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Extrication, or: Tricking Fate

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fictionfan said:
So should we go and put a sword in stone and say the person who can pull it out is the rightful king? That seems like a fairly good strategy. Merlin in some stories was the son of the devil and he did all right.
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Merlin isn't the one who put the sword there though. At least I don't recall any version where he was.
 
Alivaril said:
So: Yes, but a ridiculously small number of even slightly morally grey ones. For some reason, they often seem to be fairies, overthrown by evil sorcerers later on, or actually villains in disguise.
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I think you have to look for a culture where 'sorcery' isn't automatically 'evil'.
 
Yay, someone is finally running "on no my daughter is an anime protagonist" quest! This's been on my ideas pile for quite a while. :D

Not being set particularly recently cuts off a lot of our options. Most of the best outcomes are, for obvious reasons, subversions: Shrek, basically the entire portfolio from Pixar, Discworld, science fiction stories really like doing "meme in space but with changes", anime deconstructions, etc.

Tactic 1: Divert to another Echo that's more favorable.
Alivaril said:
[] A Tragic Hero

Enchanted princess in a sleeping castle? Check. Maze of sharp, deadly bushes? Check. Third one to take up the call? Apparently. Not a good sign. Pure-hearted hero? Hah, no.

Yeah, you're not touching this one with a ten-foot pole.

(Hard{er} Mode; there are so very many tales which involve dead heroes…)
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The classic hero story... except you're not the one that's destined to succeed. Available stories to divert to:
  • Shrek
...

Well, that's not a good sign.
Alivaril said:
[] A Soon-to-be-captive Princess

Your mother is dying, your stepfather is a slimebag, and you can't actually remember the last time you saw the sun shining over the castle. Combine the three and you're guessing your life is likely to become really quite unpleasant rather soon. At least, if you simply sit by and let Echoes dictate your life. Not likely.

Strictly speaking, following this tale to its conclusion may leave you with a happy ending, and possibly even a "happily ever after." Unfortunately, while your stepfather might just lock you in a tower or something similar, there are plenty of tales which involve awful things happening to princesses before a hero finally comes along. You'd like to skip that part if at all possible.

Thankfully, for whatever reason, princesses seem to be involved in an awful lot of tales. If you're clever and lucky, you might be able to get out of this relatively unscathed...
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At least this one gives us a better target.
  • Turn it into a coming-of-age story. Not likely to be an actually happy outcome, and "Endurance mode" is right.
  • "Secretly a woman all along" stories: Eowyn would be an excellent legend to divert to. Plus tons o fun. Some of these end tragically, though, so gotta be careful.
Alivaril said:
[] The Sorcerer's Apprentice

All your life, you've been told that magic is both a gift and a curse. Prior to the current situation, you'd doubted the latter claim.

Recently, your mentor came into possession of a midnight-black orb he was supposed to destroy. While you haven't seen it since, you're guessing the growing dark magical aura at the top of the tower indicates a severe lack of following through. If this keeps up, you're likely to be either the first sacrifice or corrupted into his faithful assistant. Or maybe something else worse, or maybe better? Given as you've been a bit more focused on magical studies than the habits of Echoes, you're not entirely sure what you can do about your current situation. Perhaps the tower library could help you find out?
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  • Flee, start a Quest. Pretty straightforward.
  • The Unlikely Hero(ine?). Just walk straight up there and smite him. High-risk-high-reward. Unless you pull off the part where, like Gandalf, you're defeated and then transition to the Quest.
Alivaril said:
[] The Misunderstood Artifact Guardian

You're a dragon. Collecting things is practically in your job description, or it would be if you actually had a real job. Unfortunately, you recently looted a ridiculously powerful and very much evil artifact from the hoard of one of your family's foes. The murderous whispers at the back of your mind kinda gave it away.

The pesky thing has been highly resistant to disposal and keeps reappearing in your bed no matter what you do. Even dropping it in a volcano didn't work.

You know how this is going to end if you don't do anything about it. Either you'll be corrupted by the blasted thing, or some moronic human is going to slay you, ignoring anything you say regarding the current situation. After that, he'll likely bring down a curse on the land or otherwise make the lives of everyone a bit worse. Oh, he may feel a bit guilty later on, but you just so happen to like life.
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"Artifact Guardian" for just a second made me think Agneyastra. That would've been hilarious.
I'm not sure I can think of a single story where the corrupted dragon, of all people, makes it out alive. Unless we cleverly redefine ourselves into a subversion where we are the hero that's being corrupted and we end up in Lord of the Rings as Bilbo. Which'd be... funny, but I don't know if we can pull it off.
Alivaril said:
[] The Evil Sorceress

...Pardon?

Okay, just because you inherited a haunted castle in the middle of dangerous forestland doesn't mean you're evil. The ghosts are free to leave whenever they like and you're on friendly terms with most of them. Some of the types of magic you use are a wee bit questionable, yes, but you always use either yourself, volunteers, or mere animals. Surely, that has to count for something.

Of course you wear dark colors; trying to keep white robes clean is just such an utter waste of time. You've been expanding your territory lately, certainly, but you've also improved the living conditions of those under your sort-of-not-quite rule.

So why do you keep feeling the overwhelming urge to break out into diabolical cackling, and why do you keep getting offers of marriage or alliance from warlords and rulers you've never even heard of? Finally, what is with all the dark artifacts which keep magically appearing in your treasury and workshops when you're positive they weren't there before?

...An Echo has taken an interest in your life, hasn't it? Well, this could get annoying.
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Good job, Sorceress, good job. That should've been risk number one on your list.
Not sure what clear options are available here to divert to. Granny Weatherwax?
 
fictionfan said:
Are there any stories of good sorceress Queens? Or kings?
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I can think of a couple. Pretty obscure ones, though. First one would be King Valdemar from the Valdemar series by Mercedes Lackey. There are a couple of good mages who are rulers in that series, but also several prominent evil ones, so it's kinda a wash. There are a couple other examples from that author, from what I remember.

When rulership requires that one be a mage, it tends to happen more often, usually as a 'overthrew evil royal wizard, replace with good wizard who is royalty or nobility' ending to the plot. There are probably examples of good rulers from naturally magical races, like the fae or other such creatures, if that counts.
Alivaril said:
So: Yes, but a ridiculously small number of even slightly morally grey ones. For some reason, they often seem to be fairies, overthrown by evil sorcerers later on, or actually villains in disguise.
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Yeah, fae are generally somewhere about neutral on the alignment scale most of the time. Or good, but somewhat quirkily so. And by 'quirkily' I mean 'condones ocassionally kidnapping children and replacing them with baby fae'.
 
Vebyast said:
The classic hero story... except you're not the one that's destined to succeed. Available stories to divert to:
  • Shrek
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Nixeu said:
First one would be King Valdemar from the Valdemar series by Mercedes Lackey.
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Fellow questers, our QM wrote:
King Arthur said:
Celestia is super recent story wise and unlikely t have buit up enough of an echo to count, a unicorn under the current belief system with easily cancles out every negative thign about her, and a goddess which cancels out the magic thing as it is different with divinity.
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While that is an answer for Celestia, Shrek and Valdemar aren't old, too.
 
MTB said:
Fellow questers, our QM wrote:
While that is an answer for Celestia, Shrek and Valdemar aren't old, too.
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Hm. Makes it harder, but Alivaril implied subversion is an option. As such, if we're gonna do this, we should learn from the best...
*begins re-reading Discworld*
 
fictionfan said:
So should we go and put a sword in stone and say the person who can pull it out is the rightful king? That seems like a fairly good strategy. Merlin in some stories was the son of the devil and he did all right.
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Not that easy, I'm afraid. This would be a very, very short quest if that worked. :p

If you tried that without doing quite a few things to redirect the Echo down the path of, say, "wise old woman / king-chooser," including actually having a kingdom to give them, that sword would be likely to turn into a cursed artifact.

Nixeu said:
I can think of a couple. Pretty obscure ones, though. First one would be King Valdemar from the Valdemar series by Mercedes Lackey. There are a couple of good mages who are rulers in that series, but also several prominent evil ones, so it's kinda a wash. There are a couple other examples from that author, from what I remember.
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Too recent / insufficient cultural impact.



@Vebyast's got the right idea, mostly. Surprisingly, a little too confined.


Examples

Princess: Flee the castle, start a rebellion against the evil stepfather who has "usurped your throne."

Sorceress: Wait for a hero to defeat or imprison you, pretend to be "redeemed."


Both of the above examples come with plenty of problems of their own, of course. For example, in how many tales does the princess die and instead becomes a martyr? How many times is the sorceress "untrustworthy" / "a liar" and so dies anyway?
 
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[1] The Evil Sorceress
[2] The Misunderstood Artifact Guardian
[3] A Soon-to-be-captive Princess
[4] The Sorcerer's Apprentice
[5] A Tragic Hero
 
Alivaril said:
If you tried that without doing quite a few things to redirect the Echo down the path of, say, "wise old woman / king-chooser," including actually having a kingdom to give them, that sword would be likely to turn into a cursed artifact.
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But - then the main villain becomes the artifact wielder, while the guy who directed him fades into the background (and lives happily ever after :))
 
Sorceress: Pretend to be cursed/witched by your <evil twin / the fairy of the north> and quest to remove the curse
 
[1] The Evil Sorceress
[2] The Misunderstood Artifact Guardian
[3] The Sorcerer's Apprentice
[4] A Tragic Hero
[5] A Soon-to-be-captive Princess
 
A thought occurs to me are there echos of superhero stories? Superman himself has been around since 1933 which well recent the influence such stories have had is quite large these days.
 
MTB said:
Fellow questers, our QM wrote:
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I forgot to strike it through. It's not an option.
Alivaril said:
@Vebyast's got the right idea, mostly. Surprisingly, a little too confined.
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Hmm, we have that much flexibility? In that case...

Tactic 2: Escape by being not-the-protagonist.
Alivaril said:
[] A Tragic Hero
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  • You know how there's occasionally the visibly-obvious prince that turns out to be a complete coward and manages to run away instead of getting horribly murdered? Be bombastic and arrogant and chivalrous, see the guardian, shit pants and run.
Alivaril said:
[] A Soon-to-be-captive Princess
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  • Yeah, your sister can handle this. You're just going to go over here and live in the forest for a while.


SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
e: and then we die tragically but hey!
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That's pretty much the problem. No obvious exits from classic evil-sorceress positions. Anviliciouslly ironic deaths are way too common.

I'm really not being very creative today, am I. The hell's going on here?
 
MTB said:
Tarquin, Elan's father. I guess.
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Tarquin fully accepted his eventual death-by-hero, though. He accepts conventions and only twists them in his favor to a minor extent. Elan was the one who decided to break the conventions, because breaking the conventions also makes a good story.
Vebyast said:
I'm really not being very creative today, am I. The hell's going on here?
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It happens to us all.
 
So a quick question would it be possible to run into other echoes? Because I would find it amusing whenever there's some sort of serious moment that our character goes full Ham interrupt completly disrupting the echoe. Hell I wouldn't mind having our main thing be disrupting echoes and have our character go around killing tension through guitar rifts and strategic uses of puppies to derail trains of thought. Also is Fighting against Fate be a good echo that we could jump on to be weaponized against the entire system itself?
 
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Okay, so, good news people, you have an expert on Echo's here. Been dealing with this nonsense for what feels like forever.

Bad news, I am absolutely terrible at it, very, very few success. Most of the time everything goes super horrible.
 
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