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<blockquote data-quote="Composer99" data-source="post: 9407958" data-attributes="member: 7030042">One interesting thought that occurs to me is that, at least in D&amp;D, god-slaying is not a revolutionary act. If anything, it is usually enforcing a status quo.For instance, in Rime of the Frostmaiden, Auril has cast Icewind Dale in perpetual darkness - that is, Auril has broken the status quo of the day/night cycle in Icewind Dale. Although the player characters can't permanently destroy Auril, they can &quot;slay&quot; her (insofar as they do destroy her bodily manifestation). Doing so ends her disruptive activity and restores the status quo of the cycle of day and night.As another example, in Tyranny of Dragons, Tiamat and the Cult of the Dragon are trying to completely upend the status quo in the northwest of Faerûn, destroying it in order to replace it with a new status quo wherein dragons (chromatic dragons to be precise) are &quot;large and in charge&quot; as opposed to all the tiny folk. The player characters, and the coalition assembled to fight Tiamat, are trying to prevent this destruction or, if Tiamat wins in Rise of Tiamat, try to restore the prior status quo (or something like it) in future adventures.In JRPGs, by contrast, god-slaying often breaks the status quo. In Final Fantasy 10, you're pretty obviously putting an end to a long cycle of the Yu Yevon system and the entity of Sin. In some games, such acts can also be undertaken to restore an older, &quot;organic&quot; status quo that no longer exists or to preserve one that exists only in idyllic enclaves and is under threat. In Final Fantasy 7, for instance, you're fighting against both the &quot;establishment god&quot;, Shinra, and the &quot;revolutionary gods&quot; Jenova and Sephiroth.(In early JRPGs, such as Final Fantasy or Final Fantasy IV, the god-slaying looks a bit more like upholding a status quo - consider Final Fantasy IV or VI, where the plot is driven by Zeromus or Kefka trying to overthrow the existing world order and replace it with their own, such as it is. If the video on this topic found upthread is any guide, I expect that would have to do with the fact that most of these games were produced in the 1980s or early 1990s.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Composer99, post: 9407958, member: 7030042"] One interesting thought that occurs to me is that, at least in D&D, god-slaying is not a revolutionary act. If anything, it is usually enforcing a status quo. For instance, in [I]Rime of the Frostmaiden[/I], Auril has cast Icewind Dale in perpetual darkness - that is, Auril has broken the status quo of the day/night cycle in Icewind Dale. Although the player characters can't permanently destroy Auril, they can "slay" her (insofar as they do destroy her bodily manifestation). Doing so ends her disruptive activity and restores the status quo of the cycle of day and night. As another example, in [I]Tyranny of Dragons[/I], Tiamat and the Cult of the Dragon are trying to completely upend the status quo in the northwest of Faerûn, destroying it in order to replace it with a new status quo wherein dragons (chromatic dragons to be precise) are "large and in charge" as opposed to all the tiny folk. The player characters, and the coalition assembled to fight Tiamat, are trying to prevent this destruction or, if Tiamat wins in [I]Rise of Tiamat[/I], try to restore the prior status quo (or something like it) in future adventures. In JRPGs, by contrast, god-slaying often breaks the status quo. In Final Fantasy 10, you're pretty obviously putting an end to a long cycle of the Yu Yevon system and the entity of Sin. In some games, such acts can also be undertaken to restore an older, "organic" status quo that no longer exists or to preserve one that exists only in idyllic enclaves and is under threat. In Final Fantasy 7, for instance, you're fighting against both the "establishment god", Shinra, and the "revolutionary gods" Jenova and Sephiroth. (In early JRPGs, such as Final Fantasy or Final Fantasy IV, the god-slaying looks a bit more like upholding a status quo - consider Final Fantasy IV or VI, where the plot is driven by Zeromus or Kefka trying to overthrow the existing world order and replace it with their own, such as it is. If the video on this topic found upthread is any guide, I expect that would have to do with the fact that most of these games were produced in the 1980s or early 1990s.) [/QUOTE]

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