Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us try to find some different topic of discussion. Pause.
Sadly, there does not appear to be any; ‘The
Mandolorian’ is already being discussed to death, while ‘Dungeons and Dragons:
Honor among Thieves’… ok, let me rant.
‘Honor’ may be a D&D film, supposedly, but it is
set in a very specific setting: The Forgotten Realms. Initially, The Forgotten
Realms were just one setting within the broader D&D spectrum, but now,
apparently, they dominate it, with their rivals, such as Eberron and
Pathfinder, seem to have fallen by the wayside.
…Actually, that may not be really fair: the RPG
sector began to suffer, just as many other luxury goods and services, ever
since the COVID-19 outbreak, and it has not really recovered from it. However,
the decline of some of its’ aspects, such as Pathfinder, began pre-COVID-19, and so I’m not fully sold
on this state of affairs being the pandemic’s fault alone – something else
might’ve worked behind the scenes, but what? Who knows…?
Anyways, ‘Honor’ is set in The Forgotten Realms’ setting,
something that has not been openly/officially acknowledged so far. That is one.
Two, is that it is a relatively conservative movie rather than a
progressive/liberal one: a person of color plays the barbarian character, (so’s
the paladin, but he’s more a temporary character in this film), and the druid
character is a tiefling rather than a human or an elf. Second pause.
…Since this is a rant, may I point out that lately
RPGs have this weird issue regarding tieflings. In fact, tieflings are only one
out of several ‘planetouched’ races, a group of humanoids that have
extradimensional ancestors… think the InHumans of MCU – initially regular
humans with alien DNA, they became a brand new separate species by the time of
them being featured in the MCU. The planetouched are similar, save that, the
tieflings have demon or devil genes, (to use the term incorrectly, but still),
while the descendants of the various celestials are called, the aasimar… and
they are represented much less often than their tiefling counterparts are. I
have no idea as to why, but this is how it rolls at least since the 3.5 D&D
edition. Weird!
Getting back to the film, let us note that the
tiefling druid here is a tiefling because the party needed one non-human
character, to pass as a fantasy racial minority, probably. Again, this is not
exactly new – Pathfinder, for example, tended to stick with human NPCs, when
regular old monsters would not do; oh, it had its’ dwarves, elves, half-orcs
and so on, but humans dominated. Since Pathfinder takes place on imaginary
planet named Golarion, I do not know whose issue this was and why and how it
was addressed, if it ever did. Still, Pathfinder 2nd edition is a
lot like D&D 5th edition, so we do not care about Pathfinder as
much anymore. Where were we?
Right. So, ‘Honor’ is peddling a specific setting as
a general one, and it is quite conservative with its’ PCs, and it took its’
plot straight from the SW – Forge is a discount Palpatine, (“I cannot bare to
see you die, so I’ll leave”) while his ally Sofina the Red Wizard is a discount
Assajji Ventress. More precisely, Neverwinter and its’ lords are Coruscant and
its’ Jedi, while the Red Wizards are Sith, with Thay being their home country.
So what?
So nothing, especially since The Forgotten Realms’
setting itself has changed a lot in passing from the 3/3.5 edition onto the 4/5
one. Not sure, if it was for the best either – but while the different editions
of D&D differ quite a lot, none of those changes came into the movie
because of reasons. Where we are left with them/without them?
Again, with a conservative film that has several
heterosexual couples – Forge and Sofina, Edgin and Holga, and Simon and Doric.
This is never emphasized, of course, but it is there; Edgin and Holga, especially,
are the Not-A-Couple of the film, as Holga tends to rebuff Edgin’s advances,
(at least some of the time), but at the end of the film, Edgin, (and his
daughter, who’s a minor character in the film – at least this one), choose to
resurrect her than his late wife – symbolism is hitting the audience on the
collective head here.
Again, there is nothing wrong with the good old
classics, but could you acknowledge it, at least? In Pathfinder – at least the
1st edition, not certain about the following ones – there were plenty
of sexual minorities, (since it is a different world altogether and our rules
don’t apply to it) – and so it seems to get cancelled, as I, for one, no longer
can find much of it aside from the Internet, but the same can be said about many
other RPG rulebooks and the like… Where were we?
Ah yes, the conservative values disguised as
progressive ones. It isn’t just RPGs, you know? For a while, I was invested in
Mr. Riordan’s PJ novels, as well as those spun-off/inspired by him. On some
level, they were progressive as they utilized various racial and sexual
minorities, but then-
But then I realized that it was ‘The Whale’ scenario
– you remember our discussion of ‘The Whale’ as in the 2022 movie? In the
discussion of it, it was pointed out that ‘weight’ and ‘race’ were window dressing
for the actual movie message, (such as it was), and the same can be said for
the latest novels of Mr. Riordan both about Magnus Chase and Apollo, as well as
for the spin-offs.
Take, for the example, Mr. Yoon Ha Lee’s ‘Dragon
Pearl’ novels, (there are two of them so far). They’re chockful of sexual and
racial minorities… whose gender and race don’t play any role in the series, they’re
just window dressing, and the main characters are a gumiho (fox spirit) from ‘the
wrong side of tracks’, and a tiger spirit from a noble clan that’d disgraced
themselves by treason against the emperor, or whoever. I.e., they are variant
Skye and Grant from AoS, (I am going down with that ship). Ergo, does it matter
if the supporting cast are not heterosexual? Hint: it does not… and the same
largely goes for the rest of the spin-offs. There are some divergences from
that mould, for example the ‘Tristan Strong’ series, but they are the ones that
I cannot find on shelves anymore since the pandemic ended. Gee, I wonder why…
What else?
Ah yes, one final part regarding the ‘Honor’ film –
its’ main cast are a bunch of misfits that make a regular experienced N/PC face
palm. No, wait, there are two – the team’s sorcerer is a descendant of
Elminster. If anyone outside of the RPG community, (especially the parts keyed
to the Forgotten Realms) know and care who Elminster is – good for them. They
can go back watching ‘The Whale’ – the two sets of media are equally good. In
addition, as for the misfit part, now this fossilized cliché is almost a
requirement that you need to succeed in a film… unless you are in something
akin the SW films seven through nine – but that is another story.
For now though, this is it. See you all soon!
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