WARNING! This article contains SPOILERS for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves!While accurate to D&D's game mechanics, Chris Pine’s Edgin flipped an unspoken game trope with his backstory. Dungeons & Dragons is nearly limitless in the kinds of characters anyone can play. However, that doesn’t mean that tropes don’t crop up in the game, so much so that they’re almost a part of the culture surrounding the game itself. From humorless paladins to rogues with a troubled past, there are some expectations for each character type that can be fun to play with or break, depending on the player. Honor Among Thieves does this masterfully, specifically with Edgin and his character relationships.
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves tells the story of several Dungeons & Dragons characters as they go on an adventure to thwart evil and save the world. In this case, Edgin the bard is ed by Holga the barbarian (Michelle Rodriguez), Simon the sorcerer (Justice Smith), and Doric the druid (Sophia Lillis) as they fight to stop an evil wizard’s plot and save Edgin’s daughter, Kira (Chloe Coleman), after they’ve been apart for two years. Specifically, Edgin’s tragic backstory is deeply integral to the plot of the film and his choices, as it was his choice to steal Thayan wizard gold that led to his wife’s death.
Edgin's Backstory Led Him to Holga
Many tragic backstories in Dungeons & Dragons are used to explain why a character chooses to adventure instead of leading a peaceful life with family and friends. While this is perfectly natural, as a quest for revenge stemming from the death of a loved one is as tried and true a tale, in D&D the tragic backstory can lead to some limiting player characters. After all, it’s no accident that many players the game as orphans or loners that lack connection to many other people until they meet their fellow adventurers. This can lead to lone-wolf character types, which can be hard to use for collaborative storytelling.
However, while Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves could have gone this route with Edgin’s backstory, the loss of his wife bucks this trend in two key ways. First, Edgin’s choice to steal Thayan gold and his wife’s subsequent loss did not fully remove Edgin’s family from play, as Kira survived. This kept Edgin tied to the plot as he needed to protect and care for his daughter, and also led to another key relationship. If not for Edgin’s tragic backstory, he would never have met Holga, and they would have never raised Kira together. This demonstrates how a tragic backstory can serve to character inter-connectivity instead of solitude.
Kira Made Edgin A Better Character
Not only does Edgin’s subversion of the tragic backstory by using it to give him greater connections to other people work well narratively, but Kira and Holga also make Edgin better as a character. With a daughter to watch over, Edgin's tragic backstory didn't have such a simple resolution as taking revenge against the person who caused his wife’s death, even though it played an element in it. Instead, Edgin’s relationship with his daughter and his culpability for his wife’s death forced him to create a new family in Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves while also working through how to be a good father.
