Over on RPG.net there's a debate thread going on in this topic: do you think that Corwin is really the "bad guy" for most of the first series of novels? Is he worse than most of his family?
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Quote from: RPGPundit;336206Over on RPG.net there's a debate thread going on in this topic: do you think that Corwin is really the "bad guy" for most of the first series of novels? Is he worse than most of his family?
Corwin is certainly an x-factor into the mechanizations already in play. We discover that Eric is certainly not The Villain that Corwin imagines him to be. And, yes, from the point of view of Eric's own motivations, Corwin can surely be considered The Bad Guy.
On the other hand, I don't think the series deals well with absolutes. One can make compelling arguments on Brand not being The Villain, for instance. The explanations in the Merlin series aside, we can look upon Brand as legitimately being wronged and acting upon insight he may actually believe to be for everyone's best interest.
Something I've always felt compelling about Amber are the shades of grey. I don't think Good and Bad exist as absolutes here. In a very real sense, perception dictates reality for these characters. Not only are we (the readers) subjected to the individual characters' beliefs which motivate their behaviour, but these characters also have power (even on the subconscious level) of making these beliefs very real, thus changing the equation.
I guess it depends what is meant by "bad guy." In terms of conventional morality, post-amnesia Corwin seems to be a somewhat more compassionate fellow than his pre-amnesia self was. On the other hand, he represents a major destabilizing factor in insisting on attacking Amber at the same time the forces of chaos do.
The question is really how far do you want to go in being highly cynical about Corwin's telling of events.
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Quote from: RPGPundit;336429The question is really how far do you want to go in being highly cynical about Corwin's telling of events.
In my game, Merlin told Corwin's version to Zelazny in order to get it wrapped as a nice tale. It is recognized in Amber as "Corwin's version of the event". My players who read the series had their character read the books. Every elder is aware that this is biased toward Corwin, but consider it as an interesting retelling of the events. Eric's son calls it downright lies. Brandt's son is too busy discovering his father's (trapped) works to comment on something as petty as a rival's pamphlet.
I think it is a good idea to give Zelazny's work an ingame existence, and a wide cross-shadow extent. I ruled that Corwin's series was a commended work from Merlin but that Merlin's series was mostly Zelazny extrapolating on things he understood from discussions with Merlin and fictional in nature.
I think Corwin could be defined as "a" bad guy during the early novels, although he was certainly not "the" bad guy. Also, as pointed out already, he seemed somewhat more mellow than his pre-amnesia self. It could be that the badness he displayed during the early novels was just him acting out the way the people around him expected him to act, before coming to a realization that he was a slightly different person now.
My personal feeling is that Corwin is not a good person, but none of the Amberites are.
What is notable about Corwin is that he used to be a really, really dreadful person. Now if he actually reformed, or if he was telling Merlin a whitewashed version of events is unknown.
But I think he was Oberon's favorite because he was such a deeply, deeply bad man. Because Oberon is a pretty horrible guy. I think he saw stuff in his son that reminded him of himself, and that he never legitimized Eric because he saw Eric's tendency toward coalitions as 'soft'.
It's all conjecture, but when Fiona makes fun of Corwin for showing some small amount of human decency, you have to wonder what he was like before.
I don't think there's a Bad Guy in Amber novels.
Quote from: Imperator;336986I don't think there's a Bad Guy in Amber novels.
This. If Zelazny did something right it's not to follow the retard action movie trope of good guys and bad guys.
Quote from: Imperator;336986I don't think there's a Bad Guy in Amber novels.
I think it might be more accurate to say that there isn't a Good Guy in the Amber novels. Generally, everyone works in their own self-interest, and ends up doing some fairly horrible things. Look at Corwin. He didn't really have a problem wandering out to shadow and raising an army there that he knew would all be likely to die, just so he had a chance at the throne. On the other hand, when you're more "real" than just about everything in existence, you might not value the less-real as much.
Getting back to what what I think is the heart of the topic: Did Corwin lie in his memoirs? In minor ways (either to save face or embellish) I think almost certainly.
However, I think it's interesting to examine the psychology of the Crowin books, specifically the way they were written. Let's put aside the question of truth for the moment. Corwin is self-deprecating. He writes as though showing the reader a glimpse of his soul, IMO and that may be difficult to utterly fake... even for an Amberite.
As a reader, I am comfortable taking the spirit of the Corwin novels to be true (at lest in the sense that Corwin believes them to be). High adventure and shady politicking aside, the story is one of a man reforging his identity. In the process, two legacies come into play (Corwin's Pattern and, of course, his son, Merlin). I believe it does injustice to the genre to take the stance the Corwin Chronicles are deliberately misleading or deceptive.
This may not accurately answer questions of "good" and "bad," however. Quite obviously, Corwin acts upon information he believes is true but isn't. Constantly. This puts him as an antagonistic against other potentially "good" forces, to be sure.
Quote from: scottishstorm;337017He writes as though showing the reader a glimpse of his soul, IMO and that may be difficult to utterly fake... even for an Amberite.
Ha. Ha ha ! Hem. Sorry. We are talking about the troubadour of Amber here, the ultimate story-teller. He Who Would Enjoy A Poker Game Against Random.
Some people say that he did not discover alone how to draw a pattern, that this was Brand's knowledge that he stole and then framed him as the bad guy. That he was aware of Merlin's existence and that he was the connexion with the Courts. That he orchestrated Brand's removal from the plan with them. He pretends he refused the throne but says so only because Oberon designed no heir in his final will. No one but him knows what happened between Oberon and him. And who do you think orchestrated the assassination attempt that cost Benedict his arm ? Who really buys that he spent two centuries on Earth with amnesia ? He probably got his amnesia from his assassination attempt but made believe that it last longer to get an alibi. We don't get to know where Oberon was trapped during all this time, but the fact that he came back as Ganelon is suspicious...
Amber is such a good setting to twist it in every possible way. There is plenty of room for Corwin to have distorted reality a lot. I am certainly not saying that Corwin's version is impossible. I am merely opening other possible interpretations :)
I buy the amnesia thing for a very simple reason. Corwin would not spend two centuries being ordinary. This is beyond his patience or humility. :)
Besides, I think it was two centuries in Amber time, and more like 400 years for Corwin, wasn't it? Nope. Wouldn't happen. If Corwin was capable of carrying out THAT deception, he isn't simply evil, he's insane.
Quote from: scottishstorm;337056I buy the amnesia thing for a very simple reason. Corwin would not spend two centuries being ordinary. This is beyond his patience or humility. :)
If Corwin lied, and wasn't amnesiac for such a long time, then he would have lied about staying on Earth continuously for two centuries. He could have fetched a double to lure Fiona while he was messing around in shadow. That's a major revision of the canon but it's interesting...
Quote from: boulet;337063If Corwin lied, and wasn't amnesiac for such a long time, then he would have lied about staying on Earth continuously for two centuries. He could have fetched a double to lure Fiona while he was messing around in shadow. That's a major revision of the canon but it's interesting...
It's interesting, but I don't buy it. :)
The historical references Corwin makes and memories he describe, while not
proving his longtime amnesia and staying on Earth, would default to fabricated deception otherwise. As a reader, I wouldn't enjoy this
phony Corwin as much, if at all.
As an aside, a good narrative either has the core of truth or enough clues for the audience to discover the truth, despite being lied to. I enjoyed the movie
The Usual Suspects, but felt cheated because these elements weren't there (well, the latter was, but too subtle for me to pick up with the first viewing).
Quote from: scottishstorm;337067The historical references Corwin makes and memories he describe, while not proving his longtime amnesia and staying on Earth, would default to fabricated deception otherwise.
I'm sure he prefers the term "literary licence"
Quote from: scottishstorm;337067As a reader, I wouldn't enjoy this phony Corwin as much, if at all.
Oh I totally agree. As a reader I would hate it. As a GM or as a PC I would accept it as making sense. One can read the autobiography of many great politicians and spot the omissions or the downright lies told inside. Would you trust Brand's memoirs ? Fiona's ? Random's ?
I think we're in agreement. Could Corwin have been lying, and actually been a real horrible bastard? Of course he could have been. However, the course material wouldn't have been as compelling (to me, at least) if this ultra sinister view proved to be true.
As an aside (God, I make a lot of those), watch Highlander (the first and only good one, of course) sometime with the perspective that the Kurgan doesn't want the prize and is preparing to die. It holds up.
In my heart of hearts, I just don't buy that Corwin is meant to be an unreliable narrator. (I know RZ stated at various points that Corwin is unreliable but the author just claiming this by fiat does not cut the mustard for me). It's always seemed to me much more plausible that the textual inconsistencies (eg, the genealogical gaffes, etc) are essentially genetic in nature -- that is to say, RZ messed up or, more charitably, his vision of the world evolved and he couldn't go back and edit previously published works.
However, if one for the purposes of the RPG goes and enforces unreliability as the sole mechanism for resolving the inconsistencies it does suggest some interesting readings. Part of the question is who of the many narrators in the series are unreliable, and to what degree? Our list of narrators consists of Corwin, Random, Merlin, Luke, and Frakir, unless I'm forgetting some one. Of these, only Corwin and Random have identified narratees. The others are addressing who, exactly? Some vague floating listener, it seems. Unlike Corwin, who is a former amnesiac and addressing someone possibly with split loyalties, they have no reason given in the discourse to be unreliable. Moreover, all the accounts from Merlin onward seem to pretty much corroborate one another. I'd say it seems fair to take the information they give as more or less reliable. This suggests to me, if we chose to read Corwin as withholding info (underreporting rather than misreporting, in other words) that either he is unaware of or, more likely, choosing not to mention at a minimum that the Pattern(s) are sentient, that Grayswandir is a spikard, and (maybe) the existence of Pattern ghosts. This makes a certain amount of sense insofar as the "state secrets" he shares (Dworkin's role in things, the effect of Amberite blood on the pattern, the powers of the Jewel of Judgment) are things that Merlin, as a Chaos aristocrat and son of Dara, could well be expected to know already.
Quote from: Drascus;336981My personal feeling is that Corwin is not a good person, but none of the Amberites are.
What is notable about Corwin is that he used to be a really, really dreadful person. Now if he actually reformed, or if he was telling Merlin a whitewashed version of events is unknown.
But I think he was Oberon's favorite because he was such a deeply, deeply bad man. Because Oberon is a pretty horrible guy. I think he saw stuff in his son that reminded him of himself, and that he never legitimized Eric because he saw Eric's tendency toward coalitions as 'soft'.
It's all conjecture, but when Fiona makes fun of Corwin for showing some small amount of human decency, you have to wonder what he was like before.
I think that's a very insightful perspective. I don't think it need even fall into questions of "good" or "bad", but that Oberon was an Autocrat while Eric was a Diplomat. Oberon believed in Rule Through Strength, which Corwin (until his reformation) seemed to mirror, and Oberon just liked that better. He wanted the son who was tough enough to take what he wanted by force, more than the one who was able to convince people to give him what he wanted.
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I can buy the bit about Oberon seeing himself in Corwin and preferring him as a result. But Eric diplomat and too soft? You lost me guys.
Quote from: boulet;337640I can buy the bit about Oberon seeing himself in Corwin and preferring him as a result. But Eric diplomat and too soft? You lost me guys.
Picture Corwin and Eric as the two older brothers that everyone else in the family pretty much hates but for different reasons (Yes, there was also Benedict, but he was the much odler brother who didin't play the games of his siblings).
Corwin was the talented bastard who derived his enjoyment from showing up everyone else. Whatever a younger brother could do well, Corwin made a point of doing a little better (although not the sorcery thing, Corwin is a bit of a jock). He was the ultimate self reliant loner who only needed other people around as victims for his cruel sense of humour.
Eric was similar in that he, too, had to be the best. But while Corwin wanted to demonstrate his superiority and lord it over everyone else, Eric was the kind of guy who derived value frmo the good will of others. Where Corwin was happy to be dispised by a brother he had shown up, Eric needed that same brother to look up to him as a role model. Corwin like to hear "you're a bastard for being better than me", while Eric preferred to hear "you're better than me, how can I make myself more like you?" and played the charm card accordingly.
There may have been further nuances, perhaps Corwin secretly wanted his brothers to accept him, but felt even more strongly the urge to distance himself from Eric, who had already staked out that territory as his own. Or perhaps Eric secret feared that Corwin, one-on-one was his equal or even his superior and instinctively saught to surround himelf with supporters to tip the balance.
But frmo the point of view of Oberon, here were two magnificne tbastards with only one major difference - one relied on the support of others to maintain his sense of superiority, and the other was able to stand alone and still hold his head up high. For Oberon, himself apparently an only child, it makes sense that he would prefer Corwin.
Considering both brothers were fairly outstanding in terms of cutthroat realpolitik, perhaps Oberon just preferred Corwin's songs and poetry?
Well, none of this is in any way cannon, of course. But here are some things I noticed.
Oberon never legitimizes Eric, though he makes a point of doing it for Llewella.
Oberon wanted Corwin to be king pretty obviously late in the books, and probably beforehand though that's not stated.
Oberon was PISSED when Corwin went missing, to the point of threatening his son Eric with disinheriting him, and accusing him of the deed at a family dinner.
Eric is older than Corwin, and was Corwin's better at swordplay, presumably because of the age gap. So what does Oberon do? He gives Corwin a Pattern Sword, but doesn't give one to Eric. Giving one son a weapon and not the other, when the two of them are at each other's throats and have unfriendly duels? That's nasty, and it sends a message.
So there may not be anything to it, but I like to think that Pre-Earth Corwin was first in line in Oberon's mind not just because of his place in the succession (Oberon could have changed that with a simple decree to legitimize Eric); but rather because he was such a terrible man that Oberon thought he had the strength to rule Amber, and was a lot like his old man.
Heh, that's what Corwin says. Though I did not remember the mention that his Pattern sword was given by Oberon to Corwin.
Well sure, but you can't combine the speculations about Corwin being an unreliable narrator with other speculations or you'll never go anywhere.
Quote from: Drascus;338089Well sure, but you can't combine the speculations about Corwin being an unreliable narrator with other speculations or you'll never go anywhere.
Just because a narrator is unreliable about some things does not make him automatically unreliable about all things. That said, if he were going to be unreliable about anything, Spikards / pattern swords would likely be high on the list.
Quote from: weilide;338133Just because a narrator is unreliable about some things does not make him automatically unreliable about all things. That said, if he were going to be unreliable about anything, Spikards / pattern swords would likely be high on the list.
I have no beef with pattern swords, really.
For one, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that a pattern sword is any more lethal to an Amberite than another weapon of high quality. In game terms, this could be considered "Primal damage to Creatures of Chaos, deadly damage to everything else", in other words a 16-point item that acts as a 4-point item in respect to Amberites and other stuff in shadow. (Whether that 4 points of 'deadly damage' is itself unbalancing has already been discussed to death (I'm one who believes it is, FYI).
There's also the ambiguity of what defences there may be against a pattern sword, should the potential victim be unluycky enough to be Chaosian.
- Does Logrus defence help?
- What if the Chaosian has 'Amber blood' as well? ie: would Corwin's pattern sword cause Dara to light up like a fireball?
- What quality of wound is needed to inflict 'primal damage'? (if we go by the book examples, then there is cause for concern here. Then again, Corwin was also one of the best swordsmen in existence)
- In respect to dual-blooded characters, how does this factor with Oberon's children? Benedict may secretly have shapeshifting and logrus mastery. Osric could be a ranking Lord of Chaos.
- Is shapeshifting ability a factor in what makes a 'Creature of Chaos'?
I have no beef with pattern swords in principle, though I think the drpg rules can be pretty ambiguous about them.
Quote from: scottishstorm;338534I have no beef with pattern swords, really.
For one, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that a pattern sword is any more lethal to an Amberite than another weapon of high quality. In game terms, this could be considered "Primal damage to Creatures of Chaos, deadly damage to everything else", in other words a 16-point item that acts as a 4-point item in respect to Amberites and other stuff in shadow. (Whether that 4 points of 'deadly damage' is itself unbalancing has already been discussed to death (I'm one who believes it is, FYI).
There's also the ambiguity of what defences there may be against a pattern sword, should the potential victim be unluycky enough to be Chaosian.
- Does Logrus defence help?
- What if the Chaosian has 'Amber blood' as well? ie: would Corwin's pattern sword cause Dara to light up like a fireball?
- What quality of wound is needed to inflict 'primal damage'? (if we go by the book examples, then there is cause for concern here. Then again, Corwin was also one of the best swordsmen in existence)
- In respect to dual-blooded characters, how does this factor with Oberon's children? Benedict may secretly have shapeshifting and logrus mastery. Osric could be a ranking Lord of Chaos.
- Is shapeshifting ability a factor in what makes a 'Creature of Chaos'?
I have no beef with pattern swords in principle, though I think the drpg rules can be pretty ambiguous about them.
I removed all the damage multipliers from my game. They were just crazy unbalancing.
Quote from: Drascus;338536I removed all the damage multipliers from my game. They were just crazy unbalancing.
Not a bad call. I'm currently stating in a game with a "revamped" item system that keeps the spirit, but spreads the effect over a wider point cost. It seems to work so far, from what I've seen.
In a bringing up pattern swords I wasn't thinking of them specifically in RPG terms but rather alluding to the fact that they are actually re-formed spikards -- a fact Corwin conveniently fails to mention in his series.
Quote from: weilide;338592In a bringing up pattern swords I wasn't thinking of them specifically in RPG terms but rather alluding to the fact that they are actually re-formed spikards -- a fact Corwin conveniently fails to mention in his series.
I don't know that they had the same function, I think they were just on the same level of power.
Quote from: weilide;338592In a bringing up pattern swords I wasn't thinking of them specifically in RPG terms but rather alluding to the fact that they are actually re-formed spikards -- a fact Corwin conveniently fails to mention in his series.
Ah! I can see the issue there!
In all honesty, I only take the second series as canon in respect to the characters it introduces. I recently reread the Merlin series and found the best way to get though it was to enjoy the character and largely ignore the storyline and plot points. Spikards makes me cringe. As you may have read in other posts, I'm not a terrific fan of sorcery, either(*).
(* I like sorcery just fine, actually... as a 15 point utility power that has combat applications and lenbds to the diversity of one's character. i openly dislike "I have sorcery. You die now!" characters and players who utterly fail to grasp the power fundamentals and take up tedious game time each and every time while the GM has to (yet again) try to explain to them how their power does and doesn't work)
Quote from: Drascus;338659I don't know that they had the same function, I think they were just on the same level of power.
In the short story
Coming to a Cord Frakir explains, "Long before there was Werewindle, it was the spikard Rawg." Elsewhere Corwin points out to Luke that Grayswandir has a similar history.
Yeah, but the implication is that these spikards were transformed or bound in the form of the Swords.
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Quote from: RPGPundit;339420Yeah, but the implication is that these spikards were transformed or bound in the form of the Swords.
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Sorry, I just woke up and I'm feeling a little muzzle-headed. Aren't we in agreement on this point?
Quote from: scottishstorm;338534For one, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that a pattern sword is any more lethal to an Amberite than another weapon of high quality.
For what it's worth, there isn't really much evidence that a pattern sword is any more lethal to a Chaosite than any other weapon of high quality either. Again, the assumption that the sword is what makes Chaos blood burn is an Erickism, and in the Merlin series we see that a Chaosite cut with a knife can find his blood flaming equally well as one cut with a pattern sword. Merlin even comments that flaming blood is a natural feature of a Chaosite. When Corwin stabs his Chaos victims with Greyswandir, he is just inflicting an otherwise fatal wound which allows the flaming blood to flow freely and consume the corpse.
An obvious advantage of a pattern sword is that it disrupts logrus tendrils. Therefore a logrus master can not disarm the wielder of a pattern sword where normal sword users can be easily disarmed.
Quote from: Ivanhoe;339652An obvious advantage of a pattern sword is that it disrupts logrus tendrils. Therefore a logrus master can not disarm the wielder of a pattern sword where normal sword users can be easily disarmed.
I wonder what would happen if a pattern sword user empowered it with Confer Quality. On paper, it looks good and like a nasty surprise to some foes, but...
Quote from: JongWK;339665I wonder what would happen if a pattern sword user empowered it with Confer Quality. On paper, it looks good and like a nasty surprise to some foes, but...
If you mean we have a blade like
Primal damage to creatures of Chaos (16)
Embued with Pattern - the blade has tracery of the pattern within it making it unique and resistant to magics and attacks of lesser powers - (16)
Confer Power (8)
total cost 40 points.....
I would say this weapon would effectively confer a permanent pattern defense on the weilder and you might get pattern lens sight by default. But hey it costs 40 points and to boot its like the biggest Chaos beacon in the multiverse.
Quote from: jibbajibba;339667But hey it costs 40 points and to boot its like the biggest Chaos beacon in the multiverse.
Indeed. I dare say that there might be the odd Logrus master who'd be curious to see whether that thing could stand up to primal chaos.
Quote from: weilide;339452Sorry, I just woke up and I'm feeling a little muzzle-headed. Aren't we in agreement on this point?
Well, my point is that the "energy" of these items is completely taken up by their form as Swords, they are used in that function, and not as spell-slinging devices like the Spikards.
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