Egelric and Gunnilda?

Submitted by Lothere on Sat, 03/22/2008 - 14:25.

The discussion about Egelric and Gunnilda in the Saddest Moments post is taking on a life of it's own so I'm going to move it over here. Errr, try to, anyway...

Update: Well, that sort of worked, except Devin's "I don't think Egelric should remarry" comment, which was supposed to be the first of this thread, got shuffled all the way to the end. Sorry 'bout that.

And now I am going to run off and make an Egelric and Gunnilda poll, and everyone will probably continue commenting there anyway.

General Discussion

He doesn't have to marry

Submitted by Lothere on Wed, 03/19/2008 - 20:43.

He doesn't have to marry her... he could just have a wild, passionate affair with her.

Hm...maybe I'm alone in

Submitted by Alice on Fri, 03/21/2008 - 08:47.

Hm...maybe I'm alone in disliking a Gunnilda/Egelric pairing then. I agree that she has technically been in two loveless marriages, but she decided to throw herself into them. Then she mopes around going "Oh, I wish I had married Egelric instead!!! Waaaaaaah!" She selfishly used Alwy and Ethelmund in order to get a stable life for herself. In addition, she denied them the basic affection that they were due as husbands. So I don't agree with the argument that she "deserves" a happy marriage, when I think her actions had a major influence on whether her marriages were happy or not. It's so unfair to kill Ethelmund off just because Gunnilda decided to use him.

Don't get me wrong though...I still think that Gunnie is a wonderful person. She's a loving mother and awesome friend. However, her behaviour so far shows that she's not a very good wife.

Alice, I'm glad somebody

Submitted by Lothere on Fri, 03/21/2008 - 09:09.

Alice, I'm glad somebody doesn't like Egelric + Gunnilda. I think it's a sign I'm doing something right, if people disagree about characters and/or their relationships with other characters.

In Gunnilda's defense, although she is "using" these men in a way, I see her as more of a little woman warrior, trying to make the best life she can for herself and her children even though (as a woman) she doesn't have any options open to her besides cleverly choosing a husband. She was wise enough at fifteen to guess that Alwy would make a good (and docile) husband. Later, though, she wouldn't have married Ethelmund if Beddy had been old enough to manage the farm. I was quite explicit with her thoughts in "Ethelmund gives Gunnilda an idea":

Alwy would have been dead over a year by then. She could make no objection on those grounds. She could make no objection on any grounds. She had slipped into a trap of the world’s making. She would have to make the best of it. Ethelmund Ashdown was not a bad man.

Otherwise... yeah, what Verity just said while I was writing this comment.

Both Alwy and Ethelmund have been happy with her -- she is a very good wife, out of the bedroom. Even in it she does her duty. People didn't expect to marry for love so much then, and the Church seemed to imply that if you enjoyed sex you were doing it wrong.

Gunnilda simply believes that if she had been with Egelric everything would have been different. The great unanswered question is whether that's true or not. Same with Vash and Iylaine, really. But that is the one question that life-long tragedies are made of, now and then: "If I had... what might have been?"

I'm gonna chime in that I

Submitted by Seiza on Fri, 03/21/2008 - 18:34.

I'm gonna chime in that I don't really support Egelric/Gunnilda either, although not for the same reasons as Alice (though she does have a point-- I don't pity Ethelmund so much as Alwy, though). The clincher for me was when Sela died and... Egelric marries Lily. Bwuh? Talk about a huge opening right there, and Alwy's dead too so there was absolutely nothing stopping them from getting together.

But they didn't.

That really indicated to me that Egelric, at least, has moved past the Gunnilda part of his life, whether it means he stopped loving her romantically or it is suppressed/died under layer and layers of... what? Maybe Egelric's Madonna-whore complex (if I got that right) is what's stopping any romantic feeling from developing for Gunnilda anymore. Because as she is right now, she is an excellant woman-- but if she married him, she might turn out to be an amazing wife or an amazing letdown. And Egelric treasures his current image of Gunnilda too much to take the risk.

Well, that's one way I looked at it.

Another way is that Egelric's life is paved by many different women. His story is not the sort that ends "happily ever after" with one wife, but each phase is symbolised by one special figure. There was Elfleda, who was his mysterious past ('mysterious' in that we didn't actually see it) and his suffering. Gunnilda, who was his sanctuary and his personal saviour. Sela, who was his escape from society and made up, possibly, the most fantastic (in a scifi-fantastical kind of way) part of his life (the kisor, elves, magic and whatnot). Lily, who was his happiest phase but in a "normal", wholly human, wholly humanly mundane sort of way (I'm not saying Lily is at ALL boring, but I mean "mundane" in the way humans are compared to magic, elves and dragons, yanno?). And of course, there is still Iylaine, who perhaps represents 'what ifs' more than anything-- what if Elfleda never found her, what if Finn was never stolen in exchange for her, what if Egelric had really settled down in a single-parent family etc. etc.

Because of this, I've not been able to see Gunnilda as "the one" for Egelric. Paradoxically (and maybe illogically), I think Egelric has many "the ones". The question is who will be the woman who makes up the last phase of his life, whatever that is? Maybe Gunnilda will make a return, but even if she does, I would not say she was "the one all along" but that she was "the one who represented the end".

Moving on to Gunnilda-- I agree that she "used" Alwy and Ethelmund in a way, but I see that as very much part of her pragmatism that came about from her lot in life, and so I can't hold it against her. (And I think she did love Alwy in the end, although she only realised it after he died.) It's such a painful pragmatism, illustrative in how she looks at sex. I agree with Verity that she has a very brusque, straight-forward way of dealing with her situation. She's not a Gwynn, can't afford to be.

Gunnilda is sort of like a perversion of a fantasy/fairy tale love story. She's the "princess" waiting for her Prince Egelric, but is too down-to-earth, too grounded in her reality to ever be a story-like damsel/love interest. Her love story is so unlike Iylaine's, who has been rendered immobile by her problems. Gunnilda just soldiers on. That's why she keeps moving on in her own way, even if it means marrying Ethelmund. She cannot and so does not indulge in 'what if's and great love stories; she does not stay in her tower waiting to be rescued.

And that's why I would think it... odd, I suppose... if Gunnilda's story were to end with her and Egelric together. That would be a very fairytale ending to her torturous love story, and life just doesn't seem to give such endings to a peasant-princess like Gunnilda. Or maybe I'm just a sadistic wench who likes to see my favourite characters suffer.

(Though maybe Life might decide to give her a break one day, eh? )

I was a little ambiguous

Submitted by Lothere on Fri, 03/21/2008 - 19:20.

I was a little ambiguous about Egelric's feelings for Gunnilda in the time after Sela's death. In "Alred invites Egelric", which was about a year after her murder, Alred said:

“I don’t want you here living the bachelor life over Christmas. I can make it a command.”

“You cannot command me to be merry.”

“I shall not. But I hope you will come. I hope you will come see Gunnilda as well. It will be difficult for her, too. Alwy was always like a boy at Christmas.”

Alred leaned forward to get a better look at Egelric’s face in the firelight, but it had not changed since he had begun to scowl at the mention of Christmas. He realized too late that it had not been wise to mention Gunnilda immediately after reminding Egelric of his wife’s death. He knew himself even less skilled at meddling in other people’s lives than his own wife had been, but he was compelled to try.

And then dumb Alred babbles on and on about Gunnilda, until Egelric finally shuts him up:

“You cannot command me to marry, either, Alred,” Egelric said coldly.

“I… shall not…”

“It is what you have in mind, is it not? You are less subtle than Stein. I must speak my leave-me-alone with you.”

“It wasn’t what I meant…”

“Then I apologize for misunderstanding. I should have known you would not ask a man to remarry when his wife has been dead less than a year, when you yourself have not, two years after the death of your own.”

A month and a half after that conversation, Egelric was married to Lili.

Right before he makes up his mind to sleep with her, though, in "Lili invites herself", he thought:

He was a knight, it was true, but he had been born a peasant, and had not forgotten the fact. He would never have looked higher than a common woman—or a woman who, like him, had risen above her birth, but had not forgotten it. Gunnilda, for example.

So maybe he just needed a little time? Lili was the first woman he was with since Sela died, as he hinted in that same chapter ("And for the first time in a year he was tempted.") He was a little depressed and run-down that year but not beastly like he was before he got together with Sela, and as he is becoming at the moment. And for the first 8 months of that year, Alwy was still alive. So really, there was a window of about four months there, and I don't think either Egelric or Gunnilda were ready to rush into anything then.

If Lili hadn't come along, would they have? We'll never know. If anything happens now, the situation will have changed so dramatically that it won't reveal much about what might have been anyway.

I love your analysis of Egelric's life as defined by the women in it. We never saw her, but I think you can include his mother in there as well. She has been hugely important to him, and defined his perception both of himself and of women. In "Egelric goes to the lakeshore" I wrote:

Every time he snapped at Iylaine, every time he nagged her to put the cat out or wipe her feet or wash her face, he could hear his own mother speaking through him. It was a wonder he had not yet struck her in anger as his mother so often had him.

She gets mentioned in other chapters too, though they're hard to find off-hand.

If you reread the story from the early chapters Egelric has changed a lot in the last twenty years -- more than any of the men -- and I think the women he has been with have either been responsible for that, or else he chose them because of who he was at the moment. So, the women have been very defining, in one direction or the other. Egelric + Elfleda would not work now. Egelric + Lili would not have worked fifteen years ago. I wonder whether (and somewhat doubt) Egelric + Gunnilda would work now.

I reserve the right to change my mind completely if I ever try the experiment of putting the two together , but my idea of the two of them at the present time is that what Egelric would want now out of a relationship with Gunnilda is not what Gunnilda wants. Gunnilda still has the same passionate and slightly naive feelings for him she did when she was twenty. She had an affection for Alwy and probably Ethelmund too, but Egelric is the only man she has ever loved. I don't think Egelric's feelings for her were ever as intense and devoted as hers for him, and she is certainly not the love of his life. (For the reasons you just described, I don't think Egelric can even have one of those.)

If Egelric goes to her now, I think it will be for comfort. It brings to mind the conversation young Sigefrith had with his father in "Sir Sigefrith gets his father's advice":

“It’s an agreeable change to have someone to fuss over me again.”

“Runt, you have just stated in one sentence what it took me half an hour to explain to Sigefrith—namely, why I want to be with your mother after… everything.”

“So you have someone to fuss over you?”

“When you’re my age, you will appreciate the worth of such a woman.”

And if Gunnilda ever figures out that's what's going on, she'll be heart-broken. As long as she can dream about what might have been, she at least has her dreams.

I don't want Egelric to end

Submitted by Devin on Fri, 03/21/2008 - 19:20.

I don't want Egelric to end up with anyone right now. Lili has only been dead for a month, and already some members want him to get together with Gunnie who is still married.

If Egelric needs a woman in his life to be happy that is sad. His main focus should be on his children. Finn doesen't want to spend time any with him or his family. Wulf, Jehanne and Baby Flann are alright I guess. Gils feels like an outsider becuase Egelric hasn't been showing the boy that much attention. In the future Gils might want to look for Lar and the forest is not a safe place for kisor children.

It's sad that he has lost all 3 of wives, but each of them gave him children. Egelric needs to get his priorities straight if he wants his kids to grow up well.

You're definitely right

Submitted by Alice on Sat, 03/22/2008 - 12:20.

You're definitely right about there not being much chemistry on Egelric's side, Lothere. But I think that if they did end up together, Egelric would do his best to make his wife feel loved. He doesn't have a wandering eye when married, unlike Leofric. By the way, have you installed Freetime? Then you can make Leofric both family and romance.

I think he would treat her

Submitted by Lothere on Sat, 03/22/2008 - 12:36.

I think he would treat her well and even be affectionate with her, but it wouldn't be the passionate thing Gunnilda imagines. It would look a lot more like Leofric + Eadgith than Egelric + Lili, or Alred + Matilda.

In fact, cute and curvy as she is, I have a hard time imagining Egelric getting really passionate with her at any point in his life. I think Egelric needs a certain amount of wickedness or at least naughtiness for that to happen in him. That's why he had such a miserable sex life with Elfleda and scarcely dared touch her, and why he had such a blast with Lili. Sela seemed playful and naughty too, even if it was an innocent sort of wickedness. Whereas Gunnilda he sees as the good, motherly, wifely type.

I think we've amply discussed Egelric's dichromatic view of women, so I won't rehash it here (unless someone wants me to, in which case it probably deserves a new topic... in fact this conversation probably does already... )

Uh, but as I was saying, Gunnilda is one of the "good" ones to him, so he would either have a hard time getting passionate about her, or he would have to corrupt her first, which would probably spoil things for Gunnilda.

So does Freetime let you choose multiple aspirations? That would be perfect for Leof. He's a Papa and a Perv!

So who are the bad ones that

Submitted by Devin on Sat, 03/22/2008 - 13:10.

So who are the bad ones that Egelric views?

Practically every other

Submitted by Lothere on Sat, 03/22/2008 - 14:10.

Practically every other woman on earth, Devin. It would be quicker to list the good ones.

I know he thinks the world of Hetty -- even after Hetty got mixed up with Leofric. Maybe he explains the Leofric thing away because he knows Leofric well enough. As he explained to Comgeall once, "The devil knows I’ve done it often enough myself to know what slim chance she had."

Also, I am not sensing any wicked thoughts going in the direction of Gwynn or Margaret. He likes to tease Gwynn but I don't think he's serious about it. He still has enough adoration for Matilda to carry over onto her daughters. Really, now that I think about it, I don't find Egelric to be too interested in very young girls at all, anyway. He likes them much more developed, physically and, errrr, sexually. But even when Gwynn and Margaret grow up I think he will still see them as being too good for the likes of him.

Otherwise... no one in particular comes to mind.

I don't think Egelric should

Submitted by Devin on Wed, 03/19/2008 - 20:02.

I don't think Egelric should remarry right now he is still grieving it's just too soon.

Hmmm, i seem to be the only

Submitted by Taryn on Sat, 03/22/2008 - 17:39.

Hmmm, i seem to be the only one still clinging to the dream I saw in my head all those years ago. I'm not sure why I would see these two together after all this time, and after all thats happened. Maybe, I just can't get over the family of them I imagined them to be...................living in the past would be a better description I suppose.

If you did end up doing it, I'd probably agree with everyone else. Who knows

I definately agree that Egelric is not ready to be hopping into any relationship right now, he should remain single for a while. It hasn't been that long really....

Speaking of families,

Submitted by Lothere on Sat, 03/22/2008 - 17:48.

Speaking of families, Gunnilda is 37 already. They had better not wait too many more years if she wants to have the son with him she has always dreamt of.

However, I admit I have sometimes imagined them getting together only when they are elderly... silver-haired Egelric and little old lady Gunnilda living out their twilight years together. Maybe that would be the best thing for them after all. I think they would be quite cute together at that age.

Yeah, it lets you choose a

Submitted by Alice on Sat, 03/22/2008 - 22:09.

Yeah, it lets you choose a secondary aspiration. I had a romance sim with a secondary aspiration of family. Once I fulfilled his first lifetime want to woohoo 20 sims, he rolled one to marry off 6 children. That is sooo Leofric!

What? No additional

Submitted by Lothere on Sun, 03/23/2008 - 04:45.

What? No additional aspiration to have ten grandrunts before he dies?

I have another Freetime question if it's not too much trouble... I saw a terrain on MTS2 that was somewhat interesting, but what caught my eye was a comment in the description that said something like, if you have Freetime, then you can fix what you don't like about it. So is it true?? Can you edit neighborhood terrains in Freetime? Even after you have put a few lots down and stuff? If so...

I NEED THIS!

Lothere wait for the patch

Submitted by Devin on Sun, 03/23/2008 - 05:36.

Lothere wait for the patch to come out, the game has a shit load of bugs. One of the bugs that I have is an objects error bug and an enthusiam tracker error bug.

I don't know about terrains but it is a great game overall and would make an even better one once they release a patch for it.

Hmm...I'm not really into

Submitted by Alice on Mon, 03/24/2008 - 22:45.

Hmm...I'm not really into modding so I wouldn't know. There are a lot of new objects and animations, though, so you could really go wild with poses and such for your story. I must say, you're already doing a fantastic job with what you have! I wouldn't have imagined the depth of emotion that you can get those sims to convey.

Edit: OK, I did a google search and apparently there's a cheat to raise or lower the neighbourhood terrain included in the game. Is that what you're looking for?

Well, I would love for them

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 04/22/2009 - 09:23.

Well, I would love for them to at the least be friends. Also seconding the brief hidden love affair, that yields a love child (unknown to them).

Well surely it would be

Submitted by Lothere on Wed, 04/22/2009 - 09:25.

Well surely it would be known to at least Gunnilda.

Or maybe neither of them would know who the father was... but given the genetic dominance of THE NOSE, that seems unlikely.

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