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How MYTHIC are your bad guys?
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<blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 24152" data-attributes="member: 812"><p>The thread about biggest baddest WHATS got me to thinking about the importance of mythic <em>types</em> to one's bad guys. I've studied a good deal of literature and myth and have noticed that my current campaign, which features a pretty diverse crop of bad guys, includes a variety of mythic types, sometimes combined, sometimes in contrast with each other. I'm wondering about other DMs and their bad guys. What are your bad guys and how are they <em>mythically</em> significant?</p><p></p><p>A couple of examples from Barsoom:</p><p></p><p><strong>Yuek Man Chong</strong></p><p>Madame Yuek is an ultra-powerful lesbian vampire sorceress. I know, I know, it sounds incredibly cheesy, but she's turned out to be one of my favourite NPCs of all time. She's super-creepy (partly because she's obviously in love with one of the PCs) and I just love having her show up and making my players' skins crawl.</p><p></p><p>Mythically, she's got the vampire thing going on, which makes her a perversion of the natural female power -- which is generative. She is not generative, she is purely destructive, which is one thing that makes her scary. Women, mythically, shouldn't be like that. The vampire thing and the lesbian thing complement each other in that both make her essentially self-contained -- she has no use for men at all. Another creep factor.</p><p></p><p>She's also really really smart and is super-rational -- she has everything thought out ten steps ahead and has actually won the party over because she's so clear in her thinking and dispassionate -- again working AGAINST the mythic nature of the female and making her a perverse creature. Her rationality has come at the price of sacrificing her essential female nature.</p><p></p><p><strong>Matai Shang</strong></p><p>Shang is another super-powerful sorcerer (I use the word sorcerer simply to mean someone who does magic, not in the 3E sense), who's increased his power by grafting his body to machines. He's sort of a magical cyborg.</p><p></p><p>His creepiness doesn't come from the violation of types the way Madame Yuek's does -- instead, he's sort of a super-type. He's the ultimate masculine development -- hard and anti-natural, holding the natural world at bay through mechanical means. However, he's quite irrational and very emotional, suggesting the price he's paid for his mechanical nature has robbed him of one of the essences of being human -- the combination of rational and irrational. In him, the rational is externalised to the extreme so the internal has now become irrational.</p><p></p><p><strong>The Tyrant's Shade</strong></p><p>One of the largest and most powerful nations on Barsoom is ruled by the Tyrant's Shade, the reanimated corpse of a long-dead emperor. He's also a super-male like Shang, but instead of externalising the rational, the Tyrant's Shade embodies the notion of raw will, which mythically is very male. He exists truly because he has willed it to be so, and he is a single-minded conqueror without mercy or emotion.</p><p></p><p>He appears to be a large and muscular man with his face concealed beneath a threatening helm -- the power of the body and the mind without a face that interacts with society, representing the required isolation of the conquering male -- he can't be a part of that which he controls or he risks losing control.</p><p></p><p><strong>Ky'in</strong></p><p>Ky'in, the ancient ruler of the Calegrian empire, slowly coming back to life through blood sacrifices on a massive scale. She represents the consuming nature of the female -- the male fear of castration and even more potently, of being devoured.</p><p></p><p>Ky'in may indeed be all-powerful. She simply consumes, devours entire nations without thought. To her, all of civilization is meaningless. She is nature unleashed and uncontrolled by any rationality. She is also of course beautiful, because the devouring female is always attractive to the male self-destructive urge, suicide being a purely rational response to the innate powerlessness of the male in the face of female nature.</p><p></p><p>So how about your campaigns? I didn't plan any of these things, but my wife (another literary type) and I were talking about them (and Camille Paglia) and it occurred to me that it was kind of an interesting way to look at one's NPCs.</p><p></p><p>As a note, PLEASE understand that when I talk about "the female" or "the male" I am talking about their mythic significance, not the way in which men and women actually are. There's plenty of rational women and generative men, but those symbols still have meaning.</p><p></p><p>(sorry, formatting mistake)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="barsoomcore, post: 24152, member: 812"] The thread about biggest baddest WHATS got me to thinking about the importance of mythic [i]types[/i] to one's bad guys. I've studied a good deal of literature and myth and have noticed that my current campaign, which features a pretty diverse crop of bad guys, includes a variety of mythic types, sometimes combined, sometimes in contrast with each other. I'm wondering about other DMs and their bad guys. What are your bad guys and how are they [i]mythically[/i] significant? A couple of examples from Barsoom: [b]Yuek Man Chong[/b] Madame Yuek is an ultra-powerful lesbian vampire sorceress. I know, I know, it sounds incredibly cheesy, but she's turned out to be one of my favourite NPCs of all time. She's super-creepy (partly because she's obviously in love with one of the PCs) and I just love having her show up and making my players' skins crawl. Mythically, she's got the vampire thing going on, which makes her a perversion of the natural female power -- which is generative. She is not generative, she is purely destructive, which is one thing that makes her scary. Women, mythically, shouldn't be like that. The vampire thing and the lesbian thing complement each other in that both make her essentially self-contained -- she has no use for men at all. Another creep factor. She's also really really smart and is super-rational -- she has everything thought out ten steps ahead and has actually won the party over because she's so clear in her thinking and dispassionate -- again working AGAINST the mythic nature of the female and making her a perverse creature. Her rationality has come at the price of sacrificing her essential female nature. [b]Matai Shang[/b] Shang is another super-powerful sorcerer (I use the word sorcerer simply to mean someone who does magic, not in the 3E sense), who's increased his power by grafting his body to machines. He's sort of a magical cyborg. His creepiness doesn't come from the violation of types the way Madame Yuek's does -- instead, he's sort of a super-type. He's the ultimate masculine development -- hard and anti-natural, holding the natural world at bay through mechanical means. However, he's quite irrational and very emotional, suggesting the price he's paid for his mechanical nature has robbed him of one of the essences of being human -- the combination of rational and irrational. In him, the rational is externalised to the extreme so the internal has now become irrational. [b]The Tyrant's Shade[/b] One of the largest and most powerful nations on Barsoom is ruled by the Tyrant's Shade, the reanimated corpse of a long-dead emperor. He's also a super-male like Shang, but instead of externalising the rational, the Tyrant's Shade embodies the notion of raw will, which mythically is very male. He exists truly because he has willed it to be so, and he is a single-minded conqueror without mercy or emotion. He appears to be a large and muscular man with his face concealed beneath a threatening helm -- the power of the body and the mind without a face that interacts with society, representing the required isolation of the conquering male -- he can't be a part of that which he controls or he risks losing control. [b]Ky'in[/b] Ky'in, the ancient ruler of the Calegrian empire, slowly coming back to life through blood sacrifices on a massive scale. She represents the consuming nature of the female -- the male fear of castration and even more potently, of being devoured. Ky'in may indeed be all-powerful. She simply consumes, devours entire nations without thought. To her, all of civilization is meaningless. She is nature unleashed and uncontrolled by any rationality. She is also of course beautiful, because the devouring female is always attractive to the male self-destructive urge, suicide being a purely rational response to the innate powerlessness of the male in the face of female nature. So how about your campaigns? I didn't plan any of these things, but my wife (another literary type) and I were talking about them (and Camille Paglia) and it occurred to me that it was kind of an interesting way to look at one's NPCs. As a note, PLEASE understand that when I talk about "the female" or "the male" I am talking about their mythic significance, not the way in which men and women actually are. There's plenty of rational women and generative men, but those symbols still have meaning. (sorry, formatting mistake) [/QUOTE]
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