The current main-plot is boring

[Holy_Knight]

I disagree with most of what you've said, Winter, but I'm going to focus on two specific areas because I think they're the most fruitful for discussion (especially the second one). So:


Nale:

I actually think introducing Tarquin has breathed new life into Nale. A while back, someone suggested that many of Nale's traits make a lot more sense in light of being raised by a man like Tarquin. Basically, the idea was that Nale spent most of his life trying to earn the approval of/impress/outthink his father, who was always not just one step ahead of him, but playing the game on a whole different scale. So you get someone who, say, starts as a fighter (like Dad?), and when he's clearly unable to match his Dad's level of thinking, tries to supplement his abilities with more and more varied sources, and comes up with more and more convoluted plans in a vain attempt to do something his father can't anticipate practically as soon as Nale's come up with it. The result is someone whose operating procedure is defined by what looks like being needlessly complicated, because nothing he ever did was ever complicated enough to match wits with his father.

I find that relationship quite interesting, and find Nale more intriguing as a result, especially now that he's been brought back into direct contact/conflict with his father again. He's even a somewhat more sympathetic character because of it (despite still being despicable overall, of course). From that angle, I'm curious about where Nale's story could go, and hope to see more of his interactions with Tarquin.



Sense of Drama:

And the issue is there's no "drama of the unknown". It's very much known and proven right now that a massive, open rift just above a city does not eat the world. That contradicts everything we are told about the Snarl and we've even seen a reasonable explanation for it: There is no Snarl within the rifts. That is not "the mystery of the unknown", that is opening the wardrobe, switching the light on and showing the kid there's no monsters hidden in it.

To be honest, I don't really see where you're coming from on this one. Specifically, while it's true that the threat of the Snarl and the rifts (apparently) aren't the same as what we'd been led to believe, that generates more drama of the unknown, not less. Some characters seem to genuinely believe the story we heard in the first place, and a few have started noticing discrepancies between it and what has now been observed. That raises qustions of whether the rifts might represent a different threat altogether, whether some characters have intentionally deceived others (and what their motives might be), whether the nature of the threat could have changed (to something potentially worse?), whether the wrong person finding out the truth could generate an entirely new crisis, and so on. To use your phrase, both we and the characters thought we knew what the stakes are, but now it's clear that even the stakes themselves are uncertain. I find that exciting--and I really don't see how we or the characters involved would be justified in thinking that being less certain of what's going on means there must not be as much at stake. If anything, that just raises the potential for what we don't know to cause huge problems for any number of the competing sides involved in the conflict.

On a related note:

Imagine you live in a house that is about to collapse but you do not know that. There is something that is dramatic, but as you do not know it is dramatic, it is not. What matters is your believe what might or could or would happen.

This seems inconsistent with the rest of what you were saying. The characters are operating under certain beliefs about the rifts, and as you say, that generates drama in the story. The potential to find out they were (perhaps even VERY) wrong about those beliefs just increases the possibility for disaster down the line, and even makes it possible that all of their efforts are actually working against their intended goals! This is true not only of the heroes, but the villains as well--even Redcloak. Keeping all that in mind, I think that your charge of diminshed drama is ill-considered, and that the stakes may well be higher than ever.

--HK