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Ok, not literally thousands. So far the cumulative character spreadsheet only gets a little past 350 individuals. (And that's everyone who is mentioned with any specificity -- even very minor characters who don't have names.) But one of the tricky parts of these first chapters of Mother of Souls is re-introducing all the primary characters and significant secondary characters (as well as brand new characters) without bogging down the plot.
In chapter 4 (Margerit's point of view) I'm starting to move on more to setting up plot. We get to see some of the philosophical and stylistic differences in their approach to mysteries and miracles between Margerit and her unexpected student Serafina. And we have a scene that begins to lay the groundwork for Margerit's nascent ambition to start a more organized school of sorts. It starts, in part, with the re-introduction of a minor character from The Mystic Marriage.
Frances Collfield, the eccentric English botanist, is likely always to stay a minor character (though I could be wrong about that), but she functions as a disruptive force, an accidental catalyst. At her original appearance, she was the inspiration for Margerit's sponsorship of the lecture series featuring women academics that is now growing to larger proportions. And in the current chapter, Frances shows up once again with a problem whose solution will catalyze other structures and events.
In a looser sense, Frances also serves to show the larger depth of the world. The Alpennian stories have a tendency (so far) to be fairly parochial, dealing with local issues and relatively private concerns. Antuniet's travels have sketched out some parts of the larger European scene, and the spectre of Austrian meddling in Alpennian politics opens things up as well. But I hope to use Frances to illustrate more of the diversity of approaches to the "magic" of the world of Alpennia.
For my central characters, this "magic" is understood primarily through the lens of religion, and thus through a specifically Catholic lens. (With other issues like alchemy being rather tidily categorized away as Something Else.) And I've dropped a few hints that the Protestant Reformation triggered a clear split in attitudes and approaches to "magic". But unless I'm going to take an authorial position that the saints' mysteries are, in fact, divine action through miracles based on a specific experience of doctrinal Truth (which I've already contradicted to some extent with the workings of alchemy), at some point I need to deal with the fact that non-Catholic populations must also have people with a thaumaturgical-like talent and/or the sensitivity to detect mystical activity. And those cultures will have some sort of understanding and framework to deal with them.
Almost every religion, of course, has some sort of mystical tradition, whether or not it's part of the majority experience. But just as Antuniet considers the "magical" aspects of alchemy to be a matter of observable science, it's just as likely that a culture that discounts the possibility of religious miracles might consider "magical" effects to be some part of just how the world works.
Music is a useful venue to explore these different attitudes. The effects of music on the human experience are nebulous and subjective enough that magic can easily be intertwined with it in the elusive "maybe it is, maybe it isn't" framework I've set up for the ordinary person's experience. I've established that the Alpennian tradition of Mysteries doesn't tend to incorporate music in the ceremonies, but that some other Mystery traditions do. And, of course, there are significant traditions of religious music in many Protestant sects that could easily be cover for effective group-driven religious "magic" without anyone needing to invoke the label "miracle" or to associate the effects with the talents of specific people.
So in the context of the various musical-magical intersections in Mother of Souls, it's quite likely that Frances will give us some insight into the English experience of magic. (I don't know if I'm going to use it, but I had this wild image of Welsh "rescue choirs" operating during mine disasters...)
The whole "is it or isn't it?" aspect of magic in this setting has been of great practical use in world-building, because my own understanding of How The World Works has been evolving as I explore the possibilities. Similarly, the very tight point of view I use enables me to introduce more details as my characters come to grasp them, rather than having to explain why I hadn't mentioned those details before. This is a world where knowledge and techniques have been found and lost repeatedly; where the variable and uncertain nature of people's magical talents ensure that a "scientific" approach is hard to maintain; and where people's own beliefs about the nature of "magic" will shape not only what they think they can do, but what they can actually achieve. And Frances will be a useful lens to point that out, whether or not she has any specific talents in that line herself. (I don't think she does, but one never knows.)
In chapter 4 (Margerit's point of view) I'm starting to move on more to setting up plot. We get to see some of the philosophical and stylistic differences in their approach to mysteries and miracles between Margerit and her unexpected student Serafina. And we have a scene that begins to lay the groundwork for Margerit's nascent ambition to start a more organized school of sorts. It starts, in part, with the re-introduction of a minor character from The Mystic Marriage.
Frances Collfield, the eccentric English botanist, is likely always to stay a minor character (though I could be wrong about that), but she functions as a disruptive force, an accidental catalyst. At her original appearance, she was the inspiration for Margerit's sponsorship of the lecture series featuring women academics that is now growing to larger proportions. And in the current chapter, Frances shows up once again with a problem whose solution will catalyze other structures and events.
In a looser sense, Frances also serves to show the larger depth of the world. The Alpennian stories have a tendency (so far) to be fairly parochial, dealing with local issues and relatively private concerns. Antuniet's travels have sketched out some parts of the larger European scene, and the spectre of Austrian meddling in Alpennian politics opens things up as well. But I hope to use Frances to illustrate more of the diversity of approaches to the "magic" of the world of Alpennia.
For my central characters, this "magic" is understood primarily through the lens of religion, and thus through a specifically Catholic lens. (With other issues like alchemy being rather tidily categorized away as Something Else.) And I've dropped a few hints that the Protestant Reformation triggered a clear split in attitudes and approaches to "magic". But unless I'm going to take an authorial position that the saints' mysteries are, in fact, divine action through miracles based on a specific experience of doctrinal Truth (which I've already contradicted to some extent with the workings of alchemy), at some point I need to deal with the fact that non-Catholic populations must also have people with a thaumaturgical-like talent and/or the sensitivity to detect mystical activity. And those cultures will have some sort of understanding and framework to deal with them.
Almost every religion, of course, has some sort of mystical tradition, whether or not it's part of the majority experience. But just as Antuniet considers the "magical" aspects of alchemy to be a matter of observable science, it's just as likely that a culture that discounts the possibility of religious miracles might consider "magical" effects to be some part of just how the world works.
Music is a useful venue to explore these different attitudes. The effects of music on the human experience are nebulous and subjective enough that magic can easily be intertwined with it in the elusive "maybe it is, maybe it isn't" framework I've set up for the ordinary person's experience. I've established that the Alpennian tradition of Mysteries doesn't tend to incorporate music in the ceremonies, but that some other Mystery traditions do. And, of course, there are significant traditions of religious music in many Protestant sects that could easily be cover for effective group-driven religious "magic" without anyone needing to invoke the label "miracle" or to associate the effects with the talents of specific people.
So in the context of the various musical-magical intersections in Mother of Souls, it's quite likely that Frances will give us some insight into the English experience of magic. (I don't know if I'm going to use it, but I had this wild image of Welsh "rescue choirs" operating during mine disasters...)
The whole "is it or isn't it?" aspect of magic in this setting has been of great practical use in world-building, because my own understanding of How The World Works has been evolving as I explore the possibilities. Similarly, the very tight point of view I use enables me to introduce more details as my characters come to grasp them, rather than having to explain why I hadn't mentioned those details before. This is a world where knowledge and techniques have been found and lost repeatedly; where the variable and uncertain nature of people's magical talents ensure that a "scientific" approach is hard to maintain; and where people's own beliefs about the nature of "magic" will shape not only what they think they can do, but what they can actually achieve. And Frances will be a useful lens to point that out, whether or not she has any specific talents in that line herself. (I don't think she does, but one never knows.)
