"You don't mean--"
"It took me a while to accept it myself, actually. Poledra was very patient and very determined. When she found out I couldn't accept her as a mate in the form of a wolf, she simply found a different shape. She got what she wanted in the end." He sighed.
"Aunt Pol's mother was a wolf?" Garion was stunned.
"No, Garion," Belgarath replied calmly. "She was a woman -- a very lovely woman. The change of shape is absolute."
"But--but she started out as a wolf?"
"So?"
"But--" The whole notion was somehow shocking.
"Don't let your prejudices run away with you," Belgarath told him.
Garion struggled with the idea. It seemed monstrous somehow. "I'm sorry," he said finally. "It's unnatural, no matter what you say."
"Garion," the old man reminded him with a pained look, "just about everything we do is unnatural. Moving rocks with your mind isn't the most natural thing in the world, if you stop and think about it."
"But this is different," Garion protested. "Grandfather, you married a wolf --and the wolf had children. How could you do that?"
--From Castle of Wizardry (The Belgariad, Book 4, page 290) by David Eddings
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| Garion and Belgarath, cropped from the original cover of Enchanters' End Game, Book 5 of The Belgariad, by David Eddings. |
All eyes turned to Silvara.
She was calm now, at peace with herself. Although her face was filled with sorrow, it was not the tormented, bitter sorrow they had seen earlier. This was the sorrow of loss, the quiet, accepting sorrow of one who has nothing to regret. Silvara walked toward Gilthanas. She took hold of his hands and looked up into his face with so much love that Gilthanas felt blessed, even as he knew she was going to tell him goodbye.
"I am losing you, Silvara," he murmured in broken tones. "I see it in your eyes. But I don't know why! You love me--"
"I love you, elflord," Silvara said softly. "I loved you when I saw you injured on the sand. When you looked up and smiled at me, I knew the fate which had befallen my sister was to be mine, too." She sighed. "But it is a risk we take when we choose this form. For though we bring our strength into it, the form inflicts its weaknesses upon us. Or is it a weakness? To love..."
"Silvara, I don't understand!" Gilthanas cried.
"You will," she promised, her voice soft. Her head bowed.
--From Dragons of Winter Night (Dragonlance Chronicles, Book 2, page 244) by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
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| Dragon of Mystery, by Larry Elmore. You can go buy prints of Larry's work, like this one, at his website. |
I finally got my prior post about my dislike for the lack of mystery surrounding the Dragon Aspects out of the way when Shintar, in her traditional manner of getting me to think, poked me about my dislike for the Jaina and Kalecgos romance in a quip within her comment.
And I'll admit that it brought me up short. I have a specific aversion to that entire relationship, and I ought to be able to explain it better than I already have. Therefore, this short interlude will cover why I'm not a fan of a dragon relationship with one of the "mortal races" as is presented in WoW.
- It's a power imbalance.
Let's be honest for a minute. If we grant Jaina the title of "most powerful arcane wielder ever" --something that some Titans would raise an eyebrow at-- she's still a mortal human. She will kick the bucket. No amount of arcane power will prevent her death, and it won't even delay it without veering into necromancy*. However, A Warcraft dragon is immortal, and even if they are mortal their lifespan is so long compared to one of the mortal races as to be rendered moot. So no matter what Jaina can do, she will not be able to spend the rest of Kalecgos' life with him. There's also additional power perks of being a dragon, such as the physical dragon form itself. Being the alpha predator in the environment conveys a large degree of power in any relationship, no matter what the mortal might think, and the dragon ought to know this better than anyone else. After all.... - They're a dragon, not a mortal. Their thought processes are different than a mortal's.
The timeless Blizzard miscue of "You think you do but you don't" definitely applies here.
A lot of ink has been burned in Fantasy novels and RPGs about relationships between dragons and protagonists, from Dragonlance (Gilthanas and Silvara, Huma and the Silver Dragon, etc.) to the Truth Series by Dawn Cook (who is better known as Kim Harrison). If you want to extend it beyond dragons to other non-bipedal species there's an additional rabbit hole to fall down, from David Eddings' Belgariad to a lot Urban Fantasy that uses were-creatures to all sorts of weird and dark corners of the internet. The stories tend to follow a few distinct patterns, from the "hey, when they're in human form you're having a relationship with a human, not a dragon" to "I can't forget that this person is not a human despite outward appearance, and that poisons the relationship" to "who cares? let's bang!"
I fall under the camp of "this dragon/wolf/whatever is a different species and we might think we know its thought processes but we really don't." If the dragon truly becomes a human (or elf), then it is subject to the same biological frailties as that human or elf, --which means the dragon would have to give up all of their physical advantages-- and that includes emotions. However, the ability to shift back and forth --while retaining memories, intelligence, and their mental abilities (such as wielding magic)-- also implies they retain more than just that. So from my perspective, they may look human but they definitely aren't.
I guess that puts me in the camp of how Michelle Sagara writes the Cast series of novels, where the dragons that Kaylin encounters might have a human form, but everything from the carriages they ride in to how they walk implies that their entire dragon weight is still there, only just "hidden" by something that's better than an illusion but not as good as a total change of form.
Since I fall under the camp of "they retain enough of themselves that they shouldn't fall in love or feel jealousy or anything else the same way we do," that leads me to... - A dragon falling in love with a human is likely a lot closer to a human falling in love with a dog.
Dragons are the apex species --Old Gods and Gronn notwithstanding-- of Azeroth. The mortal races can see them in their human form and experience the usual gamut of emotions, but a dragon still views us through their eyes, in which we have a lot more in common with the cattle that they may decide to feast on than as equals. After all, Onyxia said the quiet part out loud when she makes the quip during the initial pull about how she typicaly "must leave [her] lair in order to feed." The other flights aren't so blunt about it and may avoid eating the mortal races as a general rule, but the cat is out of the bag: dragons look on us as "talking meat" or "talking pets" than anything else. And if they do care a lot about mortals, it's more of the paternal, often patronizing type of caring. A dragon falling in love with a human would likely also be frowned upon by draconic society in the same manner as a cross species romance would be in human society. Even if a bonobo or a dog or a dolphin could love in a similar manner to that of a human, the species are still different enough that our society certainly wouldn't view it as a love between equals.
Fantasy novels have an end run around these problems, of course, and typically involve wish fulfillment more than anything else. These relationships in a Fantasy or Science Fiction setting can --and frequently are-- a stand-in for commentary about our own racial prejudices, merely taken to an extreme. Being able to use a character's inner voice to demonstrate that the dragon or elf or draenei has the same mental and emotional acumen as that of a human allows an author to demonstrate that despite outward appearances, "we're all the same inside".
But as a practical matter, there's a huge difference in falling in love between species versus different races of the same species. And despite authors (or the Blizzard story team) waving their hands and allowing inter-racial children to exist (gee thanks, ancient Mythologies!) what we know of genetics basically renders that sort of outcome impossible. And before anybody starts catcalling "Mules!" from the rear of the auditorium, let me remind you that the genetic differences between burros and horses are a lot fewer than humans' closest living relatives, the bonobos. And we can't interbreed between bonobos. Those relatives of modern humans we could interbreed with are those that no longer exist, such as Neanderthals and Denisovians.
But still... - I can't swim against the tide forever, and a story team --or an author-- with the blessing of management is going to get their way, whether I like it or not. And that, more than anything else, gets my goat. It's their vision that is implemented, and their story to tell, not mine, despite that I'm the one playing their game. It obviously has no direct impact on the game, because it all happens "off screen" in the novels, but the concept of the whole thing just kind of bugs me. And that it happened to one of the two characters in the WoW-verse that are most in Mary Sue territory probably annoys me even more. If it was anybody else, I'd probably not care, but I look at it as a continuation of the storyline concerning the destruction of Theramore for no other good reason than to make sure we know that Garrosh is "the bad guy". Again, my complaints about setpieces versus good storytelling fit perfectly here. Blizz' teams are enamored of a nice setpiece, and frequently confuse those setpieces or cutscenes with good storytelling in general. And the Jaina/Kalecgos romance is an omnipresent reminder that those scenes do not necessarily make for a good story.
So there you have it.
I know that this post is gonna get buried in a few hours by people excitedly talking about the new WoW expac --or the release date for Wrath Classic, or Diablo 4-- but I felt I ought to get this out there. At least I can say that I explained my position; not well, perhaps, but at least I explained it.
And if anybody has wondered about where I learned to write dialogue, these two series quoted above provide part of the answer to the puzzle.
*Ars Magica notwithstanding. Yes, in Ars Magica, you can use magic to artificially extend a Magus/Maga's lifespan, but at the cost of being rendered infertile. For a Magus or Maga, this is pretty much a tradeoff they're comfortable with, but even then they can't extend their lifespan indefinitely. At the very least, a Final Twilight will eventually catch up to them, or an enemy will finally end their life.
EtA: Corrrected a grammatical error.
I can't speak to the Dragonlance quote, not having read those books, but I found your choice of the Belgariad quote somewhat confusing. I know those books very well. I reread the entire ten book sequence during lockdown, which I think makes either the third or fourth time through.
ReplyDeleteThe thrust of that particular conversation is that Belgarath is right and Belgarion is wrong. (Pretty much the rubric for the entire series, really.) We aren't supposed to entertain the prejudice of Garion's brash, uninformed, childish reaction to something that makes him uncomfortable; we're supposed to understand that he lacks the experience, perspective and wisdom to step outside of his conditioning.
Garion, of course, isn't just young and inexperienced; he's an uneducated farmboy who's constantly being exposed to situations and experiences that shock and frighten him. He's also, it has to be said, an unmitigated, prissy, prude with the kind of sexual politics that would better suit a maiden aunt than a late adolescent. He finds displays of emotion uncomfortable in general and displays of sexually-generated emotion excruciatingly so. He's pretty much set against every other character in the entire series as the icon of sexual repression.
Unless I misunderstand the purpose of your post I would have thought that particular passage works directly against it. Especially when you also consider, if you know the Belgariad and the subsequent spin-offs, that Poedra herself, the wolf in question, finds the whole notion of species difference largely irrelevant. She turns into many different creatures, only becoming a human eventually because it's convenient for her to do so. It's a choice that has no special framing effect on who or what she is. She doesn't give up any aspect of herself when she changes species because she is a unity, the implication being as are we all. Our forms don't dictate who we are.
I chose the quote not to refute or go against my personal beliefs, but because it provides a Fantasyland counterpoint to, well, what we know about behavior, emotions, and genetics. Even though Eddings was a lot like Tolkien and that he didn't like allegory, he too fell into the "we're all the same inside" trope that you find in a lot of Fantasy novels. Both the Dragonlance and the Belgariad quotes provide modern Fantasy bookends to the two extremes without having to delve into all of the escapades that Zeus got into in Greek Mythology, for instance.
DeleteJust because my own opinion is different than that presented in The Belgariad doesn't mean that I don't understand the point that was being made, it's just that I could willingly suspend disbelief back then whereas I have difficulty doing so now. I guess I know too much about how things work.
He's also, it has to be said, an unmitigated, prissy, prude with the kind of sexual politics that would better suit a maiden aunt than a late adolescent. He finds displays of emotion uncomfortable in general and displays of sexually-generated emotion excruciatingly so. He's pretty much set against every other character in the entire series as the icon of sexual repression.
DeleteI laughed my ass off when I read this.
Yes, Garion --and Durnik, let's be fair-- are both exactly that. I also see a LOT of typical Midwestern behavior in them as well, with a huge dose of Evangelical Christian attitudes toward sex and sexual politics as well. If that last line made you shudder a bit, welcome to my world. I live on the border of the Bible Belt, and I see those sort of attitudes a lot more frequently than you'd imagine. Hell, the Creation Museum --yes, it is a thing that celebrates Young Earth Creationism-- is about 40 miles from my house as the crow flies. And yes, the hypocrisy in sexual attitudes, between what people parrot from their preacher versus their behavior at the local bar or strip club, is pretty breathtaking. David Eddings was tapping into that zeitgeist when he wrote the farmers of Sendaria the way he did.
I think you make fair points, my counterarguments - as far as I'd want to make any - would just be:
ReplyDelete1) "It's not that deep, bro" as the kids say these days. A lot of the issues you raise would also apply to WoW elves and humans pairing up (due to how long elves are supposed to live) and we (you?) are generally pretty fine with that, because WoW is pulpy and doesn't think too hard about these things.
2) In terms of the overall story, the Jaina/Kalec romance is nothing more than a blip on the radar. There's never been any reference to it in game and while it hasn't been officially confirmed, everyone seems to think that they broke up again several expansions ago (see here), so it seems weird to me to be so hung up about it.
I graduated to 'bro' status! I think I should be honored. (Or insulted. Or whatever.) But coming from you, it's totally worth it.
DeleteOh, I agree with the Elves/Humans part. Instead of "ancient mythologies", I originally wrote "Tolkien", but I realized that the interbreeding like that has been in myth since time began, so I think I'm swimming against the tide.
It might be just a blip on the radar, and yeah it's a tempest in a teapot sort of thing, but it's one of those things that just gets under my skin like a chigger bite and constantly make me want to scratch.
Crap, I just realized you might not know what a chigger/chigger bite is.... Here it is: How to Prevent and Treat Chigger Bites
Holy Eddings Red, my all-time favourite Fantasy series. As soon as I read 'Poledra' your already exceptional rating shot even higher.
ReplyDeleteWell done, good sir. The characters are like old friends that I've returned to again and again over the years... about 35 or so now. First time I read them was in university, I basically skipped classes for a week and read the entire Belgariad in 5 days.
I really enjoyed the idea that no matter what form a character is in, they're still a 'person'. Wracking my brain but I do believe that it was Ce'Nedra who used that term during the time she spent in the wagon with the she-wolf and her pup.
The idea that either society wouldn't accept it is quite evident, it's the same as Belgarath's explanation of the Will and the Word is neither natural nor accepted as 'normal' among most people in their world. As advanced culturally as the Tolnedrans were, they outright banned the practice within their Empire.
I suppose it is the same fall-back archetype that works in literature. Your heroes are always outside the norm, that's what makes them heroes. Who they fall in love with is just as spectacular as defeating the Nine-Headed Hydra.
Thanks for the walk down memory lane, time to re-start Pawn of Prophecy. I'm overdue.
Bill
Ah, you're a bit older than I am, Bill. Not by much, mind you, but just a little bit. I came across the books just as Castle of Wizardry was being released, and our local B. Dalton bookstore had a cardboard display for the books right by the counter. I'd thoroughly enjoyed Tolkien and Terry Brooks, had started Michael Moorcock's Elric and Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and Grey Mouser books, and was a year away from being introduced to Asimov's Foundation series, but I picked up Pawn of Prophecy because it looked interesting and it fit into that $2.95 price tag.
DeleteMoorcock had more sex and violence, the Lankhmar stories had snark to go with those, and Brooks/Tolkien had staked out high fantasy. But Eddings... Eddings had dialogue. And humor. And more of a YA mentality that perfectly fit my middle school mind. Oh, and just enough references to sex and relationships grounded in a "traditional" Midwestern suburban/rural adolescent viewpoint that I got Eddings more than most of the others. (And I didn't have to worry about my parents stumbling along and picking up any of Eddings' books and finding said sex and violence and banning them from the house, too. That has a certain amount of advantages. If I wanted sex scenes, Moorcock and Mary Stewart had those in abundance.)
Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, damn you're good at evoking memories. Another good team, reminded me very much of Bearak and Silk.
DeleteBtw, I created a couple toons on Myzrael (sp?) the other day, Gronred was one of them, I'll shoot your toons an ingame mail
Bill