"Books - David Eddings - Rivan Codex, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

first decision the aspiring fantasist must make is theological. King
Arthur and Charlemagne were Christians. Siegfried and Sigurd the
Volsung were pagans. My personal view is that pagans write better
stories. When a writer is having fun, it shows, and pagans have
more fun than Christians. Let's scrape Horace's Dulche et utile off
the plate before we even start the banquet. We're writing for fun,
not to provide moral instruction. I had much more fun with the
Belgariad/Malloreon than you did, because I know where all the
jokes are.
All right, then, for item number one, I chose paganism. (Note that
Papa Tolkien, a devout Anglo-Catholic, took the same route.)
Item number two on our interim list is the Quest'. If you don't
have a quest, you don't have a story. The quest gives you an excuse
to dash around and meet new people. Otherwise, you stay home
and grow turnips or something.
Item number three is 'The Magic Thingamajig' - The Holy Grail,
the Ring of Power, the Magic Sword, the Sacred Book, or (surprise,
surprise) THE JEWEL. Everybody knows where I came down on
that one. The Magic Thingamajig is usually, though not always, the
object of the quest.
Item four is 'Our Hero' - Sir Galahad, Sir Gawaine, Sir Launcelot,
or Sir Perceval. Galahad is saintly; Gawaine is loyal; Launcelot is the
heavyweight champion of the world; and Perceval is dumb - at least
right at first. I went with Perceval, because he's more fun- A dumb
hero is the perfect hero, because he hasn't the faintest idea of what's
going on, and in explaining things to him, the writer explains them
to his reader. Don't get excited. I'm not putting Garion down. He's
innocent more than stupid, in the same way Perceval was. Actually,
he's fairly clever, but he's a country boy, so he hasn't been exposed
to very much of the world. His Aunt Pol wanted him to ~be that way,
and Polgara has ways to get what she wants.
Item number five is the resident 'Wizard' - Merlin, usually, or
Gandalf - mighty~ powerful, and mysterious. I scratched that one
right away and went with Belgarath instead, and I think it was the
right choice. I've got a seedy old tramp with bad habits - who just
incidentally can rip the tops off mountains if he wants to. I chose to
counter him with his daughter, Polgara, who doesn't really approve
of him. That sorcerer/ sorceress (and father/daughter) pairing broke
some new ground, I think.
Item six is our heroine - usually a wispy blonde girl who spends
most of her time mooning around in a tower. I chose not to go that
route, obviously. Ce'Nedra is a spoiled brat, there's no question
about that, but she is a little tiger when the chips are down. She
turned out even better than I expected.
Item seven is a villain with diabolical connections. I invented
Torak, and he served our purpose rather well. I even managed to
give him a fairly believable motivation. "Iton helped on that one.
Torak isn't exactly Lucifer, but he comes close. As usual, he has a
number of evil underlings to do his dirty-work for him.
(Stay with me. We're almost done.) Item eight is the obligatory