Whether you are a religious person or not, you are familiar with the idea of sin or simply being “a bad person”. Have you ever thought about how “criteria” for damning someone have changed over the centuries? Do they even make any sense? Have they ever?
Heavy stuff, huh? But it gives us a good starting point to talk about the playable characters of Nadir. This time we take a look at the “Poet”, whose true name is Oscar Wilde.
Yes, all of our characters are based on historical figures. We call them Sinners but did they really deserve the damnation they received? In the case of Oscar, you would probably say no.
Oscar Wilde was a poet and playwright living in the second half of the 19th century. The Victorian era is not really known for its open-minded approach to social norms so a person like Oscar, with his beliefs and individualism, quickly became (in)famous. During his college life, he wore long hair, decorated his room with peacock feathers and blue china. As you may imagine it was not something that was considered “manly” at the time.
Later in life, he became more open about his beliefs, and his novel, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” was criticized for being “unclean”, “poisonous”, and "heavy with the mephitic odors of moral and spiritual putrefaction" (The Daily Chronicle).
Wilde was very open-minded about love and relationships. His studies of ancient Greek culture were most likely the start of accepting his own sexuality. He engaged in relationships with other men for which he was trialed twice. In the end, he’s done two years of hard labor for his “crime of sodomy”.
This is a very brief look at Wilde’s life, so I encourage you to do more reading by yourself.
Here’s a question: was Oscar Wilde “damned” because he was a bad person or simply because he didn’t fit the social norms of the time?
This was the question that got me thinking when building the lore of Nadir. Do our own choices really matter, or is it the people around us who have power over our soul?
In the world of Nadir, it is the latter. The human perception of an individual is something that can send a human being straight to hell. Society is the judge, and all you can do is accept your fate.
And that’s how Oscar Wilde became the Sinner of Lust in Nadir. Not because he did something wrong, but simply because society condemned him for eternal damnation.
We will come back to you with stories of other characters, can you guess who are the other two of our (so far) revealed characters?