S
Okay, so when I say the gods fill narrative roles that govern their lives and fate, I think a lot of people picture something a lot more controlling of their lives and personality than I think is actually the case, and I think that's leading to some confusion. As I said in the post above, I do not think the roles determine what a character is like. They don't get plunked into a role and then are moulded to fit it. Nothing is controlling their minds, their emotions, their personalities. They are still just themselves, at the end of the day. What is being controlled is events surrounding them, and this is where why they are narrative roles specifically comes in. What fate is, in this scenario, is kind of like the writer of a story, but with less control over how the characters in the story act an think. It is trying to make the story of the gods interesting, but also mythic, because it is the myths people tell about them that gives them power, it's what makes them GODS. And the story has to have a particular shape, hit certain beats time and again, or those myths will not have the correct themes and messages. Random strings of events are not a story, it's just history, it needs certain story elements like heroes and villains, themes and lessons, emotional highs and lows, following a certain structure, to make it a
story. You can see elements of this in JMS' run, it's expanded further in Gillen's JIM, and further still in AoA, Aaron's run and now with Cates. Without that story, myth, structure to things, their stories lose power. So it ends up using familiar tropes, familiar beats, familiar archetypes, because these are proven tried and true stories that work and are powerful. You see mythologies all over the world that share similar elements for this reason. And to accomplish this, fate isn't puppeteering every character down to their personality, all it's doing is throwing
inciting incidents in their path,
maybe a nudge on their emotions here and there.
[some other very good points that I'm cutting for length.]