Writing Question; What direction should I go?

[Victarion]

I recently read a fantasy with the French Revolution as the backdrop. The opening chapter went into graphic detail on the madness that seized the country under Robespierre's reign. I have a situation similar to the FR where an old King and Queen are overthrown and a new Queen rises to take the throne. My work is sword and sorcery fantasy; I have the new Queen scheduled to die and enter a plane of the afterlife that I call the Elemental Sea. Within the Elemental Sea, the Queen meets the Spirit Lord that was pulling her strings. Here is where I'm having problems:

I'm not sure if the Queen should die and enter the Elemental Sea, or if she should be subjected to some of the stuff the old nobility experienced during the FR after her (my new Queen's) reign is challenged. If the Queen entered the Elemental Sea, she would by taken by a greater power from beyond this Sea and forged into a weapon for that greater power. The Queen would enter a phantasmal recreation of the revolution that she started (which ultimately gave her the throne). Here she would experience the horrors inflicted in her name, battle against phantasmal versions of her people that were killed or maimed in her revolution, and ulitmately be mutilated and tortured by the grieving phantasms.

I am not putting the Queen through this for the shock value; the Queen will return from the realm beyond the Elemental Sea, and from the Elemental Sea to the Constant Realm (ie the Real World; my fantasy world, that is). Upon returning to the real world, the Queen will carry the scars from her experience and be a warlock. Warlock magic involves using the lymph nodes from victims that died brutal deaths to cast spells based on whatever trace elements (Wind, Fire, Earth, Water) were found within the T cells of the lymph node. Given that T cells are typically proactive in the adaptive immune response, the T cells of the lymph node are those that are most useful to a warlock.

 

[ThePhantasm]

You've given us two options here but not the pros and cons of each, so I can't understand your dilemma or the difficulty of the decision. In the end, however, when it comes to writing the best thing is to do what you think is best for the story, and write a story that you will personally enjoy.

 

[Victarion]

You've given us two options here but not the pros and cons of each, so I can't understand your dilemma or the difficulty of the decision. In the end, however, when it comes to writing the best thing is to do what you think is best for the story, and write a story that you will personally enjoy.

Sorry; the biggest con I can think of is "death is meaningless" or something similar. I don't want to make a mistake of having the Queen-turned-Warlock seem like a Dragonball Z-esque power boost. That's what I fear from the Queen going into the Elemental Sea and the realms beyond it.

However, the pro to the Elemental Sea angle is that, in addition to remorse over the lives lost because of her personal crusade, I can give the Queen a stronger reason to start conflict with the tribes loyal to the Spirit Lord and other entities she encounters in the afterlife.

The most intriguing aspect of including the Spirit Lord (and the others) is the Queen realizing that she traded in one master--the King and Queen she ousted in the revolution--for another, much more powerful master. Unlike the King and Queen, her supernatural master is far more unpredictable. I think it could make the Queen's situation much more complicated in the sense that after doing someting, she could wonder, "OK, why hasn't the Spirit Lord punished me for that?" That train of thought could easily lead to paranoia on her part...

 

[Manic]

If your options are taking the sting away from death or going with something that strengthens your character overall, I say screw the meaningfulness of death.