Vaalyah wrote...
@ Bokhi: I think that Bishop IS manipulative. But only with someone he doesn't consider at his own level. Bishop firmly believes that almost everyone around him is stupid (ie: Elanee) or completely useless (ie: Grobnar). But he actually respects those that deserve it (in HIS opinion). So, for some reasons (SPOILER do you remember when he said that he's not being impressed by the people of Ember for not being able of defending themselves? In that dialogue he stated that the PC was a person better than them, because s/he was able to defend him/serself END SPOILER), the PC has Bishop's respect. If the PC is a female, while rescuing Shandra, he behaves with her very badly, having fun of her and treating her like a stupid. As soon as they are back at the Flagon, he stops mocking her and starts to treat her in a different (and more respectful) way. A coincidence? I don't think so.
Again: please, in your opinion, what has made Bishop changing his mind about the PC? What had he seen while they were following the Ghitianky? (or how it is written!)
Hm, I guess I'm coming back into the conversation waaaay late (but I had completely forgotten I was even involved in this discussion! Sorry Vaalyah!)
Oh I don't disagree that Bishop develops a certain degree of respect for the PC; after all, she does climb to a position of power. And, presumably, PC is competent in an obvious way. Gets results. Bishop tends to appreciate results, I imagine. However, you appear to be implying that his shift in behaviour (the drop-off of mocking once they get back to the flagon) is a behavioural phenotype indicative of *genunine romantic feelings* (unless I'm misreading your statement); I think the shift in behaviour can be explained in a number of more likely ways, particularly if one considers the timeline. I think post-rescue, he does come to realize her general utility in the various ways mentioned in my previous post.
Now, what it was that the PC did that made him see how useful or desireable it would be to stick by the PC, is entirely debateable depending on the PC (and I think someone else in this thread has already made this point. Apologies, I don't recall who it was off the top of my head). For a high-influence PC, maybe he was just having fun, hoping for some horizontal tango, and sticking it to Duncan was a bonus. For a low-influence PC, maybe he wanted to tear her down, get his rocks off in the process...and stick it to Duncan.
Of course, if we want to depart somewhat from the rigid game-constraints, I certainly think there are more kinds of PCs possible than "high influence" or "low influence"; I say "rigid game-constraints" because influence in the OC was actually presented in a linear sort of manner, not actually representative of actual human interactions. Very streamlined and simplified human interactions, but not holistically representative. There's a great deal to be said about chemistry, sexual or otherwise; maybe Bishop and PC just jive really well together. I think that as long as the PC appears to have personality traits and abilities (though not necessarily the beliefs) that Bishop can appreciate (and "what Bishop likes" has already been covered by others, I believe), it would be enough to intrigue him, even if it is in a shallow or base way.
As an additional note, I just realized that I had previously agreed with the entirety of this quote:
Zaxares wrote:
With regards to love and affection, certainly evil beings can fall in love, just as good beings do. However, their alignment tends to dictate their approach to love. Lawful Evil characters, for example, tend to seek to wholly possess and control the object of their love. They force the object of their affection into marriage, forbid them from leaving the house/mansion/castle without their company, or in extreme cases, even purchase them as a slave so they can have their paramour completely at their disposal. That doesn't mean the evil person will mistreat their love. They genuinely DO want their beloved to be happy, but they approach it in a fashion that is lopsided, unequal and unhealthy.
The result of this is that the love is eventually stifled or suffocated, and when the other partner starts to lose interest or attempt to pull away, the Evil being reacts selfishly or even violently, refusing to let the other person go. This is why Evil characters rarely manage to have long-lasting, stable relationships. Their standard approach to dealing with other people will eventually poison the love. Exceptions can exist, of course, but that usually means that the Evil character is ultimately transformed by the experiences that the love has taught them, which changes their alignment to Neutral.
and just realized that I never actually meant to agree with the last bit, because I don't necessarily extrapolate the same (or, more accurately, do not only envision the above scenarios) from the given definitions of the DnD alignment system. I'm sure evil characters can indeed have long-lasting love affairs, happily laying waste to the land, sea, and sky in the name of said love, with the only the occasional mad-evil cackle of BWAHAHAHAHA! There is certainly room for interpretation.
And to keep this post from being COMPLETELY OLD NEWS FROM FIVE MONTHS AGO:
Vaalyah said:
I'm still quite confused on the psychological side of the question. :-/
So, Mungbean, you are saying that there's no hope at all to help Bishop or to cure him (from a psychological point of view). You're right, this is sad :-(
I am not working on a fanfic, but just on a development of the OC. The idea (there are other people involved, so collaborations are really welcome!) is to add some depth to secondary plots and removed contents. In this sense, the development of the Bishop's romance could be interesting. I just would like to change the story in order that the PC's feelings for him WILL actually change something. Maybe in the end he just has to betray, but the reasons may be different... I don't know, I'm still trying to figure out his psychology...
I'm going to point out that high fidelity to psychological paradigms are not actually required for literature. Yes, a certain degree of fidelity is required for believability, however, many of our stock literary narratives and characterizations are still successful despite NOT ACTUALLY BEING PSYCHOLOGICALLY ACCURATE depictions. I would actually say that the layman sense of psychology can sometimes come into conflict with actual scientific findings; some findings in social psychology are actually counter-intuitive! So if you want to give Bishop a redemption arc, you can give Bishop a redemption arc. It's not impossible.
With that being said, I would like to give an alternative to Mungbean's psychological analysis. Whereas he does make some good points, I don't necessarily agree with all of them. Just as a forewarning: this is going to be looong~!
First, I would like to touch base. I've noticed that a lot of the "arguments" here tend to stem from differing definitions of love, good, and evil; just for the sake of my own argument I will define "love" as being a strong feeling of strong attachment, affection, and empathy towards a person, creature, or thing; since we are using the DnD 3.5 rules, I will go with their definitions for the varying good/evil alignments (and I'm certain they have already been characterized on this thread).
Second, I would like to point out that I've noticed a not-insignificant number of people on the forums are characterizing Bishop as either a sociopath or a psychopath, and generally using those two terms interchangeably; the two designations, however, mean different things. Sociopathy has more to do with social mal-adjustment, whereas psychopathy is the term used to describe what most of the posters here are referring to as "sociopathy." In general, I would characterize Bishop as possibly sociopathic, but not necessarily psychopathic (well, not necessarily a "true" psychopath, anyways, which is closest to what people were describing. There are actually three categories of psychopaths, and the true psychopath or primary psychopath, is the one we're interested in). FYI, a true psychopath *does* have a lack of remorse, a lack of empathy, hypoemotionality, etc; however, they also do consistently worse than normal populations on avoidance learning tasks (the fear, it lives in the amygdala. But not in psychopaths!), have lower than normal skin conductance, lower neurological activity in the amygdala when exposed to emotional stimuli, etc; in other words, their neurological makeup is *different* from non-psychopathic populations, including criminal ones.
I don't see Bishop as having that particular neurological make-up. Certainly I am extrapolating, but it occurs to me that Bishop just feels too much. Negative emotions, yes, but he does not appear to have a hypoemotionality problem; furthermore, if he were psychopathic, killing his village wouldn't bother him so damn much. And it does bother him; it's his Big Sin. He's stuck on it, in a way. So: sociopathic, highly probable; psychopathic, likely no. He also doesn't appear to be in the habit of thrill-seeking for the sake of it (psychopaths would rather be punished than bored. So they tend to do risky, **** things), but more for *emotional satisfaction* (sweet, sweet REVENGE and RAGE against the WOOOORLD! CRAAAAWLLLING INNN MY SKIIIIN! THESE WOOOUUUNNDS WILL NEEEVEEER HEEEAAAL!) That and uh, he's just not superficially charming enough. No, really. In-game? Everyone knows he's a douche. EVERYONE.
So, Vaalyah? (Can I call you Vaal? Or V? Typing, it is so taxing) It is my internet!expert! opinion that you can, in fact, safely discard any previously presented notion of Bishop being *incapable* of feeling emotions to their full extent. He can love (re: my definition), alright; but can he *express* it in socially acceptable ways, or at least in a way that won't end with him attempting to kill the PC in his ever-maddening confusion? Is a HPA possible with this nasally angst-riddled ex-Luskan misogynist Ranger with a nerfed class kit? (Thanks 3.5!)
Tune in next time, because I just realized it's past 1 AM here and I procrastinated Way Too Much. Sleep, not going to happen. Tomorrow, going to SUCK. LATERZ.
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It sounds like you are only interested in responses that agree with your opinions.
