Dark Lord Cares for Wayward Children
Oct. 18th, 2017 07:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingSomeone left a kind comment on one of my Wind Waker fics a while ago, and last night I finally got around to putting together a reply, in which I wrote...
There is Dark Lord who looks like a huge buff meathead but is actually a powerful wizard. Maybe he's an orc? Or some other sort of monster? Anyway, he lives in a tower in the wastelands of a high fantasy kingdom. There are nothing but ruins (dungeons and such) in this area, but the understanding within the kingdom is that he has taken territory that does not belong to him and is threatening the border. He does have secret nefarious plans (involving elder gods or something of that nature), but really he doesn't care about the kingdom at all and simply sees himself as keeping the peace by providing a sanctuary of sorts for other monsters.
One day a hero comes to slay him, but it turns out that this "hero" is just eleven or twelve years old – and also female. She's somehow managed to get her hands on a magical sword that could technically defeat him, and how it came into her possession is something of a mystery, but she doesn't know how to use it. In any case, it turns out that this girl doesn't have anywhere else to go, so the Dark Lord decides to keep her with him in sort of a Dread Pirate Roberts "I'll most likely kill you in the morning" situation. It goes without saying that the girl is headstrong and a complete savage.
Meanwhile, the Dark Lord is corresponding (via magic? idk) with the reigning adult princess of the kingdom. The princess doesn't particularly see him as a threat, but she also doesn't want her kingdom to have to go to war with him. She fears that this is unavoidable, but she's also trying to put it off as long as possible, and in the meantime she blames everything that goes wrong on him. They are awful and catty and cruel to one another, and it's very clear to their respective minions that they're totally in love.
The four intersecting storylines are therefore the Dark Lord's progress toward his secret nefarious plot, the identity of the child hero and the provenance of her sword, the growing tensions between the castle and the tower, and the love story between the Dark Lord and the princess. What pulls everything together, however, are the shenanigans of the garbage child hero and over-the-top angry responses of the shit parent Dark Lord.
Honestly this is exactly the novel I want to read, and I kind of wish someone else would write it.
ETA: I love Jeffrey Brown's Darth Vadar and Son series of comics, but they are too wholesome. I think that's the point, but I need both the Dark Lord and the child hero to actually be evil and obnoxious.
Ganondorf's acknowledgment that Link and Tetra are children results in several subtle hints that he cares more about their wellbeing than just about anyone else in the game. Personally I tend to find this narrative dissonance amusing rather than poignant, but that's probably because I'm a terrible person. That, and the dynamic character juxtaposition between savage murder children and salty evil wizards is just not something I get enough of in my daily life. Why is "Dark Lord Cares for Wayward Children" not an established literary genre?
Which made me wonder, if this is something that hasn't been done, MAYBE I SHOULD DO IT MYSELF. I mean, actually, maybe I should? Okay, like...There is Dark Lord who looks like a huge buff meathead but is actually a powerful wizard. Maybe he's an orc? Or some other sort of monster? Anyway, he lives in a tower in the wastelands of a high fantasy kingdom. There are nothing but ruins (dungeons and such) in this area, but the understanding within the kingdom is that he has taken territory that does not belong to him and is threatening the border. He does have secret nefarious plans (involving elder gods or something of that nature), but really he doesn't care about the kingdom at all and simply sees himself as keeping the peace by providing a sanctuary of sorts for other monsters.
One day a hero comes to slay him, but it turns out that this "hero" is just eleven or twelve years old – and also female. She's somehow managed to get her hands on a magical sword that could technically defeat him, and how it came into her possession is something of a mystery, but she doesn't know how to use it. In any case, it turns out that this girl doesn't have anywhere else to go, so the Dark Lord decides to keep her with him in sort of a Dread Pirate Roberts "I'll most likely kill you in the morning" situation. It goes without saying that the girl is headstrong and a complete savage.
Meanwhile, the Dark Lord is corresponding (via magic? idk) with the reigning adult princess of the kingdom. The princess doesn't particularly see him as a threat, but she also doesn't want her kingdom to have to go to war with him. She fears that this is unavoidable, but she's also trying to put it off as long as possible, and in the meantime she blames everything that goes wrong on him. They are awful and catty and cruel to one another, and it's very clear to their respective minions that they're totally in love.
The four intersecting storylines are therefore the Dark Lord's progress toward his secret nefarious plot, the identity of the child hero and the provenance of her sword, the growing tensions between the castle and the tower, and the love story between the Dark Lord and the princess. What pulls everything together, however, are the shenanigans of the garbage child hero and over-the-top angry responses of the shit parent Dark Lord.
Honestly this is exactly the novel I want to read, and I kind of wish someone else would write it.
ETA: I love Jeffrey Brown's Darth Vadar and Son series of comics, but they are too wholesome. I think that's the point, but I need both the Dark Lord and the child hero to actually be evil and obnoxious.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-19 10:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-23 01:27 am (UTC)This may just be one of the kindest things anyone has ever said to me.
THANK YOU FRIEND!!
*gross sobbing intensifies*
no subject
Date: 2017-10-24 08:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-21 07:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-23 01:31 am (UTC)