In my opinion, and this is only opinion, those who must traverse only space to come are in real time: those from the West and early Fourth Age. Those who must traverse time are in dream: Cami and crew, Maura and crew.
I do not think any character has to leave with "confused" memories (unless their creator wants them to!). I don't doubt that Tolkien may have put forward more than one view about dream in his writings, but I do know that, in the quote above, Ramer clearly said he remembered everything more clearly in dream than in "real life". Even Jeremy and Lowdham remember what they've seen, since JRRT says they wake and compare notes. So if these folk have memories, why can't our own characters, if we prefer that?
In real life, dream is notoriously tricky---some you remember clearly, some not at all, and some just a little. There's no one standard that fits all dreams and people. And I tend to think that this would be true here as well.
Regarding people in a dream recalling the details of their past life, see this response by Ramer:
Quote:
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And can you remember your real life while in a dream?.....'As to the last question,... the answer is: in a sense, yes. As clearly as you can remember it while writing a story, or deeply engrossed in a book....
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So there is a basis for saying that Cami remembers Maura and Maura remembers Cami. Remember too that we have a Vala dream-master with us (even a drunk one!) which Tolkien's own dream travellers did not have.
Helen, I think we're actually getting down to a more basic question. What is important in an RPG? To me, canon itself is an artificial construct. As a writer, I can become frustrated when dealing with that. For example, I have read one or two stores that were absolutely faithful to Tolkien from start to finish in term of details, but the writers totally missed the boat in not understanding Tolkien's values, spirit, etc.
Just one example: an RPG saturated with canon-true details, but which is filled with battle scene after battle scene, with nothing else in between, absolutely no hint of character development. To me that is a lot further from Tolkien than Bird's variants on shapechangers, Pio's example of Elven/hobbit unions (the Took fairy unions?), or allusions to dream travel, which I've postulated here.
Again, I don't think the plot of this story requires us to delineate everything that a character will or won't remember after he/she returns to another age. And I hesitate to lay those guidelines down for other people since it's not central to the plot
Speaking personally only, I would say Cami would have full memories; Rose and Gamba partial, misty memories; the younger ones only a distant glimmering. Perhaps that has as much to do with awareness and age as any interpretations based on canon. (Maura, I'll leave for another time.) My guess is that everyone in real time would have normal memories.
I imagine you are thinking of the epilogue we've discussed. This could be done one of two ways---keeping it vague and uncertain as to what was actually remembered, or go ahead and do what you feel most comfortable with, since none of those characters have other creators (except for Cami and Maura which I do have feelings about). I'd almost opt for the vague and uncertain tack--there are many places in the writings which are maddeningly and mysteriously vague on key points! You can't get more like Tolkien than that. But whichever works for you is fine.
Does anyone else have any ideas or responses to this?
Sorry this post is so vague, but I can't think of a topic more inherently elusive than dream!
sharon
[ March 12, 2003: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]