The latest part of Chronicles of the Otherworld came out the other day over at my Patreon. For those who are counting, that’s Episode 6, Situational Awareness, and it’s probably my overall favorite. For once, I felt like everything just…clicked. The two main plots meshed well, the characters all had a role to play, the overall story advanced, and I even had some good action scenes buried in there. I won’t say it’s perfect (nothing I write ever is), but I do believe this is the jewel of the series.
Relationships are a big part of Chronicles, and I’m not just talking about romantic and sexual relationships. No, the primary focus of the entire series is how the expedition members react with each other and the natives of the Otherworld. It may have started out as nothing more than a worldbuilding playground, but this story very quickly became a character drama. So let’s talk about that today.
Friends and enemies
Living among a people for two and a half months (it’s not quite that far yet, but it soon will be), it’s only natural that a group of intelligent, outgoing—except for Alex—and open young people are going to make friends. In the beginning, that was impossible, thanks to the language barrier, but now, later in the story, they have grown more comfortable in the Otherworld. Every one of the primary characters has at least one friend from the natives. Some, like Ashley and Ryan, have many more.
The indigenous people of the Otherworld are, well, people, so that’s why this is possible. It’s only natural. Indeed, I intended it that way from the start. Maybe not the exact faces that would fill the “friend” roles, but they were supposed to be making friends all along.
Their existing friendships also strengthen due to their shared experience. Ryan and Ramón, for instance, got to know each other in the original dig, and they only grow closer as the weeks progress. By the end of it, there is some strain starting to show, but they’re such good friends that at least one native sees them as like brothers. Amy and Sara are another example, as they were best friends before they left home; eighty days of living and working together, of relying almost wholly on one another, will leave them in much the same situation. (Although they do have one glaring difference, as you’ll come to learn.)
On the other side of the coin, not everybody is always friendly. Few are outright hostile from the start, a situation I feel is realistic. Yes, the Otherworld has its malcontents, and even racists, but the members of the expedition need time to earn even their ire. The Kaldea (Episode 5) have cultural reasons to be unfriendly; we’ll see more about that later on. This episode’s bandit leader Olof is a special case even for them, though.
Mostly, the reason there aren’t more enemies is simple expedience on my part. The main conflicts are environmental and personal in nature. There simply isn’t that much room for eleven (or more) enemies. Jenn has a nemesis now, and Lee is in the process of picking one up. Alex and Ayla hate each other…for the most part. And who knows what Damonte will get into in his solo adventure.
Natural urges
So that’s it for friends, but some characters have become somewhat more than friends. That was nowhere near part of the original plan, I’ll admit. At the start, I never intended the series to become so sexualized, but there it is. I justify this by saying that these are college students, young adults, and they’ve been placed in a stressful situation where they completely lack adult supervision. It’s only natural that some of them will give in to their baser instincts.
Ayla does it as stress relief; as we’ll see later on, she figures that, hey, nothing else works, so why not give it a shot? Lee was basically tricked into it, but it turns out that he doesn’t really mind. Jeff essentially thinks he’s won the lottery, and Amy—well, we’ll get to that soon enough.
In sharp contrast, Ryan turns down all such offers (mostly off-screen). Jenn, as you saw in this episode, is happy being friends with Bryn instead. Alex assumes his first time with Ayla is also his last (he’s wrong), and Ramón holds up his Catholic upbringing as a shield. It’s not that they aren’t tempted. They certainly are, as the culture they find themselves in simply doesn’t have the same sorts of taboos as ours. It’s a lot more open, a lot less restrained. But they refuse to indulge for their own reasons.
The natives pick up on all of this. After all, they’re not stupid. But they also see these newcomers (with a few exceptions) as the semi-mythical Altea. As Ashley explains in this past week’s episode: what poor, lonely woman wouldn’t want to improve her lot by getting together with what she sees as a demigod? It’s much different for the native men, a topic we’ll see picked up in Season 2, but many of the relationships that spring up stem from this.
And that was something I intended. Maybe I didn’t expect to take things this far, but…they did, and it works. Especially in this part. Next up is Episode 7, a case where I think much the opposite. I’ll see you then.