On the topic of protagonists ( and the place of guns in a fantasy setting )

This post might probably belong in the characterisation forum, but the reason I’m posting it here is because the choice literally affects how the setting should be. I originally thought of a world completely devoid of humans, while a non-human, mythical creature would be the protagonist. But then a friend of mine told me that I’d need a relatively more mundane character as protagonist in order to explore the world and it’s intricacies. To quote, "it immediately gives the audience someone to connect to, and lets them explore the world alongside the protagonist", and I can see her point. But I'm kinda torn here, because:

On the one hand, I can take the tried and true formula; make the protag human (-ish, as a member of a witch species.), and introduce more interesting, non human side characters. As a downside, this would mean that I'd have to change the history of the setting significantly to accommodate their existence. But on the plus side, I could make the protag an underdog - everybody likes the underdog.

And on the other hand, I can take the (kind of?) novel approach; make the protag a non-human character, let there be no humans in the present day at all. It'd be unique to see the world from their view, but I feel it would be kind of hard to lay down some exposition, seeing as the protag is a mythic, and many things about the setting that need to be explained to the audience wouldn't have to be explained to the protag. And then there's the question of what creature the protag should be.

As for the other topic - guns. I really, really want guns in my setting ( Think something along the lines of Destiny's Hand Cannons ). But in this setting, where magic is commonplace, warriors are more likely to toss around fireballs, and those that want to be more practical use bows, arrows and crossbows imbued with magic. And on top that, they'll have the ability to reinforce their bodies via magic. I've gotten around the problem of guns being overpowered by making them energy weapons, but I still need a way for them to be seen as impractical for most people to use - useful, to be sure, but still impractical enough that most warriors scoff at anyone using them.

Edited by Sebastian987 on Aug 5th 2018 at 1:57:41 AM

Two things.

First off, keep in mind Sanderson's Rules of Magic. Always associated costs and limitations to magic. TANSTAFL after all.

Second, what do you gain from a non-human setting?

Dude, fiction is chock full of non human protags and settings. Its not that unusual. Its entirely possible for a the audience to enjoy the point of view of a nonhuman character, provided the character is written with a few personality characteristics that they can identify with. As for guns, its straight up Rule of Cool. You dont have to explain anything, as long as its fun to read.

Regarding guns, a few thoughts:

While guns are likely easier to use than bows and arrows, they might be less reliable. For one thing, a gun might be a more complex machine than a bow, and thus may be more likely to break or jam (or suffer some equivalent to jamming appropriate to the weapon in question). It may also be less likely that the wielder knows how to repair any malfunctions.

Ammunition might also be a problem: while an archer with access to the appropriate materials might be capable of fletching some arrows, and perhaps even applying their own enchantments, they might not be able to do the same for guns—especially energy weapons. Perhaps ammunition/refills/recharging are available only from specialised dealers, who are few and far between, and possibly expensive.

Taking that further, guns might not have replaceable ammunition: it may be that once they're expended, they're essentially useless—perhaps the process even renders the material of which the guns are made unsuitable for reworking into a new gun.

Finally, guns might have a shorter range or be less accurate than bows (presuming a trained archer, of course).

@De Marquis

To your first point, Conservation of Detail. If this is a visual medium then there's no problem. The artist just thinks non-human subjects look better than human subjects. If this is a written piece then people are going to wonder why there aren't any humans.

To the second point, Rule of Cool merely covers up issues with a setting and doesn't work too well with a written medium. Moreover, a setting that rationalizes Rule of Cool tends to make the Cool...Cooler.

Take this setting in particular. You could have guns sitting around inexplicably. OR, you could have the gunslinger pack spells into every bullet as a way of compensating for his low mana capacity. However, this also means that mana capacity is a major limitation for mages.

Suddenly, the character has more characterization, being Weak, but Skilled and using an unusual method of punching over his/her weight.

Edited by Belisaurius on Aug 5th 2018 at 4:40:49 AM

There is no shortage of non-human protagonists in written media either. Just google "xenofiction" for plenty of examples and technical discussion.

As for the guns, sure. Rule of Cool applies to both characters and setting, and should be both carefully described and internally consistent. The poster child exemplar is probably "Snowcrash", but theres lots of other examples. But there doesnt necessarily need to be a highly detailed explanation of why magic and technology coexist in the world. Maybe no one in-universe knows why. They just do.

@De Marquis Ah, but again you miss the point. In just about every case there's something to be gained for using non-humans. For example, in Redwall, Moles are expert diggers and Otters are expert fishers. In Animal Farm the entire point was contrasting humans and non-humans. With Planet of the Apes it's to clearly define Insiders from Outsiders.

In every successful case there's a point to non-human characters, allowing the author to do something he/she couldn't do otherwise or enhancing the effect of something. You never want to throw in details like that for no reason.

From his question, that doesnt seem to be Sebastian's issue. Someone advised him to use a human protag because that would give the audience someone to relate to. My point was that readers generally have no problem relating to non human characters. Of course, there should be some sort of thematic point to using non-human characters. Its fair to point out, on the other hand, that that is true of any type character whatsoever. Seb stated that he wanted to write from a unique point of view, but he didnt go into any detail.

Edited by DeMarquis on Aug 6th 2018 at 12:21:32 PM

Yes, my question wasn't sarcasm. I honestly wanted his reasoning.

Three things make the Empire great: faith, steel, and gunpowder!

@ De Marquis um...when I said "it'd be unique to see the world from their view", that might have been poor wording on my part. What I meant was that it'd be interesting to see a world from the eyes of mythical creatures, a world that their forefathers used to talk about all the time in fairytales, and where humans, ironically, are the ones that are the stuff of legend... seeing as the setting is post-apocalyptic and normal humans are gone. I was kicking myself for not mentioning that bit earlier, sorry. But in light of what you said about Xenofiction, I think I can stop worrying about the protag being relatable or not. Thanks!

As for my reason for using non-human characters...well, diversity, I guess. I've already got a set of races to use for the setting, as well as other creatures - it'll be a bit like Final Fantasy and D&D.

And that brings me to to the guns. Looking at what @ Ars Thaumaturgis and @ Belisaurius have said about them, I've come up with some lore:

Guns were originally a human weapon that historically succeeded crossbows, using metal projectiles known as bullets. Mythic militaries of various territories adopted them, but quickly found that with magic reinforced skin, the bullets flattened themselves with nary a bruise on the target. Making matters worse, it was difficult and time consuming to imbue bullets with magical properties ( at best, it took five minutes for each one ), and the enchantments slowly faded in power over time ( commonly over the course of hours ).

In comparison, arrows and crossbow bolts could hold their enchantments for far longer ( months ), and were easier to imbue due to being wood with metal tips. As a result, guns were promptly discarded in favor of bows and crossbows. Older is Better at work.

But some soldiers as well as blacksmiths saw their potential, and developed them into energy weapons, and then, into Regalias - items that were magically linked to their user. This, coupled with the introduction of "cores" ( basically mana absorption-capable batteries shaped like magazines and revolver cylinders, that allowed for compression of mana into bullets ) made guns a viable weapon to have, if a tad bit expensive.

The downside, though, is that being Regalias, the weapons would be useless to anyone else aside from their owner, even after the death of the aforementioned. It's why most warriors have only melee weapons, with guns generally being seen as for "weaklings", showoffs, or enthusiasts.

Edited by Sebastian987 on Aug 7th 2018 at 12:59:12 PM

"...it'd be interesting to see a world from the eyes of mythical creatures, a world that their forefathers used to talk about all the time in fairytales, and where humans, ironically, are the ones that are the stuff of legend... seeing as the setting is post-apocalyptic and normal humans are gone."

So the first question that comes to mind immediately is "Why did the humans die out?" (And, conversely, why did the mythical creatures survive?) Narratively speaking, the most satisfying answer is that the mythical creatures possessed some positive quality that the humans lacked, and this led to their demise. Now, it isnt necessary to explain this clearly to the reader, but whatever the reason was, you the author should decide for yourself, and make sure to include this quality into your characters and the setting. That way, you have an overall "background theme" which unifies the setting and justifies your use of non human characters. "Adventure Time" (great show) is probably the poster child for this sort of thing.

Wait, how is Adventure Time the poster child for that?

The humans were responsible for the destruction of Ooo, because of a war they fought that resulted in armegeddon. That's why there are so few human characters around (Finn was the only one for many seasons). This, at the very least, makes the humans war-like. The human characters in the show are non-magical, and tend to be the edgiest ones, whose purpose in the overall story is to introduce more serious themes. Most of the darker stuff that goes on in the world of Ooo is the result of something humans did.

Everything else is the result of magic (which the humans also introduced). Its complicated, but overall makes a coherent and consistent setting.

@Sebastian 987: I like the gun lore. In the real life guns vs. armor clash that came about in early modern warfare, guns won because they advanced to the point that armor strong enough to stop a bullet became impractical. What you're saying sounds like magical armor was able to reverse the outcome, so it makes sense.

One thing you haven't explained yet. Why were bullets so resistant against enchantments?

It's interesting to note that in fiction where magic and guns coexist, it's been the opposite way around: Guns end up being superior because either they or the bullets are made out of iron, which is typically harmful to the fae of western or European folklore.

As in, the fae probably couldn't go around toting those particular weapons themselves, and humans would at least be able to match them in that area. Now, there's other mythical creatures out there that I don't think make much mentions of being harmed by iron, so that could lead to the interesting development of some of the fantasy creatures have, in fact, whole heartedly adopted the gun specifically to fight the western themed fae.

Also, it seems kind of op if literally anyone can enchant their skin to be too hard for a projectile that travels several miles per hour to penetrate. Maybe the problem here is the magic you've got the every day joe throwing around is too powerful to make a physical conflict with a gun interesting.

Edited by AceofSpades on Aug 19th 2018 at 10:13:38 AM

Yeah, you've got a point there, @shiro_okami. Thing is, in universe, there are varying degrees of how hard something can be to enchant. Wood is the easiest, gemstones are the hardest, and metal lies somewhere in between. To effectively enchant metal, the spellcaster/blacksmith has to do it while the forging process is going on. It's how holy and demonic swords and whatnot keep their mystical properties for longer.

With bullets, the blacksmiths had to go around embueing entire rolls of lead and copper, each with different elemental properties - which can be exhausting and, as I said before, time consuming. And even then, there wasn't any guarantee that the bullets would be all that effective, because a lot of mythic warriors are trained to be agile as well as resilient. Also, body armor, remember?

Speaking of which, about that iron, @Ace of Spades. In this universe, iron gains the fabled anti-magic properties in the hands of humans. Only after it gains those properties is it fit to be called Cold Iron, and it can be effective against any mythic, not just faeries. There's one problem, though.

There are no humans left.

Mythics, of course, have tried to replicate the ability, only to come up with a whole lot of nothing. Why could only humans do this? A mystery for the ages that has been debated by scholars for centuries. Guess humans really were special after all.

And, also, the skin-hardening is supposed to be something that can be done with training. Like, it can be turned on or off, and be kept at different strengths - kept on the down low, so that someone punching you would bruise their knuckles, or made hard enough that a building could fall on you and you wouldn't have a scratch. The latter isn't recommended. Point is, it takes training - lots of it.

Edited by Sebastian987 on Sep 7th 2018 at 7:51:31 AM

Armor stopped being effective long after guns won the Weapon Of Choice of the era of the Age Of Exploration.

The big reason guns and cannon took off despite their problems was economics. It was far easier to build and train people in firearms than it ever was for crossbows or longbows or plate armored knights. And once the bayonet was invented, so went the spear and pike.

Economics went so far in this regard that even basic armor fell away. It was easier (and easier to control) to use brightly colored cloth uniforms than leather armor, chain mail and plate mail ever were. A thousand plate armor heavy cavalry were inefficient and too expensive compared to ten thousand musketmen wearing red coats. (And that ignores things like cannon.)

It helped that guns would reliably put holes in any armor pattern of the era. There were just so many advantages to using them that there quickly was no reason to use anything else.

OP, you could always go the route of making guns pure magic rather than shooting bullets. Your “guns” could just be magic wands with a pistol grip and sights.

Maybe add an extra special gimmick to your combat magic that pegs its users to a higher social class? Like having every soul taken by a magical fireball add to the mage's mana meter, or something along those lines. Alternatively, give it features that expand its usefulness and versatility. Maybe your battle mages don't need to utter a mouthful of incantations or even focus on their target - one snap of the finger and they're on fire. Or maybe they could summon hailstones that slam down from the sky, orbital strike-style, instead of projecting out a fireball in a straight, easy-to-dodge path.

I'm actually taking the opposite approach with my setting, which is at a roughly 16th-17th century tech level. Guns are reasonably common but not much better than contemporary bows, while combat magic is rare and under-developed (except for the Ardoursmiths, who are the human equivalents of a heavy artillery battery). Most of the magic system revolves around deception, space-time manipulation and fast travel via pocket dimensions, since the story is mostly based on espionage and heist and features very little fighting overall.

The main advantage of guns is that it's far easier to train someone in their use. It takes years of training and constant practice to make a competent swordsman or archer. (There's an old English saying: "If you want to train a bowman, start with his grandfather.") However, you can train a peasant to use a gun in a couple of weeks. Furthermore, the gun requires relatively little strength to use. So a consumptive elderly peasant with a gun could kill the greatest swordsman in the land, and do so at a distance, rendering the swordsman's skill moot.

Edited by pwiegle on Sep 23rd 2018 at 3:08:39 PM

And for that reason, there is a socio economic transition element involved.

Indeed, it's the Professional Warrior versus the Citizen Soldier. The former devotes his entire life to training for and waging war, and nothing else. He may even be a member of an elite caste of society, such as the Samurai or the Medieval knights.

The latter is a humble farmer most of the time, but give him a gun and a cause worth fighting for, and he can become an effective combatant. They call the gun "The Great Equalizer" because it levels the playing field.