Böder the Giant

In 1980 I began writing a number of tales around the characters of ‘Hergon’ and ‘Andoiz’. To facilitate these heroic characters I drew up a land which I called Durogg. This land was largely inspired by the map/land that Robert E. Howard drew up for his creation ‘Conan the Barbarian’ and is loosely modelled on Europe (well my Durogg is anyway), the Mediterranean and North Africa. During the early 1990’s, after reading the BFG by Roald Dahl, I began planning a story about a giant. My reasoning at the time and up to its publication was that no-one has really written a story that is solely about the struggles that a giant might have in the days when people lived by the sword nor the adventures which they might have had to contend with at this time. Since then of course there have been a number of films and stories that have come out about lands where giants may have played a part. However, the character of a giant has still to be presented as the central figures in any of these stories. My premise for writing about Böder was initially to find out for myself what kind of adventures, challenges, and hardships one might encounter should it be experienced through the character of a giant. Add to this the advantage of height and strength and discover a whole new kind of interaction a giant might have with the people within his environment, as well as the difficulties of coping with the incidents of a world where strength, violence and abnormal creatures and abilities are an everyday part of life. But more than just the difficulties in all this, I also wanted to explore the fun things that a giant might encounter that we as humans don’t even have to think about or consider. This, of course, is because everything around us has been designed to meet our needs, with particular reference to our size. For instance what are the considerations and planning needed just to meet the everyday items and requirements for someone who is perhaps 4-5 times bigger than we are. Such items as clothes, shoes, tools, (including personal grooming and eating implements) then of course there are the essentials such as sleeping on a bed, sitting down in a chair, and how would you plan travelling or simply moving about. To consider many or all of these things required some thought to detailing which I am able to do through the character of Böder. Then there are some of the daily considerations that we wouldn’t give a second thought to because everything in our lives has been designed to meet our present-size needs. Things such as the regular consumption of food, what and how does one observe personal ablutions, such as wash oneself, clean your teeth, or even brush your hair! Then there is the consideration of how to deal with such things as what would a giant do if you got drunk or sick including what type and doses of medicines would be effective. Then there are some things that we might never even have considered, such as what would a giant do to relax, train to keep fit, plan a working day and even down to how to dispose of your own giant waste. Then I began to consider what kind of people would want to interact or even enjoy being around a giant, such as friends, workmates, hunters/fishermen, salespeople? Then there is the consideration of what type of work would a giant do. (Don’t you get so annoyed with the creators of ‘superheroes’ who, when they write them into a working environment, never allow their characters to use their super powers in the working world. The best example I can think of is Superman – a reporter? Really is that the best they can come up with. Superman would be so much better working in the construction/mining industry lifting and moving heavy and awkward equipment and products. Or, what about the transport industry? He could move containers and freight around so much faster and much more expediently than anyone or thing could ever do! But the best work ever would be in environmental areas. For instance disposing of harmful radioactive materials by taking them to another planet such as Mercury or Venus! – Something no-one else could do but be useful to the community or the world as a whole for goodness sake! Spiderman!!! Really - is a pizza delivery guy followed by a photographer the best they could come up with? Give me a break!) Anyway!!!) Following on from there, I was wondering what a giant would need to do or be able to do to raise funds or even make for themselves a successful living. How would he be able to continually pay for the over-large and giant things he needs/wants/desires such as food clothing and other essential items. And how would he go about having everything made to meet his own special height, size, weight, strength and daily needs? And finally, if I’ve created a giant I need to put him in a place that would best suit their special skills and be able to fit comfortably in with their surroundings. Furthermore, I need to place my giant in a world that would be acceptable to the reader. So I decided to place my giant in this land that I had made up for my heroic characters 15 years earlier. One of the main attributes of the stories around Durogg was that all the characters revolved around the introduction of codes and the Codemasters. This structure and aspect of Durogg has little or no impact on the character of my giant, as that story is for another time and for another set of characters and incidents. However, in the early 2000’s I added to the general make-up of Durogg the concept of having all the characters operating as manimals. This means all the main characters of Durogg are both half-human and half-animal. There was the intention, on my part, to develop the idea of evolution as part of the makeup of the manimals. This also falls neatly into place with the structure and story of the codes and their masters that I will introduce at a later stage in the development of the beings and characters associated with Durogg. The concept of the manimals has, however, added a whole other dimension to all my stories associated with this land and I am still working out the full implications of this as I apply these structures and principles to each of my stories and watch how they develop. However, my giant story didn’t need to work with the codes and the Codemasters, as I mentioned earlier, mainly because these things happened after the time allocated to the giant. However the concept of the manimals was an interesting addition and might well add to the flavour and intricacies of the giant and at present I can’t see how it would detract from him at all. Though, to be fair, to the story of Böder I have not overplayed the manimal aspect which will be taken up more thoroughly in my other stories concerning Durogg in the form of the characters Hergon and, in particular, Andoiz. But still, I felt comfortable enough in placing my giant(s) in this land of Durogg and more importantly amongst a land of creatures that had yet to be fully described but one in which they would quite easily fit in and have room for later development. In considering the story of a giant, the first thing I needed was a name. My first thoughts regarding a giant were of a Norseman with their myths of giants, trolls and ogres and other gigantic creatures. One day as I sat thinking on this giant character from northern Europe I envisioned a giant chasing down some hapless hunters who were stealing/poaching his stock. From this the name of Böder simply ran off the tip of my tongue and together with him being hungry and wanting to frighten those he was chasing the words continued and I came up with... ‘Böder hungry, he wants his deanah! Heh heh deanah! Böder is hungry and he’s coming after you - heh heh heh heh!!!!’