Talk:Petra

She looked very much like Petra

Aside from the fact that they are both smiling in their portraits, how can you justify this? Because they don't actually look anything alike at all, and I doubt the portraits are based on the same real-life person. --75.63.48.18 20:26, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Greatings from Petra's Model

Hi, Wiki-heads!

My name is Melissa and I am the model that the Ultima designers used to create the avatar for Petra.

Just by way of background, I was very young when this avatar was created. Some original players might remember that the game designers held a contest during which Ultima players could send in their photographs and write a brief essay in the hopes of being one of the star characters. I didn't get picked for the player avatars, but the gamers called and asked if I would be interested in being used to design the NPC Petra.

Being so young, I was pretty disappointed. I remember the gentleman asking if I had any concerns because the character was, essentially, a naked cyborg. I remember needing him to explain to me what a cyborg was. I might have even told him that he'd have to check with my mom first.

I can't speak to the game designer's intentions about Petra's past; 0r whether Petra is supposed to be a reincarnation of the NPC Elissa. I can say that the Elissa avatar in the game is not me. I'd be curious to know who this woman is, however.

Thanks for listening! I can be reached at mcielock -a-t- hotmail -d-o-t- com with any questions.

Yours,

74.79.47.123 23:32, 27 February 2008 (UTC)Melissa

Speculated Petra-Elissa connection

I'd like to re-open the discussion on this issue, as I believe it's completely inappropriate to be in the article. Writing "some fans believed" doesn't justify its inclusion. I could write, "some fans believe the Guardian is actually Santa Claus," and it would be a no less credible assertion.

Other than that, I think it's awesome that Melissa actually chimed in here! --Terilem 04:17, August 20, 2010 (UTC)

I put this back in the articles, for two reasons:

1. Elissa and other characters in the Silver Seed discuss the possibility of her transferring her soul into an automaton to achieve immortality several times.

2. Petra, as the article states, ponders her existence, and whether or not she has a soul. As the only female automaton ever acknowledged by the game, I think this is significant.

I have no idea if Elissa and Petra are supposed to be the same person, but there's definitely more evidence for this than, say, a Guardian-Santa Claus connection, so I feel it's at least worth mentioning.

24.250.13.43 21:24, 11 January 2017 (MST)

First of all, thank you for contributing to the discussion. I do understand how it might be tempting to make the connection, but I think it's too flimsy to be included in the relevant articles (more than welcome on their talk pages, though!). Without knowing how far back your familiarity with this wiki goes, please understand it started out rather lax in its approach regarding speculation, and before long we adopted a tougher stance after seeing far too many fanciful theories thrown about. Since then we have endeavored to deal only with verifiable facts, and I feel reintroducing this is at odds with that goal. In hindsight, though, I didn't make much of an effort to justify my position on this matter in my original post, so here goes:

"Petra bears a striking resemblance to Elissa in the Silver Seed..."

This is a purely subjective observation that I (and others, judging by the anonymous poster at the top of the page) disagree with. Thanks to Melissa/Yosannah's input, we've even had it confirmed the two portraits aren't based on the same real-world person. What is the resemblance other than their both being smiling females?

"...who in the past was considering transferring herself into an Automaton's body."

This assumes that a) Elissa was able to have her soul transferred to begin with, b) Petra is the only female automaton ever to have existed, and c) she happens to contain Elissa's soul and not that of any other female soldier of Order. Is it not equally likely that Petra could be Calithiss, for example?

"Some fans have speculated that they are the same character."

Though I was somewhat facetious in my original post, I stand by the thrust of its argument: this is the kind of nebulous, anecdotal evidence we try to avoid.

It's not that this theory is completely lacking justification, but hopefully I've illustrated how much of a stretch it is, and therefore why its inclusion here is dubious. However, as I've already removed it twice over the years I'm hesitant to become a gatekeeper about it, so for the time being I'm going to leave a banner on each article highlighting it as contentious in the hope that we attract some more opinions. --Terilem (talk) 08:24, 12 January 2017 (MST)

Thanks for your response. You make good points, I'll try my best to address them and justify my contribution to this page.

"Thanks to Melissa/Yosannah's input, we've even had it confirmed the two portraits aren't based on the same real-world person. What is the resemblance other than their both being smiling females?"

Certainly a good point, but I offer the following as a response, some of which I also didn't mention earlier.

-Although Melissa/Yosannah was not the model for Elissa, their names are only one letter apart, quite a strange coincidence. We know for a fact that some of the characters' names from Serpent Isle are based on the real-life model, such as Brendann and Spektor (also only a one letter difference). Since we don't really know who the model for Elissa was, it's certainly possible her name was chosen with Melissa/Yosannah in mind.

-As for the point about resemblance, there's more to it than just "smiling females". The cheekbones, jaw, mouth and eyes all look pretty similar. The main difference I see is that Elissa does have brown eyes, and Petra blue ones, but then all automatons have blue eyes in this game, so I'm not sure how much that matters.

While I can't argue with your point that they weren't based on the same real-world person, there's definitely more of a resemblance between the two of them than to, say, Lady Yelinda, another smiling female, or really anyone else we see in the game. A model for Elissa could've easily been chosen based on her resemblance to Melissa/Yosannah (although I admit that part is speculation).

"This assumes that a) Elissa was able to have her soul transferred to begin with, b) Petra is the only female automaton ever to have existed, and c) she happens to contain Elissa's soul and not that of any other female soldier of Order. Is it not equally likely that Petra could be Calithiss, for example?"

-Regarding point A, given Isstanar's situation, it doesn't seem likely there would be any logistical problem with Elissa going through with a transfer - I definitely got the impression when playing the game that the only potential issue with the transfer was whether or not Elissa was willing to do it. Her conversation also implies she will eventually be ready to do it, after a period of time.

-With point B, we never see another female automaton at any other point in the game, nor is it ever suggested that such automatons exist, apart from Petra (the page even points this out). It seems unlikely at best that there were any others.

-In response to point C, it's clear that Petra is unique apart from being female. She has emotions and senses that the others certainly don't have, and it's certainly strange that the monks can resurrect her, since they can't with any other automaton. She also briefly becomes "human" after using the mind transference device (which can't be used with the regular automatons, just her). All of this points to some sort of consciousness, soul, or whatever you want to call it, that the others don't have.

Regarding your point about Calithiss, we never get any indication that she had any desire to transfer her soul into an automaton, nor any sort of suggestion that she was successfully able to do so. Since the Silver Seed takes place about 15 years into the war, you'd think Elissa or someone else at Serpent's Fang would be aware if their Hierophant either desired to, or had already made, this kind of transfer.

I agree with you on how the page should be handled - the banner is a good idea, and I'd like to hear more opinions about this. It would even be beneficial to hear from the Silver Seed game designers if possible, they may have some notes or memories about this. If the final consensus is that they're not at all the same character, or that this possible connection should be removed from their pages, I will certainly respect that decision.

24.250.13.43 11:39, 13 January 2017 (MST)

Point A: Fair enough, can't say I dispute that. However, wouldn't you agree we can't speak with any certainty as to Elissa's fate after the events of The Silver Seed, regardless of whether she went through with the transfer? There are far too many possibilities; she may have gone through the Wall of Lights with the other Order acolytes, for all we know.

Point B: At first glance, perhaps, but consider these excerpts from the in-game book, Body Transference:

"In this, the candidate must strike down the now-empty husk that he or she formerly knew as his or her body."

"The candidate shall be allowed to live the remainder of his or her life in service to Order, being an exemplar in all but the Final Test of Discipline."

From that, it would appear female automatons are not an aberration, which brings me back to cautioning against the inference of Petra's uniqueness simply by her being the only example reanimated by the time of Serpent Isle.

Point C: Oh, I wasn't arguing that Petra doesn't have a soul; the game makes it abundantly clear that she does. As discussed in point B, though, neither her sex nor her possessing a consciousness are unique in the broader context of Ophidian history.

And yeah, my use of Calithiss as an example was a pretty bad brain fart, as we know she eventually led the pilgrimage through the Wall of Lights. What I was aiming to demonstrate, though, was that Petra's soul could have come from any Order disciple, not just the limited sample the Avatar happens to meet in one location during a brief period of time.

Oh how I'd love to be able to have Serpent Isle team members chiming in on the wiki. I can think of a few debates that might have settled! --Terilem (talk) 20:45, 13 January 2017 (MST)

Just to muddy the waters some more, I also found the following pertinent quotes, first from Melino:

"Petra is one of Torrissio's creations. She is very pretty, for an automaton, and cooks very well. Sometimes I think that Torrissio is as much an artisan as a Mage."

And particularly, Rocco:

"We have a lot of them around here -- magical creations, scavenged from the Serpent ruins and restored to service by our Mages. But Petra is unique, being an experiment by Torrissio the Sly."

To me, these suggest either that Torrissio had more of a hand in Petra's creation than reanimation (which might conclusively render any resemblance to Elissa purely coincidental), or that he simply took credit for more than he ought to. In any case, I thought it was worth noting. --Terilem (talk) 22:37, 13 January 2017 (MST)

Terilem is quite right in that we've gone a long way to tighten up the facts we use for articles and by default, we just don't do speculation. And there are some big problems in making the connection. The resemblance aspect I think is a common gotcha, w/such primitive graphics. In any case, there are 3 characters in the Dr. Strangelove movie that look amazingly similar, if you look close, but they are definitely different characters :) Also, why did OSI get permission to from Melissa (and her mom) to use her portrait for an automaton, but not for Elissa?

So, the only time we are willing to deal w/speculation is for things like assumptions we think readers are likely to make or elephants in the room. And I think 24.250.13.43 has successfully demonstrated that there is an elephant in the room. I'm not sure exactly what to say about it all, though. I think it harms the dignity of the article to go down all these rabbit holes. I think the sentence there now could be shortened and the language less decisive. The Ultra-Mind (talk) 20:17, 13 January 2017 (MST)

Fair enough, Ultra-Mind, I have no problem with altering the text that's there. I just felt like the elephant in the room, as you put it, was enough to warrant some sort of mention on the page itself. If anyone has any ideas about how to change it, I'm all ears.

Terilem, thanks for reminding me about Calithiss, forgot about the Wall of Lights bit. You're not the only one who had a brain fart there. :)

As for the remaining unanswered questions (like why Melissa's portrait wasn't used for Elissa), I freely admit there are no answers, only questions at this point. :)

My best guess this that the Petra/Elissa connection may have been one of the many plot elements of this game that was cut to meet EA's deadline. Perhaps their original intention was to use Melissa's portrait, perhaps not. I have no idea, and can only speculate.

I do think it's interesting that Silver Seed tries to "fix" some of the cut plot, with Karnax saying everybody will be resurrected at the end of the game. It's conceivable using a portrait of someone who looks arguably similar was another attempt at a "fix", without the developers having enough time or resources to put more hints about the connection in the game. But again, I can only speculate.

24.250.13.43 10:17, 14 January 2017 (MST)

Portrait Based on Who?

According to the original documents it is based on Melissa Cielock or is that the real name of Yosannah Dragon?http://home.insightbb.com/~chilliedog/Htm/Moonshade18.htm. --Arthgon (talk) 15:59, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, that's Yosannah. --Terilem (talk) 16:07, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. --Arthgon (talk) 19:29, 22 January 2016 (UTC)