Subject: Although the Questing Beast isn't quite unique...
Author:
Posted on: 2009-05-31 14:41:00 UTC
It's popped up in other Arthurian fantasy before. I know I've seen a few literary references here and there. Should probably make a good mini, though.
As for mini-ness, I think they should just lack the bite of doom. Muzzles are a bit risky - they might be forgotten or removed somehow, which might mean loads of dead Agents. Generics just don't work as well.
I'm about to start work on sporking a fic in the Merlin (BBC) canon, and as far as I'm aware a) no-one's done one yet, and b) no mini is designated for this canon.
Being as it's unique to the programme, I would propose that the minis be mini-Questing Beasts. There are other monsters in Merlin but mostly they're pretty generic heraldic beasts.
The only issue with the Questing Beast is that its bite is canonically fatal and incurable.
So my question is, if I did end up using mini-Questing Beasts, would it be best to say that the minis do NOT have this canonical power, or that they all have to be kept muzzled, or simply to pick a slightly less invariably deadly creature to be the mini?
Most Minis of fatal creatures are mostly harmless.
Let me guess...the fic's Merlin/Arthur?
... with unrequited Merlin/Arthur, poorly written 'kink', and spelling errors all over the place, hence the query about minis.
Good luck with that.
It's popped up in other Arthurian fantasy before. I know I've seen a few literary references here and there. Should probably make a good mini, though.
As for mini-ness, I think they should just lack the bite of doom. Muzzles are a bit risky - they might be forgotten or removed somehow, which might mean loads of dead Agents. Generics just don't work as well.
Ooh, you got references? I know next to nothing about the Arthurian legend, it's just that I'd not heard of the Questing Beast before and I figured that a creature that's a hybrid of what looks like a leopard and a cobra and which is tied into a religion that appears to have mostly been made up of pick n mix aspects of fantasy/Celtic religions was mostly an invention, but I'd be really interested if you know where I could find more to read about it.
As I was thinking of that, I realized that I completely forgot just where I heard of it. Pretty sure there was at least one mention of King Pellinore trying to skewer an undescribed Questing Beast of some sort, in some story I read quite a while back. I'd guess a little digging around about the beast might turn up something useful.
I just google-imaged 'questing beast' and got shedloads of pics that are decidedly old-looking and not at all BBC Merlin, so I'll happily believe you :)
I think they'll make a neat mini - who WOULDN'T want a miniature leopard/cobra hybrid?
... Balrogs are canonically giant, evil demons of flame and shadow, but people hug Mini-Balrogs all the time. The attributes of minis are usually rather toned-down from the originals -- that's why they're minis. So a toned-down version of fatal and incurable would be, what, painful?
Anyway, minis don't tend to bite people. Much.
hS
that had escaped me at my bedtime last night :)
You beat me to it. :P