: I think none of us question that there was something
: special about Alric soon after we were introduced to
: him in TFL... that he wasn't *just* a member of The
: Nine.
: I myself was very impressed with how he'd worked out
: during the years between TFL and SB, as he went form a
: pretty wussy looking sorceror to a buff dude in
: armor...
I don't think his physical power level went up, though--although being able to fight that well is even more impressive at ninety than at thirty.
: ...but jokes aside, Alric was never portrayed as a
: sympathetic character, you know? He was portrayed
: distantly, giving me the impression that something was
: hanging over him, something ominous. Perhaps the
: inevitable fall from grace and return to the lands as
: The Leveller.
: After all, the jury's still out on whether the cycle was
: broken, right?
Of course, having your leaders be distant and only semi-human in body or mind is a staple of Bungie games. You can't joke around with the big boss man when you both know that he might order you to your death at any moment--even if he's perfectly justfied in doing so. They're godlike figures who live thousands or millions of years, we're antlike figures who live for a few decades and then die horribly, and there's nothing they can do about that except distance themselves so that it doesn't cripple them emotionally.
Alric seemed to me to become less distant in Myth II--just as Durandal did in Mara2, of course--and perhaps that could be attributed to his new role. He's no longer an ivory-tower mage who spends most of his time with the other Avatara; he's a lone figure who had to single-handedly hold an entire culture together so they could regroup and rebuild. That probably gave him a better understanding of the average human mind--and made him a lot more lonely.
--SiliconDream
