The Legend of the Verdant Sea / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page The Legend of the Verdant Sea.

Author post

PMEase-G4 26 Feb 2019 20:22

My very first tale for the site. Once intended to be just an addendum to an SCP-draft, it developed a life of its own and grew into the tale you see now before you.

I hope you had as much fun reading it, as I had writing the thing.

Many thanks to AdminBright for encouraging me to finally post the tale.

Re: Author post

AdminBright 26 Feb 2019 23:20

Upvoted, I absolutely love this.

---

Admin, SCP Wiki

(account deleted) 26 Feb 2019 21:46

The ending of this bugged me. My issue is that you go out of your way to make it seem like you're going to subvert a trope, you even mention it here:

For a moment the man hesitated, remembering old tales of foolish men and women that bargained with powers beyond their understanding only to meet a fate worse than death.

But then at the end you play the trope straight anyway. It's a bit cliche.

Having said that though, the writing was easilly good enough to earn a +1. Nice work!

Is the Great Mother actually Yaldabaoth?

PMEase-G4 26 Feb 2019 22:34

I can see how the lack of an inversion might bug you (especially given how strongly I hinted at it) but at the time of writing the tale, I found it quite amusing how the man still agreed to the pact, despite it being clear from the get-go that it would end badly.

I might have to write up further tales where I experiment more with trope sub- and inversions.

Glad you enjoyed the tale anyway :D

As for the inspiration of the "Great Mother":

Things man was not meant to know...

While Yaldabaoth certainly has some similarity to the Great Mother, the entity was mostly inspired by the Aztec goddess Cōātlīcue and Shub-Niggurath from H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. Both of which are some kind of dark earth/fertility deity.

(account deleted) 27 Feb 2019 03:49

Oh yeah, this was an easy upvote for my, I just wanted to point out my feelings on the ending. Thanks for writing it!