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Feedback for An Overview of the History of Valentia


Interdimensional Observer
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I decided to make a feedback topic for my lengthy historical-esque account of Valentia. Link to my attempt at world building.

I know it's dull, being not an actual story but history instead. But is realistic? Interesting? How balanced is my portrayal of Rigel/Duma and Zofia/Mila so far? (I know I haven't gotten to a monarchal history of Zofia yet- I will.) I know I'm light on specific names and operate in generalities, but I'll work on addressing that.

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On 8/30/2017 at 11:52 AM, Interdimensional Observer said:

I decided to make a feedback topic for my lengthy historical-esque account of Valentia. Link to my attempt at world building.

I know it's dull, being not an actual story but history instead. But is realistic? Interesting? How balanced is my portrayal of Rigel/Duma and Zofia/Mila so far? (I know I haven't gotten to a monarchal history of Zofia yet- I will.) I know I'm light on specific names and operate in generalities, but I'll work on addressing that.

Well I know that I'm late and all (Sure hope a feedback topic doesn't count as necroposting), but I have to say that I got through the original post, and you did add some more but I wanted to share my thoughts before I take in everything, because you wrote a ton man, I'm honestly really impressed. I found a particular interest in Duma and Rigel's history, first being Duma tower, as the feeling it always gave me was power and fear. I always thought the reason for its construction was to be a reminder to everyone who they were under, as the size of it surely could be seen from miles and miles off, Its stature instilled how small the common masses were compared to their ruler, and always goaded a sense of order and respect in Dumas Empire. I was surprised to see that this point wasn't in your history, but my criticism quickly left me when I thought about what you wrote concerning the matter, I believe you specified that he built the tower to look upon his land that he blessed, which made me imagine him with pride of his people, that they had overcome trials and tribulations and have become strong, pride that he has created a prosperous kingdom solely by giving his people the opportunity to become powerful. This almost gives him a sense of patriarchy, and makes him feel stern but fair, like the description Xander gave us of the Non-Possessed King Garon that we never got to see. I'm not sure if you had these thoughts about the subject, given that it was such a trivial thing I wouldn't be surprised, but if you do really value that part of the architecture, it might be worth expanding on. Regardless I do appreciate the thought to the reason of its construction, as I wouldn't have thought of these things without it.     

The other part the stood out to me was Jedah, who is often criticized for being underdeveloped and evil for the sake of destroying the world in Duma's name because he loves Duma. The direction you went with him made me skeptical at first, but then thinking about it actually makes him feel like a stronger antagonist given that his motives were hidden. What I mean is he wants power, and he is the mastermind behind Dumas corruption and manipulating him to bring a world where he can have all the power and control everything, this also excuses his monologue about the new world of Duma which according to your history, is all a ploy to make him appear as the loyal priest when he really controls everything. The only issue I see is that he still has no fleshed out motivation, but this is excused given that this is a history, not a story. But it is still interesting to think of why Jedah would become so corrupt during his time in the faithful.

Something I would like to see is the rise of grieth and the turn of attitudes of zofians, and how they started to become extremely ungrateful and how a lot of them turned to bandits, which makes up the bulk of zofians you face in the game. We know that commoners rose up and killed Fernands family thinking they were hoarding food when the drought started, making Fernands attitude a product of the state of the world. As I don't believe it's specified how long the drought had been going on by the time they murdered his family, it makes me wonder how to Zofians resorted to such extreme methods at the time, and while if memory serves correctly grieth had been a bandit long before the major phase of the drought, So it's curious to me how he took advantage of the situation to become so big, did he have a similar circumstance when he was younger? Filling in the blanks could make him appear more cunning, aside from his brash and brutish nature seen in the game. 

I've only read to original post and I know you added some more posts which ill get to but if you have already covered that stuff I mentioned than disregard that third paragraph. But these are my initial thoughts on the subject. Despite the many flaws of the game itself I always find myself drawn to it, as I feel there is something really exceptional and meaningful about the way it was written and created, but I am just unable to put my finger on it most of the time. So thank you for giving me material to absorb

I don't know why this posted twice, and at different times, I did not mean to double post.

Edited by JimmyBeans
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On 8/30/2017 at 11:52 AM, Interdimensional Observer said:

I decided to make a feedback topic for my lengthy historical-esque account of Valentia. Link to my attempt at world building.

I know it's dull, being not an actual story but history instead. But is realistic? Interesting? How balanced is my portrayal of Rigel/Duma and Zofia/Mila so far? (I know I haven't gotten to a monarchal history of Zofia yet- I will.) I know I'm light on specific names and operate in generalities, but I'll work on addressing that.

Well I know that I'm late and all (Sure hope a feedback topic doesn't count as necroposting), but I have to say that I got through the original post, and you did add some more but I wanted to share my thoughts before I take in everything, because you wrote a ton man, I'm honestly really impressed. I found a particular interest in Duma and Rigel's history, first being Duma tower, as the feeling it always gave me was power and fear. I always thought the reason for its construction was to be a reminder to everyone who they were under, as the size of it surely could be seen from miles and miles off, Its stature instilled how small the common masses were compared to their ruler, and always goaded a sense of order and respect in Dumas Empire. I was surprised to see that this point wasn't in your history, but my criticism quickly left me when I thought about what you wrote concerning the matter, I believe you specified that he built the tower to look upon his land that he blessed, which made me imagine him with pride of his people, that they had overcome trials and tribulations and have become strong, pride that he has created a prosperous kingdom solely by giving his people the opportunity to become powerful. This almost gives him a sense of patriarchy, and makes him feel stern but fair, like the description Xander gave us of the Non-Possessed King Garon that we never got to see. I'm not sure if you had these thoughts about the subject, given that it was such a trivial thing I wouldn't be surprised, but if you do really value that part of the architecture, it might be worth expanding on. Regardless I do appreciate the thought to the reason of its construction, as I wouldn't have thought of these things without it.     

The other part the stood out to me was Jedah, who is often criticized for being underdeveloped and evil for the sake of destroying the world in Duma's name because he loves Duma. The direction you went with him made me skeptical at first, but then thinking about it actually makes him feel like a stronger antagonist given that his motives were hidden. What I mean is he wants power, and he is the mastermind behind Dumas corruption and manipulating him to bring a world where he can have all the power and control everything, this also excuses his monologue about the new world of Duma which according to your history, is all a ploy to make him appear as the loyal priest when he really controls everything. The only issue I see is that he still has no fleshed out motivation, but this is excused given that this is a history, not a story. But it is still interesting to think of why Jedah would become so corrupt during his time in the faithful.

Something I would like to see is the rise of grieth and the turn of attitudes of zofians, and how they started to become extremely ungrateful and how a lot of them turned to bandits, which makes up the bulk of zofians you face in the game. We know that commoners rose up and killed Fernands family thinking they were hoarding food when the drought started, making Fernands attitude a product of the state of the world. As I don't believe it's specified how long the drought had been going on by the time they murdered his family, it makes me wonder how to Zofians resorted to such extreme methods at the time, and while if memory serves correctly grieth had been a bandit long before the major phase of the drought, So it's curious to me how he took advantage of the situation to become so big, did he have a similar circumstance when he was younger? Filling in the blanks could make him appear more cunning, aside from his brash and brutish nature seen in the game. 

I've only read to original post and I know you added some more posts which ill get to but if you have already covered that stuff I mentioned than disregard that third paragraph. But these are my initial thoughts on the subject. Despite the many flaws of the game itself I always find myself drawn to it, as I feel there is something really exceptional and meaningful about the way it was written and created, but I am just unable to put my finger on it most of the time. So thank you for giving me material to absorb. 

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5 minutes ago, JimmyBeans said:

Something I would like to see is the rise of grieth and the turn of attitudes of zofians, and how they started to become extremely ungrateful and how a lot of them turned to bandits, which makes up the bulk of zofians you face in the game. We know that commoners rose up and killed Fernands family thinking they were hoarding food when the drought started, making Fernands attitude a product of the state of the world. As I don't believe it's specified how long the drought had been going on by the time they murdered his family, it makes me wonder how to Zofians resorted to such extreme methods at the time, and while if memory serves correctly grieth had been a bandit long before the major phase of the drought, So it's curious to me how he took advantage of the situation to become so big, did he have a similar circumstance when he was younger? Filling in the blanks could make him appear more cunning, aside from his brash and brutish nature seen in the game. 

I'm actually at my weakest closest to the modern day, I didn't go in and really do much to describe the reign of Lima IV, but I could work on something with this. I really need to flesh out his reign, since all I basically say of it so far is that it was awful. My Rudolf II coverage is a bit better.

As is, I did make room for banditry, and my answer for Grieth is found in my latest addition in the final section on my fictional Saelian Civilization. Basically there used to be a kingdom in the desert, but three-two kings prior to Lima IV, Zofia destroyed the declining Namor Kingdom to rid themselves of this sometime enemy within the borders allotted to Zofia. In destroying the Namor Kingdom, civilization in the desert collapsed, and in these chaotic conditions, combined with a Zofian military withdrawal from the desert, it was left to fester as an open wound and thus became a bandit haven. Grieth, I didn't go into detail at all with him, but he basically climbed to the top in this chaos.

I'm better at worlds than characters I'd admit. But I still have some fanficting energies left.

 

19 minutes ago, JimmyBeans said:

Well I know that I'm late and all (Sure hope a feedback topic doesn't count as necroposting), but I have to say that I got through the original post, and you did add some more but I wanted to share my thoughts before I take in everything, because you wrote a ton man, I'm honestly really impressed. I found a particular interest in Duma and Rigel's history, first being Duma tower, as the feeling it always gave me was power and fear. I always thought the reason for its construction was to be a reminder to everyone who they were under, as the size of it surely could be seen from miles and miles off, Its stature instilled how small the common masses were compared to their ruler, and always goaded a sense of order and respect in Dumas Empire. I was surprised to see that this point wasn't in your history, but my criticism quickly left me when I thought about what you wrote concerning the matter, I believe you specified that he built the tower to look upon his land that he blessed, which made me imagine him with pride of his people, that they had overcome trials and tribulations and have become strong, pride that he has created a prosperous kingdom solely by giving his people the opportunity to become powerful. This almost gives him a sense of patriarchy, and makes him feel stern but fair, like the description Xander gave us of the Non-Possessed King Garon that we never got to see.

Well after playing SoV, I had a creative burst for a while and wrote a ton of fanfiction on it, in the style of what I, a historian-to-be, knows best. I'm not highly versed in any one particular historical field or topic, so it tends to be generalized, but I try to cover all aspects of life and delve into a little detail in some places.

As for Duma Tower, I didn't like that SoV just calls its construction a mystery, I wanted to correct that in some way. Think of the Tower as Duma's East Rigel abode that he goes to whenever he wants to be in the east or aloof from the monarchy and government. The Temple is where he goes when he does want to be in the west or consult with the monarch.

I also wanted to make Duma not so bad, a little strict yes, but I didn't want him to be just evil. This is an issue some would say SoV struggles with, Mila gets compassion and love and kindness in a nice land, while Duma is stuck with struggle and things that can be easily misconstrued as harsh and bad in a bad land. The strength blessings were part of this, and if Duma wasn't using his power in some way but Mila was, why did he degenerate? It was also done to help explain how Zofia can defeat Rigel in the games, the blessings of Duma are defunct by the Twilight of the Gods, and not being superhuman anymore, Rigel can lose.

I just hope my attempt to make Duma and Rigel have a positive side didn't send me too far into the Rigelphile camp. I tried to put in some nice words about Zofia, but I found writing about Zofia more boring. The land of luxury and stable inheritance isn't as dramatic as the land of toil and unstable merit-based rule.

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3 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I just hope my attempt to make Duma and Rigel have a positive side didn't send me too far into the Rigelphile camp. I tried to put in some nice words about Zofia, but I found writing about Zofia more boring. The land of luxury and stable inheritance isn't as dramatic as the land of toil and unstable merit-based rule.

One of my favorite themes of the game is the flaws of both kingdoms are shared in the intro video after the prologue. It gives you a basic yet effective setting of the 2 kingdoms with Rigel becoming powerful because of Dumas trials, but becoming cold and lacking emotion. And to contrast Zofians are showered with blessings and prosperous, but are lazy and weak because of it. The problem is the game doesn't reflect that opening nearly enough,, and instead of showing characters with both these traits, each nation is sprinkled with characters that are "evil" and "good" where for zofia the good people are every recruitable zofian character and the evil are Slayde, Desaix, and grieth. And it's reverse for rigel, with not even Rudolph matching Rigels standards.

As for Zofia, I'm a bit torn about this one. A theme I think of them is that they have a history of making rash decisions when things are taken away from them, and while this was probably not intentional by the writers I still find it curious that most of the crazy ideas that come out of nowhere happen to all come from Zofians (Except Rudolph, but that's a whole different beast). As stated before It seemed weird to me that commoners of Zofia would resort to killing nobles under the paranoia that they are hoarding food from them, and I now believe that because happy and easy life has always been part of their culture for countless years, that having something like that being taken away causes so amny of Zofian tantrums and uproars.

Rigel probably obviously is more unified by the start of the game, and even under Desaix's rule, who is no doubt stricter than Lima, Zofia is in utter chaos. In the DLC the dock workers close the ports and hire mercenaries to defend them while they hoard food, and even band together and try to kill the knights. Clive hands over the deliverance, Fernand defects to rigel, etc. Given that the theme in the Intro doesnt come into fruition in the actual story maybe that could be used as replacement, given that history suggests that Zofia has seen a lot of chaos, as its masses have a hard time dealing with hardships properly and reasonably. I mean, I'm pretty sure it would be extremely difficult to pull of being a bandit in rigel just thinking about it.

You will have to forgive my writing as my thoughts are really scattered given that I'm writing this at a late time, but maybe that could make Zofia a bit more interesting, and It's a nice dichotomy to have The hard Rigel be more Quiet and orderly than bountiful Zofia, which is full of chaos given it's lack of proper leadership and lack of personal growth.

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