Nevertheless, a passive male is what you got. As for the goddess? She's just childish, and doesn't even remotely seem divine to me. Reminds me a bit of Ed Greenwood's and his
Seven Sisters, really.
Well, if you think he is passive, you can do so. I leave this up to the reader's interpretation.
Upon the Goddess I've already received heavy criticism in the German fan-base.
The general critics actually misses the point :
I DIDN'T want to show what YOU think is "divine" or a "Divinity". I wanted to show what I think it could be in this special continent.
This IS no Goddess which is "divine" in ANY way you think she SHOULD be. In fact, she is *very* "natural", human-like. If you think she is "childish", well, at least then I've succeeded in my point transforming your view.
ALL Gods in the continent are very apart from what you think "high fantasy" or even "normal" fantasy is. They are and act very human-like, so to say. You would probably call them not Gods, but rather demi-gods, but from my point o view you just call them this way because youir view is limited - limited on a cliché how Gods should be.
I won't say that I'm a perfect or even good writer. I am proud of some stories, but only because I write them for me, witrh my heart, and therefore they are appealing to me. The Adorant is currently my favourite one (apart from the love story).
I think I must stress this - I like the story because it's written the way I like it - and no-ne else. To me, even the Adorant isn't really that passive, apart from the fact that he does only talk and doesn't perform any actions. My story consists entirely of two "people" sitting together on two chairs and talking nothing more. No actions required. Only talk. And where there is no action involved, I can concentrate on what I really want to say, o express, and I still think I've made a fairly good job out of this, as I intended it.
Another aspect / intention of my story always was to show just another Goddess of the Continent - and therefore shopw how much diversity there actually is - even among Gods.
They don't have "divine powers" as you traditionally might know or expect, they are immortal, but apart from that they can be weak, they can forget, they have memories, god ones and bad ones. One Goddess was even after the "Great War" (an element I admit I borrowed from Tolkien) so weak that she needed milliennia to recover. She is a very special case : I modelled her partly after the sorceress Shakti from the game Sacrifice, and that means she "lives" in a shell that looks like a giant, but yet beatuful insect. She did so, to recover, and she helped so much in the "healing" after the "Great War", that she was simply exhaused. I've written a small story around her, explaining that. On the Continent, she is the Goddess of Love, Dance and so on, more or less.
I've already translated the precessor of The Adorant, and I think I should put it online to clarify my very own view of the Continent and its inhbitants. What's actually shown in the Adorant story is nothing but a small glimpse of a remote town which is not typical for the Continent.
I've written more in German than I want to translate, because it needs time. If you are capable of German, I can send you the rest, if you wish so (and especially if you have some kind of translator program <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> ) .
Alrik.
