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| The Narrator |
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Our narrator is pretty good about relating Myth's story in a straightforward, objective manner,
but he lets a few things slip.
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Recompiled by Forrest. |
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Journeyman
The following quotes show that he had extensive access to the
Total Codex:
"That he wants the book which now rests at the bottom of my pack
is clear." [September 15, Flight From Covenant]
"Against my better judgment, I opened the Codex last night to
a random page and read about the life of a man not yet born" [September 15, Flight From Covenant]
Brian Landwher suggests because of this that he may have been a Journeyman:
1) The author is a personage of enough importance to be entrusted
with a relic of considerable power and importance. This means
an Avatara or a very trusted soldier. Since Mauriac is referenced
in the third person in this same Journal entry, it stands to reason
that the next most senior trusted lieutenant would be a Journeyman,
one of the Heron Guards. 2) The entry states that the Codex is
"at the bottom of my pack" - thus, the author is the carrier of
the book as well. In both Codex scenes, a Journeyman carries the
book. Some others discredit this by saying that it was expedient
for Bungie to use the Journeyman rather than necessary. I find
this unlikely, since the majority of the characters can carry
artifacts, not just the Journeyman. Why not a dwarf or an archer?
No, it must be your Journeyman that carries it, and it seems likely
Bungie did so intentionally.
Mark Bassett presents further evidence that the narrator is a Journeyman.
I don't want you to take this too seriously, but we do know from
the opening narration of the "Great Devoid" that the Journal was
buried nearby. (Probably by the worn rock pillar as I've pointed
out before.) And only Journeymen carry shovels...
fir'Bolg
Jonathan Foster disagrees, presenting a case for the Journal Writer being a fir'Bolg archer.
That is clearly not true.
While it is hard to say for sure the only logical choice for our
hero is ... a fir'bolg
Some levels specify that the journal actually takes part in the
battle, others leave it open, and some clearly state he is not
present. I believe it says on your page that the author might
be a warrior. Unfourtunately there are no warriors in Shadow of
the mountain, Traitor's grave, or even inside the Tain. All places
where there seems to be no doubt the author personally was.
Now in Crow's bridge we learn he is not a journeyman. Fifteen
men are to stay, perhaps to fight boredom instead of the Fallen
Lords... And there are fifteen men total in the scenario, no journeyman-
so it's not possible that he is Five Motion Bloody Paper or any
other journeyman. Fir'Bolgs are by far the most common unit. The
only places where they are not present are: Sons of Myrgard and
Long Awaited Party, The Champion levels. Both of which the author
clearly does not attend. Also, the Watcher. It does not say the
author attends that climactic day either. I seem to think I'm
missing one- but whatever the case, the author of the journal
is none other than a fir'bolg.
Jonathan writes in again, against the argument that
perhaps the levels are not meant to be interpereted literally:
Why the Author of the Journal is a fir'Bolg
While the narrator of the single player levels in Myth was probably
not meant to literally represent any one type of unit, he has
an identity outside that which was intended for him.
The narrator is a fir'Bolg. This is easily proved. See my previous
message, which states that the only unit in all the battles which
the narrator is definitely in is the fir'Bolg.
An argument against this says that the narrator does not represent
any one unit because if you play a game of myth straight through
you will not end up with any of the units you started with. This
is because of Bungie dumping all veterans in some levels. There
is also the question of his name. In different games of Myth the
fir'Bolg's will have different names. Fine.
My contention is that the narrator represents the possible. It
is possible for a fir'Bolg to have witnessed all the events he
did, and you cannot say that about any other unit.
There is also the claim that a common warrior would not have had
access to the Total Codex as the narrator obviously does "That
he wants the book that now lies at the bottom of my pack is clear",
and again when he looks at the book. Therefor the author is a
journeyman. There are two rebuttals to this argument.
The first comes directly from the Myth story. In the prologue
to Shadow of the mountain the author recounts how "I was glad
no one asked me to carry the arm"- as if he might have been asked
to carry it but wasn't. This also insinuates that the arm was
carried by different people as they journeyed, perhaps everyone
taking a turn. Secondly, the journeyman at Silvermines had no
compunction about carrying the arm. Finally, in the prelude to
the Watcher we hear "I had lost track of who was carrying the
arm..." once again suggesting that the arm is passed around. And
if the arm was passed around there is no reason why the Total
Codex should not similarly have been carried by more than once
person over the long journey, and there is no reason to suppose
that only a journeyman would have had access to it.
One last argument against the Journeyman/Narrator must be said
here. The very nature of Journeymen precludes them from being
our narrator. Journeymen are all ancient guards from the old empire.
There are no new journeymen trainees. All of them have a great
deal more knowledge about the world than our narrator, who is
a bit naive. A journeyman as a narrator would:
1. Have known about the Tain, or Balor being Connacht. In the
manual there is a Journeyman who knows that the Myth world alternates
between good and evil. Our narrator does not have the knowledge
that these ancient warriors do- or we would not be able to learn
the tale along with him.
2. Probably have mentioned the magic- at least healing, he could
do. The author simply does not give the feel of having the special
powers Journeymen have.
3. Have told about the past from first-hand knowledge. Our narrator
only repeats what he hears from others. A journeyman would have
seen things for himself.
Loghol sends in more support for the narrator being an archer. In an
unreleased pregame graphic for Force Ten From Stoneheim, it appears that an archer is being congratulated for retrieving
the Codex. Loghol writes:
In the narrated paragraph before that level,the writer says,"we
headed down the coast to the old city of Scales,where we met Maeldun's
southern garrison and turned over the codex."
I think the older,more decorated soldier is a general in Maeldun's
garrison,and it seems like he is receiving/congratulating an archer
for bringing the codex.Since it was mentioned in Homecoming and
Flight from the Covenant that the narrator had the codex at that
time,this could only mean that the fir'Bolg is the narrator, giving
the soldier the codex.
Geoffrey W. Barnett notes this quote in the journal entry for The Road North:
Yesterday I saw iu'Shee, captain of archers, with a fist full
of white arrows five feet long and tipped with fragments of bone.
He speculates:
Perhaps he is indeed a Fir'Bolg, as any other of the units would
certainly have referred to iu'Shee as a Fir'Bolg, instead of Captain
of Archers. After all, the alliance between the Western nations
and the Fir'Bolg is probably still new enough that they would
not refer to each other with near this amount of respect.
Berserk
Or neither side, Satan(tm) writes:
I always suspected the narrator of the Journal was a berserker.
I know he lacks the accent, but if you listen carefully, the berzerk
sitting on the stump at the end of the game talking to the one-armed
warrior is the same guy that has been narrating the story. His
voice is the same, so it's the same guy.
Jeremy McKean agrees:
The narrator may be a berserk and does sound somewhat like one,
but if you remember, he was at the great devoid when it blew up.
So the journal writer dies after burying his journal. The only
berserk you see in any of the cinematics is Truan.
Warrior
Eye of the Beholder presents a case for the narrator being a Warrior.
I think the journal writer is a warrior. If you look at the victory
screens of both Flight from Covenant and Homecoming, you will
see a warrior holding the Codex. He looks somewhat old, which
the journal writer would have to be. Also, it proves that he does
not have to be a Journeyman to hold the Codex. And in the prologue,
he refers to a mad journeyman, it seems unlikely he would use
these words if he was a journeyman himself. (perhaps "a fellow
heron guard, or something like that.) As for a Fir'bolg, well,
perhaps, but I can't really imagine a Fir'bolg living with his
grandfather on a pumpkin farm. I've always thought of them as
living in a forest, perhaps the Ermine.
Polar K assumes that the narrator is the prologue writer (a pretty good assumption), and uses it
to present a solid case for the narrator being a warrior.
In the prologue the narrator tells of his and his sisters' staying
with his grandfather, and what is his grandfather? A pumpkin farmer,
what else? anyway, this most likely means that in the myth world,
the grandfather was a villager, and going along with almost all
earth history, in those times the son always takes up the job
of his father, so the narrator's father is a villager and so is
he. Now in villager flavor text it states that villagers were
conscripted for the army, now if the narrator was originally a
villager, its obvious that he couldn't be a Journeyman, they're
ancient guard types, he couldn't be an archer, they're from another
race, and not a berzerk because he doesn't have an accent and
doesn't seem to have that "kick-ass" attitude that is found in
many berzerk flavor texts. So, the only likely thing for him to
be, and the only job for a conscripted villager, is a warrior.
And probably an old warrior at that, possibly even a captain.
He obviously has a high enough rank to have access to the codex
etc. and he even sounds kind of old. But another fact sota makes
him seem old, its a time discrepancy dealing with the fall of
Muirthemne. In the prologue, which is the seventh year of the
war, it says that "Balor and the rest of the fallen torched Muirthemne
just a few years ago", but in the definition of the sack of muirthemne
it says it was shattered 50 years before present times, 40 or
so before the prologue was written. So, either Balor returned
to murithemne to make EXTRA sure is was dead 40 years later, or
the narrator, as many other old people, have a slightly messed
up sense of time.
Avatara
Tim Inouye goes psycho death weevil and adds:
The journal writer is an avatara! Probably not one of the nine,
but who says that the nine are the only avatara living? And, the
writer states that he was fighting Myrmidons in Forest Heart and
carried the Codex. Would we let a berserk or a warrior carry the
Codex? No! And J-men, dwarves, and Fir'bolg don't fight Myrmidons
(unless they're suicidal), so the only logical person would be
an avatara. Having training in both strategy and fighting, he
probably could survive the entire length of the war.
One Sure THing
Blake Douglas adds one solid fact to this debate:
In Crow's Bridge, the profile of, I believe, some of the villagers
states that those as young as 15 are conscripted for the army.
Let's assume this was so at the beginning of the war, and the
journal writer was at least 15. That means now he is no younger
than 32, and is most likely older than that.
So we at least have an age bracket for our nameless, faceless hero.
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Found anything we've missed? Got a theory that fits? Have a correction to make?
Please post it in The Asylum so others can add their ideas and thoughts.
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Legends and Lore is really Forrest's baby, though Gholsbane probably does more work on it nowadays. It also contains a lot of work from the Myth Nontoxic days whose exact authors have been lost or forgotten. Some of these lemurs include Joshstar, Orange, Lacrymosa, and poena.dare. Original "Journal of the Legion" concept by poena.dare and Hamish Sinclair. Other authors are credited as appropriate in their individual articles.
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Myth at Bungie.org is now maintained almost entirely by Gholsbane and Zandervix; Forrest is (theoretically) still around calling the shots when he can be bothered to check his email, and Claude, as always, OWNZ U. Original Nontoxic™ webpage design copyright (c) 1998 by Joshstar; updates and revisions mostly by Forrest. Many thanks to all those old Nontoxic™ munkies - you know who you are.
No portion of this website may be reprinted without explicit permission from Bungie.org, unless it is content created and submitted by you. By submitting content to this site, you grant Bungie.org the right to use it as they see fit, unless otherwise negotiated in writing.
Myth: The Fallen Lords, Myth II: Soulblighter, and all materials derived therefrom are trademarks and copyrights of Bungie Software Products Corporation (now Bungie Studios, a wholly owned subsidary of the Microsoft Corporation). We are not Bungie; we are an independantly run fan organization who Bungie has been so kind as to not sue for using their trademarked name in our domain. The Myth franchise is now owned by Take Two Interactive; Myth III: The Wolf Age is a trademark/copyright of Mumbo Jumbo, Inc., and is published by Gathering of Developers and MacSoft - none of whom are associated with us.
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