Opening The Black Road: Blood Curse vs. Blood on the Pattern

[RPGPundit]

I think that he's meant to represent the Samurai ideal. He's a man of peace, a sophisticated philosopher, that becomes an Absolute Killing Machine when he needs to.

RPGPundit

[RPGPundit]

Now if you want to talk about manic/depressive.  lets talk about my Bleys, binging on theater, alcohol, and childish pranks to counterbalance the absolute squashing of his royal ambitions by the choice of the Unicorn!  oooo new thread..

You should start that thread!

[Tolknor]

I think that he's meant to represent the Samurai ideal. He's a man of peace, a sophisticated philosopher, that becomes an Absolute Killing Machine when he needs to.

RPGPundit

Ya, i can see that.  The whole Code of Bushido thing.  He also took over Avalon, Corwin's Camelot.  Both speak to chivalry, serenity, honor, and a willingness to deliver wicked levels of violence.  I can see his general staff having Lancelot and Musashi.  In both my games i had US Grant, Sherman, & McPherson on his staff.

[Croaker]

I think that he's meant to represent the Samurai ideal. He's a man of peace, a sophisticated philosopher, that becomes an Absolute Killing Machine when he needs to.

Oh, I do agree, but, since this is also what players most probably expect, going for an alternative would throw them of their feet

[RPGPundit]

I find the better way of "throwing" them is to have him be all man-of-peace, or elegant genteel killing machine 99% of the time, unless something happens to bring out the Chaos in his nature, the part that he constantly tries to control, because if that comes out he becomes a creature of almost divine levels of bloodlust.

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[Croaker]

Well, this still seems like something people could expect from benedict, at least most of the times. You'd have to make him bloodthirsty and agressive to change that, which is not that different from a psychopath.

If you want, my problem is that most themes tends to make him a "good guy", protector of amber and all, which I find boring compared to what we may see in other amberites.
Having him as a villain, having him as insane, is, IMO, far less cliche than whatever variation of the zen warrior/protector theme

[RPGPundit]

Well, this still seems like something people could expect from benedict, at least most of the times. You'd have to make him bloodthirsty and agressive to change that, which is not that different from a psychopath.

If you want, my problem is that most themes tends to make him a "good guy", protector of amber and all, which I find boring compared to what we may see in other amberites.
Having him as a villain, having him as insane, is, IMO, far less cliche than whatever variation of the zen warrior/protector theme

I mean, that's fine, sure; but the reason that its "less cliche" is because its in no way supported by the text of the stories. You get that right?

RPGPundit

[Tolknor]

I mean, that's fine, sure; but the reason that its "less cliche" is because its in no way supported by the text of the stories. You get that right?

RPGPundit

Could be a nice campaign, tense, trying to figure out why Benedict went nuts while trying to keep him from tearing the whole place down.

[RTrimmer]

I keep killing him off, though once they managed to bring him back despite being turned into glass and shattered into thousands of pieces.
Next time I'll probably just eliminate him pre-game.
Canonical Benny is just too damned good. Crazy Benny is just too damned badass.

[Croaker]

I mean, that's fine, sure; but the reason that its "less cliche" is because its in no way supported by the text of the stories. You get that right?

RPGPundit

I disagree.

Take, again, Dexter. His collegues have a given vision of him. None suspect him to be a serial killer, and if you listened to them about him, you'd get a quite different impression. And he keeps a tight leash on himself, something one can easily compare to Benedict's discipline.

The fact that his cool and collected facade could be just that, a facade, does in no way contradict the books. After all, as the greatest warrior in the universe, this is also a guy whose idea of a pastime includes killing people, both up close and with armies. I do not see this as very sane.

Hell, I fail to see how this can be taken as "not supported by the text", and thus not okay, when people can rewrite Amber so that Brand is the good guy, or any other drastic change, without people having any problem with this. We've had conversations in which almost any amberite was cast in variable light, yet this shouldn't extand to benny?

IMO, the "problem" is simple: Benedict, even more than any other Amberite, is cool, and benefits from that whole "lone samurai" image. So people, myself included, are loathe to make him something else. I do not think this sacralization is a good thing, and was glad too see that people could have an "evil" and insane benedict, even if it's just a shadow.

[Artifacts of Amber]

Here I have to disagree with Benedict being "Cool". The reason being that he loses it and tries to kill Corwin for killing his servants In the first series. I sight this example of when the Player's / Elder's attributes don't function fully. I see his anger as why he lost against Corwin near the black road. Not only did Corwin know something he didn't but he was to mad to use his Warfare to its fullest.

I see Elders as the greek god like being powerful but so humanly flawed in an emotional way. Else it makes portraying them way to hard.


Now Benedict as a serial killer I could see but what would be the challenge to him in doing so?

Too easy

[Sydius Mendoza]

This debate has taken a somewhat subjective turn. For me it all rests on the following. Paraphrasing here, so let's not get hung up on exact wording

"Benedict could be just as mean and nasty as the rest of us when he wanted to be. More so"

In this one statement Corwin tells us that although Benedict may be the stalwart General/Honorable warrior type, the capacity for him to be every bit as malicious/cruel/and down right evil as his brothers is still there. He maintains a demeanor so disciplined and militaristic (side note, IMC Julian emulates this as a form of older brother "hero worship") that it is easy to forget that he may not have always been this way. This may be the result of centuries of military service and life experience.

[daniel_ream]

I mean, that's fine, sure; but the reason that its "less cliche" is because its in no way supported by the text of the stories.

The First Chronicles of Amber are demonstrably Unreliable Narrator - a narrator who tells you up front he's lying to you.  Combined with Zelazny's talent for writing detail through implication, to say that just about anything is or is not supported by the text is largely pointless.

(Here, I'll thread derail by pointing out that Wujcik's vision of the Scions of Amber as superpowered demigods is likewise in no way supported by the text of the stories, and is much more problematic in play).

[RPGPundit]

I disagree.

Take, again, Dexter. His collegues have a given vision of him. None suspect him to be a serial killer, and if you listened to them about him, you'd get a quite different impression. And he keeps a tight leash on himself, something one can easily compare to Benedict's discipline.

The fact that his cool and collected facade could be just that, a facade, does in no way contradict the books. After all, as the greatest warrior in the universe, this is also a guy whose idea of a pastime includes killing people, both up close and with armies. I do not see this as very sane.

Hell, I fail to see how this can be taken as "not supported by the text", and thus not okay, when people can rewrite Amber so that Brand is the good guy, or any other drastic change, without people having any problem with this. We've had conversations in which almost any amberite was cast in variable light, yet this shouldn't extand to benny?

IMO, the "problem" is simple: Benedict, even more than any other Amberite, is cool, and benefits from that whole "lone samurai" image. So people, myself included, are loathe to make him something else. I do not think this sacralization is a good thing, and was glad too see that people could have an "evil" and insane benedict, even if it's just a shadow.

When I say "not supported by the text", I mean that if you want to portray Benedict as a batshit psycho-killer, that's not the impression we get from any of the descriptions of him, or encounters with him in the novels.  

Now, if what you want to do is have some kind of surprise-reveal, where what you have is the typical silent stoic Benedict only it turns out that he has actually been planning to Kill All Humans from the start; or that he's gone insane but has been hiding it and is secretly murdering the rest of his family one by one; that could be awesome.

RPGPundit

[RPGPundit]

(side note, IMC Julian emulates this as a form of older brother "hero worship")

In my games, Julian is the guy who tries to act like he's Benedict but he just can't pull it off; because he lacks any of the real power to back it up, because no one takes him seriously, and because he doesn't have the same kind of stoic self-control; he tries to act like he does but then has a hissy-fit at the slightest provocation.

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