Sunday, November 7, 2010

New Sages

Come on, Robert (Guardian), I was hoping that the month of November would be mostly bereft of major Slendy events, so I’d have the time to keep up with NaNoWriMo. Then you dropped this bombshell. And on top of that, we’ve got the HYBRIDs going to Centralia, the Rake (?) attacking Alex, Michirui kidnapping Chase, Willow being attacked, and Nightcrawler killing people in the name of JUSTICE. If it weren’t my love of suicide by writing, I’d be going insane trying to keep up with all of that+NaNo+school.

Robert (Guardian) has named the three new sages. They are zerombr (A hint of serendipity), Maduin (A Really Bad Joke) and Amelia (Road to the Heavens). As always, links to the blogs will be provided at the end of the post.
At this time, I’d like to strut around with my chest puffed up, because when I said I was following possible candidates for the role of (Sage), zerombr and Maduin were two of my predictions. I wasn’t sure about the third; I thought it might be Jackson from Searching For Angels, as he is a paranormal investigator, but I now realize that the lack of any communication between him and Robert (Guardian) would disqualify him from that role.

For those who haven’t been reading White Elephants, I should explain what Robert (Guardian)’s theory was (or at least, what I interpreted it to be). This is my favorite theory about Slendy, mostly because it goes with my love of stories. According to Robert (Guardian), every culture has a monster. This monster is given strength and form through belief in it, and the myths surrounding it. One example would be Der Ritter, who was the monster from Germany. These monsters go about doing their monster things, in accordance with the legends which both constrict and strengthen them, until a (Hero) arises and defeats the monster.

Slender Man is our monster, although whether he is born from American culture, or the culture of the internet, I can’t say for certain. He gains strength and rules from the stories which we tell about him, though he is much more flexible than the monsters of other cultures; he is still young enough that the stories haven’t yet pinned down an exact set of rules which he must follow. The beauty of this theory is how it connects to Slender Man’s belief based existence, as well as humans’ tendency to create stories. If Slender Man is created from our stories, how do we stop him? By playing out the story. The story of an unstoppable monster appearing and terrorizing a people, only to be stopped by a single person who stands up against it wielding a powerful weapon, is almost totally prevalent across global cultures. In hindsight, I’m amazed no one noticed this before Robert (Guardian); Slender Man is just another retelling of a classical boogeyman tale, where we attribute all the things we fear to a monstrous entity. And like every legend about a boogeyman, dragon, Der Ritter, or other monster, it will eventually end with the monster conquered.

In this story setting, Robert (Guardian) assigned each of the players a role within the greater legend. Thus far, the roles he named and gave importance to are (Sage), (Mystic), (Hermit), (Warrior), (Guardian), and (Hero).

Sage: (Going with Robert’s artful explanation for this) ”There's a dark jungle next to the village. People who go into it never return. The villagers fear the jungle. Then one day a man with a torch goes in, the villagers scream at him to not, but he does anyway. He returns the next night, crawling back, bleeding to death, claw marks on his back. With his last breath he says 'Within the Jungle lives a Tiger, who is twelve feet long, obsidian claws, and has fire in its eyes...but it is just a Tiger and it bleeds.' After that he dies. The villagers no longer fear the jungle after that day. Oh, it's still scary and they take precautions from the huge Tiger...but it's just a Tiger. No longer is it Unknown or Shadows, perhaps one day someone will go and kill the Tiger...but there is no need for pointless fear.

Mystic: Zeke Strahm (Seeking Truth). ”The Mystic can equal to -Veteran.- Mystic has fought, stores the knowledge of the past, and continues to give support when possible.”

Hermit: M (The Tutorial) ”The Hermit lives by himself, has developed methods to survive, and is willing to pass on instructions, but has his own priorities, and odds are will not fight as opposed to run.”

Warrior: None yet ”Brave, Bold, Stupid in that headstrong way, Fights for the sake of the fight, Fights without fear, Only fights on This Side, Can push /Construct/ back to Other Side for a while, cannot beat it. A stop gap, and if they become an /Agent/ then there's going to be a lot of trouble.”

Guardian: Robert ”Calm, controlled with knowledge, FIghts for others BUT will have nothing left on This Side, FIghts on Other Side, Stays on Other Side and keep Him there for a much longer time, will return when the Vigil is over, or if a Hero emerges.”

Hero: None yet ”Afraid but pushes on, Foolish but gains wisdom from Sages and Mystics, Fights for those who are important to him, Fights on both This Side and Other Side Only a Hero can kill a monster...but the Hero always dies at the end of the story.”


Robert (Guardian) also referred to Sandra from H(a)unting as (Oracle), though I can’t find any quotes on his blog where he fully explained that role. The HYBRIDs were also called (Champions), again with no quotable explanation. I think both of those are fairly self-explanatory, especially after the HYBRIDs attempts to fight back against Slendy.


For the story to be completed, we need to fill the (Warrior) and (Hero) roles. Who the (Hero) will be, I haven’t the slightest clue. There was some discussion about it being M if he were to ever stop running, but he’s been out of contact even longer than Shaun. As for (Warrior), I’ve got some ideas. Evan (EverymanHYBRID) has the fighting spirit, and the desire to kill Slendy, but his sanity may be somewhat in question, since he’s been the most obviously affected by Slendy so far. Nightcrawler (Observe and Terminate) has the resources and skills to fight back, but right now his priorities seem to be more on killing Runners than protecting them. There’s also Joker (The Master Laughs), who’s an interesting case. If he were to ever decide to change sides, he’d make a perfect (Warrior). As it stands, he’s currently working for, not against Slendy. What’s interesting about it is that he doesn’t seem to be a Slenderproxy. He acts more like a guy who just happens to be working for Slender Man because it amuses him, without any binding loyalties to Tall Dark and Faceless.

Or maybe the (Warrior) and (Hero) are people who haven’t entered the game yet. Perhaps Slendy will pick a victim who ends up being a bit more than he can handle, having the right combination of traits to be either a (Warrior) or (Hero). As knowledge of Slendy spreads, his victims are becoming more aggressive against him; it likely won’t be long before someone else stands up to fight back. Then at last the story ends; the monster is slain, and put back into our minds, where he belongs.

Useful Links
A hint of serendipity: http://despairpalesbeforeme.blogspot.com/
A Really Bad Joke: http://worstjestever.blogspot.com/
Road to the Heavens: http://weavethecauseway.blogspot.com/

P.S.
Never introduce your friends to Slender Man. Not because they’ll become hunted by him. But because whenever you post something like, “Trees are trying to kill me. Freakin' huge branch snapped off one and nearly fell on my head while I was running.” as a Facebook status, you’ll find your comment consist of operator symbols and people claiming Slendy’s out to get you. Which isn’t something I need to be thinking about while I’m running, since my morning runs tend to go through forests, usually before the sun has risen.

15 comments:

  1. Dear Omega, in true (Sage) fashion I think you deserve a Title yourself, so, since I am now empowered to do so (apparently, anyway), I will call you Omega(Scribe) from here on.

    And since I have been passed on this responsibility, I think I'll find more use for a good scribe ;)
    Namely, you say about people called "Michirui" and "Chase" whom I wasn't aware of much and "Searching for Angels" which I have not read.

    Could you post relevant links, please?

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  2. Michiru and Chase are from the Stopping Lights story; there's a lot of links involved in it, since it's currently following four different characters, spread over one blog, four tumblr accounts, three youtube accounts, and two twitter accounts. Here's the basic links:
    http://stoppingslights.blogspot.com/
    http://stoppinglights.tumblr.com/
    http://michiru51.tumblr.com/
    http://mymasterandhisjoker.tumblr.com/
    http://willowoakington.tumblr.com/


    And here's Searching for Angels: http://eyespie.wordpress.com/

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  3. Thinking of Slender Man is a boggart makes him seem a bit less scary. Not sure if I should thank you for that or not.

    If (Warrior) and (Hero) were people who haven't entered the fray yet I wouldn't be surprised. Often in stories of this kind the (Hero) doesn't make himself known until close to the end. I should probably read White Elephants, since I'm just slightly lost here and had to read that post twice to fully comprehend it.

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  5. A wiki would be helpful for organizing information, though we may have to deal with edit wars between people debating Slendy's attributes. And I'm too crunched for time right now to be able to set up one, or do much work on one.

    I'm just repeating Robert (Guardian)'s definition of (Hero). Whether or not the Hero will die at the end of this story is yet to be seen.
    And Superman has died a few times. He just always got better in.

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  6. a slender wiki, that's good and very very bad. It could aid in sending more people on the run....

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  7. Would it be possible to make it password protected? Could send a passphrase out to only those who are already involved and anyone who's just started to see the Construct. Would make a good central hub for participants to chat in too.

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  8. I don't know the mechanics behind making a wiki, so I can't say whether they can be made password protected or not. Anyone here with more wiki-magic experience?

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  9. Bloody hell, accidentally deleted my comment

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  10. Well, I know that there are wikis (like Wikipedia itself) that require accounts. It'd probably almost be easier to only approve certain accounts.

    Of course, I know nothing about wikis either, really.

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  11. I know that some wikis have requirements to have accounts to edit, like The Other Wiki (though that is sometimes on an individual page basis, with pages often targeted or otherwise important protected; see the UESPwiki for an example).

    Pages can also be set to only be edited by people with certain permissions. As for password protected, I haven't heard anything about that. But I know Captchas can be set and even tailored so that beyond a certain time period, users don't have to Captcha anymore.

    Obviously not a fool-proof method to stop edit wars and vandalism, but a good and active admin staff/patrolling staff (and I say staff lightly - it would have to be volunteer work) could do the job pretty well. (Again see UESP).

    However, I think Slendy is just too subjective and too narrow to create a really good wiki about.

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  12. Meh... It's a bit late for that, but I'd like to do a little rant on that one to set some things straight that get portrayed wrongly often in the Core theory.
    Robert always assumed that there is ONE big construct of every culture. But that is not true. Lets take Germany as an example... I'm sure there is even more, but apart from devils, we also had the Spiritus Familiaris, a malevolent, spider/scorpiolike being in a bottle, which only could be obtained via buying it for one coin less than it was bought before. It brought luck to its owner, but when the owner died without selling it before, it would drag them down to hell with it. Then there where the Alps, incidentally a Mythos kind of akin to the Slender Man. There where rumors that said that everyone could be or become an Alp, even animals. Others said they came from afar or another plane. They produced nightmares in every being they possessed at night, and they could even be deadly for all I know, draining a person of nice dreams and therefore of recovery through sleep until there minds almost fell apart. Then there was the Piper of Hamelin, who was said to have appeared in more than only one town, abducting all the children. Also we had evil dwarfs. And the Fair Folk.
    Der Ritter however is a creature I never heard of before. And I'm quite legend-savvy.
    If you're going for single constructs, we had beings like Loki and the Midgard snake. And in our greatest legend: The dragon that was slain by Siegfried. So that doesn't count either.

    I don't say that this makes Roberts theory less true. The Fair Folk seemed to gradually disappear when people slowly stopped believing in them - maybe a similar effect. But, and this is important: He certainly made a mistake about assuming there were only one construct per culture. America even has got its own construct already: The wendigo. Which brings me to the conclusion that either there is a kind of pool of belief-energy that can be divided to feed many different beings or one at a time - or there simply is no limit to how much malevolent cunstructs you build. Which means: There can be even greater Evils lurking around your corner.
    [/rant]

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  13. The reason you've never heard of Der Ritter before is because it was created as part of the Mythos. Someone took an old German woodcut, did some photoshop to it, gave it the name "Der Ritter", and viola, we have a new facet of the Mythos. It's one of my least favorite parts of the Mythos, since the fact that you can disprove its existence with only a few seconds of searching online really messes with my suspension of disbelief.

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  14. Actually, that's not as bad as it sounds, since the core part of the Mythos is that Slender Man somehow exists and feeds on your fear of him. Being made up by someone doesn't affect his existance at all. So you will never be certain if he really exists and that's the unnerving part about it.

    While I knew that the woodcuts were shopped, it annoyed me that people, from all possible options, chose Der Ritter as Teh German Construct(tm). It's okay for me to say that he'd be mythologic creature that was buried among other stories for a long time. There are quite a lot of creatures like that (talk about Spiritus Familiaris in Germany and you'll only get a blank stare from that). But claim it to be the most important antagonist of German legends went a bit too far for my taste.

    By the way, I really enjoy your blog. I might should say that before you think all I can do is whine. :3

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  15. ha!!sages!?!u think theyll do anygood aganst the tall one?!?! he will destroy them without any info to destroy him!u dont know who he is or what he is!i bet u dont even know where he nests!

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