| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Seravin |
Posted - 02 Feb 2017 : 04:21:25
Sorry if this should have gone int he novel section.
Early on in the book, the character Bear is introduced in Randal Morn's company of men. He is brutish, grunts instead of talks, and attacks Joel the Rebel Bard for insulting Zhents...for which Randal says that Bear is just very protective of the free folk of Daggerdale.
Holly the Paladin, along with Randal, vouch for Bear being a "good man" and Holly even says she senses no evil using her Paladin Detect Evil ability.
About two seconds after all this is established, Bear completely reveals himself as 10000% evil in every way who is deeply part of the Zhents running Daggerdale and Dagger Falls.
No attempt that I can remember was made to say 1) How a very obviously evil person who regularly met with Zhents and and outright attacked Harpers/Bards/etc for insulting Zhents was so trusted and adored by a very smart Rebel Lord and his paladin friends and 2) why Holly's detect evil did nothing to detect his evil despite clear warning that something was off.
Does Jeff Grubb ever come on here? Or does anyone have a good explanation? It bugs me, because Grubb was always so good with Dragonbait's Shen site. |
| 12 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Seravin |
Posted - 25 Jan 2024 : 16:28:45
quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik
I have no explanation for how an evil, grunting, violent brute could somehow be trusted as "a good man" by people who are supposed to have brains and experience with the world. This detail is just bad writing.
Also on Bear, his confidence game presumably took years to get so close to Randal Morn and the good guys and yet he throws his cover away without a thought very quickly. We didn't really get any writing about why he was willing to throw away years of work to build up the trust he got with the rebels in Daggerfall for...Joel? Who he just met and is no threat to the Zhents or Bear? |
| Seravin |
Posted - 25 Jan 2024 : 16:25:38
Side note, I re-read The Veiled Dragon recently and a similar issue cropped up where the "trusted" priest of Vareana Hawklyn is clearly a Member of the Cult and yet no one clues into this except Ruha. At least they make an attempt to show why Vareana trusts him by saying he has gotten her out of Cult ambushes before (deliberate to build her confidence). Where the writing by Troy Denning is so bad though is that Ruha is all "so what god do you worship?" and he's all "nah not gonna answer that" in front of the Elversult militia/good guys. You'd think a better writer would have him cover with lying about saying who he worships, which Mask would be fine with from a clergy point of view and would throw Ruha off the scent a bit. No paladin in this book though to detect evil so nothing to explain why they didn't cotton on; just Vareana was written dumb in that book but it's consistent. |
| Seravin |
Posted - 25 Jan 2024 : 16:19:50
Maybe they wrote it in and the editors cut it for space. We know poor Ed's books got butchered in editing. I can't imagine after Masquerades' plot was built on the Mask of Leira deceiving Dragonbait's "Shen Sight" that Grubb/Novak would be oblivious to revealing a trick to Detect Evil in their very next novel. It's not like it isn't frequently shown to the reader that Holly can detect evil in Finder's Bane. I only started this thread in case I missed it on my read through. |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 25 Jan 2024 : 15:48:44
I have no explanation for how an evil, grunting, violent brute could somehow be trusted as "a good man" by people who are supposed to have brains and experience with the world. This detail is just bad writing.
Fooling detect evil isn't that tough, though. There are numerous magics for fooling detections and if they can fool a priest casting a detection spell then they can just as easily fool a paladin attempting the same. Indeed, I would expect Zhents of all kinds to have their malign intents hidden through magics - their superiors would cast such things to protect themselves, if nothing else. But failing to somehow reveal this to readers during or after the fact is again just bad writing.
I'm not accusing Novak and Grubb of being bad writers. They needed to insert a Zhent agent into their narrative but were not very thoughtful about how it should be done. We all make mistakes. |
| Seravin |
Posted - 25 Jan 2024 : 00:03:35
Yep Yep Yep thanks Athreeren I agree with you 100% (obviously given my OP and follow ups to the troll response above).
Grubb/Novak books are usually quite well done; I just don't understand why one small 2 sentence paragraph wasn't inserted by a Zhent commander go to "that amulet of misdirection we got you is paying huge dividends, Bear" given that Holly spends half the book with bad headaches because of all the baddies she senses. |
| Athreeren |
Posted - 24 Jan 2024 : 19:46:28
I read this book incorrectly thinking it was part of The Harpers series. Since neither Joel nor Holly seemed to be Harpers, I was expecting Bear to eventually be revealed to have been a double-agent all along, and it's because he's a Harper that Randall Morn trusts him implicitly and listens to his advice regarding alliances and so on. Joel is thus right to trust the gruff man even as he is seemingly selling him as sacrifice. After all, the lord of the infamously distrustful Daggerdale wouldn't have such an obviously evil man as his second in command if he didn't have hood reasons to trust him, right?
But no, Randall Morn is apparently a moron, Holly's paladin radar only works on god-level threats, and Bear is stupid enough to offer sacrifices to evil cults just outside the town. So it's my fault for misunderstanding what collection this book belonged to, but Masquerades showed that the authors can indeed write good misdirections. This was not one of them, and Bear was a really stupid character without which this otherwise great novel would have been much better. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 09 Feb 2017 : 01:56:43
Okay, let's not escalate this one any further, please. |
| Seravin |
Posted - 08 Feb 2017 : 23:50:12
quote:
As well as how many GP it costs.
Is that sarcasm? If so, take a F*CKING hike, buddy. I have a valid criticism of this part of the novel. Your sarcastic response is not appreciated. If you genuinely think the author should quote the price of a magic item, then that's just weird.
In Masquerades, written by the same authors, they go to GREAT lengths to establish how Dragonbait is fooled by the villain's masked alignment. In this book it is totally ignored and the reader has to assume some relic or strong magic item is used to circumvent established rules that Paladins are able to judge character and discern good from evil.
And Bear assaulted Joel for no reason. That isn't the sign of someone gruff or with bad manners. That's someone who attacks a guest unprovoked in safe camp.
Bear wasn't a grey area, he walked right up to the Zhents are turned Joel in. He is black and white evil, he was just hiding among the good guys. He had no crisis of conscience or anything about doing the evil thing. In the SAME book, the writers have a great character (the priestess of Bane) who is a morally grey character. She was well written. Bear was not such a character, he was a complete "Clone of Sauron" in your words.
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| TBeholder |
Posted - 08 Feb 2017 : 15:11:25
quote:
Originally posted by Seravin
If that was the case, it would have been nice (and good writing) if the author felt some need to explain that to the reader at some point.
As well as how many GP it costs.
quote:
It would have to be a magic item that hides alignment from paladins, and I don't think that would be a common, inexpensive magic item.. The only other person that had such a thing I can remember is the Faceless's mask in Masquerades, and it was something of an artifact.
And to think about it? Non-detection amulets are less than exotic. Effect-wise it's Undetectable Alignment (masks one property, 2nd level) vs. Non-detection (masks lots of properties, 3rd level). And something obviously in great demand among the Zhents and other groups relying on infiltration.
quote:
I get it, the Zhents could have given him a ring or amulet of proof against alignment detection, but it would have just been better if they explained it to the writer that Bear had it.
The writer also thought Zhents owe him a lil' explaining, but they got away.
quote:
Rather than just have Joel be the only one who points out the super obvious fact that Bear is evil while a Paladin is totally fooled while purposely trying to detect evil, and Randal Morn and his men are equally stupid to that fact.
There are a few problems.
1) The locals are used to his manners and habitually dismiss particular details. Joel asks "what the hell?" exactly because he has a fresh eye.
2) The very fact that Bear never gives those willies to a paladin can do much to quell doubts.
3) Also, it's mostly irrelevant if he is evil. And would be completely irrelevant if he wasn't a bodyguard.
They aren't a charity or Daddy's Little Angels Sugarplum Choir School. They are guerillas fighting occupants.
quote:
"We understand." It was the young bouzouko player who spoke.
He jerked his thumb at his companions and grinned. "Bad men — but good Greeks. Can we help you?"
- "Guns of Navarone" by Alistair Maclean
Why would they assume he cannot be a "bad man, but good Dalesman", especially if he explains his attitude with thirst for vengeance? And after he was magically tested and/or proven to be helpful when it counts, promote him to "not so bad".
Or from another angle: black-and-white inanity on the level of "everyone either adores The Hero (maybe after a little Befriending) or serves the Clone of Sauron" is a "plot element" done mostly by very bad writers. Specifically, it's almost obligatory for narcissists - because they both think like narcissists and run self-inserts. |
| Seravin |
Posted - 07 Feb 2017 : 03:26:22
If that was the case, it would have been nice (and good writing) if the author felt some need to explain that to the reader at some point. It would have to be a magic item that hides alignment from paladins, and I don't think that would be a common, inexpensive magic item.. The only other person that had such a thing I can remember is the Faceless's mask in Masquerades, and it was something of an artifact.
I get it, the Zhents could have given him a ring or amulet of proof against alignment detection, but it would have just been better if they explained it to the writer that Bear had it. Rather than just have Joel be the only one who points out the super obvious fact that Bear is evil while a Paladin is totally fooled while purposely trying to detect evil, and Randal Morn and his men are equally stupid to that fact. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 06 Feb 2017 : 20:31:22
There are plenty of ways to hide alignments, in the Realms. I would suspect that he had some divine assistance helping out. |
| CorellonsDevout |
Posted - 06 Feb 2017 : 19:01:06
I feel like Holly got the short end of the stick in that series. Her clerical abilities were greatly diminished, and treated almost as an afterthought. Even if she was young and just coming in to her powers, she seemed fooled fairly easily. |
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