Zagor - misunderstood hero?

Zagor gets a bad reputation for being a big bad villain, even though he hasn't actually done anything to deserve that reputation.

There's a case that Darth Vader is
the real hero of Star Wars.

I'm taking all of the information given to me from the source material - The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Return to Firetop Mountain, Legend of Zagor, Creature of Havoc, Titan, The Trolltooth wars and The Zagor Chronicles (however, I do not have the Zagor Chronicles for reference but I am going by my memory).

I will be giving an alternative character interpretation of Zagor's actions from the source material. 

Although the books describe Zagor as completely evil - and not even all of them do as the Warlock of Firetop Mountain does not state Zagor as being evil or doing evil deeds at all - it can be put down to propaganda from the so called Lawful side or people making snap judegements about powerful sorcerers who own their own mountains without looking for the details.  

Chadda Darkmane -
captain of Salamonis
and Zagor's biggest fan?

The writers of Titan obviously have no love for Zagor as well as Yaztromo and the people who try to slay him.  These are the people who wrote or influenced the accounts of the three gamebooks - Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Return to Firetop Mountain and Legend of Zagor. 

The account of Zagor in the Trolltooth wars was from Chadda Darkmane, who, although he is an officer in Salamonis, he is a man of his word and would not badmouth someone just because they have a bad reputation. 






Let's look at the facts:

How does he write battle   
plans wearing  bracelets
like those?

How does he write battle plans with
all those animals in his library?

Admittedly, Zagor's formative years don't make a good start for my case.  Zagor became an apprentice to the unapologetically evil and chaotic Volgera Darkstorm along with two other obviously evil characters. 

However, I'm sure that good teachers of magic are hard to find and that Zagor, as a gifted student did not want to squander his talent, so he picked the best teacher he could find.  Accounts say that he and his friends used to terrorise nomads.

How Volgera Darkstorm's
life ended.  Zagor seems to
get a bad reputation for
killing an evil wizard.

However, this is a classic case of peer pressure and, desperate to fit in, Zagor had to go along with these sadistic jokes.  However, he had the greater good in mind. 

It is then stated that the 'Demonic Three' as they now became known, slew their master, looted his library and went their separate ways.  Most people would put it down to their evil ways and the need for them to usurp their master, but although this might be true for Balthus Dire and Zharradan Marr, Zagor did this in order to rid the world of a powerful evil sorcerer.  A clever strategist, he planted the seeds of dissent in his co-pupils' minds in order to turn evil upon evil.  It also shows that Zagor was obviously the cleverest of the three. 

However, despite being a formidable and driven sorcerer his early associations and practice of magic gave Zagor a bad reputation with pretty much everyone.

Zagor's home

Some monument, as seen in my dreams.

Zagor then went on to Firetop Mountain, inspired by demon sent dreams, apparently.  I find this doubtful considering that Firetop Mountain is the only mountain for miles around that has a red top.  If you need demons to tell you about one of the most unique landmarks on Titan then you must have had a pretty sheltered life and Zagor had not had a sheltered life despite learning magic in the Flatlands.

The 'official' story states that Zagor led an army of chaotics and undead to wipe out the dwarves in Firetop Mountain and took their treasure.  Sounds bad, but I bet that's not the whole story.  I think that behind this story is the story of how Zagor discovered just how judgemental these 'good' types are. 

Here is what really happened.

Zagor is an enthusiastic protector
of Allansia's heratige sites.

Wanting to do some sightseeing, Zagor headed to Firetop Mountain, asking the dwarves if he could lend them a hand.  After seeing a demonstration of his magic, Zgor earned the dwarves' immediate distrust and inspired a great level of hostility in them.  A confused and hurt Zagor was chased out of the mountain by an army of angry dwarves. 

The only creatures that Zagor felt welcome amongst were the undead who don't really think or say very much and orcs and other monsters who also don't really think or say very much.  Determined to beat the bullies, Zagor went to the mountain and demanded a tour of the world famous attraction.  It was his right a s a fully paid up member of the national trust. 

The dwarves once again refused since they were a snobbish and elitist lot, so Zagor set his friends on them.  After a long and bloody battle, Zagor decided that he would remain in Firetop Mountain to protect it and make sure that all could visit it.

Firetop Mountain, which although looks a bit strange, is certainly not an evil place.  The red on the top of the mountain is not due to anything sinister or destructive like a volcano but rather it is due to some lovely flowers.  How many evil sorcerers do you know of whose criteria for a base of operations include a lovely range of flora?  I know of none. 

He doesn't want you
harming the wildlife.

These flowers, as well as being sleep inducing are also an integral part of the ritual that cures one of a powerful death spell, which afflicted Nicodemus and the hero of Caverns of the Snow witch.  If Zagor was such an evil person, surely he would have got rid of the flowers once he had realised that one of Allansia's greatest forces for good had cheated death on the top of his mountain?  No - he let a vampire slaying hero become cured of the same affliction.  Thanks for protecting the mountain, Zagor. 




It's just a hobby. 

In Warlock of Firetop Mountain, there is no allusion to Zagor doing anything evil.  All he does is sit in his mountain and play with his cards, surrounded by guardians, who, yes, let's face it, aren't the most savoury types.

Now the fact that he uses orcs instead of humans may make some people think that he's evil, but which superstisious uneducated soldiers are going to work in a freaky mountain for a sorcerer?  I bet magic has a bad reputation in the area as well.  It seems that orcs, however, are far more accepting of activities which veer from the mainstream. 



If they're both enjoying it in the
privacy of their own home
then who are you to judge?

And are the orcs performing evil acts?  It seems all they are doing is sleeping, getting drunk and engaging in some activities which although you may not agree with, they seem to like.  Sure, they may be lousy employees, but that doesn't make them evil.  For example, if you try to save this orc servant from being whipped, he still fights against you.  What does that say?

Zagor also has a few nice characters in his mountain such as the dwarves and the old shopkeeper who are a bit tired of all of these chaotic types, but maybe they see tham as a necessary evil as they don't go out and kill them all.  They don't want the bad old days where a bunch of snobbish dwarves kept out all visitors.

No, old man, I don't know
about the Long Dark Night
because I don't live in a place
where there's hundreds of
metres of solid rock between
myself and the Sun.

The only allusion to sinister goings on are the long dark nights the old man in the giftshop refers to.  But who is to say that Zagor is causing them or that he is trying to protect people from them.  Lastly, you have to question the credibility of a man who talks about the length of the night when he lives inside a mountain. Especially when he's using it as an excuse to charge an extortionate TWENTY gold pieces per candle. 

What about the hero's motive?  Are the villagers worried that Zagor is about to do something nasty to them?  No.  Does the hero want to do some sightseeing?  No.  I doubt the hero is even a member of the National Trust.  The 'hero's' motive is pure greed.  In the end, Zagor does get slain by a greedy adventurer who takes his treasure  and then may or may not use Zagor's spellbook to rule over Firetop Mountain and maybe do a whole lot a crazy stuff. 

After all, this sword swinging thief probably has less ability to handle all the powerful magic in the book.  Who is to say that they do not get corrupted by the power and try something nefarious?  Even sorcery for the cause of good is dangerous and shouldn't be used by the wrong people.  Zagor obviously had the inner strength to not go crazy with it, but most people don't.  Maybe its best that Zagor was in charge of the book.

However, if this adventurer does use the book, then they get their comeuppance a decade later when Zagor returns to claim what is rightfully his and may even save the area from this lunatic. 

I mean, how would you feel if someone broke into your house and started trashing it and the area where you  live?

Now you've annoyed him.

This could explain Zagor's behaviour in Return to Firetop Mountain. 

Sure it says in the background that casting a spell on yourself so you come back from the dead makes you evil but maybe that's superstitious peasants again.  Or maybe this book is written by the adventurer who slew him the first time and later got ejected from Firetop Mountain by the powerful sorcerer when he returned to claim what was rightfully his. 

And you can explain all of Zagor's behaviour (getting body parts, wanting to take over Allansia) as being hacked off (no pun intended) about being killed for no reason the first time.  After all, if hordes of fortune seekers kept marching into my home to kill me and take my treasure, I would give my right arm (once again, no pun intended) to take every precaution to stop it happening. 

Maybe he wanted to take over Allansia because he thought that sorcerers were getting a bad reputation and wanted to build more schools for sorcery and educate the young Allansians to show its useful side too.  Or maybe he just wanted to purge it of treasure seeking rascals.

However, once again, he is slain by another treasure seeking rascal, this time with the blessing of Yaztromo and the citizens of Kaad.  However, thankfully, the 'hero' or Yaztromo can do nothing about Zagor's resurrection magic.   

Then we get to Legend of Zagor - now Zagor wants to take over the world of Amarilla.  Or does he?

Zagor before...

He managed to get there when the Bone Demon was banished from that world.  Maybe he saw the portal as an opportunity to go to a more accepting world instead of a place where people kill him every ten years. 

and after.  He's obviously
had a change for the worse.
He's not looking after his
fingernails for a start.

However, as Yaztromo says, Zagor became mixed up with the demon, so it is not Zagor you are trying to kill, but a Zagor/demon hybrid. 

Maybe that's what made Zagor so evil in Legend of Zagor.  If it was just Zagor, then he would have just sat in Castle Argent like he did in Firetop Mountain.

In the book, Zagor performs a heroic sacrifice.  He has been fused with an evil demon who wants to destroy the world, but he does small things to help the hero.  The crystal ball that Yaztromo uses gets destroyed, but maybe Zagor was buying time by distracting the demon.  If it wasn't for him, Yaztromo may not have been able to get through at all.  Yaztromo sends gold talismans and silver daggers.  Maybe when Zagor was in the portal and he could feel himself being fused with the demon, he kept it open for a bit longer so that the talismans and daggers could get through. 

And when you are carrying the demon to the Heartfires, maybe Zagor is struggling to keep the demon unconscious so that you can complete your task, even though he knows that he will be destroyed in the process.

Zagor isn't actually
in two of these books
because he's not the
real villain - the
demon is.

I know he gets very angry because he is being faced by a 'wretch like you.', but of course he's angry.  Having his hobbies interrupted by being slain by some sword wielding vagabond is the story or Zagor's life.  It's already happened twice.  Now he's sharing his soul with a demon and although he knows he has to sacrifice himself to destroy this demon, he is bitter that the person who will slay the demon is not so different from the rogues who killed him before. 

Zagor has put all this work into being a powerful sorcerer.  All he wants is to face someone of legendary reputation.  He must feel very insulted that the people selected to slay him are basically bums of the street.  He must feel that no one respects him enough to send someone with a good reputation to slay him.  Or at least an army.

I think this all applies to the Zagor Chronicles too.  I have not read them for a while, but if I remember correctly, Zagor is not in book 1, book 2 is basically the novel version of Legend of Zagor, book 3 is set on Titan, sans Zagor and in book 4, they face the Zagor/demon hybrid again. 



Not a warlock in sight

Zagor was also in the Trolltooth Wars, where, once again, he was not trying to do anything malevolent.  In fact, he helps Darkmane to stop Marr from taking over Allansia.  Sure he's not too welcoming at first, but Darkmane and his gang have killed a few of his servants and Mantrapper tried to kill him straight away (but I'm not revealing why - read the book). 

He's not going to teach

you magic. He's tallying

you bill. 

In fact, once they are all on the same page, Zagor is a very helpful a courteous host. 

He does not demand any money for his services whereas the seemingly good Yaztromo takes 40 gold pieces for an enchanted dagger he gives to Darkmane, even though he is going to use it to save Allansia.  What a greedy so and so. 

So Zagor has helped to save Allansia once from his ex 'friends' who probably annoyed him with all their evil talk and the fact that they were giving him a bad name.  He has protected a place that was used to save the lives of Nicodemus and the slayer of the Snow Witch and when he unfortunately became fused with an evil demon he weakened it so that someone could slay it. 

So Zagor has killed an evil sorcerer, helped save the lives of two champions of good, helped save Allansia once and sacrificed himself in order to save the world of Amarilla.  He has performed more heroic acts than most protagonists in Fighting Fantasy books.   

Zagor has been widely misunderstood, partly because of peoples' distrust of sorcery and partly because he kept bad company when he was young (Balthus Dire and Zharradon Marr, who both tried something Malevolent in their gamebooks). 

Any hostile act he performed could be seen as justified anger at being socially excluded by dwarves, being constantly attacked by lowly fortune hunters or by being fused with an evil demon. 


He just wants a hug.

I think Zagor needs to be vindicated and be in a gamebook where he is allowed to let his true heroic colours show.  How about a book when Zagor comes back from the dead to find that his slayer is forcing the creatures of Firetop Mountain to invade Allansia and only he can stop it as he knows the mountain better than anyone.  However, even if he succeeds, he is still treated as the villain just because he's a sorcerer.  Which then leads to Return to Firetop Mountain...

Poor Zagor's had a hard life.  I suggest we start a 'Clear Zagor's Name' campaign where we put an end to his bad reputation.   

Your adventure is over part 1 - Victory in gamebooks

"Nothing in life is certain except death and taxes"
- Benjamin Franklin

However, in the world of gamebooks, neither is certain.  For one thing, in a world where evil sorcerers are plotting to bring down civilisation and brutal monsters roam the land, decimating whole populations, no one has had much time to collect taxes (unless you live in Port Blacksand where Lord Azzur invents a new one every week or want to save the world from the Shadow Warriors where your first great opponent is a short fat man who wants a load of gold.  It led to a great chase sequence though).

So in the world of gamebooks, you are more likely to end up on the wrong end of a sword rather than having to fill in a tax return.  However, even this is not certain as you may reach the victory paragraph.

Endings in gamebooks are strange as you need several endings but only one will be used at any given reading.  However, after scouring the forums and reviews, all endings - good and bad - need to be well done to maximise the level of entertainment. 

For example, there are some books where the victorious ending is a couple of lines saying congratulations, such as these endings

'"There" You say to Abdul, flinging your coffer open to reveal an amount of gold substantially greater than his own.  "I am the victor, I am the greatest rascal, the best sacker of cities!" Abdul bows his head, admitting your victory.  You have won." - Seas of Blood

'Victory is yours!  The Masks of Mayhem will not be released upon the land.  At least not in your lifetime...' - Masks of Mayhem

'With the capture of 'Blaster', you have wiped out the leadership of the criminal organisation.  Congratulations.  You have smashed the drug ring.  Your victory is a complete success.' - Rings of Kether.

'You drag the unconscious Cyrus from the Waldo.  Your mission is a complete success.  Congratulations' - Space Assassin.

(A Waldo is a bit like this except way less awesome.)

These endings give me and other people a sense of 'Is that it?'.  These endings do not give justice to the trials and tribulations I have gone through to get to the end.  I know that they were all in my head, but as this article about video games states (under number 4), we are hard wired to collect rewards, whether real or imaginary.  I want an epilogue to the story stating exactly how everyone in the world acknowledges my awesomeness and/or how I used the hordes of riches that all sorcerers inexplicably seem to be sitting on (in the case of Return to Firetop Mountain, this is literal) pile of treasure.

All of the above paragraphs do not do this.  First of all, they give very little hint as to the story you have experienced that led you up to this moment of triumph.  From above, I wouldn't know that the Rings of Kether was a Sci fi book.  I could just have easily been a modern day cop adventure.  If you didn't know that the first paragraph was from a book called Seas of Blood, you could imagine that you were a kind of barbarian sacking cities in the mainland.

Second, what happens after you have reached this moment.  Now that you and Abdul have established that you are the best pirate, what happens next?  Do you both go back to plundering as usual, confining this adventure to your log books?  What's going to stop him saying he won?  After all, you're both on a deserted island with only a severely beaten up cyclops and some aged creature to adjudicate. 

In Masks of Mayhem, how is your journey home?  In Space Assassin, what happens to Cyrus's ship?  How do you get Cyrus off the ship where his crew are still loyal to him and get him to a nice safe cell?  Who knows?

Thirdly, all of the paragraphs above say congratulations or make some obvious statement about you winning.  I know I've won.  Now please tell me what I've got.  Eyes on the prize, people!

I guess part of the reason why some victories are short is because of the original aim of the adventure.  If the aim is to slay the warlock to save the world and you have just beaten the warlock in the fight, then what more is there to add apart from 'You saved the world'?  I guess the endings are efficient.  They could be written like this.

'Let's look back at the aims of today then, shall we.  Right, one.  Capture mad scientist.  Check.  We've done that.  Well done!' 

However, even if the book has a simple aim and it's obvious when you achieve it, you can still add more to a victory.  Books involving Zagor do this well.  The aims are always simple - slay Zagor.  However, the endings are not short and simple.

In The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, the aim is simple and it is not too surprising to find a ton of treasure in Zagor's chest, but then there is also his spellbook.  Ah.  Do you take the treasure or do you stay and rule over Firetop Mountain?  The rest of the story is left to your imagination.

In Return to Firetop Mountain, after you slay Zagor, you return with some villagers to gloat over Zagor's corpse, only to find the left arm missing dun dun DUN.  Cue sequel...

In Legend of Zagor, you kill Zagor for good by dropping him in a chasm full of fire (although in the novels, even this isn't enough to off him) and you are told that you land is still a very trouble place but you have given it a chance of survival. 

Some gamebooks treat your victory with an in depth epilogue full of people telling you how great you are.  All Lone Wolf books and Grailquest books have this kind of ending with all but one Lone Wolf book (Masters of Darkness) giving you the title of the next adventure to look forward to.  That is what I'm talking about.

Some gamebooks have endings that are good because they are intriguing as well as complete.  Slaves of the Abyss does not end as you would expect, but it grows (literally) into a bigger story.

Finally, I'd just like to point out the ending to Night Dragon which has me thoroughly confused.  You have defeated the eponymous Night Dragon and leave its mountain to have the Lord of Dragons fly you somewhere.  However, you are not told where.  You are merely told that while you are on the Lord of Dragon's back, you fall asleep and that when you awaken '...you will be glad that it was a dreamless slumber.'

What the hell does that mean?  Answers in a comment please.

I was going to write about death endings at this point, but this post is long enough.  I will put them in a separate post.

Dice in gamebooks part 2 - bookkeeping

I was going to say something positive about random elements in gamebooks, but I think I'll do all the negatives first.

Dice usually have numbers on them. Even if the dice have symbols, you can express them in terms of a probability, which is a number. This seems a bit of an obvious statement. However, this leads to all the possibilities of working with numbers and probabilities.

If you use numbers, then you can manipulate numbers. This leads to a lot of work.

I remember reading a few choose your own adventure books. I think the only time I had to keep track of something was whether I had picked up some item. The other times, all I had to do was make a choice and enjoy the story. I didn't like it at the time, though. I wanted stats, so that I could get lots of items that increase them. I used to play Fighting Fantasy books with the challenge of finishing with the most items and gold pieces. More about that in another post though.

Choose your own adventure books were not hard work. Make a choice, read a it of story. Make another choice etc. This , coupled with a very non linear format where there were sometimes several happy ends meant that you could immerse yourself in the fantasy world without having to swim to the surface of reality to check an adventure sheet to see if some stat was good enough for you to do anything. Nowhere was blocked off to you because of some dice roll at the begining.

Of course, I could never improve anything. The only reward I had was a happy ending. But it wasn't complicated.

On the other end of the scale were certain Fighting Fantasy books which were laden with items which improved your chances in some way, usually in combat. This was great as it meant progression, but it also meant that some combats involved rolling several dice and it was difficult to keep up. right, so I have a sword that adds 2 to my attack strength, but I can fire an arrow at my opponent first and test my skill to cause 2 stamina points of damage, then deduct an arrow from my adventure sheet. Then every time my opponent hits me, there is a table to see how much damage it causes, so I roll a die for that, but then I roll a die because I'm wearing armour and it will reduce my opponent's damage by 1 if I roll a certain number.

Then I'd forget how to adjust my stamina because the attack strength roll was about 5 minutes ago.
The Sorcery! series was the worst offender for this, especially since you would be walking around laden down with four books worth of stat changing equipment as well as a huge list of spell components which you had to check every time you were given the option of casting a spell.

I loved the Sorcery! series for many reasons, but simplicity was not one of them. Rolling dice, then adding and subtracting modifiers can detract from the setting, themes and characterisation of the book part of the gamebook. It just turns into a number crunching exercise where I wouldn't care if I owned some wonderful piece of magical treasure; all that mattered was the numbers associated with it.

Fortunately, the items with modifiers did not spoil the feeling of Sorcery! and all of its diverse and interesting wierdness.

Legend of Zagor, however, did not escape so easily.

My feeling about the gambook is best summed up in this thread from the official Fighting Fantasy website:

http://www.fightingfantasy.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=228

"Go into a room, fight something, pick up item, leave room. Go into another room, fight something, pick up item, leave room. Go into another room, fight something, pick up item, leave room. Go into another room, fight something, pick up item, leave room. Go into another room, fight something, pick up item, leave room. Go into another room, fight something, pick up item, leave room.

Some books you cheat with because otherwise they are impossible. This one you cheat with just to get it over."

If a gamebook does need stats, then there needs to be a limit of the number of things (items, spells etc.) that can modify them and by how much. For example, maybe everything that restores stamina in a Fighting Fantasy book should restore a certain number of stamina most of the time to avoid confusion. Talisman of Death was good at this. The vast majority of things restored 4 stamina points with a few things restoring 2 and a couple of things 6.

If you go further and use dice to determine something, then ways of manipulating the dice roll should be limited. For example, all magical weapons add 1 to your attack strength and that's it.

Otherwise you end up bookkeeping, which is something I don't want to do in my leisure time.