: I second that emotion. Great article, Forrest. Here are
: my thoughts: You say that Shiver is
: "popularly" thought to be an Ancient Evil.
: Is there any actual evidence for this? Based on her
: track record, I think it's unlikely. I mean, she's the
: first Fallen Lord to be defeated in TFL, and in Myth
: II she's a very poor general except when the Myrkridia
: are backing her up. And the Deceiver completely fakes
: her out. I think the signs point to her being a
: recently created, relatively naive Lord, powerful but
: not very shrewd.
I don't know where the popular notion of Shiver being ancient came from; maybe it's only because she was originally (back in Josh & Dan's days) associated with The Voiceless One, an ancient evil, and the ancient connotation carried ever since.
: After all, anyone who looks like her
: and is vain about it has to be pretty stupid--I can't
: imagine a thousand-year-old undead witch even caring
: about such things. Besides, if Shiver's the Voiceless
: One, how come she has a voice? It's not pretty, but
: it's definitely there.
Well, remember that Shiver didn't always looks like she does in Myth II. The 'loss' screen from A Traitor's Grave in Myth I shows her old look. Now, in Myth II, all we see is the physical manifestation of her spirit, plucked off the ether by Tramist's Mirror.
: I think
: "Bonesplitter" is a much more appropriate
: epithet for someone whose only method is brutal,
: unsubtle violence. And that would pair off the
: "Voiceless One" and the "Faceless
: Man" as the two Lords we never meet; these
: epithets would also be appropriate for beings who work
: mostly behind the scenes.
Very good point here, I like it.
: "Myrdred" and "Myrmidon" do sound
: alike, but the most likely etymologies are quite
: different, as I'm sure you know. The Myrmidons are
: named after two different Greek peoples; one was the
: personal army of Achilles, the other was a race
: descended from a son (also named Myrmidon) of Zeus.
: Myrdred's name, on the other hand, is probably modeled
: on Mordred, Arthur's traitorous son who was quite a
: deceiver in his own right.
Another good point there, about Mordred.
: As for the similarity in
: their appearances, as far as I can tell the Myrmidons
: are mummified, while the Deceiver's just an old guy. I
: think that's part of the point of him, that he doesn't
: seem to be undead or in any way impressive--he just
: looks like an evil, Sarumanesque old man. And since
: the Myrmidons are undead (I think the Asylum's
: argument over that has been concluded), shouldn't
: Bahl'al, the Watcher, be their patron?
Well, they're not quite undead. They've been made immortal, likely by a spell other than the Dream of Unlife. They live forever, but their bodies still decay, having to be held together by bandages.
: The Deceiver
: already has his band of followers, the Warlocks. As
: beings who derive their power from forbidden knowledge
: rather than physical might, I think the Warlocks are
: much more appropriate servants of the Deceiver than
: the totally physical,
: let's-charge-the-enemy-and-impale-them-on-their
: own-shattered-femurs Myrmidons.
Hrm... Bonesplitter is a Myrmidon name. Perhaps Shiver, with a similar brute-force method, is their patron?
: A couple of observations on name origins: The Watcher's
: nickname, "The Mad Goat of the Fens," was
: doubtless a takeoff on the characteristic epithet of
: Lovecraft's Shub-Niggurath, "The Black Goat of
: the Woods With a Thousand Young." Shub-Niggurath
: is the monstrous embodiment of the fertility principle
: in Lovecraft's mythos, and indeed you could view the
: Watcher as a warped fertility god--instead of
: overseeing the birth of living creatures, he endows
: the dead with a blasphemous new unlife. With respect
: to the Deceiver's name, "The Source of the Five
: Hundred Poisons," they may not be talking about
: any particular ones. Skill with poisons and plagues in
: general would certainly fit in with the Deceiver's
: modus operandi of sneakiness and indirect attack, and
: we know from his flavor that the area around his
: stronghold is "pregnant with diseases of the
: blood." And, of course, he's a master of
: poisoning men's minds and souls. (It's sorta like a
: Satanic A-team--"And this is the Deceiver,"
: says Balor/Hannibal, "our poisons man.")
: Even if the Deceiver didn't actually create five
: hundred physical poisons, his skill and association
: with them might become so well known that in common
: lore he would be called the "patron saint"
: and source of all poisons (perhaps Myth folk believe
: that there are five hundred basic poisons, just like
: the Greeks believed in four elements). It's happened
: historically, where someone becomes known as the
: "Father of Kabuki Theatre" (or something)
: when he didn't actually create it, but merely
: exploited and popularized it.
Very good stuff. Thanks, I'll add this to the page in a bit.
