Hmm, interesting, and certainly not the way I'd seen it. I saw the Shaman Figure - for eg - explaining things to the heroes as 1- a sign to mark that the protagonist is Chosen for this story, a bit like getting the sybil forecasting your future, a sort of thrilling Otherwordly IT'S YOU! for the hero and thus the reader, who will probably never be selected to do anything wonderful and heroic (and fucking dangerous, but though our heroes bitch and whine, we know they really wanna, it's their destiny, the Fairy Queen over there just told them so, and don't we all wanna be special?). And of course, 2- giving the author a mouthpiece to explain WTF is going on.
The Other in this instance felt superior, knowing a secret the protag doesn't know - a secret that may save his life or screw him over- and giving out only a little at a time; sometimes a sort of initiation. But...maybe I'm not thinking of the same example of Others. The one that did pop into mind, reading this, may be a little bit tenuous; the centaurs in Harry Potter, who are supposed to be very distant and inapproachable to normal humans, and who eventually go far out to help Harry because he's special, wow, they even let him ride. Maybe that's not a good example. THough it puts an interesting spin on that scene, now that I remember it in that light...
As for having the Master Vampire explain his Evil Plan (tm) to the good guy instead of just ripping the good guy's throat out is, for me, less a sign of subtly expressed servitude and more a sign of rather poor writing and lazy exposition ^^;
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Date: 15 Apr 2007 04:17 am (UTC)The Other in this instance felt superior, knowing a secret the protag doesn't know - a secret that may save his life or screw him over- and giving out only a little at a time; sometimes a sort of initiation. But...maybe I'm not thinking of the same example of Others. The one that did pop into mind, reading this, may be a little bit tenuous; the centaurs in Harry Potter, who are supposed to be very distant and inapproachable to normal humans, and who eventually go far out to help Harry because he's special, wow, they even let him ride. Maybe that's not a good example. THough it puts an interesting spin on that scene, now that I remember it in that light...
As for having the Master Vampire explain his Evil Plan (tm) to the good guy instead of just ripping the good guy's throat out is, for me, less a sign of subtly expressed servitude and more a sign of rather poor writing and lazy exposition ^^;