2023 has been weird. This is the second time that I’ve had to scrap the blog post I was working on to address a seismic shift in an industry that interests me. Technically two industries in this case, but two that are very much interrelated.
I’m talking, of course, about the current strikes involving the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA).
Pencils down.
Before I get too far into this discussion, I should point out that I am not a member of either of these organizations. I am a professional writer by trade, but I’m a copywriter. So, more of a marketing/branding writer. I write books and games, but that’s all just a side hustle for now. I am not a screenwriter, though that field does hold a certain draw for me. And while I was a theatre kid in high school and a bit in college, I realized early on that I was not cut out to be an actor.
Let me be absolutely crystal clear on this point: I will always be in favor of the artist over the corporation. That goes for the current situation as well as any more that might come about in the future. With that in mind, I thought I would lay out my thoughts on the subject, and why I think strikes like these are important and necessary.
The Eternal Squeeze Play
Corporations, with few exceptions, will almost always seek the path that reduces costs and maximizes profits. It’s one thing to run a company efficiently, but it’s quite another when both the reducing and the maximizing are taken to extremes.
That’s why I have little patience for CEOs who make more in a day than most people make in a year (and more in a year than most folks will make in a lifetime) saying that there’s not enough money to pay their creatives for their work. These are some of the same executives who were recently reported as saying that they would drag out negotiations until union members started losing their homes, describing it as a “cruel but necessary evil.”
Bear in mind that the biggest hubs of entertainment production are also situated in some of the most expensive places to live in the nation. Google how much the average rent is for a basic apartment in Los Angeles, I dare you.
The show won’t go on.
So, we have a situation where media corporations are raking in enormous profits, but the people who help create all that value are not able to adequately share in it. All the while, these creatives face limited work protections, a crushing lack of health care, and a shortage of the basic safety nets that other industries have gained only through organized labor.
Once again, I trust a corporation to do only what it considers to be in its own interest, and nothing more. Anything beyond that will require direct action for them to, grudgingly, loosen the purse strings. These companies could not, and cannot, exist without the labor of these writers and actors, pure and simple. So, just for the industry to continue, the people involved must be allowed to make a living wage, rather than being relegated to the iffy world of gig-economy/contractor status.
Skin in the Game
Now, what is or isn’t decided at the negotiating table will not affect me financially, but it will affect me. It will affect you, too. We all have a stake in these strikes to some degree. Unless you sequester yourself in some sort of remote area, chances are you stream movies or TV shows as entertainment. We all consume media in some capacity.
Can you imagine how much more miserable the pandemic would have been without streaming? And yet, as much as streaming services saw huge increases from that time, a trend that continues on to today, streaming has not proven itself to be a sustainable model for all the folks who contributed to its success.
The fact of the matter is that if we as the public want to continue enjoying movies and shows, we had better hope that both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA negotiations are successful. If not, there will be fewer people able to lend their talents to that end. Fewer people will mean fewer shows and fewer movies for us to enjoy. So, this isn’t just an issue for screenwriters and actors; we all have skin in this game.
No Dice, Skynet
Another sticking point in all this is corporations’ use of AI-generated content. This goes well beyond just actors and writers, but the use of AI will have enormous repercussions throughout the entire sphere of creative endeavors. I absolutely don’t blame actors and writers for wanting protections from AI written in their contracts. I would as well were I in their place.
AI is a creative shortcut, and right now a pretty mediocre one at that. It has the virtue of being pretty cheap to employ, though, certainly much cheaper than a living person who constantly needs money for food, water, and shelter. It’s the relative cheapness that has most corporations’ mouths watering. It’s yet another way to cut costs and maximize profits.
The use of AI brings up a whole host of moral and ethical questions. I won’t discuss those here, as they are far too numerous and complex. Rather, the point that I would like to make about AI used in a creative endeavor is this: Creativity is a human expression. Using our imagination and creativity constitute perhaps the most human things we can do.
There is no culture without creativity. If we decide to outsource our creativity to a machine, then we are, by extension, allowing an algorithm to dictate our culture to us. That diminishes us in ways I can’t even begin to fathom. Yeah, no thanks, Mr. Terminator — hard pass.
Conclusions
I think what these strikes boil down to is trying to get the major studios to acknowledge and accept that writers and actors are humans — with needs and aspirations, deserving of dignity and protection. It might be easy to point to a few rock stars in both fields as being super successful, but they are the exceptions, not the rule. The vast majority of creative people on the picket line nowadays do not fall into that category. They just want to be able to make a steady career in the industry.
It might be hard to see entertainment as a “product” in the same way that we view tangible products like steel girders or cars, but these creatives deserve to be compensated even if the work they produce is highly subjective. Really, when it comes down to it, if our auto manufacturers and steel workers have been able to secure legally enforceable assurances from their own corporations, vulnerable workers in the entertainment industry should be no different.
Think about the moments that have moved you the most on the big or small screen. One that comes to mind for me is seeing Tony Stark give the snap in Endgame that simultaneously defeats Thanos and saves the universe. That scene was written by the Russo Brothers and the movie’s editor, Jeff Ford, and then acted on screen by the peerless Robert Downey, Jr.
Each moment like that — each time it feels like all the air has gone out of the room and we feel the story resonate in our very bones — an actor and a writer brought that to life. If we don’t allow these creatives a path forward and a future they can aspire towards, we risk not having an entertainment industry at all. Or, at least, not much of one.
[Note: I do not consider myself a movie critic. What follows is just one fanboy’s opinion based off of a single viewing of the film. Oh, and there are SPOILERS ahead for this movie, so take heed.]
First off, let me apologize for being tardy on this blog post. Posts where I need to see a movie beforehand are dependent on me actually being able to take in a viewing of the movie before I can comment on it. I was delayed in seeing this film. As a result, my Fanboy Review is late. Mea culpa.
So.
Transformers.
Long-time readers of this blog will note that Transformers is perhaps my favorite franchise of all time. When the live-action movie first arrived back in 2007, I saw it opening weekend. It wasn’t anything like what I wanted in a Transformers-themed movie, but it showed promise. We had Peter Cullen reprising his voice role as Optimus Prime, a big budget for special effects, and an absolutely haunting score by Steve Jablonsky. “Arrival to Earth” is one of my favorite cinematic musical cues of all time. I sometimes catch myself humming his “Optimus” theme in my more quiet, contemplative moments.
As the series wore on, however, the cracks began to show. I’m not even talking about the nonsensical storyline; I’m talking about the strange ‘dude-bro-ness’ of it. The overt objectification of women. Needless flag-waving and worship of the military (and this from a guy who writes military sci-fi). There were too many needless human characters and pointless sub-plots, and not enough of the Autobots and Decepticons.
For me, Age of Extinction was my breaking point. I even wrote an open letter to Michael Bay on this very blog. Unfortunately, almost 10 years later, some of the points that I addressed in that open letter are things I find I’m having to dust off for this review.
First Impressions:
Despite my doom and gloom about the franchise, and the fact that I skipped The Last Knight entirely (I still have never seen it), 2018’s Bumblebee was a breath of fresh air. It wasn’t a perfect film by any means, but it was better than the CGI insanity of the previous entries. The opening sequence of that movie on Cybertron is precisely what I wanted in a Transformers movie. There was a bit of the Bayformers ichor still on the film, but the robot designs were closer to their G1 forms, and the general mood was lighter in tone. The rumor was that it would serve as a soft reboot of the franchise.
When I heard about Rise of the Beasts, I wasn’t super thrilled. I know Transformers fans owe a great deal of in-universe lore to Beast Wars, but I was never a big fan of it. I was even less of a fan of Beast Machines that followed. That said, it appeared that Rise of the Beasts would be a continuation of Bumblebee, so I was willing to give it a chance, though Travis Knight was not returning as the director. I set my expectations to middling and took my seat.
What I Liked:
The landscapes — Visually, this movie has some of the most striking natural landscapes that I can remember seeing in any Transformers movie. It’s an interesting contrast to the cityscape we see in the early part of the story. Plus, thematically, it just makes sense when you have the Maximals and their more ancient, naturalistic vibe front-and-center in the story’s narrative.
PETER FRICKIN’ CULLEN — Any time we get to have the man himself reprise his role as the Autobot Supreme Commander, I’m down for it. Even if I don’t like the story that Prime is in, Cullen always (always, always) turns in a command performance. This is no different, though I wish they had more use of the character in the movie. I always enjoy a heartfelt speech coming from Optimus, and we didn’t really get that this time. Feels like a missed opportunity.
The special effects — It’s almost par for the course for these big-budget blockbuster films, but I think it’s worth calling out. The VFX artists really delivered here, and they should all be proud of what they created. I’m sure it wasn’t easy. Whatever my complaints with the movie, the effects are really beautiful. There was one notable exception, however. See below.
The search for the Transwarp Key — I know that things started to feel a little like National Treasure in some of these sequences, but I dig the search for clues in symbols from history. That’s what I had originally wanted from Revenge of the Fallen, but we never got there. When you’re dealing with immortal, godlike animal robots, I can see early cultures viewing them as deific figures or spirits.
The Maximals — Despite not really being a fan of Beast Wars, I thought the Maximals were pretty cool. It’s a pity we don’t get much of a chance to get to know Rhinox and Cheetor a bit better, but I loved Ron Perlman’s gravitas as Optimus Primal, and Airazor nearly steals the show in places, voiced by the incomparable Michelle Yeoh. So, a pleasant surprise.
UNICRON — This is how Unicron should look. Seeing him tear into the Maximal planet was pretty terrifying, as it should be. Orson Welles is a tough act to follow, but Colman Domingo nails the part. I also noted the music playing during his scenes was a nod to Vince DiCola’s “Unicron” theme from the 1986 animated movie. Speaking of the music…
The musical score — I was surprised to learn that Steve Jablonsky didn’t write the score for this movie. Many tracks, particularly “Till All Are One,” definitely carry that cinematic style that Jablonsky delivered. This one is composed by Jongnic Bontemps, and it’s worth checking out.
Mirage and Chris — For those of you familiar with the G1 cartoon, I got a little of a Tracks and Raoul vibe from the relationship that forms between Mirage and Chris, and I dig it. It’s definitely interesting to see another Autobot besides Bumblebee be the ‘bridge’ character between Cybertronians and humans. I think their scenes were great and just nicely gelled together. I do love that we got the traditional shot of Mirage’s steering wheel bearing the Autobot insignia as Chris climbed in for the first time.
What I DIDN’T Like:
The story — Another ancient MacGuffin, another doomsday scenario. It’s another all-powerful ‘football’ that the characters have to find/retrieve/lose/ then ultimately destroy. Big yawn. This go-round is not as tedious as some of the other times we’ve been down this road, but only just. Yeah, I know, going to a Transformers movie looking for a good story is an exercise in futility. I’m just a glutton for punishment, I guess.
Optimus is still kind of a jerk — Transformers movies just can’t seem to find an arc for Optimus that fits with who he is. I get that the story here wants to show some sort of growth, but a being that’s around nine million years old should have a pretty well-established character. He should not have to be convinced or persuaded to care about other beings, particularly humans. For a brief moment, it looked like they were going for a ‘maybe he isn’t quite the Optimus he will eventually become’ type of moment, but then that goes nowhere. There is no arc, so he’s a jerk for really no reason. Optimus a leader who doesn’t really care about anything or anyone that isn’t in his immediate purview or goal. Anything outside of that is something that might as well not exist. Such a pity.
So, once more for the folk’s in the back: Optimus is the one that people (robots and humans alike) should look to when they feel like they can’t go on or when they call into question the morality of their own decisions. He’s the one to make the inspirational speech to lift your spirits at just the right moment and back up his words with heroic action. If that’s not the role he is destined to play in the story, he has been stripped of his core identity. We had to suffer through this most especially in Age of Extinction, and we’re still struggling with it here when it should be a non-issue.
Optimus’s new design — This is admittedly a nitpick, but the Bumblebee version of Prime was (IMO) the best Prime has looked in live action. Ever. This new version of him looks more blocky and unwieldy. We are also back to Optimus only deploying his faceplate during combat instead of it being in place all the time. I thought it looked dumb in the Michael Bay movies, and it somehow looks worse here. He’s still more G1 in design, though, and doesn’t have flames. There’s that, at least.
Bumblebee is KIA — The first real dust-up we see in the movie, and Bee is the sacrificial lamb — the guy who gets killed to prove the situation is dangerous. Practically a redshirt. Of course, there was no way that they were going to kill him off permanently, so his death had no real impact.
Wheel…jack? — In the opening of Bumblebee we see Wheeljack for a brief moment, and he looks more or less like he did in his G1 days. Here we get a version of Wheeljack that is so completely different as to be a whole other character. It leaves me wondering why they didn’t just name this character something else. If this is a continuation of Bumblebee, what’s the point? Plus, besides his initial, super- awkward interaction with Chris, he’s just another Autobot, just another gun on the firing line. He’s not an engineer or a mad scientist type. Like the movie, he’s just sorta…there.
Scourge versus Optimus — It was hard to see Scourge be able to take Prime in their initial clash, but I was okay with it. Scourge is a Herald of Unicron, and he’s directly channeling the power of a dark god, so it makes sense that Prime wouldn’t be able to stand against him alone. They did a pretty good job of setting the two of them up for an epic confrontation. But when that time comes, Prime is suddenly on par with Scourge for no apparent reason. I kept waiting for Prime to have some sort of epiphany to tap into his inner strength, or deepen his understanding of the Matrix, or something. Prime is just somehow better, and defeats Scourge as though the Terrorcon was just another Decepticon.
Scourge’s corruption bullet — Scourge fires a single shot and is not only able to take Airazor completely out but also corrupt her to a point where she turns on her allies. She seemed like the wisest and most discerning of the Maximals. So, did Scourge only have one of those little doohickeys? Why wouldn’t he immediately try to corrupt the Autobots, especially Prime? If all it takes is one little spider-tracker, that seems like a much better way to neutralize your opposition. If I were him, I would be using that little trick all the time.
The access tunnels — So, let me get this straight…Scourge raises his weird tower as a way of sending the Transwarp Key directly to Unicron. First, I would have thought that he could use the Key to transport himself and his minions to the Chaos-Bringer and give it to him that way. No fuss, no muss. But, assuming the whole tower thing is necessary, why would you want, or need, little access tunnels that go all the way up to your computer console? Tunnels that just so happen to be big enough for humans to run around inside? This was the plot bending over backwards to make itself work and give the human characters something to do.
The resurrection — Oh look, the big explosion they talked about has ignited all the energon in the valley, and guess whose body is laying on a convenient sheet of it. Bee comes back completely healed and ready to go. So, did Stratosphere just hang around the village while his fellow Autobots and Maximals went off to fight? Dude, it’s the end of the universe. Like, the chips were well and truly down, and he’s just chilling. Also, too bad Airazor got a tight hug from Optimus Maximal and they didn’t take her body to the valley. I guess she’s just dead-dead, instead of being mostly-dead like Bee.
The Iron Man suit — I understand why this happened. One of the big issues with Transformers movies is that the humans have no real hope of fighting in a battle with giant robots wielding weapons of a magnitude we can barely fathom. Usually, human companions like Sam or Charlie have to ‘run the football’ or try to affect things from the sidelines. The solution here was to turn a human into a Transformer. Sort of. Critically damaged in the final fight, Mirage turns himself into a human-sized suit of power armor for Chris, though the scale of the suit sometimes felt inconsistent. Too bad that option wasn’t available to Sam, Charlie, the NEST Teams, or any of the other humans who have helped out the Autobots in previous entries. Also, while the design of the armor wasn’t horrible, the open face bowl has Chris’s obviously CGI’ed face pasted onto it, which was the only effect in the movie that looked bad.
I guess we just destroy the Key, then — Predictably, the bad guys get the MacGuffin and attempt to use it. It apparently takes a while to spin up (and I use that term intentionally). In the end, Optimus is forced to destroy it. I suppose they had already established that it could be destroyed by Chris’s hand-held blaster. I know Prime had hoped to obtain it to get back to Cybertron, but when a portal opens up and you can see Unicron coming through, it seems like you would destroy the Key immediately if that were an option, instead of, you know, waiting until the last minute.
The G.I. Joe connection — Nope. G.I. Joe has had three attempts at a movie franchise and failed in all three, even with big names like the Rock, Bruce Willis, and Channing Tatum attached to them. I know Hasbro is desperately hungry to build a cinematic universe, but I don’t want that chocolate in my peanut butter, thank you very much. Understand that I have a special place in my heart for G.I. Joe as a franchise, but Cobra becomes far less of a threat when they have to contend with giant alien robots from a technologically superior planet that is literally millions of years ahead of anything produced on Earth. So, again…nope!
Unresolved Questions:
In this telling of the story, the Autobots didn’t arrive on Earth aboard the Ark or a ship of any kind. So, what method did they use to get here at the end of Bumblebee? Prime acts like the Transwarp Key is the only way he’ll ever get off of Earth, but clearly he got here by some other means. Why can’t he just reverse that? His plan was always to establish a base for his refugee Autobots so that he could return and fight for his homeworld. Did he not have a plan for getting off of Earth once he got here?
Will we see the Primals again, or will they just fade into the forests of Peru permanently, to be forgotten or ignored in future installments? Are we looking at more Terrorcons being the bad guys from now on, or will we get more Decepticons in the next one?
Will this new continuity openly supersede the old one? Already, the reasons why the Autobots left Cybertron to come to Earth are vastly different than what was established in the 2007 movie. Also, in this telling Unicron is a separate being that’s coming to consume Earth, and is definitely not the Earth itself, which apparently was a thing in The Last Knight. Once again, any sense of cohesion between these movies is spotty at best.
Conclusions:
I know more of this blog post is about what I didn’t like, but I honestly didn’t hate this movie. Nor did I love it. It just sorta exists in a “meh” state for me. Bumblebee attempted to take a movie franchise that felt pretty played out in a new direction. It happened to be in a direction I liked, and I wanted to see more of that.
This movie feels like it wants to be more like the older Transformers movies in terms of tone and design, and, to me, that’s a giant leap backwards. It’s a course correction to a course correction, and that’s a shame. For a moment in late 2018, I thought Transformers was finally on the right track.
Still, I applaud this movie for excising the worst excesses of the Michael Bay films, but it doesn’t really deliver on what Bay was actually good at, either. The whole thing felt rather bland and a retread of previous entries in the series, but one with a basis in the era of Transformers that I don’t really care for.
Those who really love Airazor, Rhinox, and the Maximal crew might be more invested here, but I just wasn’t. Again, I think this movie is better than most of the Bay films, but it is unfortunately trying its dead-level best to get back to those elements of cinematic Transformers that I would rather see buried and forgotten in the past.
When my father would take me to elementary school, we had something of a tradition: We would listen to music to set the mood for the morning. It was through these early morning music sessions that I was first exposed to classical composers such as Vivaldi and Brahms, as well as the guitar magic of Fernando Sor and Enrique Granados. One of the albums that made its way into the mix was Paul Simon’s, Graceland.
The entire album is fantastic, but there was something in the catchy bass hook of “Graceland” that really resonated with me. This was the first time I had ever heard of the place, but I didn’t know what it was. My father informed me that Graceland was the famous residence of none other than the legend himself, Elvis Presley.
Recently, I had a chance to finally follow in the footsteps of the King. Paul’s Simon’s eponymous theme played through the speakers of the rental car on the way there, as it should. The Graceland Museum is right across the street from the mansion itself. It is filled with all manner of Elvis artifacts, ranging from his cars, including the famous Pink Cadillac, some of his Army gear from the time he was drafted, and tributes and various personal possessions. His signature jumpsuits and golden records are also on display, though I wasn’t able to see them this time around. It’s good to have something new to see next time I’m in Memphis, however, since I already want to go there again.
Where I was fascinated, however, was in the mansion itself. Elvis bought the estate when he was just 22 years old, and he lived there for the remainder of his life. He modified the grounds extensively, adding the iconic guitar gates, an outdoor pool, a trophy building, and an indoor racquetball court.
The grounds there are peaceful. Part of me was captivated by the trees on the green in front of the house. I went in with the tour group, just one more pilgrim in the crowd. While luxurious, even decadent in places, I was struck by just how small the house was. Elvis was arguably the first international megastar. Musicians nowadays with a fraction of his star power live in megamansions that could dwarf Graceland. That Elvis chose this place as his main residence, and didn’t have a string of much larger places, is something that’s worth noting.
The Graceland Mansion has been frozen in time from the era when he lived there. His living room with a grand piano and stained glass peacocks, his yellow basement lounge with its three TVs and a (for the time) state-of-the-art RCA sound system, the world-famous Jungle Room with its carved wooden furniture and green shag carpeting on the floor and ceiling — it’s all in the state that Elvis left it.
It’s here that I had my ‘oak tree’ moment (a phenomenon that happens to me often enough at places like this that it really deserves its own blog post). Basically, it’s the dawning realization that the place you’re standing in isn’t a reproduction or facsimile; it’s the very real place where this person lived. This is where they sat down for dinner, spent time with family, took important phone calls, made tough decisions that are now lost to the sands of time — where the quiet moments of their life took place. In Elvis’ case, it’s also the place where he passed away. Heavy stuff, man.
The second floor of the Mansion is roped off. The audio tour, hosted by John Stamos, tells the visitors that the upper floor is kept private. I suspect that’s largely because having people see the place where he died just should not be on display. And, you know, I’m fine with that.
The next day, I went into Memphis proper to see the place where Elvis’ recording career first began its meteoric rise to prominence. Just as I would recommend the tour of Graceland, the same is true of Sun Studio, the birthplace of rock and roll. The likes of Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, B.B. King, and so many others made their careers at Sun Studio.
The space where Elvis recorded “That’s All Right,” his first runaway hit, is right there on the first floor of Sun. You can see the spot where he recorded the single that began his rock stardom. The story goes that Elvis had a fateful recording session with Sam Phillips, Sun’s owner and record producer, one that did not go so well at first. After a few hours, Sam decided to call it quits. The guitar and bass players began putting their instruments away when Elvis started singing “That’s All Right.” Something in it really grabbed Sam’s attention, and he asked Elvis to sing it again. The bass and guitar players pulled their instruments back out and they spent the rest of the night trying to get the song down.
Once they finally had it in the can, Sam sent the record over to the “Red Hot & Blue” radio show hosted by legendary DJ, Dewey Philips. “That’s All Right“ became an instant hit. A few days later, Elvis signed his first recording contract with Sun. His first record came out two weeks later, and so begins Elvis’ path to becoming a fixture in American pop culture. He inspired a generation of artists, and his fame paved the way for many other musical legends. As Buddy Holly put it, “Without Elvis, none of us would have made it.”
Buddy Holly would, in turn, go on to inspire many others, including the Beatles. So, the impact that Elvis has had on music cannot be understated. As an aside, I once knew a lady who had a collection of pristine liquor decanters in the likeness of Elvis, complete with microphones and necklaces gilded with real gold. I mean, that’s a little on the weird side, but how many other musicians are ever enshrined in such a way?
Yet, when I think of Elvis, not the one we see on black velvet but the man himself, I can’t help but feel pity for him, especially in the final years of his life. Increasingly isolated, with most of his musical rights sold, divorced, performing constantly, with years of bad habits taking their toll, he died alone at the age of just 42.
There’s a piano in the lounge adjoining the aforementioned racquetball court. That was the last instrument that Elvis ever played, on the day he died. According to his cousin and member of the Memphis Mafia, Billy Smith, the last songs Elvis sang were “Blue Eyes Cryin’ in the Rain“ and “Unchained Melodies,” the latter of which was one of the last live performances he ever gave. Both songs, especially when sung by Elvis, have that poignant, yearning quality to them, which I can only conclude encapsulated his state of mind at the time. Listening to them now is haunting.
I didn’t know this before I arrived at Graceland, but Elvis is actually interred on the grounds, near a fountain in the Meditation Garden. He’s there along with his mother and father. Tragically, his only daughter, Lisa Marie, now lies there in a mausoleum next to her son, Benjamin Keough. It’s difficult to stand there and not be moved, yet the peaceful nature of the grounds I spoke of earlier is a balm to this.
You know, in many ways, I have been on my way to Graceland for a long time, ever since those trips with my father as we zipped down the country roads in his ’72 Datsun pickup truck. Trips like this are transformative in many ways. Where I thought the visit would be for the glitz and glamour of one of America’s brightest stars, I came away with more of a feeling of introspection for having been there, a cause to ask the important questions of life, death, and existence. My trip to the Buddy Holly Museum had a similar effect on me.
Even still, Elvis had a personal mantra in the ’70s, summed up in this logo. Believe me, it is everywhere at the Graceland Museum.
The gates of the Graceland Museum.
It stands for “Taking Care of Business in a Flash,” or often shortened to simply “Taking Care of Business.” I believe this was Elvis’ way of telling us that time is short, to stay focused on what’s most important, get stuff done with style, and live a life worth remembering.
Not bad advice from the King, really. And considering everything that was going on in my life when I took this trip, they are sentiments I needed to take to heart. So, from me to all of you out there reading this…
Many years ago I was reading a fantasy novel as I was settling down for the night. In it, there was a long description of an old manor house that said the ancient stone walls had Spanish moss hanging from its surface.
Hold on, what kind of moss? How do you have Spanish moss without Spain? This was set in a whole different world, so the use of ‘Spanish’ in that context immediately took me out of the story. Couldn’t this have been described as ‘horse hair ivy,’ or ‘long moss,’ or some other descriptor that isn’t directly based off our world?
I mean, imagine that you’re reading a high fantasy story about two male characters going to a tavern to celebrate. These guys each order a Bloody Mary, call each other ‘dude’ and ‘bro’ a lot, and then high-five each other. That would be a bit jarring, right? That just doesn’t sound like something people in a fantasy world would say, and the Bloody Mary is linked to several historical figures from the history of our world.
Language is one of the best ways to establish the mood of a fantasy story, as well as to reinforce the atmosphere of the world. With that in mind, I thought I would go through a number of words that have direct links to our world in particular. If you’re writing fantasy, you might consider using a synonym for them if you want to avoid a ‘Spanish moss’ kind of moment in your work.
Let’s dive in.
1.) Okay/OK
Full disclosure, there are several theorized origins for this word, but they are all fairly recent, linguistically speaking. Perhaps the most popular (and the one I subscribe to) is about the 8th president of the United States, Martin Van Buren, who was born at a place called Old Kinderhook. Van Buren adopted this as a nickname, even using it as a campaign slogan during his presidential run, with the abbreviation of “O.K.” This came to be synonymous with ‘all correct.’ So, the origins of this kind of acknowledgement are specifically tied to our world in a way that wouldn’t exist elsewhere.
2.) Fan
Short for ‘fanatic,’ the idea of being a fan of something is a usage that has only come about in the last 150 years or so, and is often attributed to the rise of baseball. Of course, the word ‘fanatic’ has been around for many centuries, but previously it was taken in its literal meaning of a zealot or someone who is obsessed or divinely devoted to a cause.
In an episode of Doctor Who early in Chris Eccleston’s run (“The Unquiet Dead”), the Doctor meets Charles Dickens. When the Doctor says that he’s a big fan of Dickens’ work, Dickens believes the Doctor is referring to a fan that you use to cool yourself. If a person from Victorian England wouldn’t get the reference, your high fantasy characters probably wouldn’t either.
3.) Lateen
This type of triangular sail has been used all over the world, but the name itself is taken from the word ‘Latin’ due of the usage by the Romans. This kind of sail has appeared in a number of fantasy stories, though it is rarely called something else. Of all the examples on this list, this one is the most in the vein of the ‘Spanish moss’ since it is directly derived from the name of a language used in our world.
4.) Sadist/Sadistic
Both of these words come from the name of the Marquis de Sade, a French nobleman from the 18th century who wrote about inflicting pain and suffering on others…amongst other things. If you’re describing your fantasy villain, you might want to use ‘cruel,’ or ‘merciless,’ or something without a direct link to someone who (presumably) doesn’t make an appearance in your fantasy world.
5.) Sandwich
You might know this one already, but the term for putting meat and toppings between two pieces of bread was named after the 4th Earl of Sandwich in the 18th century. Often the story goes that he wanted to have a convenient way to eat so he didn’t have to leave the gambling table. While that part of the story is probably apocryphal, the name is still taken from a historical figure.
6.) Bathroom
When it comes to characters referring to the toilet, those from a medieval/renaissance frame of reference would likely refer to them as the ‘privy,’ the ‘garderobe,’ or something else. The term ‘bathroom’ wasn’t used until about the 18th or 19th centuries (sources vary on exactly when), but the meaning was literally the place in which you take a bath. Using it as a synonym for a lavatory came about early in the 20th century.
7.)Laconic
When someone has the tendency to express themselves in as few words as possible, they could be described as ‘laconic.’ This has a real-world origin. Laconia was the heartland of ancient Sparta, leading to the Spartans being referred to as the Lacedaemons. It’s why the Spartans sometimes had the Greek letter lambda (Λ) emblazoned on their shields. Spartans were notorious for their short, sarcastic zingers. Once a young Spartan complained that his xiphos sword was too short. His mother reportedly told him, “Take a step towards the enemy. Then it will be long enough.”
8.)Cereal
Another word with its roots in antiquity, ‘cereal’ is derived from the Roman goddess of agriculture, Ceres. That’s the Roman adoption of the Greek goddess, Demeter, famously the mother of Persephone. If your fantasy world has gods that aren’t Greco-Roman in nature, you might give cereal another name. Something to ponder the next time you’re enjoying a big bowl of Lucky Charms, eh?
But wait — there’s more!
I know that this would normally be the end of a blog of this nature, just getting through the numbered bits, but I think there’s more to say on the subject here. Consider this the bonus round!
The ‘Translated Language’ Approach
Alternatively, if you don’t want to get too in the weeds on checking word origins, you could approach your fantasy world from the perspective that everything the characters are saying and writing is just a translation from the original source. So, if one character says ‘okay’ to another, they aren’t really saying ‘okay’ as much as whatever the equivalent to ‘okay’ is in their native language, which is certainly not English.
The movie version of The Hunt for Red October had a great example of this. All the Russian characters speak Russian until we see the Political Officer reading the Bible. There’s a close up on him, and suddenly he starts speaking English. The implication is that all the characters are still speaking Russian, but we, the audience, are getting the dialogue through a translated lens. The same can be true of your fantasy setting, though it can make justifying plays on words and puns a bit harder.
Maintaining Interrelationships
If you start changing words around, it can be helpful to keep in mind the words that derive from those that you change. Here’s an example: Let’s say that you have a fantasy world that takes its inspiration from ancient Greece. You decide to rename the goddess Hera to something else. That change trickles down to other things.
Take Hercules, or his actual Greek name, Herakles. His name translates to ‘The fame of Hera.’ Change Hera’s name, and you’ll probably want to change Herc’s name as well to match, assuming you plan on having a Herc analogue in your mythology. Furthermore, if you use the word ‘herculean,’ you might want to reflect that change in that root word as well, just so you keep the connection between these related words in place.
Reaching a Balance
If you’re writing in English, you are already writing in a language that has a habit of borrowing words, either in whole or in part. Latin, Greek, Arabic, German, Old Norse, and a bunch of others have all contributed to the English we speak today. That’s the beauty of a living language that changes and evolves over time.
All that’s to say that there’s no way to delve deeply into every word you use in fantasy. I put this before you only to get you thinking about how etymology can be a useful tool in the fantasy writer’s toolkit. Of course, you could attempt to fully recreate the Middle-English vibe, but you might wind up writing something that reads like Chaucer’s original text that’s not going to be terribly accessible to a modern audience.
So, know when to put it down. Ultimately, the use of etymology is in service to the story. If you determine that you absolutely must use ‘antidisestablishmentarianism’ in your story, do it.
Final Thoughts
A fantasy world is supposed to feel real, even if it only exists in the minds of the author and the readers. Establishing that sense of place is, I think, why fantasy manuscripts can get away with being longer than other genres. It takes a lot of textual space to create that world, to bring it to life.
So, if you’re going to go to all that effort to build a world, word by word, dipping into etymology is a way to qualify those words so that you don’t wind up inadvertently tying your fantasy world to our own.
In December, Wizards of the Coast released Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen. Like many fans, I was eagerly looking forward to a return to the world of Krynn. While the book itself was very hit-or-miss for me, especially as a source book, just looking at the map of Ansalon again took me back to the time when I fell in love with Dragonlance.
The story, the characters, the setting — all of it really resonates with me. In the pantheon of fantasy epics, the Chronicles and Legends trilogies rate right up there with Lord of the Rings in my estimation. So, for this blog, I thought I would share the particulars of how Dragonlance first came into my life.
It was, as it turns out, quite a happy accident.
The First Taste
When I was about 13, a relative of mine came down from Michigan. I had never met him before that summer. He was older than me by a few years and interested in many of the same things I was, including tabletop role-playing games. At that time, I had played some Palladium RPGs, but never actually played D&D itself. He was also a big fantasy reader.
Between trips to the local pool, he told me about this cool new fantasy series he was reading. (No, it wasn’t Dragonlance. That would come a bit later). The series he described was actually the Deathgate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. He had the paperbacks of the first two novels with him, Dragon Wing and Elven Star. Since he was big into collecting the hardcovers, he gave me those two well-loved (but dog-eared) copies of the books.
I devoured those two novels over the next couple of weeks, and loved every page, character, footnote, and appendix. That was my first taste of what Weis and Hickman could do when they collaborated together. It definitely wouldn’t be the last.
A Fateful Trip
Many moons ago, there was a B. Dalton Bookseller in the Broadway Square Mall in Tyler, Texas. I loved that store, and I was sad to eventually see it close down. I had an uncle who lived just outside of Tyler. Any time I would go to visit him, he would find an excuse for the two of us to head off to the mall to look at books. Like me, he was a voracious reader. While he was not a rich man by any means, he made sure that any novel that really caught my attention came home with me.
Not the precise one I went to, but it looked pretty much like this.
Normally, we would each get a book, read it, then give each other a verbal book report about it the next time we saw each other. We had similar tastes, so when one of us liked a book, we would let the other one have a turn at reading it. I didn’t realize until much later that he never asked for any of the books back that he let me borrow. This was just another way that he helped me fill up my bookshelves.
So, on one of these trips, he found an anthology of fantasy short stories called Tales 1: The Magic of Krynn. The cool cover had been what first piqued his interest. This is a photo of the actual book he got on that day. As you can see, it’s been read over many times.
He really liked the book and recommended that I read it as well. Looking through the table of contents, I found some familiar names. The very last story in the book was called “The Legacy,” and it was written by (you guessed it), Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.
Raistlin Did Something Really Bad.
[Some DL spoilers ahead, so take heed.]
In “The Legacy,” we find an aging yet powerful warrior named Caramon who is worried for his son, Palin. Palin is going to take his test at the Tower of High Sorcery to see if he can become a wizard of the White Robes. There is an uneasiness hanging over everyone in the story. Caramon, Palin, and the other wizards of the Tower all seem on edge.
Turns out, it’s all because Caramon’s brother, Palin’s uncle, did something truly unconscionable. Everyone is really upset about it. But here’s the thing: No one says explicitly what Raistlin did. Whatever it was, it was so heinous and world-shattering that everyone in the story speaks Raistlin’s name in hushed tones. That’s one of the reasons that no one is exactly thrilled that Raistlin’s nephew wants to become a wizard as well.
Of course, now I know the whole story, but back then I had no idea who any of these characters were, what they had done previously, or what their interrelationships looked like. This was my very first introduction to them. “The Legacy” wound up being about 100 pages worth of pure foreshadowing for me. I was intrigued to know more.
Larry Elmore for the Win
Sometime later, my uncle and I were once again in the B.Dalton looking for new books. The fantasy novels had inhabited one back corner of the store for a long time, but the eponymous booksellers had rearranged the books since the last time we visited.
As I passed by one shelf on the way to my usual corner, I caught a glimpse of Caramon’s distinctive dragonhelm. I recognized it from the cover of The Magic of Krynn. In this painting, he was in his fighting prime. Raistlin was present beside him wearing the red robes of neutral mages instead of black. I was, of course, holding a copy of Dragons of Spring Dawning with cover art by Larry Elmore. Elmore had also done the cover for The Magic of Krynn, so his artwork was instrumental in introducing me to Dragonlance at two separate points.
I had thought that Palin and his brothers, Tanin and Sturm, were the main characters of the setting. Here, I was seeing compelling evidence that they were, in fact, the second generation of heroes in Dragonlance.
Without hesitation, my uncle bought me all three volumes of the Chronicles series. I couldn’t wait to dive in. I read the first lines of Dragons of Autumn Twilight in the car on the way back to his house.
A Lasting Impression
In no time flat, I had read all three books. Hungry for more, I picked up the Legends series, which finally revealed to me the epic bad deed that Raistlin had tried, and failed, to do. Finally, the circle I had started with “The Legacy” was complete. I moved on to many of the other books by other authors in the Dragonlance setting, but the six books by Weis and Hickman really stuck with me.
One of my favorite pieces of fantasy artwork. Ever.
I began reading their other series as well. The Rose of the Prophet. TheDarksword. Margaret’s solo series, The Star of the Guardians. Let’s not forget the rest of the Deathgate Cycle, which I didn’t finish until I was in college.
To say that Weis and Hickman were an inspiration to me is a massive understatement. Dragonlance had captured my imagination. It became the spark for me to start writing my own fan fiction. Admittedly, it was really bad fan fiction, but still a necessary step to becoming a writer myself. Krynn gave me a familiar place to set my stories, and I went all in.
Becoming a Hero of the Lance
When I first read Dragons of Autumn Twilight as a young teenager, I had yet to play D&D. So, I’m actually someone who fell in love with the world of Dragonlance before I ever played the game it was set in. Years passed, however, and I finally got my chance to play in Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, and a few homebrewed settings. Never Krynn, though.
The source of the aforementioned fan fiction? That came when a good friend of mine announced that he wanted to run a Dragonlance campaign using the original modules. Here was my chance to step into the world I had been such a fan of for so long. I have to hand it to this friend of mine, he loved Dragonlance as much (if not more) than I did, and it definitely showed.
I took on the role of a gentlemanly Knight of Solamnia, who had seen a vision he couldn’t explain and had gone on a quest to find the story of the True Gods. He was joined by a tinker gnome from Mount Nevermind, a brother Knight of the Crown who harbored a potentially ruinous secret, an enigmatic mage of the red robes, and a dwarven drill instructor from Thorbardin. Together, they became the new Heroes of the Lance.
Everyone who made up characters for this game role-played them to perfection. I’ve played in a lot of memorable campaigns over my gaming career, but as Paladine as my witness, this one had a kind of life to it that I have never seen before or since.
Simply magical.
The Journey Continues
There have been occasional forays back to Dragonlance over the years, whether in the pages of a novel, or in game. Dragonlance is still very much a part of me to this day. This series was precisely at the right time/right place for me as a young man. It continues to be a source of inspiration. I have my annotated Chronicles and Legends hardbacks on display in my office.
I’m happy to say that I’ve been able to meet Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, and Larry Elmore at various conventions over the years, though I’m not sure they would remember me. I’ve been off the convention circuit for many years now, even before the pandemic, but I’m hoping to catch up to one or more of them at some point in the future.
To the three of them, if any of you should read this, you have my most heartfelt thank you. Your work helped give a kid who was really struggling with, well, pretty much everything a place to go when the world grew too heavy to bear. Beyond that, I can trace much of my interest in becoming a fantasy author back to Dragonlance.
Lastly, I would like to thank my uncle, whom I sadly lost in 2015. I miss him still, especially when I set foot in a bookstore. It was through his understanding and generosity that I found the magical world of Krynn and was forever changed. So, to him, I’d like to simply say:
I was a voracious reader as a kid. Even back then words fascinated me. Between my love of books, a mother who would explain things using medical terminology, and a father who used to play word games with me, I wound up with a pretty advanced vocabulary for my age.
When I encountered a word I didn’t know, I was pretty fearless about asking adults what it meant. Often the definition they gave me might contain a word or two I wasn’t familiar with as well. I would ask about the meaning of those words, and so on and on it went. In retrospect, it was good training.
Today, I make my living with words. Etymology remains a passion of mine. To quote the movie version of V for Vendetta, “Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who listen, the enunciation of truth.”
Now, I’m not aware of when every word I know entered into my vocabulary, but there are exceptions. With that in mind, here are seven such words and the stories and memories that go with them. As you’ll see, my general geekiness/nerdiness was firmly established even at a young age. Let’s start the count.
#1
Word:Idiom
Source:Monty Python and the Holy Grail
My father was, and still is, a huge Monty Python fan. I was fortunate enough to grow up within broadcasting reach of KERA, the local PBS affiliate in Dallas, Texas. They would broadcast all sorts of ‘britcoms’ and British TV, including Monty Python’sFlying Circus, Fawlty Towers, Doctor Who, Are You Being Served?, and many others.
From the Flying Circus, I graduated to the Monty Python movies, particularly The Holy Grail. I was already big into Arthurian legend at the time, so a completely off-the-wall interpretation of the Knights of the Round Table was perfect for me. It’s definitely one of those movies I can quote nearly verbatim. It has worked its way into my everyday speech.
The scene in question involves Sir Lancelot travelling about with his squire, Concord. Concord is struck by an arrow with a note attached, leading to Eric Idle uttering, “Message for you, sir!” (Which has been my email alert on more than one occasion.) At first, Lancelot believes his squire is dead, vowing that his death was not in vain. When Concord wakes up and offers to go with Lancelot on his rescue mission at Swamp Castle, Lancelot tells him to stay put until he’s accomplished the deed in his own particular…idiom.
#2
Word:Criteria
Source:Star Trek: The Next Generation, “The Measure of a Man” (Season 2, Episode 9)
Both of my parents were fans of Original Series Star Trek, so when Next Generation started up, we were tuned in and ready. While Seasons 1 and 2 of TNG struggled to find traction, it’s episodes like “Measure of a Man” that really started to demonstrate how forward-thinking and idealistic the show could be.
In this episode, the android, Lieutenant Commander Data, is put on trial to determine whether he is, in fact, a sentient being or merely the property of the Federation. The stakes are high because if Data loses the case, he will likely be disassembled and studied by Commander Bruce Maddox.
During the trial, Maddox is questioned by Captain Picard about what defines sentience. Maddox lists three things: intelligence, self-awareness, and consciousness. Captain Picard is then able to demonstrate that the first two parts of Maddox’s criteria are met, going on to ask what if Data meets the third criteria, even in the smallest degree. It’s a fantastic episode, one that really digs into the morality of artificial intelligence and personhood.
#3
Word:Genuflect
Source:Aladdin
This was a bit of a late-comer to my vocabulary. I had read stories of lords and vassals for years, but for some reason the word genuflect, the act of showing reverence by bending the knee, didn’t reach me until I saw Aladdin in the theatre. It was, you guessed it, the “Prince Ali” song. Genuflect, show some respect, down on one knee…
Bonus points: This song also gave me the word coterie, which would come in handy when I started playing Vampire: The Masquerade a few years later. Thanks, Howard Ashman!
#4
Word:Cutlass
Source:Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
When I was about eight or nine, I started reading various classics for kids like Tom Sawyer, Robin Hood, and so forth. Treasure Island was one of my favorites. It sparked my lifelong love of the pirate genre.
So, I was reading this book in my Aunt’s living room when I ran across the phrase: “he drew his cutlass.” The word sounded familiar, but at the time I didn’t know that it meant a sword. My father was sitting at the kitchen table, so I asked him, “Hey, Dad…what’s a cutlass?”
“An Oldsmobile.”
Well, that made no sense. Why would someone take the time in a tense situation to draw a picture of a car that, presumably, didn’t exist in the time of wooden sailing ships and maps to hidden treasure?
Apparently, the confused look on my face prompted him to ask how it was used in the sentence. Then he was able to amend his answer to a single-edged pirate sword.
#5
Word:Twosome
Source:TheTransformers, “The Master Builder” (Season 2, Episode 12)
In this episode, we find the architect, Grapple, with his buddy, Hoist. The two of them are busy building a “Power Tower” model, a device that can turn solar energy into energon. They present it to Optimus Prime, but the Autobot leader declines to advance their project citing that it would make too tempting a target for the greedy, energy-hungry Decepticons.
The two Autobots go to repair Power Glide in the field where they are quickly surrounded by the Constructicons, who claim that they have left Megatron’s cause and gone rogue. They offer to help Grapple and Hoist build a full-scale Power Tower. The Constructicons make a show of some supposedly stolen energon cubes, and the two Autobots agree to jointly build Grapple’s masterpiece.
Surprise, surprise, it’s a trick. Just as the finishing touches are put on the Power Tower, Megatron shows up and captures Grapple and Hoist. He imprisons them in the solar collecting sphere atop the Tower, which will surely melt them down into slag. This prompts Megatron to muse, “Magnificent…now the gullible twosome shall perish in their own tower.”
That’s right, I learned this word from the legendary Frank Welker himself!
#6
Word:Vermillion
Source:Robotech: Macross Saga
Another one I picked up from my weekday-morning cartoons, this was a word that I learned but didn’t quite know the meaning. In the Macross Saga of Robotech, Rick Hunter is the main protagonist. He starts out as a civilian stunt pilot but quickly joins the ranks of the Robotech Defense Force (RDF) as he is pulled into the armed conflict between Earth and the Zentraedi armada.
After an initial training period, Rick is given command of the Vermillion Squadron. The ‘squadron’ seemed to consist only of Rick himself, Max Sterling, and Ben Dixon, though to be fair, sometimes they were referred to collectively as Vermillion Team. I thought the word just sounded cool, but at the time I had no idea it meant a bright shade of red-orange.
Spoilers: Vermillion Squadron’s time in the sun was short-lived, however. Ben Dixon dies in a huge explosion over Ontario. Rick and Max become part of the storied Skull Squadron. Since Rick’s older brother, Roy Fokker, died in the previous episode, Rick takes command of the Skull Squadron. Vermillion Squadron is effectively dissolved at that point.
#7
Word: Chaos
Source:The UncannyX-Men #120
The direct opposite of vermillion, this is a word I had heard and knew the meaning of already. I had just not seen it written out. I was a big X-Men fan when I was a kid. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t have a great way of getting a particular title regularly. So, my comic ‘collection’ (if it could be called that) was a mish-mash of different titles I could scrounge together along with those given to me by friends and family.
Somehow, I wound up with a second-hand copy of The Uncanny X-Men #120. I don’t remember how it came into my possession, exactly, but I remember seeing the word chaos on the cover which proclaimed “Chaos in Canada!” This was when the X-men fought Alpha Flight. Not recognizing the word, I asked my father about it. He informed me it was pronounced kay-os. For a kid who was still trying to master phonics at the time, a ‘ch’ combination of letters that didn’t make the traditional ‘ch’ sound was bit confusing.
To this day, it remains one of my favorite comic book covers. It’s evocative and colorful, and there’s a real menace at seeing the outlines of Shaman, Vindicator, and Sasquatch in the foreground. *chef’s kiss*
Fun fact: One of the cover artists for this issue was none other than Bob Budiansky, who famously developed Transformers lore for the original comic. He is known for naming Megatron, Wheeljack, Starscream, Sideswipe, Shockwave, and a whole host of others. Since Megatron appears on the list above, I’m declaring that a double vocabulary synergy, baby!
So, there you have it, folks — there’s a look at where I discovered seven different words and how I learned them. If you enjoyed this blog post, please give it a like. If you had fun with this one, I have some other word origins I’m happy to talk about in the future. Also, feel free to share where in your personal history you picked up certain words. I’d love to hear your stories. Until next time, thanks for reading!
[Author’s note: Each time I went to post this, the story and circumstances around the OGL changed (that’s part of why it’s late). I’ve kept the text more or less the way I had it. I’ve included an update section at the very end.]
Dear Wizards,
Well, you’ve had an interesting couple of weeks. Once again, it feels like I’m watching history unfold before my eyes. Not the happy kind. More like the destined-to-be-taught-in-business-college-courses-cautionary-tale kind of history.
Now, before we get too far into this, let me make a distinction here. This letter is to the executive staff of Wizards of the Coast, the decision-makers and gatekeepers, as well as any others from Hasbro that might be involved in what could only charitably be called a fiasco. For all the designers, community managers, middle managers, and developmental staff of D&D, this isn’t aimed at you. I know this has been hard on you, too. Stay strong and know that you are loved. (Also, I’d like to see you do more with the Artificer, but that’s another story.)
So, WotC executives, where to begin? I swear by the great beard of Moradin that I’m not just ragging on you. In fact, believe it or not, I want to help you. Let’s start with a little education. We all know the old axiom that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it, right? Unfortunately, for many of us, recent events in the TTRPG space have felt more like those who know history are doomed to watch those who don’t know history repeat it.
Let’s set the wayback machine to 2008. Fourth edition comes along, and it’s excluded from the existing OGL. It takes its cues from the GSL, a much more restrictive set of rules for putting out game content. Paizo says no thanks, and BOOM — we have Pathfinder.
I doubt any of the existing WotC executive team in place now was present back then, but there was a definite cause and effect. Cause: a departure from the OGL that had issued in a golden age for D&D. Effect: massive loss of faith in D&D by the player base, giving rise to the game’s biggest competitor.
At the time, the blunder of Fourth Edition in its attempt to chase the thrill of an MMO (but without all the things that make an MMO memorable and fun), seemed like D&D had finally run its course. Shortly, it would join any number of other legacy systems on the scrap heap. It would be something old players of the game would reminisce about and tell war stories from adventures at the High Clerist’s Tower or in the streets of Waterdeep. Maybe we’d pull it out for a one-shot every now and then.
I stepped away from D&D at that time. Truth be told, I didn’t think I would ever come back, and if I did, I would probably play older editions of the game. I ignored 5e when it came out initially. I thought I was done with D&D.
Then a miracle happened, the thing I’ve always wanted since I’ve been a TTRPG player: D&D broke through into the mainstream, or as close to it as I’ve ever seen. Suddenly there were more active players than there ever had been before. Folks who might never have played RPGs previously found a home with D&D 5e, and I was super onboard for that. D&D came alive again. People were excited to play it. I never thought I would see that again after Fourth Edition.
You see, I firmly believe that playing TTRPGs is a healthy form of self-expression. At once, it combines creativity, tactical and strategic thinking, improvisation, critical analysis, and basic math. There’s also a strong social component to it. For life-long introverts such as myself, D&D was a refuge, a home away from home. I know I’m not alone in this.
Unfortunately for everyone involved, the OGL 1.1 (or 1.2, 2.0, or whatever) has made this haven feel pretty inhospitable. I’m one of the lucky ones in that my livelihood is not directly tied to D&D content creation, but there are innumerable talented Youtubers and creators out there that I respect who are put in jeopardy over this.
This will not do.
It’s how you say “Good-bye” in graph paper.
At the time of this writing, you have released your response to the uproar. Silence was not your friend, let me tell you. The statement itself did little to allay any of my fears. Truly, you may like to label it as “we both won,” but if anything the opposite is true — we all lost.
We lost a home and the promise of what the OGL was meant to stand for. Whether you realize it now or not, you lost, too. Not from the backlash this caused, no, but you’ve lost the trust. Shattered it, more like. Your want to control that part of the gaming space has opened the door for your competitors to offer their own OGLs, ones that we hope live up to the spirit of the original. Once again, cause and effect.
Cause: a departure from the OGL that had issued in a second golden age for D&D. Effect: massive loss of faith in D&D by the player base, giving rise to the game’s biggest competitors. Note the plural there.
Sound familiar?
Get used to seeing this dragon.
It’s exhausting to see the death of D&D — again — play out in real time before my eyes. All empires crumble, however, and perhaps it’s time for D&D to fade into near obscurity. I doubt the game will go away completely, but I’m not putting any odds on One D&D now. I was looking forward to where it would go, but now…not so much. Ditto for the upcoming movie and TV show.
While some small, idiotically optimistic part of me thinks you might change course in light of how unpopular this initiative is, the truth is that you will likely continue with deauthorizing the OGL 1.0a as planned, despite the many, many warnings of what an avoidable, self-inflicted wound that would be.
But okay, if moving units is really what motivates you, if that’s the only language you speak, take heed. By attempting to have more, you will wind up with less. I know that sounds a bit like a fortune cookie. It’s true though. If you move forward with your plans, you will have put the nails in the coffin of D&D’s resurgence. All of them, all at once. Dead and buried.
And I suppose that’s what hurts the most about all of this. You had the top spot, you had achieved something fantastic, something truly wondrous…and then you just threw it all away. Perhaps you view the ecosystem that developed around D&D, and by extension those who could make a living from it, as parasitic. You really should view them as pillars. They prop up your brand and your game on a daily basis. How many other games ever get to that point? You should have done everything you could to further empower and protect them.
Instead, you’ve managed to alienate practically all of them in a comically short amount of time, though there’s nothing funny about any of this. Once again, livelihoods are on the line. How can the community ever trust you again? Your actions demonstrate a staggering lack of understanding of your own product, and a level of disconnect from your playerbase that is almost too much to believe.
In short: You were the chosen one! You were supposed to bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness!
Then again, I could be looking at this the wrong way. Perhaps I should be celebrating this in the form of an Irish wake. Maybe there should be no monoliths in the TTRPG space, no not one. Perhaps we’ll be better off without you. Perhaps ironically, and certainly unintentionally, you have made Dungeons & Dragons into a phoenix.
Paizo is already laying the groundwork for the ORC. MCDM is working on their own game system that will be “aggressive” in its own open gaming license. Kobold Press has their “Black Flag” project in the works. Monte Cook, who has designed several of my favorite games, has his Cypher system. I’ve been meaning to check it out, so this seems like the opportune moment to do so.
Current mood.
They are all rising from the ashes before you’ve even finished burning it all down. But make no mistake, your game, your community, the goodwill you’ve built up over the years, and the reputation of Wizards of the Coast, such as it is — yeah, it’s all on fire.
And you are the ones who held the torch.
But in the words of the great Led Zeppelin, whose music is inextricably tied to classic D&D: There are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there’s still time to change the road you’re on.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Si vales, valeo.
-Matt Carson
___________________________________________
UPDATE: At this point, the first proposed “playtest” form has gone up for OGL 1.2. I’ll admit that some of the concessions appear to be a step in the right direction, but I would still never dare to produce content under it. Here’s a short list of why:
1. You still want to deauthorize the OGL 1.0a. The reasons you cite are spurious — a dodge at best and an insult at worst. The OGL has stood for more than 20 years. That I’m aware of, there haven’t been any high-profile offensive content released under it by third-party publishers.
2. The morality clause in 6f is untenable. The way this situation was handled shows that WotC is hardly a moral compass to determine what is “harmful” or “obscene.” This point says that you alone determine what is considered hateful, and this cannot be contested in court. Even if the rest of OGL 1.2 were perfect (and spoilers, it isn’t), there’s no way any content creator would, or should, agree to that.
3. You give yourself at least three ways you can change your mind in the future if it suits you, including the Severability clause. “Irrevocable” in this case doesn’t mean what you’re hoping the community thinks it means.
4. I’m not as well versed in the VTT space, but the provisions you put in place are clearly meant to give you an advantage once the One D&D VTT comes out. This doesn’t seem like you’re terribly confident in your product if you feel the need to close off sections of it from other developers.
5. Ultimately, the broken trust means that I cannot expect you to act in good faith with any of this. It’s as simple as that. OGL 1.2 does attempt to give content creators a little more breathing room, but it’s just not enough.
As it stands now, the new OGL is a bad bet, one that most third-party publishers and content creators will be unwilling or unable to make.
I have an admission to make: This was not my original idea for my last blog of the year. Recent events, however, have put my situation as an author in a whole new light, almost certainly setting the tone and focus for my writing in 2023 and beyond. As you read on, I think you’ll see why.
Science fiction has long been my “home” genre, the one in which I feel like I have something to say. This is especially true of military sci-fi. I love stories that feature new classes of starship, starfighters engaged with other starfighters in deadly dogfights in space, dropships carrying determined Marines in power armor into battle, pretty much all the tropes of the genre. Heinlein was a big influence on me early on, and my first published novel, The Backwards Mask, was steeped in all of that.
Unfortunately, the market for military sci-fi right now is pretty tough, especially for authors who do not already have an established readership. I had several conversations with literary agents, editors, and industry professionals recently about why this is.
I don’t pretend to know all of the internal workings of the industry, but from what I gather it’s like this: The pandemic really messed up the supply chain, including production of the book-weight paper that publishers use to print (you guessed it) books. Since there will be fewer books printed, publishers want to go with the books that they know will be a sure thing. They are less inclined to take chances when they have fewer resources to go around. The supply chain has improved somewhat since then, but the inertia of the industry still remains.
This has made midlist genres like science fiction instantly harder to break into since publishers aren’t putting as much resources towards them. The midlist genres are those that have an established readership, but don’t have the broad commercial appeal of, say, a mystery or romance novel. You are unlikely to get an international bestseller of the scope of TheDaVinci Code or The Bridges of Madison County out of science fiction.
After much soul-searching, I have come to the conclusion that I need to put science fiction down for the foreseeable future. I’m still trying to break into the industry, and it just doesn’t look like my path forward for traditional publishing has science fiction in it. At least for now. This is not to say that there isn’t a great demand for science fiction from book readers — there certainly is — but if publishers aren’t terribly interested in military sci-fi at the moment, agents won’t be either. Books have to have somewhere to go.
That means that the sci-fi series I’ve been developing, that already has two finished novels to its name, one that I’ve worked on for many years, needs to be shelved, possibly indefinitely. It’s hard to say what publishers may want six months, a year, or five years down the line, but it’s been made pretty clear to me what they don’t want right now. So, as much as it breaks my heart, I’m leaving science fiction behind. I hope to return to it one day, I honestly do.
Does this mean I’m going to stop writing? No, not at all. It just means that I need to change my angle of approach. I’ve decided to hang up my power armor and gauss rifle in favor of a well-worn travelling cloak (that may at one time have been green) and strap on my storied, ancestral sword. That’s right, I’m switching over to fantasy as my main genre.
So, why do I think fantasy might work if sci-fi can’t or won’t?
Well, I used to see the two genres as close family, walking essentially hand in hand. They are usually found in bookstores together. Depending on the store, they might even be lumped together into one section. We often see “SF/F” as a signifier for the two genres in concert. More and more, though, there are literary agents who represent fantasy but not science fiction. A recent convention I attended had only about three agents present who would consider sci-fi. For fantasy? Double that or more. Fantasy and sci-fi are no longer equals. Fantasy dropped a haste spell and raced ahead, leaving sci-fi behind in its wake.
Whether you attribute it to the long-standing popularity of Harry Potter, the Game of Thrones show on HBO, or immensely popular authors like Brandon Sanderson, people who wouldn’t have been readers of fantasy ten or twelve years ago are reading it now. Fantasy is the closest thing to mainstream that it has ever been, and publishers are looking for more.
Truth be told, I avoided the fantasy genre for the longest time. I didn’t feel like I had much to say that hadn’t already been said by much better authors than myself. Also, Tolkien’s effect on the genre can’t really be overstated, like the moon’s pull on the tides. It’s exceedingly difficult not to be influenced by his work in some way or another, if you trace it back far enough.
Conversely, it’s almost too easy to find yourself walking along some of the paths that he first blazed. I didn’t want to be just another author rearranging the furniture in his house and trying to file off the serial numbers, nor did I want to chase the trend of grimdark fantasy when it became popular in recent years. So, what’s an author to do?
Little by little, one idea that I’d had in the back of my mind for a while fused with another. I started making connections in my head. New concepts and old designs began to temper each other. Not long after I had an outline and a map. Then I started writing what was essentially an experiment. I don’t want to give away the name, but the initials for that manuscript are “DMM.” I was happy with the result, and I found my voice in the genre, opening the door for more.
When it came time to choose my next novel, I wrote another experimental manuscript, very different in tone and execution, but tangentially set in the same world, as well as on the same continent (though separated by vast distances and set in another age.) This one’s initials are “AOTO.” While the book is finished, and I believe it’s the best plotted and paced book I’ve written so far, it still needs a lot of polishing before it’s ready for the querying process. That’s on my to-do list for the near future.
Both DMM and AOTO are each meant to be the first volumes in their respective series. Without spoiling anything, one story is a meditation on war, society, and coming to know yourself when everything else has been taken away. The other is about an outsider finding a place to belong and coming to understand why the cause he follows is the right one for him, while also discovering the strength to stand up for what he believes in, no matter the odds. I’ll leave you to decide which one is which.
I pitched these ideas to some industry professionals, and their feedback was that these two books might be able to land in the current publishing environment where my sci-fi series couldn’t. So, starting next year, both DMM and AOTO will be entering the query trenches, likely in that order. Let us hope that the light of Paladine, Crom, UL, Primus and/or Eru Illúvatar can shine down upon them as they seek to find their way into the light of day. It won’t be easy. Then again, nothing worth doing ever is.
So, that’s where I am at the moment. The New Year will see me switching gears and continuing to push forward. I hope that you will continue to join me on this journey, albeit along a path I had not intended.
I wish you and your families a happy and safe holiday season! I will be back on Friday, January 6 with the State of the Sector Address. We’ll talk about what worked, and what didn’t, for 2022 and set out our goals and aspirations for 2023. I hope that you will join me for this.
The concept of a prequel as a literary device has been around in one form or another for quite a long time in almost every medium. When The Phantom Menace came out in 1999, the idea of going back and telling the story of the Clone Wars was something that hadn’t been done before on that kind of cinematic scale. More than 20 years later, the Star Wars universe is still dipping into that well, and will likely continue showcasing stories that take place before A New Hope for the foreseeable future.
Star Wars certainly isn’t alone in wanting to delve into the stories that take place before the original setting of the intellectual property. A short list of heavy-hitters appearing this year alone on TV includes (but is certainly not limited to) the following:
Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
House of the Dragon
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
Obi-Wan Kenobi
(And just this week) Andor
Before I get into the particulars, let me say this: This post is not about the casting, fan backlash, or creative decisions involved with any of these shows. I have the greatest respect for the actors, crew, and digital artists who bring these shows to life. If you’re here expecting some sort of fanboy outrage at one or more of those groups, feel free to hit that “eject” button now and punch out. Byyyyeee.
Still with me? Excellent. What I hope to do with this blog is to take a look at the viability of prequels as a framework for telling stories, exploring three things that make prequels attractive as well as three more that make them less appealing than an original story. With that in mind, let’s dive in.
The Allure
Nostalgia
The most obvious answer is that a prequel hopes to capture the magic that the property had before, tapping into the good will and warm fuzzies that we may harbor from previous iterations of said property. Depending on how subtle or overt this previous connection is handled, you might wind up with fun call-backs, but it runs the risk of becoming heavy handed with member berries.
For the most part, I’m fairly forgiving of when the fan service gets too fan service-y. Even when this happens, it’s hard to deny that the feelings that are evoked when you see parallels play out. In the right hands, they can be profound. The best prequels are able to successfully excavate those little nuggets of emotion we have tied up with the original and shine new light on them.
Nostalgia is often a distortion of past events, though, filtered through the lens of a yearning for a past that may or may not have really existed except in our minds. While it can be a two-edged sword, it can also be a powerful reminder of what we love, reigniting our passion and enthusiasm in the present.
More Time in the Setting
Stories taking place in settings we love are always finite. There are only so many episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, only so many Lord of the Rings movies. Once a setting has achieved that sort of critical mass in the hearts and minds of fans, it’s natural to want to go back to that place if given the chance. After all, we have friends there, favorite spots, and (in general) we know what we’re getting ourselves into. It’s a known quantity, and one we already like.
Settings with rich backgrounds are often the most fertile soil for prequels. If you’re a lore nerd like I am, who just loves to sink your teeth into the backstory and worldbuilding, this is a chance to see it brought to life. The mentor figure of a previous story might now take center stage as the protagonist of the prequel. Characters who are bitter enemies might be friends in this telling. Maybe you get to witness legendary events play out that were only ever talked about, or receive additional context to the original story.
Like the voyages of the original Constitution-class Enterprise? Well, here’s more of that. Remember the thrill of Game of Thrones? Let’s have another foray into Westeros, shall we? And so on.
A Safe Bet
Prequels don’t have the risk that new, completely original stories carry. There’s a built-in audience, likely one that’s hungry to see more of whatever it is. This makes prequel stories something comfortable for both the producers and consumers of media. If you liked this, you’ll surely love that.
It’s the same mindset that brings us sequels, but there’s an innate guardrail backed into prequels: You know where the characters are going. You don’t have to worry about coming up with the next big story arc, and you already have the end point established. You’re just filling in the gaps and adding additional layers to a story that’s already been told.
The Curse
Spectacle Creep
The issue with going back before the ‘main’ timelines is that the temptation to make the prequel story bigger, grander, and more impressive often blows the originals out of the water. Consider the lightsaber duels in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. They are orders of magnitude more complex and fast-paced than the ones we see in the original trilogy.
The ever-increasing want to pile spectacle on top of spectacle, to outdo what audiences have experienced before, can be momentarily thrilling in the moment, but it always has the effect of making the source material seem far more mundane. This is especially noticeable when you watch the releases in that universe’s chronological order. Thus, prequels often have the side-effect of downgrading or side-lining the originals.
Continuity Nightmare
By its very nature, a prequel does not exist in a void. It comes before something. It’s no easy feat to balance the needs of the prequel story with the constraints placed on it by the stories that released before it. It’s a delicate balance to walk. Lean too much into what’s been established and you risk severely limiting the scope of your story. Throw canon to the wind and the prequel story may not fit within the greater framework that exists in the minds of fans.
This is personally why I think that prequels can be a hard sell for long-running fandoms — it’s too easy to cause contradictions and lore breaks. Sure, not everyone cares about that. Most casual viewers probably don’t, but invariably there are fans who are invested in the universe that do want to see continuity maintained. Prequels are often the bane of those kinds of fans.
Now I know that, more often than not, these types of fans are dismissed out of hand as whiny manbabies, like a Youtube comment section come to life. But, I would argue that many of the fans that object to major breaks in a universe’s continuity just want all parts of the thing they love to work in concert, forming a cohesive whole, rather than having elements that work in opposition to that. Major breaks in continuity can make that a bridge too far to span.
Lack of Stakes
Perhaps the worst curse of prequels is that we know that nothing will really change. Yeah, maybe we get a little extra insight into what leads up to the originals, but we know the story can only resolve in a certain way. We already know who lives and who dies.
That means that established characters that are alive and kicking in the future are effectively untouchable in the present. There are no stakes when the outcome is already known. When there are no stakes to a story, it can make everything in it feel brittle and unearned. It doesn’t matter how outnumbered, outgunned, or impossibly the odds are against them, we know that the heroes will make it through. It drains most, if not all, of the dramatic tension from the story as we already know the protagonists will win. Prequels are where the plot armor is thickest, and it shows.
Final Thoughts
For one reason or another, we live in an age of prequels. In the case of both the Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones universes, it’s because the main stories have already been told, and it’s too soon for any sort of reboot. With Star Trek and Star Wars, they seem to both have an allergy to advancing their own timelines (with some exceptions), and would much rather set their stories in eras that have historically proven popular.
Combine that with the powerful urge for studios to create some sort of interrelated cinematic universe, and it’s a safe bet that the stream of inevitable prequel releases is just getting started.
Still, there are some places even within those offerings where new, original stories can thrive, ones that aren’t as beholden to other source material that have more space to grow. (Mandalorian, I’m looking at you.) While my instinct is usually to leave backstory as just that, I’m usually willing to give prequels stories a shot. Sometimes they land, and sometimes they don’t. After all, a story well told is a story worth your time, regardless of how much baggage it might carry from what has gone before.
So, I put it to you, dear reader, what are your thoughts on prequels? Do you like them, love them, despise them, or are you just sort of ‘meh’ on them? Let me know in the comments below.
This topic has been on my mind for years now. I had originally intended to release this blog post later in the year as winter set in (for reasons that will be obvious in a moment), but since House of the Dragon premiers this weekend, now seemed as good a time as any.
Or, as GRRM calls it, “Hot D.”
There’s a part of the worldbuilding of Westeros that I want to examine. Before we get into that, let me first say that George R.R. Martin’s series is one of my favorite fantasy worlds of all time. It’s full of wonderfully flawed characters, historical parallels, and rich backstory. One of the things that sets it apart from many other fantasy worlds is the concept that the seasons can last much longer than in our world. The winters in Westeros are famously years long and apocalyptically cold.
It’s the topic of winters that I want to delve into here.
There are precedents in actual history for seasons lasting beyond their usual cycle, such as the Year Without a Summer in 1816. In Westeros, however, winters can last for up to six or seven years at a time, possibly longer. For the purposes of this discussion we’re not going to worry about saving up the requisite amount of food as we have many examples from history on methods to avoid potential famine over long periods of time. The main thing we are going to look at (as the title suggests) is the question of firewood.
Tyrion and Dany at Dragonstone.
The Westerosi, like their medieval counterparts, don’t have many ways to heat their homes. There are no radiators or electric heaters to rely upon, so to survive the cold, cruel winters, they would have to burn fuel to keep themselves warm and cook their food. In real life, it was an arduous enough task to cut enough firewood to last a winter season that spanned only three to five months. Virtually every moment not spent on some of other critical task had to be devoted to cutting firewood, just to make sure you had enough.
Now imagine having to stockpile firewood for a winter that can last for years. If the winters are as bad as Old Nan suggests, you won’t be able to cut down trees after winter has come due to the risk of exposure and sickness. Since you have no way of knowing just how long winter will be, you had better assume it’s going to go the full seven years. If you cut enough for three years, and winter lasts four, you’re dead.
Truly, when you play the game of firewood, you either have enough or you die; there is no middle ground.
(Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
Not a Starbucks cup in sight.
How much firewood are we talking?
Let’s say that you’re a peasant living somewhere in Westeros, possibly in a sturdy cottage or farmhouse. You likely have only one hearth or fireplace. You might even have a fire pit, which is likely closer to what actual medieval peasants used to use less wood as they brave the harsh winters of Northern Europe. Whatever form your heat source takes, you’ll need to keep the fire going all the time. Letting it go out overnight could result in you waking up a frozen peasant-sicle.
To accomplish this, you’ll need fuel in the form of wood. There are other forms of fuel, but firewood is going to be your most reliable and most abundant. Also, I don’t know of many defined peat bogs (peat being another source of fuel) found in the North, where the hammer of winter falls the hardest. You could burn animal dung, but they require additional food stores, so again, wood is likely going to be your mainstay.
Balon Greyjoy’s sanctum at Pyke.
According to sources I found (listed below), heating a 1,000 square foot house needs about 3 cords of wood for a three-month winter, effectively one cord per month per 1,000 square feet. Luckily for our hypothetical peasant, their home is likely smaller than that size, so it requires less fuel to heat. For ease of measurement, let’s say the home in question is half that square footage, so 500 square feet. Assuming the ceiling is 10-feet high, the example cottage would be around 5,000 cubic feet.
We’ll assume that the history of extremely long winters has made insulation and heat retention for this peasant’s house roughly equivalent to the modern standard. That’s a big leap, sure, but I’m giving the people of Westeros the benefit of the doubt here.
This image makes me sad.
So, how much is a cord of wood? A single cord of firewood is usually defined as a stack that’s 4 feet wide, 4 feet tall, and 8 feet long. That winds up being 128 cubic feet of wood.
Seven years equals 84 months. According to the example above, it would take 84 cords of wood for a modern 1,000 square foot house to keep a fire going for that long, so it would take around 42 cords of wood at the very least to heat the Westerosi peasant’s house. Doing the math, that’s a stack of wood 168 feet wide, 168 feet tall, and 336 feet long, or 9,483,264 cubic feet.
One of the few bright spots in Season 8.
To give you an idea of just how much that is, imagine that you covered every inch of a modern football field with firewood (including at least one end zone) and stacked it all up to a height of 168 feet. That’s taller than the Statue of Liberty.
See the problem?
All of that is to fuel a single fireplace continuously for seven years, to say nothing of if you have a larger home with more than one fireplace. Even if fire pits might allow you to cut less wood than it would take to keep a regular fireplace going, the extreme length of time you have to maintain it makes it a herculean feat to cut that much firewood.
Otto and Alicent Hightower from Hot D.
Blisters and Magnification:
With modern logging equipment, or just a functional chainsaw, a single person could conceivably cut that much wood during the seven years of the Long Summer, but the folk of Westeros don’t have that luxury. They would certainly have a wood-cutting axe handy, and if they are very lucky, they might also have a splitting wedge and/or maul to make things easier.
Regardless of the equipment available, the daunting task of cutting that much wood must be done by hand. The amount of effort it would take to cut, transport, split, season, and store that amount of wood so it won’t rot is staggering. Talk about calluses!
Faces by firelight.
Perhaps larger keeps and holdfasts would have whole teams of lumberjacks with big cross cut saws to fell the timbers faster, but having a larger home, with more than one fireplace, only magnifies this problem.
It’s hard to get a read on just how many hearths and fireplaces some of the major holdings in the series possess. We can safely cross Winterfell off the list here, since it has the hot spring flowing through its walls (or did until Ramsay Bolton messed it all up in the books. Spoilers, sorry!).
The only solid number we have comes from Harrenhal. Its rather inaccurately named Hall of the Hundred Hearths has only about 35 of them. That’s in one room. Admittedly, this fortress was built to a colossal scale, but it’s safe to say that large holdings like Highgarden, Casterly Rock, and the Red Keep might have dozens of fireplaces that they keep going, from the main hall to the private quarters of the noble families.
The King in the North!
That doesn’t even take into account things like wood for torches to light the halls, braziers for watch fires, fuel for the forge, or any extra wood used in the kitchens for cooking and food preparation. Even a lord or castellan that is extremely frugal with the available stores of wood would surely be using many times that of our hypothetical peasant in a cottage.
How are there any forests left standing in Westeros if that’s the case?
Inventing a Solution:
George R. R. Martin is a smart author, and he’s tackled problems like this before. Ravens, for example. I’m speculating here, but I imagine that he looked at how massive Westeros was, and how far flung the centers of power actually are on the map. They were once seven independent kingdoms after all. There aren’t many usable roads connecting them, and a lack of an inland sea really limits how fast ships can get to places. Without a means of fast, reliable travel overland or by sea, it would be almost impossible to effectively administrate a kingdom of that size using any historical medieval methods. Without some channel for communications, the Seven Kingdoms would have likely collapsed under its own geopolitical weight.
They were my dream team. If only…
So, GRRM invented a means to send messages quickly over great distances. Enter the Maesters and their incredible knowledge of ravenry (or rookery). Like trained carrier pigeons, you attach a note to one of their feet and off they go to a predetermined place. It’s not clear how fast these birds are, but I would imagine that a Prince of Dorne might have a decent idea of what was going on in the North within a week or two, as opposed to many months to a year.
GRRM famously dislikes fan fiction set in his universe, so let’s simply look at this as a mental exercise. Let’s apply the same kind of practical problem solving he used with ravens to the firewood problem. What follows is my solution to the problem. If you have a solution of your own, or if there is a solution presented in the books that I have missed, I would love to hear it in comments below.
Far away, in a storage facility in San Francisco, Bran wargs into a rat to set Ant-Man free.
Enter the Winter Oak. This tree is a cousin to the Weirwood tree, sharing some of its physical properties, but distinctly lacking in its metaphysical ones. Like the Weirwood, it maintains its bloom throughout all seasons, needing little in the way of sunlight, but more importantly, the wood of the Winter Oak does not rot. It can be stored for years on end without degradation from either outside conditions or damage from vermin. That alone would make it invaluable to Westeros, but we don’t stop there. Here are a few more characteristics that help alleviate the firewood problem:
The Winter Oak burns many times longer than regular oak, maple, or hickory due in part to the special red sap it secretes. It is not appreciably heavier to carry or harder to cut. Stocking this wood allows you to greatly reduce the fuel you need to get through the winter by several orders of magnitude.
This tree produces thousands of seed pods that are a particularly attractive food source to burrowing animals. The animals eat the pods and fertilize the seeds in their feces underground. This allows new trees to find fertile ground and start growing even with several feet of snow on the ground. New crops of trees are then ready to go as soon as the spring comes. Some particularly hardy specimens even start shooting up during the height of winter.
The tree is common enough that wood from it is plentiful all around the Seven Kingdoms. The Winter Oak tree does not require a particular type of soil to grow, so it can be sown just about anywhere plants grow.
This tree grows quickly. Not as fast as bamboo, but considerably faster than other trees. This makes them perfect for ‘farming’ multiple times during the spring/summer/autumn seasons. Because they can grow during the winter, the brave or foolish (or both) may attempt to gather them in the winter, too.
The Winter Oak will naturally find a balance with the trees around it, including others of its kind. It doesn’t have to compete over sunlight as much, but does require lots of nutrients from the soil. So, it does not grow as aggressively or pervasively as kudzu.
In summary, you have a tree that reduces the amount of wood you need, stores well for long periods of time, replaces itself quickly, and is common enough that all of the Seven Kingdoms have ample access to it.
Now, if there any dendrologists or arborists reading this, I’m sure you are shaking your head or blinking in disbelief. But I ask you, is a tree that does all that any less believable than one that can see through time while harboring an ancient hive mind? The Winter Oak still makes life in Westeros a struggle for survival, as it should be, but makes living there a bit more viable.
Knighted.
Final Thoughts:
While The Song of Ice and Fire is a work of fantasy, it’s a type of fantasy that is firmly grounded in historical realism. A worldbuilder’s job is to construct universes which possess the ring of truth. When you decide to change something major, you have to keep in mind what else changes with it.
If everyone in the world could suddenly teleport by just using their mind, it doesn’t just save on commute times to work. There will be many permutations and effects that will need to be addressed to give the world a realistic sense of place. (An excellent example of this is Alfred Bester’s novel, The Stars My Destination.) Merely saying “it’s magic!” and leaving it at that is not a valid way of getting around problems, or downplaying their importance, even in fantasy worlds that are far less rooted in reality.
Now, does this tiny wrinkle diminish my enjoyment of GRRM’s books? Absolutely not. I don’t read his works for complicated explanations of the seasons. No, I’m all about compelling grey characters that almost leap off the page, descriptions of feasts that make my stomach rumble, and as GRRM puts it, “the human heart in conflict with itself.” *chef’s kiss.*
So, bundle up everyone. It may be hot outside now, but Winter is Coming.
The Sector M 