Angel/Demon/Whatever Characters

[Learpabru]

I see your point, but if we have a bunch of different definitions of the same, damned thing running around, things get confusing, moreso than they already are. If we allow a ton of different demons, someone will make an anti-demon weapon, ability, or whatever. Then, when that char goes to use that, they'll consistently get something along the lines of, "That doesn't work on MY kind of demon trololololol!" Then, the char learns to assume that said anti-demon widget is useless, so when an NPA throws that char a bone by sending some demon against which that widget WILL work, the char will still assume that it won't work. It'll be considered as a waste of time, so the char will use other stuff, and it'll all just be a waste and a lot of sporadic considerations with no real benefit.

It also doesn't address the "originality" issue. Like I keep saying, everyone and their mothers use demon-this and angel-that. It gets painful to watch, especially given how inconsistent and poorly-planned people are with them. Everyone rides the demon/angel bus because they are too lazy/dumb to come up with their own, bloody concepts. Archetypes are one thing, but angel/demon status offers up a bullshit explanation for everything, when we allow loose concepts of them. See option 2 in the first quote in my last post. "I'm an angel, so I can control this, do that, summon those, get out of these, surpass all of those other things..." Comparatively, Leilani has reverse-polarization (a more definite concept, at least in context) to explain most of her things, but has it operate in different processes for different things, and she has variety beyond that; it's not just, "I use reverse-polarization to put junk together. HERE'S MY STUFF TROLOLOL!" You know what I mean? If Leilani has to be logical and put two cents together, it's not fair that someone else can just say, "I'm my own kind of angel/demon/whatever, so I can do all this crazy stuff!" It ends up that not only do angel/demon/whatever chars perpetuate an already abused cliche`, but they do so in such a manner that is rude to those whom put some actual effort and thought into things.

[Silver Fenrir]

Well by what I said I meant that they go about following the rules of the "demons" and "angels" of wherever they take it from or make it up to be from and refer to themselves as such. Giving different names is definitely something that should be done with self-made demon and angel types but for demons and angels referred to as demons and angels in a story or video game should be specified to be based within said story or game so as not to be confused with the kind of biblical stories.

[Learpabru]

Yeah, that's basically what I'm getting at. Like, I don't mind the gods/demons stuff in Okami or Inuyasha, 'cause those are stories that are meant as stand-alone fictions, and they're based on Japanese mythology. They clearly state what their bases are and have their own deviations that make them their own stories. Sure; that's fine, but those are their own stuff. How their storylines and definitions go only affect their own stories and those who listen/watch/play. This is a multiplayer game that is collectively programmed, though. If definitions are loose, there are storyline and gameplay inconsistencies. No one really knows what pattern, if any, to go by, so the demon/angel/whatever explanations run dry, proving just how cheap they are. It'd by like someone making a lilith character and saying that liliths are strictly physical chars and almost never work in storm-related abilities. Well, that's basically the opposite of how they are really defined, so just what kind of an explanation is "I'm a lilith, so blahblah-this and yadayada-that," anyway? In that case, there is a clear right-and-wrong matter: Liliths are called as an eponym of the archdaemon, Lilith, for their semblance to artists' depictions of her. Across just about every mention of them in every myth, they have some storm-related magic. If so-and-so says otherwise, there's a clear error on so-and-so's part, so that person must revise some sort of explanation, while mine is cohesive. If there was no adhesion to even a general trend for liliths, though, neither of our explanations would have any credibility, and "lilith" would just be a meaningless term. If we're going to each just make up the details on our own, why don't we use our own terms? To further illustrate this, allow me to give another comparison with some contrast.

When it comes to archetypes, there's basically no issue. We can all agree that necromancy literally refers to “death magic.” There isn't a ton of specificity, there.
I may say the following: Necromancers rely mostly on manipulation and generally have just a couple independent spells to run when enemies get close enough. Their stats and parameters have a trend of being incredibly healthy, high as a kite on mana, terrible on chakra, not too shabby on physical stamina (particularly for mages), utterly genius in the mental department, not very strong, tough as nails (at least for mages), incredibly powerful with magic, even more resistant to opposing magic, and rather slow.
You may say this: No, no; that's all wrong! Necromancers do a lot of manipulation, but that's as a support for their own uber-magic. Are you kidding me?! Speed is EVERYTHING to a necromancer! They're the physically strongest mages around, but as tough as my little sister. Their magic is high enough, but not really very high; they mainly rely on the high power factors of their spells and the high casting frequency that they get from their awesome speed. They fail MISERABLY to opposing magic, and their health is deplorable (both in HE and PS). They're not too bright, else they wouldn't be screwing with the dead, they don't have much of a maximum MA (They like to dart around with their awesome speed to stall so that they can refill a lot.), and they have an assload of chakra.
In this case, we can both be right. You're clearly just thinking of a much different kind of necromancer than I. That's fine! Necromancers aren't a massive definition of character; they're just a job class. If I can have a warrior char who relies on his strong magic in order to be worth his salt with his physical stuff, I can certainly have a necromancer that follows/deviates from a completely different trend than what you had in mind. Necromancy is innately loose on the matter of defining a character; again, it's not so much a char-definition as it is just a classification of some abilities. We just need the consensus that necromancy refers to “death magic,” which is indisputable because that's what the word literally means.

It's different when you look at races. If I have a female viera char, I have a character with a specified stats/parameters trend (which is not to say that there can be no exceptions or deviations) for her race, some ability trends, physical trait trends, and overall a clear definition. If you come along and say that viera are typically humble fatasses who're slow, magically ritarded, lazy, stupid tanks with terrible mana and tons of chakra (which basically describes a slow seeq), there's a problem. If you say that viera are soulless/inhuman, there's a problem. If you say that they can breed with monsters and not humans, or only some races of humans, there's a problem. You're totally deviating from the canonical, accepted definitions and trends. You're uprooting everything that makes sense in my character's racial definition just to throw your own stuff around with a word that means something else entirely. What the heck, man? If viera canonically have their definitions and trends, you don't have to conform vehemently to the trends, but you do have to accept their (pseudo-)reality and you do have to conform to their definitions, else there's no sense to it. You're just jacking the term for your own ideas, which acts as an attempt to discredit me. In this case, there's a sort of a loophole: “Well, no, you're right, but these are the trends and definitions of viera from my dimension.” Well, okay. It's a bit of a stretch, and it seems easier to me for you to just say that your viera is an exception to the trends (which would still mean that you'd conform to the overall definitions, like the part that they're human), but that's your choice. It makes enough sense for both of our chars to be logically acceptable. If you just cram your ideas down the throat of some term that doesn't belong to you, though, you're being rude and illogical. If the world says that this animal is a flamingo, you probably shouldn't call it a platypus, right?

Angel/demon/fallen angel/risen demon/demi-angel/demi-demon/whatever character disputes are similar to the race issue, but ten times worse. If we don't have an accepted definition to go by, there isn't a “right” way to do things. The words are meaningless. If you say than an angel is “this,” and I say that it's “that,” but we're both considered to be right, we have two contradictory “right” answers. When there are two “right” answers that contradict each other, there are only a couple explanations: 1) We have a dichotomy, in which they are not truly contradictory, but really seem to be because of our flawed, human logic (e.g. “Love your enemy.”), or B) at least one value is, in fact, wrong. If they are only “right” because we deem them to be so, we can't claim it as a dichotomy, so we are just in denial that at least one is wrong, and, if we insist that they are equivalently right, the only logical deduction is that they are, in actuality, equivalently wrong. Yay; we're all incessantly wrong! Joy. Now, not only is one party just stealing a canonical term for his/her own definitions, but we all are. No one of us has any credibility to our definitions and no real originality; we're just riding on some terms that have been bastardized into cliché, fluid excuses for explanations. So, we all get to just say and do whatever we want because we get to individually define everything, while anyone who dares to be sensible has to keep within the confines of what actually makes sense, making it necessarily hard on them and unfairly easy on us. Oh, look; we're all Bill. Wonderful.

If you piece these together, it should be clear that this is a potentially disastrous fallacy of logic. As was clear to everyone but Bill (whom hears what he wants to hear) from the start, this is not simply a matter of “religious convictions,” but what I think to be a necessary regulation on logical standpoints.

Oh, and in case this wasn't clear enough, no one minds if you make your own demon/angel/whatever-like race. If your character has horns, bat wings, pale skin, and whatever else that makes it look like the typical artist's interpretation of a demon, but you make up your own race with its own name (even if you make some trends, like personality or statistical trends, similar to the typical interpretation of demons) and its own definition (again, even if it is strikingly similar to the common concept of a demon), for example, there is NO problem WHATSOEVER with that. In fact, we like to see people make up their own races/hybrids. We just don't want you to ride the angel/demon/whatever bus that everyone else uses as a poor excuse of an explanation for things. We want you to make it interesting!

[AlexPhilip]

Never understood the idea that using iconic monsters, folklore, whatever is a bad thing. Especially if you are going to use an analog of it anyway. A blood sucking monster that is hurt by sunlight that is called bzjgsjagav is still a vampire.

I always felt angels were shamefully underrepresented in fantasy. They are so cool and interesting, and can be interpreted in so many different ways; anything from staunch grimdark merciless anti-heroes to overly naive comic-relief utopians who genuinely can't understand why we all just get along, or basically anything in between.

Regardless, they are just one step below godhood, which means they are a serious force to be reckoned with, and however you choose to depict them will reveal a lot about the cosmology of your world as a whole. Angels and demons are cool inherently. Use them.

[K]

In your own fiction, go ahead. Here, you have to play a fair character. You have to start at Lv1 and work your way up to being stronger, but still fair along with others at the same level as you. You don't get to just define yourself as an immortal, ultra-powerful being that can never lose and requires ultra-powerful demons to even temporarily hold back.