> Laws raises the point that the characters in stories do not really
"improve" over time.
>
> Let's put LoTR in Heroquest terms. Frodo dodges the Ringwraith not
because of some super-huge bonus provided by the Ring, but because at
this point in the story his "Hide" ability of 17 was more than enough to
overcome the moderate challenge that Laws' rules led the Narrator to set.
>
If you're going to invoke storytelling, fights in most stories aren't about power, or tactics, or blow for blow exchanges. They're about consequences, personal decisions, *character* development. The fighting is seldom an end in itself: its often merely a necessary afterthought. Of course characters will change over a lifetime - knowledge and wealth and power generally increase, physical skills decrease, and doing things becomes less important than having others do things for you. But that's not the point. And your Frodo example is even more misleading ... While wraiths never do much more than glower menacingly, the encounter is about appreciating the terror and reality of Mordor and as a baptism of life beyond the Shire. It's about Frodo **growing up**.
John
John Hughes
nysalor_at_...
Questlines: http://mythologic.info/questlines/
Mytheme gallery: http://mythologic.info/mytheme/
There was a muddy centre before we breathed.
There was a myth before the myth began,
Venerable and articulate and complete.
From this the poem springs: that we live in a place
that is not our own, and much more, not ourselves.
And hard it is in spite of blazoned days.
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