Ok, I bet a whole lot of people have noticed but the seven candles’ names that you need all start with the first seven letters of the English alphabet. Arthur, Beau, Cerise, Destin, Erzulie, Fortigan, Gawain. It might not mean anything, but few things that FBG does are meaningless, especially in this storyline. I toyed about with the idea that they could all be letters in the Name , but it’s doubtful. I haven’t gotten too far into the SMEN storyline, but is there a certain order the candles are obtained in?
I don’t know. Perhaps its nothing, but I thought I might as well ask a few more knowledgeable players about it before simply writing it off. Perhaps it really is just a Fluke.
They do go in alphabetical order, yes.
[quote=Iona Dre’emt]I toyed about with the idea that they could all be letters in the Name, but it’s doubtful. I haven’t gotten too far into the SMEN storyline, but is there a certain order the candles are obtained in?[/quote]I believe Name, when the word is so capitalized, refers to seven Correspondence letters, which is not so much a moniker as it is a magic spell. The clearest look we get at the manner in which a human learns and speaks the Correspondence is from Seeking the Name-Which-Burns in Sunless Sea. I’ll avoid details and spoilers (don’t cross the Seekings!), but the gist of it is that the Name-Which-Burns is not the identity of a particular being, but the circumstances and experiences of a specific being. By placing themselves in roughly equivalent circumstances and then finding a place where that being wrote the Name, the player can learn the Name and use it for the same purpose as the Name’s originator. Seeking the Name-Which-Burns is best experienced firsthand, but if you don’t mind content spoilers you can read more of my thoughts on it in this thread.
Under that interpretation of "Name", Mr Eaten’s Name could describe not who Mr Eaten is, but how Mr Eaten came to be. Each letter might relate to the manner in which each candle is acquired, such as the betrayals which lead to St Arthur’s Candle. The numbered Unaccountably Peckish cards might also be worth considering; hungers, bats, roses, eyes, lights, pearls, and words, in that order.
I have not Seeked (Sought?), so my ability to make connections is limited.
The name Gawain jumped out to me, because that’s a character from Arthurian legend. And of course one of the other candles is Arthur.
On further research, Cerise is the name of a Marvel comic book character in the Excalibur series, and while I can’t find the name Fortigan anywhere, some character named “Vortigern” is mentioned in some of the oldest Arthurian texts from the 800’s AD.
King Arthur, of course, received gifts from a lake, which is not the same as a well, and then upon his imminent death, which involved betrayal by a blood-relative who was also a shamelful sin from his past, he was recalled back to a mystical isle from which he may or may not ever return. In short, there are a lot of opportunities for parallels to be drawn, intended or no.