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Apr. 15th, 2017 07:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sidewaysThere was a meme floating around on naming key characterisation points for nominated characters, and I got tapped for the three Last Word/Thorn boys.
Shin Malphur
1) He’s not actually from the wild wild west. Bungie obviously drew heavily from this genre in crafting the backstories behind Thorn and Last Word; a small town, a young man, a dark stranger who murdered his pa(s), and a final stand-off on a ridge that just about had tumbleweeds blowing through it. The Old West is well and truly dead, though, and Palamon itself is a post-post-apocalyptic mountain town in thick forest striving to stay hidden from alien invaders - the exact location is never mentioned, but it doesn’t sound like cowboy country. Leaning too hard into that western influence can therefore be limiting, and risks clashing with the vibe of Destiny’s wider worldbuild.
2) He’s an outsider among the Guardians. Shin is so far the only canon Guardian we know to have been raised while living, and thus the only canon Guardian we know to have full memory of his life. He had a home outside the City, he had a family outside the Tower, and - perhaps most critically - he had experiences with and opinions of Guardians before becoming one himself. He doesn’t even have his own Ghost! All of these things will inevitably influence how he feels about and interacts with the cultures and hierarchies we’re so familiar with as players.
3) He does not consider himself a hero. By Shin’s own words, he considers the boy who watched Palamon burn to be a coward. He found the first attempt at hunting Yor to be exhausting, and understood the others’ growing discontent; by the time he faces Yor himself the two present emotions are anger and “an overwhelming need for […] an end”. Once the deed is done, he just feels sad. He is able to acknowledge that Yor was a broken man, just as he was able to recognise that same condition in Loken, and he is noticeably reluctant when it starts to look like the Shadows may also need dealing with. Shin does not hold himself up as any sort of a champion and does not hold his killing of Yor up as any sort of an admirable accomplishment. It was just a thing that needed to be done, and cost a hell of a lot in the doing.
4) Shin’s writings are biased. It’s literally the first thing he admits! It’s a bias that shows most clearly in his recollections of Jaren (which also makes this point a good thing to remember when writing Jaren), as he uses strongly emotive phrases: pure, heroic, the finest Hunter the system will ever know. And yet there are also hints at conflicted feelings: “I couldn’t admit it at the time”, he says of understanding Jaren’s questionable choice to face Yor alone; “I should have guessed,” he says of Jaren’s adoption of him. The writings are therefore a fantastic guide to Shin’s feelings years after the time periods he is writing about, but not a set guide to how he has felt at every point in his life and definitely not a set guide to the wider context of what happened.
Jaren Ward
1) Jaren is not a good communicator. In the grimoire, Jaren says exactly five words across the space of three cards; his Ghost has more dialogue than he does. He waits in patient silence upon entering Palamon. He waits in patient silence while Loken rages. Shin mentions the few witnessed conversations between Jaren and his Ghost being “brief”. The evidence is sparse, but it’s decently supportive of him not being the garrulous sort.
You can be terse but efficiently effective with your words, however, and I am fond of the idea that Jaren sometimes just…isn’t. Doesn’t pick up on leading invitations to elaborate on subjects, accidentally shuts down conversations by being too blunt or literal in his responses, is the Absolute Worst at telling a story. Four times out of five he truly isn’t trying to be an ass, it’s just the way he speaks, and though he’ll make an occasional effort he’s never going to be any good at small talk. (That fifth time, though? He is definitely trolling.)
Leading on from this, I also like to roll with the idea that…
2) Jaren is not that great with people. This has less canon support, but Shin does note that the close, familial relationship he had with Jaren was not the norm; he kept the other members of the Yor-hunting squad at “arm’s length”, despite the fact they’d lost just as much as Shin had. Combined with his peculiar entrance to Palamon, Jaren strikes me as habitually aloof. Not cold, exactly, but distant. He’s kind, he’s fair, and once he’s been there for a while Palamon gets past the unapproachable air and develops enormous respect for his advisings and efforts…but they’ll never hit him up for interpersonal guidance because by that point they’ve also realised he’s kinda useless at it. On top of that, he has a tendency to just up and do what he thinks needs to be done without consultation or even warning. Irritated no few of his compatriots back at the Tower, and is exactly what gets him killed in the end.
3) Jaren is chill. A man whose ire has to be earned, as Shin says. I honestly don’t tend to write him as very expressive on any end of the scale, but anger in particular is something that comes slow and controlled. It’s with weary resignation that he watches people creep around him; he cuts an intimidating figure half by accident, and he’s not anywhere near so easy to offend as Palamon first fears. He’s also not quick to get bored or fretful or excitable, and he’ll quite happily just sit around for an hour in the quiet. The most unruffled of feathers.
4) Jaren stayed at Palamon for his own sake as much as Shin’s. Alright, this is raw headcanon. There’s naught in the grimoire that says one way or t’other how he felt about the town (or even how he felt about Shin, really). I just enjoy the potential parallel with Yor that can be made here - that both he and Rezyl had similar issues with growing tired of the fight, tired of /losing/ the fight, but found very different solutions to that problem. The timeline puts Twilight Gap and the Luna debacle around this period, not to mention the Vault of Glass failure, so there’s certainly plenty to feel gloomy about. And then along comes Palamon, doing its best, with a small boy representing all kinds of hope for the future…
I like to write a Jaren for whom Palamon is a perpetual source of interest and genuine pleasure. Who enjoys the routine of small-town life; who is intrigued by their customs and technologies; who is heartened by the resilience of these people and the fierce care they show each other. It’s not as though he’s never seen their kind before - Jaren’s been wandering the world a very long time - but he lingered because of Shin and then stayed because the place gave him peace.
And Palamon adopts him in turn. Jaren Ward is their Guardian, he who chose them over the fabled City, and they learn to navigate his oratory quirks and pick out his moods and give him a severe scolding for stacking the woodpile wrong because immortal warrior of the Light or not, he’s one of them.
Dredgen Yor
1) The canon is contradictory. Bungie could personally rappel into my bedroom at 4am to tell me Rezyl’s story had been planned from the beginning and I’d still be calling bullshit. Even putting aside the class warfare (badum psh), there are some really critical pieces that don’t quite click together across the cards. Early Thorn cards carry the heavy implication that Yor knew exactly what he was risking when he created Thorn (”I thought I saw a way" / “maybe I just wasn’t strong enough”), but The Triumphant Fall has Rezyl putting the gun together without realising what he was inviting in. Thorn 1 talks about pride being a driving motivation, the Rezyl cards focus more on fear and weariness.
There are numerous ways to handle this: prioritise one interpretation over another, try to blend the edges together to seek a middle ground, dropkick Bungie out the window because if they can’t keep their own character straight then it’s your city now. It doesn’t matter what you choose to do, as long as you recognise it’s a choice that’s gotta be made.
2) There is one consistent theme, though: the emotional toll of endless war. Rezyl’s story is the story of a man who fought for so long that he lost sight of the little picture. Rezyl reflects on enemies becoming “afterthoughts”, just one more battle in an endless string of battles; reflects on “growing tired of small wins, however meaningful”; he travels to the moon out of worry humanity was under even greater threat than they knew and their hope for a safe future thus that much feebler, and he fights with little passion or care for his own safety. Likewise, Yor kills out of boredom and sees no particular difference between approved enemies and supposed innocents, refers to the Light as a crutch, and points out that despite literal centuries of fighting as a grand hero, the same battles keep coming back around. “I tire of it,” he says. “I tire of you.”
We don’t know exactly what the Darkness whispered to Rezyl, but in light of the above, this card is worth consideration.
3) His relationship with the Hive is complicated at best. There is not yet any conclusive evidence whether Yor took up Hive magics outside of Thorn, and no evidence at all that he had any further dealings with the Hive. He clearly regards them with some sort of respect: is implied to have taken his name from their language, and even as Rezyl is able to appreciate the strange parallels between himself and their dark champions. He acknowledges them as nightmares, however, and his faith is in the “shadow” (aka, ye olde Darkness, as identified by his Ghost) directly. Does he see them as allies, inspiration, competition? It’s unclear, and open to plenty of interpretation.
4) His relationship with himself is even gnarlier. All claims to the contrary, Rezyl does not cease to exist when Yor makes his ascension; at absolute minimum, Yor still carries with him knowledge of the City, the Tower, the Light, and all their workings. His toying with Shin stands out as a peculiarity, enough so that Jaren’s Ghost calls him out for it, and it’s notable that he seems to deliberately target a settlement he once helped - there’s something very human in whatever strange game he is playing. Is there a kernel of regret buried deep within? Is there fear his fall is not as justified as he believes, a need to prove his new philosophy true? What sort of peace is it he feels? Just as writing Rezyl should foreshadow Yor, I believe Yor should backshadow Rezyl.
5) He is a remarkably (and coolly) sardonic asshole. Unfortunately a lot of Yor’s cards take place as audio logs, which means we don’t get any stated tone, but my god he is still so clearly - and casually! - being a dick sometimes. Evil has a sense of humour, who knew? He’s also quite dispassionate; he engages with the bandits almost disinterestedly even as they threaten him, and is unoffended by the condemnations flung by Jaren’s Ghost. (”Impressed?” “Far from it.” “To each their own.”) From the fierce battle on the moon to the moment Shin guns him down, Rezyl/Yor keeps his cool.
Shin Malphur
1) He’s not actually from the wild wild west. Bungie obviously drew heavily from this genre in crafting the backstories behind Thorn and Last Word; a small town, a young man, a dark stranger who murdered his pa(s), and a final stand-off on a ridge that just about had tumbleweeds blowing through it. The Old West is well and truly dead, though, and Palamon itself is a post-post-apocalyptic mountain town in thick forest striving to stay hidden from alien invaders - the exact location is never mentioned, but it doesn’t sound like cowboy country. Leaning too hard into that western influence can therefore be limiting, and risks clashing with the vibe of Destiny’s wider worldbuild.
2) He’s an outsider among the Guardians. Shin is so far the only canon Guardian we know to have been raised while living, and thus the only canon Guardian we know to have full memory of his life. He had a home outside the City, he had a family outside the Tower, and - perhaps most critically - he had experiences with and opinions of Guardians before becoming one himself. He doesn’t even have his own Ghost! All of these things will inevitably influence how he feels about and interacts with the cultures and hierarchies we’re so familiar with as players.
3) He does not consider himself a hero. By Shin’s own words, he considers the boy who watched Palamon burn to be a coward. He found the first attempt at hunting Yor to be exhausting, and understood the others’ growing discontent; by the time he faces Yor himself the two present emotions are anger and “an overwhelming need for […] an end”. Once the deed is done, he just feels sad. He is able to acknowledge that Yor was a broken man, just as he was able to recognise that same condition in Loken, and he is noticeably reluctant when it starts to look like the Shadows may also need dealing with. Shin does not hold himself up as any sort of a champion and does not hold his killing of Yor up as any sort of an admirable accomplishment. It was just a thing that needed to be done, and cost a hell of a lot in the doing.
4) Shin’s writings are biased. It’s literally the first thing he admits! It’s a bias that shows most clearly in his recollections of Jaren (which also makes this point a good thing to remember when writing Jaren), as he uses strongly emotive phrases: pure, heroic, the finest Hunter the system will ever know. And yet there are also hints at conflicted feelings: “I couldn’t admit it at the time”, he says of understanding Jaren’s questionable choice to face Yor alone; “I should have guessed,” he says of Jaren’s adoption of him. The writings are therefore a fantastic guide to Shin’s feelings years after the time periods he is writing about, but not a set guide to how he has felt at every point in his life and definitely not a set guide to the wider context of what happened.
Jaren Ward
1) Jaren is not a good communicator. In the grimoire, Jaren says exactly five words across the space of three cards; his Ghost has more dialogue than he does. He waits in patient silence upon entering Palamon. He waits in patient silence while Loken rages. Shin mentions the few witnessed conversations between Jaren and his Ghost being “brief”. The evidence is sparse, but it’s decently supportive of him not being the garrulous sort.
You can be terse but efficiently effective with your words, however, and I am fond of the idea that Jaren sometimes just…isn’t. Doesn’t pick up on leading invitations to elaborate on subjects, accidentally shuts down conversations by being too blunt or literal in his responses, is the Absolute Worst at telling a story. Four times out of five he truly isn’t trying to be an ass, it’s just the way he speaks, and though he’ll make an occasional effort he’s never going to be any good at small talk. (That fifth time, though? He is definitely trolling.)
Leading on from this, I also like to roll with the idea that…
2) Jaren is not that great with people. This has less canon support, but Shin does note that the close, familial relationship he had with Jaren was not the norm; he kept the other members of the Yor-hunting squad at “arm’s length”, despite the fact they’d lost just as much as Shin had. Combined with his peculiar entrance to Palamon, Jaren strikes me as habitually aloof. Not cold, exactly, but distant. He’s kind, he’s fair, and once he’s been there for a while Palamon gets past the unapproachable air and develops enormous respect for his advisings and efforts…but they’ll never hit him up for interpersonal guidance because by that point they’ve also realised he’s kinda useless at it. On top of that, he has a tendency to just up and do what he thinks needs to be done without consultation or even warning. Irritated no few of his compatriots back at the Tower, and is exactly what gets him killed in the end.
3) Jaren is chill. A man whose ire has to be earned, as Shin says. I honestly don’t tend to write him as very expressive on any end of the scale, but anger in particular is something that comes slow and controlled. It’s with weary resignation that he watches people creep around him; he cuts an intimidating figure half by accident, and he’s not anywhere near so easy to offend as Palamon first fears. He’s also not quick to get bored or fretful or excitable, and he’ll quite happily just sit around for an hour in the quiet. The most unruffled of feathers.
4) Jaren stayed at Palamon for his own sake as much as Shin’s. Alright, this is raw headcanon. There’s naught in the grimoire that says one way or t’other how he felt about the town (or even how he felt about Shin, really). I just enjoy the potential parallel with Yor that can be made here - that both he and Rezyl had similar issues with growing tired of the fight, tired of /losing/ the fight, but found very different solutions to that problem. The timeline puts Twilight Gap and the Luna debacle around this period, not to mention the Vault of Glass failure, so there’s certainly plenty to feel gloomy about. And then along comes Palamon, doing its best, with a small boy representing all kinds of hope for the future…
I like to write a Jaren for whom Palamon is a perpetual source of interest and genuine pleasure. Who enjoys the routine of small-town life; who is intrigued by their customs and technologies; who is heartened by the resilience of these people and the fierce care they show each other. It’s not as though he’s never seen their kind before - Jaren’s been wandering the world a very long time - but he lingered because of Shin and then stayed because the place gave him peace.
And Palamon adopts him in turn. Jaren Ward is their Guardian, he who chose them over the fabled City, and they learn to navigate his oratory quirks and pick out his moods and give him a severe scolding for stacking the woodpile wrong because immortal warrior of the Light or not, he’s one of them.
Dredgen Yor
1) The canon is contradictory. Bungie could personally rappel into my bedroom at 4am to tell me Rezyl’s story had been planned from the beginning and I’d still be calling bullshit. Even putting aside the class warfare (badum psh), there are some really critical pieces that don’t quite click together across the cards. Early Thorn cards carry the heavy implication that Yor knew exactly what he was risking when he created Thorn (”I thought I saw a way" / “maybe I just wasn’t strong enough”), but The Triumphant Fall has Rezyl putting the gun together without realising what he was inviting in. Thorn 1 talks about pride being a driving motivation, the Rezyl cards focus more on fear and weariness.
There are numerous ways to handle this: prioritise one interpretation over another, try to blend the edges together to seek a middle ground, dropkick Bungie out the window because if they can’t keep their own character straight then it’s your city now. It doesn’t matter what you choose to do, as long as you recognise it’s a choice that’s gotta be made.
2) There is one consistent theme, though: the emotional toll of endless war. Rezyl’s story is the story of a man who fought for so long that he lost sight of the little picture. Rezyl reflects on enemies becoming “afterthoughts”, just one more battle in an endless string of battles; reflects on “growing tired of small wins, however meaningful”; he travels to the moon out of worry humanity was under even greater threat than they knew and their hope for a safe future thus that much feebler, and he fights with little passion or care for his own safety. Likewise, Yor kills out of boredom and sees no particular difference between approved enemies and supposed innocents, refers to the Light as a crutch, and points out that despite literal centuries of fighting as a grand hero, the same battles keep coming back around. “I tire of it,” he says. “I tire of you.”
We don’t know exactly what the Darkness whispered to Rezyl, but in light of the above, this card is worth consideration.
3) His relationship with the Hive is complicated at best. There is not yet any conclusive evidence whether Yor took up Hive magics outside of Thorn, and no evidence at all that he had any further dealings with the Hive. He clearly regards them with some sort of respect: is implied to have taken his name from their language, and even as Rezyl is able to appreciate the strange parallels between himself and their dark champions. He acknowledges them as nightmares, however, and his faith is in the “shadow” (aka, ye olde Darkness, as identified by his Ghost) directly. Does he see them as allies, inspiration, competition? It’s unclear, and open to plenty of interpretation.
4) His relationship with himself is even gnarlier. All claims to the contrary, Rezyl does not cease to exist when Yor makes his ascension; at absolute minimum, Yor still carries with him knowledge of the City, the Tower, the Light, and all their workings. His toying with Shin stands out as a peculiarity, enough so that Jaren’s Ghost calls him out for it, and it’s notable that he seems to deliberately target a settlement he once helped - there’s something very human in whatever strange game he is playing. Is there a kernel of regret buried deep within? Is there fear his fall is not as justified as he believes, a need to prove his new philosophy true? What sort of peace is it he feels? Just as writing Rezyl should foreshadow Yor, I believe Yor should backshadow Rezyl.
5) He is a remarkably (and coolly) sardonic asshole. Unfortunately a lot of Yor’s cards take place as audio logs, which means we don’t get any stated tone, but my god he is still so clearly - and casually! - being a dick sometimes. Evil has a sense of humour, who knew? He’s also quite dispassionate; he engages with the bandits almost disinterestedly even as they threaten him, and is unoffended by the condemnations flung by Jaren’s Ghost. (”Impressed?” “Far from it.” “To each their own.”) From the fierce battle on the moon to the moment Shin guns him down, Rezyl/Yor keeps his cool.
no subject
Date: 2019-03-02 02:40 am (UTC)okay it’s escaping me because I think I tried to erase the memory BUT THE POINT STANDS, the bafflement is real
no subject
Date: 2019-03-02 11:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-03 12:04 am (UTC)