The Yivali Contradictions of Divine Mysteries

[Ravingdork]

Is it just me or does Yivali (the pyschopomp narrator of Divine Mysteries) contradict himself several times during chapter 1?

On one page, he ridicules mortals for their silly ideas, then on the next page, he proposes the idea as though he had just thought of it himself (and usually holds the thought in higher regard than before). He does it more than once.

Is it just a weird personality quirk of the character? Or could it be a sign of something else; such as the Paizo author being rather scatterebrained, or relying on unreliable tools like AI?

It just comes off to me as kinda weird.

Maybe it's just 'cause I'm a mortal who doesn't understand the divine mysteries.

[Benjamin Tait]

First off, Yivali is a She/Her, but that's no big dealio she is a little raven they're not extremely obvious in their sexual dimorphism. Also, have you ever heard of hypocrisy, projection and being blind to your own faults? It's clearly meant to be a character bit, rather than authors being weird or AI (Paizo still are very staunchly anti-AI my guy). It's just a quirk, that's all.

[James Jacobs]

As long as the current staff are at Paizo and running the show here, we will not condone the use of AI writing, and will continue to 100% support human-written words. Using AI text OR art is very much against everything we (and by extension I, myself) stand for with Paizo. Gross.

What you're seeing in Yivali's narration is what we call an "unreliable narrator," to a certain extent. Unlike when we present "factual" text to the reader in the form of us providing solid world lore to a potential GM, things like this, where we present the in-world writings or musings of an NPC are in the same category as in-world mythology—it's not meant to be factual information for a GM to consider canon, but a more flavorful way to convey the themes of the setting while also building up NPC characters for the world.

The moment you empirically state things as facts, that's science, not faith. And that's a line we have to tread carefully and delicately when we publish rules and lore about the gods, because we want the in-world characters (both NPCs and PCs) who are religious to be able to lean into the faith side of things.

[Benjamin Tait]

Kinda like how Geb claims there's no evidence that undeath upsets the balance of the universe and hastens its ending, while he himself is a ghost necromancer who lords over a nation of undead?

[James Jacobs]

Benjamin Tait wrote:

Kinda like how Geb claims there's no evidence that undeath upsets the balance of the universe and hastens its ending, while he himself is a ghost necromancer who lords over a nation of undead?

Exactly. Or like how we have multiple versions of creation myths floating around.

[PossibleCabbage]

I very much prefer having unreliable narrators when it comes to "fundamental metaphysical truths" since invariably when you state those things are objective facts, people are going to try to turn them to their advantage.

It's basically the same thing as "if you give God stat blocks, people are going to want to fight them."

But if you're going to have an unreliable narrator, it's good to signpost that the narrator is unreliable in a way that doesn't require an incredibly deep reading of the text (since people will skim these things sometimes.)

[Ravingdork]

James Jacobs wrote:

As long as the current staff are at Paizo and running the show here, we will not condone the use of AI writing, and will continue to 100% support human-written words. Using AI text OR art is very much against everything we (and by extension I, myself) stand for with Paizo. Gross.

What you're seeing in Yivali's narration is what we call an "unreliable narrator," to a certain extent. Unlike when we present "factual" text to the reader in the form of us providing solid world lore to a potential GM, things like this, where we present the in-world writings or musings of an NPC are in the same category as in-world mythology—it's not meant to be factual information for a GM to consider canon, but a more flavorful way to convey the themes of the setting while also building up NPC characters for the world.

The moment you empirically state things as facts, that's science, not faith. And that's a line we have to tread carefully and delicately when we publish rules and lore about the gods, because we want the in-world characters (both NPCs and PCs) who are religious to be able to lean into the faith side of things.

Thank you for responding! It's always great to hear from the staff.

I've heard of this recent trend of the unreliable narrator and, generally speaking, I approve of it. It's entertaining reading and makes a great deal of logical sense to go that route (it's probably easier on the writers and allows GMs more freedom to go the way they want with the lore). Nevertheless, repeated unreliability within a handful of pages by the same character is rather off-putting. Such a level of internal inconsistency raises my mental alarm bells and comes off more like it was a mistake. The only reason I even considered it could be a trait (of the character or the writer) is because it kept happening.

If that's a character trait of Yivali (and you can bet I will be reading more of Divine Mysteries to see if it persists elsewhere) then, well...that's one really strange bird! (And yes, before anyone jumps down my throat again, I know she is not technically a bird.)

I'm aware of Paizo's stance on AI but, respectfully, how exactly can you possibly enforce such a policy? Isn't much of your staff remote workers and/or freelancers? Do you have people hovering over the writers' shoulders as they type every word?

[PossibleCabbage]

You can generally tell something is made by AI because it is lower quality than it would be if it was made by a professional with experience in the appropriate medium.

Like AI can make the code compile, but it can't make it do what it's supposed to. If someone is putting out text that isn't funny, inspiring, intriguing, compelling, moving, etc. then it doesn't really matter whether "this is trite and uninteresting" is due to the writer not doing a good job or the writer using tools that are incapable of doing a very good job.

Like presumably there are multiple editorial passes for "quality" when it comes to putting together these things. This is probably simpler than when educators now need to do work to verify "does this cited source actually exist" since we're dealing with fiction.

[Perpdepog]

Ravingdork wrote:

I've heard of this recent trend of the unreliable narrator and, generally speaking, I approve of it.

You're talking about specifically in TTRPGs, yes? Because unreliable narrators have been a thing in fiction for centuries, at least.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

This is probably simpler than when educators now need to do work to verify "does this cited source actually exist" since we're dealing with fiction.

It depends. Most of what I've been told on that front is that essays and other papers get fed through an AI detection suite, so now we have AI trying to detect AI, and the institution needing to pay to use the suite, which still has some fairly serious issues detecting AI work.

[James Jacobs]

Ravingdork wrote:

I'm aware of Paizo's stance on AI but, respectfully, how exactly can you possibly enforce such a policy? Isn't much of your staff remote workers and/or freelancers? Do you have people hovering over the writers' shoulders as they type every word?

In the same way any publisher would work to prevent plagiarism; by being experts in the field and honing our skills at being able to recognize it when it happens and building trust with our writers and artists and maintaining open lines of communication and... when inevitably something does slip through the cracks, by apologizing as needed, parting ways with those who did it, spreading the word and remaining communicative, and learning from those mistakes and adding them to the ever growing arsenal of staying vigilant against it. A big part of it involves trusting our employees and writers and artists to not use AI generated content, in the same way we trust them not to plagiarize content.

Sometimes we'll notice this before something goes to print, and we'll correct it. I've noticed freelancers copy/pasting entire sections of Wikipedia content into their work for us before in the past 20+ years I've been doing this, for example, and have rewritten those sections and have not re-hired those folks and, in some cases, adjusted their contracts for breaching our trust. I'll do the same if I find someone using AI to create content for us. And if we notice after something's gone to print, we'll admit it, apologize, learn from it, not work with that person again, and strive to do better in the future.

[Ravingdork]

Thanks, James! That does go a long way towards putting my mind at ease.

As other companies embrace AI and inevitably begin to degrade in quality, I trust that Paizo will continue rising above.

Please thank the writers and other staff for all that they do for me. They are why I keep investing in Paizo products.

Perpdepog wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

I've heard of this recent trend of the unreliable narrator and, generally speaking, I approve of it.

You're talking about specifically in TTRPGs, yes? Because unreliable narrators have been a thing in fiction for centuries, at least.

I'm talking about Paizo's TTRPGs specifically. ;)

[Eeveegirl1206]

Benjamin Tait wrote:

First off, Yivali is a She/Her, but that's no big dealio she is a little raven they're not extremely obvious in their sexual dimorphism. Also, have you ever heard of hypocrisy, projection and being blind to your own faults? It's clearly meant to be a character bit, rather than authors being weird or AI (Paizo still are very staunchly anti-AI my guy). It's just a quirk, that's all.

It’s hypocritical humor. It’s why the Family Guy Opening has Peter complaining about sex on TV and Violence in Movies while being one of the most violence and sex filled shows on air.