The Betrayer

Sometimes in a strange fluke my world of imagination and my gaming world cross into each other, in some sort of midsummer strangeness. Usually I keep them separate, if I am given the chance to create a main character for a game it isn't usually any character I created for a story but then sometimes that character forces its way into my story without me realising it.

It's embarrassing for me to say that games sometimes inspire me, usually the world of novels and games are so completely indistinct but that is only a stereotypical view of games as "boy" things, which only involve violence and death. Sometimes the story can touch you just as much.

I can't deny that the game "Valkyrie Profile 2" and it's beautiful environments didn't inspire me for the description of certain places or a certain scenes in my novel. Anything beautiful can inspire you, even the most menial things.

One game I had been playing has forced its way into it's mind. My character, initially took the role of the "good" character, that is every time she was given a right and wrong choice she chose the right option, she freed slaves, preserved sacred relics, saved the lives of children and gave all her money to beggars. She even romanced the somewhat silly male character, doing all the right things.

However my character, had a fatal flaw, the fact that she already had an allegiance to a certain other person, ever since she had seen them she had sworn her life for them. I knew that right from the start, despite my character appearing to be on the side of "good" all the way through, eventually she would betray her friends maybe even resulting in the death of one in order to follow her own selfish ambitions. This would result in all her past deeds being tainted, really my character would have been "evil" all along. I knew that she would do anything to preserve the life of that wicked person.

However I don't want to call her evil, there were certain aspects which led her to this decision. (You may laugh at me for creating such deep motives for just a game but really, everything I do character wise is serious). One was that under the past political regime, she had been torn from her family to live in a school. She had stated once to another character that she loved her mother but never showed her true feelings in front of the high ranking men of the school, always being respectful and obedient. Therefore she had no loyalty to the monarchy or their bloodline but does care about those marginal groups of society.

Secondly, incitially when she responded to a characters advances she did so relutantly. Eventually she felt forced into the relationship out of duty, felt for a time as if she truly loved them as well because of the dynamic of fighting together and looking out for one another. Eventually however, she grew sick of the character and wanted to escape from that relationship but felt she could not do so at the present time as all eyes of the world were on her. Her eye began to wander on other men, deperate to escape from the shackles of this relationship and her own self-loathing.

Thirdly, deposed of a father figure at a young figure, she is somewhat drawn to men of authority and this is what caused her sickness of her lover, who possesses no leadership skills or self-pride what-so-ever.

This story of my character who appears good but is at heart willing to destroy everything she has created for one person has translated itself into my work. The story is similar of that of other women of legend like Helen and Deidre, Alicia betrays her husband to allow her lover to take the throne of a certain country. He however attempts to woo someone else in order to further his ambitions, so she believes all her betrayal leds to naught. She and Naoise eventually become lovers but this eventually leds to the destruction of both countries.

Just a little view into my world at the moment.