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Originally posted by Gary Dallison

I'm currently reading Red Magic which is next in publication order. Not bad so far, no gods doing anything which is also great.

No realmslore surprises yet. Maligor irks me a bit, his claim to be a master strategist and then doing a fairly simple feint attack is not all that genius but I suppose Red Wizards are as arrogant as they are ambitious.

Asp the Spirit Naga is also bothering me I wasnt aware that they had arms, and she has 2.

Tymoras Luck Is a long way away in the publication order list (about 8 RAS novels away). I cant say I'm looking forward to it, I get the feeling that things start to get a bit god stupid after the cyric stuff and his trial.

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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

It all depends on how the gods get involved. I think there are good stories involving gods not just in the Realms but in other fantasy settings, as well.

Gods don't have to directly act to be involved, or their direct actions could be limited to some background thing that impacts the story without providing a direct solution.

Automatically dismissing a story just because a deity has some involvement means you're not giving the story a fair chance.

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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

Gods don't have to directly act to be involved, or their direct actions could be limited to some background thing that impacts the story without providing a direct solution.

Automatically dismissing a story just because a deity has some involvement means you're not giving the story a fair chance.

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On the flipside, it also depends on the main obstacles faced in the story. The gist is that, if the obstacle can be overcome through power, and if the story has mortals among the main characters, involving deities as players--even in the background--rather than catalysts, not only causes a risk to trivialize the conflict, but might also make the actions of the mortal characters feel like minor stuff, because the good deity is the one dealing with the real source of the evil power--i.e. the bad deity/demon lord/etc...--while the mortals deal with just their servants. Power balance must be measured carefully in a story, in order to not trivialize or shift the focus of the conflict and its resolution.

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Originally posted by Irennan



Heck, as I mentioned, you can go even beyind this and have a deity on the forefront, as long as you have an arc that focuses on a deity--and that puts us in the shoes of the deity. That could even be refreshing, because it's rare for someone to try to put themselves in the shoes, responsibilites, emotions, doubts, etc... of a character that occupies such a position. If the topic is exhausted in the novel--if the author actually put themselves in the skin of the deity--some good stuff can come out of it. Of course, in this case, we're basically still talking about human-like characters, not true metaphysical entities who are impossible to understand for humans, because if the PoV character is a deity, not only you must understand them, you must strive to become them in order to write the story. You can't do this with metaphysical entities. It would also put a wrench in the whole point of the narrative--make the reader experiences a series of events *as* someone else, and *empathize* (not merely sympathize) with that someone else.

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On the flipside, it also depends on the main obstacles faced in the story. The gist is that, if the obstacle can be overcome through power, and if the story has mortals among the main characters, involving deities as players--even in the background--rather than catalysts, not only causes a risk to trivialize the conflict, but might also make the actions of the mortal characters feel like minor stuff, because the good deity is the one dealing with the real source of the evil power--i.e. the bad deity/demon lord/etc...--while the mortals deal with just their servants. Power balance must be measured carefully in a story, in order to not trivialize or shift the focus of the conflict and its resolution.

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Originally posted by CorellonsDevout

This is one of the reasons I like deity involvement and "deity-as-characters" (main or background), is because it can be refreshing. I, as a mere mortal, don't also want to read about mere mortals lol. But it is true that to have a deity as characters, you do have to bring them down to a "human level" so that readers can understand their actions, at least to some extent. Like the Avatar series (and some books in that series were better than others). Of course, some of the deities, such as Kelemvor and Midnight/Mystra and Cyric, were previously mortal, but others hadn't been, and we got to see god thoughts and concerns brought down to a more human level of understanding. In a way, this is similar to gods manifesting to mortals in the forms of avatars. Gods, as you pointed out, are metaphysical, and thus their "true forms" are likely beyond mortal understanding, as our their actions and thoughts. So the writer has to "dumb down" their thoughts and actions in a way we readers can understand (and the writers themselves, as they are also mortal). This does make the gods seem more human, but it can still be a fun and refreshing story.

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I can see this, though in all fairness, mortals likely wouldn't be able to fight real big bad--unless you have a super powerful mortal, which, imho, brings the same kind of issue as deity involvement.

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