Thinking of Nano
Oct. 9th, 2009 08:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaitou So, I've been trying to gear up for Nano. I decided that I was not going to do what I do every year...which is to ask everyone's advice about what to write, and then turn around and ignore the valuable opinions. So, the votes said Bronzepunk and I hunkered down to work on my Bronzepunk plot. I've been reviewing the passages I underlined, highlighted or tabbed in my research books like 'The Science of Leonardo,' 'Ancient Inventions,' and 'Travel in the Ancient World.' And I got a book called 'The Rise and Fall of Alexandria' which has been really good.
The thing is....there was a little aside in one of the early chapters of the Alexandria book. It talked about a story where one day Alexander walked into his throne room to find a criminal sitting on the throne. And how modern research thinks that that story is actually true. They found a Babylonian ritual where, when there was a bad omen surrounding the king, they would take a criminal and stick him on the throne. This would absorb the king's bad luck so that it couldn't fall on the king or the state. Then, once the omen had passed, they'd execute the criminal who would take that bad luck to the grave.
I started thinking how, if I were the criminal, I'd do as much as possible to extend the bad omen, and therefore my existence. And then I didn't think about it much after that. Or at least, I didn't mean to. But the more I tried to think about the Bronzepunk one, the more and more I started thinking about the Scapegoat/Bad Luck Charm one. And I think this is the one I'm going to go with. I still need to finalize the plot...it would be very easy to whip up a boilerplate fantasy to go with it, but I'd like to see if I can't give it a little more of a twist. But the characters, setting and plot elements are falling into place nicely.
The thing is....there was a little aside in one of the early chapters of the Alexandria book. It talked about a story where one day Alexander walked into his throne room to find a criminal sitting on the throne. And how modern research thinks that that story is actually true. They found a Babylonian ritual where, when there was a bad omen surrounding the king, they would take a criminal and stick him on the throne. This would absorb the king's bad luck so that it couldn't fall on the king or the state. Then, once the omen had passed, they'd execute the criminal who would take that bad luck to the grave.
I started thinking how, if I were the criminal, I'd do as much as possible to extend the bad omen, and therefore my existence. And then I didn't think about it much after that. Or at least, I didn't mean to. But the more I tried to think about the Bronzepunk one, the more and more I started thinking about the Scapegoat/Bad Luck Charm one. And I think this is the one I'm going to go with. I still need to finalize the plot...it would be very easy to whip up a boilerplate fantasy to go with it, but I'd like to see if I can't give it a little more of a twist. But the characters, setting and plot elements are falling into place nicely.
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Date: 2009-10-09 01:16 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-10-09 03:31 pm (UTC)It sounds like what happened was that there were all kinds of bad omens near the end of Alexander's life. The Babylonian section of the empire freaked, and decided to enact the ritual, dressing up the criminal in kingly robes and letting him 'rule' for a time prescribed by the astrologers. Another part of this was that the criminal wasn't allowed to talk.
Alexander returned, found this random guy dressed up as king, who wouldn't talk. The Greeks all freaked out about this terrible omen and killed the guy. The Babylonians assumed this meant that Alexander understood and honored the custom.
I think I'm not actually going to let my criminal guy reign at all, but will have to do all the ceremonial and/or religious tasks. I'm thinking of making the actual king young & mostly under his advisor's thumbs. The criminal guy will go from doing his best to trigger any kind of terrible omen for his own survival to helping the king man up and take control of his kingdom.
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