Beta – Some Things and opinions
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[quote=Puck;5337]I remain firmly against Romance. : I The story is strong without it! Besides, its a problem he doesn’t need : I ugh imagine if Lilith got wind of it. [/quote]
As much as some people have complained about the lack of romance, I’ve had just as many, if not more, be happy about the lack of romance.
I think we are in one of those cycles where nearly everything requires romance. Even TV procedurals eventually start slipping romance in.
I blame Sam and Dianne, personally.
[quote=Burien;5338]While romance isnt entirely nessesary, and the story is strong without it, it is a part life and hafl the fun of fantasy is the hero getting the girl, even if which girl dosent matter. Otherwise Tom will end up like Conan sitting on his throne looking constipated and forever alone. Just something unsatisfying about that, dosent half to be this book, but by the end of the series it would be cool.[/quote]
The conan thing is very important…and I am sure romance will happen for him at some point, although being immortal, it might not happen in the time span of these books.
The other thing to remember, among the immortals, there is no such thing as ‘happily ever after’ because ‘ever after’ is a VERY long time, and eventually people drift apart, particularly if they don’t have practical reasons to stay together (money, old age and care, someone to die with).
Notice how infidelity is a major staple of almost every pantheon?
[quote=Iume;5330]Does anyone else think Jenn is an older Lisa Simpson.She is convinced she knows how the world works and is trying too hard to be an adult / mother.[/quote]
I think that’s a very good observation. When I first “met” Jenn the Simpsons were in their first few seasons, so that wasn’t so obvious to me at the time, however, now, it’s very obvious, now that you point it out.
[quote=GameGraphix;5331]Jenn strikes me more as a tom boy…
She has chosen a career as basically a herb / plant / earth mage (can’t remember the term off the top of my head) – which means she needs to go out into nature to gather plants – and is more then likely having to dig in the dirt mostly by herself……to me this is not a ‘glamorous’ career, where you can ‘look pretty’ when doing it..and be surrounded by admirers while she does it
I would image that there are other magic fields that she could have gone into that are more glamorous – probably something to do with illusion or body modification – more focused on improving (or hiding) imperfections – in other words ‘it’s all about me’
and I haven’t seen her do the ‘typically’ girly reaction it things – squeal, it’s a mouse….squeal, it’s a demon….or expect the males around her to take care of the mouse / demon
also, she doesn’t seem to be very focused on her appearance…..no, ‘Oh, no I broke a nail’ from Jenn
Off beat query – what is the gender distribution for mages??? Is it a 50% male / 50% female or is it more bias to one gender???
Tom boys tend to gravitate to non-traditional female careers….I know when I first started studying IT, especially writing code – it was a male dominated field (90%) male
[/quote]
I would think so to. Thaumaturgy is very much down in the field, it is not glamorous, it is not flashy, it is somewhat disrespected, it is the only school of wizardry that do healing magic. Thaumaturgy helps people in every day life, it’s very pragmatic.
Many people going into wizardry find it too slow, too boring; however, it is actually incredibly powerful, but earth magic takes time for it’s efforts to be known, but in the end it’s unrelenting, both geomancy and the plants. Think of how nature reclaims everything man has built, eventually. Ozymandias, look on his works and…wait where are they? All i see is the desert?
At some point, Trisfelt is going to get his chance to demonstrate the power of Thaumaturgy.
BTW Do we all know that the poem Ozymandias, by Shelly was written about Ramses II, who is our Ramses.
Now as for gender distribution, among humans (not other races)
Wizardry is probably about 60 to 65% Male. However, the men tend to take the flashier/high profile jobs.
Animages (in various forms) are probably 60 to 65% Female.Animagic is much more intuitive, in fact it’s completely intuitive and will power based, wizardry is much more rigid, rules oriented. Animagic is also more empathetic simply because of how it works with animus much more directly than wizardry.
Wizardry is science/engineering so I suspect similar distributions as we see here for that.
My first science fiction books were all Heinlein style YA SF, e.g. “Have Space Suite, Will Travel” also lots of the YA Andre Norton stuff.
Romance was at best Leave it to Beaver.
If you wanted adults? It was EE Doc Smith and a married couples that were platonic partners.
Now of course, ERB had romance and such, but I found his stuff much later.
I was also much older when I got to Heinlein’s adult stuff, but I’m not so sure that is so much romance as lust. I’d read Stranger and a Strange Land and even the Lazerous Long stuff, but when I read “The Number of the Beast?”
I marched around my basement calling him a dirty old pervert, I thought he’d gone completely senile, I felt my youth had been violated or something.
No idea why, I felt this way, particularly after Time Enough for Love, but there had been this 6 year absence and at last a new book and it shocked the hell out of me at a visceral level. Possibly because by that time I was much more cognizant of sex and it didn’t sail over my head for once. I was 15 by that point, almost Tom’s age.
Im not saying we need a happily ever after, but maybe just someone showing interest in the big guy.
With the way some characters/scenes are so casual about sex, i think a post d’orcing orgy would have been less awkward than the the impromptu musical.
If you need an orgy, well Reggie’s having those daily in his room.
Interestingly that got me thinking about Demon’s After Dark, and dealing with Tom’s love life. I suspect that as a huge nerd/geek, virgin, his own anxiety and insecurity, coupled with what he thinks are unrealistic expectations about him from everyone he meets, could lead to serious inner turmoil and shall we say performance anxiety issues. Depending on the race of his love interest, and what form he is in, there could be lots more anxiety. If a human and he’s Edwyrd what if in the heat of passion he swaps back to his true form and more importantly size? If demon? Does he even find other demons attractive?
Dating he might take slow steps at but I think it’s going to be some time before he’s up for his first time.
2 things ive been thinking about
1.
I think we need to punch up hilda response to the revelations during the nysegard meeting. at the most the largest reaction from her seems to be the saintly equivalent of a raised vulcan eyebrow.
[/quote]Completely agree, however, it’s tricky because she’s very very busy. First she’s preoccupied during the meeting, then she’s busy handing over links, then she’s out on the battlefield with her squad.
I would love to do a ground squad meeting of Hilda, Stevos, Timbly, Rasmeth, Teragdor, but I am not sure I see it as something that can plausibly happen since they are all so busy.
But yes, more needs to be done.
[quote=Winter;5399]
2.what is tammarins role in the book?
she doesnt seems to have a role in the book, she acts , mostly as some sort of secretary, and shes only peripherally involved in the story to the degree that i cant really see her purpose to the story, what does she advance in the plot, what is her role? why is she necessary? at the moment she is the equivalent of a sorta pet, a pretty pink vanity item that sits occasionally on toms shoulder. i love her character but i just want to see her more involved even if it is just sitting on his shoulder during important events and meetings and having people/saints react to her presence.3 where is vaselle? i was kinda hoping he’d show up in nysegard, see teragdor again, meet hilda. that seems like it would be a lot of fun for him, and he’d get to demonstrate some warlocky badassery to those ppl who turned him down and on top o that save them and be all arrogantly magnanimous. yeah, that sounds awesome.[/quote]
In this book, Tamarin and Vaselle are basically “Tom’s R&D Team” They are critical to putting together how to D’Orc, and she is also helping Vaselle set up a skunkworks in the Smithy. This is a setup for them to do much more in the future.
Phaestus and Volund are the really heavy lifters, but they are busy, have their stuff and operate at a level way beyond anything Tom can understand at the moment. Tamarin and Vaselle on the other hand are much more at Tom’s level. Thus a skunkworks team for Tom’s personal projects, things that don’t require the attention of immortals.
I see exactly what you are suggesting happening in Nysegard, but in Book 4. Right now there is a war going on and for a variety of reasons, I am not sure Tom is up to having Vaselle there during battle, both from Vaselle’s safety, and from the point of view that Vaselle might be a distraction. Given their link, if Vaselle is killed or seriously injured, it will affect Tom, heavily. So I think he needs more practice with warlocks and shamans before both he and them go into combat at the same time.
Tamarin is a different case. See the points raised by GameGraphix on the djinn.
Let’s revisit the djinn and Tamarin after Beta 1 is out.
Thats why i was thinking about his drugged state after the D’orcing. Not saying its needed, just more like random thoughts. Like how calling it a musical made me think of Tom singing Let it Go when he freezes the abyss, and once you’ve thought it you cant unthink it.
Yeah, Vaselle and Teragdor could be quite the fun. I’d shoved that to the back of my head, now you have distracted me with thoughts of their meeting…..
[glare]
[quote=EyeDeKay;5458]Yeah, but well vaselle is kinda squishy compared to every one else. [/quote]
Well, Vaselle could contribute by cooking up some Abyssal zombie napalm in the workshop.
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