I'm up to my eyes in the world that Esther and Ayelish share, so my thoughts on this are colored by those experiences.
Interact with it from without, possibly. The hero faces a heritage, but that heritage belongs to someone else. Granted, this is mostly the bus that mighty whitey uses to roll into town, but this is the principle behind the Blue Vervain ballads; pruning the tragedy out of the family tree with murder, using blood to wash up after blood.
Reject it, since it's technically an interaction. Okay, that's a cop out.
One thing I'm running into with PSwC is that Esther's heritage is as old as her parents. The Coyles are sly bastards and the Kapshaws are latter-day Sawney Beans, but those aspects aren't nearly so relevant as what her parents did to make her the way she is, and that responsibility is shared by seven others.
Granted, just because it's done a lot doesn't mean it shouldn't. What distressed me was not that I was doing it, but that I was doing it without knowing what I was doing. Heritage is a damned interesting thing. Knowing your own is important, I think (I envy people with a clear line back). Figuring out why your family is the way they are, why you are the way you are... or your characters, that's good stuff.
On the other hand, the thing that sprang first to mind was the travails of the virgin-born Anakin Skywalker from the prequel trilogies, a painful squandering among painful squanderings. Between that and spending too long reading blogs that keep tabs on the grotesqueries of hate groups and racists, it makes me wary of heritage, and feeling like I've stepped in the intellectual bear trap again.
I will read those books you mentioned. Soon.
Cannot promise anything on a death metal story, but it does feed into a cheesy, secret writer goal of mine.
Answering the Last Question (Okay, Trying to Answer)
Interact with it from without, possibly. The hero faces a heritage, but that heritage belongs to someone else. Granted, this is mostly the bus that mighty whitey uses to roll into town, but this is the principle behind the Blue Vervain ballads; pruning the tragedy out of the family tree with murder, using blood to wash up after blood.
Reject it, since it's technically an interaction. Okay, that's a cop out.
One thing I'm running into with PSwC is that Esther's heritage is as old as her parents. The Coyles are sly bastards and the Kapshaws are latter-day Sawney Beans, but those aspects aren't nearly so relevant as what her parents did to make her the way she is, and that responsibility is shared by seven others.
Granted, just because it's done a lot doesn't mean it shouldn't. What distressed me was not that I was doing it, but that I was doing it without knowing what I was doing. Heritage is a damned interesting thing. Knowing your own is important, I think (I envy people with a clear line back). Figuring out why your family is the way they are, why you are the way you are... or your characters, that's good stuff.
On the other hand, the thing that sprang first to mind was the travails of the virgin-born Anakin Skywalker from the prequel trilogies, a painful squandering among painful squanderings. Between that and spending too long reading blogs that keep tabs on the grotesqueries of hate groups and racists, it makes me wary of heritage, and feeling like I've stepped in the intellectual bear trap again.
I will read those books you mentioned. Soon.
Cannot promise anything on a death metal story, but it does feed into a cheesy, secret writer goal of mine.