Wish Fulfillment?

   I'd been working on this entry for a while, and DC's shenanigans with Superman and Wonder Woman, plus tonight's episode of Doctor Who (which I will leave unspoiled) finally upset me enough to finish the post.

    The main character of the Aloden stories is a young man, James Twindragon, the Paladin of the Last Page.  He's the chosen champion of a demigod-level wizard, and he was given some pretty impressive superpowers to help him in his tasks.  James has been trained from childhood to be genre savvy, and one of his abilities is medium awareness.  He doesn't consciously break the fourth wall, but he leans on it pretty heavily.  He can look at people and determine if they're romantically compatible, and one of his duties is to help give them a chance to live happily ever after (hence the “Last Page” part of his title).

    For the record, while I'm happy with the title “Paladin of the Last Page,” I'm still a bit worried that it sounds dumb to other people.  I know I'm not so great at naming things, but my other option, the Paladin of Endings, seemed kinda dark.

    Anyway, because his boss thinks ironic hypocrisy is stupid, James recognizes his love interest and convinces her to marry him within about thirty hours of their first meeting.  They both realize they're moving quickly, but he's supernaturally honest, and she's an adrenaline junkie who realizes that life with him will be the most dangerously exciting thing, ever.  Plus (and I'm a bit embarrassed to write this) she's intrigued by the possibilities inherent in his supernatural stamina.

    Oh, and I liked Dharma and Greg.

    I'd planned this scene for a while, even though it doesn't properly fit in the flow of what will eventually be the novel.   James explaining to Donni just who and what he is takes away a bit of the mythic aspect I was going for, especially since, chronologically, this would be chapter one.

    I didn't realize 'til late in the summer why I wanted to work on this scene so much.  I'm envious of James, I guess, and I wish my life could be as straightforward.   I'll just have to do without superhuman genre savviness, I guess.

I Wasn't Expecting That!

   While waiting on some feedback for one part of the story I'm writing, I jumped ahead in the narrative to a scene where two groups of characters first meet up.  I wanted to play around with the RPG trope where the PCs automatically trust each other, best exemplified by a quote I saw on the internet attributed to someone named Charwoman Gene:

    “Hello, you seem greedy and prone to violence, want to go camping together for the rest of our lives?”

    In the scene, three of the four characters have had fairly mythic childhoods.  They've heard of each other by reputation, and they recognize each other by sight, based on description alone (which isn't hard; one character is seven feet tall, and another has Crystal-Gayle-length golden hair).  The fourth character has had a more mundane life (well, he's an ultra-rich swashbuckling sorcerer, but his childhood was normal), and he doesn't understand how the other three can just start talking like they're old friends when they've never met before, and, in fact, just happened to randomly meet in a seaside pub.

    My original plan was for the four of them to team up and go on a side quest.  I actually wrote that adventure way back in the mid 90's, but the story needs to be drastically rewritten.  Before the party just sort of stumbled upon the dungeon.  Now they're purposely looking for it.

    Anyway, the mythic characters ask the mundane one of he knows where the dungeon is (his ancestors were the last people to leave the place alive).  Here's where my story jumped the tracks: I realized a bit late in the game that he'd have no useful knowledge to help in their quest.  He rightfully points out that the events they're referencing happened almost four hundred years before, he's from the other side of the continent anyway, and it would be crazy to just expect him to know where to go.

    So now I'm stuck.  How do the characters get from Point A to Point B organically?  At this point, the mundane character sarcastically asks why they don't just go look at ancient tax rolls or something.  The main character thinks this is a great idea; they should all go to the spooky, ghost-infested library and look up the information they need.

    Now, the spooky, ghost-infested library has been a part of Aloden for years.  I have quite the backstory for how it was founded, and what happened to make it spooky and ghost-infested.  It's just that I've never actually told a story (or written a D&D game) where anybody ever thought to go.   'Cuz, y'know, ghost infested.  Now I've got a reason, and I have to actually figure out how to describe the place.   It'll be fun to write, but that part of the story just tripled in length, at the very least.

   At least I'll be true to gaming tropes: side quests do tend to metastasize.

Batman

    Don't get me wrong, I do like Batman.  I like Superman more; the best Superman stories are about inspiration, while I think the best Batman stories are about endurance in the face of adversity.  That's not a bad theme, but I think a lot of modern takes on Batman lose a bit of the majesty of the Dark Night Detective in their attempts to make him awesome.

    A typical complaint leveled against Superman is that he's boring; he has all of those powers and he's never really in any danger (aside from kryptonite, which is often a poor writer's a cop-out).  Batman, on the other hand, is just a man, so that makes him better.  The thing is, that's not really true any more.  Most modern takes on Batman make him a polymath genius ninja with positively obscene wealth.  That, I think, is the problem; if Bruce Wayne is that awesome, he's not just a man any more.  The amount of sheer power provided by his wealth and technology immediately propels him into the world of the superhuman.

   So here's how I'd fix it:

   Y'see, way, way back in the beginning, Bruce Wayne saw his rich (but not super-rich) parents murdered in front of him by Joe Chill.  The young man then dedicated his life to justice, so he studied and trained so that he could go into law enforcement.  Which, y'know, is actually a logical, sane response to such a childhood tragedy.  Then, in one of his classes, he discovered the difference between American law and true justice, got a bit disillusioned, went home to mope, got inspired by a bat, and... Batman.

    I like this origin.  I want to keep it.

    Bruce Wayne puts on the cowl and goes to work cleaning up gang-infested, corrupt Gotham City.  He's rich enough to have a costume and some tools, but the Batmobile is just a car he souped up himself.  He's young (late 20's or so), tough, and he'll beat a gangster in a fight, but he can't beat up a room full of dudes with guns (because he's not superhuman).   He has to fight from the shadows and use fear as a weapon.   He's smart, but not crazy inventor smart.  He is a detective, though, the best there is, because that's what he's been training for all his life.

    This goes on for a few years, and eventually Gotham does get cleaned up.  Not completely, because that's never going to happen, but Batman keeps putting the mob bosses away one by one.  Bruce Wayne can't do a lot here, since he's rich, but not super-rich.  He's getting richer, though; knowing which corrupt industrialist is about to be publicly charged with a crime isn't really insider trading, is it?  Anyway, from a storytelling point of view we need a change in the status quo: enter Robin and the Joker.

    Bruce Wayne is in the audience when The Flying Graysons are murdered.  He takes young Dick Grayson under his wing and trains him to be Robin as an extreme form of grief counseling.  I'm not a good enough author to come up with a reason why this is presented as a good idea and not a horrible form of child abuse, but I'm sure the right person could tell this story.

    Then the Joker makes an appearance, stepping into Gotham's criminal void and adding his own brand of craziness to the mix.  Batman beats him, of course, but the Joker is the catalyst that inspires Gotham's supervillains to step up.  One by one Batman and Robin take 'em all down, but Batman can't keep to the shadows, not the way he used to.  The villains are too flamboyant, and now that Bruce is in his early-to-mid 30's he's slowing down.

    This is the era of the Bat-Signal.   This is also the time when Bruce starts to become super rich.  All those freaky high-tech chemicals that the bat-villains use (Joker's poisons, Scarecrow's fear gas, whatever Clayface is), well, Batman has to analyze 'em, using the forensic skills he mastered when becoming the world's best detective.  And he's not just going to turn this stuff over to the Gotham PD; they can't handle it.  Wayne Enterprises can, though...

    While Gotham will never be clean, by this time only a crazy supervillain will try anything in Batman's stomping ground, and Bruce Wayne now has the money to make things better.  Which he'll do; I hate stories where Bruce is freaky rich but Gotham is still a cesspit.  Narratively, it's time for another change: enter the Justice League.

    By this time, Batman has the experience to sit at a table with physical gods and fight cosmic menaces with them.  He does need really awesome toys to keep up with his compatriots, but hey, look at all the scavenged tech just lying around after a fight with a world-class supervillain.

    At this point Dick Grayson is all grown up, so he goes on to become Nightwing, and we get a succession of replacement Robins.  Jason Todd still dies, Tim Drake puts the clues together, and, eventually, Damian Wayne is old enough to follow his forty-year-old father into battle.

    If you want to be cynical, the next stage of Batman's career could be The Dark Knight Returns or Batman Beyond.  Personally, I prefer it when Bruce and Selina Kyle settle down.  An unmodified human can only run around in a costume for so long before age catches up with 'em, and their retirement and marriage leads to Helena Wayne and a new generation of superheroes.   I'm always a sucker for legacy characters.

    I think this progression gives everyone something they can enjoy.  Fans of “realistic” Batman get early gangster-fighting Batman.  Fans of the 60's live-action craziness get mid-career Batman and Robin.   Justice League fans get an experienced, mature Batman who has all the toys and isn't afraid to use them to clean up his hometown.  And you can choose your own ending to the Batman mythos, be it dystopian, depressing, hopeful, or inspiring.

   I pick inspiring, but then, I do prefer Superman stories, after all.