Are You Writing Serious Fantasy? - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Bêthberry · 10-11-2002, 02:30 PM

Not something thrown away informs "Bethberry" but recouping something lost. Like Thenamir's "Thenamir", my "Bethberry" has a long backhistory. Initially, I created 'her' as the daughter in search of Goldberry's lost voice and I deliberately worked her against type in that she was never described beyond the most minimal way. She was of appearance, height, age indeterminant, so that none of those characteristics could be used to place her. In her first RPG, she became a voice of restraint and compromise among young male gamers--male Mary Sues--who were interested mainly in hack and wack. Thus, she had no weapon but her wits and her skill at using the terrain and the animals she worked with, a horse and a falcon. She left that RPG not through the glories of tragic death but through mundane illness, loss of memory from injury in a storm. The amnesiac has recovered here now, where that original impetus, to challenge the thoughtless delight in battle, has become less crucial. Yet she is still in pursuit of that original goal and she still provides, as the daughter of Tom and Goldberry, an echoing hymn of what Nar has called "the original music of Uluvatar." One of the things she will do is again challenge misconceptions but those will be different and they will draw her out into a far more assertive role. Her conflicts are not internal so much as external. In this, she is not a 'modern' character at all, but a character conceived within Tolkien's universe of focussed evil.

Bethberry

[ October 12, 2002: Message edited by: Bethberry ]

10-11-2002, 02:30 PM	#11
Bêthberry Cryptic Aura Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 6,003	Not something thrown away informs "Bethberry" but recouping something lost. Like Thenamir's "Thenamir", my "Bethberry" has a long backhistory. Initially, I created 'her' as the daughter in search of Goldberry's lost voice and I deliberately worked her against type in that she was never described beyond the most minimal way. She was of appearance, height, age indeterminant, so that none of those characteristics could be used to place her. In her first RPG, she became a voice of restraint and compromise among young male gamers--male Mary Sues--who were interested mainly in hack and wack. Thus, she had no weapon but her wits and her skill at using the terrain and the animals she worked with, a horse and a falcon. She left that RPG not through the glories of tragic death but through mundane illness, loss of memory from injury in a storm. The amnesiac has recovered here now, where that original impetus, to challenge the thoughtless delight in battle, has become less crucial. Yet she is still in pursuit of that original goal and she still provides, as the daughter of Tom and Goldberry, an echoing hymn of what Nar has called "the original music of Uluvatar." One of the things she will do is again challenge misconceptions but those will be different and they will draw her out into a far more assertive role. Her conflicts are not internal so much as external. In this, she is not a 'modern' character at all, but a character conceived within Tolkien's universe of focussed evil. Bethberry [ October 12, 2002: Message edited by: Bethberry ] __________________ I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away.