"Holy cow! That's that one guy!"

[Telemecus]

In my story, I have a mysterious character, who only sort of makes an appearance (it's complicated ) and needs to have a little more oomph. One trend I have noticed in certain works, fantasy especially, is that a lot of characters that are portrayed as powerful tend to have various interchangeable titles, supposedly earned through various deeds that only appear when connected to that characters name. When Gandalf claims to be a wielder of the Flame of Arnor, to most readers, it doesn't mean anything specific to them, but it sounds impressive, and Gandalf says it impressively, and the passage is written impressively, which make Gandalf seem much more impressive! (Which he seems to need, since he barely ever does magic... )
I was wondering, does anyone have any thoughts on this? and does anyone have any ideas for events or deeds or stories that could lead to my character getting a title or three? (no limitations, since anything can be fit with some tweaking. )
Thank you in advance!

 

[Ireth]

I've done this sort of thing before, though mainly it was a character trying to make himself sound badass in the face of his enemy, similar to Bilbo in The Hobbit. My character was asked his name, and he gave a list of flowery descriptions of himself rather than his true name: "I am the hawk who fathered a lioness. [2] A hawk was my father, a hawk my mother; yet I was born a man, from no bird's egg.[2] I am the Angel of Music, the Choirmaster.[3] The wolf is my beloved, the bear my brother, and the great cat my friend.[4] I am the triumphant defender of mankind."[5] It worked, since the villain in question was from another world and didn't get the references.

[1] His surname is Hawk, and his daughter's name is Ariel, meaning "lion of God".
[2] His parents were both Hawks as well. Also he's human.
[3] He teaches music, and is a great actor and singer with an affinity for the Phantom of the Opera.
[4] His wife is a lupine lycanthrope, his brother is an ursine lycanthrope, and his friend is a tiger shapeshifter.
[5] Translation of his first and middle names, respectively (Vincent Alexander).

 

[ThinkerX]

Not sure if its workable in your case, but if the idea is to build up a character is mostly absent from this story, then...

...tell another story.

A sort of one or two sentence preface to each chapter describing the exploits of this mostly offstage guy.

 

[Zero Angel]

I just start calling them stuff that sounds reasonable. For instance, one character has a great mastery over weather magick (which is pretty complicated), and people started calling him the Weather General. Sure, there's a little more to it, but that's where I got the idea. Anything that relates to the character's abilities is logical ground to figure out an exploit or three that might garner a title. Also, if your world is broke up into many city-states, nations, et al, then there are many things, awards, titles that they can be awarded. Whatever makes sense in your world-build.

I have a group of characters awarded a variety of medals/honors after their heroic deeds and the one character is going through disparaging them until he came across "He Who Must Not Be Eaten For Dinner" to which he did a double-take, "Hey that's not that bad!" until another character asked about lunch.

 

[Telemecus]

Maybe I should explain just a bit more. The "character" in question is my MC. He is a very very very very very very very very long-lived ( a few score millenia, as far as anyone knows). One of the conflicts is, after thousands of years of fighting the good fight, my MC had to make a very morally ambiguous choice for what he thought was the greater good, and ended up going insane from the aftermath. He retreated into seclusion for a few more ages, and made it into a sort of Bermuda Triangle-esque area, with lots of strange deaths and disappearances in the general area, eventually forcing several hamlets to relocate. But a band of heroes managed to track him down, and wipe his mind, leaving him with an almost blank slate.

Now he is trying to save a gigantic city that he helped found, and is dealing with a bit of schizophrenia, which are really old memories bleeding through.

I want enough varied titles for every person that recognizes him or hears about his past to be able to cast aspersions on him using the titles he earned during his evil phase, or defend, encourage, and boast about him using titles earned from his good phase.

Help?

 

[Nebuchadnezzar]

I love things like "wielder of the Flame of Arnor" and I love the fact that I don't know what it actually means. In my view, you should give your character whatever title you want and then don't explain it. It adds depth to your world and creates a sense in your reader's mind that there is more going on than just what you tell them. It is wonderful to give the illusion of a rich backstory without actually making your reader slog through that backstory.

In the original Star Wars, Princess Leia tells Ben Kenobi, "You served my father well in the Clone Wars," and then the wars weren't ever mentioned again. They didn't need to be. Similarly, the Millenium Falcon was the ship that "did the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs", whatever that means. These throwaway lines are fantastic and live larger in the reader's/watcher's imagination than they possibly could if explained. One of the worst things that happened to me as a Star Wars fan was finding out what the Clone Wars actually were... Thankfully I never found out what the Kessel Run was.

 

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Oops, cross-posted with your update. My original doesn't make as much sense with your additional context... But I stand by my statement in a more general sense. Although, even in context a few unexplained titles might add mystique...

 

[Zero Angel]

I love things like "wielder of the Flame of Arnor" and I love the fact that I don't know what it actually means. In my view, you should give your character whatever title you want and then don't explain it. It adds depth to your world and creates a sense in your reader's mind that there is more going on than just what you tell them. It is wonderful to give the illusion of a rich backstory without actually making your reader slog through that backstory.

In the original Star Wars, Princess Leia tells Ben Kenobi, "You served my father well in the Clone Wars," and then the wars weren't ever mentioned again. They didn't need to be. Similarly, the Millenium Falcon was the ship that "did the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs", whatever that means. These throwaway lines are fantastic and live larger in the reader's/watcher's imagination than they possibly could if explained. One of the worst things that happened to me as a Star Wars fan was finding out what the Clone Wars actually were... Thankfully I never found out what the Kessel Run was.

Spoiler: Kessel Run

This was originally a mistake on George Lucas's part because he believed that parsecs were a unit of time when in reality a parsec is about 3.25 light years (or about 30 quadrillion meters).

Eventually, he retconned the whole thing to say that when moving faster than the speed of light, "fast" ships are those ships that are able to find the best path. The Kessel System is one with black holes that only the "fastest" ships are able to travel through on the best paths. Hence, the Millennium Falcon is a ship that is able to find a path that is only 12 parsecs long through the system, which is apparently very short, and hence the Millennium Falcon is very fast.

 

[wordwalker]

A throwaway line that sounds good does work well; "rule of cool" can be loosely translated as "if it has the right kind of relationship to things you don't need to know what those things are."

But it's so much better when you do the prepwork to make a term mean something, and then apply it to someone you thought you knew. Nice planning, Telemecus!

 

[ThinkerX]

Maybe I should explain just a bit more. The "character" in question is my MC. He is a very very very very very very very very long-lived ( a few score millenia, as far as anyone knows). One of the conflicts is, after thousands of years of fighting the good fight, my MC had to make a very morally ambiguous choice for what he thought was the greater good, and ended up going insane from the aftermath. He retreated into seclusion for a few more ages, and made it into a sort of Bermuda Triangle-esque area, with lots of strange deaths and disappearances in the general area, eventually forcing several hamlets to relocate. But a band of heroes managed to track him down, and wipe his mind, leaving him with an almost blank slate.

Now he is trying to save a gigantic city that he helped found, and is dealing with a bit of schizophrenia, which are really old memories bleeding through.

I want enough varied titles for every person that recognizes him or hears about his past to be able to cast aspersions on him using the titles he earned during his evil phase, or defend, encourage, and boast about him using titles earned from his good phase.

Like I said, go with the one or two sentence prefaces to each chapter. 'In the days of King YYY, XXXX came and did this, and the people marvelled, and termed him ZZZZ.' Each 'preface' refers to an episode in the characters past.

 

[PlotHolio]

Titles are fun, but if you want your character to have oomph, have them do something oomphy.

I have a multiverse system for my stories. There are a few people who travel back and forth between times and worlds in order to, put simply, try to kill each other. Some are gods, some are not, but they all act like gods by directing fate as a weapon against the others.

When one of these characters appears in my stories, they are only there briefly, but in that time they will do things like start inter-planar wars or sink continents.

That's oomph.

 

[Anders Ämting]

I rarely do deliberatelly awe-inspiring titles for my characters, because I think that's a backwards way of looking at it. I rather think that if a character becomes famous or notorious enough, his name will inspire awe simply through association to his accomplishments.

Like, one of my more badass characters is nicknamed Gwain the Red Knight, simply because his armor is red. That's not very impressive on it's own, but anyone who recognizes him goes: "Oh shit, it's Gwain the Red!"

And even if the character does have a really fancy title, I still think the way people react to him is more important what he calls himself. I mean, anyone who introduces themselves as "Jack Kicker-Of-Elves, the Angel Crusher!" is obviously just bragging.

On the other hand, say the character goes: "Yo, I'm Dirk Darkstabber, pleased to meet you." And then some other guy goes: "That names sounds familia... Wait, you're the Blade King of Vulnus-Urbs!?" And then everyone in the room turns their heads and gasp.

Makes quite a differance, I'd say.

One trend I have noticed in certain works, fantasy especially, is that a lot of characters that are portrayed as powerful tend to have various interchangeable titles, supposedly earned through various deeds that only appear when connected to that characters name. When Gandalf claims to be a wielder of the Flame of Arnor, to most readers, it doesn't mean anything specific to them, but it sounds impressive, and Gandalf says it impressively, and the passage is written impressively, which make Gandalf seem much more impressive!

It's actually "Flame of Anor," and I always assumed it was less a title and more Gandalf describing himself. Kinda like how King Arthur might introduce himself as "wielder of the sword Excalibur."

Some googling turned up this information:

In The Lord of the Rings, in his fight with the Balrog, Gandalf says he is the wielder of the Flame of Anor. It is nowhere else referred to, so its particular meaning remains unclear. Anor is the Elvish word for the Sun, so literally the flame of Anor would be the light of the Sun, which originated in the fiery fruit of Laurelin, one of the Two Trees of Valinor. Thus, Gandalf may be referring to the power he gains as a servant of the Lords of the West, in defiance to the corrupted darkness of the Balrog

I think that if this was one of Gandalf's official titles, or if it was refering to something specific, that would be mentioned somewhere in Tolkien's writing.

So, it would seem Gandalf was just trying to talk smack this was just a fancy way for him to tell the Balrog: "Bugger off! You can't beat me, I'm the hero!"

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

Titles are fun, but if you want your character to have oomph, have them do something oomphy.

I agree completely with this.

I think it's best to have the reader see for him/herself that your MC is all that and a bag of chips. Your MC doesn't need to impress the characters in the story. S/he needs to impress the reader.

 

[Nihal]

I wasn't impressed by Gandalf's title. The first time I've read the books I had already the impression "Pfft, is he trying to look thougher than he is?". You know, Gandalf don't go always kicking asses and saving the day.

I'm really not fan of titles without meaning unless they serve to another purpose in the story (like Gandalf trying to impress the Balrog, Bilbo tricking Smaug and such). There are exceptions of course, when you manage to make it believable, but it's hard and often this is my reaction as a reader:

Anyway... anyone else here like depreciative titles? They can be subtle to those who doesn't know the real meaning, as Brienne the Beauty. I like also titles/nicknames as Anders' example, related to something not-glorious-at-all as Red Threat, how the "communist threat" was know in my country.

 

[wordwalker]

I rarely do deliberatelly awe-inspiring titles for my characters, because I think that's a backwards way of looking at it. I rather think that if a character becomes famous or notorious enough, his name will inspire awe simply through association to his accomplishments.

Like, one of my more badass characters is nicknamed Gwain the Red Knight, simply because his armor is red. That's not very impressive on it's own, but anyone who recognizes him goes: "Oh shit, it's Gwain the Red!"

And even if the character does have a really fancy title, I still think the way people react to him is more important what he calls himself. I mean, anyone who introduces themselves as "Jack Kicker-Of-Elves, the Angel Crusher!" is obviously just bragging.

On the other hand, say the character goes: "Yo, I'm Dirk Darkstabber, pleased to meet you." And then some other guy goes: "That names sounds familia... Wait, you're the Blade King of Vulnus-Urbs!?" And then everyone in the room turns their heads and gasp.

Agreed. This kind of titling works best when readers have gotten to know the facts before the title (full proper buildup, which was the OP), though it's decent if we just get to follow the reaction in-world.

Or, there are times someone is bragging. There's the culture where people just like throwing brags around (take the legend of Mike Fink, who'd introduce himself by saying he could drink the Mississippi dry before breakfast-- but he could live up to everything except the bragging), or the character who's obviously showing off and probably looking stupid.

One well-known rule:

• if you don't have to talk about your rep because it comes up on its own, you're cool.

Variations:

• If you talk but you prove it, you're impressive, and probably using that rep for a purpose.
• If you talk louder than you can prove, you're a fool.

 

[Zero Angel]

If you talk louder than you can prove, you're a fool.

My favorite example of this was Rose Tyler in the Doctor Who special "Christmas Invasion" when she invokes practically everything she had encountered in the last year to intimidate the Sycorax. It doesn't go so well for her.

 

[Anders Ämting]

My favorite example of this was Rose Tyler in the Doctor Who special "Christmas Invasion" when she invokes practically everything she had encountered in the last year to intimidate the Sycorax. It doesn't go so well for her.

On the other hand, the Doctor pulls that kind of stunt all the time. If you think about it, he's mostly a trixter character with no special powers other than being really smart. The Daleks could pretty much just shoot him at any time they are in the same room. But then he goes: "Fear me, I'm the Doctor and I can do anything! Don't make me destroy you with this oreo!"

 

[PlotHolio]

Off topic, the only real fault I find with the whole Doctor Who series is that the TARDIS can travel back in time, but they act like it can't to create tension. This is especially apparent with Rose Tyler, who only goes with the Doctor because she can spend months traveling through time and space, only to come back to Mickey waiting in the street for her, just as she left him (since from his perspective, only a few seconds would have passed).

However, every time you see Mickey and Rose's mom, they act like she's been gone for months at a time.

Back on topic, the Doctor really is a good example of a character with oomph, but I stick by what I said before.

 

[Anders Ämting]

Off topic, the only real fault I find with the whole Doctor Who series is that the TARDIS can travel back in time, but they act like it can't to create tension. This is especially apparent with Rose Tyler, who only goes with the Doctor because she can spend months traveling through time and space, only to come back to Mickey waiting in the street for her, just as she left him (since from his perspective, only a few seconds would have passed).

However, every time you see Mickey and Rose's mom, they act like she's been gone for months at a time.

The Doctor often has problems making the TARDIS appear where and when he wants it to. Sometimes he misses his mark by decades. (See also: Amy Pond.) It's usually used as a plot device, especially since the TARDIS has a tendency to send him wherever he happens to be needed rather than wherever he actually wants to go - a statistically ridiculous number of episodes start with him trying to show his companions some amazing planet only to end up in the middle of a major crisis on the other side of the space-time instead. The fact that the TARDIS basically a sentient being with a non-linear perspective of time probably has something to do with it.

That said, it seems to have been somewhat more reliable with the Eleventh Doctor behind the wheel. Amy and Rory did do the "go away for weeks, then be back a minute later" thing, to the point they were worried their friends would notice them aging faster.

 

[ALB2012]

That is very cool Ireth

I think titles mean different things to different characters. Example the elves call Gandalf Mithrandir, he has various other names depending on who he is talking to. If you need someone to be Lord of Darkness, Bringer of War, Keeper of Kittens or whatever then by all means do so. They could be talking bs and trying to make themselves sound better, we all know people who do that, or they might actually be the semi immortal dark lord of zog. It does help if they back it up but if they are simply trying to sound impressive then obviously it is simply the gift of the gab