It's been a long, strange trip. Looking back, I started Darian while I was still in high school and have finished in my first year of grad school. Part of this is thanks to my own erratic interests, and there were several periods where I privately considered this project abandoned. Nevertheless, thanks in no small part to K'aeloree, Choo Choo, Kellen, and Theacefes in prodding me and sparking my interest again, I can finally call this project finished. Later updates aren't out of the question, fixing bugs and maybe adding further cross-mod content, but those will be a postscript to a book I'm proud to say I can finally close.
Darian has evolved a lot over the years. He's been more and less aloof, his emotional distance from others varied, and of course his heart has always been a tricky matter. He went from romancing Imoen but not Charname to just Charname to Charname and Mazzy to Charname and Aerie to Charname and Aerie-in-ToB-only. It's appropriate, I think. Darian as a character does evolve during the story, though he doesn't always show it. Nothing so dramatic as picking up a new script like Aerie and Nalia do in Throne of Bhaal, but he as a character is a very different person than the Avariel Talon who shows up in Athkatla. Oddly, where his journey as a character ends in ToB has remained more or less a constant. He grows up, he inspects his ideals for their viability in the hard and often unpleasant reality they have to exist in, and he realizes that love is a complicated, nuanced thing.
Perhaps I'm overstating things. I make no pretensions to great literature. Darian is no stellar piece of writing and some of you - you know who you are - find him ridiculous, overblown, a jerk, or just badly written. That is fine with me, and I don't begrudge your opinions. The world would be awfully boring if everyone liked the same things. I worked on Darian because it interested and entertained me. Well, not so much the flirts and certain parts of the romance, but I'll take a little sour along with the sweet. If Darian interests you, if there are moments that make you laugh or get you thinking, then I am happy for you. If Darian doesn't interest you, I'm fine with that, too. I'm not in this to win medals for my writing or carve out some fleeting place in an obscure internet culture. That was never the point.
In hindsight, only two things have really remained a constant in Darian over the years. Pride and introspection. Darian's pride is both his cardinal sin and his greatest strength. It blinds him to unpleasant realities and, frankly, makes him an arrogant jerk when his initial impression of someone or something fails to measure up to his own, largely imaginary, standards. It also gives him the faith that drives him no matter how alien or dire the situation. Darian is also a quiet, introspective character. He's slow to approach others with what he's thinking, and slower still to directly say what he's thinking. He's thoughtful and constantly thinks about his situation and beliefs. This is an aspect of him I've always had trouble portraying - were this Dragon Age or Mass Effect, he'd lurk in the quietest corner of the ship or camp he could find, and surround himself with books and a journal to write and think in. Charname would have to approach him first, and intrude on his little sanctum. The restraints of Baldur's Gate 2 made this sort of thing impossible to pursue in any meaningful way without forcing things on the player, and one of my cardinal rules of writing is to never tell the player what Charname is doing, thinking, or feeling.
As for Darian and Charname? It's possible to live happily ever after, but I wouldn't call that the epilogue most true to who Darian is and what his character arc involves. Certainly, he's capable of true, selfless love. Darian's never had trouble with self-sacrifice. However, he's young yet, and still has a lot of growing to do. Now, true love doesn't restrict growth - quite the opposite - but I personally feel that one of the more bittersweet epilogues is the better capstone. Darian's entire journey has been a bittersweet one. True, he's a better man and a much more mature individual at the end of it all, but there is something to be said for the proverb that ignorance is bliss. Even without Charname's amorous presence, Darian's ignorance is shredded over the course of Baldur's Gate 2 and Throne of Bhaal. And at the end, it is time for a youth to become a man. Happily ever after is a nice thought to end it all, but more tarnished endings predominate for a reason.
Then again, perhaps to you all my rambling has no point. You have your own thoughts and beliefs and feelings, on Darian like anything else, and you take a look at all this and are content in your own perspective. In which case, I thank you for your trouble regardless.
Indeed, thanks is all I have left to give now. I can't hope to recount everyone who's helped along the way, from flirt ideas to unrelated thoughts that provoked new thoughts and directions of my own. Nevertheless, I would like to offer my dearest thanks to some in particular. I know that at least one or two of them will probably never read this, but I'd like to thank them all the same:
K'aeloree
Kellen
Theacefes
Choo Choo
Berelinde
Ilmatar
And to all the rest who helped along the way? Thank you. All of you. It's been a long time coming, and I have a hard time remembering everything I've learned during one semester for one class, much less all the people who have helped and contributed to Darian over the years.
With that, I bid you all fare well and good journeys, on Earth, in Faerun, or wherever else your path takes you.
Edited by Tempest, 03 January 2012 - 10:03 AM.
