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4 years ago ::
May 07, 2009 - 7:21PM
#1091
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Mmmmm no 3rd edition never looked at most wizards as Elminster. Elminster is just a Gandalf rip off.
You fail to see my point... :raincloud
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4 years ago ::
May 07, 2009 - 8:13PM
#1092
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Date Joined:
Apr 26, 2005
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Mmmmm no 3rd edition never looked at most wizards as Elminster. Elminster is just a Gandalf rip off.
Hardly. Elminster started as a narrational device for Ed Greenwood, a legitimate authorial insertion that allowed Ed to comment on the Realms in a metafictive manner. He could just as easily be claimed to be a rip-off of Odin or Merlin, who mirror his personality far more closely; the main problem is that realistically, the entire magic-user class was partly a (honestly quite poor) rip-off of Tolkien's Wizards, making it a bit of a hairier issue.
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4 years ago ::
May 07, 2009 - 8:23PM
#1093
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XunValDorl_of_HouseKilsek
Date Joined:
May 31, 2003
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Hardly. Elminster started as a narrational device for Ed Greenwood, a legitimate authorial insertion that allowed Ed to comment on the Realms in a metafictive manner. He could just as easily be claimed to be a rip-off of Odin or Merlin, who mirror his personality far more closely; the main problem is that realistically, the entire magic-user class was partly a (honestly quite poor) rip-off of Tolkien's Wizards, making it a bit of a hairier issue.
His attitude is definitely not Gandalf, but the pointy hat, long white beard and good with a sword as well as magic thing is mainly Gandalf. I don't see the typical spellcaster as Gandalf really, I see them as more of the typical Merlin.
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4 years ago ::
May 07, 2009 - 10:39PM
#1094
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His attitude is definitely not Gandalf, but the pointy hat, long white beard and good with a sword as well as magic thing is mainly Gandalf. I don't see the typical spellcaster as Gandalf really, I see them as more of the typical Merlin.
I think that Gandalf is in itself based on Merlin... the quintessential omnipotent-but-restricted secondary character-turned-Deus-Ex-Machina.
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4 years ago ::
May 08, 2009 - 4:06AM
#1095
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Date Joined:
Apr 26, 2005
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His attitude is definitely not Gandalf, but the pointy hat, long white beard and good with a sword as well as magic thing is mainly Gandalf. I don't see the typical spellcaster as Gandalf really, I see them as more of the typical Merlin.
Actually, in his Wanderer guise, Gandalf was described as, an "Odinic wanderer," both by Tolkien himself and subsequent critics. The old guy with a huge beard in the wide-brimmed hat with a staff, who also happens to be a bit of a swordsman is, it ends up, older than dirt. Merlin and Gandalf are pretty dissimilar, though, I dunno; one doesn't get the sense that he's omnipotent the way the quasi-angel-literal-Deus-ex-Machina is.
Which is why I'd hesitate to say that Elminster is simply a Gandalf rip-off, actually. It's fair to say that they draw inspiration from the same archetype, but it's not like Tolkien was exactly cooking with fresh vegetables there, either, and to say that Greenwood didn't create an original character because Tolkien reused the Odinic Wanderer archetype first is, well, unfair.
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4 years ago ::
May 08, 2009 - 8:49AM
#1096
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Date Joined:
Mar 22, 2008
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Mmmmm no 3rd edition never looked at most wizards as Elminster. Elminster is just a Gandalf rip off.
You're absolutely right, except for the fact that Elminster is nothing like Gandalf, other than old and powerful with a white beard and mustache.
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4 years ago ::
May 08, 2009 - 8:51AM
#1097
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Date Joined:
Mar 22, 2008
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His attitude is definitely not Gandalf, but the pointy hat, long white beard and good with a sword as well as magic thing is mainly Gandalf. I don't see the typical spellcaster as Gandalf really, I see them as more of the typical Merlin.
As if pointy hats and long white beards don't describe most old, powerful wizards out there. The sword brings Elminster a tad closer to Gandalf, but those two are hardly the only sword using wizards. Three mostly useless descriptive pieces don't a Gandalf make.
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4 years ago ::
May 08, 2009 - 9:47AM
#1098
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The point of my previous post was, essentially, that saying that all 4E Drow are Drizzt or that all 3E Wizards are Elminster is rather thoughtless.
Not sure how it got over to a Gandalf vs. Elminster debate, really, but that's the internet for you.
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