Grandfather's Tale--An Introduction

Having named this blog after the LEGO epic I've been working at with an erstwhile schedule, and having said that I plan to use it to promote that same epic just a little bit more, I feel like I ought to give a proper introduction to Grandfather's Tale.

The premise of the story is simple enough: an elderly minifig gathers the village whippersnappers, and tells them the story of some great hero of their past.



(It's worth noting, as an aside, that I think my minifig photography skills have improved since the epic started. In the mythical "someday" that everyone has, I'd like to redo the opening here... but we all know that will never happen.)



Who is this old geezer? Why does he want to entertain these silly children? Does his story have a nice beginning, middle, and end? Or is it just some long ramble that will last as long as I have interest?

All of these are good questions, but they're not really germane to the story. The story is about Marcel of Flamond, about Princess Anne daughter of Charles, about Giles and Humbert. The grandfather is an excuse for me to use a more personal narrative voice, and to interject more exposition in a dialogue form with the kids.



Of course, I'm an English student, and one of the things they teach us English students is that the narrator is never neutral, never completely free of bias. S/he might be reliable... but that doesn't mean s/he doesn't add a slant.

Mind you, the grandfather isn't a "s/he." He's a he--and he's an old he who's been kicking around Liondom (as I call the Kingdom of the Lions and Falcons) for some time now. I actually do have a bit of an idea in the back of my mind concerning the grandfather, but it's something I'm only toying with and haven't made my mind up. Until and unless you hear otherwise, ignore him and and the kids, except as instances of humour and exposition.

Speaking of exposition, that's really all that Chapter One of the Tale is about. Here we learn just enough about Lion history to get some context for the story and get the ball moving--and to get a brief introduction (and I do mean brief!) to two of the major characters: Marcel and Anne. We'll meet the two other major characters of the first several chapters, Giles and Humbert, in Chapter Two, where the action really begins.