Wednesday DE: Portents

[galen_erso]

What do your character and their world think of dreams, portents, visions, signs and the like?

Comments

[last_kallig]

Ibani has actually had prophetic visions, although so far they've all been while she's in an altered state of consciousness, so she doesn't remember them as well as she'd like!

Darth Zash, her master, arranged Ibani's apprentice trials the way she did because of Zash's prophetic dreams. (Or so she claims, probably best not to 100% trust anything she says.)

So for the Sith it's not so much a matter of if dreams and visions CAN happen, it's did they happen to YOU and what did they mean. Interpretation is always the trickiest part.

[just_cant_lose]

Basically: lol.

That's what Jim thinks anyway. The rest of the world is similar to ours.

[cottoncandypink]

He might want to adjust that thinking if he plans on staying in Los Santos

[i_am_your_host]

Emcee, Pam, and Cassidy are all skeptics. Emcee will be a good sport and help you decipher a dream of you want to, but Pam will mock you if you think dreams and visions have any real meaning.

Cassidy is an ex-Catholic so he's had enough of the bullshit religious types of signs and visions, although he'll be changing his mind about that soon enough in canon via preacher Jesse Custer, who has a power that's--well, more powerful than God. Jesse believes it's a sign and a gift from God Himself to do good in the world. Ahaha.

In Floki's world, Vikings had Seers to communicate and interpret visions and signs from the gods. There is no doubt that they took this seriously, it wasn't just their religion, it was their whole way of life.

[bjornwilde]

Ahsoka, see Ibani's answer above. I do love that Filoni is bringing more mysticism into SW and still making it so visions aren't easy to understand for the characters.

Sabine, no clue. Mandalore as a culture is woefully vague. I'd liek to think there's something--like maybe how ancestors talk to the living--but we just don't have details like that and I hesitate to decide on them since I tend to be contradicted by canon.

Danny...seems like he'd be open to dreams being portents, being a mystic kung fu master and all, but to the general folk of his world, they'd be just like how we see them.

[inlovewithwords]

A day late, because Con Crud, but I totally wanted to answer this:

Eriond takes it quite seriously, in that he will be gentle with people who believe nonsense and knows exactly who is having true Prophetic vision because his world is like that.

Evelyn thinks it's mostly BS, honestly.

Lois is a massive skeptic. Give her a really good reason to take it seriously and she will, but... well. Her world might take it more seriously once superheroes are public, but for now, it's mostly our world.

R2 is generally going to be skeptical without the person having a Known History of reason to have visions and such--i.e., Jedi, some kind of species Force-talent of prophecy, etc--but also I think once there is such a log of data, R2 is pretty philosophical about it. I mean, taking data and making a projection analysis based on it is a pretty basic function. Obviously, some organics just have a different set of input devices from which to gather data.

Anakin--and now we can jump down the rabbit hole of the crazy--doesn't usually put too much stock by these sorts of things. "But Anakin's a Jedi!" you say. Yes. Yes he is. So he is entirely aware that prophetic dreams and visions are a thing. But Force dreams and visions have a very specific feeling, and are far rarer than some might think, and he's going to need to be convinced before he listens. Mind, this is pretty variable! An in-the-field split second I'm-certain-this-is-true feeling he'll usually allow to at least get explored. But in general, if it isn't a Force-precognition coming from himself, he'll need to be convinced. (This may actually be somewhat influenced by the entire situation around the Jedi's prophecy and Anakin and that mess.) Even with his own, he'll usually try to take the position that it's a guide, and not something set in stone. Unless it's him dreaming about Padme dying, in which case his sanity snaps completely. So, uh, just add another to the column of "Do as Anakin says, not as Anakin does?"

Tavi's world definitely doesn't put any stock by it at all--to be honest, it's not a concept that comes up at all in the Aleran side of things, with a very tiny caveat on that. As for Tavi himself, to be honest, he doesn't either. If something were a reliable source of intelligence--maybe even a hazy one, or one requiring heavy interpretation, but still in some sense reliable--then he might put some stock in it. But these things are not part of his world, asterisk, so he shrugs it off. Maybe for other people's worlds, sure, but not his.

Asterisk: Tavi's never had prophetic dreams himself, though he knows his grandfather would have... dreams. Not necessarily of events, but definitely warning something was up. So, yes, technically speaking, he might have a touch of precognition running in his family, and it's useful when it kicks in and goodness knows he wishes it would do more often because that certainty is a relief to have--but he doesn't actually put any stock in dreams/portents/visions/signs/etc, because he has fairly first-hand experience with how utterly unreliable they are.