bard, meaning that the lite and flask are the closest thing to a proper self-perception she has.
Also, maybe the random teleporting to story-relevant locations is inherent to the Bard Name rather than being an aspect? Idk, Bard herself breaks a lot of Name rules
u/None [+3] (8 hours later)
Tons of Praesi are explicitly racist against Orcs, Goblins, and Callowans, as well as whatever Black is iirc.
u/HeWhoBringsDust [+1] (10 hours later)
Yeah, but everyone basically agrees that the Praesi (more specifically the “old” breed of evil) are assholes. The “new” breed (Malicia we al. including the legion) are making great strides
u/Zayits [+2] (10 hours later)
They are an outlier: Evil in general isn't any more progressive than Good. Besides, the initial mention of that word was just a setup for an "I identify as a Bard" joke, and was directed toward the Practical Guide to Evil itself.
And now I feel dirty for explaining the joke. To be fair, it worked better with Dread Emperor Tenebrous.
u/werafdsaew [+1] (13 hours later)
Actually, Evil in general is more progressive. Every race on Calernia is racist against every other races, but Procer is shown to be much more sexist than Praes.
u/Zayits [+2] (13 hours later)
Um, what do you think indicates that?
u/TideofKhatanga [+2] (a day later)
Procer isn't particularly sexist, with them Princes and Princesses running everything. They have however particularly strong opinions on the topic of what is proper for people to wear dependin on sex.
But they don't come anywhere close to the goblins or drows when it comes to sexism and racism. Both evil nations by the way, though elves in general have been shown to be less than tolerant.
u/None [+1] (17 hours later)
Where
u/stevedoesIP [+6] (12 hours later)
I mean I don't know how much better flask technology can really get.
"This baby's got 10,000 horsepower and laser sighting!"
u/Zayits [+2] (13 hours later)
A copper flask is an outlier in the period where copper is considered fitting to be included in a king's garments; a less demonstrably expensive option would be a wineskin or a clay jug.
u/WalterTFD [+1] (14 hours later)
Bard might very well be influential enough that nobody ever invents a better lute/flask, keeping herself current by freezing the world.
u/serge_cell [+2] (7 hours later)
Among those present in the great crypt where the entombment took place was the young man I was fairly sure became the Dead King. Not because of anything he did, but because of who was talking to him. The face I didn’t recognize, I’d admit. But the shoddy lute and the flask? Those I’d recognize anywhere.
Dead King could have been created by Bard.
My theory that "Good" Gods are just faction of Evil Gods is getting some support.
u/CeruleanTresses [+2] (a day later)
Hakram remains the MVP of this story.