[Dreamhold] Backstory discussion (spoilers)
Dan Shiovitz
discussion about the backstory here, since it's not at all clear to me
exactly what's going on. So here's my attempt to piece things
together; any additions/corrections would be appreciated. For
convenience I've pulled out what seem to me to be the relevant bits of
text: http://www.drizzle.com/~dans/if/dreamhold-backstory.txt
(Obviously, this has massive spoilers for the game including the
endings.)
It seems clear that the PC is a very-long-lived silver-haired wizard
of great power. He was involved with a female mage at some point and
they have a kid together, who's crippled, with a club foot they're not
able to cure. He rises up through the ranks of power -- becoming
Pontifect, General, and Princeps.
At some point, I think he has a falling-out of some kind with his son,
or at any rate his son leaves. It's not clear to me why exactly this
happens -- the guard comes in with a cloth bundle with red stains on
it, so it seems like a natural assumption that there's a dead body in
there, but if so, who? Somebody the PC had killed for political
reasons, perhaps? Or the boy's mother?
Anyway, the next scene seems to show the son in the midst of enemy
territory, so presumably the falling-out is complete. It's, again, not
clear what happens next. The PC's soldiers come in with someone who's
probably a prisoner, carrying the son's crutch. I don't think the
prisoner is the son, so I'd guess the soldiers are saying "ok, we
defeated them and brought this guy back and, sorry, your son died."
Now I think we jump ahead in time some -- the PC is now the head of a
nation or at least a prosperous city-state. I *think* what's happened
is a church or cult or something has formed around the son. Another
possibility is the PC's erected an elaborate memorial to his
son. Anyway, clearly all is not well in the PC's regime, since he's
got a heckler. I don't know if we're supposed to recognize her --
she's another possibility for being the son's mother, I guess.
Finally the PC's arcane studies and drive for effficiency have
transformed his city into a soulless automata, I think. Some kind of
army comes to destroy it and him, although it's not clear why. I can
believe that the PC is just gradually expanding his grip on the land
all around and they're worried eventually he'll take over the world,
or maybe there's some kind of religious opposition to him -- it says
"The sign on their tabards is unrecognizably changed.", so perhaps the
soldiers are descended from the crutch-church? The buckler, by the
way, says it has the device of "three crossed spears"; I don't know if
this is a reference to the three spearsmen who appear in this vision,
or if it's the device they wear, and/or if this is a possible version
of a crutch (I can imagine an upside-down A looking something like a
crutch and like three crossed spears).
Anyway, and then we get to the endings. The continuation of the
soldier story says "cityworld", which has interesting implications for
just how large the PC's residence is -- I think it pretty likely that
the PC has built the dreamhold by this point. This ending also reveals
that the PC was pretty divorced from human concerns at this point
(which matches up with with the tidbit about wizards flying so high
that other humans appear small), and that the PC wanted time to study
to, I think, figure out how to make portals to other worlds. The
closer is "A thousand worlds await beyond that threshold; and you plan
to make use of them all." -- "make use of" seems to add support for
why the army might have been marching against the PC, although to be
honest it's not clear what the PC would want or need at this point
that would make them want to be in charge of anything. The ending
where the portal is redrawn doesn't really contradict this -- it's
just that the PC wanders off into other worlds and forgets about his
rulership in the original one (and I don't see any reason to think the
PC won't continue on the path of gaining more knowledge and becoming
less human and repeating the whole cycle in another world).
The third ending is a little more mysterious -- it suggests that the
PC merges into the constellation and pass completely into myth, I
think. Or, hrm, there's even a suggestion that the PC originally came
from heaven and now he's returning -- but if so, he doesn't seem to
have been much of an angel.
So, ok, the only other question I have is, what's the deal with the
history chart and constellation of the Crutch? The two both seem to
imply that the PC has *already* passed into myth for the present day--
so it seems like he can't still be a ruler of a state or something or
whoever has written the note would make the obvious connection between
him and the "silver demon age". Similarly, the Crutch constellation
wouldn't still be there if people remembered the war. But this is all
sort of weird, since I would think the dreamhold would be designed
from the PC's perspective, and he knows the facts perfectly well. So
is it somehow based on someone else's thoughts as well as the PC's?
I guess one possibility is that the PC shut himself away for a very
long time ("at least a generation") after the battle with the three
soldiers, researching the portal stuff, came out for a minute and took
a look around to see what people thought of him, then went back in and
dug out the concrete bit and drew the portal and had it all go bad.
So does anyone have further insight? It feels like there are a few
more things that can be extracted from this game, although I'm not
sure it contains enough information to arrive at a fully coherent
story.
--
Dan Shiovitz :: d...@cs.wisc.edu :: http://www.drizzle.com/~dans
"He settled down to dictate a letter to the Consolidated Nailfile and
Eyebrow Tweezer Corporation of Scranton, Pa., which would make them
realize that life is stern and earnest and Nailfile and Eyebrow Tweezer
Corporations are not put in this world for pleasure alone." -PGW
juri...@hushmail.com
the back-story, which seems really opaque to me - to the extent that
it's hard to care very much about it or the characters.
One result is that everything seems a little ad-hoc. In a sense, an IF
newb might indeed be better off playing Zork. That was ad-hoc also, but
it had charm and a kind of tromp l'oeil sense of wonder to it, which
Dreamhold doesn't (for me).
The "mural ending" is particularly lacking in <whatever>. Presumably
this involves some kind of an avatar of a character who is not the
silver-haired wizard. (The mural was there when he built the
Dreamhold.) Who he is, why these particular items are his attributes
etc etc are questions not even asked.
Maybe I'm completely missing the point - but in any case, it should be
pretty hard to miss the point after finishing any piece of IF, let
alone an intro piece.
Trinity had the same kind of problem - who *is* the Waberider & what's
he doing in this story - and nevertheless that's still one of my
favorites. But it would have been better if those questions had been
answered.
My best example of a piece which does both back & front stories
properly - Metamorphoses. A beautifully crafted world, a character with
its own life, plus just the right number of words, so to speak.
Matthew Russotto
Mucho spoilers
>It seems clear that the PC is a very-long-lived silver-haired wizard
>of great power. He was involved with a female mage at some point and
>they have a kid together, who's crippled, with a club foot they're not
>able to cure. He rises up through the ranks of power -- becoming
>Pontifect, General, and Princeps.
But first, the PC is a child who can hear the conversations
of the stars.
>At some point, I think he has a falling-out of some kind with his son,
>or at any rate his son leaves. It's not clear to me why exactly this
>happens -- the guard comes in with a cloth bundle with red stains on
>it, so it seems like a natural assumption that there's a dead body in
>there, but if so, who? Somebody the PC had killed for political
>reasons, perhaps? Or the boy's mother?
I believe it's the boy's mother, dead, though I would guess in (failed)
childbirth rather than murder.
The boy ultimately rebels, and takes the sign of the crutch as his
symbol. It's not clear if this is the origin of the myth or if the
boy took the symbol from the myth; in the myth, the boy was not
crippled from birth. However, it seems most likely to be the origin,
which leaves the problem of why the PC seems to know the myth rather
than the facts.
>The third ending is a little more mysterious -- it suggests that the
>PC merges into the constellation and pass completely into myth, I
>think. Or, hrm, there's even a suggestion that the PC originally came
>from heaven and now he's returning -- but if so, he doesn't seem to
>have been much of an angel.
Perhaps returning to the world of his childhood, that of the first
mask where he could hear the stars talk. (Shades of Lieber's "A Rite
of Spring", if I have my stories straight?)
juri...@hushmail.com
PJ wrote:
>
> I would have to go back and replay and keep the transcript on the
whole
> time, but I believe that the point of that line is to let you know
that
> "YOU" are the wizard who built the Dreamhold. When you first start
> out, it could potentially be some other wizard's dreamhold that you
> entered by mistake.
That makes sense, of course, but it just doesn't work for me. Nowhere
in his memory fragments do we find mention of shield, dagger, cloak etc
(do we?); they seem like rather inappropriate accoutrements for the
silver-haired wizard; the "here when I built it" line appears after the
PC has recovered much of his memory & seems to say pretty clearly that
the PC found it, rather than made it.
The exit to other realms via the moon is something not even hinted at
AFAIK in any other part of the back-story.
> I don't get the knotted string otherwise. It appears to be
> there only to let you know the mural is a (self) PORTRAIT, in this
> respect. I can't figure its relationship to the apotheosis of the
> Doorstep ending otherwise. It signifies that you KNOW who you are,
and
> why you are on the Doorstep.
Actually, I think the PORTRAIT clue from the string is there just to
point the newb's attention to the mural & the "other" treasure hunt for
the dagger etc etc (plus the apotheosis ending). As I say, I think all
of this is pretty ad-hoc. As is the way the Dreamhold or world whatever
suddenly gets transported into the (celestial equivalent of) the violet
sphere when you make cold fire. Why would that happen?
David Goldfarb
>discussion about the backstory here, since it's not at all clear to me
>exactly what's going on. So here's my attempt to piece things
>together; any additions/corrections would be appreciated. For
>convenience I've pulled out what seem to me to be the relevant bits of
>text: http://www.drizzle.com/~dans/if/dreamhold-backstory.txt
>(Obviously, this has massive spoilers for the game including the
>endings.)
>It seems clear that the PC is a very-long-lived silver-haired wizard
>of great power.
Right. I only just now, reading this, put together the PC's silver
hair with "The Silver Demon Era" -- although I had correctly interpreted
"history is larger than any one man: this therefore is no history."
(I.e.: this is all the doing of one man, and so is not larger than him,
even if it does involve nations and dynasties and so on.)
>He was involved with a female mage at some point and
>they have a kid together, who's crippled, with a club foot they're not
>able to cure.
>
>At some point, I think he has a falling-out of some kind with his son,
>or at any rate his son leaves. It's not clear to me why exactly this
>happens -- the guard comes in with a cloth bundle with red stains on
>it, so it seems like a natural assumption that there's a dead body in
>there, but if so, who? Somebody the PC had killed for political
>reasons, perhaps? Or the boy's mother?
The boy's mother is my own impression, although I have no concrete
evidence for it beyond the strength of the boy's reaction.
>Anyway, the next scene seems to show the son in the midst of enemy
>territory, so presumably the falling-out is complete.
I interpret this scene as: the boy (presumably himself a mage) leaves
and builds his own empire, that then goes to war against the PC's.
The red-tinted territory is the territory that the PC's enemy holds,
with notes at the border about status and battles and such. But the
PC doesn't know who the enemy leader is...until that scene. He receives,
perhaps a report from spies, or perhaps a letter from his son. But after
reading the scroll he knows *who* he is fighting.
It's, again, not
>clear what happens next. The PC's soldiers come in with someone who's
>probably a prisoner, carrying the son's crutch. I don't think the
>prisoner is the son, so I'd guess the soldiers are saying "ok, we
>defeated them and brought this guy back and, sorry, your son died."
Under my interpretation, the son's death is the winning of the war.
>Now I think we jump ahead in time some -- the PC is now the head of a
>nation or at least a prosperous city-state. I *think* what's happened
>is a church or cult or something has formed around the son. Another
>possibility is the PC's erected an elaborate memorial to his
>son. Anyway, clearly all is not well in the PC's regime, since he's
>got a heckler. I don't know if we're supposed to recognize her --
>she's another possibility for being the son's mother, I guess.
After the PC finally managed to kill his own son, he became more withdrawn
from human society, more wrapped up in the study of nature. I incline
towards the memorial idea; I think the heckler is inveighing against the
PC, the filicide.
>Finally the PC's arcane studies and drive for effficiency have
>transformed his city into a soulless automata, I think. Some kind of
>army comes to destroy it and him, although it's not clear why. I can
>believe that the PC is just gradually expanding his grip on the land
>all around and they're worried eventually he'll take over the world,
>or maybe there's some kind of religious opposition to him -- it says
>"The sign on their tabards is unrecognizably changed.", so perhaps the
>soldiers are descended from the crutch-church? The buckler, by the
>way, says it has the device of "three crossed spears"; I don't know if
>this is a reference to the three spearsmen who appear in this vision,
>or if it's the device they wear, and/or if this is a possible version
>of a crutch (I can imagine an upside-down A looking something like a
>crutch and like three crossed spears).
This all seems reasonable; I think the change in the sign is a clue that
a great deal of time has passed.
--
David Goldfarb |"Why, look, Ted, it's a meeting of the new
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | community leaders."
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | "Oooh! A town meetin'! Does we gits'ta vote?
| I jes' loves ta vote!" -- _Bone_ #5
Magnus Olsson
PJ <pete_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>juris... wrote:
>
>>The "mural ending" is particularly lacking in <whatever>. Presumably
>>this involves some kind of an avatar of a character who is not the
>>silver-haired wizard. (The mural was there when he built the
>>Dreamhold.) Who he is, why these particular items are his attributes
>>etc etc are questions not even asked.
>
>time, but I believe that the point of that line is to let you know that
>"YOU" are the wizard who built the Dreamhold. When you first start
>out, it could potentially be some other wizard's dreamhold that you
>entered by mistake.
Yes, but there are lots of other clues that you built the place,
that appear long before you can see the mural. Remember that you
need all the masks before you can even see the mural for the first
time; by then, you should hagve a pretty strong idea that it's
your dreamhold.
Also, I'm not at all sure that the mural is a portrait of the PC,
but that's a different story.
--
Magnus Olsson (m...@df.lth.se)
PGP Public Key available at http://www.df.lth.se/~mol
Magnus Olsson
<juri...@hushmail.com> wrote:
>As I say, I think all
>of this is pretty ad-hoc. As is the way the Dreamhold or world whatever
>suddenly gets transported into the (celestial equivalent of) the violet
>sphere when you make cold fire. Why would that happen?
Well, presumably for the same reason it suddenly gets dark outside
when you light the hot fire.
For more on this, see my post "Dreamhold Interpretation 2".
John Campbell
Dan Shiovitz wrote:
> Now I think we jump ahead in time some -- the PC is now the head of a
> nation or at least a prosperous city-state. I *think* what's happened
> is a church or cult or something has formed around the son. Another
> possibility is the PC's erected an elaborate memorial to his
> son. Anyway, clearly all is not well in the PC's regime, since he's
> got a heckler. I don't know if we're supposed to recognize her --
> she's another possibility for being the son's mother, I guess.
I don't recall that the PC's gender is ever specified. In
memories and mural, the silver-haired character, apparently the PC, is
referred to as "the figure" and similar gender-neutral terms. The
voiceover bits in the diagram endgame refer to the character only by
name, and blur the name. I suspect that the PC's gender is deliberately
ambiguous (probably to ease player-PC identification)... the gold mask
scene, in particular, goes to some lengths to accomplish it. Under the
circumstances, I'd expect "father" or "mother", but the text uses the
rather awkward "silver-haired one". That being the case, I doubt that
the woman is supposed to be the son's mother... the son's mother might
well be the PC.
--
John Campbell
jcam...@lynn.ci-n.com
Basaja Mivule
grupo: rec.games.int-fiction
recado: I_4Cd.22646$rL3.39@trnddc03
"I don't recall that the PC's gender is ever specified. In
memories and mural, the silver-haired character, apparently the PC, is
referred to as "the figure" and similar gender-neutral terms. The
voiceover bits in the diagram endgame refer to the character only by
name, and blur the name. I suspect that the PC's gender is
deliberately
ambiguous (probably to ease player-PC identification)... the gold mask
scene, in particular, goes to some lengths to accomplish it. Under the
circumstances, I'd expect "father" or "mother", but the text uses the
rather awkward "silver-haired one". That being the case, I doubt that
the woman is supposed to be the son's mother... the son's mother might
well be the PC."
Trying to facilitate player-PC identification by making the PC's
gender ambiguous strikes as a singularly stupid thing to do. It has
the very opposite effect: alienation.
John Prevost
> Trying to facilitate player-PC identification by making the PC's
> gender ambiguous strikes as a singularly stupid thing to do. It has
> the very opposite effect: alienation.
In this case, I got the feeling that we're meant to feel at least
somewhat alienated. A sense of "This is... me?" Especially in that
one ending.
John.
David Whyld
"Basaja Mivule" <miv...@africamail.com> wrote in message
news:40951af0.05010...@posting.google.com...
Is that you again, Pudlo?
Andrew Plotkin
>
> Trying to facilitate player-PC identification by making the PC's
> gender ambiguous strikes as a singularly stupid thing to do.
Sheesh. Same troll, same tune.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
I'm still thinking about what to put in this space.
Matthew Russotto
John Campbell <jcam...@lynn.ci-n.com> wrote:
>(spoilers)
>
> I don't recall that the PC's gender is ever specified. In
>memories and mural, the silver-haired character, apparently the PC, is
>referred to as "the figure" and similar gender-neutral terms. The
>voiceover bits in the diagram endgame refer to the character only by
>name, and blur the name. I suspect that the PC's gender is deliberately
>ambiguous (probably to ease player-PC identification)... the gold mask
>scene, in particular, goes to some lengths to accomplish it. Under the
>circumstances, I'd expect "father" or "mother", but the text uses the
>rather awkward "silver-haired one". That being the case, I doubt that
>the woman is supposed to be the son's mother... the son's mother might
>well be the PC.
There is one veiled hint: "History is larger than any one man: this
therefore is no history." This is ambiguous in English of course, but would a
woman have written that phrase about herself?
The PC certainly FEELS male, too. And not just because I was
playing him. His villanous roles are traditionally male ones. His
handwriting is a traditionally male scrawl. His legendary counterpart
was a king (Maijnir).
Amanda Peet
> Sheesh. Same troll, same tune.
Let me begin this by saying that Dreamhold is one of the best z8 games
released in December 2004. It is extremely well-written, every bit,
and very amusing, especially if you know a tiny bit about dementia and
are into grey-haired sexually ambiguous old men who have no idea who
or where they are. Regrettably, I haven't got the slightest clue of
what's going on, but that does not lessen my enjoyment of the game
itself. I love Dreamhold so much that I want to live in its world,
inhaling its bytes as if they were fine puffs of crack smoke.
--Amanda Peet, registered nurse
-------------------------------
Sex isn't like candy, you don't hand it out to whiny little boys who
won't shut the hell up. --Myself
Amanda Peet
Andrew Plotkin
> Andrew Plotkin wrote
>
> > Sheesh. Same troll, same tune.
>
> Let me begin this by saying that Dreamhold is one of the best z8 games
> released in December 2004.
Note, again, that troll does not post his actual opinions; he'll say
anything that strikes him as amusing.
John Prevost
> Note, again, that troll does not post his actual opinions; he'll say
> anything that strikes him as amusing.
I must admit that, after having spent a few days following
discussions... I'm getting really tired of the "guess the noun" game
for my killfile.
A note for Amanda (or whoever you are today): It's all quite well and
good to have opinions that are disagreeable to people. I am (and I
suspect, many others are) perfectly happy to read arguments that I
wholeheartedly disagree with.
But being required to play a guessing game as well just makes me want
to drop you into a black hole and see the end of it.
John.
Matthew Russotto
Amanda Peet <ama...@registerednurses.com> wrote:
Hey, was that you in _Whipped_?