King's Quest Companions and Roberta Williams

[Baggins]

Funny thing is the world wrapping thing actually was explained similarly back in the original KQ1 manual oddly enough. However in the companion its explained in the hintbook that had that "wrapping" ocurred in the real world of Daventry, it would have been useful to Graham. This suggests that in his novelization, the wrapping didn't exist in the KQ1 world. It implies Graham never encountered such a thing during his adventure, and if he had have, it would have been very useful.

Granted this does have an interesting effect on landmarks locations between KQ1 and KQ3 in Daventry. In KQ1, the Door into Mountain was located  practically directly north of the castle. Whereas the Ancient Well was located south east or  south west of the castle, and far away from the mountain.

In KQ3, the door into mountain is located south of the castle, as is the well, and they are moved next to each other.

Go to KQ5, and the mountain is completely gone, as is the well. Instead is a hill that goes down to the castle. Also in KQ3, Alexander lands on the north side of Daventry continent (see in-game charts), whereas in KQV, Serenia is placed up there.

Also for what it's worth in KQ3 the wrapping physically occurs in the direction descriptions and in-game artwork. You can see the town and 3 bears house to the north of the Mountain in from the mountain and manannan's tower. The game actually say it's the north btw. This is not a companion thing. Yet the magic map shows that the beats house and tow are to the south of the mountain. You see the mountain to north of the bears house. So even the artwork incorporated the wrapping geography.

See here for some of the wrapped artwork elements;

http://kingsquest.wikia.com/wiki/Llewdor

http://kingsquest.wikia.com/wiki/Three_Bear%27s_House

Go back. To kq2 and you see similar wrapped artwork in the beach screens and some of the direction descriptions. This is the only novelization in the companion where it was tied into the lore directly and specifically..

The direction wrapping also occurs in KQ4 though not so much evidence of it in the artwork. So you will get descriptions describing background of a screen as north, no matter what position on the in the game world. Depending where you are you might see some backgroudn element that appears "to the north" in time these areas areas seen in the backgrounds vs. foreground screens actually do wrap with each other. This is hard to explain but basically everything is in a north progression, and something that is "south of one item, might ultimately be north of another landmark, that's is shown to be north of yet another landmark. Until it starts again, the southern most and the northern most landmarks being directly north and south of each other. But this is hard to explain.

How can you even map it, since it would effectively not have borders?

Have you seen the maps in the companions and KQ3? Seriously no one seems to map it the same way every time (like I mentioned before landmarks shift around even between games)...

Also interesting trivia there is but one place in KQ1 that actually has a physical border not subjugated by "wrapping", see the area east of the Mushroom Isle. You can't travel east, and there is no wrapping going on there.

[KatieHal]

Cray is correct, that's more of what I meant. They're things that didn't need to be explained because they are in fact tropes.

Another example of what I mean: Phantom Menace decided to take the Force and explain it away with "midichlorians." There was no need for that explanation, and the story was worse for it. (And for many other reasons, but that was one of them.)

As for the time thing--that's something from Narnia, yes, BUT it's needed there. People are constantly traveling to and from this world and Narnia in the stories. In KQ? Not so much, so it wasn't needed.

Re: KQ3 wrapping elements: how do you know that's the Three Bears house? Their house is grey with a yellow roof; the one seen from the mountain top is grey with a yellow roof.

[crayauchtin]

(And for many other reasons, but that was one of them.)

Jar Jar? Yeahhhhhh.

And I guess I hadn't realized it was actually in the games. I still think it's kiiiiiiiiiinda dumb.

[Baggins]

Well like I said the travel is between Daventry and Eldritch, in such the way that people travel between earth and Narnia. Who knows what happens if someone travels between Earth and Daventry on the other hand. The book never goes into that detail much. The novel trilogy did for Old Woods vs Daventry though, but imply that Daventry itself has the same twelve month calendar as on earth. The month of November is mentioned in Kingdom of Sorrow. The only time "time" is brought up in the Companion concerning Daventry, is to mention that Manannan had some kind of weird clock that ticked away faster than a normal clock. This was a nod to how the ingame clock ticks away faster than normal earth clocks, about 3-5 ticks for every real world second. But its pointed out that clock is not a Daventry clock, and strange even to people living in Daventry (suggesting that they share western style timing as on earth). Its also suggested that they share a seven day week system.

On a side note, culturally, on earth different past cultures had different interpretations of time, different length of years, etc. In some places people do use different calenders. Its only been in the present that things have been more or less standardized.

But on the note of alternate realities... that is a peter spear thing only. Roberta seemed to not see that as much of an issue as far as Daventry itself, as she saw Daventry as being on earth. So in her view time probably would have been the same as on earth. It shared the same dates and time as western style, see KQ4.

Maybe you didn't like these explanations, but obviously others did find them interesting. Even some of the designers did to the extent to expand on and utilize the companion as part of their canon. See Lorelei Shannon (KQ7 Strategy guide wrriten by her, KQ6 hintbook by her), and Jane Jensen (Guidebook to the Land of the Green Isles),  and other bonus material in King's Quest Collection 15th anniversary edition (King's Questions, etc) and Interaction Magazine. Roberta herself find them interesting as well. I suppose its something that's more interesting to the types of fans that like having explanations for every minor detail. The Tolkien style fans that buy the History of Middle Earth, Silmerillion, and Unfinished Tales, or read the appendices in Return of the King.  For example Tolkien even wrote an article discussing sex lives of the Elves. Tolkien was even anal retentive enough that if he made an error, he would go back and make an inuniverse explanation to tie it back into his world in his letters and essays. These kind of details are not for everyone, but many people do enjoy the more technical explanations or every little minor issue.

[KatieHal]

Yeah, and those are examples, to me (yes, I know others find them interesting--obviously what I'm saying is just my opinion), of explanations that weren't needed. Time only moved faster in the game to give it a faster gameplay--not because time actually moves faster in Mannanan's house. It didn't need to be explained. Likewise, it never even occurred to me until reading it in the forums within the last few months (no doubt in a KQC post by you, Baggins! Hehe), that Eldritch might be another dimension. Nothing in the game suggests that--sure Rosella gets there by traveling through a portal, but she gets to Tamir via magical travel, too, and that's in the same world as Daventry. It always seemed to me Eldritch & Etheria were in the same world as Daventry, just in a different, distant, faraway part of that world.

And I even really like the idea of all of it. The bonus material, yeah, that's great--it just reaches the point of dislike for me when the bonus material ends up complicating/conflicting with/convoluting/overexplaining things about the regular material unnecessarily.

[Baggins]

Time only moved faster in the game to give it a faster gameplay--not because time actually moves faster in Mannanan's house.

Well I don't think the idea was that "time moved faster" in Manannan's house, just that clock used a different time. This is actually part of the fact that the novelization is a hintbook, so to even solve the puzzles in the game, you would need to understand the timings used in the game. So the novelization uses the ingame timing so people would have a real world clue what they needed to do to avoid Manannan in the game's real time, if they chose to follow the game by reading the novel. Following the game while reading the novel was one of the suggestions made in the companion, because some people might find that fun.

In the same way, that's the reason why KQ2 novelization includes the "wrap around" within its account, to give the easiest path through the game for anyone choosing to follow the novel to beat the game.

Ya more than likely that might be the problem, you think of it as merely a novel, but haven't taken into account that it was also intentionally meant to be a unique style of hint book, that could be followed via narrative means.

hat Eldritch might be another dimension. Nothing in the game suggests that--sure Rosella gets there by traveling through a portal, but she gets to Tamir via magical travel, too, and that's in the same world as Daventry. It always seemed to me Eldritch & Etheria were in the same world as Daventry, just in a different, distant, faraway part of that world.

Ya, well like I said most of the stuff that would have explained that in game was cut unfortunately. It was earlier long version of the game. Although its actually hinted at in a few places, mostly within Rosella's song which hinted at the idea of traveling to another world in Rosella's song, "Land beyond dreams". Some of those lyrics got cut as well, though.