Are all Bards "Goofballs?"

[Surfing HalfOrc]

I was going to put this up in Friendly Banter, or even Media Matters, but since Elan is clearly a goofball, I figured this might be a better place to get a discussion going.

I am reading Orcs: Bad Blood and there is an orc bard named Wheam, and he is a (so far) total goofball. Bad, long winded Epic Songs, incompetent in a fight.

Then I think of the bard Edward from Final Fantasy IV (or II, if you played it in the US on a SNES). Overly emotional, not very effective.

Although he has improved a lot, Elan is still a goofball more than not.

Are there any stories, novels, games, etc, where a bard character is an effective, charismatic leader and not a comic foil?

The only bard I can think of was the thieves’ guild leader in The Savage Tide. But she was a villain, and villains tend not to be goofballs. Less than competent, maybe, but never deliberately incompetent.

Any thoughts or examples of non-goofball bards?

[137beth]

Orpheus was not a goofball in any sense of the word.

[B. Dandelion]

Mance Rayder from A Song of Ice and Fire? Not much goofy about him. He's the King-beyond-the-Wall and united the people north of it into a formidable if undisciplined army. Music seems to be his passion and he's often gone out as a bard, which is useful as it also gets him into a position for effective espionage. He's a pretty CN type, and is antagonistic towards the main characters in some respects but is a mutual enemy of the nastier threats.

[blauregen]

Hmm, Storm Silverhand was competent, but had more level in sorceress than in bard. Finder Wyvernspur wasn't exactly a goofball either, but graduated to lesser power.

[Shadowknight12]

I'm pretty sure there are plenty of Casanova/seductress bards, but mainstream fantasy isn't my forte. There's probably a serious, tragic bard in the LotR saga somewhere.

[rodneyAnonymous]

Finder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finder_Wyvernspur) was my first thought, too.

Bards are very often "goofballs", though.

[Obscure Blade]

Mercedes Lackey's Bard's Tale novels had non-goofy bards. She's also got non-goofy bards in her Bardic Voices series, her Valdemar series, and her urban fantasy stories.

Keith Taylor's Bard series starred a non-goofy bard.

Tanya Huff's Quarters series has non-goofy Bards.

[Bulldog Psion]

There's probably a serious, tragic bard in the LotR saga somewhere.

Finrod Felagund from the Silmarillion probably counts. He contended against Sauron with songs of power, and was eventually captured and flung into a dungeon along with his companions, including the human hero Beren. A werewolf was sent to devour them one by one --


And when the werewolf came to kill Beren, Felagund put forth all his power and burst his bonds; and he wrestled with the werewolf, and slew it with his hands and teeth. Yet he himself was wounded to the death, and he died in the dark, in Tol-in-Gaurhoth, whose great tower he himself had built. Thus King Finrod Felagund, the fairest and most beloved of the house of Finwë, redeemed his oath.

Sounds like a serious, tragic bard to me, exactly as you predicted there would be. :smallsmile:

[blauregen]

Kvothe from the Kingkiller Chronicle as a musician and spellcaster might count too.

[Shadowknight12]

Sounds like a serious, tragic bard to me, exactly as you predicted there would be. :smallsmile:

Excellent! Thank you, most gracious scholar, for confirming my Tolkien sixth sense. :smallbiggrin:

[skim172]

There certainly is: Taliesin, from the Chronicles of Prydain series. Bards in the Prydain series in general are elevated characters - they're knowledgeable and sage-like; calm, natural leaders; mythic heroes at their best. There is a bard in the series, Fflewddur Fflam, who plays the comic relief, but on the other hand, he's not entirely a bard (in that he never passed the tests), and when crisis emerges and the situation demands it, he becomes a very serious and steadfast individual.

I think what you're observing is that most fantasy tends to be derived from the same basic schema - woodsy elves, earthy dwarves, goofy bards, taverns, goblins, etc., etc. The problem is that fantasy and science fiction, theoretically the most imaginative and open-ended genres, actually seem to tend towards cliche and derivation. So many different series, yet so many seem to echo each other, with just slight variation.

In the case of Prydain, the reason why the depiction of bards is so different is because the entire conception of the fantasy is different. Lloyd Alexander based Prydain strongly on Welsh mythology. Bards are depicted as they were viewed in pre-modern Britain - the storytellers, historians, keepers of secrets and wisdom, becoming mystical, magical hero figures. Prydain itself feels like a mythological world - it lacks the Tolkien emphasis on well-defined and structured polities, societies, cultures, and histories. Prydain is a big, unexplored, unknown, almost primordial land where magical and spectral things happen.

My personal experience with fantasy has been that I love the genre, but I loathe almost all the actual books and stories in it, because they're just so derivative. For whatever reason, we don't demand the same level of originality from the more fantastic, imaginative genres (sci-fi, fantasy, horror, etc) and that lets hack writers flourish without ever pushing them.

For example, I couldn't get away with writing a book called "An Account of Two Municipalities" about the French Revolution in which an unsung hero named Bidney Marton goes to the guillotine for the sake of the woman who will never know that he loves her (um, spoiler) without drawing the ire, derision, rejection, and likely litigation of the literary community.

But I could get away with "The Master of the Circle", an epic about two halflings and their "Congregation of the Tiara" - an adventuring party featuring a wizard, a human warrior, a human rogue, an elven archer, a dwarven axeman, and one or two bumbling figures of comic relief - and their hazardous odyssey across the World-Earth to destroy the Tiara of Power and save the world from evil apocalypse. It wouldn't necessarily be a bestseller, but I probably could get it published. In fact, I probably could find one or two books published in the last year that roughly fit that book summary.

Point being, that if terrible writers can get away with virtual plagiarism, then even good fantasy writers won't be pressured towards originality, and so, they often end up drawing from the same fundamental paradigm.


(Although, to make clear, I don't think the Giant is guilty of this, as OOTS is explicitly a satiric work of the typical fantasy tropes.)

[Themrys]

The Nac Mac Feegles from Pratchett's "Wee Free Men" and other books are all somewhat "goofballs", but their bard (or "gonnagle" as they call it) is the most intelligent one of the lot (not counting their Kelda, the queen and only woman of the tribe), so I guess he qualifies as counterexample.

[davidbofinger]

The Kalevala (Finnish national epic poem) is full of people who sing magic spells and are by no means goofballs. I guess they're bards.



most fantasy tends to be derived from the same basic schema - woodsy elves, earthy dwarves, goofy bards, taverns, goblins, etc.


And D&D unfortunately goes out of its way to make it hard to subvert the paradigm. Why can't I have a lawful bard, for instance, who is obsessive about precisely reproducing the stories in standard form and plays elegant Bach fugues? I'm also curious what a chaotic paladin would be like.

[EclipseDarkSun]

Hmm.. I think a bard/fighter blend would be more like how bards are often portrayed in stories in the role of hero. Or a fighter with high charisma and some skill in instruments. Most bards are npcs telling tales of non-bard heroes. Of course Orpheus is something of an exception.

[Friv]

My personal experience with fantasy has been that I love the genre, but I loathe almost all the actual books and stories in it, because they're just so derivative. For whatever reason, we don't demand the same level of originality from the more fantastic, imaginative genres (sci-fi, fantasy, horror, etc) and that lets hack writers flourish without ever pushing them.

That's not really a feature of fantastic genres, it's a feature of genres.

How many mystery novels are just boilerplates of the template "nosy civilian whose job tangentially touches on a local murder winds up solving it better than the bumbling cops"? Conversely, how many feature guys who are basically just Holmes or Poirot? Action thrillers tend to follow the same basic patterns, too. And the sameness of every romance novel ever published is beyond a running gag.

The only reason you can't copy Tale of Two Cities is that it's not a genre that people are currently reading.

[Themrys]

Hmm.. I think a bard/fighter blend would be more like how bards are often portrayed in stories in the role of hero. Or a fighter with high charisma and some skill in instruments. Most bards are npcs telling tales of non-bard heroes. Of course Orpheus is something of an exception.

I think the obsession with fighting in general is a problem of fantasy novels.

Which is surprising, as the genre as we know it was more or less invented by Tolkien, whose heroes are non-fighters quite often.

[dps]

Tom Merriln from The Wheel of Time series probably counts. Although it's probably worthwhile to point out, unless a fantasy series is set in an explicitly DnD setting (like OotS or the Dragonlance novels), being a bard is more of a profession than a class.

Bards tend to be a bit on the goofy side because all but the most extremely serious-minded authors like to have at least a little bit of comic relief, and if your story involves a group somewhat like the traditional adventuring party, the character filling the bard-type slot is the easiest to use as the comic relief. Not that it's impossible to use the party wizard or rogue or meatshield or healer/cleric as comic relief, it's just that the bard is sort of the default choice, possibly because they lack any other defined function within the party (though they do often also function a bit as the conscience of the party).

Bards who aren't a member of the main party in a fantasy setting are probably more likely to be portrayed in a fairly serious, non-goofball way, because often have a different function within the story--they are often Mr. Exposition.

[Olinser]

I believe the term in common usage right now is 'Spoony Bard' rather than 'goofball'. :smallbiggrin:

[Concept]

Another reason why the goofball bard stereotype is so common is that otherwise they have to be very well written, and doing justice to a talented bard could be more work than the entire main story (and possibly less entertaining, as well).

For similar reasons, people doing the dance moves for "can't touch this" usually just do a comic silly version, for the simple reason that they literally "can't touch this" otherwise.

It doesn't make sense to eschew such a fertile trope just to do more work to generate a less entertaining product.

[Jay R]

None of Orpheus, Homer, Taliesin, Snorri Sturluson, or the Bard of Avon were goofballs. Also, goofball does not fit into the early images of bards, scops, skalds, minstrels, troubadors, etc.

As near as I can tell, the goofball bard is a purely modern invention - conflating the very different roles of bard and jester.

[Ravian]

As far as I can tell it's probably summarized in Elan's own comment on the absurdity of bards, at least in the D&D sense.

They walk into dungeons full of dangerous monsters and sing songs at them.

Compound this with the fact that back in 3.5 Bards had a reputation as an under-powered class, it's not hard to see why they tend to be used for comedic purposes.

Also in general most of the time anything a bard can do in non-dnd setting, aside from singing, someone else can do better. A real warrior doesn't need to sing a song to be a badass, music is detrimental for most thieves's health, and most mages generally have better things to do then strum a lyre. Obviously it's possible to make a serious bard character, but most of time you're better served with some other skill set unless you really work at it as a character.

[snikrept]

It's difficult to be both a bard and an introvert. Writers writing bards as less socially inhibited than other people makes some sense.

[dps]

None of Orpheus, Homer, Taliesin, Snorri Sturluson, or the Bard of Avon were goofballs. Also, goofball does not fit into the early images of bards, scops, skalds, minstrels, troubadors, etc.

As near as I can tell, the goofball bard is a purely modern invention - conflating the very different roles of bard and jester.

Well, as I pointed out earlier, a lot of historical and fictional characters who were bards aren't necessarily bards in the DnD sense. DnD bards, as Ravain pointed out, are characters that "walk into dungeons full of dangerous monsters and sing songs at them", and there is something inherently silly about that.

In fact, thinking about it makes me wonder why bards are a PC class in DnD instead of an NPC class. Bards (to an extent, at least) aren't heroes; they're guys who hang out in taverns and tell stories and sing songs about heroes. Great for giving players plot hooks, but maybe not so great for adventuring. Doesn't that sound like an NPC to you?

[137beth]

Which is surprising, as the genre as we know it was more or less invented by Tolkien, whose heroes are non-fighters quite often.

No, he did not, Tokien's works are derivative of Germanic mythology:smallsigh:
That's why so many subsequent writers have avoided being sued by Tolkien's estate: the ideas/creatures they use predated Tolkien, he just popularized them.


Well, as I pointed out earlier, a lot of historical and fictional characters who were bards aren't necessarily bards in the DnD sense. DnD bards, as Ravain pointed out, are characters that "walk into dungeons full of dangerous monsters and sing songs at them", and there is something inherently silly about that.

In fact, thinking about it makes me wonder why bards are a PC class in DnD instead of an NPC class. Bards (to an extent, at least) aren't heroes; they're guys who hang out in taverns and tell stories and sing songs about heroes. Great for giving players plot hooks, but maybe not so great for adventuring. Doesn't that sound like an NPC to you?
Orpheus "walked into dungeons the underworld full of dangerous monsters and sang songs at them", I'd count that as a PC/hero, not an NPC class...

[jere7my]

In fact, thinking about it makes me wonder why bards are a PC class in DnD instead of an NPC class. Bards (to an extent, at least) aren't heroes; they're guys who hang out in taverns and tell stories and sing songs about heroes. Great for giving players plot hooks, but maybe not so great for adventuring. Doesn't that sound like an NPC to you?

Because of Taliesin. If you look at the powerful bard-specific magic items in 1st edition D&D, they all carry Welsh or Irish names: Mac-Fuirmidh Cittern, Canaith Mandolin, Fochlucan Bandore. Bards as respected heroes have a long tradition in Celtic Britain.

Edit: Here's the introduction to the D&D bard class, written by its inventor, Doug Schwegman, from its very first appearance in the Strategic Review in 1976:


...I believe it is a logical addition to the D & D scene and the one I have composed is a hodgepodge of at least three different kinds, the norse ‘skald’, the celtic ‘bard’, and the southern european ‘minstrel’. The skalds were often old warriors who were a kind of self appointed historian whose duty was to record the ancient battles, blood feuds, and deeds of exceptional prowess by setting them to verse much like the ancient Greek poets did. Tolkien, a great Nordic scholar, copied this style several times in the Lord of the Rings trilogy (for example Bilbo’s chant of Earendil the Mariner). The Celts, especially in Britain, had a much more organized structure in which the post of Bards as official historians fell somewhere between the Gwelfili or public recorders and the Druids who were the judges as well as spiritual leaders. In the Celtic system Bards were trained by the Druids for a period of almost twenty years before they assumed their duties, among which was to follow the heroes into battle to provide an accurate account of their deeds, as well as to act as trusted intermediaries to settle hostilities among opposing tribes. By far the most common conception of a Bard is as a minstrel who entertained to courts of princes and kings in France, Italy and parts of Germany in the latter middle ages. Such a character was not as trust worthy as the Celtic or Nordic Bards and could be compared to a combination Thief-Illusionist. These characters were called Jongleurs by the French, from which the corrupt term juggler and court jester are remembered today ... I wanted to put the Bard into perspective so that his multitudinous abilities in Dungeons and Dragons can be explained. I have fashioned the character more after the Celtic and Norse types than anything else, thus he is a character who resembles a fighter more than anything else, but who knows something about the mysterious forces of magic and is well adept with his hands, etc.

The bardic harps I mentioned above made their first appearance here, too.

[jere7my]

No, he did not, Tokien's works are derivative of Germanic mythology:smallsigh:
That's why so many subsequent writers have avoided being sued by Tolkien's estate: the ideas/creatures they use predated Tolkien, he just popularized them.

Tolkien gave us dour, taciturn, stocky, hard-drinking dwarves; fair, willowy, superannuated elves; halflings; brutish, thuggish, soldier orcs; rangers who watch for evil in the wilderness; wizards who carry magical staves; etc. Tolkien drew from a lot of existing myths for his creation, yes, but his specific embodiments of those myths set the course of fantasy gaming and literature right up through World of Warcraft.

[Shadowknight12]

Tolkien gave us dour, taciturn, stocky, hard-drinking dwarves;

Scandinavian mythology.


fair, willowy, superannuated elves;

Vaguely Scandinavian/Anglo-Saxon mythology with a healthy dose of Celtic Aes Sidhe.


halflings;

Physical characteristics based on traditional trickster faeries/brownies/gnomes, culture and psychology based on Tolkien's own English mores.


brutish, thuggish, soldier orcs;

Replace "orcs" with "fiends" or an equivalent, and you will find they are remarkably similar to the antagonists in many faerie tales and Germanic sagas.


rangers who watch for evil in the wilderness;

As per the traditional European lore of the woodsman figure, most often remembered in the faerie tale "Little Red Riding Hood".


wizards who carry magical staves;

Merlin. Bearded, old, staff, sword, semi-mythical divine-ish powers, etc.


Tolkien drew from a lot of existing myths for his creation, yes, but his specific embodiments of those myths set the course of fantasy gaming and literature right up through World of Warcraft.

I believe you are mistaken Trope Makers for Trope Codifiers.

[jere7my]

I believe you are mistaken Trope Makers for Trope Codifiers.

I'm not sure what your point is here. I already said that Tolkien drew from mythological sources; my point is that his combination of specific instantiations of those sources laid the foundation for the vast bulk of the "generic" fantasy that came after him. Yes, there were bad guys before Tolkien; after Tolkien, there were hulking, brutish bad guys called "orcs" that organize into military bands under gruesome banners. Yes, there were "little folk" before Tolkien; after Tolkien there were little folk called halflings who weren't overtly magical or fae in any way and liked comfort food and had hairy feet and made good burglars—and they shared world-space with orcs. Tolkien fixed the popular conceptions of elves, dwarves, wizards, rangers, and so on, and they haven't changed much.

Put a typical dwarf character (from Pratchett or D&D or WoW) of today next to a dwarf from Scandinavian mythology and you won't see much overlap, apart from height. Put the same dwarf next to Gimli and you won't see much, if any, difference.

Edit: To illustrate how firmly Tolkien fixed the distinction between elves and dwarves, consider two characters: Alberich, the dwarf whose hoard Siegfried stole in the Ring cycle, is the exemplary Germanic dwarf. Oberon, King of the Faeries, is the exemplary fae elf. And never the twain shall meet, because elves and dwarves are so very different. But Alberich and Oberon are the same character—"Oberon" is just the French translation of "Alberich". Tolkien's idea of elves and dwarves as separate, distinct, mutually suspicious races was novel, and it's been carried on through many media ever since.

[Shadowknight12]

I'm not sure what your point is here. I already said that Tolkien drew from mythological sources;

He did not drew. He ransacked. The man was a great writer, but let us not give him credit for something he didn't invent.


Yes, there were bad guys before Tolkien; after Tolkien, there were hulking, brutish bad guys called "orcs" that organize into military bands under gruesome banners.

No, that is pretty much how Germanic/Scandinavian sagas went, actually. Again, minus the bit where they're called orcs.


Yes, there were "little folk" before Tolkien; after Tolkien there were little folk called halflings who weren't overtly magical or fae in any way and liked comfort food and had hairy feet and made good burglars—and they shared world-space with orcs.

The only points of originality in that sentence is "called halflings" and "shared worldspace with orcs" (and that last one is debatable). There were little people with hairy feet who made good burglars and liked comfort food before, in folktales. They were aplenty. In some of them, they weren't overtly magical or even that fae.


Tolkien fixed the popular conceptions of elves, dwarves, wizards, rangers, and so on, and they haven't changed much.

That's the difference between the Trope Maker and the Trope Codifier. The Trope Maker creates a trope. The Trope Codifier takes a previous trope, codifies it, streamlines it, and makes it hugely popular.

Tolkien was not a Trope Maker. He was a Trope Codifier.


Put a typical dwarf character (from Pratchett or D&D or WoW) of today next to a dwarf from Scandinavian mythology and you won't see much overlap, apart from height. Put the same dwarf next to Gimli and you won't see much, if any, difference.

Height, dourness, forges, magical items, greed, treasure, burliness, subterranean dwellings, maybe ale (if memory serves me right), combat prowess, beards, and probably a few more items in common I'm forgetting right now.

Scandinavian/Germanic dwarves have plenty in common with current conceptions of them.

EDIT:


Edit: To illustrate how firmly Tolkien fixed the distinction between elves and dwarves, consider two characters: Alberich, the dwarf whose hoard Siegfried stole in the Ring cycle, is the exemplary Germanic dwarf. Oberon, King of the Faeries, is the exemplary fae elf. And never the twain shall meet, because elves and dwarves are so very different. But Alberich and Oberon are the same character—"Oberon" is just the French translation of "Alberich". Tolkien's idea of elves and dwarves as separate, distinct, mutually suspicious races was novel, and it's been carried on through many media ever since.

Yes, Scandinavian/Germanic dwarves were indistinguishable from elves back then. That's why I specified that Tolkien's conception of elves was only partly Scandinavian/Germanic, and borrowed heavily from Celtic folklore regarding the Aes Sidhe.

[gorocz]

Robert Plant

For the benefit of the five people who read this forum and know who Robert Plant is and what kind of songs he used to write :-)

[jere7my]

No, that is pretty much how Germanic/Scandinavian sagas went, actually. Again, minus the bit where they're called orcs.

Citation needed. I'd like to read a Germanic saga with "fiends" that grouped themselves together under the banner of the severed hand or plucked eyeball and waged war against armies of elves and dwarves and humans.


The only points of originality in that sentence is "called halflings" and "shared worldspace with orcs" (and that last one is debatable). There were little people with hairy feet who made good burglars and liked comfort food before, in folktales. They were aplenty. In some of them, they weren't overtly magical or even that fae.

Citation needed, for hairy-footed nonmagical nonhumans who liked comfort food and made good burglars.


That's the difference between the Trope Maker and the Trope Codifier. The Trope Maker creates a trope. The Trope Codifier takes a previous trope, codifies it, streamlines it, and makes it hugely popular.

Is this a TV Tropes thing? If it is, find something better.


Height, dourness, forges, magical items, greed, treasure, burliness, subterranean dwellings, maybe ale (if memory serves me right), combat prowess, beards, and probably a few more items in common I'm forgetting right now.

Scandinavian/Germanic dwarves have plenty in common with current conceptions of them.

The dwarves of the Ring saga and before were explicitly magical fae who could (some of them) turn themselves into fish. They were not universally bearded or stocky—though after Tolkien they were frequently depicted as such. They liked gold and lived underground, yes. They were not stalwart adventurers—they were tricksters and pranksters, more akin to modern gremlins or devils. Rumpelstiltskin. The dwarves we see today in WoW are Tolkienian, through and through. If you think Germanic dwarves were like Gimli, it's because you're accustomed to seeing modern interpretations of them that have been influenced by Tolkien.


Yes, Scandinavian/Germanic dwarves were indistinguishable from elves back then. That's why I specified that Tolkien's conception of elves was only partly Scandinavian/Germanic, and borrowed heavily from Celtic folklore regarding the Aes Sidhe.

I have absolutely no idea what you're trying to argue. Prior to Tolkien, elves and dwarves were two sides of the same coin. After Tolkien, they were almost elementally distinct, to the point of mutual suspicion. Throughout modern fantasy, elves and dwarves are as distinct as Vulcans and Klingons—moreso, because they're often viewed as having incompatible magical connections to stone and forest, respectively. Tolkien turned the fae into the archetypal dwarves and elves of the bulk of modern fantasy.

If you don't like Tolkien, that's fine. But don't try to argue that he wasn't hugely influential. The standard fantasy races aren't pooka and killmoulis and redcap; they're dwarf and elf and orc for a reason, and that reason is Tolkien.

[dps]

The skalds were often old warriors who were a kind of self appointed historian whose duty was to record the ancient battles, blood feuds, and deeds of exceptional prowess by setting them to verse much like the ancient Greek poets did.

Well, yes, this is a good point, but it does in a way support my contention that bards make more sense as NPCs--they're retired adventurers.

[jere7my]

Well, yes, this is a good point, but it does in a way support my contention that bards make more sense as NPCs--they're retired adventurers.

Schwegman listed three inspirations for bards; that was one. The most influential on the D&D bard is Celtic: "In the Celtic system Bards were trained by the Druids for a period of almost twenty years before they assumed their duties, among which was to follow the heroes into battle to provide an accurate account of their deeds...."

[Bulldog Psion]

From the Nibelungenlied:


"There is a man in there called Volker who fights like a wild boar, and he is a minstrel, too. I bless my good fortune that I eluded the fiend! His lays grate on the ear, his fiddle-bow draws red, and his tunes fell warriors past counting. I do not know what this Minstrel has against us, for I have never had so dreadful a guest!"

They had now let out those whom they wished to let out of the hall, and at once a great clamour arose within, for the visitors were avenging the wrongs they had endured. As to the helmets bold Volker smashed, they are past all telling.

"Hagen, can you hear the tunes which Volker is playing to the Huns that venture the door?" asked noble King Gunther, turning in the direction of the din. "It is red rosin that he uses for his bow."

...His fiddle-bow slices its way through tough steel and he shatters the gleaming crests on the helmets. I never saw a fiddler cut such a splendid figure as Sir Volker has done today. His lays go ringing through the shields and helmets: he has every right to ride good horses and wear magnificent clothes."

[MoleMage]

Another non-spoony bard from the Wheel of Time: The Forsaken Asmodeus was a musician through and through.

A Fire Emblem reference as well: the Heron Tribe from the Tellius games. They sing magic songs that enhance their allies, have almost no combat ability of their own (the act of punching someone, and not that hard, breaks one's hand and makes him physically ill), and are considered largely the most beautiful creatures in the world (even by people who hate their species as less than human). But they are also very serious characters, if occasionally a bit snarky.

[Surfing HalfOrc]

Wow, I get sick and everyone posts!

Good feedback, and more than a few things to go look up to read.

I guess what I'm looking for is a bard that is more of a rocker than a hack poet. Too many bards in fiction are, "You hair, it is as black as a dog's lips, your eyes are as green as a frog's butt, and your face is as wonderful as mom's Mid-Winter Feast..."

None of the songs ever written into the usual books inspire a fighter the way, say, AC/DC's "TNT," makes me feel like a fighter inspired to throw a punch or otherwise want to fight.

I listen to different types of music depending on my physical activities. I like Old School Techno for bike races, Metallica for weigh-lifting, and others for getting psyched up for a fight. Then shift to Vivaldi or Bach for relaxation. But the "songs" (poems, really) in most fantasy novels end up feeling like slow dirges and not upbeat, "beat the stuffing out of the enemy" 4/4 time music I grew up with. (Music geeks, I'll admit I was guessing on the 4/4 time thing. Please don't kill me.:smallwink:)

[wumpus]

He did not drew. He ransacked. The man was a great writer, but let us not give him credit for something he didn't invent.
...
Yes, Scandinavian/Germanic dwarves were indistinguishable from elves back then. That's why I specified that Tolkien's conception of elves was only partly Scandinavian/Germanic, and borrowed heavily from Celtic folklore regarding the Aes Sidhe.

What, other than the name, did Tolkien take from the Aes Sidhe? Maybe the fair folk's lands may have looked like something straight out of Loth Lorien (except showing much, much, more opulence), but it was all glamour (illusion). I can't think of a single use of illusion in all of Tolkien's works, nor of the raw sociopathy that is standard in such creatures. From the tales I've heard, these are the defining characteristics of the fair folk. Tolkien's elves have none of them. Of course, they certainly aren't dwarves (or dwarfs to use English without Tolkien's modifications).

As far as non-goofball bards, I would suggest the Soprano Sorceress by L.E. Modesitt Jr. as a modern take on a serious bard.

[Dr.Epic]

Then I think of the bard Edward from Final Fantasy IV (or II, if you played it in the US on a SNES). Overly emotional, not very effective.

Um, he was a spoony bard, not a goofball bard. Please learn the difference.

[Acanous]

Um, he was a spoony bard, not a goofball bard. Please learn the difference.

Drat, you beat me to it.

[Goosefeather]

Robert Plant


Very much so (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHJH0ETi8D4).

Also, I don't think anyone has mentioned Dragon Age's Leliana character. Mind you, in that game, 'Bard' is more a subset of 'Rogue', so the job implies a lot of sneaking and backstabbery. They follow the 'minstrel' archetype, being spies to foreign courts and all.

[asphias]

on the topic of tolkien:

yes, he did take a lot of stories from older myths. you might even say that almost everything he wrote came from some kind of european fairytale.

however, he brought it all together.

right now, if someone starts talking about fantasy, one almost asumes that the elves look like tall, beautifull humans who dwell in forests, the dwarves make huge mountainhomes, like ale, etc. there are dragons, wizards, etc. you know the drill.

before tolkien, this kind of 'fantasy world' did not exist. you had germanic tales were the bad guys were kind of like orcs. you had the english myths about powerfull wizards guiding knights on their quest, etc. etc.

but you did not have one standard type of fantasy world which compiled all those things in one general setting, which has been used over and over since tolkien.

i think most fantasy worlds of today can be described as either: "take the tolkien world and remove/add this and this", or "take our human world, and add these tolkienian things"

no one will argue that tolkien didnt take all those myths from other cultures, but he did compile them together and invented the standard fantasy world.

[Thattaman]

Rhaegar Targaryen from ASOIAF was often told that he loved playing the harp and singing but he was very effective in battle and the people loved him as a leader.

[Souju]

When I think serious bards, I think Orpheus.
This was a man who went into Hades, the land of the dead, and convinced (after sedating the dog and wooing the queen) Hades to give his girlfriend back.
Hell, he almost succeeded too.
So yeah, one of the very first heroic bards literally went into a dungeon and sang at the forces of Hades itself to get his girlfriend back, and nearly succeeded.

[Doctor Foreman]

There are certainly exceptions, but it's definitely a stereotype.

I think it comes from two factors. The first being that bards are often seen as Byronic characters, who are easily thought of as over-dramatic and also easily not taken too seriously.

The second is of course that bards don't instinctively strike us as being necessary to a fight in the way fighters, healers and wizards are, so the "ditz" character of a team might naturally gravitate towards it.

I've had a small desire for some time now to see a third-person RPG where you take on the role of a simple bard. No armor forged from a demon's hide, no Infinity +1 sword, no Ultima spell; just the trades under your belt and the wit on your tongue. No saving the multiverse seven hundred times, just getting into and out of improbable, hilarious, and occasionally even important situations.

In a way, bards are the perfect characters for a role-playing video game, as opposed to a game which just involves a lot of leveling up.

It's the kind of thing I could see Chris Avellone doing, given that Planescape: Torment was much more about dialogue and atmosphere than combat. Or P.G. Wodehouse, if he'd been around and so inclined :).

[Dr.Epic]

Drat, you beat me to it.

I have a PhD in Epicness and credit stealing!:smalltongue:

[JCAll]

There are certainly exceptions, but it's definitely a stereotype.

I think it comes from two factors. The first being that bards are often seen as Byronic characters, who are easily thought of as over-dramatic and also easily not taken too seriously.

The second is of course that bards don't instinctively strike us as being necessary to a fight in the way fighters, healers and wizards are, so the "ditz" character of a team might naturally gravitate towards it.

I've had a small desire for some time now to see a third-person RPG where you take on the role of a simple bard. No armor forged from a demon's hide, no Infinity +1 sword, no Ultima spell; just the trades under your belt and the wit on your tongue. No saving the multiverse seven hundred times, just getting into and out of improbable, hilarious, and occasionally even important situations.

In a way, bards are the perfect characters for a role-playing video game, as opposed to a game which just involves a lot of leveling up.

It's the kind of thing I could see Chris Avellone doing, given that Planescape: Torment was much more about dialogue and atmosphere than combat. Or P.G. Wodehouse, if he'd been around and so inclined :).

Did you ever play the Bard's Tale remake? It's not great but the writing is good. The Bard's not really a goofball though, just a jerk.

[Vinsfeld]

It reminded me of the bards of the bravest of the braves, Sir Robin. (Monty Python)

[Regularguy]

Back when 2E was cutting-edge, I figured Dilvish The Damned for a serious-minded bard: as the He-Rides-Alone hero wandering a sword-and-sorcery setting, he delivers helpful ancient-lore-and-local-history exposition for the readers in between charming his way out of trouble when he can, breaking out his two-handed sword when he must, and relying on the few spells he's picked up over the years -- because, hey, who else but a jack-of-all-trades can cover all the bases solo?

And who else but a bard would free-climb his way to the enchanted bells that can, when properly rung, summon a long-lost legion from the mists of history to win the war LOTR-style? Who else would later climb his way to a wizard's mountaintop castle for yet another adventure, before performing a different magical tune to communicate with yet another supernatural entity, and so on, and so on?

He even mentions that he was raised to be a singing-and-playing-music-and-writing-poetry courtier -- but only to emphasize that he's since become a driven crusader against evil: a guy who of course knows a number of ballads, but who earned the starring role in a popular one through old-fashioned victory in battle.

[cheesecake]

I think that bards as a general rule are fun, carefree and spend their lives devoted to music and spread of spoken/sung history.

Now a bard as a serious warrior or leader is a bit silly to me. Bards to me would be more of an observer. Not an active player in history.

I know many stories and such play them out as major roles. But this is just me saying my opinion

[paladinofshojo]

Hehe.... funny thing about D&D is that the Bard (Elan) would almost always outshine the Fighter, Rogue, Paladin, what have you... Hell, mechanically, Elan should be the second most powerful PC in the Order, behind Durkon and Vaarsuvius. However, since everyone's so poorly built (that's what half the jokes in the comic are about) Elan is next to useless because it's funnier that way. But if Elan was built properly he could easily be able to buff, heal, and summon illusionary defenses to aid the party rather efficiently. He could also be "The Face" of the party with his high charisma if he knew how to use it properly.

[NZNinja]

I've had a small desire for some time now to see a third-person RPG where you take on the role of a simple bard. No armor forged from a demon's hide, no Infinity +1 sword, no Ultima spell; just the trades under your belt and the wit on your tongue. No saving the multiverse seven hundred times, just getting into and out of improbable, hilarious, and occasionally even important situations.

In a way, bards are the perfect characters for a role-playing video game, as opposed to a game which just involves a lot of leveling up.


This is exactly how I play(ed) the first two Fallout games: if I can't smooth-talk my way out of a situation, or use a non-combat skill to get around the problem, I feel that I've failed. And (IMHO) that's how a good RPG should be.

Also, Dragon Age's Leliana was great: competent in a fight, but happy to walk a more peaceful path. Too bad I took away that choice when I immediately equipped her with two daggers for front-line melee...

[Bogardan_Mage]

When I think serious bards, I think Orpheus.
This was a man who went into Hades, the land of the dead, and convinced (after sedating the dog and wooing the queen) Hades to give his girlfriend back.
Hell, he almost succeeded too.
So yeah, one of the very first heroic bards literally went into a dungeon and sang at the forces of Hades itself to get his girlfriend back, and nearly succeeded.
Just because one person did it with dignity doesn't mean it's not, on the face of it, kind of silly. So rather than have a thousand and one Orpheus clones we have a tendency for bards to have kind of silly personalities. Personally, I think that's probably preferable.

[paladinofshojo]

Okay being a bard is not just about making puns and being a fool... that's what court jesters are for. No, historically a bard is a professional poet, his job was to ensure his patron would be remembered for posterity in the same manner of dignified art as painters and sculptures portrayed him. Back in the Middle Ages, few people can read or write so bards were the only source of information regarding things like war, love, or even politics and history. While many of us see them singing songs in taverns to a bunch of drunken peasants for entertainment keep in mind that they were probably the first news anchors the world had, as their songs and stories had a lot of symbolism regarding the time and eras where they're from. (ex. The Rhymes of Robin Hood, Beowulf, and even King Arthur all owe their survival through the era of illiteracy TO the bard). Hell, William Shakespeare was known as "The Bard" as a testament for his genius.

And it's this image of the bard that the class itself is clearly trying to emulate, seeing as it tries to elaborate the Romantic Notion of a bard as a minstrel with qualities of a priest, magician, and seer. Other than the idea of some shmuck with an instrument making cliché jokes.


on the topic of tolkien:

yes, he did take a lot of stories from older myths. you might even say that almost everything he wrote came from some kind of european fairytale.

however, he brought it all together.

right now, if someone starts talking about fantasy, one almost asumes that the elves look like tall, beautifull humans who dwell in forests, the dwarves make huge mountainhomes, like ale, etc. there are dragons, wizards, etc. you know the drill.

before tolkien, this kind of 'fantasy world' did not exist. you had germanic tales were the bad guys were kind of like orcs. you had the english myths about powerfull wizards guiding knights on their quest, etc. etc.

but you did not have one standard type of fantasy world which compiled all those things in one general setting, which has been used over and over since tolkien.

i think most fantasy worlds of today can be described as either: "take the tolkien world and remove/add this and this", or "take our human world, and add these tolkienian things"

no one will argue that tolkien didnt take all those myths from other cultures, but he did compile them together and invented the standard fantasy world.

Richard Wagner would probably disagree with you over this, seeing as his epic screenplay and 4 part Opera "Der Ring des Nibelungen" was written out about 1848-1874, whereas Tolkien's Lord of the Rings was written during World War 2. Both of them have blacksmith dwarves who live underground caves, giants, mortal men, and gods. Only difference is that Wagner's world doesn't have elves but Valkyries. They both even have a magical ring with malevolent powers. However, the main reason why Wagner isn't as popular nowadays is because he because one of his greatest fans was Adolf Hitler. Therefore he gets shunned by association, whereas Tolkien, who specifically states that Orcs were to resemble "hideous Mongoloids" in an interview, gets better press for not being associated with Nazis.


There are certainly exceptions, but it's definitely a stereotype.

I think it comes from two factors. The first being that bards are often seen as Byronic characters, who are easily thought of as over-dramatic and also easily not taken too seriously.

The second is of course that bards don't instinctively strike us as being necessary to a fight in the way fighters, healers and wizards are, so the "ditz" character of a team might naturally gravitate towards it.



Mechanically a bard can easily fill the role of healer/wizard/and even fighter if built right. They are a true jack-of-all-trades, but what makes them a whole tier above fighters themselves is that they are capable of casting magic, which is a game changer in D&D. There's a reason why the most powerful classes and character all happen to be wizards, clerics, druids, or some other caster. As magic rules the world of D&D. But they are not put in Tier 3 because of their combat prowess, though they do contribute enough in all 3 aspects enough to be appreciated.

The Bards are valued due to their Charisma, as Diplomacy and Bluff are capable of making combat itself obsolete with the right encounters. In a world where if you have enough skill points in a certain skill which allows you to make something as ludicrous as "I am the moon" believable you don't really have to kill any sentient person. Glibness is a campaign breaker in and of itself not because you can reign down a nuke upon your enemies but because you can literally lie your way to the top.

The Bard in actuality should make a better leader than the Fighter because one is a dashing adventurer who has a penchant for wit and humor, while the other is most likely a grizzled master of war who's only notable skills are to hurt and harm people, it is an obvious choice who should do the talking if you need to negotiate with scared peasants or untrusting soldiers.

[137beth]

Richard Wagner would probably disagree with you over this, seeing as his epic screenplay and 4 part Opera "Der Ring des Nibelungen" was written out about 1848-1874, whereas Tolkien's Lord of the Rings was written during World War 2. Both of them have blacksmith dwarves who live underground caves, giants, mortal men, and gods. Only difference is that Wagner's world doesn't have elves but Valkyries. They both even have a magical ring with malevolent powers. However, the main reason why Wagner isn't as popular nowadays is because he because one of his greatest fans was Adolf Hitler. Therefore he gets shunned by association, whereas Tolkien, who specifically states that Orcs were to resemble "hideous Mongoloids" in an interview, gets better press for not being associated with Nazis.

While the whole deal with Wagner's ring was (partially) present in mythology, one of the big things Wagner added was the idea that the ring was inherently evil--something Tolkien was happy to use.

[veti]

I think what you're observing is that most fantasy tends to be derived from the same basic schema - woodsy elves, earthy dwarves, goofy bards, taverns, goblins, etc., etc. The problem is that fantasy and science fiction, theoretically the most imaginative and open-ended genres, actually seem to tend towards cliche and derivation. So many different series, yet so many seem to echo each other, with just slight variation.

It's worth mentioning in this context the relation between fantasy and mythology. Most of the fantasy ideas we know have their roots in older myths.

And myths were stories whose whole purpose was to be retold over and over, with variations, by different people in different contexts. The point of Orpheus was that the audience already knew who he was, so you didn't have to spend time establishing the character, you could just get on and tell your own story about him to make your own point, whatever that might be.

The idea that a work of art, such as a story, is supposed to be something "original" is a very modern idea. And the idea that literary characters are "creations" that should be the exclusive property of their "creators" - is one of the saddest delusions of our possessive age. Tolkien had no truck with it - which is why he got so widely copied, and why he was so influential.


My personal experience with fantasy has been that I love the genre, but I loathe almost all the actual books and stories in it, because they're just so derivative. For whatever reason, we don't demand the same level of originality from the more fantastic, imaginative genres (sci-fi, fantasy, horror, etc) and that lets hack writers flourish without ever pushing them.

That may be true... but why does it matter?

Okay, granted, there is a colossal amount of fantasy that's just utter crap, written by fifth-rate hacks who probably think 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' is the pinnacle of modern drama (David Eddings, I'm looking at you...). And granted, those people tend to be spectacularly uncreative - because they know the only way they can ever eke a living out of writing is by sheer volume of output, and they'll never achieve that if they spend time thinking up something new. So they gravitate to genres such as - well, D&D novels...

... But you don't have to be original to be a good writer.

To take an example not at all at random, consider Rich Burlew. He's written a story about a six-person adventuring team, led by an intelligent and charismatic warrior, including a pompous wizard, a taciturn healer, a quick-witted, sharp-tongued thief, and an amoral henchman who needs to be watched at all times. This motly band of misfits are on - get this - a quest to save the world by visiting far-flung locations, doing battle with horrific enemies and generally facing overwhelming odds on a daily basis.

Yawning yet? - because this entire story is as stereotypical in the genre as you can get, and I haven't even mentioned the team's races.

I think you could "get away with" your 'Tale of Two Cities' ripoff, to the same extent as you'd get away with the LotR ripoff. That is to say, every critic and every other person who's actually read a decent number of books would pour scorn and derision on both - but if you can make them sufficiently easy to read, you'll have readers all the same. Hollywood does this all the time. How many films nowadays even pretend to be original? From what I can see, the cinemas are literally full of remakes, reboots and sequels - most of the time, they don't even bother to change the title.

[Corian]

Other significant bard-like characters:

Deth, in Riddle-Master of Hed by Patricia McKillip.
Damiano, by Roberta McAvoy.

Of course, in locales where most magic is based on music, are we speaking of a bard or a magic-user?

Damiano used his lute playing as a focus, as opposed to a staff like his father, or a song like his lover.

Deth was a harpist and a very potent magic-user, though arguably independently. But bardic lore is the focus of magic in Hed.