Re: [DL] [OT] Re: Western Series

[Brett Dixon <balance@tubas.net>]

On Jan 30, 2004, at 8:46 PM, Allan Seyberth wrote:

Mostly removing spoilers, btu take care...

> Quoting Wraith <Wraith530@comcast.net>:
>
> > Spoilers!  Though, for the point of argument, they aren't grim and
> > foreboding spoilers.
>
> Addendum.
>
> Massive spoilers follow.
>
>
>
> >
>
> A lot of the campy humor came from the supplements, and the different 
> authors of
> same.  Looking at the core books, and looking at the major goals and 
> power
> sources of the Reckoners, you get a very grim and dark world where the 
> heroes
> are desperately trying to hold the darkness at bay against evil, 
> implacable,
> cunning, powerful and ruthless foes.

There's a lot of humor in the writing of Deadlands, but I think it 
tends to fall into two categories:

1. Gallows humor: There's a lot of characters where you don't know if 
you should laugh or cry...  One great example is the poor harrowed in 
HoE who is trapped, limbless, on an island with no way to die, no way 
to live. But he deserves it. it's tragic and funny alla t once.

2. In-jokes. These range from wink & nod cameos or Pratchett-style 
references. There's an HoE adventure where every chapter title is a 
reference to a horror movie, and almost every major NPC shares a name 
with a character from Aliens. On the other hand, some stuff seems to 
happen in Deadlands because that's juts the way theses things happen... 
Like an unnamed gunfighter inspiring the Mad Scientist body armor 
listed in the main book. Not a historical reference, but just something 
that should have been, as it were...

In Deadlands, the three themes of Humor, Horror, and Western are all 
mixed, but the ratio varies from product to product.


<snip>
> Those heroes who still stand against that exemplify the highest forms 
> of
> courage.  It is the heroism of the Night Watch of George R.R. Martin, 
> who fight
> in the frigid North against overwhelming odds so that those who have 
> forgotten
> them in the South might live free and safe.  It is the heroism of 
> Tolkein's
> Dunedain, a slowly dying race that still range far and deep into the 
> darkness to
> slow the spread of evil.
> It's the heroism so perfectly summed up on Frank Miller's Dark Knight, 
> when, in
> one scene, the Supes had one and only one thought.
>
> "If I fail, millions die."
>
> It's the heroism of the thin line of Rohirrim at Helm's Deep, standing 
> between
> the thousands and their families.  It's the heroism of the lone 
> samurai who
> holds the bridge, the guardian at the gates, and shepard with his 
> flock.  It's a
> heroism not diminished, but enhanced, by the mortality of the 
> defenders.  For
> they know all to well the fraility of flesh and yet they stand 
> resolutely
> against the hammer's fall.

Well said!

> To paraphrase Marion Zimmer Bradley, only the flawed can ever truly be 
> heroes.
> It is easy to wade into a fight when you know you can't lose.  That's 
> not
> heroism and it's certainly not courage.  At best it's a form of 
> ignorance and at
> worst a form of slothful cowardice
> But when you know the risks, when you /know/ what is at stake and can 
> be lost,
> and yet you still stand up and hold the line. . . THAT is heroism, 
> that is
> courage.

I've seriously considered any future Deadlands games I run to have a 
major question for backgrounds be, "How is this character messed up?"

I think you and Marion Zimmer Bradely are right.
--
Brett