personal epiphanies of the less uplifting variety

[truepenny]

I came to the lowering realization today that if I were put in a quest fantasy, I would not be the Plucky Farmgirl or the Hard-Bitten Mercenary (Starhawk FTW, in case you were wondering). No, I would be the Whiny Princess, courtesy of the AGONIZING FOOT CRAMPS caused by the tendinitis in my feet whenever I do something radical like, say, exercise.* My feet believe my purpose in life is to lie on a divan and eat bonbons. See? Whiny Princess, unmistakably. I figure my best hope is to get into a modern quest fantasy with a slightly pomo sensibility, and then maybe I can upgrade to Hapless Scholar. Where, you know, I'll still be a lead albatross around the party's neck, but at least I'll apologize for it. And perhaps be able to provide useful trivia to further the plot as well.

ETA: Also, as the Hapless Scholar, I will not be inexorably forced to marry the protagonist. Which is a bonus.

---
*I admit, the foot cramps are not quite as awful in the privacy of my own home instead of, oh, halfway up a wall at a climbing gym in Michigan with matociquala on the other end of the rope wondering wtf is wrong with Mole NOW. But that's a variable of situation, not of the Platonic ideal of Cramp my feet are endeavoring to achieve.

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think my fate depends on how the author views people who are domestic. If domestic people must be plump and cheerful and illiterate, I am doomed as well. But I might get to be Nice Baker Who Supplies Party Briefly if Hapless Scholar is already taken. If the author doesn't have preconceptions about the shape and literacy of Nice Bakers.

[britmandelo.livejournal.com]

Oh, I so sympathize. Attempts at climbing, while cool, resulted in some fascinating agony in my bad foot. (Damaged a tendon when I was a youngster. The muscle spasms get so bad sometimes you can feel them from the outside of my foot.)

[calanthe-b.livejournal.com]

...or maybe if you shop around for the right author you could be the sort of Whiny Princess who nevertheless turns out to have mad diplomacy skillz and political smarts when she isn't whining (and, in fact, also when she is), and saves the party's collective neck while the thud-and-blunder Obligatory Male Lead is standing around wondering which of these strange and confusing people he should jab the sword into first?

I like Whiny Princesses. They have the potential to be surprising. Plucky Farmgirls never really turn out surprising, for some reason...

(Sympathy on the foot cramps, btw. I do hate those).

[coffeeem.livejournal.com]

Whiny Princess still beats hell out of my role. Which is Dead Body. Because, really, I wouldn't last six minutes in a quest fantasy. I would be a smoldering body in the ruins of the torched village that outrages our heroes.

Hey, everybody has a job to do.

[alex51324.livejournal.com]

I resemble this remark. I might, at most, be the sibling who dies tragically so that my sister (who is one of nature's plucky farm girls) is called to heroism.

I would say that, alternatively, I could be the stray dog or injured wild animal that befriends the questing party, but it's dangerous to make that kind of remark on the internet if one does not want to be mistaken for a furry.

Or, ooh, I could be the rude bureaucrat who won't let the questing party into the castle because they haven't filled out form 37-B and they don't have any shoes on, and who then has a humiliating comeuppance after the day is saved. Because you know what? If I'm in charge of checking invitations at the Big Royal Shindig you want to crash, I'm not going to let in every motley crew who shows up claiming that they have to speak to the King/Queen/High Priest *right now*, and doesn't have time to tell a parchment-pusher like me why. I hear that excuse four times a day and six on Holy Days. Thy failure to plan maketh not my emergency. You can state your business and be directed to the appropriate member of the Privy Council, who will decide if the King/Queen/High Priest really needs to see you, or you can go around back and dress up like washerwomen like I know you want to anyway. Makes no odds to me.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

FTW!

[wldhrsjen3.livejournal.com]

Sadly, if I were put in a quest fantasy I'd get hopelessly lost and end up wandering right back out of the story. :/

Sorry about the foot cramps. :(

[melscott.livejournal.com]

Owie!

But I also like Whiny Princesses and Hapless Scholars. I think I'd fall somewhere into those two categories myself in a Quest Fantasy. Also, Hapless Scholars should totally get the happy ending.

[nathreee.livejournal.com]

The scholar would make you much like Daniel Jackson, only with foot cramps instead of allergies. Or you could be the healer who forces the foolish and aggressive adventurers to slow down and think about their plan. In Sci-Fi you could even be the pilot so that you always have somewhere to sit.

[cow.livejournal.com]

I always figured on Hapless Scholar as well. If it's a more medieval fantasy, I was hoping for Useful Monastic Sort The Party Finds Who Points The Way, Or At Least Provides Good Beer, A Room, Breakfast, and Some Wisdom. So yeah, I always figured on guest star status.

Which is good, because I hate camping.

[thecoughlin.livejournal.com]

this sounds bizarre -- but one of the best ways in the whole wide world to build feet strength to overcome that is..drum roll please.. while reading/writing/searching the interwebz or grading literary atrocities put a towel on the floor and make fists with your toes. (End PSA)

Though Hapless Scholar is not a bad fate....

[roisindubh211.livejournal.com]

Does this work if its just your toes that are the problem? I don't get cramps in the main part of my foot, just my toes.

[jaspreetpink.livejournal.com]

In my modern quest novel, it would be perfectly acceptable to be an albatross, because you'd have twenty-nine other people just like you! Of course, in my novel you'd have recently attempted suicide and would now be used as the easy target/cannon fodder for hungry monsters and so forth. So the moral of the story is...don't stumble into my brain?

[redbird]

I think I'm another who wouldn't actually be questing; I might be sitting back in a town (or nunnery, depending on the background) copying out scrolls and thereby knowing some crucial bit of information that the party needed. I get a walk-on role somewhere in there, handing them a map or a bit of prophecy and telling them that no, I don't know what "seek soleri" means.

In a slightly different sort of story, I'm dragging along, trying gamely to keep up despite the array of minor injuries and getting tired more easily than average. It might be possible. (I just read Mary Gentle's Ilario, whose protagonist spends a lot of time being carried and/or leaning on people, because Gentle's world doesn't have scrolls of healing, or modern medicine, so recovering from attack or surgery takes time, if it happens at all.)

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

I think I would be Cranky Pragmatist. We would be the comic relief.

(You realize this makes us 3p0 and Chewie, don't you? And nobody is suprised.)

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. You are perfectly correct.

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

Not in the slightest.

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

I'd be the Jovial Farm Wife Who Cooks A Lot whom the party encounters who feeds them and sends them on a shortcut.

[opera142.livejournal.com]

ETA: Also, as the Hapless Scholar, I will not be inexorably forced to marry the protagonist. Which is a bonus.</i? Unless, somehow, your glasses slip off and your hair falls out of its bun, and even with protagonist-dodging dowdiness, you could end up with the weapon-lovin' ultra-macho sidekick.

[roisindubh211.livejournal.com]

I recently was thinking along these lines, but my question was "If I was a Potterverse wizard, what would my animagus/patronus look like?"

And came to the conclusion that I would probably be one of those teeny tiny yappy dogs who are half insane because there is no brain-room in their tiny skulls.

In a quest thought? I'd be the annoying foppish nobleman who thinks he's good in a fight so the main characters have to spend all their time trying not to let me get myself killed. Or I'd be the plucky (read: REALLY ANNOYING AND BITCHY) princess/farmgirl/woman with strangely feminist mindset considering her medieval upbringing. You know, the one the reader wants to beat to death with that corset she's always complaining about...

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Well, I know I'd be a mole.

... which is why I'd be well advised not to be an animagus.

moles

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, there are some rather good mole figures in fiction. Graham's of course. I could swear there was an animated film with rather a good secondary character who was a mole, and an explosives expert. (Might have been the Atlantis. (?) I rather liked him.
Belated happy birthday, by the way. ;)

Kitty

[girlpunksamurai.livejournal.com]

I'd probably end up as the reluctantly good mercenary.

*shrugs* The result of a very eventful childhood, so to speak.

BTW, your post=Ow to the 2nd power. Enough so that I wish there was a way to put in a miniature number 2 as an exponent over the ow O.o

[grass-angel.livejournal.com]

Psst. <sup> is the code you're looking for. It goes like this: ^{the fourth, the fifth}

[grass-angel.livejournal.com]

This is a fun game. Except of course the reason why you're playing in the first place.

I'd probably end up being either the Overlooked Scribe who helps by retrieving obscure scrolls for the group or the Cheerful (non-euphemistic) Working Girl who gives food/goods/hope that there are still good people in the land.
Except my niceness would probably get me kicked out of both of those, leaving me with Faceless Minor Nobility or Crazy Inventor's Daughter. Okay, that last one is kind of cool.

[lisa-marli.livejournal.com]

Oh No, Not you too! I have got the worst feet. That is why I bring a Zucca, nicknamed Luggage (Yes, I want to make it some legs at some point) to cons these days. I can sit on it, which is great for when I have stood for too long and the feet they are no longer functional.
But I do have One Useful Skill - I can Read Maps. Actually make that two - I can Fold Maps back up, as well. :D Admittedly the second is more useful in an Urban Fantasy than in a medieval Tolkien type fantasy, but it is still useful.
I also tend to have a Purse of Holding (ie the Mom Purse of all Mom Purses). The duct tape can usually be found in the Zucca though.
Boy with this group we have the makings of a strange urban fantasy. :)