Debut post! On Eilistraee - Fleshing-out or bashing?

[teakay]

I've been thinking on this a while, and thought I might as well spit it out. What better place to do it than here? Note: vague floating spoilers for various Forgotten Realms drow books.

I've been working on giving some complexity to Mayae Veladorn, the reincarnation of Eilistraee in my fic "Remembered Realms." I'm trying to keep her from turning into a generic Fluffy Angsty Sue (though given that she's the reincarnation of a goddess it may be a bit too late for that), while drawing off Eilistraee's canonical traits, but now I'm wondering if my efforts are going too far the other direction.

Eilistraee herself I don't think is a Sue. She's one of those few goddesses in the setting to have a gender-exclusive clergy, which would pass without comment but for the fact that with the drow the status quo gender dynamic is flipped over to a horrific extent and she's pretty much the only game in town for "good" drow. She reminds me somewhat of Artemis (the Greek, not Entreri), who was also a virginal lunar goddess of the hunt; the myth that comes to mind is what happened to that poor sap who happened to walk in on her taking a bath (and this was out in the middle of the forest, mind you, it wasn't as if he was on a panty raid and broke into her house). Eilistraee seems to have some of the same aspects; some of her worshippers nearly tear apart Dove Falconhand in Silverfall for walking in on their celebration (also out in the open), and later another set does shred two werewolves who came to them looking for a cure for their child; the repercussions are seen in Extinction, but never really wrapped up or dealt with. Halisstra's taken it into her head that it's A-OK to kill "shapeshifters" and as far as the reader knows Ryld's the only one to contradict her.

Also, I admit I found her apparent attitude toward Vhaeraun and Selvetarm in the Lady Penitent trilogy so far pretty disconcerting. Selvetarm especially - her lines at the end of Sacrifice of the Widow would have gone over much better if it weren't for the canonical backstory between them. As it is, she sounds quite cold. And then there's the prelude to Storm of the Dead. "Sacrifices are sometimes necessary"? I'd buy it if all the Eilistraeens didn't keep cooing over Halisstra. Of course, I'm not expecting good = perfect, but her main problem is nobody calls her on any of this but "evil" folk like the Vhaeraunites.

Also, it might just be me but she seems to have a bit of a martyr complex - there's one point in the Evermeet novel where she turns down a moon elf who wants to worship her because she believes her destiny is to be a goddess of outcasts. That's... kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, isn't it? Another cause for eyebrow-raising is she goes on at length about the threat Vhaeraun poses while the main drow "villain" is a worshipper of Ghaunadaur and then Lolth, and unless I'm really falling down on the read Vhaeraun is just about never mentioned again in that book. On top of this, she's canonically described as moody, which can certainly be overdone.

I think I can work all that in and crank down the Sue a few notches. So right now in my head Mayae's a moody adolescent who honestly means well, but on some level thinks women are in some way "better" or purer than men, among other double standards etc. She's a bit too aware that she's goodly and shiny, and that she's to carry on a goodly shiny legacy, and she doesn't really notice the flaws in said legacy.

But I'm wondering now - am I really giving her complexity or am I subconsciously bashing her? You, dear reader, might have picked up from the above that I'm not all that fond of Eilistraee, at least not anymore, and meanwhile I'm unreasonably fond of Vhaeraun and Selvetarm. This is exacerbated by the fact that Veldrin and Tarlyn, who are their respective reincarnations in Remembered Realms, aren't that evil at all. Veldrin is a prat on occasion but nothing on the level of attempted patricide et al, while Tarlyn is far better-adjusted since he never had the defining "over-the-edge" incident that Selvetarm did (demon lords are in short supply in the current Remembered Realms timeline).

When I compare this to what I'm intending to do to Mayae I can't help but wonder if this is just the fangirl in me using a virtual AU as an excuse to bash one and whitewash the other.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I think what you're planning to do sounds quite reasonable. From your brief description, Mayae has a decent chance of being complex in the good sense - flawed yet still perfectly likeable. And so far I definitely like what you're doing with the whole story, so.

(I don't actually know if you were asking for feedback or not, but I figured I'd say something just in case...)

[tobykikami.livejournal.com]

Hi there! And thanks. When I posted it I wasn't really expecting a response other than what talking to myself usually gets me, but I certainly appreciate responses like yours when I get them.

(And you're a reader of Remembered Realms? I appreciate that too!)

[kizie.livejournal.com]

That makes a lot of sense, which isn't really a surprise but still.

(And yeah, I really love it so far! I actually just left a review, which I'd been meaning to do for a while. Finally got around to it.)

(This is "anonymous" logged in, though I'm sure you figured that out.)