Assume about 1 person in 100 is a personification of some sort in addition to being human

[jack]

Assuming about 1 person in 100 is a personification of some sort in addition to being human, what proportion of characters in a story about a small scale magic racket should be?

It's not always obvious. Alexander the Great might have been the personification of one aspect of warfare, or he might just have been lucky. Elvis was probably born human, but grew into a personification of an entirely new sort, and one day faded away, but is constantly popping up again in different bodies: not everyone who puts on the Elvis-h Shellsuit takes it off again. Conversely, someone you know is probably entirely normal human who is also the species' representation of the concentrated essence of camp dancing.

When people had more concrete fears/loves, less human beings could be formed: the legion of different fire personifications is legion, each fire god will have come and gone many times. And there are still a few around, but they tend to be lower key.

Currently three characters represent something, one importantly so, one 2-dimensionally so, and one is a nonsentient pet made out of fire. There are about four other characters.

I was stuck on the boss of the firm. I didn't know anything about him, didn't want to dwell on him, or what he was good for, or what he was like, but he needed to interact with people for the plot to work. So, I decided to make virtue out of necessity, and he shall be a living stereotype of the leader of a small racket, affable and occasionally ruthless; indeed, is less of a person than a phase, as different people come and go into the role, but all function entirely the same way. That was the stumbling block; the finger may now be out of the dyke.

Comments

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Paragraph 2 of this post is positively the best paragraph I've read all day.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Thank you, that makes me feel great. More so than plots, I really love writing about fictional *ideas*.

OTOH, it's mid-afternoon on a thursday, I feel I should be aiming higher :)

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

That's 70 million personifications running around, so they must be quite intricately specialised... I like the idea.

[tienelle.livejournal.com]

On the one hand, I want to pimp Nobilis at you. On the other, I want to see what shape the world you produce is, without contamination.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Mmm... Nobilis prostitution.

On the gripping hand, it's not that big a deal. This is just one aspect of my world that only then came into focus. About as important as having elves: some people are elves, and sometimes it's important, but most of the time people are important irrespective of if they're elves :)

Nobilis does sound cool, I will learn more... sometime.

But otoh, not *too* similar. My personifications are maybe less sweeping. You don't go "Oh my god, a god!" but "You know, I always *wondered* about Colin. Why is it that he can break any computer just by touching it. That makes so much sense."

[tienelle.livejournal.com]

Does Colin know he's the personification of Really Confusing Tech Support, in your world? And are elves obviously elves?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of a personification of technical incomptetance (of which there must be many) and he may or may not.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Come to think of it, it also reminds me of Chess' campaign, with the human stereotypes (whatever they were really called); though again mine would be like 4th level equivalents of them :)