Medieval Realism

[TheReturnofDMD]

Hey

Being as the King's Quest series, and therefore TSL, take place in a medieval type of world...I was wondering...are any of the darker parts of the game going to have any medieval realism...Like for example a plague or "pox'' of some kind, or if say you go into a peasants house and it actually looks like a poor peasants house and not a richly decorated home..or any of these sorts of things that are more like the real medieval world was?
Also, are you going to be able to ride a horse at some point in the game?

[Yonkey]

Hmm... I'm not sure how Part Two will be, but Part One will be more Green Isles and fantasy type of world rather than medieval.

You will be going inside someone's "house" in Shadows, and you will be riding a "horse" at some points during the game.  But that's all I can reveal for now.

[Shades2585]

Cool! Riding a horse will be a refreshing change.

[Deloria]

But you got to ride a "horse" in both six and seven, albeit winged horses, but still horses.

[Petra Rocks]

Hello, a request for information that was not met by Mr.  "" What is the world coming to? 

[Yonkey]

What is the world coming to? 

[Jafar]

You guys exaggerate Yonkey's anti-spoiler policies.

[Deloria]

But those weren't spoilers. Beast's castle is in screenshots (I'm guessing that's what Neil meant by "house") and as this is in the Land Of the Green Isles, one can assume Nightmare will also be there.

[Yonkey]

Actually, I wasn't even thinking about those two examples.   But yeah, I guess you guys could have figured out the answer to his question on your own.

[Petra Rocks]

What is the world coming to? 

  I meant that in a good way.   

  Seriously, that we will go into a house is not a great shock, as we have in every Kings Quest (that I've played) to date. 

  However, I think the original question was not will we go into a house, but will we see unpleasant details of Medieval life like plague, extreme poverty etc.  And though I've not read the script or anything, I doubt it.  Kings quest has never claimed to be set in history or have anything to do with real life, past or present. I see no reason that would change now.  Any such poverty will be fairy tale based, like the poor old lady in KQII+ or the woodcutter in KQI, not based on an accurate model of 14thc Europe.

[Shades2585]

But you got to ride a "horse" in both six and seven, albeit winged horses, but still horses.

I just started playing VI and I'm playing them in order. The one in KQ2vga you can't control where you go.

[maestro]

The one in KQ2vga you can't control where you go.

You can control the seahorses.

[Jafar]

I think he was talking about the snake\horse.

[Petra Rocks]

  Not to mention neither a winged talking horse nor a controllable seahorse have much to do with reality, Medieval or otherwise. 

[Baggins]

Kings quest has never claimed to be set in history

Well uh, tombstones in KQ4 had earth dates(albeit most were 1600-1700s), and other games had refrences to historical earth people, or history(William Shakespeare, Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, etc) throughout the games, , and the fact most of the official games had refrences to it being "a long time ago" or earth.

"A long, long time ago, when unicorns still roamed the forests and the merfolk still dwelt in the shallow waters frequented by men, there ruled in the kingdom of Daventry..."-KQ1 manual.

"I'm afraid my time on Earth grows short."-Edward, KQ1(remake).

"A long, long time ago, when creatures of myth and magic walked the earth openly with lesser mortals, there dwelt in the kingdom of Daventry...."-KQ2 Manual

"A long, long time ago, when magic was the only science known to man, there dwelt in the land of Llewdor..."-KQ3 manual.

"Once, in a kingdom called Daventry...According to legend, shortly after Rosella's rescue King Graham decided it was time to pass on his adventurer's cap..."-KQ4 Manual

"Long ago, in the kingdom of Daventry..."-KQ5 Manual

"A long time ago, there was a peaceful and prosperous kingdom called Daventry."-KQ5, King's Quest collection.

"Long time ago in the castle of a kingdom called Daventry..."-KQ6 intro.

"...face of the Earth...Mother Earth...anywhere on earth"-Guidebook to the land of the Green Isles.

"I can shift the earth's magnetic pole just a tad..."-Gnomic Terramancer, MoE.

Plus even if you go with Derek Karlavaegen theory that that they withdrew to another world other than earth, there is still a historical connection to Earth .




Now the novels themselves, those had more medieval style refrences, with the occasional person living poorly, or mention of killer diseases.

Though come to think of it in KQ1 you could go into the old descrepid house of the woodcutter, and his sickly wife...

[Jafar]

I always considered it some kind of "alternate" Earth. Not nessecarily our Earth, though with all the "long time agos", it might be similar to ours in the future/

[Petra Rocks]

I doubt you could hide a post-literate kingdom with architecture on that scale, particularly if it was in close enough contact with England to know of the Bard.  Still, I guess if the can swallow talking pumpkins and turnings wizards into cats I can deal with this too right? 

[Baggins]

Well, in one interview from long ago Roberta hinted that Daventry may actually be the real world, Daventry, just really far in the past, at an uspecified point in history.

It seems that Roberta Wiliams and the designers viewed the world of Daventry to be in our past, on our world. It was Peter Spear's idea however for the sake of his official novels that they withdrew to another world from our world, thus why stuff from our world gets pulled to their world on occasion. For example the Whateley Manor in KQ4, where you get the Shakespeare book actually was pulled over from Innsmouth, MA, bringing over ghosts and deep ones with it, heh heh. It appeared that Derek was communicating to Peter Spear in time relative to ours, from Peter Spear's account in his story.

Course if you want to throw a bit of relativism into it, they could have travelled through time not just space, and ended up in a primordial version of our earth. So when Derek was sending his notes he was not only sending them over space, but into the future as well. So all the events are actually in the past but on our earth.

swallow talking pumpkins

That's only in the unofficial KQ2 remake. It has nothing to do with the official timeline. There are no talking pumpkins in the "real" account of what happened in KQ2. Sure maybe there are talking pumpkins somewhere in Daventry, but they never showed up in any of the official games.

[Petra Rocks]

Sorry, but I've never played KQIV or read any novels, so I have no idea who Derek or Peter Spear are.   

  For a kingdom to exist without historians knowing about it there would have to be no surviving written works or structures. As Kings Quest societies are obviously literate and they have large castles, engines and other such things they would have to go very far back not be found.  I mean, dozens of mud ziggurats built by the first known human civilizations are still around. A stone castle wouldn't be going anywhere fast.   

Again the entire premise of kings quest demands a certain suspension of disbelief, and if I can deal with flying horses I can deal with anything.  I don't want to get into a lecture about how unhistorical KQ is, since 1. I'd never stop 2. KQ isn't supposed to be about history, so it is obvious. 3. I don't want to get torn apart by the fan boys.    But since it was brought up, I though I might as well comment on just how it is for a society of that level to disappear in anything less that hundreds of thousands of years. 


  And lastly, dating from a certain event (ie year 1600, 1700) is common in many different cultures.  The Romans dated from AUC and the Islamic world AH for example.  There is no reason 1600 would have to correspond to 1600 AD.   

[Baggins]

Ok, let me go a bit more slowly on this...

In Roberta's mind Daventry corresponded to the real world Daventry that still exists. In some unspecified point in history. The town still exists, there is still a castle in the area, but its just ruins at this point. Daventry is an actual location in England.

However the ancient Daventry, that  seen in the games is from a time so long ago that it predates even the modern Daventry, but was apparently in the same location. However, the world at the time had a much different set of continents. So this goes even farther back than Pangea.

Now like I said the dates on KQ4 gravestones were in the AD format, inside of the mansion in the library was the copy of the Compleat Works of Shakespeare, by William Shakespeare. The explanation for its existence according to the official King's Quest companion was that it was pulled from Innsmouth, MA, USA, you know the east coast state (sure it merges in a bit of Lovecraft into the King's Quest mythos, but we also have Abdul Alhazred as well,  ), from "our world", Peter Spear's own words. Rosella would quote from various Shakespeare plays, such as Hamlet, Mid Summer's Nights Dream, etc, if you read from the book.

Derek Karlavaegen is the character who "wrote" the manual for King's Quest 6, as well as much of the material in official King's Quest companion. Peter Spear is the true author of the companion, but conceit behind the story, and it takes a bit of suspension of disbelief, that he was receiving letters, and documents from Derek on his computer, from world of Daventry.

Sure, King's Quest isn't true history, but it has a history of its own, that was merged into our real world history as far as the fiction goes, and yes it takes suspension of disbelief like any other kind of fictional story.

Other things brought accross and back to Daventry, include roman ruins(KQ4), egyptian tombs(KQ4), "Ancient Arabic Mythology"(a book in Manannan's study), Essence of Sun Tzu(MoE), etc.