Quote Originally Posted by SteveMB View Post
Also chiming in a bit late; I'd been a bit busy to keep up with the forum and dropped out for a while.

One angle that occurs to me is how nicely the "escaped from slavery" backstory averts the risk (mentioned by Rich in the notes of one of the books, IIRC) of making Belkar seem tragic rather than comically evil -- between the "execution" of the slavers and the suspicion (based on what we know of Belkar) that he got himself into that predicament by choosing to tangle with the wrong people rather than as an utterly innocent victim.
As I see it, the Giant sidestepped the problem by writing a story of Belkar as we know him (minus the clothes) rather than an origin story.