#Storyteller Mace

[insertthesims]

Can this couple reconnect after the cheating?

Blair Mace caught Abhijeet Cho WooHooing others, will their relationship hold? They seem to be chatting okay...

[heartfullofleeches]

What do the other entities in the Fast food reader's workplace think of the cultists?

Most if not all of them see them as a roach infestation. Get rid of one, and others are sure to come sooner or later. Lambchop and the bathroom succubus are happy for the free food/meat. Deer Kidney Guy and Rival Mascot kill them on the spot. The Storyteller, The Janitor, and Manager at least try to shoo them away first, but they're not responsible for what happens if they come back. Twister plays nice, but after seeing the trouble they give Reader it's probably best if they don't follow the clown to the party room. The ball pit hands are so annoyed they go into hibernation unless Reader is around or the cultists' chanting/prayers wake them up and they do get a little cranky.

-

[A cultist sneaks up on Fast Food Reader holding a syringe filled with an unknown substance]

The Janitor, whipping out the handgun they keep on their belt: Off limits.

Cultist: Ha! You think death will stop us? We are immortal, we are eternity, we-

[The Janitor pulls out a spray bottle and spritz them in the face]

[The cultist hissses at them before fleeing out the drivethrough window]

Fast Food Reader: what was that? Mace?

The Janitor: It's just plain water and a bit of soap. No telling when the last time they took a bath was.

[mareastrorum]

I love villains, and I especially enjoy Brennan Lee Mulligan’s take on them. His version of Asmodeus in EXU Calamity and Downfall really highlights the reasons why.

A villain is the embodiment of the wrong conclusion. They aren’t always an antagonist; they aren’t necessarily meant to obstruct the protagonist of a story. Hell, they might even be helpful. Villains don’t even have to be evil, per se, they just have to be on the wrong path in the context of the story.

Asmodeus is a brilliant villain and as evil as it gets. He’s the Father of Lies, and he indulges in it deliciously. The lies are always half truths so that the protagonist fills in the blanks with assumptions and gets it wrong. He matches their energy to give them what they want to hear. He plays along with naivety and hope. He doesn’t take anything from people other than lives; they give the rest willingly because they want to believe him. Asmodeus finally reveals his deception when he has someone cornered because he wants them to know they did it to themselves. Asmodeus wants everyone he hurt to come to the realization that “I knew better and let this happen anyway.” He did it to Vespin Chloras, Zerxus Ilerez, and Sarenrae.

From EXU Calamity episode 4, after Zerxus realizes he’s been had:

Asmodeus is the embodiment of the desire to punish, and he’s the villain because he’s wrong. That mentality is rooted in hatred. He is convinced that everyone deserves eternal torment, and he wants everyone to agree with that conclusion.

The purpose of Asmodeus is that we shouldn’t inflict punishment based on some idea that the person deserved it. Yes, revenge and victory feel good. Yes, there are often valid reasons to be angry or defensive. Yes, we can come up with a reason to justify punishment. But hurting people because they deserve it is exactly what Asmodeus does. There is always a way to rationalize that someone deserves punishment—so the right answer is that this feeling cannot be a sufficient reason to do harm. That isn’t good enough.

It’s so easy to say “they deserve it” when we know the end result is that Aeor will be destroyed and the surviving legacy is ruins full of monsters. It feels good when we think people deserve to suffer and then we get to see it happen. It feels righteous.

Vespin Chloras deserved to be remembered as a traitor because he was arrogant enough to think he could replace Asmodeus—in an age where another mage already replaced the god of death and yet another mage created a machine that killed two primordials. Zerxus Ilerez deserved to be a thrall of Asmodeus because he chose to take up the mace and contributed to the problems that got him in that dilemma—because he so fervently believed that under all that hatred was a person who needed a chance to change his mind. Sarenrae deserved to lose her followers because she decided to trust the Father of Lies—because she loved her brother and offered him mercy.

It’s so easy to conclude that someone deserves pain. Asmodeus is here to remind us specifically that it’s not the right way to handle anything.

Asmodeus is also a rather effective villain because he is supposed to be irredeemable. Archetypal villains are wonderful tools for setting audience expectations. Whether Brennan plays that straight or decides to subvert it, there isn’t as much work needed to persuade us that Asmodeus is that evil or cruel. We already believe that he’s capable of doing the worst things imaginable. Toying with those expectations is a great storytelling exercise.

Asmodeus didn’t shock us in EXU Calamity because we didn’t expect him to be evil. He was shocking because he is such a skillful liar that we wanted to believe him. It would be such a satisfying story that a well-meaning paladin was the first person to show kindness to the Father of Lies and managed to atone him. Brennan’s portrayal made us want that subversion so badly even though we knew better. Asmodeus lured us into the same trap as the characters, and then we saw the outcome: punishment—because Asmodeus will use any reason to justify it and every opportunity to inflict it.

In Downfall, Brennan could have easily rationalized that the protagonists wouldn’t agree to the truce if Asmodeus was on the infiltration team. The audience would have absolutely found that plausible. He didn’t have to be here. The decision to include Asmodeus on the side of the protagonists gives us a heads up that the story will grapple with questions about punishment.

What do I need to see before I am justified in destroying a city with no survivors? Do I have to concern myself with bystanders? Do the fearful deserve to die for choosing to oppose me? Don’t they deserve it for creating such objectionable technology and magic? Don’t I deserve the chance to live without fear of those lesser than myself? Don’t they deserve to die for corrupting those I loved? Don’t they deserve it for being loved more than me?

Why isn’t hatred a good enough reason to hurt someone?

Again, villains are tools to highlight the wrong conclusions. Asmodeus is involved to highlight that the desire for punishment isn’t a sufficient reason to destroy Aeor. The other characters, villains or not, are here to show us what other justifications there might be. Their interactions are going to brush across these themes over and over again.

I fucking love villains, and no one plays a villain quite like Brennan does.

[phoenixkaptain]

Gotta be honest, the idea that Luke wouldn’t send a child alone in an X-wing with only a droid for company is funny to me.

Like, we’re talking about the same Luke, right? The one who spent years bulls-eyeing womp rats and took the experience from that to then blow up the Death Star? The one who was like “This is a trap… I’m gonna walk right into it.” The one who was like “I will rescue my dear friend by waltzing in without a disguise and being as obnoxious as possible.” “How do we get out of this situation? How about we convince these small bear creatures that our droid is a god, that will probably work.” “I know Darth Vader is a murderer who murdered my Ben and is trying to murder me and all, but he is also my dad and therefore I love him.”

Luke would send a child in an X-wing without even fucking thinking about it! Do you REALLY think LUKE SKYWALKER is a reasonable human being?? Are you honestly trying to tell me that this man who has been driving the same fucking ship for like ten years would understand how dangerous it is to put an unsupervised child in a vehicle??? Do you really honestly truly think that Luke knows how to care for children????

You see, a lot of people like to portray Luke as perfect. And this is the same issue I have with people who portray Obi-Wan as perfect, or Yoda, or Mace, or literally any character in all of Star Wars because the whole point is that the are flawed human beings!

But it’s ESPECIALLY egregrious with Luke because I don’t know where any of you got this idea that Luke is a sweet summer child??? This man has a death count of over one million. This man had Seen Some Shit that it is literally impossible not to be affected by. Why do so many people assume that Luke at the end of the Trilogy is the same as Luke at the beginning of the Trilogy? He’s changed! He’s a different person! That’s what makes the Original Trilogy such a good trilogy!! It’s basic storytelling!!! A character canNOT be at the same place mentally as when they began the story, or else it’s not a good story!

But also, I hate the way this colours shipping fics with Luke. Like, listen. There is no ship where Luke should be the straightman of the relationship. Luke Skywalker just is not normal. He’s weird, he’s deranged, he’s so strange; he cannot be a straightman, it just doesn’t work. It’s so completely out of character it isn’t even funny.

The joy of shipping Luke is that every single thing that you can ship Luke with will come out the other sode looking rational.

Han Solo is a smuggler who hangs out with a Wookiee and who does extremely dangerous, stupid shit, but next to Luke?? Rational. Normal. Someone who uses their brain, Luke, take notes-

Din Djarin is a bounty hunter who decided that he would rather destroy an entire group of highly dangerous men than give up the cute kid he just found. But compared to Luke? At least he has equipment on him!

Mara Jade literally was mind-controlled by the Emperor and was Darth Vader’s coworker and was also a Jedi (something that no rational person would be honestly) and even she comes across as normal compared to Luke Skywalker.

I know this is rambly and disjointed and I know people disagree with me, but like??? Yes, I think Luke is great with kids. Yes, I think Luke is a good teacher. Yes, I think Luke is the type of person to wave goodbye as an infant flies off in his warship. I think Luke is the type of person who would throw a child into the air way too high and then catch them. Where did the idea that he’s the responsible parent come from? Luke is teaching infants how to use laser swords, do you REALLY THINK that’s what a responsible parent would do????

[essektheylyss]

Every week I have to talk about a really stellar craft element of Midst and this week is no exception, but it is astounding how well-broadcast the fate of our heroes were without undercutting the stakes at all. I'd figured out exactly who was going to live and die, down to guessing that Lark would "make it", but would be irrevocably changed by the Fold to the point where it's not clear if she is still alive, and I don't think that's some kind of prescience on my part—it's just good follow through on the characters' journeys.

But at the same time, the final battle was appropriately unsettled enough that, when they had to flee the cabin, I thought perhaps that was it. When Weepe took the mace to Spahr's knee, I genuinely thought that he was a goner after all. When the syringe found its way into Phineas's neck, I feared that I'd been wrong, that all hope was lost, and that he wasn't actually going to live long enough to find his fresh start.

I think it's partially because Midst really eschews any sort of didacticism. You do get the sense that the narrators are simply reporting what happened, even if they're putting their own spin on things. Had the story of Midst ended only in tragedy, with all of its protagonists dead, there would've been no obfuscation of the reality of that. There is no shying away or denial of the events, even when they may fade to black, and I think this is its own skill as well—to make clear exactly what needs to be made clear, and to obscure what should remain obscured.

It takes an incredible sense of insight into how stories are told to determine those things without revealing oneself as the architect of every choice even though that is the reality of storytelling, and I think in this case, the fact that the architects are so present and have been so from the beginning does the story a service in that regard.

[cheesuschrist-iii]

Just finished OUAW EP 41

Jesus fucking christ.

Spoilers:

"Not everyone survives their first adventure"

ARE YOU KIDDING ME??

Frost, Gricko and Twig in the frog thing that was crazy. A cool shadow fight with some commotion downstairs when they kill it?? The fact that they properly struggled to fight this thing wow.

It was amazing to see them react to such a desperate seemingly hopeless situation.

AND THEN GIDEON TRYING TO RESUSCITATE TWIG??

He was so desperate man. How fucking dare you Mace play a character so good.

Kremy being like "Gid you can stop now" that was movie level storytelling and acting. I need OUAW to become an animated show so i can see that animated in a heartbreaking fashion.

I gotta do some art of this.

Fuck whats gonna happen to twig??

Just wanted to note down my fresh thoughts seconds after finishing.

[vampiric-succulent]

OUAW EP 45:

Spoilers!!

“WHY DID WE DO THAT” yes Gricko why indeed

Bit quick to jump to nudity there Torbek

Gricko is just full of great ideas today

“You are familiar with mirages” THIS ALMIRAJ IS NO MIRAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nikkie: “You don’t really understand how this works” Mace/Gideon, immediately: “I know exactly how this works”

This desert is getting eerily intense

I love how they’re showing Torbek gaining control of the Witchlight and the Other

“Together, as a unit, as you do everything, you decide to tackle this next obstacle” ACK MY HEART I FUCKING LOVE FOUND FAMILY SHIT THIS IS SO GOOD

How are y’all interpreting Gricko’s monstrosity connection? Bc I’ve been doing it as like a really enthusiastic zoologist but what if he’s also a monsterfucker

Sorry that was a little unhinged and sudden but I think i might be right he does have a thing for monstrous women who could decimate him with one move

Anyways!

Love how Frost always wants to talk first but Gideon is immediately “IM GONNA GETCHU”

Gideon is going to oneshot this tricobra/cobydra if he keeps this up

“Two attacks on Frost” “no thankyou ❤️”

OH SHIT KREMY’S DICE MOVE HUNGER OF HADAR. HOLY FUCK.

Rich is so good at flavoring this spell and its effects

Mace/Gideon “Don’t roll max against me” and then Rich doesn’t— that’s Kremy employing Husband Privilege right there

What is the realm they are talking about?? Ghettei? Gehettei? Whatever realm they say Kremy is bringing with Hunger of Hadar

Goddamn that’s a lot of damage at once

Torbek and Gideon and Hootsie bro moment 😎

“Torbek accidentally Longscarfed him” 😭❤️

WHAT IS THIS FUCKING LIGHT?????????

Love how Nikkie just keeps repeating the generic desert description like an NPC in a game when you try to talk to them too much

HOLY SHIT okay 1. The immersion hell yeah 2. Why. Why is there a swamp here again. The swamp was supposed to be gone. There wasn’t supposed to be more swamp.

SERIOUSLY WHY IS THERE A SWAMP

“Blow on my dice” there is no heterosexual explanation for this

Now I have this horrible image in my head of Kremy pulling an Entrapta and going “I just need a little more time”

GRICKO DONT CALL TO MR GARU

“I am the thing that remains when the alphabet is gone” this is giving me such a good idea for a Tower of Babel campaign wait a minute

Ah yes just like the 1999 classic film The Mummy—- *I am forcibly removed from the stage*

It IS TIME!!!!!!!!!!! HOLY FUCK HES RIGHT

Is. Is the swoose sounding like Bavlorna on purpose. Is this a plot thing. Please this is so important—- Bc there’s an hourglass on the archway, so it has to be time and also maybe the voice is important— Oh. Okay. So not like Bavlorna.

What is the realization Andy is having???? Oh my god I need to know

Does the fact that this is Nekhbet and the lion-headed guardian mean Egyptian mythology at all influences this part of the story? And maybe the Hourglass Coven in some sort of way if this temple is here? Was this temple originally of the Hourglass Coven, or was it taken over???

The emotion in Mace’s storytelling is incredible and then he has a your mom joke. Alright.

Andy and Mikey’s reactions are beautiful things to watch

“We’ve been free ever since”

Fic idea: Kremy and Gideon get married and uh. Yknow Gricko’s entire thing about getting Pa Coal to come to one of Gideon’s weddings? Somehow that happens but it’s a really sad moment bc Pa Coal is dead so it’s an urn and Gideon gets to have a moment just talking to the urn

OH SHIT THE BIRTH OF THE HAGS?!?!??? Wait wait wait I have so many questions— to be made into a hag, do they need to find this temple first?? Does this temple somehow lead to the hag hut??? What is the thing that drinks the brew in the hag hut?????? How did that being come to exist???????? How is this temple connected to the thing that makes the hags???????? Is this a temple of time or of memories and records????

What is the process of making a hag??? Do all hags come about via this process????

Wait a minute. We had a white horse and rider statue, now we have a red one— if the next one is black then these are the riders of Baba Yaga and maybe that is who makes all the hags— like a sort of Mother Hag situation??

Frost is right, I think, this is also a story or situation or whatever about choice (esp bc of the swoose at the entrance)

I need a series which is just Gricko explaining everything that’s happened in the campaign in extreme detail

“We hit rock bottom and we picked up shoooveeeelllls.”

Ayo Bavlorna what the fuck— Endolyn’s story was terrible but this is another level

So these hags are not actually sisters then? Or are they sisters because they all come from the same source? (Whatever makes the hags)

Yuuuup I was right about the riders!!!!!

Idk why but Kremy’s story hits for me

Nikkie this is so impressive. Holy shit— this isn’t in the module. She wrote these backstories herself. Wow.

And the flipped time order of everything!!! And the Granny Nightshade symbolism

Wait blue roses??? Like the ones in Twig’s eyes???????

WHAT IF THIS IS THE KINGDOM OF HEARTS DESIRE WHAT IF THEY ARE AT THE DOOR RN

Andy what are you doing

Oh shit. Next is the fabled Episode 46. Ohhhh lord. What’s gonna happen………

How much time has passed for the Feywild while they’re in the material plane???

Gahhhh!!!! The lore!!!!!!!!!!!! So good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wait okay there’s a connection to Prime but I haven’t watched Prime and it’s 91 episodes there’s no way I can watch all that rn but I NEED TO KNOW THE AVANTRIS LORE AND WHAT THE CONNECTION IS OMFG

So much happened!!!!! Holy fuck!!!!!!!!! And next is Episode 46 I’m gonna have my brain explode

[valleyrunearchives]

Love at First Roll

Rating: Teen and Up Fandom: Stranger Things Pairings: Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson Warnings: None

Chapter 1/1

Eddie can remember the first time he met Steve. Well, met in the actual sense. He knew of Steve from before. Of course he did! Everyone at Hawkins High knew of the King Steve himself. But to actually know him is a completely different story. That first official meeting with him though was… magical.

OR

Eddie falls in love with the single roll of a die.

Check out my Ko-fi!

Eddie can remember the first time he met Steve. Well, met in the actual sense. He knew of Steve from before. Of course he did! Everyone at Hawkins High knew of the King Steve himself. But to actually know him is a completely different story. That first official meeting with him though was… magical.

Well, no, the word magical actually makes it sound weird and kind of unbelievable. But Eddie is dramatic and not afraid to admit it!

He's running a quick campaign with the hellfire club as kind of a welcome back/welcome to the club for baby Byers since he and his family had just moved back from California. It's Dustin's turn on the final battle when Steve enters through the door of the classroom they had commandeered, calling, “Alright, guys. Pack it in, time to go.”

He notes Gareth turning his head to hide a sneer as the kids groan in disappointment. “C'mon Steve!” Dustin whined, “It's the final battle! Can't we finish it?”

He knows the other seniors of the club are expecting Steve to tell them no. After hearing the unlimited praise that Dustin and the others - Mike not included - had for Steve, it doesn't shock him when the other man just rolls his eyes with a reluctant agreement. 

Dustin grins before holding his D20 out to him, “Roll for me then, Steve!”

Mike protests while the other freshies beg Steve to do it. Steve smiles in fond amusement - God, how can a man be so pretty?! - before stepping over and taking the D20 from him. He rolls it into the little tray Dustin has for rolling his dice. The die clatters around in the tray before settling. Dustin gapes at it. Steve blinks at it before turning to Eddie to ask, “Is that good?” 

He leans up to check the number with a small smile, expecting something low.

It's a natural 20.

“Are you kidding, Steve?!” Dustin exclaims with a shocked grin, “It's a nat 20!”

“Okay?” Steve says in confusion as the whole table erupts in shock.

“It's a critical hit!” Dustin explains further. He picks up more of his dice and rolls for the damage amount, “Okay uh… so 18 points of damage. Double because it's a crit. So, 36 points!”

The rest of the table plus Steve look at him for guidance. He blinks at them before checking the health of the enemy. He chuckles, near hysterically, “Well, I'll be damned. Normally I ask the character's player how they want to do this. I'm not sure what to do in this situation since Harrington rolled for the final blow.”

The whole table erupts in more excited shouts before Dustin stands up dramatically - Eddie has taught him so well - with his hands held high, “At the most intense point of this Climactic battle after stunning the creature, I reach into my pouch and pull out an ornate horn! Everyone is confused until I blow a mighty sound from it and, there, over the horizon appears a paladin on a steed! ‘Tis the prince of the land, Prince Steve, arriving to assist at last! He rides down the hill, holy mace in hand and bashes the stunned creature with it! The creature explodes into a thousand bloody pieces with a final scream of pain! The prince gives a fond nod and smile to the party before turning his noble horse and riding off!!”

The younger teens, minus Mike, all cheer at the end of the story. Mike groans in what seems to be annoyance but a smile is trying to creep onto his lips too. Gareth and the other older teens are still shocked into silence to really react. Eddie claps for Dustin, “Nicely executed storytelling there, Henderson! Wrapped everything up in a nice neat little bow for the ending battle! That means that all characters level up one level each with the exception of Will's who is up to level 6 thanks to the battle. We'll set new skills and points next week just so Harrington doesn't have to wait around any longer.”

Everyone starts packing up their supplies. He starts doing the same with his DM supplies as Steve approaches him and whispers, “Hey man, thanks for doing this for them.”

He almost looks around the room like an idiot before realizing that Steve absolutely is talking to him with that fond little smile. He gives a smile back, “Yeah, of course! I mean - no problem!”

“No seriously, thank you. They've been so excited since Will came back to play with him. They told me it's not your normal day for this so I super appreciate it,” The smile on Steve's face gets bigger and Eddie swears his heart skips a beat. Steve doesn't say anything else, just turns to the other teens to call out, “Alright. Let's go!”

“Shotgun!” Dustin calls out.

The other kids groan but Steve just puts his hands on his hips - he looks like one of those soccer moms, oh my God... - and tells him, “You had shotgun on the way to school this morning. Let one of the others have it.”

“Race you guys!” Lucas calls out before sprinting out the door. The others follow with Mike shouting behind him, “Hey no fair! You're the athletic one of us!”

Steve shakes his head before turning back to the table with yet another smile, “Bye guys. Thanks again, Munson!”

Eddie waves at him as he trails out the door after his gaggle of wards. As soon as he's well enough away from the door, he drops his head into his hands with a loud groan. Gareth pauses on putting his stuff away and asks him, “You alright, man?”

“No…” He begroans once he realizes his inevitable situation, “I'm fucked…”

The others don't understand but he does. He just developed a massive, gigantic, and life altering crush on Steve fucking Harrington from a thank you and a roll of a dice. 

He's so fucked.

[david-talks-sw]

Why do a lot of SW fans dislike the Prequel Jedi?

This was going to be the conclusion to this answer about "why a lot of people dislike Mace"... but it's just too long, so I decided to make it a post in its own right.

So why is Mace-- scratch that, why are the Prequel Jedi considered to be "unlikable" by a big chunk of the fandom? Especially when compared to Anakin "I killed a group of children twice" Skywalker.

Overall... I'd say it's three things.

1) Some fans had different expectations.

I touched on this in a recent post: older fans, who are now at least in their 40s, grew up seeing Luke as the ultimate Jedi.

He's Campbell's Hero With A Thousand Faces, up there with King Arthur and Superman. He's, for lack of a better term, the chosen one.

So when the Prequels were announced and they knew they'd get to see the Jedi Knights in their heyday, they expected to see something like the Knights of the Round Table.

A collective of errant warriors who go on exciting adventures, providing aid from place to place. Like Luke Skywalker.

Instead, they got this:

"A bunch of monk/diplomats who sit around talking about taxations and trading routes and measure the Force based on cell organisms."

"They're nothing like Luke Skywalker! What the hell?" (I address why this is inaccurate here)

Then the second film comes out:

"Wait, Jedi can't get married now? So were all those EU books about Luke and Mara Jade bullshit?" (also addressed in above link)

Then the third film comes out:

"Palpatine is right there, why can't they sense him or read his mind? They're Jedi!" (explanation why here)

Also Luke is no longer the Chosen One apparently? Anakin is? How does that work?

Plus, the way they speak, their jargon, is waaaaay too formal, gone are the OT characters talking informal English with American accents and quips. Even the way these new characters speak - and not just the Jedi, the Queen too - seems detached from reality and makes them harder to relate to. (but we're talking about diplomats and royalty, so how else would they be talking?)

2) How adult audiences perceive "morally pure" characters.

Even if one didn't have the pre-concieved notions about the Jedi... they don't seem to impact the adult viewers the right way.

Then again... neither does Barney the Dinosaur.

Many are the conspiracy theories and negative discourse surrounding him (there's even an upcoming documentary about it). You know why? Because he's not meant to be a character for adults, who have outgrown morally black or white characters and are unable to relate to them... his target demographic is children.

They see him and go "I love you, you love me". We see him and go "What the fuck is this guy hiding? What darkness lies beneath that mask of optimism and joy?"

Same goes for the Jedi.

So I'd say what we have, here, is a similar situation as the one in the recent Rick and Morty episode, "Juricksic Mort".

In the episode, a bunch of dinosaurs return to Earth and it turns out they're incredibly selfless, diplomatic, moral and spiritually advanced (kinda like the Jedi!)

Rick's reaction is - you guessed it - "what the fuck are they hiding?"

The dinosaurs turn Earth into a utopia, ending all wars, removing all conflict, bringing about world peace and giving everyone the chance to go on vacation... and everybody hates them for it and eventually wants to see them fail and step down from their pedestal.

The writing emphasizes their superior virtue so much that they actually come across as uptight and patronizing. This is done intentionally, so that it's difficult to find them likeable out-of-universe, and we relate to the earthlings in-universe who react the same way.

Why do the audience and the characters react this way to characters who - again - are good and moral?

Because as Moriarty says in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows... hidden within the unconscious is an insatiable desire for conflict.

It's why the presence of conflict is so crucial in storytelling.

It's why every scene in good movies presents some form of internal, external or philosophical conflict.

It's why protagonists need flaws to be interesting and relatable. Because we're flawed as well.

Also, the protagonist will eventually have overcome their flaws through an arc.

More importantly, the basis of all conflict, in storytelling, comes from something being out of balance.

And the Jedi are trained to not be that :D !

So on the one hand we have Anakin, a flawed, conflicted character who struggles with his inner balance, and on the other we have the Jedi, who are essentially presented as flawless and balanced.

What will a chunk of the audience do? They:

Won't like the Jedi.

Will project a flaw onto them (more on that in the next section).

Side with Anakin, the one that's as imperfect as the audience is.

Sometimes all of the above.

But the thing is, though... the Jedi we see in the Prequels are not flawless or perfect.

They are, for the most part, characters who have already completed their character arcs, characters who have already confronted their own inner flaws and overcome them.

And whenever these flaws resurface? Well, they've conquered them once, and they have the training, so they do it again.

Example, here's Yoda confronting and overcoming his hubris and inner fears:

Has he done it before, in his almost 900 years? Probably, yeah. But it's not a one-and-done sort of thing.

But the Prequels are not their movies. They're about Anakin.

He's meant to be the more interesting character. And they're meant to be the ones with less flaws, because they're mentor archetypes and the Prequels show an interesting situation wherein the protagonist fails to listen to the mentors and fails to overcome his own flaws, which leads him to - instead - be doomed by them.

3) Issues with the writing.

So, for the people who didn't like the changes but want to like the Prequels, there's a headcanon that seemingly fixes everything:

"The Prequel Jedi... are intentionally written as arrogant, hypocritical moralists. They are meant to come across as dispassionate. I mean, isn’t that what being a Jedi is, apparently? You purge yourself of attachments aka emotions, and act only logically (which was typically-encouraged behavior for a long time, in the US). They've become too systemic and lost their way." And guess what? With this interpretation, "Luke is special again! He's like Qui-Gon in that he found a middle ground between the unfeeling Jedi and the Sith, who have become slaves to their emotions. Like, sure, Anakin can be THE Chosen One, whatever, but Luke? Luke has found the balance, he succeeded where Obi-Wan, Yoda (who wanted Vader dead instead of believing he could be redeemed) and the other Jedi failed. So that's what the Prequels are about: the Jedi's failure."

The issue is, though... it doesn't align with what George intended. (as explained here and here).

But it does use most of the ingredients the films give us. Which - short of unleashing a barrage of George Lucas quotes, interviews and videos - makes it hard to disprove.

Because - seeing as the films aren't about the Jedi, they're about Anakin and his own inner demons - we don't see enough of the Jedi's culture and lifestyle and day-to-day unless it directly relates to Anakin.

So George's very clear idea of how awesome the Jedi are is never truly conveyed or fleshed out and as a result they feel like a group of people who always say "no" to the protagonist. The flawed, passionate and more relatable (by contrast) protagonist.

We get glimpses of it in The Clone Wars, but then it's tarnished by the fact that the Jedi are at war.

Then there's the reads that could easily be disproved... had George been more explicit about what he was going for.

"The Jedi Council bully a 9-year-old." This read could've been avoided had the scene ended with the Jedi telling Anakin that being afraid is normal, but his fear must be conquered otherwise it'll lead to the Dark Side. Which, they do, but in a vague way rather one with a kind empathetic smile.

"Obi-Wan is always berating Anakin, their relationship is tense." The whole movie partially features an arc where their relationship is on the rocks, so removing the tension isn't an option. However, the interpretation that it's been like this for a decade (rather than recently because Anakin reunited with Padmé) could've been avoided if, instead of just a minute-long elevator scene, we maybe saw a set-piece of them on a mission, maybe showing them working in tandem and joking as they escape that nest of gundarks.

More could've been done to frame the Jedi in the positive light thy were meant to be seen under. But again: the movies aren't meant to be about the Jedi.

Though it seems that a lot of people wanted them to be. And maybe that explains the hate re: the Jedi.

Older audiences wanted to see Campbell's Hero they grew up with again, they had a preconceived notion that the Jedi would be wandering, exciting adventurers... instead they got a bunch of "stale" diplomats whose whole job is to avoid conflict and adventure.

So instead of taking the story for what it was - a movie for kids - they projected a "morally gray" narrative that said these characters were flawed and weren't how they were supposed to be in-universe, when the truth is they weren't happy with the characters they witnessed out-of-universe.

[padawansuggest]

Obi-Wan: *summoned to the council at age 28, his Padawan and master both refusing to leave his side when they hear who’s come to the temple to see him for fear of them stealing him away* Alright, let’s do this, what can I help you… all… wow. There sure are a lot of you…

Kenobi Matriarch: O’ben! My sweet little freckled boy, come give your mummy a hug! *pulls him in forcibly so she can kiss his cheeks and pinch them* Oh you are just the cutest! Ernian, isn’t he just cute?

Kenobi Patriarch: Adorable. Are you sure he’s ours, Mimi?

Mimi: Of course I am, a mother always knows. *lets Obi-Wan be dragged into a crowd of redheads so Ernian can introduce him to his four sisters, two brothers and three cousins that took the journey with them, takes the chance to glare at Jinn before grinning and pulling Anakin into her bosom* You must be my baby’s baby, huh? Lookit that blonde hair, so pretty. How old are you, cherry pie?

Anakin: *confused* Um, almost thirteen.

Mimi: Oh, that’s a good age. You look healthy for it, your teacher was a waif at that age, from the pictures we were sent while he was growing up.

Anakin: *knows that Obi-Wan was very paranoid and thin at that age, but not why* Yeah. He’s bigger now. He says he wants to grow a beard.

Mimi: Oh, that’ll be nice. His uncle on his papa’s side has a very nice beard.

Yoda: *comes dottering over* Happy we are, to connect a child to their home past the impressionable age of childhood that can confuse them, but wonder we do, why now?

Mimi: Does he always talk like that? Been doin it since we got here?

Qui-Gon: Heh, yeah, try growing up with him. O’ben used to mock him straight to his face as a kid.

Yoda: Spirit, he has! Gumption!

Qui-Gon: O’ben’s his favorite.

Mimi: He’s everyone’s favorite, from what I’ve heard. Now now, we don’t want to get O’ben all in a tizzy by inviting him to a family gathering, that would just be too much family for him to handle.

Anakin: Master handles parties very well?

Qui-Gon: *puts his hands on Anakin’s shoulders* He /survives/ parties, grandpadawan, he handles them by surviving them.

Mimi: Exactly. Just like my Ernian, from what nice Master Mace tells me.

Qui-Gon: *glares at Mace because he knows damn well her initial glare at him was from Mace’s storytelling*

Mimi: Anyways, a bunch of us had reason to head this way, decided to make it a mini reunion of sorts. Well, more like O’ben’s first time meeting most of them, but listen, my brother and husband and I got a bet to settle once and for all. Which we need to see O’ben to settle it.

Qui-Gon: *loves bets* Oh??

Mimi: Yessiree, we been wondering how many adult fangs O’ben has.

Qui-Gon: …I don’t actually know the answer to that one? He hasn’t bitten me in years.

Mace: He bit me less than two months ago after a spar. I startled him while he was in attack mode, but he was also still in sparring mindset, didn’t make the fangs drop.

Anakin: I’m sorry, what? Master has fangs?

Mimi: Sure does, baby! Alla us do. It’s Stewjoni genetics. See I got a total of eight droppable fangs, and Ernian’s only got four, so all of our kids have had a mix. We’ve even seen five in onea the boys, but he chose to get that one replaced, since it bothered him. We need to know how many fangs O’ben has to settle the bet.

Anakin: *eyes sparkling* How do you drop them?

Mimi: *pulls up her upper lip, and presses down on the gums above her canines on the left side, dropping two sharp fangs* Jus like that, sugar.

Anakin: *firm nod* Okay, I got this. *darts off into the crowd and manages to drag Obi-Wan outta the thick of it, before climbing him till he sighs and sits down, climbs into his lap*

Obi-Wan: *ignoring his cooing and snickering family while his child sits on him* Can I help you, Padawan mine?

Anakin: I wanna see the fangs.

Obi-Wan: *blushes super hard* I… really?

Anakin: Yeah. Your mom has super cool fangs, I want to see yours too.

Obi-Wan: *gives his mom a wary look before sighing, opening his mouth and manually depressing on each section, ignoring the way everyone in the room is watching* See? Not all that interesting.

Anakin: *looks back at Mimi* He has six. Who wins the bet.

Cousin 3: Gimme a minute to do the math for averages- *has the pad in his hands snatched by deft little fingers as Anakin steals it to do his math for him*

Anakin: Average looks like five?

Brother 2: Shit. I threw off the average, didn’t I?

Anakin: Were you the one with only five?

Brother 2: Yeah.

Anakin: Then yes.

Ernian: *fist pump in the air* I win! The pot is mine!

Mimi: *deep sigh, before coming over to sit next to her youngest and who she’s decided is a pretty good grandson* Well, we tried. *pulls a very confused Obi-Wan into her side for a hug* Still, we’ll be on the planet for a few days, it’d be nice to get to know you a bit better.

Obi-Wan: *blushy blushy* Oh, um, okay. That sounds nice. Anakin too?

Mimi: Yeah, O’ben, Anakin too.

Anakin: *snuggling against his master’s shoulder* We should all go to the room of a thousand fountains. It’s bigger. Less crowded. My mom works in the garages, she can come too?

Mimi: *absolutely enchanted with little baby grandson just like Obi-Wan is* Yeah, I’d like to meet her.

[monako-jinn-stories]

Hey, I don't know if you take any requests at the moment. But if you do, could you write a Oneshot with a jealous Mace Windu x female reader? Like them being on a mission and a guy being really touchy with dear reader, while she is more like 'leave me alone'? Mace Windu is one of my favorite charakters in Star Wars, so I'm pretty sad that he's so overhated 😂💔

Hey! I apologize for taking so long to fill this request, but I have finally done it! Here is the link! Indulge Me for Life

[bh-52]

Jedi & music headcanons

Cere Junda is the Jedi temple's primary music teacher, but Jocasta Nu sometimes teaches when Cere's unavailable.

Among other instruments, Barriss Offee plays the flute.

Depa Billaba plays the ocarina and has a lovely singing voice.

Madame Jocasta & Katooni play the violin.

Luminara Unduli plays the harp.

Dooku's a master of poetry & songwriting.

Mace's favourite song is Fur Elise.

Stass Allie & Shaak Ti sing lullabies for the younglings.

Quinlan Vos plays the ukelele.

Qui-Gon plays the guitar.

Anakin sings to Ahsoka when she can't sleep.

Obi-Wan learnt a variety of instruments, and taught some of his troops to use them.

Shaak Ti's voice is so soothing to the clones that Vode An sounds like a lullaby when she sings it for them.

Ahsoka's a gifted singer and flute player.

Rahm Kota likes laments and drinking songs.

Master Arca is fond of storytelling and folklore songs.

Mira loves Rock & Roll, and plays the electric guitar.

Jolee Bindo likes tribute songs.

Visas Marr's singing and ocarina playing is both beautiful and heartbreaking.

[crowhoonter]

The Star Wars prequels are fascinating movies, especially when looking at them from the perspective of the story they tell. They are a commentary on contemporary American politics, and show the fragility of the idea of democracy. The Republic has been primed to collapse for a while even by the first movie, being incapable of stopping the Trade Federation from blockading Naboo. You see throughout the films everyone come to realize the position the Republic is in, and everyone comes to a different conclusion on what to do.

Palpatine notices first, and arranges its downfall to fulfill his ambitions. The Jedi notice it, but would rather keep to the Status Quo than make any meaningful change. As Mace Windu says, they're keepers of the peace, they don't get involved until absolutely necessary and indeed, too late. Anakin sees it and decides that the system is broken and needs a strong authority to rule over the masses. Padme tries to enact change through the system, an endeavor doomed to fail from the beginning. Dooku decides the system can only be changed by uprooting it entirely, leading to his fall to the dark side and authoritarianism.

We see everyone become more and more accepting of these extremes as well. Ideas and concepts that would once be scarcely entertained become frighteningly close to reality, such as the Jedi suggesting that they forcibly remove Palpatine from office and set up their own provisional government effectively. Of course this culminates in the establishment of The Empire, and as Padme says, democracy dies with thunderous applause.

The best part is that by the end of the second film, the Republic and Jedi have lost. The moment the Clones are accepted as the army of the Republic and the Jedi lead them, its over. An army of faceless drones, indoctrinated from birth, built solely to betray. The Clones only know loyalty to their nation and its commander, and will follow the will of said commander even if it goes against the ideals they are supposed to represent. Good soldiers follow orders after all.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the prequels is that they are terrible. These are not good films, the dialogue is atrocious, the quality of acting is all over the place, the pacing is strange, and the CGI is hideous. Revenge of the Sith comes close many times to being a good movie, but always just misses the mark. Somehow, these movies made a captivating story of a nation's and young man's slow fall to fascism, and managed to bury it under a mediocre romantic subplot and strange storytelling choices.

All that said, I love the prequels for what they try to say and what they could have been. These could have been generation defining films, easily surpassing the originals, but ended up a joke. They have a litany of problems (not even gonna touch on the... interesting accents) but under all that, there is an incredibly compelling story that is ever more relevant as time goes on.

[swallowtailed]

palisade 17:

holy shit.

let’s all take a moment to remember cori’s first kill this season, way back in the first arc, when she smashed a mech with a giant mace and then got a photo of her posing next to it to send to her dad

“you hit him first. you hit him on the backswing” is going to be emblazoned in my mind forever

i love when the storytelling in this show hits the kind of rhythm that it hit in that scene—the smooth handoff of the setup and the swing. (metaphorically and literally.)

and the music went tf off. fucking incredible. i’m really excited to hear more as the season develops—the soundtrack is getting denser and weirder with every new song.

also, asepsis taking devotion’s place in the mech when cori kills her dad… the embodiment of scouring purity replacing devotion to drive that swing, just as a triumphant moment is revealed to be tragic… i love the thematic meta bullshit enabled by divines. (not trying to draw a causal relationship there, but i think it’s interesting to compare devotion and asepsis and their approaches to in-groups and control. and to think about how much of the cult of devotion relies on ideas of purity.)

anyway playing a character who is so baby and so full of hubris and optimism in a game that you know is gonna fuck them up is a true joy and i wish sylvi many more episodes of handpicked horrific consequences

felt very pleased with myself when i noted that elle had a letter name like all the spies and then they were in fact a spy

also cori definitely had a crush on elle that she never admitted to herself, right

“this is like if a bouncer is restraining an avocado” i mean this deeply and sincerely: janine is killing it this season

“war-weary” feels very appropriate for phrygian right now. also another beat of the “it doesn’t stop” kind of horror that fatt tends toward—horror arising from scope and scale and the sense that nothing is going to change.

more settlers coming to palisade is actually a very scary consequence of not going to baseline! also, evidently the road to palisade had the dual function of giving austin more ammunition for pc deaths lmao

this is going to be an all-timer downtime

[thehollowprince]

I feel like a lot of people overlook the tragedy of the Prequel Trilogy, not because if was bad storytelling or anything of that nature, but because of the doom we all knew was coming. Even if you had only a passing knowledge of Star Wars before sitting down to watch the prequels, you would have an understanding of the tragedy this trilogy was going to end on. We all knew that the Jedi were going to fall and the Empire was going to rise.

Even knowing that, I find myself playing with "What If's"

What if Anakin had accompanied Windu and the other council members to arrest Palpatine? The master stroke that would have been. Like, I understand why Windu ordered him to stay. Despite so many claims to the contrary, Mace Windu was not a heartless and unfeeling dick. He (and the entire Council) knew that Anakin had a lot of respect and admiration for the Chancellor. Windu even says to Anakin that he senses the conflict in him before they head to arrest him and tells him to stay, which serves two purposes - to prevent Anakin from having to strike down a man he looked up to and also ensuring that Anakin didn't get in the way if he couldn't let go of those feelings.

Side note: I also love how the first person Anakin runs to tell that Palpatine is a sith lord is Windu himself.

But back to my point: if Anakin had come with to arrest Palpatine, it would have gone a lot differently.

For starters, there's the fact that Anakin was one of the most powerful Jedi the Order ever had, even at the young age of twenty-two. And while he may not have been as experienced as the other members of the Order present for Palpatine's arrest, he more than made up for it in raw power. There's also the added benefit of throwing Sidious off balance. This is someone he'd spent the last thirteen years grooming to be his next apprentice, meaning that (presumably) he'd be a bit more hesitant to strike him down, especially after he'd just sacrificed his other apprentice earlier in the film.

The other half of what would have made that such a beautiful moment is the fact that Anakin was the "Hero of the Republic." Palpatine himself went out of his way to not only ensure that Anakin was put into high-win engagements, even going so far as to pull him out of situations he felt the Republic would lose (Umbara anyone?), but he also ensure that Anakin got a lot of publicity for it in the Holonet.

This is an individual that the Republic as a whole looks to as what they think the Jedi should be. If he was the one who arrested Palpatine for corruption and orchestrating the entire war that cost billions or credits and countless lives, the people would have stopped to listen. Even if ultimately they didn't believe him, they would have paused to listen, as opposed to if it was just Windu who had made the arrest.

It would have been Palpatine's own arrogance that would have led to his downfall and the disruption of a thousand years of sith manipulation, and probably the erasure of the Sith Order entirely.

It's a beautiful What If scenario, thwarted by the tragedy of the entire situation taking place in a prequel trilogy.

[adarkrainbow]

The Yaga journal: The Polish Baba Yaga

I won’t follow the actual order of the articles in the journal, I’ll rather went by those that strike more my fancy. And today’s article is “Portrait of a Polish Baba Yaga”, by Katia Vandenborre.

It might seem surprising to describe “a Polish Baba Yaga”, when the hag is one of the most iconic characters of Russian culture - and even though similar characters have been noted in Ukraine, in Bielorussia, in Slovakia and in Czech Republic, her presence in Poland is not obvious. For Polish folklorist, Baba Yaga belongs to the Russian tradition, hence why she doesn’t appear in “Slownik folkloru polskiego”, The Dictionary of Polish folklore, from 1695... And yet she is one of the main characters of one of the most popular Polish fairytale collections of the second half of the 19th century: Bajarz polski, Zbior basni, powiesci i gawed ludowych, by Antoni Jozef Glinski (The Polish storyteller. Collection of fairytales, short stories and folktales). When the book was released, in 1853, Poland had lost its independance for a few decades now, and finding itself under the domination of Russia, Prussia and Austria, it used folklore as a way to preserve their national culture. In this context, the presence of Baba Yaga in three of the four volumes of Glinski’s work leads to several questions... And thus the article wants to paint a portrait of the “Polish Baba Yaga” by studying the seven fairytales she appears in, to understand how different and similar she is to her Russian counterpart. 

Baba Yaga in the video game “Smite”

I) The two faces of Baba Yaga: angel and demon

Glinski depicts Baba Yaga under two opposite and yet fused aspect, benevolent and malevolent at the same time, a self-contradicting nature that makes it hard to simplify the character.

The first of these “faces” the reader meets in Glinski’s collection is Baba Yaga’s role as a precious auxiliary that helps the hero find back his beloved. It is “The Princess turned into a frog” (O krolewnie zakletej w zabe). The story begins with a prince finding a wife, but said wife has been cursed to turn into a frog. After a failed attempt at trying to break her curse, the princess flees away from her husband-to-be, now turned into a duck. After wandering for weeks searching for her, the hero discovers a house on chicken legs. He pronounces a rhyme that basically says “Little house, little house, moves your chicken islands, turn your back on the forest, and face me”. The house moves on its leg, and opens its door to the hero. He enters and find Baba Yaga, spinning a spindle while singing a little song. The hero tells her all of his misadventures, and trying to help she tells him to catch the duck that comes to her house every day. However the duck escapes the hero, and turns successively into a pigeon, a falcon, and a snake. Baba Yaga is angry at the prince, because now the duck will not come to her house ever again. She however gives him a ball of thread that will lead him to her sister, where he will try his chance again. The scene of the chicken-legged house is repeated, and the second Baba Yaga again tells the prince he needs to catch the duck visiting her house. This time, as the duck escapes, it turns into a turkey, a dog, a cat and finally an eel. It is only by visiting a third chicken-legged house, and meeting a third Baba Yaga (the older sister of the other two) that the hero will finally catch the duck, and break the spell of his beloved princess.

In the fairytale that follows “The princess turned into a frog”, Glinski again shows a Baba Yaga in a similar “helper” function. It is “The princess Virgin-Miracle, the prince Yunak, and the invisible mace”, where the Baba Yaga appears in the second part of the narrative to resolve the crisis. While without any sisters here, she gives precious advice that allows to free the titular princess from the hands of Koscej. It is actually the sun itself who tells the hero, the knight Yunak, to go seek Baba Yaga in order to deliver the princess Virgin-Miracle from the castle of the wizard Koscej. Yunak first fetches an invisible mace with the power to hit things on tis own, and then a horse that can lead him to Baba Yaga. The prince arrives in “the sleepy and virgin wood where Baba Yaga lives”. After admiring the enormous tallness of the oaks, pines and firs, he notices that the forest is entirely silent, “as if all the trees had fallen asleep, and no living creature was in sight”. They finally reach the chicken-legged house, and after pronouncing the same formula as in the previous tale, enter the building. Baba Yaga is surprised to see Yunak, wondering how he could come here when no other “living soul” ever managed to reach her house. Not answering her, Yunak rather asks for her hospitality - the Baba Yaga promptly gives him food, drinks and a bed to sleep on. It is only after two more days of hospitality that the hero agrees to tell the witch the reason he came here. Impressed by this “great and beautiful deed”, Baba Yaga tells him where he can find “the death of Koscej”, that he needs to obtain in order to vanquish the sorcerer: she tells him to go on an island in the middle of the ocean, to dig up a chest from under an oak, to get from it a hare, from inside the hare a duck, from inside the duck an egg - and inside is Koscej’s death. With this advise, Yunak kills the evil wizard, breaks all of his spells, and marries the princess. Another tale where Baba Yaga worked for a happy ending.

Even though these two tales do show Baba Yaga as doing poitive actions, she still has a negative aura to her. She is an old, grey-haired woman with an aspect as disquieting as the places she live in. She lives in a house that is initially closed to the hero, since it only opens up after a certain magical incantation - and it is located in a very dark, very old, very silent forest, a forest that evokes death. So even as a helper, Baba Yaga seems to be tied to death - and she seems to have a mysterious side to her as, when the heroes see her for the first time, the narration tends to mention that he finds her in the middle of “hatching plans inside her head” or “conceiving plots in her mind”. So the witch is constantly up to something, a something that is never revealed.

A third tale breaks what seemed to be some sort of generosity. In “The Princess Virgin-Miracle”, Baba Yaga acted out of admiration for the noble deeds of the hero ; in “The princess turned into a frog”, she purely helped without asking anything in exchange. But in “The prince with the mustache of gold, the princess with the hair of gold, the heating cap and the cooling flask”, she starts asking for things in exchange for her help, revealing her more ambiguous nature. In this tale, Baba Yaga agrees to help the titular “prince with a mustache of gold” only if he brings to her some “water of youth” that is said to run down the mountain where the hero’s quest is heading to. To recap briefly the story, a royal couple had two boys, young princes that tried to rescue an imprisoned princess (the titular princess with gold hair) at the top of a mountain, only to die trying to (though everybody merely believes them mysteriously gone). God took pity on the couple and gave them a third son, with supernatural power, here to remedy to the disappearance of his brothers. Growing rapidly into adulthood, the magical prince sets on his quest, and finally arrives in a dark forest, where he finds the chicken-legged house, in the middle of a field surrounded by blooming poppies. The closer he gets to the house, the sleepier the prince gets, so he has to destroy the poppies before being able to reach the house. After pronouncing yet again the same formula, he finds inside Baba Yaga, a decrepit and grey old thing covered in wrinkles and pimples. This awful demon is however surrounded by two young and pretty girls, all three sitting at a table. Upon seeing the prince, Baba Yaga asks what he is looking for, and after hearing his tale, she explains to them how and where her brothers died. The hero asks her how he can find the one who ravished the princess (who as it turns out is a living hurricane, a sentient malevolent wind), even though Baba Yaga warns him the wind might take him away too. However the prince is confident in his supernatural power, and so the Baba Yaga asks in exchange of her help for some of the water of youth located on the same mountain as the princess. She gives to the prince three gifts: a ball of thread to show him the way, a heating cap, and a cooling flash. These three objects will allow the young man to reach the mountain, and climb it without fearing the strong temperature changes. Once his quest is done, he returns to Baba Yaga and gives her some of the water of youth. She takes it, and immediately she becomes young and beautiful. Overjoyed, she gives as a reward her two daughters (the two maidens seen in the beginning) to the prince’s brothers for them to marry (the prince with the golden mustache marrying the princess with gold hair).

Now, it seems that Baba Yaga is a benevolent character here... But it is implied she had a role to play in the kidnapping of the princess, the one that caused all those misfortunes in the first place. Indeed, the palace where the princess is locked up by the malevolent wind is... standing on chicken legs. And the prince also has to sing a rhyme-incantation “Palace, palace, move on your chicken legs, turn your back to the void and face me” to enter it. Given the two building work identically, one can wonder if the violent hurricane that took away the princess isn’t just another shape of Baba Yaga... It brings to mind the fact that Baba Yaga was often associated in folklore with storm clouds. So in this tale, she would play both the villain AND the helper... 

Such an ambiguity is also found in “The prince turned into a crayfish”. In this tale, Baba Yaga doesn’t actually exist as a character, but her absence is noted when the protagonist enters her empty chicken-legged house. Instead of the old hag, the prince sees in the house a beautiful maiden. The narrative voice insists that this maiden cannot be Baba Yaga, since Baba Yaga is old and ugly. And indeed, the maiden is revealed to be the daughter of a royal couple, who has been kidnaped by “the master of all wizards”, that is to say “a viper-flyng spirit” (a zmij-latawiec). Nothing implies that this reptile-wizard has anything to do with Baba Yaga, but maybe some secret link can be seen - again, in folklore Baba Yaga has strong snake connotations and serpentine roots. On top of that, “latawiec” is the male form of “latawica”, and while latawica usually designates a flying spirit, it is also a term to designate a witch in Polish. This mysterious evil wizard, who not only kidnapped the princess, but also turned the titular prince into a crayfish, might very well be Baba Yaga under another shape... And yet, it is in Baba Yaga’s house that the hero finds the answers he needs to complete his quests, and the means to destroy the evil wizard. So again, from Baba Yaga, good and bad seem to come.

Baba Yaga’s villainy is however growing when we look at “The flying carpet, the invisible cap, the ring that gives gold and the hitting staff”. While not part of the action, Baba Yaga casts a shadow over the tale. The antagonist of the tale is the rival of a king, who several times tries to invade his kingdom, only to be defeated by an humble fisherman with a magical ring. After being beaten two times, the antagonist seeks Koscej to ask him to kidnap the princess. And the narration points out that the idea of seeking Koscej has been suggested to the antagonist... By Baba Yaga herself! 

Her antagonism is even clearer in the tale “The devil and the old woman”. This folktale is tied to an old peasant proverb: “When the devil can’t, it is the woman he sends.” The devil of this story will say this proverb at the end, admitting that sometimes women are much more talented than him to do evil. The story goes as such: the devil can’t stand seeing the happiness of a couple, and tries to break their relationship, to no avail. A “baba” comes by and sees the desperate devil - she agrees to help him, in exchange for new shoes. This woman is described as “dry, and wrinkled, and charred like a fire-poker”, and it is suddenly revealed that this woman is none other than “the famous Yaga” (or Jedza in Polish), “who had been called a witch, and who had been plunged in the pond several times without ever drowning”. Baba Yaga manages to create trouble between the lovers, and the devil pays her with new shoes.

However it is in another tale that Baba Yaga clearly appears as a malevolent being: The knight Niezginek, the sword that cuts on its own, and the gousli that play on their own”. A couple who has twelve sons advises them to go to Baba Yaga, to ask the hand of her twelve daughters in marriage. The parents tell them of “the famous witch Baba Yaga with a leg of bones, who moves in an oak-mortar, who uses an iron pestle, and who erases her tracks with a broom.” They also tell them of Baba Yaga’s twelve daughters, all beautiful and wealthy and ready to be married. The twelve brothers go to Baba Yaga’s house, but the horse of the twelfth son (the titular Niezginek) warns his mater of the witch, reminding him that “it is hard to reach her house, but it is even harder to leave it, because she devoured thousands like you”. Baba Yaga is described as a demon, a cruel old witch as old as the world, and even though she appears to be human, she actually eats human flesh. Baba Yaga welcomes the brothers, gives them wine, mead and plenty to eat, she prepares twelve beds in front of the ones of her aughters. At midnight, she gives the order to her gousli to play music, and tells her sword to cut the head of the boys. However Niezginek tricks them into cutting the head of the daughters instead. Discovering this in the morning, she screams, tear off hair from her head, and using her mortar and pestle hunts the brothers down. Thanks to magical helpers, Niezginek slows her down by making a river, than a lake, then a forest appear. Baba Yaga is forced to let them go and return home, but it is said that her blood-shot eyes still glow in the sky, leaving a red trail behind them. While the witch seems vanquished, the eleven brothers of Niezginek grow jealous of him, and force him into confronting the witch again. They inform the king of the existence of gousli playing on their own, and convince him to send Niezginek steal them. Thanks to his horse, who gives him a magical herb putting Baba Yaga to sleep, the hero returns with the gousli. The increasingly jealous brothers tell the king about the sword that cuts on its own, and Niezginek once again goes there - neutralizing the sword with holy water. The jealous brothers finally evoke the existence of the princess Virgin-Miracle, and the king asks Niezginek to bring her to him. The hero discovers that Virgin-Miracle is actually the youngest daughter of Baba Yaga - after losing her other twelve daughters, her gousli and her sword, she feared to be robbed of her last daughter. So she locked her in a boat of silver with a mast of gold, and sent it to wander across the sea, the key to its doors thrown into the depths of the ocean. And Baba Yaga guards the boat by swimming in her mortar, sending malevolent winds to push away any boat getting too close. (Another association with wind, which confirms the suggestion from “The prince with the gold mustache” that Baba Yaga might be the same evil hurricane that took away the princess). 

Baba Yaga in “Thea: The Awakening”

II) A double nationality: Russian witch, Polish witch

The ambiguity and mystery of Baba Yaga doesn’t simply rely in her morality, but also in her nationality. 

Despite her shape-shifting, the Baba Yaga from the tales of Glinski is extremely similar to the one of Russian folklore. Like her Russian counterpart, she keeps hoping from the role of a helper, to the role of a villain, to an ambiguous character. And the Polish Baba Yaga shares with the Russian one several traits: the appearance, the familial relationships, the house, the powers, the objects owned, the symbolisms... Baba Yaga lives alone, or with her daughters - sometimes she had sisters with the same appearance and same name. Very old, she has grey hair, is covered in wrinkles and pimples, and has a bony leg. She is a decrepit, dry, even “charred” person, except when the water of youth turns her into a beautiful maiden. She moves in a mortar of oak, with an iron pestle and a broom. She lives in a chicken-legged house in the depths of a dark and morbid wood. The hero must use a magical incantation to enter the house, and inside Baba Yaga is spinning some thread, singing, or thinking about various projects. Surprised by the hero, she questions him, and offers him hospitality, and afterward she either helps him or tries to devour him. She has numerous magical servants and helpers, and in exchange for her help she can ask something, be it new shoes or the water of youth. However when she hunts down the hero, she can only be stopped by other magical means. For the symbolism, the witch is tied with death, is linked to a violent wind that captures human, and also appears as some sort of flying spirit associated with snakes.

All these traits are found in or have equivalent in Russian fairytales. It seems thus very obvious that Baba Yaga was borrowed from the Russian fairytales to be placed into the Polish ones - which is very probable given the “Ivan Krylov” incident. Respected for a long time as a great collector of folk tales of Poland, Ivan Krylov caused a scandal when in one of his book about Polish folktales he merely rerote several tales of Aleksander Puskin, Vasilij Zukovskij and Piotr Ersov. This caused an outrage among Polish folklorists, and under this light, some of the stories talked about above seem to be tied to Russian folktales. The second part of “The Princess Virgin-Miracle” seems to be inspired by “Ivan Tsarevitch and the Grey wolf”, while the main plot of “Knight Niezginek” might have been taken from “The Small Hunchback-Horse”. The tale of “The Princess turned into a frog” seems to confirm this transfer from Russia to Poland, since this tale is very common and widespread in Russia. Its most famous version was collected by Aleksandr Afanassiev as “The Princess-Frog”. However, Glinski couldn’t have plagiarized Afanassiev’s collections of Russian folktales - simply because they were not published and still in the works when Glinski’s own collection of Polish folktales was released. Given how the tale of the princess-frog is very popular in the Slavic tradition, it is more probable that, instead of borriwing it from Russian folklore, Glinski might have rather ressurected a memory of it from the Bielorussian or Ukrainian folklores (which were very strong in the region Glinski came from). This would notably explain the different depictons of Baba Yaga in his tales.

Now... while there are attested roots of Russian literature, these roots only cover a quarter of Glinski’s collect. And even then, when we look in more details, other sources were clearly in the work. For example, “The Princess Virgin-Miracle” has ties to Ersov’ “The Small Hunchback Horse”, and yet this tale doesn’t have the Baba Yaga part the Polish one has - it seems to be mixed with a tale of the type “Baba Yaga and Small Piece”. What is unclear is if Glinski actually fused the two tales himself, or if the fusion had been done by the storyteller Glinski took his story from - probably a fusion born from a “local genealogy”. A similar “wedding of fairy motifs” is found in a Bielorrusian tale called “Ivan the idiot and the Small Hunchback Horse”, which seems to confirm that Glinski might have been more influenced by Bielorussia than Russia.

So... is Glinski’s Baba Yaga actually a character of the borderlands of Poland, rather than Poland itself? You see, Glinski came from the region of Nowogrodek (Navahrudak) who, while being part of the Republic of the Two Nations for a very long time, is now located in Bielorussia. Glinski claims that the tales of his book are coming from his childhood - so it is safe to assume that “The Polish storyteller” (Glinski’s book) is actually reflecting the fairy-traditions of the Nowogrodek region in the first half of the 19th century. Which means Baba Yaga could be part of a local folklore, mixing influences from Poland, Bielorussia, Ukraine, Lithuania, and Russia. Glinski himself, noticing this cultural mix, did not felt the need to make a difference between strictly Polish tales and “foreign” stories. For Glinski, this local folklore of the borderlands reflected the original Slavic unity that preceeded the divide of the various nations - it is a leftover of a distant, pagan past. Glinski was convinced that all the folktales of Poland, Lithuania and Russia where all once part of a same culture of the Slagic tribes, which then was split among different countries, and each “nationalized” until they couldn’t be recognized anymore. This idealized vision of a “primal Slavic culture” was notably an echo of the theories of Johann Gottfried von Herder, Zorian Dolega Chodakowksi and Kazimierz Brodzinski, when they insisted that intellectuels should re-create a national literature based exclusively on Slavic folktales. Glinski (who was a fan of Brodzinski) seemd to clearly have the goal to recreate a “Polish fairy literature” through the Slavic culture of the borderlands - and thus, his Baba Yaga is a manifestation of what is supposed to be the Slavic pre-Christian community. 

This idea was denfed by Wojcicki in his essay “On witches”. This man, who was named “the Polish Grimm” for being the first to ever publish a compilation of fairytales in Poland, deemed that the witches of Russia and Poland have numerous common points, most notably in their physical appearence. He noted that, in both countries, they were old women with wrinled and dry faces, with deep and red eyes, an abominable and repulsive creature”. He concluded in a common origin of those two figures. The “Slagic genelogy” theory can also be reinforced by the study of Ryszard Berwinski, in his “Study of enchantments, spells, superstitions and folk-belief”: he pointed out that Baba Yaga seems to be born from the degradation of a Slavic deity who was probably the wife of Perkunas and the mother of the world. Christianity apparently reduced her to a mere “wicked witch”. This theory, still very popular today, seems coherent from a linguistic point of vie, as the word “baba”, which denotes the feminity of the character, is present in ALL Slavic languages. “Yaga” is more ambiguous, but some trace it to the proto-Slavic. Glinski, in his tales, rather uses “Jedza”, the Polish variant of “Yaga”, though he uses the Russian form “Jaga” in one tale, “Knight Niezginek”. 

Despite this complicated and confusing genealogy, the heavy use of the Polish “Jedza” suggests that one of the main preoccupation here was the “Polization” of the figure. We could once again invoke the essay of Wojcicki who, despite theorizing a common Slavic source, pointed out the national differences that allowed the creation of a strictly Polish witch. For example, even though Baba Yaga’s role as a “witch” can be disputed, she clearly has parallels with the myth of the Polish witch. In Polish folklore, the witches are linked to the devil, and they gather some nights for a “sabbath” on the Bald Mountain (Lysa Gora). Even though there is a Bald Mountain among the mountains of the Holy-Cross (Gory Swietokrzyskie), the name was actually a general description for any high place outside of a city or a village. Already present in medieval literature, the character of the witch becomes more frequent in Polish texts starting in the 17th century, thanks to the numerous witch trials, which reached their peak in Poland between the 17th and 18th centuries.

In the “Komedia rybaltowska nowa”, the witch is called “baba”, even though the most common name of a witch is “czarownica”, or “wiedzma”. The witch has a lot of other names: lamia, latawica, poludnica, przepoludnica, nocnica, jedza, strzyga... And it is the last one that interested searchers such as Berwinski. The strige, the striga, the stryzga, with which witches were fused in Polish minds. This type of feminine vampire is not only tied to the Roman Lamia, but also to the “jedza” who was originally supposed to be a “female demon of the forest, appearing as a human and who dates back to the Middle-Ages ; she is the embodiment of the soul of a woman who died giving bith.” Due to an etymology tied to the verb of eating (jezenie), the jedza is also a flesh-eating, human-eating monster. The fusion of these pagan demons and the witch probably happened when the witch figure was brought from the West into the Polish culture, and while the witch took over the pre-Christian creatures, she still kept their names, even though they were emptied of their original meaning.

Glinski did use a few of the terms talked above to designate Baba Yaga - though he does so rarely. In “The devil and the old woman”, she is called “czarownica”, while in “The knight Niezginek” she is called “jedza”. But in all the other tales, Glinski doesn’t mention that Baba Yaga is a witch, he doesn’t even mention her occupation or position. So she is only called a witch when she plays a negative role in the story. It is very revealing of Glinski’s own Catholic culture - by associating the witch with evilness, he feeds into the demonization of Slavic traditions through Christianity. In fact, Glinski even mentions the punishments inflicted to witches - how they were thrown in the water to see if they were in a pact with the devil. However Glinski still tries to reach out for the old paganism. For example in “The devil and the old woman”, the “baba”, who is described as a “czarownica” is called Baba Yaga - however, in a story collected prior by Wojcicki, the character of the witch is simply called “baba”, without any mention of Baba Yaga. So Glinski seems to have tried to fuse the witch of the Catholic Polish folklore with Baba Yaga. Similarly, in “The Knight Niezginek”, the character called by the Russian name Baba Jaga, is also called “jedza” and “czarownica”, when in truth this Russian character shouldn’t have any link to the Polish witch. So, the author of the article here, thinks that Glinski actually tried to make the figure of Baba Yaga more “polish”, the same way he made other Russian fairytales “Polish” in nature.

The conclusion of the article is that the ambiguous Baba Yaga of Glinski’s tales is reflecting the contradictions of his project, and the mentality of his times. Glinski tried to make appear from Polish folktales the “pre-Christian, Slavic source” he had perceived in the multiculturalism of his native region, at the borderlands of the Russian Empire. So it makes sense to see this witch, supposed to be a cultural core of the Eastern Slavic, appear in Polish folktales, and it makes just as much sense to see her share common traits with her Russian counterpart. This way of resurrectng Polish culture through Slavic culture (and more precisely the Russian one) might be interpreted as slavophilia by Glinski, and a proof of him belonging to this wave of Polish men who, disappointed by the West and its values after the Spring of the People, turned towards Russia in hope of finding in it the salvation of Poland. In such a context, the presence of a Russian Baba Yaga in “The Polish Storyteller” is far from a trivia, and the huge success of Glinski’s tales in Poland even less trivial. It shows that readers recognized themselves in this “slavophile Polishness”, and it favored the integration of the character of Baba Yaga in Polish culture.

Baba Yaga in “Castlevania: Lords of Shadows”