It's a big deal when it's not a big deal

Sorry about the lack of blog yesterday, I was busy playing Pathfinder.

Pathfinder, for those who aren't familiar with it, is a tabletop game, extremely similar to Dungeons and Dragons.

A few weeks ago, Paizo, the company that created Pathfinder, re-released one of their most famous adventures, which has a small cameo of a Paladin (Someone so lawful and good, they can shoot lasers of righteousness), who happened to be in a gay relationship with someone who was transgender.

Paizo did their best to delete and ban anti-gay and anti-trans complaints and address accusations of 'pandering to the PC crowd' by saying main characters of Pathfinder were already planned to be either bi or gay, but had not yet been revealed as it was irrelevant to storylines.

The strange thing is, bigotry sees how progressive this is more than those who are progressive.  The major incitement of anger from 'oldschool' groups (their claim, not mine), was that these characters were treated as perfectly normal in their society, albeit a fantasy society.

Being gay, female, or having darker skin in the more liberal and kinder parts of the Pathfinder world is not considered strange and in most cases never was.  No party has taken a stand to be equal outside of parts of the world that tend to oppress everyone equally harshly. Paizo doesn't deny racial problems with it's creation, but it doesn't outright demand attention to these issues either. It has gone beyond taking a stand and done what stands mean to accomplish: admitting these groups exist and treating equality for them as normal, not something to be conscious of.  No one puts an effort into making sure these people are treated the same because that's not treating them the same.

Anger towards the most fantastical of genres of any medium for catering to anything other than white, heterosexual males is more powerful and prevalent than it seems on the surface.  They feel they are the only ones that should be catered to, 'as always'.  Shouldn't a message be sent that there never was an always and never will be?  Should it be 'that attitude is horrible and a stand must be taken to make these people known!', or should it be a simple 'you have no power here'?

Sovereign Stone Review

The authors of the long and very complicated Dragonlance series should be given more credit for the other series they have produced.  These stories give the usually vague and cliché fantasy races intricate and complex cultures, which outshine the drab and flat versions in their more famous books.

The first book, a singular tale that acts as a long prologue to the story of the following two, is called Well of Darkness.

The story talks about the lifetime of the second child of the king, Dagnarus and his Anakin-like turn to evil and literal powers of destruction.  In this fantasy world, there are the usual four elements of magic, but in this one, the fifth—called The Void—is a destructive, purely harmful element, knowledge of which is forbidden in the kingdom.  Feeling he belongs in the emptiness between the other four elements, Dagnarus pushes his scholarly whipping boy to learn magic of the Void, somehow seeking out documents and practitioners.  After that, he begins to seek out the same honor bestowed upon his brother: the power of a Dominion Lord—a soldier of the gods blessed with great powers to fight the powers of The Void.  From there things get stranger, but not uninteresting or jarring.  The whipping boy, now grown, and an expert at void magic and ferreting out its practitioners, has found and ancient void artifact for his master.  The knife creates vampire-like creatures called vrykyl, servants to the knife’s owner and being of the void powerful enough to fight the dominion lords and meant for the task, should the need ever arise.  When Dagnarus’s father died, his jealousy and arrogance finally show itself to everyone who never suspected his true intentions and devotions, as he declares was on his half-brother over the throne.

The book is very well written, engaging every step of the way, no mater what you do or don’t expect.  There are many other aspects not mentioned, such as the Orken already suspected due to omens, Dagnarus’s illicit love affair, and the whipping boy’s hero worship of Dagnarus’s brother.

Sadly, two most major issues are not truly addressed in the book.  It is only until the second book do we get an understandable reason to turn to the void for power as use of it not only harms or breaks other things, but creates ulcers and sores all over you as you use it.  Secondly, the chamberlain and man in charge of rearing Dagnarus , the elf Silwyth, vows revenge, never to be seen, heard, or cared about again and that’s all his machinations for war ever truly amount to.

This is definitely a recommended book o read if fantasy is up your alley, especially if you love to see plots unfold and worlds that are expansive and intricate.  It’s a stand-alone story, so if the later two don’t pull their weight, this on still does on its own merit.