Café de Nuit

I am confused about Gabrielle Aderre. More specifically, why she is a darklord in the first place and why she is still a darklord.

As far as I know, she inherited the mantleship of darklord from Bakholis in what was essentially an act of self-defence. But until then, I wasn't aware of anything really dire that she had done to gain the mantleship. Even more confusingly, now her son is running rampant, but she is still the darklord?

The DPs had stripped the likes of Nathan Timothy and arguably Lord Soth from their darklord mantle, so why didn't they do the same with Gabrielle whose sins were actually one of the most inconsequential for a darklord? Even before that Grazzt wannabe came and knocked her up, all she did was to break hearts, toy with people, act cruelly and capriciously, but not exactly darklord material, no?

I love Gabrielle and I think she is one of the most fascinating darklords in canon material. All that pathos! But I am confused about why she is still the darklord of Invidia, or why she is one in the first place. Anyone has any ideas?

<flippancy> Because she's Ravenloft's own walking soap opera on legs, and soap operas are the devil's own work. </flippancy>

Because her creator(s) felt strongly about women who break hearts?

I'm not entirely kidding here. Had Gabbie been a guy, would people feel as strongly about her... err him holding the mantle of darklord?

At least she was given some interesting potential as time went on instead of being the token evil gypsy enchantress.

'Sides, if gothic fiction laments the erosion of good ol' fashioned values and RL is to adhere to the slanted views of said fiction on morality, then Gabbie is a cinch for darklorddom. Not the only seducer of men? No, but I'm guessing she's the one chosen to be made an example of by the DP. She has to bear the sins of her kind.

Why shouldn't the DP be backwards and sexist? They already seem to suggest that punishment will lead to atonement, so their values already tend toward the conservative side apparently...

Had Gabbie been a guy, would people feel as strongly about her... err him holding the mantle of darklord?

Speaking for myself, yes. Because in this instance, my concern is not what she did but what she did not do. In this case, what she didn't do to warrant becoming a darklord and holding on to its title. She never seemed truly evil enough to become one. Or to remain one.

She isn't even that effective as a seducer stereotype - that role goes to the man-eating Ivana Boritsi who puts Gabrielle's social calender to shame.

Yeah, the original selection of darklords appeared to deal in archetypes rather than applying actual domain mechanics.

I must agree that her darklordship is more or less earned (she still let her mother die at the claws of Alfred Timothy...) but her curse is still very nice and makes her worth keeping as a Darklord.

Maybe Ivana is a better seducer, but is Ivana an evil gypsy? Is Ivana a "witch"?

Joking, of course.

The issue of overlap isn't exactly new, in fact, it's been debated before that some Darklords seem rather useless because others are doing a better job then them. It's just that some archetypes have received so much attention the world over that variants are bound to pop up and not all of these variants are compatible with each other, different socio-historical contexts and all that. Thing is, if all these seductive evil ladies were aristocrats, we'd be tempted to believe that only the wealthy and powerful can seduce and corrupt - we might even start to believe that social classes have something to do with it. Can't have that in a patriarchal society bent on portraying women as dangerous and untrustworthy.

Men seducing women just don't have the same historical and mythical weight as the female seductress. Again, male dominated societies and all that jazz.

Taken out of their respective contexts and costumes, there's little Gabbie has done that Ivana herself hasn't and the same holds for Jackie in Richemulot. So that's three female Darklords with loads of overlap and only a costume and setting to differentiate them.

Obviously the female Darklords suffer from worse typecasting than their male peers. But, that's Gothic fiction for ya. Hell, I'm sure plenty of contemporary fantasy fiction still typecast women into pretty hard archetypes as well and do so frequently.

I guess what I'm saying is that Gabbie is a Darklord because the staff at the time didn't really see sinful women as being able to escape the societal norms of Gothic fiction and thus forced to be whores, witches or mothers. I'm sure giving her the reins of power was a show of good will to prove that women could be Darklords too and a chance to put more attention on a potentially interesting character. Alas, these roles have the unfortunate weight of time imposed upon them, meaning that even the most well meaning individual will have to make a conscious effort to break free of their hold. Oh and it also means going against the Gothic standards, but whether we accept the rigidness of Gothic fiction or not is another issue altogether.

That Gabbie continues to be a Darklord might just be a sign of just how heavy those archetypes really are. Pretty sad state of affairs that her status as Darklord has yet to be questioned while the slightest overlap in male Darklords can raise eyebrows.

I think that Gabby's evil was never really about seducing men per se, but about spoiling others' happiness. She's essentially a figure of spite: if she can't have a happy home life -- the one thing that first her mother, then her half-fiend son, and finally her political circumstances, have always denied her -- then neither can anyone else. Remember how most of her spells are enchantments? Gabby doesn't use those spells to compel folks to follow her, but to make them turn against each other: their spouses, their siblings, their friends. The Gaz IV description of her history may have downplayed that facet of her personality, given how her other problems have taken precedence in recent years, but it was certainly a big factor with her retaining darklordship, early on.

Not every darklord needs to be so flagrant in their villainy as Drakov, and some evils work their ill effects by subtle means. Gabby is a saboteur of the love that makes human relationships work, much as doppelgangers are saboteurs of the trust that enables human society to function. She's the reason Invidians acquired such a reputation for hot tempers and violent passions, because she'd spent years inflaming their grudges and stoking the fires of their rage. Remember, we're not just talking about reducing folks to tears, here; she's provoked blood-feuds, death-duels, and suicides by her sabotage. And IMO it's no coincidence that Invidia started to split, politically, right when its darklord found, not one, but two men she might potentially find contentment with, yet couldn't take sides between.

If you're worried about her seeming too much like the other seductresses (Ivana, Jacqueline, the Hags in disguise), the best solution for that is to realize that Gabrielle's not one. Yes, she's bedded a few powerful guys, but more for personal needs (i.e. yearning for security) than for malice, jealousy or lust. That may seem like a subtle difference, but it's a vital one: unlike the others, she's not toying with her paramours, she needs them. She actually cares for Matton -- something strictly verboten for a seductress-archetype -- and it's only his wolfwere nature and Invidia's politics that bar her from choosing him over the other men in her life. Deep down, she wants one man, not crowds of them, and that's what really makes her different from (and more human than) the other female Core lords. She longs for the very happiness she spent so many years denying to others ... which makes her a hypocrite, as well as a sour, spiteful creature, spoiling what she can't have.

As for why she hasn't lost darklordship to Malocchio, or someone else, who says the Dark Powers aren't planning to arrange such a shift in the future? There's no rule that says they have to oust a darklord instantly if he or she starts to slack off -- they certainly gave Soth a reprieve from being demoted, the first time he lost interest in his domain, in When Black Roses Bloom -- and it'd be consistent with other darklordly downfalls if they were to wait until some appropriately-cataclysmic event to boot her out and/or kill her off. Until that time, they'll keep mucking with her hopes and fears, and see which way she jumps (i.e. towards or away from greater evil).

Thanks for the responses. I have to say: you guys have given me plenty to think about!

I'm toying of a campaign in Invidia, and I will certainly demote Gabrielle and promote her misbehaving son by the end of the campaign (the heroes will end up shifting the dynamics - have to think of the details first) because I don't think it is "right" that Malocchio has done so much to upstage her in terms of dark deeds but she's the one who is supposed to be calling the shots. I feel that Gabrielle is better off as the darklord's chief antagonist rather than the darklord herself.

Regarding female darklords, this is why I'm actually pleased to discover Elena Faith-Hold and, despite their flaws in design, Inza and Tsien Chiang because these three female darklords for once do not care about finding love and happiness with men and/or children. It will be nice to have more female darklords that have a wider interest than their love life or the sad state of it.

True, the products' perpetual fixation on the love lives of female darklords (and a few of the males) can get tiresome at times. Although, in her defense, I'd submit that Jacqueline Renier isn't as preoccupied with her sex-life as the other Core darkladies: she has plenty of evil schemes of her own that aren't man-related, and is actually a bit resentful of the fact that she's got the hots for one particular guy. Rats just aren't romantics by nature; go figure.

Gabby is an evil, evil woman.
She let her mother die just out of hate. She's full of hate against the vistani. She breaks hearts out of hate. She enchants people out of their love out of hate. She uses men (and probably women) to further her plans and then she discards them. She nurished her son to be a weapon of hate.

What else do you need? She deserves the curse.

Now on another interesting topic rised in the tread:
When I saw the "If she was a guy would she be a Darklord?" I said to myself "Obviously! After all the place is crawling with darklords that toy with women's hearts to push their agendas or push them to suicide for fun" Then I said... "Like who exactly?"
Certainly there's more than Gentleman Caller to fit the male heartbreaker that uses women for his own needs... Can someone remember any such Darklord?

Certainly there's more than Gentleman Caller to fit the male heartbreaker that uses women for his own needs... Can someone remember any such Darklord?

I'd wager that Dominic D'Honaire of Dementlieu does this. (He's another fellow whose sins, in my opinion, don't seem "big" enough to warrant a darklord mantleship.)

There is also the Phantom Lover, but he's more like Johnny Bravo in a way - he just wants to be loved by a woman, the poor thing.

Although, in her defense, I'd submit that Jacqueline Renier isn't as preoccupied with her sex-life as the other Core darkladies: she has plenty of evil schemes of her own that aren't man-related, and is actually a bit resentful of the fact that she's got the hots for one particular guy. Rats just aren't romantics by nature; go figure.

In Tanya Huff's Scholar of Decay, that Ravenloft novel, Jacqueline does come off as a romantic, letting the main character go in the end because she understood what it meant to have loved and lost. That's actually sweet of her.

True, in that one instance her un-ratlike (DP-imposed?) emotions got the better of her. (And doesn't she just hate the fact that an alien, soppy feeling like "love" can make her act that way.... ) But for the most part, Jacqueline actually has a life that lies outside the scope of a romance novel.

Charney wrote:(she still let her mother die at the claws of Alfred Timothy...)

Out of curiosity which product did that reference come from?

It's implied, although not stated outright, that Alfred's the one who killed her mother in Gaz IV. Just the writers dropping potential plot-seeds while they had the chance, I suppose....