{"id":918,"date":"2010-10-25T12:15:01","date_gmt":"2010-10-25T18:15:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=918"},"modified":"2010-10-25T12:15:01","modified_gmt":"2010-10-25T18:15:01","slug":"character-driven-thanksgiving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=918","title":{"rendered":"Character-Driven Thanksgiving"},"content":{"rendered":"

Because of the ARC contest<\/a>…I started thinking about trying to host all (OK, only the main) characters for a big dinner myself….sort of a mini-convention of Paksworld characters.<\/p>\n

The long, long table outside (hey, I get to control the weather for this one–crisp, cool, sunny.\u00a0 The best autumn weather.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The meetings, the greetings, the eating, the conversation–I really would love to hear them talking when there’s no need for it to fit into a story context.\u00a0\u00a0 Who would arrive first?\u00a0 Would they walk or ride?\u00a0\u00a0 (It would be interesting to see the interaction of Paks’s red horse with my two…)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What would they bring to the feast, and what would they bring for entertainment (I’m thinking the children are off somewhere else, at their own feast, maybe in that orchard I don’t have.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And which age would they be?\u00a0\u00a0 Backstory, first appearance, later in the books?\u00a0\u00a0 It would be too confusing to have multiples–Kieri as Aliam’s squire, as young captain, as duke, as king, etc.<\/p>\n

I can imagine Torfinn and Kieri and Mikeli having a quiet confab over the problems of kingship (“They never tell you everything<\/em>, have you noticed that?\u00a0 They’ll say they didn’t want to bother you, or worry you, or they didn’t think it was important…” )\u00a0 while Gird has managed to get Falk and Camwyn doing a line dance with him, arms over each other’s shoulders, belting out some old song they all sort of vaguely remember…much of the time having to say “Da-da-da-DUM-da-sweet…” when one or all can’t remember a line.<\/p>\n

Master Oakhallow, Master Ashwind (whom you haven’t met yet),\u00a0 Kolya, and Dorrin might play a complicated game using bees for game pieces (live bees.\u00a0 Very happy live bees.)<\/p>\n

We know some of them sing…someone will have a little skill with an instrument…there would be singing.\u00a0 And probably some swordplay or wrestling or something to get the blood moving between courses.<\/p>\n

In this fantasy, old quarrels can vanish…at least among those invited.\u00a0\u00a0 Siniava isn’t there.\u00a0 Alured the Black isn’t there.\u00a0\u00a0 But Luap is, freed of his old interior wounds that made him unable to see himself.\u00a0 So is the Rosemage, romping like a girl with Rahel and (amazingly to me as I think about it) the Marshal-General and Torre (the Torre’s Necklace Torre.)<\/p>\n

Elves and dwarves get along;\u00a0 gnomes even crack a smile (very quietly and they certainly don’t laugh out loud.)\u00a0\u00a0 Alas, none of them have their story powers in this alternate-alternate fantasy space.\u00a0\u00a0 Appearance, and actual talents (harping, singing) but not the ability to spread glamour or do rock magic.\u00a0\u00a0 Other entities might even show up.<\/p>\n

Food…well,\u00a0 I don’t have to pay for it, so I can imagine a feast of Renaissance-royalty proportions.\u00a0\u00a0 Meat, fish, fowl, in abundance and exquisite preparation.\u00a0 Vegetables and fruits ditto. \u00a0 Over the top pastries and desserts (the Williams-Sonoma fall\/winter catalog has some excellent photographs…little crispy things stuffed with savory things) and sauces to make any real-world chef faint with admiration. \u00a0 Foods familiar to the characters and foods new to them.\u00a0\u00a0 Plenty of drink without drunken stupors or quarrels renewed.\u00a0 Nobody leaves the table hungry or thirsty or without the companionship they most wanted.<\/p>\n

(Back in the real story-world, things progress.\u00a0\u00a0 This was a brief vacation for the writer.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Because of the ARC contest…I started thinking about trying to host all (OK, only the main) characters for a big dinner myself….sort of a mini-convention of Paksworld characters. The long, long table outside (hey, I get to control the weather for this one–crisp, cool, sunny.\u00a0 The best autumn weather.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The meetings, the greetings, the eating, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[22,107],"class_list":["post-918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-beyond-writing","tag-characters","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=918"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":919,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918\/revisions\/919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}