Gazetteer Metaplot: Speculations on the Fate of S

[Grey Arcanist]

Hello everyone! I used to be quite interested in Ravenloft in general, and the Gazetteers in particular, but it's been a few years since I revisited this site. But today I reactivated my old account here, and was quite surprised to see a letter to me from cure, written in late December 2007, which read:

"Your name just came up in the Metaplot discussion thread. In particular, Mangrum credited you with having exceptional insight into the arc of the Gazeetters and hence we were interested if you would share a little of it with us. Sadly, your previous posts, presumably in the Kargatane forum, have vanished from existence. "

I must say I'm rather surprised and pleased to learn that John Mangrum thought I had "exceptional insight" regarding their metaplot. I'm sorry it took me this long to respond to cure's query, but here's some of what I can remember about my thinking on where the metaplot might be going.

As I recall, I argued at the time that S had been so emotionally isolated throughout her life that the only person she'd ever loved was her daughter, who had died and become a Ghoul during the course of S's investigation of Necropolis. S's reaction to Invidia showed she felt intense guilt over the death of her daughter. She probably knew she should never have taken her child into such a dangerous environment in the first place. Her feelings of guilt were magnified by her remorse over having sacrificed a baby to appease Tristessa in Keening, as described in Gaz 5.

I'm not sure whether I discussed it at the time, but given that S's defining sin was that she had sacrificed her child for knowledge, I thought it plausible that if the Dark Powers eventually choose to make her a Darklord, they might well do so by turning her into a Aboleth Mage. Aboleth's inherit the knowledge of their parents, and also learn everything known by those they consume, which suggested to me that the Dark Power's might give an Aboleth S a curse similar to Azalin's.

Suppose that Darklord S became the ruler of a large underground domain underneath Darkon. She personally gives birth to large numbers of Aboleth's, each of which has access to all of the knowledge she has acquired at the time of their births. But she knows, and her children know, that she is cursed, and that the only way she can learn new things is by eating her own children. She tries to force her children to learn as many new things as possible before she eats them, both for her own benefit, and also in order to make sure that future generations of Aboleth have more knowledge than those that hatched before. Meanwhile, her children struggle to avoid being eaten and strive to learn some new secret that will allow them to defeat her.

I suspected that if S became the sort of Aboleth I thought she might, she would be regarded by the Dark Delvers as the Hated Mother for whom they'd been looking for centuries. I thought they might serve Darklord S in return for learning some of her secrets, while looking for their own opportunity to force her to reveal all she knew. Her daughter the Ghoul might also be a major character in S's domain.

If anyone's interested, I might be able to dig up a few more details of what I was thinking about Ravenloft and the metaplot at the time.

[Lucius]

Well, I´m interested

[brilliantlight]

I don't think so. I don't think S commited an Act of Ultimate Darkness with her daughter as it wasn't deliberate. Keening is very possible but too far in the past. When the DP punish they don't wait they do so at once. She would never have been able to get to the Shadowrift if that was the case. Of course she could have done something to gain knowledge later that is an act worthy of becoming a dark lord. Maybe something on the way to the Nocturnal Sea.

[Grey Arcanist]

Brilliantlight, I agree with you that S had obviously not committed any Act of Ultimate Darkness at the end of Gaz 5. There was certainly no chance of her becoming a Darklord until after she'd finished her travels though Ravenloft. Judging from her meeting with the Gentleman Caller in Tepest in Gaz 5, I expected that as she travelled to new domains, she would gradually learn more about the GC's children, and about that magical bracer that Azalin gave her. I thought it very likely that the story being told in the Gazetteers would eventually reach its climax when Azalin and S tried to use the Gentleman Caller and his children to accomplish whatever it was that Azalin was trying to accomplish.

However, the story of the Gazetteers was not just the story of Azalin's latest tactic in his war against the Dark Powers. It was also S's story; the story of a woman obsessed with the quest for knowledge in a world governed by a harsh Gothic morality. It's the story that begins precisely because S has sinned against Ravenloft's harsh standards, because if S had not gone to study Necropolis (the decision that ultimately led to her daughter's death) she would never have attracted Azalin's attention in the first place.

S's journey though the Domains serves more than one narrative purpose. It obviously allows the authors to describe the different Domains and gradually reveal the nature of Azalin's current plan. But it also gives S the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of others. Over and over again, S meets Darklords who have been trapped and cursed by their own moral flaws. But can S's study of the Darklords teach her the moral lessons she needs to avoid her own damnation?

I think that the fundamental question of the Gazetteers is, will S continue to deny her own moral responsibility for her daughter's death, and ultimately be damned by the Dark Powers? Because I believed that the Gazetteers were fundamentally about the question of whether S would find redemption, or be damned, I expected that her daughter the Ghoul would probably play an important role in the climax of the story. But regardless of whether the daughter made an appearance or not, I thought that S would have to make a moral choice at the climax of the Gazetteer's metaplot, and that if she made the wrong choice, she'd be damned by the Dark Powers in the way I've already described, by becoming an Aboleth Darklord.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I'm with you up until the aboleth part. If S were to become a darklord (though I think it more likely that she would pass the test, becoming, despite her darkness, as much an anti-Azalin as she is an anti-Van Richten), I doubt the DPs would transform her so utterly, into something so inhuman. It's just not their style, and aboleth's seem to make more sense in RL (if they make sense at all) as the alien horror in the deep, not a once-human wizard/scholar turned into a giant eel-fish creature.

I doubt the DPs (or the Kargatane) would've turned the hypothetical Darklord-S into anything too drastically different than what she is. Maybe some kind of undead, sure, that's fitting enough. Or just a human darklord with some fitting powers like Ivana or Dominic...

But aside from that part, I like where you're going with the psychology/story arc.

[Ail]

Mangrum even said more. He said that Grey Arcanist had actually guess at the story arc, if I recall correctly. I'll have to read this when I have more time.

[brilliantlight]

If we go the Dark Lord route what about a very complete library (One of the largest in Ravenloft) that has books that have some of the subtle details wrong but only to her. Others who read it have the correct facts. The knowledge that she has one of the best sources of information in Ravenloft but that has incorrect information would drive her nuts. She would also get the reputation of being either a sloppy or shallow researcher. Considering her pride in her scholarly ability this would also drive her nuts.

[Grey Arcanist]

Brilliantlight, the reason I suggested that becoming an Aboleth might be an appropriate development for S is because the Aboleth's peculiar biology allows a direct linkage between the sacrifice of one's children and the acquisition of knowledge. If S were an Aboleth, she could gain knowledge by literally eating her children. She has an intense desire, almost a compulsion, to gain knowledge, but hates the thought of eating her children. And the nature of her curse would be that she had to make that agonizing choice. By contrast, what does having a terrible library have to do with S's grief and remorse over the death of her daughter? The reason you suggest it as a possible curse for S is because you see her as simply a brilliant scholar, and ignore every other aspect of her character. S is not particularly interested in acquiring a widespread reputation as a scholar. If she were, she would not be willing to spend years of her life working on a project which nobody except Azalin knows about. And she prefers doing original research to spending time in libraries anyway.

Gonzoron and Ail, I want to stress that my idea about S becoming an Aboleth is far more speculative than the rest of my interpretation of the metaplot. I'm not even sure I ever mentioned the idea in the postings that led John Mangrum to credit me with a good understanding of the author's thinking. However, Gonzoron, do you really think that being transformed into an Aboleth is fundamentally more bizarre than being transformed into a potentially immortal shapechanger with an extreme sensitivity to light and a peculiarly restricted diet who doesn't need oxygen (vampire), or an Aberration that feeds on fear (Marikith)? The reason why Strahd becoming a vampire seems "plausible" in the Ravenloft setting isn't because vampires have a body structure or a biochemistry similar to humans. It's because vampires are a familiar metaphor for anxieties about the relationship between sexuality and death. Strahd became a vampire rather than a werewolf because the authors gave him a back story that was more consistent with the vampire motif than the werewolf motif. If they'd wanted him to become a werewolf, they might have stressed his "ravenous hunger" for conquest or life rather than his anguish at the approach of death.

[brilliantlight]

I don't see it. She can avoid the curse merely by not eating her children.

[Grey Arcanist]

But what I'm suggesting is that she has a curse something like Azalin's, so the only way she can learn something new is by eating her own children and absorbing their knowledge. Which means she is caught between two intense desires; the strong, almost compulsive desire to learn that motivated her to study Necropolis and accept Azalin's assignment, and her desire not to sacrifice her own children the way she sacrificed her own daughter and that infant in Keening. It's the conflict between those two intense desires that causes her anguish. She must learn, she's almost compelled by her circumstances and personality to learn, but learning requires her to do something she finds utterly abhorrent.

If you read the Gazetteers carefully, you can see evidence that learning new things has been the defining experience of S's entire life. Learning new things is, I think, her solace, her comfort, her reason for being. Throughout her life S has dealt with every new blow life gave her by going out and learning more. When her father rejected her because S's mother had died in childbirth and he thought S might be a bastard, S responded by going to the boarding school he sent her to, and working hard to learn. When her family insisted she marry a man she did not love, S responded by getting a degree at Il Auk and a post graduate degree at Bratslava. When all of Darkon was thrown into chaos, S responded by going to the source of the problem, and spending five years risking her own life and that of her daughter studying Necropolis. The only thing in S's life that has even come close to her love of learning was her love for her daughter, which is why her daughter's death is such a crushing blow to S. That's why having to choose between learning new things and her own children would be the worst possible curse for S.

[Ail]

Indeed, Grey Arcanist, after having read what is above, I think you have very fundamented arguments. I just don't know enough of the gazzetteers to comment more, but you convince me.

[brilliantlight]

The curse is usually putting something the DL wants just out of reach or most of he wants . That isn't true in your case. S is not a cannibal and won't be tempted in the slightest to eat her own young. It isn't just out of reach but way out of reach.

[Heretic]

Very interesting Grey Arcanist, I find it a great idea. I think some people might have a hard time visualizing a transformation of S into an Aboleth; I believe if the story there would be portrayed credibly, the leap that blocks people's mind from seeing this happening would be lessened and they'd be prone to find it more plausible; less extreme transformation.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Mangrum even said more. He said that Grey Arcanist had actually guess at the story arc, if I recall correctly. I'll have to read this when I have more time.

Not quite:

I'll add this: Over the course of three years, one fan has publicly guessed the whole Gazetteer metaplot correctly. (Disturbingly so, in fact.)

and

The general level of insightful criticism has never improved, save for a handful of people. (Grey Arcanist's take on the Gazetteers' narrator probably takes the prize for most insightful. We used to sit around in the Kargatane clubhouse beaming about his insight and fretting that he'd predict all our twists.)

He didn't say that GA and the "one fan" were the same person...

[Mangrum]

It was Grey Arcanist, but no, he didn't mention the aboleth theory at the time. (Despite the series' planned end in Bluetspur, that was not the intention.)

Now that he's back, I can say that while's GA's endgame speculation is a bit off these days, his insights into S's motivations and personality are spot-on and, for perspective, I believe he was offering the same analysis back when we hadn't even revealed her gender yet.

It's been a long, long time since I've tossed out any Ravenloft chum, so here's something to chew on:

Had the series reached its planned end with Gazetteer XIII, S's story would have ended very badly for her. Very badly indeed, but it was a fate she would have freely chosen to accept, rather than being the result of an inevitable curse.

As for the very, very end of the tale, a puzzle I always had percolating in the back of my head was how to best express, within the books' format and Arthaus' unpredictable graphic design choices, Azalin screaming with boundless rage.