Character Development: Emil

[thorny]

Well, I'm partly faceblind, so I can't personally speak to that. If I dream of a face, I've probably got no idea whether I've seen it before or not. And I either don't dream of faces to start with, or can't remember what faces look like any better in my dreams than IRL -- I sometimes know who people are in my dreams, but I don't think it's by their faces.

I'm curious, though: is that others' experience, that they never see strangers' faces in their dreams?

-- although this is kind of off topic for the thread, isn't it? should we take it over to the weird dreams thread?

[Sc0ut]

you can't dream of a face you haven't seen before.

There's no way to prove this, so I'd take this idea with a couple grains of salt, at least

thorny: My experience as a non-faceblind person is exactly like yours dream-wise. In dreams, I just know people's identity regardless of what they look like. I may even dream them inhabiting a wrong body (such as my sister as an old man, this happened) but I still know it's them. The information is there instantly, not deduced from appearance. I also don't remember dream faces unless there was something extremely unusual about them. As for seeing strangers' faces in dreams, I can only say I do dream about strangers, people that my brain claims it has never seen before. Of course, I wouldn't know if if the brain/dream"recycles" their appearance from memories.

I don't mind my comment being moved to the dream thread if people want to do this. 

[wavewright62]

I don't mind my comment being moved to the dream thread if people want to do this. 

-- although this is kind of off topic for the thread, isn't it? should we take it over to the weird dreams thread?

I can if you like, and y'all want to pursue the topic - shall I?

[Sc0ut]

I can if you like, and y'all want to pursue the topic - shall I?

Personally I don't think it's needed unless it gets much longer. It's an offtopic that naturally grew out of the main discussion and is still somewhat relevant to it and doesn't disrupt the thread. But I'm not a mod, you guys know your rules.

[wavewright62]

I've moved the recent posts to the latest page discussion thread so please feel free to continue the discussion there 
(I'll delete this post sometime tomorrow once everyone interested has had a chance to see it)

*salutes* Thank you.

On-topic, poor Emil, convinced that he's gone out of his head completely, must come to grips with the reality that he not only is *not* out of his head, Lalli is *in* his head somehow. 
I am loving the nascent resourcefulness he's showing, too.  The dragging will work so much better than that super-awkward under-the-armpits hold he used to get Lalli to the safe house.

[Queen Yoko]

I'm going to attempt to bring this board back to life. We learned a lot about Emil near the end of adventure 1.
Not the whole story mind you but enough to speculate.
So here's what we know. His family was rich. He was home schooled. And after his house burned down (along with his family fortune)  he was forced to attend public school and during that time he lived with Siv and Torbiorn. in chapter 3 or 4 he says he lived with his ant and uncle while he was going to school in Mora.

That's what we know.

My head canon is that those buildings we see on fire in Emil's dream are part of the Vasterstorm estate. His father and mother were abest because they were trying to put the fire out (or got caught in it).

As far as where their fortune came from..... for some reason I think it might have been horse breeding.  Emil talks about how horses are a practical option for most working folks and for some reason that seemed to indicate that he knew something about the horse trade.  For all I know Mia Vasterstorm (Emil's grandma) could have gone in to horse breeding as a career or....well we don't know anything about Frederic Stevenson (the guy Mia married).

As for Siv and Torbiorn, I think they got married before the fire happened. I can see Torolof (Emil's dad) being the responsible older brother to the somewhat impulsive and flighty Torbiorn. Torbiorn and Siv seem like they might have been college sweethearts.

Again this is all my head cannon. I'd like to hear other people's thoughts on this lovable  Swedish (possible pyromaniac)  dork.

on another note I wonder if Emil and Lali will have more scene's in the dreamworld together. That could be very interesting. Also is it just something that happens when they are physically close or can this happen over greater distances. Also how is Onni going to react to this weird situation. Hell how is he going to react to the news that Lali and Emil were sharing head space for a few days.

[JoB]

My head canon is that those buildings we see on fire in Emil's dream are part of the Vasterstorm estate. His father and mother were abest because they were trying to put the fire out (or got caught in it).

I'm afraid that at least for his dad, Sofia [fandom nickname] states that his absence is a much more frequent event ...

(Also, whatever befell the Västerström family, it turned Torbjörn and Siv poor as well, which seems a bit out of range for a single fire destroying the home of Emils family in Östersund when T&S still hold on to their house in Mora. It'd have to be the very source of the entire family's wealth, like a factory, while a large-scale horse breeding enterprise would easily, and almost necessarily, be too decentralized to turn ablaze as a whole.)

[Sevseres]

Aw yeah, I'm always in for Emil content. more so with angsty backstories *thinks about all the emilalli potential* *shivers* I second all that JoB said, and I love the idea of the family business being about horses. Makes a lot of sense worldbuilding wise. And maybe Emil would have grown up having a horse or being close to them too, somehow relating to his softness towards animals and beasts.
I also think Emil's mom might have been long gone before the family tragedy. His father is mentioned several times but his mother is not mentioned even once. She wasn't home while his father was mentioned to be away in the dream sequence. And in the family tree his parents are... they just have the saddest faces in the entire family tree. In any case, I don't think Emil grew up having a mother. I hope the dream sequence continues and we find out more about him! I just love him.

[Queen Yoko]

I'm afraid that at least for his dad, Sofia [fandom nickname] states that his absence is a much more frequent event ...

(Also, whatever befell the Västerström family, it turned Torbjörn and Siv poor as well, which seems a bit out of range for a single fire destroying the home of Emils family in Östersund when T&S still hold on to their house in Mora. It'd have to be the very source of the entire family's wealth, like a factory, while a large-scale horse breeding enterprise would easily, and almost necessarily, be too decentralized to turn ablaze as a whole.)

That's a good point. Admittedly I don't know much about the horse breeding industry myself.
But again going into my head canon here what if the family was purposefully breeding IMMUNE horses. Again just head cannon here, but we know that horses are used by regular folks and the military (in one of the cleanser posters there's a picture of a horse with military gear on its back) . And If you could outfit  an entire cavalry unit with horses that are immune to the rash.... now that would be cool.

This doesn't really rebuff your point but if some how all the breeding charts and a number of studs or breeding mares were lost in the fire, I could see how that would damage the business long term. And I have no idea if Torbiorn would be able to take over the business, and we don't know if Emil was a minor when all this happened (he probably was but it hasn't been confirmed)

It could bee that whatever was left after the fire was sold off to a competitor or something to pay of debts or something along those lines. 

[Queen Yoko]

I also think Emil's mom might have been long gone before the family tragedy. His father is mentioned several times but his mother is not mentioned even once. She wasn't home while his father was mentioned to be away in the dream sequence. And in the family tree his parents are... they just have the saddest faces in the entire family tree. In any case, I don't think Emil grew up having a mother. I hope the dream sequence continues and we find out more about him! I just love him.

Oh, good point! I hadn't even considered that Emil's mom might have been out of the picture before the fire. That might be part of the reason Emil resents having a nanny. 

Maybe Helga (Emil's mom) died suddenly and he wasn't emotionally prepared to a single parent.  I mean Torolof (Emil's dad) suddenly had the responsibility of raising Emil on his own and running a big business as well as the emotional baggage of grieving for his wife. That's a lot for one guy to deal with.
This could possibly be why his dad spoiled him so much (giving him all kinds of material goods and sweets) and seems to have been very hands off with regard to disciplining him (Emils mom might have been the disciplinarian and primary care giver before she passed) . 

This is all speculation on my part but its fun to speculate. 

[Jitter]

In the circumstances of the Known World, horse breeding could be quite different. Due to the Rash threat, the horses could be kept in smaller quarters to be able to keep them protected. And horses could be extremely valuable, so you wouldn't need a herd of hundreds for it to be a source of considerable wealth. Speculation, of course.

As for the loss of breeding charts and perhaps the prize immune stallion (the ONLY immune stallion in Sweden??), it could be an economically devastating blow. Also, if Emil's father was very distant with everyone, maybe him dying in the fire would also cause a catastrophic loss of know-how, causing the business to disintegrate despite some of the animals being saved. I was also thinking that maybe there were huge hospital bills for an injured Thorolf, but I hope the Nordics have stayed true to their character and provide universal health care, such as any is available.

So yeah, I like this speculation!

[Queen Yoko]

Jitter brought up a really good point! We know very little about the immunity rate in non-human mammalian species.  (Except felines which are 100%) We know that the percentage of immune people in Iceland is 7% and that the percentage of immune people in the other 4 could counties combined is something like 48%. But we don’t know anything about immunity in other mammals.
For all we know horses could have an immunity rate of 1% or 0.1%.  Making an immune stallion or Mare incredibly valuable and rare. 

Also the whole immune vs non-immune thing is probably was more complicated than a simple matter of recessive and dominant allies. 

In the bit about the Dragrenning Program it’s presented that 2 immune parents will have immune offspring 100% of the time. That doesn’t fit with what I remember about punnet squares. 
Unless immunity is a recessive trait. But I’m betting that it’s more complicated  than that, because that would be too simple and boring.

[JoB]

We know very little about the immunity rate in non-human mammalian species.

It's canon that in the 90+ years since the Rash, at least the shorter-lived species managed to establish entirely immune colonies in the wild.

Making an immune stallion or Mare incredibly valuable and rare. 

And yet, work horses are said to be much cheaper than machines ...
(Yes, I'm aware that a work horse in Mora will probably not be needed to be immune. But this comes from Emil, who is shown standing next to a pack horse on a cleanser mission in some artwork.)

Also the whole immune vs non-immune thing is probably was more complicated than a simple matter of recessive and dominant allies. 

In the bit about the Dragrenning Program it’s presented that 2 immune parents will have immune offspring 100% of the time. That doesn’t fit with what I remember about punnet squares. 
Unless immunity is a recessive trait. But I’m betting that it’s more complicated  than that, because that would be too simple and boring.

Minna is unwilling to nail down the mechanics of the Rash, so it'll remain guesswork forever. A strictly recessive trait would allow for the Dagrenning Program's basic assumption, and making it sufficiently multi-allele would explain how immunity was so rare in Y0 without the traits promptly going extinct.

[Queen Yoko]

I’m just speculating on the  Vasterstorm’s family business  being horse breeding. I like the idea because of the possibilities for more world building.

On the other hand, JoB made an interesting point about how horse breeding tends to be a fairly decentralized thing.  And one fire on the Vasterstorm estate might not make that much of a dent in it.

JoB mentioned that if their business was based around something like a factory or an industrial plant that might explain the family going from riches to rags  over the course of a few years, well a few years at most it’s not like we have a clear timeline.

We know that Email has been in the Cleansers for two years and before that he was in “public school”.  I have no idea if that would refer to a public secondary school or (highschool if you in the USA 🇺🇸) or a public college.  (Public colleges are a thing in Sweden, right?)