Character Profiles

Character Profile – Zarlak

Kris Takahashi Character Profiles No Comments

Bathroom Graffiti

I like to romanticize things. Old things, dirty things. Stuff like cheap motels, truck stop diners, and of course, bathroom graffiti. In some ways bathroom art is the message board of yore, a place where you can connect with a stranger by touching your butt to the same porcelain. Yet for some, it’s romantic in a different way – an age old forum where truth and lies fight for purchase on walls of slippery tile.

Here in this church of the damned, you’ll find pithy quotes. Fake phone numbers. And of course, penis drawings. I imagine in some distant future when mankind is all but extinct, some alien race will descend into urine-soaked catacombs and decipher these ancient paintings, these grand musings of our collective subconscious.

While I can’t speak for the aliens, bathroom graffiti appeals to me because I’m a middle class intellectual. While I can break down the calculus of a good joke, give me an actual math problem and I will hang myself with my own nervous system. Graffiti is more my speed.

When you live life in the slow lane, sometimes it’s hard to grow up. The middle class intellectual is a perpetual 14 year old, just out of the kiddie pool and finding everything is DEEP on the other end. He’ll sample some philosophy, tell you the wise man knows nothing, and pretty soon establish to everyone he’s the wisest motherfucker in the room.

graffiti

Still, whether your muse is Socrates of Athens or Kenobi of Tatooine, you can’t go wrong by taking the position of ignorance. The world is too diverse to be defined by a single dogma. Not even the theory of relativity can escape the quantum chaos, scribbled in fine print. For every commandment there’s a contradiction, and for every moral code an exception.

Even the statement Only a Sith deals in absolutes is itself an absolute. Shit man, a lot of people deal in absolutes. Sith Lords, Jedis, and Greybeards.

Zarlak is the counter-argument to the Greybeards’ do-nothing pacifism. While he wears the philosopher’s hat, at its heart his words are as simple as bathroom graffiti. Like any normal person, he thinks standing by and letting Alduin eat the world is fucking stupid.

Although his philosophy is similar to every NRA slogan ever, Zarlak is not a gun nut, arming teachers with AK-47s and putting grenades in every lunch box. Zarlak believes violence is a dangerous tool that one can learn to wield through training, discipline, and a strong moral conscience. He urges the Dragonborn to use the voice not as a weapon of war, but one that will bring peace.

And yet for all his wisdom, Zarlak himself falls victim to his own absolutes. There is no guarantee that the disciples he chooses will use their power responsibly. Moreover, actions made in the name of good intentions can result in unintended consequences. Zarlak’s refusal to teach his son magic led to him joining the Radiant Dark. And depending on your choices, his method of condemnation makes one wonder if the Greybeards weren’t right all along.

That’s the poker game we call life. Every deck is different, every player is different, and we can only see the cards in our hands. Even for the wisest among us, there is no guarantee that a good process – let alone the optimal one – will yield good results.

So I think Obi-Wan Socrates had that one right – in life, there’s never going to be absolute certainty. Still, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. As a middle class thinker, I don’t know if my ignorance is wise or dumb, but I like the fact that life’s answers are far too big, random, painful and wondrous to fit on any bathroom stall.

Character Profile – Rumarin

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I’ve long suspected life was a joke.

It’s a looooong one, and not all of you will find it funny. You might even think the joke is backwards, that the setup is funnier than the punchline – here we are, a species descended from monkeys who came from fish who started out as slime.

Hey Earl, I really hate our boss, he’s a real piece of slime.
Shut up Frank, my ancestor was slime.

Sometimes the joke is more amusing than funny. We live in a world where manufactured idols are flying private jets to the top of the charts while someone charming, likable, and genuine has to dig through trash cans to scrape the bottom – or to use another analogy, to get a seat at the big kid table.

Other times the joke is just depressing. There are scores of men born brown of skin and eye toiling in the fields right now, while the fruits of their labor are sold for more cash than they’ll earn in a lifetime. The laughter becomes a coping mechanism, a way to deal with the fact that life is bleak and unfair and there’s nothing you can or will do to change it. You’re not going to stop eating chocolate, and I’m not going to stop, and we’ll propose to each other with our blood diamonds wearing our sweatshop clothes and texting the news with our electronics crafted by the corpses of suicide jumpers. And everyone will profit save the people who deserve it.

And yet even the cynics can’t take refuge in nihilism, because the joke is life is getting better for everyone, slowly and inexorably, through the power of information and technology. Just the fact that we can spread awareness of the ills of society is a step in the right direction. The fact that a reporter can hand a cocoa bean farmer a Kit-Kat and light up their day is the best thing ever.

It’s also the worst thing ever too, because he’ll likely never taste it again. Like the slime who became a man, evolution is measured by the Byr, and the joke is you can plan for the future all you want, there’s no guarantee it will be there when you arrive. Idealism is winning a war that may never end. And that gives everyone a reason to laugh, because the reality is too painful to cry.

Of all the characters in the mod, I’d say Rumarin is one of the most self-aware. He understands that life is a joke, and that the only thing he has to cope with the horrible, depressing, unfairness of it all is to not take it so seriously. In some ways this makes him a coward, afraid to take a stand. When all you want to do is enjoy yourself and have another laugh, it can come off as indifference.

In some respects though, laughter is what we need. It’s the antidote for having to pick from a pair of toxic choices. It’s a reminder that the results will never make sense, and the only way to live with them is to realize that it’s all a joke. Laugh until it hurts, laugh because it hurts. Laugh because it’s the one thing they can never take away from us.

And so he’ll let you pick a side in the Civil War, kill the dragons, or save this world to doom the next one, and he’ll do it all with a shrug and a smile. At no point does Rumarin concern himself with the results or the numbers. His role is to support you no matter what you choose. He’s there to remind you that regardless of whether your decisions are good, bad, or sad, we’re all just slime in the end.

Character Profile – Erevan

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“Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose, And nothin’ was all that Bobby left me.”

It’s my favorite line in a Joplin song, and not just because it was written by Kris Kristofferson, the Krissiest Kris who ever did Kris (with apologies to Kris Kross).

I like it because it’s about the paradox of freedom. Having nothing to tie you down – whether it be worldly possessions, responsibilities, or a reputation to live up to – is something that is indeed liberating. Hell, the very concept of “freedom,” regardless of the context, is a state we generally consider positive. Freedom? Why yes, I’ll have some of that.  What do you mean there’s a catch?

I was working the Gulf of Mexico on oil rigs, flying helicopters. I’d lost my family to my years of failing as a songwriter. All I had were bills, child support, and grief. And I was about to get fired for not letting 24 hours go between the throttle and the bottle. It looked like I’d trashed my act. But there was something liberating about it. By not having to live up to people’s expectations, I was somehow free.

Sure, freedom’s cool, but you know what’s better? Having something to lose. Not acting like an irresponsible shitbird because you actually care if things go wrong. In life, whether it’s true love or a closet full of limited edition Pokemon figurines, there are things you fought to build and things you’ll die to keep. Nothing to lose? Fuck that shit.  I’ll trade you a thousand free tomorrows for one more day with a ball and chain.

Of course, there’s a balance that needs to be struck. Having everything to lose – living a life full of pressure and expectation – isn’t something that I’d consider ideal either. The fishbowl life that celebrities live would be nothing short of a nightmare. When your entire life’s work can be blown up by a single, unsubstantiated rumor, it makes you wonder if you’re better off having nothing and being no one.

And that makes me think of Erevan. His story is not unlike that of a modern day celebrity, wrongly accused but casually convicted by millions of jurors making small talk at the coffee house, the barbershop, the tavern and the dinner table. He was a knight who lived to be perfect and welcomed all the expectations that came with.

And like the old songwriter, when he lost everything he gained his freedom. He’s no longer a prisoner to perfection. As a nameless, wandering knight, he has an opportunity to be the architect of his future. But is that something he considers a positive change? Tomorrow may seem boundless, but part of me wonders if he longs for one more yesterday.