#fat wizard

[afatlotofchance]

Time to continue my series of posts about fatness in fantasy! Thought I was done? Far from it!

Another example of how fatness randomly creeps in into the fantasy genre is the Eddings books. It's another example of a set of stories with recurring elements that we could pick apart.

For those of you who don't know, there was this series of novels in the 80s called "The Belgariad". This series was one of the best-sellers of 80s fantasy, and in many way it gave a new push to the "Tolkien mania" at the time, because the entire point of this book series was to take back all the Lord of the Rings archetype, beats and plot-points, but recreate it into something new and fresh, while playing around the cliches and expectations of the "tolkien genre" (unlike for example the Sword of Shannara book which was made to be much more of a pastiche and imitation). Today most people know the Belgariad as a "gateway fantasy", as in a book series that introduced them as children or teenagers to the high fantasy/epic fantasy genre.

There isn't really anything fatness-related here except of a few elements - for example there is a secondary character, King Rhodar, the uncle of one of the co-protagonists, who is explicitely described as very fat and his largness is very much insisted upon, to the point that by the sequel-series he is said to have died due to the consequences of his obesity.

There's a sequel series to the Belgariad, calle the "Malloreon", which is... if you ask me it is a very bad series. The Belgariad can be read easily, and it works on its own, and you know, it's a classic that influenced the genre. But the Malloreon is... plain bad. Which is too bad because it does quite important stuff (like fighting the inherent racism of the first series...), but it is wrapped in just bad writing, atrocious plots and the flanderization of characters. I will only mention this series because in its beginning, one of the characters of the Belgariad returns (I think it's Cho-Hag? I don't recall the name, it is one of the "rider people" obsessed with horses) and the other characters point out how he literaly got a dad bod (as in, he gained weight after becoming a dad).

The Eddings couple, the authors of the Belgariad/Malloreon, wrote much later a stand-alone fantasy novel, "The Redemption of Althalus", which I did not read, but which contains characters such as a warlord so renowned for being fat that is name is literaly "Big-belly" (or Fat-belly), and a co-protagonist who is explicitely said to be a young man with an enormous appetite and rarely satiated, until the end of the book when he finally has a normal hunger. This plot device has been use before by the Eddings in another book series of fantasy, the Tamuli series, where one of the co-protagonist, due to being a teenager fully growing into a young man with an intense growth spurt, gains a large appetite (though no weight gain involved).

But the real series I want to evoke is "The Elenium" (to which the Tamuli is a sequel). After writing the Belgariad/Malloreon, the Eddings created a different fantasy series called The Elenium. It takes back elements, plots and types from The Belgariad, but whereas the Belgariad was meant for a more epic fantasy, the Elenium is more dark fantasy. It is not as good as the Belgariad, though much better than the Malloreon - the inherent flaws and problems with the Eddings are very much appearing here (while they could pass well-hidden in the Belgariad), and... anyway you'll see for yourselves if you ever go read it. BUT! There is one very important character if you want fatness in fantasy, and he is the epitome of "fatness as evil" in this kind of genre.

It is one of the main antagonist, the powerful sorcerer-king Otha. He only appears in person in the third book of the series (it is a trilogy), after organizing conspirations, sending monsters and causing wars all throughout the two previous books. And what is supposed to be one of the "twist reveals" of this series is Otha's appearance. Because the Eddings basically wrote Jabba the Hutt before Star Wars did. The backstory of Otha is revealed that he was a simple, poor, not that bright shepherd young man in ancient days, until he found the idol of an evil god who offered him powers and riches. Being a simple-minded, regular man with quite a mean streak to him, he simply became a decadent and hedonistic tyrant, helped with the magic and immortality offered by the evil god he served. But the result of living for centuries while eating endlessly (he always was a glutton) and never leaving his palace was a terrifying body modification, as he became so fat and enormous his limbs literaly became atrophied, and he also ended up losing his hair and becoming all pale and sweaty, leading to him looking like a sort of grotesque, gigantic, bloated worm of a man. So it comes as a shock to the heroes when they see what the dreaded evil overlord they have been fearing all this time looks like - the mighty warlock of evil is just a lazy oaf and a fat fool so big he can't even walk on his own, and has to be carried around by a dozen of very muscular slaves.

If you are an enjoyer of this type of character, I know that a similar idea was used by Glenn Cook in one of his short-stories companions to his famous dark fantasy classic "The Black Company". I do not remember which short story it was, but it talked of a mighty and evil god-like sorcerer called "The Master", who ended up bound and trapped into some sort of underground cave millenia ago. Unable to leave his lair or to do anything, he simply spent all of his time eating until he became monstrously obese, and - since this is a dark fantasy - he has servants of his regularly bring him copious amount of food... Or human beings if he is feeling it, because it's still meat in the end.

[catastrothy]

summertime ☀️👙

[beastwhimsy]

exams are over. centaur wizard celebration extravaganza

[starlittragedies]

i read a fic a long time ago where barty was italian (we love italian barty on this blog !!!) and he gives nicknames to everyone he likes and I WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE WITH IT.

he calls regulus tesoro/caro, pandora piccola, evan amore/rosa/fiore, and dorcas dolcezza.

i also think that it pisses his friends’ partners (more specifically james and marlene).

james has always been a little jealous fella but it goes beyond when its barty we’re talking about (its kinda barty’s fault). the bloke can’t stop himself from taunting james by saying things like “i had regulus first” or “did regulus ever tell you about the summer of fourth year?”. so him having a nickname for darling regulus just sets james off more.

but marlene…

oh sweet marlene’s reasons are quite different. she gets irked by it because she DOESN’T have one. when she and dorcas had dated for a good amount of time and she was introduced to the pantheon barty quite liked her. she was funny, always kept it real, and kept his wits about him.

he treated marlene (to some extent as he would say) as a good friend. she would have had her nickname given by now but being as she is considered as a friend by barty crouch jr. it would mean that she had to deal with him being a little menace to her life as all his friends do (a good example of this would be regulus who somehow will always find that one of his socks will be missing its pair). and the form of her little minuscule personal hell served by barty is NOT getting a nickname and just being called “mckinnon” for the rest of her days.

[feyburner]

I love your Jason because he’s like. so uncertain. Like I enjoy the foul-mouthed cocky asshole depictions of Jason too, but you’re so right! He probably would be an awkward virgin! He died when he was 15! Now he’s back from the dead and jacked as hell but he doesn’t have that much more lived experience! And he is so Aware of that. It’s no wonder Tim makes him nervous. Love him.

I love the idea of him being a foul-mouthed cocky asshole precisely because of how young and inexperienced he is and how much hes just winging everything. Like not in a “sexy bad boy with a heart of gold” way more like a “hormonal teenager going through rebellious phase lashing out” way. Or like “cornered prey animal” way. Sidenote but I do love that Batman’s sidekick is named after a small bird. Like they could have gone with a much cooler, more intimidating animal. It could have been Batman and Shark Panther. U know. Anyway.

He’s basically thrust into this abrupt and violent second puberty. And I love the idea of him hurtling through life half-cocked, running on fumes and bravado, because of course he’s put himself in a situation where revealing the slightest weakness or inexperience = death.

In my head he’s essentially a theater kid giving the performance of a (second) lifetime you know. There’s an element of performance inherent to being Robin, it just manifests differently, like the circus or the theater or one’s own private detective noir. Idk to me it’s like the Red Hood definitely isn’t as intertwined with his identity as, say, Batman is to Bruce? It feels less like a revealed facet and more like a character he’s playing, to me. By the time he realizes maybe he doesn’t want to have completely destroyed his relationships with the bats he has already done irreparable damage (he thinks). So he’s furious at himself and also at them and it’s like. Sorry but there’s that thing Interview with the Vampire is doing where it’s like whatever you’re feeling at the moment you’re turned becomes the Great Feeling of the rest of your life. Like your core becomes that crystallized moment of fear or heartbreak and no matter what, that’s the biggest thing you’ll feel forever, that’s the feeling you’ll always return to. So for me it’s like, in the moment of death he is fundamentally changed and some part of him will forever be suspended in that moment. He is the ghost haunting himself u know. I forget where I was going with this omg

Anyway. A lot of the appeal of Jason & Tim for me is that it begins with one half of the pairing being their absolute worst self. Like truly the most awful mortifying cruel violent terrified grieving self. It starts with that and so the development of their relationship in the aftermath is very compelling to me.

[orchideous-nox]

Fatphobia in the Marauders fandom

I have spoken briefly on this before, but I think perhaps it is time we stop making Peter a prude, or unable to find a date, or "a late bloomer". I'm really fed up of regularly seeing posts saying these things with no explaination or supporting headcanon for why.

I think if you want to make him asexual or aroace for legitimate reasons then that's fine, as someone on the ace spectrum I love seeing good representation, but so often it feels like people do it because they can't think of anyone to ship him with because they don't want to ship someone with the fat kid. It's not because he turns bad later, because he's not bad during the Hogwarts years. But it is consistently Peter, someone who is not conventionally attractive, who is portrayed as some undesired sexless character who betrayed his friends because he couldn't get laid or have some great love like them.

Guess what, fat people date too!! Fat people are capable of having interests that aren't related to food or proving their worth through other ways. "He's fat but it's okay because he's really good at chess". NO. Peter can want to date, Peter can participate in talking about sex, Peter can have a partner and it not be a big deal that "him of all people" pulled someone.

If you don't think that this is a genuine problem in the fandom then you might need to re-evaluate. This is not the representation plus-size people deserve.

"But Lily is made plus-size and gets put in ships, plus-size Lily is hot". Plus-size Lily is still usually drawn in a way that is acceptably fat by society's standards. She's curvy with thick thighs and an hourglass figure, with a jawline and a small stomach. Give me fics of her an apron belly and a double chin and a realistic waist where James or Mary or Pandora or anyone still thinks she is the hottest shit. Please. We deserve this.

[lulublack90]

Prompt 13 - Mischievous

@jegulus-microfic May 13, Word count 560

Previous part First part

James sunk into the kiss, Regulus tilted his head so the kiss deepened. He seemed to know what he was doing, so James let him take the lead. 

A groan escaped his throat when Regulus’s teeth nipped his bottom lip. He wished he had more experience, or any at all, but this was his first kiss, and he thought it was amazing anyway. 

Regulus pulled away, but stayed close, his breath played across James’s wet lips. 

“Are you going to join them?” Regulus asked quietly. His silver eyes were darker than James had ever seen them, his pupils were blown wide. James’s throat constricted, and he couldn’t speak, so he shook his head. Regulus took one of James’s hands in his and teased his fingers gently. He looked up with a mischievous grin and whispered into James’s ear. “Wanna go up to your dorm?” James’s heart skipped a beat and his brain short-circuited. 

Regulus tugged the invisibility cloak out of his pocket and threw it over them before leading James by the hand back to the castle. 

James didn’t remember the walk back up to Gryffindor Tower. The next thing he was aware of was Regulus prodding him in the ribs. “Oi, what's the password?” He shook his head and snapped out of it. He stepped out from under the cloak, making the fat lady jump and gave her the password. She grumbled about him being out past curfew and that she ought to report him, but the Marauder’s had long ago charmed her, so James knew it was all bark and no bite. He made a note to come and apologise in the morning, but right now Regulus was pushing him in the back to make him move forward. 

He walked across the empty common room and up the spiral staircase. As soon as the dormitory door closed, Regulus was on him, locking their lips together and jumping into his arms. James only just had time to catch Regulus, before his legs were wrapped around James's waist. 

He stumbled back, towards his bed and sat down heavily. Regulus began pulling at his tie and James became suddenly nervous. He pulled his head back, away from Regulus’s soft lips. 

“Erm,” His voice squeaked, so he cleared it. “Erm, just so you know, I’ve never—Er, you know—I’ve never been with someone.” He stumbled over his words, his face reddening with embarrassment. 

Regulus let his hands drop to his side, releasing James’s tie. 

“What, never?” He asked, head tilted to the side with a look of confusion on his face. 

“No,” James whispered. “Just now, that was my first kiss,” He confessed. Regulus’s confessed expression turned to horror. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He said in disbelief. He ran his hand agitatedly through his curls. “I’d never have suggested coming up here otherwise.”

“Oh,” James’s face fell. Regulus let out an exasperated sigh. 

“I mean, I don’t have to go. My brother and the others won’t be back until morning.” That mischievous grin returned. “I could give you a more thorough education in kissing.” His eyebrow quirked up. 

James’s face lit up and he nodded yes. Regulus laid James back onto the bed and followed after him. James would never in his wildest dreams have dreamed that this might be a reality. 

Eventually, they dosed off, wrapped around each other. 

Next part

[morgandekarios]

morgan + gale + bed (feat. Clay's Chubbier Companions - Librarian Edition)

[jeffreely]

school notebook drawings save me

[afatlotofchance]

Speaking of Otha and the Master... Fat sorcerers or wizards is actually something quite recurring in fantasy. There is a page on TV Tropes and Idioms called "Squishy Wizards" which highlights how wizards in fantasy typically do not have a fighting body - they are too old or too young, skinny or chubby. To have a muscular, fit, warrior-built wizard was seen for a time as a subversion of the traditional wizard (see for example The Kingkiller Chronicles, which was praised at the time for having a warrior-wizard as a protagonist).

While fat wizards do not typically lead the archetype, they're still recurring. In another 80s classics of fantasy, the Riftwar books by Raymond E. Feist (in France they're better known as the adventures of Pug the wizard), the protagonist is first tutored in magic by a Gandalf copy (elderly bearded wizard who likes to smoke a pipe), but with a few differences - he has a tiny pet dragon, he is a human court wizard instead of an otherwordly wanderer, and... he is noted to be a large and fat man with a round belly. Name's Kulgan by the way. Don't ask me more about him, because I couldn't even finish the first book of the series (while I don't mind some "cliche fantasy", there's some stereotypical fantasy that just doesn't work with me, and the Riftwar books do not click for now. Maybe if someone encourages me to read them or has positive things to say about them... But for now, nah).

A different fantasy series, but one I quite enjoyed and fully read (unlike the Riftwar one) is the 70s classic "The Fionavar Tapestry", which is basically "What if Lord of the Rings crossed over with Narnia, and was even more epic and even more mythological as we sprinkle in Cybele, and Irish mythology, and Arthuriana, and other stuff?". You have book series that pastiche and imitate in obvious ways Lord of the Rings (Shannara). You have book serie that take back, reinvent, subvert Lord of the Rings (Belgariad). And you have the Fionavar tapestry, which was actually written by one of the men who worked on compiling and studying Tolkien's works and notes to re-create things like the Silmarillion and other books, and thus literaly pays homage and soars from the world created by Tolkien to do its own thing (though if you do not enjoy hyper-intellectual, hyper-poetic, hyper-mythical fantasy this series is not for you). There's three wizards in this series. One is you Saruman ; another is your Gandalf (but with the bonus point that he is in a gay relationship with a dwarf king) ; and the third, more unique to the series, is described a curvy, bellied fat man. And when we finally get a bit of background info on him (in the third book of the trilogy) we learn that he was always the weakest of the three wizards, and mostly was into the wizard business to enjoy the comfortable life, high position and material pleasures it brought with it - hence why he is quite a fat man today. In the third book he even complains at one point that due to being involved in war activty he has lost a lot of weight, only for other characters to mention he is still quite plump and far from thin.

Technically, when it comes to the "fat wizard" archetype we can go back to the first of the Earthsea books, "A Wizard of Earthsea", with the character of Vetch. Fellow student at the wizard-school with the protagonist, later becoming his own local sorcerer in his village, and described as a stout, large boy than man with a healthy appetite and a love for food... Fan-art today does regularly depict him as a big beautiful man he is strongly implied to be - though he might fall rather into the "large sidekick/fat bestfriend/chubby companion" archetype that I evoked in an earlier post. [Note: if you ever want to check out Earthsea, don't hesitate, because not only is it one of the foundations of the genre, which influenced all the later classics, but it was also one of the early attempts at doing a non-cliche fantasy - first exploration of a wizard school in fiction, first time having a wizard as a main protagonist in a fantasy story, with an archipelago setting specifically designed to not feel European in the slightest, AND with a non-white cast! You couldn't guess it due to all the illustrations and adaptations white-washing the hell out of the books, but Earthsea was all about black-skinned and copper-skinned and distinctively non-white people, and Ursula Le Guin was always very sad and mad each time the cover-artist or movie-makers made all of her cast whiter than bread dough. There's white people in Earthsea indeed, but they are the barbarian foreign minority serving evil gods, which was quite a perspective switch for a 60s fantasy series]

More generally, the "fat wizard" idea is often used to subvert or counter the "Gandalf archetype". One of the most famous examples is the wizard Bayaz, from Abercrombie's "The First Law" trilogy. Not to be confused with "The Wizard's First Law" by Terry Goodkind, a "regular" fantasy book that opened a quite... unfamous fantasy series, but which deserves a mention because it reuses and mixes the "fat counterpart/fat is evil" fantasy elements, by having the brother of the main protagonist (Michael Cypher) being described as "smaller, heavier and softer" than his brother, and ultimately falling for the lies and tricks of the main villain leading him to oppose his brother... But back to Abercrombie's The First Law, the entire point of this trilogy is to take back the archetypal epic fantasy story, but present it in a dark, cynical, morbid light. Bayaz is here the subversion and caricature of the typical "wizard mentor", Gandalf-type - he is the main wizard of the story, the patron of the protagonists, the one who leads them in their quest... But he is also a deceiving brute, a power-hungry war-mongerer, and a shady, amoral and selfish man. And this subversion of his Gandalf type is marked in his appearance, as he is described as a butcher-like man, large and thick, built with a mix of muscle and fat (and people who compare the statues once sculpted for him to his current state do point out how since his glory days he grew a gut).

And of course, no need to tell you that the "fat wizard" archetype blooms in works where the fatness of sorcerers and magic-users is systematized - ranging from Robin Hobb's The Soldier Son, to Terry Pratchett's Discworld, two universes where being fat is basically a pre-requisite to be a wizard...

[mungokit]

a nice comfy bed

oh to have a huge taur wizard cat let you sleep on their big belly

Posted using PostyBirb

[kaitowotd]

Kaito's Word(s) of the Day: SHADOW WIZARD MONEY GANG

WE LOOOOOOVE CASTING SPELLS! (turn your sound on for this one!)

[kingthunder]

In my head Gale is one of those no-muscle-tone skinny-yet-flabby nerds, on the verge of underweight because he doesn't remember to eat when he starts hyperfixating on his craft. "But he loves to cook—" Yes, and so do I, but that doesn't mean I remember to actually eat it. Do you know how many culinary works of art I've created that have ended up as leftovers that molded in the refrigerator because I "sat down to do this one thing real quick" and then didn't move for eight consecutive hours? He's on that coffee for breakfast, no lunch, girl dinner grind for days on end. Then he takes a shower and remembers he's a human with hobbies and spends the weekend making beef bourguignon from scratch and baking bread with artisanal well water. But unless Tara has learned how to conjure herself opposable thumbs and spoon feed that man his lunch for the next few days, there's no way he's clawing his way out from eight dimensions deep into the Weave just to eat some soup he made last night, no matter how lovingly he deglazed the pot.

[rosewater-28]

could you please write a headcannon abt hogwarts common rooms?

Hi, you are the first person to ask me a question, so thank you very much for your interest in my blog. 😊 I hope you enjoy the headcanons:

-As you know, Gryffindor and Hufflepuff have a staircase/rappel to keep the boys out of the girls' rooms. Well, once upon a time, two friends, one from each of these houses, decided to test this mechanism. One of them mentioned this "experiment" to his friend and she told him the idea she had. Later, the girl piggybacked the boy up the stairs and they arrived at the top of the stairs vividly, but as soon as the boy took a step forward, an invisible force sent him rolling down the stairs. Then, the other friend, decided to do the experiment in a different way, he took a rope and asked one of the girls to tie it to one of the poles at the top of the stairs, so that when the stairs turned into a ramp, he would be attached to the rope and wouldn't fall, but gess what, the pole broke. Not the rope, the pole. (This was probably because the whole area around the ladder was haunted, including the pole). Moral: don't challenge the stairs/ramp: they will do their best to ban you.

-Once a Ravenclaw boy tried to enter the girls' rooms by putting on an invisibility cloak so that the two suits of armour would not detect his presence. However, they did. Not being visible, the boy was detected later than usual and ended up in the infirmary with severe cuts. Moral of the story: don't try to fool the armour if you don't want to stay in bed for three weeks and get a reprimand from the teachers.

-Many students who love animals and magical creatures ask their Slytherin friends to come into their common room to watch or take pictures of the magnificent creatures that pass in front of the glass overlooking the Lake.

-In Hufflepuff house there are a lot of blankets and nobody knows why. But still no one complains, especially the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor students, who sleep in the towers and get very cold, and always end up asking the Hufflepuff students to lend them some of those warm, puffy blankets.

-A Hogwarts student from Gryffindor was about to enter his house when the Fat Lady in the painting hurled one of her usual insults at him. Apparently, the student was not in a very good mood that day, because he hurled a string of expletives at the lady, who refused to let him in.

-Something similar happened at the Ravenclaw house entrance. We all know that there have been times when a student has been left out of the house because they couldn't guess the riddle. Well, once, for a whole week, none of the members of the house were able to guess the damn riddle, causing all these students to be scattered at the foot of the stairs after curfew. The worst thing was that when the prefect went to ask the teachers for help, they refused to give them a place to sleep and told them that it was their responsibility to go into the house or not. Guess who started shouting in front of the entrances of the other houses in the middle of the night to get the other students to let them in?

-A group of Slytherin students came up with the idea of testing the strength of the glass that separated their main hall from the Lake. They cast a bunch of spells, but none of them seemed to work, until the glass began to shake. The students moved a little away from the glass, fearful that it would break. But the truth is that the shaking was not caused by anything the students had done, but by one of the giant creatures that inhabited the Lake and that had had enough of the rattling noises (due to the spells) spreading throughout the Lake. So imagine the look on the students' faces when a colossal, angry sea monster smashed through the glass. I think some of them are still traumatised.

Hope you liked it. 😁

[taeslovehandles]

[Snipet of Potioncraft]

“That is good information to have, Yoongi.” Taking the cup from the familiar, Hoseok filled it all the way up, the cauldron about half way depleted now. “More.” He held it out to the sweaty cat.

Seeing the next refill of his jar made Yoongi’s cheeks pout harder. He had hoped that for being such a good familiar and giving his master the information he was seeking, he’d be finished with the potion now. “T-Thank you…master.” Of course this wasn’t the damn case. Of course it wasn't.

Yoongi drank the next fill down completely and waited for the familiar but unwelcome increase of the tingling sensation. “Nghh…” It really started to feel different. He was getting so much heavier that standing on his feet began to hurt. “I- I really don’t like it. Can’t we stop? It’s always the same f-fee-buuuurp- ling. Sorry…” Urgh, the potion made him burp too.

His belly was now starting to divide itself in two separate sections. A smaller top roll and a larger, heavily fat filled, lower roll. His sides also grew outwards making the cat’s pants rip open at the seams to dangle helplessly between his hanging gut. “Oh god, please no…” Technically now he was naked. Terrible, terrible idea to drink this thing.

“Ngh…” Yoongis cheeks went even brighter red from sheer embarrassment. He really wanted this damn potion to just be done with. At least there wasn’t a mirror he had to see himself in.

------------------------------

I had so much fund esigning hobis outfit there. Took me three days to finish, but I also wasn't putting a lot of hours into it. I got inspired by the finished shortstory me and @pudgecuddles did together. Potioncraft will be posted closer towards Halloween as a little special!

[trappedinafantasy37]

Minthara making fun of Shadowheart for being a cleric: 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Minthara making fun of me for being a cleric: 😥😥😥😥