I examine the elegant delivery of The Banner Saga‘s lore this week in my PopMatters column.
This is one of those subjects that if I had the time and space I could have expanded into a very long piece. Most lore is extraneous information meant to give texture to the world. Often, it’s done abstractly, but along the journey you do actually cross a few of the locations on the map. Had you read it ahead of time it grants that extra texture not abstractly, but through better understanding of the goings on. I also could have expanded the meaning of a map and how they are used in video games, to contrast against The Banner Saga’s inception of it.
Overall, The Banner Saga gets more mileage out of much less because of how it is delivered. Since most lore is useless information, whose purpose is to make the world feel larger rather than making it actually larger, The Banner Saga succeeds with flying colors. By telling less it connects to the actual experience of what it might be like to live in this world and not a trip through the author’s unused notes.
Incidentally, that long-winded thing at the top was not my idea. I like my original title better: A People’s Lore of The Banner Saga.