Okay, so new Fable family. I wanna talk about this because it has my head buzzing.
In the previous trilogy, all our protagonists and their families were directly related to one another. Brom and Scarlet were the biological parents of Theresa and the Hero of Oakvale. The Hero of Oakvale is the direct ancestor of Rose and Sparrow. Sparrow is the parent of Logan and the Hero of Brightwall. Through them there is a direct line coming down from William Black, the First Hero and the First Archon, which lends them both narrative importance and legitimacy as Heroes and leaders.
The Hero of Oakvale can secure the Sword of Aeons and defeat Jack of Blades because of his bloodline. Sparrow is the Hero who can stop Lucien because they are the Fourth Hero which is tied to their being William's descendent, and then they go on to establish the Crown of Albion, sealing that ruling legitimacy of the bloodline which is continued first by Logan and then by the Hero of Brightwall, who ascends the throne almost by Divine Right because they are the One who can stop the Crawler and save Albion over their brother.
Keeping in mind that these events are largely brought to pass by Theresa, again a direct blood relative however many times removed she is from Sparrow and their children, and Theresa is not a god. Her power certainly elevates her from the realms of mortality, but she is still human and there are faults and biases in her human decision making. By pulling the strings of fate and manipulating events, she maintains the relevancy and legitimacy of the bloodline, preserving their power over Albion first as Heroes, then as rulers which ultimately collapses on itself when Logan leaves and the Hero of Brightwall vanishes without a single heir between them, which forces her to make a Hero of Gabriel in Journey, someone who couldn't be further removed from the bloodline and its legacy if he tried. Having never played Journey, I can only say that this was the first step away from the notion of the relevance of bloodlines and legacy that exists at the core of the original trilogy.
Now we have our new Fable protagonist, and based on the current press release information, they and their family structure is at complete odds with that trilogy. We're told that they were abandoned in the woods and found by Grandma, who then adopted them. Their brother Connor has a similar story, being alone in the woods and taken in too. So already we have a family of three entirely unrelated people, two of whom have seemingly been left behind by their birth families for reasons unknown.
This set up gives us a very different family dynamic because in the original games, the family are all bound together by blood whereas this family is one that's been chosen. Grandma didn't have to step up and take on these two lost kids, but if she didn't who would? She chose those kids that were left lost in the cold by the people who were supposed to love them. Those kids chose her back, and they chose each other too; its a family of people who love each other by choice rather than by right of birth.
That then loops around to an old post of mine where I speculated about our odds of this protagonist being descended from William Black or not, and now I wonder if it'll even be relevant. Yes, Jack is back and we've maybe seen the Sword of Aeons both of which are integral to that bloodline, but I feel like pulling out some relation to William would be redundant at best, counter-intuitive at worst. We've seen the consequences of making a sole bloodline the lynchpin for all of Albion, and it inevitably collapses! We've had our Chosen One storylines and the importance of Blood already - Journey was the first to really step away from that, and this new game has to decide if it takes another step away or if it steps back in. I'd prefer the step away, because that continues to solidify a new type of Fable story that says 'your blood isn't what makes you important, and Heroes can come from anywhere' as opposed to 'you're important because you're actually from this special bloodline, and that's way better than being part of your boring non-Hero family'.
Personally, if we had to have a descendent of William in the game, I'd choose Isabel. She fits the sibling configuration, she holds herself above other Heroes, she believes or convinces herself that she has nothing to be remorseful for because she's above guilt, and she is convinced that she alone can fix Albion. She has a lot of 'I am the Chosen One and everyone else needs to get out of my way' energy. Add in her dark hair, the red cloak and her apparent skill with Will (petrifying a village) and she actually hits a lot of Theresa notes for me. Obviously Theresa was more subtle and never put herself at the front and centre the way Isabel does, but there are similarities there.
As for our protagonist, I think them having no remarkable lineage would just be the better shout. Maybe Jack and Isabel underestimate them for their lack of significance because of their lack of familial ties and they have to overcome their obstacles with nothing but what they bring to the table themselves. It'd really set the game apart from the original trilogy by inverting the family and chosen one tropes, while offering a new perspective on those original tropes through the lens of an antagonist.
