Week 3 (August 14th, 2009)
Genre ConventionsEvery genre, in film, fiction, and gaming, has certain assumptions, conventions, and tropes. By breaking these principles we can surprise our audience. But we can also alienate them.
In world design, it can be hard to get a grip on a truly alien world. To what degree do you like to exploit the expectations of genre? To what degree do you embrace them? Toss them out entirely?
Do you prefer reading in a setting with familiar elements or something radically different?
Tropes becomes tropes because they work, right? So which ones are most overdone? Which ones are so much staples of a genre that they don't offend?
Blending genres is another risky move. Risk can mean big payoff, or falling flat. How do you like blended genres (i.e. space western). Which genres would you never enjoy blended?
[ooc]For the record, the commonly accepted fiction genres are as follows. Each genre has common subgenres, also with their own conventions, but I'm only going to talk subgenres for speculative fiction.
*Historical
*Adventure
*Romance
*Thriller
*Comedy
*Western
And our favorite, speculative fiction genres:
Sci-Fi (hard sci-fi, space opera, military, dystopian, cyberpunk)
Fantasy (science fantasy, sword & sorcery, epic/high fantasy, dark fantasy, wuxia, historical/alternate history, comic, urban) (and many debatable others)
Horror (monster, ghost, survival, occult, slasher)
[/ooc]
Going for the information overload, are we? :huh:
UPDATE:
"To what degree do you like to exploit the expectations of genre?"
"Exploit" is a good word for it. My hope is often times I'll let people settle into comfort'¦'¦.and then WHAM!, hit them with something that doesn't quite fit their stereotypical view. Teach them to be ready for it.
"To what degree do you embrace them?"
I try not to see it that way. I want to use what I like and people can name it after I'm done.
"Toss them out entirely?"
Those bits that show a sentient and/or spiritually-dominated view of the cosmos and anything in it.
"Do you prefer reading in a setting with familiar elements or something radically different?"
Mid-ground. Too much either way and the story suffers.
"Tropes becomes tropes because they work, right?"
No. A trope is defined after it happens, not before and then used.
"So which ones are most overdone?"
Anything centered around sentience, spirituality, and especially humans in any form being the most (or at lest a very) important thing. People should start acknowledging their material- and instinctive-ness.
But not by using it to terrorize people with it in some nihilistic or horror-moral message. That's just reinforcing the wrong idea.
"Which ones are so much staples of a genre that they don't offend?"
I think anything can be offensive if done the wrong way.
"How do you like blended genres (i.e. space western). Which genres would you never enjoy blended?"
Comedy's good with everything. Horror isn't good at all. For me the other genres don't matter, it's their tone that's important.
I don't like the boundries of the speculative fiction genres: I much prefer the philosophy of the old pulp writers back in the 20's and 30's, who wrote "weird fiction," blending horror, sci fi, and fantasy together. I've tried to carry this over to the Cadaverous Earth somewhat - hence, its set in our own future, is full of lost technology, lots of people cast spells, and demonic horrors and the like swarm over the earth. I don't see blending these genres as inherently risky: I separating them as contrived.
It's the seperation of weird fiction into three genres that led to the build-up of my least favorite and most overused tropes. The standard Tolkienian array of races and their odd metamorphosis into the sacred cows of fantasy puzzles me to no end. I occasionally see treatment of these races that refreshes them (heck I'm using some them myself in my Goblin Campaign) and I'm not so revolted by them that I think they can never be fun, but I prefer the impulse of wild invention and unrestricted freedom that speculative fiction is underlied by.
Tropes are there for a reason, sure. But just as Tropes Are Not Bad, Tropes Are Not Good, either. I prefer the thematic tropes like the lurking evil below (or sealed-in-a-can evil) and things like that; I dislike those tropes that apply to what I think of as "setting specifics," things like elves and dwarves or the dogged adherence to medieval stasis. Because fantasy (or weird fiction) can be anything (and that's the single greatest strength of the genre), it seems incredibly perverse to always have it look the same. That's not to say that all roleplaying in Faerun/Middle Earth/Vanilla Fantasy Land is worthless, just that in general I think creators should be looking to the lesser-used mythologies, or inventing their own, instead of returning to the same racial and technological tropes again and again.
Fortunately, the shift towards weird fiction is happening, in a big way. This site alone has lots of wildly inventive settings (Clockwork Jungle, Broken Verge, Gloria, Knife's Edge, Divergence...) and several that while still use some of the old tropes also radically update them and mix them in with more original elements (Jade Stage comes to mind), or are simply so well-crafted and detailed (i.e. Celtrica) that they feel not like a carbon copy of ME but like a world in their own right. But Eberron, with its focus on pulp, noir, and magic-as-technology is a lot closer to the old weird fiction tradition than Faerun or Greyhawk ever managed. In literature we've still got Christopher Paolinis cranking out derivative, watered down quest narratives, but we've also got the incipient New Weird, and even more traditional fantasy is starting to change its shape (Westeros is a far cry from Middle Earth, at least in terms of onscreen grittiness). The sacred cows are being culled.
[blockquote=Silvercat Moonpaw]But not by using it to terrorize people with it in some nihilistic or horror-moral message. That's just reinforcing the wrong idea.[/blockquote]Heheheheh... Lovecraft!
I still like him a lot, but that's because I enjoy being alienated... in other words, I can see why he wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea.
[blockquote=Silvercat Moonpaw]Comedy's good with everything. Horror isn't good at all. For me the other genres don't matter, it's their tone that's important.[/blockquote]It's funny (and shows again how different our tastes are) - Goblin is a very deliberate blend of horror and comedy. I actually think these two are quite closely connected (see Amazing Screw-On Head (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_64GdGhuOkU) - or, for that matter, the all-time best horror/comedy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Perhaps because laughter and screaming are both pre-linguistic instincts.
Quote from: SteerpikeHeheheheh... Lovecraft!
I still like him a lot, but that's because I enjoy being alienated... in other words, I can see why he wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea.
Are those stories about the horrors of the non-spiritual world and the animal side of behavior? I know very little, but I never got that impression. I don't think I'm talking about stories like that: I mean dystopian stories about how something like technology will ruin humans or letting instinctive feelings out is dangerous.
And how does
liking being alienated help you like a horror story about it? It would make me feel mocked.
Quote from: SteerpikeIt's funny (and shows again how different our tastes are) - Goblin is a very deliberate blend of horror and comedy. I actually think these two are quite closely connected. Perhaps because laughter and screaming are both pre-linguistic instincts.
I hate being afraid of things. If fear comes from not understanding something then I guess fear makes me feel stupid. I don't want to feel stupid, I want to feel smart. I like comedy (at least certain kinds of it) because getting the joke makes me feel smart. I hate horror because it feels like it's teasing me because I can't get the "joke".
I use recognisable fantasy content (I don't know that I'd call the Tolkein elves/dwarves/etc. tropes), equally recognisable historical content (I've taken the timeline further ahead than standard fantasy does, but it stays easy to grok), and a smattering of steampunk content (robots, airships, mechanical limbs), and swords and sorcery tropes to run a mystery game.
I use content that everybody knows or can pick up quickly.
I think swords and sorcery tropes are good for gaming. There's room to do a lot of things you just couldn't do in real, rigid, historical settings. There's room for violence and selfishness and heroism that borders on idiotic and so many awesome things you never get to try in real life. There's also the occasional drowning in a puddle or getting splattered all over the walls by an ogre or going crazy and having your character turn into the campaign's villains, but the bad stuff is its own kind of fun.
And I think mystery is also a great fit for an RPGs but I can't get into why 'cause my session at the library's about over.
[blockquote=Silvercat Moonpaw]I hate being afraid of things. If fear comes from not understanding something then I guess fear makes me feel stupid. I don't want to feel stupid, I want to feel smart. I like comedy (at least certain kinds of it) because getting the joke makes me feel smart. I hate horror because it feels like it's teasing me because I can't get the "joke".[/blockquote]That's what I mean by being alienated, I suppose - not understanding something. Being confronted by something alien, unfathomable, opaque, ungraspable, sublime perhaps. That's Lovecraft; and wrapped up in that (for him) is very much a "nihilistic horror-moral" that the universe is vast and lonely and non-anthropocentric, and that humans are maggots who are are nothing compared to the cosmic horrors of the outer dark. This doesn't make us stupid so much as small and isignificant.
I like being afraid of things because I like the alienated feeling of not knowing - not knowing when the monster is going to appear, or what makes it tick; being cut off from it because it is occult, unseen, unknowable. I don't feel mocked because I'm "in" on the alienation, I'm supposed to be alienated, I'm supposed to be frightened. If I'm being frightened the material is doing its job and I'm doing mine: no one is being called stupid. Likewise in Lovecraft you're supposed to be overwhelmed.
[blockquote=beejazz](I don't know that I'd call the Tolkein elves/dwarves/etc. tropes)[/blockquote]What would you call them? I think of the gruff, subterannean dwarf, the effete, nature-loving elf, the bestial orc, etc as character tropes. You can change all the characteristcis of a race and still call them elves or dwarves, I suppose, which is one way of playing with the tropes.
Quote from: SteerpikeThat's what I mean by being alienated, I suppose - not understanding something. Being confronted by something alien, unfathomable, opaque, ungraspable, sublime perhaps. That's Lovecraft; and wrapped up in that (for him) is very much a "nihilistic horror-moral" that the universe is vast and lonely and non-anthropocentric, and that humans are maggots who are are nothing compared to the cosmic horrors of the outer dark. This doesn't make us stupid so much as small and isignificant.
And I don't see why as much effort as he put in has to be put in unless people really are that stupid. I would say they are, too wrapped up in seeing themselves as utmost significant.
Yet on the other side of the coin Lovecraft begs a question: "Yeah, so what?" Being small and insignificant means nothing except inside the head. If the universe doesn't care then the lesson doesn't need to be that it doesn't care, the lesson should be that people shouldn't care if the universe cares.
Quote from: SteerpikeI like being afraid of things because I like the alienated feeling of not knowing - not knowing when the monster is going to appear, or what makes it tick; being cut off from it because it is occult, unseen, unknowable. I don't feel mocked because I'm "in" on the alienation, I'm supposed to be alienated, I'm supposed to be frightened. If I'm being frightened the material is doing its job and I'm doing mine: no one is being called stupid. Likewise in Lovecraft you're supposed to be overwhelmed.
What does this
get you when you're done? What have you come out of the experience knowing that you didn't when you went in? For me this is the crux of the matter: I don't see horror as informative. Therefore it feels useless.
I'd say that horror isn't useful, it's fun. It's the experience that matters, not the message. Actually I'd say that's how I relate to comedy, as well, in general. I don't watch or read comedy to educate myself or come away with new truths: I do so to laugh. Likewise I watch horror to scream/feel alienated.
Both can be vehicles for certain messages, I suppose. Horror could undermine anthropocentric assumptions about purpose, for example, as we've been discussing; or horror can function psychoallegorically, with the monsters representing, say, repressed parts of the psyche, with the piece functioning to showcase the consequences of that repression, or something.
But to me I enjoy horror and comedy by and large for the fun of them, for their affects, rather than their underlying messages. As Oscar Wilde said, all art is completely useless. Scary for scary's sake; weird for weird's sake. It's about pleasure, not about enlightenment.
Quote from: SteerpikeI'd say that horror isn't useful, it's fun. It's the experience that matters, not the message. Actually I'd say that's how I relate to comedy, as well, in general. I don't watch or read comedy to educate myself or come away with new truths: I do so to laugh. Likewise I watch horror to scream/feel alienated.
I don't watch comedy to come away with information either. But this thing is I do, in a way: they show me a new way of thinking about something, because comedy is the twist of reality. Whereas horror doesn't ever say anything new: I know everything it could ever say. I somehow doubt there can ever be new things to be afraid of.
Besides comedy you can watch because all the lines in the middle might be worth it, whereas horror I just need to know how it ends.
Why would you
want to scream/feel alienated, anyway?
This thread has about a bajillion topics in the opening post alone. Planning a gradual transition to Friday Forum Dissertation, are we?
That said, they're pretty good questions. I think that for us, as world-builders, they're complicated by the fact that we are not primarily storytellers.
To be sure, many of us have exhilarating and nuanced narratives lurking in worlds' histories and such, but conworlds are typically intended to be the support scaffolding for stories-to-be-told. If you use your world for gaming, the narrative gets assembled around the gametable; all we are writing here on this site is infrastructure.
This is important because it means that by the nature of our off-the-shelf literary product, we're generally lacking in what is traditionally a very compelling literary element for the the reader: plot. (Because we add the plot at the gametable, that is. We deliberately leave a big open space where the plot is going to go.) This throws the spotlight very strongly onto aspects of genre, because while literary products with very garden-variety genre elements are often successful, it is almost always because they have a strong plot to carry them through. That's a luxury we haven't got.
Therefore, it's my conjecture that so many of us mix-and-match or outright twist and subvert our genre elements because we can't rely on hypothetical to-be-written-in-the-future plots to distinguish our own examples of standard-genre conworlds from the myriad other examples that have come before. I'm not going to write you a straight-up fantasy world that plays to all the standard fantasy tropes, because there are hundreds of those out there already. If I write you a world that feels exactly like Middle-Earth (the prototypical straight-up fantasy genre conworld) but with a changed-around map and a different set of gobbledygook names, no one could blame you for finding my "new" world exceptionally boring.
We tweak genres because we have to. If we don't, we end up with a bunch of repetitive copies of the same few prototypes. That'd be fine, IF we had compelling, original plots to distinguish our work with, but in most cases, we don't (again, because we're deliberately leaving that up to the players around the game table.)
Some of the genre-mixing examples I find most interesting are the very simplest. Consider Pitch Black. Consider Star Wars: A New Hope. Both are movies with space ships and weird planets and weird aliens-- all that good stuff. But neither one is a science fiction movie. One is 100% thriller, the other is 100% fantasy. Both may have a coat of space-paint thrown on top of them, but any kind of examination of what makes them tick reveals them as obvious genre transplants-- they have all the important features of their "real" genres and none of sci-fi.
I think this sort of thing is informative because it can show us which trappings of a genre are "structural" and really contribute to what the genre is, and which are "cosmetic" and can be easily altered or discarded.
Edit: Could we perhaps not let this thread spiral down into a "Teach SCMP to Appreciate the Horror Genre" thread, please? I really think that whole back-and-forth is an unfortunate distraction from the discussion at hand. The original post asked about the subversion and mixing of genres, not about the individual merits and flaws of any genre in particular.
Thanks in advance! :yumm:
[blockquote=LC]Edit: Could we perhaps not let this thread spiral down into a "Teach SCMP to Appreciate the Horror Genre" thread, please? I really think that whole back-and-forth is an unfortunate distraction from the discussion at hand. The original post asked about the subversion and mixing of genres, not about the individual merits and flaws of any genre in particular.[/blockquote]Fair enough: here's my parting shot/final response. I'm not trying to convert SCMP to horror - just explaining my own enjoyment of it.
[blockquote=Silvercat Moonpaw]Besides comedy you can watch because all the lines in the middle might be worth it, whereas horror I just need to know how it ends.
Why would you want to scream/feel alienated, anyway?[/blockquote]My favorite parts of all horror movies I've ever seen are the first half to two thirds. In general horror movie endings are the worst parts for me: what I enjoy is the sense of gathering menace, of ominousness, of suspense - the build-up, followde by the reveal. The defeat of the monster or whatever is rarely as fun.
I like watching horror or reading it because its a "safe" way of feeling horrifide/alienated/frightened - a vicarious sort of anti-escapism in which I can experience things I don't get to in real life without ever being in any real danger. Call me weird, but this gives me a big thrill.
[blockquote=Silvercat Moonpaw]Whereas horror doesn't ever say anything new: I know everything it could ever say. I somehow doubt there can ever be new things to be afraid of.[/blockquote]So comedy twists reality and horror doesn't?!? I'd say horror can twist reality pretty significantly. Yeah horrifying things happen in everyday life, but so do funny things. They're both distorted reflections. And last I checked we don't have alien monstrosities running around laying eggs in people's chests. That qualifies as a radical departure from reality as far as I'm concerned.
I'm not trying to convert you to horror, or telling you to give horror a chance or something, just trying to explain the reasons that I like it.
[blockquote=LC]Some of the genre-mixing examples I find most interesting are the very simplest. Consider Pitch Black. Consider Star Wars: A New Hope. Both are movies with space ships and weird planets and weird aliens-- all that good stuff. But neither one is a science fiction movie. One is 100% thriller, the other is 100% fantasy. Both may have a coat of space-paint thrown on top of them, but any kind of examination of what makes them tick reveals them as obvious genre transplants-- they have all the important features of their "real" genres and none of sci-fi.[/blockquote]Interesting. I'd say that the coat of space-paint - the imagery - is just as valid a part of genre as its thematic dynamics. Hence Star Wars is more in that nebulous category of "weird fiction" than securely in fantasy, or sci fi. Is genre all about what lies underneath, or is it about surface, as well? A big part of the reason I like Star Wars is its surface, rather than its story; certainly the surface is the only reason the first 3 episodes (ie not the original trilogy) are worth watching, in my opinion.
Quote from: Luminous CrayonThis thread has about a bajillion topics in the opening post alone. Planning a gradual transition to Friday Forum Dissertation, are we?
Laugh it up kids. But remember, I'm giving you a week on this because it's 25% of your final grade.
Quote from: SteerpikeInteresting. I'd say that the coat of space-paint - the imagery - is just as valid a part of genre as its thematic dynamics. Hence Star Wars is more in that nebulous category of "weird fiction" than securely in fantasy, or sci fi. Is genre all about what lies underneath, or is it about surface, as well? A big part of the reasonI like Star Wars is its surface.
A New Hope[/i], a young boy is drawn into an epic struggle between a really clearly-defined Good and a really clearly-defined Evil. He is guided by destiny, he must come to terms with his inherited supernatural power with the aid of his wizard mentor, he inherits his father's magic sword. He rescues the innocent princess from the evil fortress; he saves the world with the help of his mystic powers and his ghost-mentor from beyond the grave. This is all classic fantasy material.
I agree that the plot could easily be transposed into a fantasy setting, and even that the plot is more typical of fantasy than sci fi. What I'm also saying is that just because Star Wars shares these plot elements with fantasy does not make it "100% Fantasy," or not a science fiction movie. At the end of the day a lightsaber isn't a magic sword (even though it functions the same way plot-wise), it's a piece of advanced technology. What I'm saying is that I don't see why genre shouldn't encompass the superficial, the "window-dressing."
I don't think its particularly useful to call Star Wars 50% Fantasy/50% Sci-Fi either (although if we were going to use those labels, that's how I'd describe it). What I'm arguing for is the dissapation or deconstruction of those terms altogether. I think that they create unecessary divisions and promote ideas of generic purity (not to be confused with genetic purity, heheh) that are potentially damaging to creativity. I think that the three speculative fiction categories aren't really helpful terms: instead we should collapse those terms into each other and coalesce them. I'm not advocating that all speculative fiction stories should include elements from all three genres, just that the distinctions between horror elements, sci fi elements, and fantasy elements don't need to be kept nearly as discrete as they traditionally have been. The resulting stories won't feel mismatched so much as unworried about their mongrel generic natures, and I think that would promote more unihibited imaginative works.
I agree with Steerpike: fantasy and sci-fi aren't completely separate, at least not all the time (sci-fi actually turns into fantasy a lot of the time), and horror isn't a unique genre but just a different way of doing a story.
So, I'm a little bit torn here.
Part of me wants to say that this boundary-discussion of where one genre starts and another ends is also a distraction and a digression from the questions in the original post, and belongs in another thread.
Another part of me insists that this little mini-debate is a necessary prerequisite step (can't discuss the mixing of paints until we can recognize our primary colors), and that the debate itself is a testament to the power of Phoenix's initial premises.
Dilemma, indeed.
Quote from: SteerpikeWhat would you call them? I think of the gruff, subterannean dwarf, the effete, nature-loving elf, the bestial orc, etc as character tropes. You can change all the characteristcis of a race and still call them elves or dwarves, I suppose, which is one way of playing with the tropes.
I think of elves and dwarves the same way I think about swords, spaceships, etc... As content (as opposed to tropes).
Tropes to me are the models the stories are built on*, like how Asimov's robot stories are more like techno-mysteries, with a problem the protagonist has to solve. Or the clear good vs clear evil duking it out over the fate of the world in high fantasy (clearly a bigger deal than the specific fantasy content, to the point where you can recognise Star Wars as having fantasy tropes and science fiction content). Or the ambiguous morality of sword and sorcery (which is so much more important than all wizards being evil and a tribe of lizardmen). Or the travelogue format story that drives all kinds of classic science fiction.
So Ghost in the Shell, Star Wars, and Isaac Asimov short stories all have robots. Not a whole lot changes about the robots, but the stories are all significantly different because the robots have a different place in the world and the story in each case.
Star Wars, War of the Worlds, and Star Trek all have aliens. But their place in the world and in the stories changes the way we see them significantly.
Twilight and Underworld both have vampires. Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings both have wizards. Monk and Sherlock Holmes are both detectives. Call of Cthulhu and the King in Yellow both have cosmic horror. You're getting that I think the what is less significant than the how and why?
*Or if I'm using the words wrong, I still think it's important to differentiate between the classic models the story is built on and the set dressing that usually accompanies it. D&D pulls high fantasy set dressing but is built with a sword and sorcery mindset at its core.
I can see your point. The only thing I can add is that I don't see dwarves & elves or even swords or spaceships as essential to any of the genres they are often found in. I've read lots of good fantasy with a minimum of swords in it (Perdido Street Station, for example) and good sci fi without spaceships (Neuromancer).
I'd add to Silvercat Moonpaw that while I totally agree that horror can constitute a style of storytelling (sometimes linked to the "Suspense" genre), I'd argue that it also constitutes a genre in and of itself in the same sense as fantasy and sci fi - a genre with roots primarily in the gothic. As I said earlier, though, I think all of the major speculative fiction catgeories are more trouble than their worth. Since, however, we're stuck with them, really, I think my answer is to willfully and self-consciously violate generic boundaries are shamelessly as possible, to avoid generic stagnation.
It is interesting that while horror is something that is ultimately defined by plot, we still tend to recognize "horror elements" that can be used in the construction of a setting. The choise of words and tone in textual descriptions can also be used to set a horror-esque mood. A setting could have neither of these and still be perfectly viable for the telling of a horror story, but some settings incorporate either or both with the intent of being horror settings.
It seems that, as long as we're going to describe fictional works in terms of genres, we should take care to treat the genres of settings as separate from the genres of stories and games taking place in these settings. The former will probably influence the genres of the latter though.
Quote from: SteerpikeI can see your point. The only thing I can add is that I don't see dwarves & elves or even swords or spaceships as essential to any of the genres they are often found in. I've read lots of good fantasy with a minimum of swords in it (Perdido Street Station, for example) and good sci fi without spaceships (Neuromancer).
I'd add to Silvercat Moonpaw that while I totally agree that horror can constitute a style of storytelling (sometimes linked to the "Suspense" genre), I'd argue that it also constitutes a genre in and of itself in the same sense as fantasy and sci fi - a genre with roots primarily in the gothic. As I said earlier, though, I think all of the major speculative fiction catgeories are more trouble than their worth. Since, however, we're stuck with them, really, I think my answer is to willfully and self-consciously violate generic boundaries are shamelessly as possible, to avoid generic stagnation.
[/quote]
See, I've always seen a horror setting as a little weird. Horror adventures I like, and I suppose it's best to include content in the setting that will facilitate horror adventures down the road, but horror doesn't necessarily need to have the same set dressing every time, and can easily use things that already exist in the setting.
As far as types of horror in a fantasy game, I think suspense works best in an RPG. Slasher stuff not as much because ultraviolence is just so standard in a session. Also I think suspense forces you to identify with the character more, but I'd have a hard time explaining why.
I'd say that as the genre boundaries lie now, horror appears more "flexibile" than fantasy and sci fi. My point is that fantasy and sci fi are infinitely flexible as well: they should be boundless. The "assumptions, conventions, and tropes" attached to speculative fiction can be useful tools, but just as easily they can stifle originality and invention.
Obviously this is just a personal preference or opinion: my favorite stuff (fiction or roleplaying settings) is usually the hybrid stuff, the weird stuff, the stuff that refuses to be neatly categorized.
To bring the thread back to the original post, with my own opinionated views...
[blockquote=Phoenix]In world design, it can be hard to get a grip on a truly alien world. To what degree do you like to exploit the expectations of genre? To what degree do you embrace them? Toss them out entirely?[/blockquote]I like to subvert or exploit the expectations of genre and deconstruct generic assumptions, while stealing elements from many different genres in order to create a pastiche (some might say mismatched) appeal. I have no desire to craft anything of generic "purity" because this essentially equates to simply emulating those seminal works that defined the genre boundaries in the first place (masterpieces in their own right, and rarely imitated well) and contributes to genre rigidity and stagnation. Where a genre boundary or convention is inconvenient, restrictive, or unappealing it is thrown unceremoniously out.[blockquote=ibid.]Do you prefer reading in a setting with familiar elements or something radically different?[/blockquote]Either familiar elements subverted or radically unfamiliar elements, or both, ideally speaking. [blockquote=ibid.]Tropes becomes tropes because they work, right? So which ones are most overdone? Which ones are so much staples of a genre that they don't offend?[/blockquote]My biggest pet peeve trope is medieval stasis.[blockquote=ibid.]Blending genres is another risky move. Risk can mean big payoff, or falling flat. How do you like blended genres (i.e. space western). Which genres would you never enjoy blended?[/blockquote]I like to blend the three speculative genres together. Comedy is sometimes a welcome element. I really appreciate the Historical aspects to things like A Song of Ice and Fire (which, sadly, might also be suffering slightly from medieval stasis, though honestly we don't know enough about the far past to completely make that judgement).
Quote from: PhoenixIn world design, it can be hard to get a grip on a truly alien world. To what degree do you like to exploit the expectations of genre? To what degree do you embrace them? Toss them out entirely?
For
Urbis, I exploit the
hell out of them.
The whole setting premise is rather unconventional for fantasy (the magical industrial revolution, the huge cities...). Thus, I make use of as many established tropes and themes as possible to help players and game masters ease into the setting.
Yet that doesn't mean that all those tropes remain unaltered - they changed and grew under the influence of the setting assumptions until they became something new, while still remaining somewhat recognizable.
How
does a stereotypical Elven Island Paradise in the Western Ocean adapt to the modern world after its vaunted Navy was pwned by a human fleet with better technology? How
do all those fantasy races adjust to life in big human cities? Assuming that wizards want to make a living just like anyone else, how does magic change society? What does it
mean for society if resurrection magic is available, though expensive?
All these are very fascinating questions - yet I wouldn't be able to ask them if I hadn't started out with all the familiar fantasy, RPG, and D&D tropes. And having these tropes in the first place has saved me a lot of work - if I had wanted to create a setting as complex from the ground up, it would be a lot of work for the players to even understand the basics of the world.
A fresh take on an old trope can be very enjoyable, but it's also very difficult to accomplish. The biggest problems to me are not the tropes I dislike - I can simply dump them or modify them as much as I like without any hard feelings. It's the tropes I
like that cause the headaches. How do I go about changing, mutilating for the sake of freshness, something that I already find enjoyable? Alter things too much and it easily loses it's original appeal; alter too little and it won't be enough.
It's tempting to just not bother at all...
Quote from: SteerpikeMy biggest pet peeve trope is medieval stasis.
This means an absense of changes in technology and social structures over a very long time interval, particularly in pseudomedieval settings, doesn't it? If I got that right, I can certainly see why it would be a problem for a setting, but what justifies calling it a
trope? Is it really that common? Could you point out some good examples?
I definitely prefer stories that remain largely true to their genre but make small minor changes I generally prefer to know what I'm getting into.
But, many tropes can be very overused. For example, just after I finished reading "Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings" (I tried to read Silmarillion, three times now, and I cannot do it) I read "Sword of Shannara" by Terry Brooks. There are a few elements that are almost exactly like parts from Lord of the Rings, namely a demonic horde attacking a city which ends up feeling like the battle of helm's deep. Joe Nobody who becomes a great hero is also quite overused, and now I only like to see it when something is being written with the full intention of following classic Epic style.
I prefer a story to not require an essay to be read to understand what you're getting into. If something comes up like "the elves of blank-world are twenty feet tall, blue, feast upon the raw flesh of humans, and build steam-punk skyscrapers", I'm going to ask "why are they called elves" (twenty foot tall blue steam-punk cannibals sound really f'n creepy in my current lack of sleep).
As for blended genres, I have been enjoying them more and more. The two most recent books I have read were "Kushiel's Dart", which was a blend of fantasy and erotic romance (and was set in a fantasy version of renaissance Europe, with a healthy blend of Christian and Pagan imagery), and the first book of the "Iron Elves" trilogy, which comes off as a blend of fantasy and historic fiction (the writer is very clearly a fan of Napoleon era wars; the last ten chapters or so have been following an army trudging through a jungle, and it's not boring!). I also like my sci-fi to be riddled with allegory (the only genre I can stand allegory in interestingly enough).
For my own writing, I'm seeking to write in a fantasy universe using science fiction style. Science Fiction stories typically focus on a "what if" or a "how will *the other* affect society", where *the other* is aliens, super technology, robots, AI, or anything out of the norm. For my own setting, one of the big focuses is on how magic and non-human races would alter the world. Individual stories are still focusing on the heroes journey, an element of fantasy, but that's something difficult to avoid (nor would I want to).
For Ghostman: Medieval Stasis (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MedievalStasis).
[blockquote=Kapn]I prefer a story to not require an essay to be read to understand what you're getting into. If something comes up like "the elves of blank-world are twenty feet tall, blue, feast upon the raw flesh of humans, and build steam-punk skyscrapers", I'm going to ask "why are they called elves" (twenty foot tall blue steam-punk cannibals sound really f'n creepy in my current lack of sleep).[/blockquote]Agreed: calling them elves is silly. I'd rather read a story about them than another story about elves, though, and they're no less "fantasy" than elves; or, to put it another why, I'd personally rather see a new setting with these guys than another setting with elves again. They do sound suspiciously like Victorian Ogre Magi, though.
[blockquote=Ghosttoastyman]
Quote from: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MedievalStasistcvtropes/med stasis[/url]. yes it is pretty common.
Basically the problem is not the stasis so much as it is a lack of sufficent explanation for it. Martin's long seasons are an example. I carefully explain the development of magic as a substitute advancement specifically to account for the creative urge and lack of purely scientific progress in Celtricia. I can see why this trope makes Steerpike crazy, as it does myself. It is sometimes very jarring when a setting falls into this trap.
Quote from: SteerpikeMy biggest pet peeve trope is medieval stasis.
I get curious when people bring this up: Is there a maximum limit to how long you're willing to allow the stasis? And what about the reverse: would development/change be just as bad if it happened faster than Earth logic provides for?
I can't think of a precise figure, but anytime I hear mention of thousands of years of history (like, 2000+) without any significant technological changes, I frown a little. Justified medieval stasis is more acceptable, but can still be irksome, at times.
I'd have some of the same problems with a too-fast changing society from a logical standpoint, but at least in a society where changes are occuring there's an acknowledgement that technological development does occur, even if the timeline is skewed. One of my problems with medieval stasis is that it seems lazy as well as unrealistic: it's much easier for a creator to just keep everything the same and stick their fingers in their ears when developing a history than it is to map out actual technological progress. That said, there are some worlds that suffer from stasis that I like for so many other reasons that I can tolerate the stasis (Westeros being the prime example).
Couldn't the minerals available in a given world prevent certain metallurgical advances? Couldn't fossil fuels (outside of coal) have never happened?
Medieval stasis can happen if we don't assume earth as a baseline.
Medieval stasis is one of the standard tropes which I deliberately dropped from Urbis. The whole setting is essentially an exploration of the idea: "What if medieval stasis didn't hold in a typical fantasy setting?"
[blockquote=beejazz]Couldn't the minerals available in a given world prevent certain metallurgical advances? Couldn't fossil fuels (outside of coal) have never happened?
Medieval stasis can happen if we don't assume earth as a baseline.[/blockquote] There are plenty of justifications for medieval stasis out there, and their presence mitigates the logic problem, but it still feels like lazy world-building to me. I'd much rather see a world that grows and changes than one that doesn't, even if the stasis makes sense.
And props for making Urbis resist stasis.
Quote from: SteerpikeOne of my problems with medieval stasis is that it seems lazy as well as unrealistic: it's much easier for a creator to just keep everything the same and stick their fingers in their ears when developing a history than it is to map out actual technological progress.
This, though, raises a question: to what degree is it actually
necessary to map out progress? Goes hand in hand with the question of how much of the history of a setting should be detailed.
If history is left vague, then it may be easy and tempting to just assume that progress happened at a natural pace. Where history is actually covered in some detail, it should be necessary to account for at least some effects of progress. But what exactly are the
relevant changes and events that ought to be mentioned? Should a setting designer bother to define the differences in art and fashion between eras, evolution of natural languages, and the invention of fairly mundane things such as umbrellas, hourglasses and lighting matches?
Some things are just obviously significant, such as revolutions, exploration, guns (not just gunpowder), steam engines, mass migrations and major religions. Even then it's questionable if one really needs to know when exactly these happened. For most stories, you only need to know how things are at the moment, not how they were X number of years ago.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that settings should be given the benefit of doubt. Lack of evidence of progress shouldn't be taken as evidence for stasis; it could simply be lack of information regarding past times.
[blockquote=Ghostman]I guess the point I'm trying to make is that settings should be given the benefit of doubt. Lack of evidence of progress shouldn't be taken as evidence for stasis; it could simply be lack of information regarding past times.[/blockquote]Absolutely agreed. I think a vague past is sometimes very useful. What botehrs me is an explicitly static past.
I think my contempt for medieval stasis is partly linked to a distaste for the medieval more generally. It's occasionally done right, but often as not medieval settings feel not only anachronistic but generally overdone. Fortunately we seem to be moving away from the medieval standard significantly at the CBG.
I wanted to hold off getting involved myself until this developed a bit.
Quote from: SCMP"Tropes becomes tropes because they work, right?"
No. A trope is defined after it happens, not before and then used.
In literature we've still got Christopher Paolinis cranking out derivative, watered down quest narratives...<snip>[/quote]You can change all the characteristcis of a race and still call them elves or dwarves, I suppose, which is one way of playing with the tropes.[/quote]I'm not going to write you a straight-up fantasy world that plays to all the standard fantasy tropes, because there are hundreds of those out there already. If I write you a world that feels exactly like Middle-Earth (the prototypical straight-up fantasy genre conworld) but with a changed-around map and a different set of gobbledygook names, no one could blame you for finding my "new" world exceptionally boring.[/quote]In A New Hope, a young boy is drawn into an epic struggle between a really clearly-defined Good and a really clearly-defined Evil. He is guided by destiny, he must come to terms with his inherited supernatural power with the aid of his wizard mentor, he inherits his father's magic sword. He rescues the innocent princess from the evil fortress; he saves the world with the help of his mystic powers and his ghost-mentor from beyond the grave. This is all classic fantasy material.[/quote]D&D pulls high fantasy set dressing but is built with a sword and sorcery mindset at its core.[/quote]I have no desire to craft anything of generic "purity" because this essentially equates to simply emulating those seminal works that defined the genre boundaries in the first place (masterpieces in their own right, and rarely imitated well) and contributes to genre rigidity and stagnation.[/quote]
I disagree. I can read a piece of historical fiction without thinking it a pale imitation of something that has gone before. I can same the same for most genres in terms of genre "purity," should such a thing exist.
Tropes within the genre, as well as tropes of plot, however, can be exploited or subverted, within reason, without diluting the genre.
Quote from: Steerpike[blockquote=Ghostman]I guess the point I'm trying to make is that settings should be given the benefit of doubt. Lack of evidence of progress shouldn't be taken as evidence for stasis; it could simply be lack of information regarding past times.[/blockquote]Absolutely agreed. I think a vague past is sometimes very useful. What botehrs me is an explicitly static past.
I think my contempt for medieval stasis is partly linked to a distaste for the medieval more generally. It's occasionally done right, but often as not medieval settings feel not only anachronistic but generally overdone. Fortunately we seem to be moving away from the medieval standard significantly at the CBG.
I can't say the Middle Ages are my favorite. Antiquity just interests me more. The Renaissance, too, but I kind of needed to focus on one area, so it was the Classical period I studied the most. Dark Ages are kind of cool too.
Hence why Eschaton is 1st century BCE, not 1100 CE.
I think a lot of times we may assume Medieval Stasis unfairly, too. If I say a great evil was bound a thousand years ago, and the world is presently Middle Ages, can you assume that it wasn't earlier Iron Age a thousand years ago? Just because I don't describe the world back then?
Also, let us not dismiss the importance of the cyclical history or descent of ages tropes. They come straight from mythology.
Quote from: PhoenixQuote from: SCMP"Tropes becomes tropes because they work, right?"
No. A trope is defined after it happens, not before and then used.
I may be forced to agree with you: I'm trying to do a fantasy setting, and there are tropes I just can't stop following because the world wouldn't feel right otherwise.
I must say that I don't find medieval stasis to be a particularly onerous trope. With modern historical techniques, we can look back and laugh at the idea of static technology and culture. In those periods themselves, however, this kind of perspective did not exist. There was often very little sense that things had been measurably different in past eras - or, if they were different, they could well have been more technologically advanced, or simply more enlightened (the idea of a "golden age" before).
In a medieval setting, stasis is completely believable, at least from the perspective of the people living in that setting (and that, in the end, is what matters - not what the "objective truth" is that nobody in the setting actually knows).
Descent of ages is not stasis.
Yeah, if anything medieval people had the notion that progress went backwards, that we'd just continue in a downward spiral until Armageddon/Rapture/coming of the Kingdom.
Quote from: PolycarpI must say that I don't find medieval stasis to be a particularly onerous trope. With modern historical techniques, we can look back and laugh at the idea of static technology and culture. In those periods themselves, however, this kind of perspective did not exist. There was often very little sense that things had been measurably different in past eras - or, if they were different, they could well have been more technologically advanced, or simply more enlightened (the idea of a "golden age" before).
In a medieval setting, stasis is completely believable, at least from the perspective of the people living in that setting (and that, in the end, is what matters - not what the "objective truth" is that nobody in the setting actually knows).
we are having a perspective issue.
No, they did not understand the big picture of progress the way we do now. But Historical Stasis is normally not brought into question by the misunderstandings of the denizens of a book or setting, rather, when the overview is looked at by a reader.
In other words, the trope or issue is never borught into question based on the limited perspective of an NPC or character in a book, but only when the "objective truth" (or as much of it is known) is looked at. The trope is not determined by the cog but by the creator.
Quote from: Vreeg's CoachwhipIn other words, the trope or issue is never borught into question based on the limited perspective of an NPC or character in a book, but only when the "objective truth" (or as much of it is known) is looked at. The trope is not determined by the cog but by the creator.
consistently[/i] (and
colorfully) false. To put it simply, if we can have fireballs and dragons, why can't we have an extended medieval age? What is it that compels us to accept one but reject the other?
This may just be a matter of personal taste - I have no trouble suspending my disbelief for this, while it might just irk other people. In that case, we should probably just agree to disagree, for as we've discovered in this thread alone, tastes in genres vary quite widely.
Regarding "Medieval Stasis" (or stasis in general, prolonged cultural/intellectual stagnation regardless of time period):
It doesn't bother me that stuff doesn't match our real-world historical timeline. Cause that's not the point.
In instances where it does bother me, it bothers me because innovation stops without a clear reason why. The tendency of people is to create and learn and invent over time, and sometimes that tendency is thwarted by events (which is fine). But poorly-handled medieval stasis doesn't so much thwart that tendency as ignore it, which makes the people and their societies ring false.
My favorite example of "medieval" stasis is in Roger Zelazny's novel, Lord of Light, which is excellent. Seriously, you should read it. Preferably, you should read it before you read this spoiler I'm going to type right now.
[spoiler="Lord of Light" spoiler]This whole book is dealing with a world under conditions of enforced medieval stasis. It's a non-Earth world ruled by settlers from a futuristic Earth, who have used their superior technology to set themselves up as Hindu-style gods. (This is way more awesome than I am making it sound.) They're destroying technological inventions that the common folk produce in order to keep their own power secure-- at one point it is mentioned that the printing press has been invented by innovative mortals and subsequently destroyed by the gods in at least three separate occasions.
The main conflict of the book is between the gods who wish to protect the status quo by continuing to deprive the common folk of technological advances, and "Accelerationists" among the gods who want to share their knowledge with the mortals to increase their quality of life. Essentially, the world is deliberately kept in an enforced state of medieval stasis, and ending this condition is the protagonist's main goal.
It's medieval stasis with an actual purpose, and it works.[/spoiler]
Ooh, I can hear the old verismiliutde, suspension of disbelief, and logical consistency arguments brewing again.
My opinion is that there's a difference between violations of realism that insert fantastic elements into a world, and violations of realism that are simply the result of a lack of logical, internal consistency.
Imagine a desert world, for example. Okay, fine. Let's populate it with, say, intelligent jackal-humanoids. Great. Those are both violations of the former type.
Now say that the jackal-people's culture is full of grandiose libraries full of (paper) books, despite the complete absence of forests from the world. That's a violation of the latter type.
Now, we could insert an explanation - maybe the reason the world is a desert is because it's been deforested for book-making; maybe the books use hide instead of paper; maybe the books are antediluvian artefacts from a time when the planet was green, that have been well-preserved to prevent their decay. All of those are ways of addressing the logical flaw (lots of paper+desert = does not compute); but without any of those reasons, my disbelief strains and snaps - or at least my enjoyment of the world is diminished.
Basically, the first type of violation changes the rules of the world. The second type ignores them altogether. I can deal with changes to the rules of a universe, but not a complete lack of rules - unless the setting is an anarchic dreamscape, or something similar. Silvercat and I had one of our brouhahas over this, I seem to recall.
Now this discussion is definitely a digression...
digressing onto the digression...
LC, Lord of Light had a lot to do with solidifying my ideas...
Quote from: PolycarpQuote from: Vreeg's CoachwhipIn other words, the trope or issue is never borught into question based on the limited perspective of an NPC or character in a book, but only when the "objective truth" (or as much of it is known) is looked at. The trope is not determined by the cog but by the creator.
consistently[/i] (and colorfully) false. To put it simply, if we can have fireballs and dragons, why can't we have an extended medieval age? What is it that compels us to accept one but reject the other?
This may just be a matter of personal taste - I have no trouble suspending my disbelief for this, while it might just irk other people. In that case, we should probably just agree to disagree, for as we've discovered in this thread alone, tastes in genres vary quite widely.
It's all based on ground rules. Suspension of disbelief is fine
if it is what the author intends by breaking the ground rules. That's the point of much of our work.
Medieval Stasis, as a flawed trope, can only happen if the author or creator is unaware of it or has not accounted for it.
Fireballs and dragons are a consiously created choice, i.e., the author/creator has consiously decided that the world has magic, so we as readers go along with it. Normally, most of us agree that this is done properly by making the magic (or rule breaking) intrinsically logical and internally consistent within the laws of physics the author has not changed and consistent within the ones that are changed. Medieval Stasis directly infers a breakdown of internal logic as the lack of progress is NOT explained. If it is carefully and logically explained, even with magic, distance, lack of elements or other religion or other poppycock, it is no longer Medieval Stasis.
That is what compels us to accept one and not the other. A suspension of disbelief is not a suspension of logic or discernment. A carefully explained and crafted design triumph is different from a poorly thought out or ignored logical dissonance.
Noow, to backtrack on myself, I have freinds of mine who can watch moveies or read books and enjoy them for the fun ride they are, while other friends of mine can't enjoy them because of the brken logic. Personal taste precludes everything else.
Sometimes bad or broken logic bugs me, but it doesn't usually keep me from enjoying a movie. In a book it bugs me more.
Last words, anyone?
One another trope (or perhaps cliche - or perhaps just something that creators do) that annoys me a lot is the exact reverse of making your elves ten foot tall blue punk-rocking acid-spitters or whatever: it's when they create a "new" race with characteristics that are practically identical to those of another common fantasy race, but give their race a new name in a transparent attempt to appear more original than they really are. These races sometimes have mild cosmetic differences from the creatures that inspired them, but sometimes they even resemble one another. It's like Peter Griffon and Homer Simpson. This phenomenon seems to be most com mon with orc-like races.
Examples: Trollocs (Wheel of Time), Urgals (Eragon).
Quote from: SteerpikeExamples: Trollocs (Wheel of Time), Urgals (Eragon).
People also seem to do this with hobbits/halflings sometimes (names like "pech" and "half-men" are some I read).
My final word is that as much as we may hate some tropes we may have to live with them. Just as mental exercises I've found a few that are just off-putting to subvert, perhaps more because what's feeding the trope is my own strong preferences.
I only read a little bit into the massive Wheel of Time series before giving up on it, but I seem to recall that the Trollocs didn't have a common anatomy, they were just a motley horde of humanoid monstrosities. Their place in the world and their behaviour was pretty much Orcish though.
Quote from: GhostmanI only read a little bit into the massive Wheel of Time series before giving up on it, but I seem to recall that the Trollocs didn't have a common anatomy, they were just a motley horde of humanoid monstrosities. Their place in the world and their behaviour was pretty much Orcish though.
Correct on both counts.
However, they might also be assumed to be based on trolls. Obviously that's the source of their name, and Jordan did use other inspirations from mythology (including the Wheel of Time itself).
In fairness, it's hard to take a race of savage misshapen creatures and not get comparisons to orcs. To make them seem truly different, you'd have to spend a lot of time on them, and that's more page space than most readers want to see dedicated to bad guy grunts.
I personally don't see how Trollocs are based on anything aside from perhaps some kind of beastmen. They don't have any really special defining traits aside from their bestial attributes and their low position on the totem-pole of evil.
Urgals however are essentially ram-horned orcs.
Trollocs do look a little different than orcs/trolls, but they're still pretty much the low-level big, stupid, brutish, obedient henchmen who get bossed around by the more elegant, intelligent evil dudes in black (Myrdraal/Nazgul). I mean, it's not like they ruined Wheel of Time for me (that falls to the overwriting and all that damn braid-tugging), but whenever I read about them I kind of rolled my eyes a little.
Personally, I love monsters, and as a reader I'm totally willing to have very different baddies explained at length - but I realize I may perhaps be in a minority in that regard.
Braid-tugging?? What do you mean by that? I thought WoT was a pretty good book; not so much for the setting perhaps, but because the writer has immense scope (that story is so big i can hardly imagine how he came up with it all and made it fit) and because it actually has a decent unique magic system. What bothered me the most was the "there was once future technology!" parts.
Hmm, can see I'm a bit late for the discussion if we are already at last words. Personally, I can hardly get myself to read something that doesn't in some way expand a genre for me. Tropes like "anthropocentric setting" I'm okay with because they do not in essence have any effect on how the settings unfolds; they are just basic scaffolding that allows for easier suspension of disbelief.
Beyond that I'm all in for originality and innovation. More than anything that's what draws me to a setting. It doesn't have to be completely new though; a twist is enough if performed deftly enough. But our goal is to make our own settings, and as such we can't just use a template. Just like stories can be alike only with different scenes and characters, settings can be alike as well as long as there are notable differences in the primary elements.
Quote from: SilvercatMoonpawPeople also seem to do this with hobbits/halflings sometimes (names like "pech" and "half-men" are some I read).
Just as a minor note, "pech" is actually the name of a small Celtic fey known for its ridiculous strength despite its stature, so chances are someone using that one either is going for a Celtic (or generic real-world mythological) tone in the setting or is actually going for token short race that
is different from the usual hobbit tropes.
Using "half-men," though, is pretty much just renaming halflings.
Quote from: Pair o' Dice LostUsing "half-men," though, is pretty much just renaming halflings.
Except in Wheel of Time (http://wot.wikia.com/wiki/Myrddraal#Other_Names)?
[blockquote=Cataclysmic Crow]Braid-tugging??[/blockquote]Hmm how many of the series did you read? I quite liked the first three or so, then they started going downhill.
Braid-tugging is something that the character Nynaeve does a lot. Jordan likes to write Strong Women, and his idea of strong female character seems to revolve at least partially with them getting very, very exasperated with "Men!" all the time and being generally irritable. Nynaeve often physically manifests this by tugging forcefully on her long braids.
As the books progress, it seems like Nynaeve starts tugging her braid with greater and greater frequency. Braid-tugging has become sort of infamous as a symbol of the gradual decay of the books from well-paced high fantasy adventure - perhaps not the most original stuff on the block, sure, but a damn good yarn with strong characters, believable dialogue, geuinely scary baddies, and an epic quest - into a sluggish, overwritten slog through pages and pages of nothing happening, in which lengthy descriptions of people's clothes, women getting irritable at men, and (of course) Nynaeve tugging her braid increasingly replace the ruined cities, magic, skullduggery, and battles that everyone enjoyed in the first books.
EDIT: found this mock interview online that pretty much exemplifies the decay of the Wheel of Time (and boy now are we off topic!):
ED: Robert Jordan, bestselling author of the Wheel of Time series, welcome.
RJ: It's an honour.
ED: It's an honour for me too.
RJ: That's what I meant.
ED: Mr. Jordan, may I call you Robert?
RJ: My friends call me Robert.
ED: Robert...
RJ: That's Mr. Jordan to you.
ED: Fine. Mr Jordan, tell us about your latest novel.
RJ: This is Book 22 of the Wheel of Time series, Rand Clips his Toenails .
ED: The book has come in from some criticism from the fans on the forums.
RJ: I can't imagine why.
ED: Perhaps because the entire book is devoted entirely to a description of Rand clipping his toenails.
RJ: I felt that there were a lot of important plot points addressed in the book.
ED It's seven hundred pages about toenail clipping!
RJ: I think you are failing to understand the significance of the toenail clipping act. Each toenail must be clipped in the precise order as laid out in The Prophecies of The Dragon. The manner in which each toenail is clipped is subtly different, with serious implications for all of the other characters.
ED: What possible implications could there be for the other characters? None of them even appear in the book!
RJ: I'm afraid you will have to Read and Find Out.
ED: Lets try a different approach...Mr. Jordan, how do you react to accusations that your novels consist almost entirely of meaningless trivial subplots and feature precious little actual plot development?
RJ: I can't understand where these accusations are coming from.
ED: Allow me to give a couple of examples...Book 17 The Paint Dries . The infamous braid tugging sequence... "Men!" growled Nynaeve, tugging her braid and folding her arms under her breasts. Elayne stormed into the room. "Men!" she exclaimed, tugging Nynaeve's braid and folding her arms beneath her breasts. Aviendha stormed into the room. "Men!" she growled, tugging Nynaeve's braid and folding her arms... . This goes on for an entire chapter! Thirty-seven different women complain about men and tug Nynaeve's braid. How can you justify this? Or how about Book 19 Overtaken by a Snail ...Elayne knits clothes for her baby...and you include the knitting pattern!
RJ: These are all important plot points. To appreciate the significance you just have to RAFO.
ED: Have you any idea how irritating that phrase is?
RJ: Let me stroke my beard while I think about that...yes.
ED: Fine. Was it a conscious decision of yours to concentrate on one character for the entire book? Are we now going to get a dozen one character books?
RJ: Let me stroke my beard and think about that...no. The next book will have another change of emphasis. It will consist entirely of subplot and will not feature any of the main characters.
ED: None at all? That's incredible! What is it about?
RJ: The book introduces two hundred new characters, none of whom will appear in any of the subsequent books. As to the plot, you will just have to wait until the first part of the prologue goes on sale.
ED: Yes, I suppose...hold on a minute, what do you mean by the first part of the Prologue?
RJ: I am releasing the Prologue of the next book on a sentence by sentence basis.
ED: Good God! How long is this Prologue?
RJ: Approximately 700 pages.
ED: That doesn't leave much room for the rest of the book.
RJ: There is no rest of the book. The entire book is a Prologue. It's part of my FARO policy.
ED: Don't you mean RAFO?
RJ: No, FARO - Fleece and Rip Off.
ED: Have you a title for book twenty-three yet?
RJ: Not yet, I was thinking Laughing All the Way to the Bank or maybe The Dragging Really Bores why?
ED: Might I suggest The Mattress.
RJ: Why?
ED: Because its full of padding.
RJ: Let me stroke my beard and think about that.
ED: Robert Jordan, best-selling author of the Wheel of Time series, goodnight.
Quote from: Steerpike[mock interview]
To be fair to the author I've read books which were terminally boring despite not having any of this in them.
Meh, never noticed the braid-tugging thing. If she has a tic she has tic. And although the interview complains about minor characters, one of my favorite points of WoT is how minor character return return and come to the foreground in latter books. They don't have a static role in the book. But yeah, the series is quite... long.
I have heard a lot of people complain that the plot never moves, and i never noticed, which is kinda surprising since my attention span is unfortunately rather short... Plenty of interesting stuff happen as far as i can remember in the later books. Admittedly, it's a long time since i read them, and I don't plan on doing it again. :)
I'm no fan, but i don't dislike them either.
My above post probably exaggerates my dislike for WoT. I do get bored by the latter books, but they're still not complete drivel, even if they have their flaws. If someone were asking for reccomendations, though, I'd always reccomend ASoIaF over WoT.
Quote from: SteerpikeIf someone were asking for reccomendations, though, I'd always reccomend ASoIaF over WoT.
Seconded. So far, Martin is the only author that I've seen able to throw tons of characters at the reader and not make it feel like it's too much to take. Granted, there's still more books to come out on ASoIaF, so we'll see if he can keep up the quality all the way to the end.
And now we've gone irrevocably off topic :hammer:
Yeah, but we have moved on to the next week so it doesn't really matter anymore ^^
And I've taken up the many ASoIaF recommendations I've gotten over the years, and as a result I finished the first book a couple of weeks ago. I thought it was really, really great (and I don't normally fall for books with knights and fancy coats of arms) and I've already lent it to a friend so I could get him off his WoT addiction.
For some reason not many people know of ASoIaF in Denmark... they don't even have the books in most bookstores here; only WoT and Malazan (the last of which i still have to get started on).
Out of ASoIaF, WoT and Malazan, I'd rate Malazan first (if only because the author can get his shit together) then ASoIaF and lastly WoT.
WoT isn't bad, its just... lengthy. I hope Brandon Sanderson doesn't end it badly (I'm not a fan of his endings) when he's eeked out his trilogy.
He didn't write the ending. And most of the plot and some of the actual writing comes from Jordan's notes.
Never read Malazan. But in terms of sales, nothing else really compares to WoT and SoIaF. And they're so different, that being the two leading series and being huge in scope is about all they really have in common.
Don't forget, there's a new topic up for this week ;)