Bill Roth as...

[ChaosDrgn]

I was reading this tonight while looking for something else, and I know it may belong in another thread or talked about before.

Could Bill be Oberon? Yes Yes, I know, he died. Caine died too. Or even Dworkin or one of the other family members? (Osric? Finndo?)

[Jason D]

I was reading this tonight while looking for something else, and I know it may belong in another thread or talked about before.

Could Bill be Oberon? Yes Yes, I know, he died. Caine died too. Or even Dworkin or one of the other family members? (Osric? Finndo?)

Have you got Shadow Knight? Page 145 discusses these options in some detail.

I think Bill was one of the characters I wrote up for the book, though I think it was partially rewritten by Erick to suit his style.

Alas, those files are somewhere on a Mac disk circa 1992, and Erick's correspondence is in a binder somewhere buried in my garage, so they're not exactly available to me.

[Croaker]

Thanks fir this interesting read It's a pleasure to see people still care about Amber

[finarvyn]

It was an interesting read and I, too, thank you for aiming me in that direction.

I think there are several things that I find frustratiing about the Amber franchise at the moment:
1. The general lack of enthusiasm about Amber. As time passes, the flame of Amber dims. The books aren't being pushed, nothing new is being written, there is no push to keep Amber alive anymore.
2. Roger started the new cycle with his short stories but never finished it. This means we'll never be able to get into his head to see where it was going.
3. The Betancourt novels. Whether they should or should not exist, they do. At least, they 80% do. There should be a push to somehow get the final novel done so that it isn't left hanging as well.
4. The RPG. This topic has been beaten to death, but I think the fact that Erick's notes never got put together into sourcebooks is a shame. Even if another company puts together an Amber game, it won't be the same as what Erick would have done.

It's nice to see bloggers with interest in Amber, but sadly I suspect that we'll never really get these points resolved to our satisfaction.

[finarvyn]

A further thought, since I don't think I properly addressed the OP.

It seems possible that Bill Roth has some significance to the Amber universe, but in my opinion it's unlikely. Certainly Roger slipped Oberon past us and fooled Corwin with Oberon's disguise, but I'm just not that certain that Roger would have tried that trick again. Having characters be not what they seem is certainly a hallmark of the Amber series, but Bill Roth seems like the kind of character who has firmly found his own niche, instead of being a major player pretending to be a minor one.

Just my two cents on the matter. It was still a fun blog to read, however!

[Croaker]

Well, what about a minor player becoming a major one? Julia did this, at least a little. So why not bill roth?

[ChaosDrgn]

I seriously doubt I would use Bill that way myself. No, I don't have the books, they're in Tx (I'm in Va), so there goes that. I have brought them @ drive-thru rpg, on Dial-up at the moment so need to go to the bottom of the mountain and use McD's wi-fi.

The way I would use Bill is as the outsider. He's that kid in High School that everyone talks around, and he listens to everything. The family talks around him, he's pretty much a "normal" so he can go into town and listen. That's where his insight and information come from, he's just one of the people in the background that hears (and sometimes remembers) everything.

[RPGPundit]

Yeah, I think Bill is interesting enough as Bill, especially the potential he shows once he's in Amber acting as their chief legal advisor. I wouldn't want him to just turn out to be Oberon (or anyone else) in disguise.

RPGPundit