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FreudianSlippers posted:Gaelic elves are pretty spooky. When someone dies you are supposed to drench a threshold in blood to prevent the fair folk catching the persons soul and dragging into their hosed up elf world as slave labour. The logic being that even though they love to enslave the souls of the dead they love drinking blood a lot more and can't resist slurping it up giving the soul a hefty head start. So did God basically sic elves at the Egyptians for the 10th Plague?
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Feb 5, 2018 02:28
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Tiggum posted:Not really ahead of his time, he was just taking a bunch of stuff from Gaelic mythology instead of copying Tolkein. A lot of authors have done the same. Not ahead of his time on a grand scale, no. But it wasn't common in genre fantasy to stray much from the Tolkien stereotype for a long time. Raising Steam was barely even written by him, he already had Alzheimer's at that point; it's definitely not up to his normal standards. The final Tiffany Aching was a quite good swan song though.
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Feb 5, 2018 02:30
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Prachetts last few books sucked because his mind was disintegrating. Look at the older stuff for quality.
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Feb 5, 2018 03:45
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The Once and Future King has a relatively brief appearance by elves that clearly inspired Pratchett's. They do the whole 'castle made out of food' thing and it's actually shown to be overwhelming, cloying and disgusting even before it starts going off, and Arthur and Kay sure as hell aren't tempted to eat any of it, though they are tempted to simply run away.
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Feb 5, 2018 05:11
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Just saw a Law and Order SVU where a Tomi Lahren/Ann Coulter type is raped at a campus (with a plastic tube used to prop the sign) and nobody's sure if an obsessed white supremacist fan or an antifa guy did it. It was uh, something. Case ends with the DA dropping the charges while cross-examining the obsessed fan because the fan makes a bunch of horrific remarks about the jury's ethnic makeup but doesn't cop to the crime and the DA can't prove it but doesn't necessarily buy that the defendant did it, essentially making it a truth in the middle episode . There was a quality joke about the obsessed fan having small hands, though. And they did make the analogue appropriately cartoonishly up her own rear end. El Gallinero Gros has a new favorite as of 05:52 on Feb 5, 2018 |
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Feb 5, 2018 05:46
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Kuiperdolin posted:Pratchett was a terrible and unfunny writer. I read an embarrassing amount of his dumb stuff to try and fit in in college, but the king is completely naked. A lot of the early Discworld stuff is definitely overrated. It took Pratchett a dozen or so tries before he really started to get anywhere, but he did eventually start turning out some good stuff.
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Feb 5, 2018 06:33
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El Gallinero Gros posted:Just saw a Law and Order SVU where a Tomi Lahren/Ann Coulter type is raped at a campus (with a plastic tube used to prop the sign) and nobody's sure if an obsessed white supremacist fan or an antifa guy did it. It was uh, something. Case ends with the DA dropping the charges while cross-examining the obsessed fan because the fan makes a bunch of horrific remarks about the jury's ethnic makeup but doesn't cop to the crime and the DA can't prove it but doesn't necessarily buy that the defendant did it, essentially making it a truth in the middle episode . SVU will occasionally shock me with how screwed up it can get. A few years ago I thought they were trying to go more serialized, I think it was getting attention for a new season starting out trying to be a bit more like a cable series in style and content, trying to build some in-show character building, but did that last?
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Feb 5, 2018 08:58
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Straight White Shark posted:A lot of the early Discworld stuff is definitely overrated. It took Pratchett a dozen or so tries before he really started to get anywhere, but he did eventually start turning out some good stuff. Eh, the first two books are just average fantasy parody. The third, Equal Rites isn't bad, but not great. Mort is pretty drat good. Sourcery is something of a misstep but it has its moments, and Wyrd Sisters is great. From that moment on, it's mostly good-to-excellent. There are probably about eight books I don't really like and probably won't ever re-read, which in a series of 41 novels is pretty impressive.
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Feb 5, 2018 12:39
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Quote-Unquote posted:Eh, the first two books are just average fantasy parody. The third, Equal Rites isn't bad, but not great. Mort is pretty drat good. Sourcery is something of a misstep but it has its moments, and Wyrd Sisters is great. From that moment on, it's mostly good-to-excellent. There are probably about eight books I don't really like and probably won't ever re-read, which in a series of 41 novels is pretty impressive. This is basically my thoughts on Pratchett, he had a run of drat near perfect between Wyrd Sisters and when his mind started going, and Mort is fantastic despite the worldbuilding not quite being nailed down that early on. There's only a couple in that middle chunk that I don't regularly re-read, and it's just because I'm not a huge fan of the later Wizards books.
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Feb 5, 2018 15:41
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I love that the Internet apparently makes it necessary to explain how things other people like are actually overrated in some really not very subtle ego boost. "Tolstoy? Nice I guess, but could do with an editor and he really went downhill after Казаки..."
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Feb 5, 2018 16:05
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Some critics read the Tolkien-style Elves as anti-fascist / anti-supremacist symbols. The logic is that the Elves are decidedly inhuman, and they have actual quantifiable claims to racial superiority, whereas any human who tries to make that claim is just a delusional fart huffer. (i.e. if there were a master race, this is how they'd look. You don't look like this, ergo...) Tolkien does get "Superior Humans" in his extended mythology (and they bleed into LOTR a bit), but most of them get all high on their own farts and get mostly smitten a la Atlantis. The few who survive go one of a few directions. Some go and be heroes (Aragorn), which is more or less a nod to the demigods of Greco-Roman myth, with almost all of them dying tragically. Others get disgusted with humanity and go move in with the Elves (Elrond). Even Aragorn is complicated as an Aristocratic symbol, given how unattainable his credentials are, and that he's a caricature of idealistic benevolence in an absolute ruler. And on top of that Tolkien concludes the whole thing by with a note that "these people aren't in the world anymore." The only "attainable" model of governance in all of his work is The Shire, which is basically a small pastoral region where friendly strangers are always welcome to come get drunk with the locals, and which almost gets destroyed by exploitative industrialized capitalism. I don't know how Tolkien's flavour of elves works in other fantasy novels, though. 
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Feb 5, 2018 17:06
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Decius posted:I love that the Internet apparently makes it necessary to explain how things other people like are actually overrated in some really not very subtle ego boost. "Tolstoy? Nice I guess, but could do with an editor and he really went downhill after Казаки..." It's basically university lit department conversations but online. And most other fantasy settings don't actually have Tolkein's flavour of elves in having the very specifically different and inhuman (but still friendly) nature, they're just stuck-up magical gits with pointy ears.
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Feb 5, 2018 17:09
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CommonShore posted:(i.e. if there were a master race, this is how they'd look.) White. Like, really pale, definitely. If you've got even a decent tan you're up to no good. Never trust a "swarthy" man.
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Feb 5, 2018 17:21
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sassassin posted:If you've got even a decent tan you're up to no good. Never trust a "swarthy" man. Ah, I see you've played the Lone Wolf books.
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Feb 5, 2018 17:30
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I think some Tolkien elves are cool (Fingon) and others are not cool (Fëanor).
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Feb 5, 2018 19:37
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Books, my favourite television show.
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Feb 5, 2018 19:52
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They're going to be a TV show soon.
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Feb 5, 2018 19:59
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Better the Witcher or Wheel of Time show, since no one really wants a rehash. The Wheel of Time show stands to be better than the Source since all the braid-tugging can't halt the narrative.
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Feb 5, 2018 20:17
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Netflix is doing a Witcher show.
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Feb 5, 2018 20:22
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muscles like this! posted:Netflix is doing a Witcher show. Whoever gets cast as Triss will never be able to read her social media again.
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Feb 5, 2018 20:28
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Inspector Gesicht posted:Better the Witcher or Wheel of Time show, since no one really wants a rehash. The Wheel of Time show stands to be better than the Source since all the braid-tugging can't halt the narrative. I think the excessive spanking in WoT would age poorly, along with the LADIES, AMIRITE nonsense.
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Feb 5, 2018 20:41
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poptart_fairy posted:Books, my favourite television show. 
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Feb 5, 2018 20:58
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CommonShore posted:Tolkien does get "Superior Humans" in his extended mythology (and they bleed into LOTR a bit), but most of them get all high on their own farts and get mostly smitten a la Atlantis. The few who survive go one of a few directions. Some go and be heroes (Aragorn), which is more or less a nod to the demigods of Greco-Roman myth, with almost all of them dying tragically. Others get disgusted with humanity and go move in with the Elves (Elrond).
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Feb 6, 2018 03:46
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John Mahoney passed away. I always wanted Martin to be my dad when I was a kid. RIP.   
Koalas March has a new favorite as of 03:54 on Feb 6, 2018 |
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Feb 6, 2018 03:52
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Sweevo posted:Ah, I see you've played the Lone Wolf books. No joke, I grew up thinking "swarthy" meant something like untrustworthy or having pirate-like qualities for this exact reason. Castle Death was my favorite book, too, because it's a fun classic dungeon crawl, and the blatantly racist/white savior stuff with Zahda's slaves went completely over my head. quote:The passage leads to an enormous compound of cells that holds the slaves of Kazan-Oud. They are, in the main, a pitiful herd of gangling, black-skinned creatures, with sorrowful eyes and backs bent crooked by years of hard labour. These prisoners press their sad faces against the tiny grates of their cells, curious to see the fair-skinned warrior who walks upright among them. Rollersnake has a new favorite as of 04:23 on Feb 6, 2018 |
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Feb 6, 2018 03:58
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Tiggum posted:Elrond was part elf. The superior humans were the rangers like Aragorn (descendants of the survivors of the Atlantis thing) and I think most of the ones that were around then survived to the end of LotR? Aragorn is a descendent of Elrond's brother. One brother founded the line of high human kings, and the other went to live with the elves. Even the human ubermenschen have immortal, supernatural origins. This is the wrong thread for this anyway.
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Feb 6, 2018 05:05
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Koalas March posted:John Mahoney passed away. I always wanted Martin to be my dad when I was a kid. RIP. He was only 77. Frasier premiered 25 years ago. That old cranky retired cop dad to 40+ year old sons was 52.
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Feb 6, 2018 05:14
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Frasier and Niles were in their mid-twenties. Cocaine.
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Feb 6, 2018 05:20
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Krispy Wafer posted:He was only 77. Frasier premiered 25 years ago. Danny Glover was 40 when he made the first lethal weapon playing an old man nearing retirement.
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Feb 6, 2018 05:33
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rodbeard posted:Danny Glover was 40 when he made the first lethal weapon playing an old man nearing retirement. Wilford Brimley was in his early 50's when he made Cocoon.
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Feb 6, 2018 05:38
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Marlon Brando was in his 40s when he made the Godfather but under heavy old man makeup.
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Feb 6, 2018 05:56
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Mahoney is 15 years older than Grammer so it's not THAT big of a stretch. Carla Gugino played Malin Akerman's mom in Watchmen. Their age gap is 7 years.
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Feb 6, 2018 06:07
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Henchman of Santa posted:Mahoney is 15 years older than Grammer so it's not THAT big of a stretch. Estelle Getty was over a year younger than Bea Arthur. Golden Girls ruled, though, so it probably doesn’t belong in here.
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Feb 6, 2018 06:58
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Henchman of Santa posted:Carla Gugino played Malin Akerman's mom in Watchmen. Their age gap is 7 years. To be completely fair, most of Gugino's screen time is set before Akerman's character was born, and in her "present-day" scenes she's in heavy old age makeup. Casting like that gets a little more complicated when you're dealing with characters that appear mostly in flashback; you can either cast someone old and pull CGI fuckery to make them younger in the flashbacks, or you can cast someone young and put them in makeup in the present-day scenes.
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Feb 6, 2018 10:33
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rodbeard posted:Danny Glover was 40 when he made the first lethal weapon playing an old man nearing retirement. Damon Wayans, Sr. is older in the Lethal Weapon TV series than Danny Glover was in the first Lethal Weapon movie. In fact, I think he's older than Danny Glover was in the last Lethal Weapon movie. And he still looks about the same age he did in (off the top of my head) The Last Boy Scout 27 years ago.
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Feb 6, 2018 10:40
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CommonShore posted:Aragorn is a descendent of Elrond's brother. One brother founded the line of high human kings, and the other went to live with the elves. Even the human ubermenschen have immortal, supernatural origins. The Silmarillion is supposedly getting an adaptation, that poo poo is going to be bonkers. Now that will probably age perfectly, until it comes out all the actors playing the main characters have some skeletons in their closet. FreudianSlippers posted:Marlon Brando was in his 40s when he made the Godfather but under heavy old man makeup. That always blew my mind, he always looked the same age in The Godfather and in Island of Doctor Moreau, despite the huge time gap between them.
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Feb 6, 2018 10:52
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Don Gato posted:That always blew my mind, he always looked the same age in The Godfather and in Island of Doctor Moreau, despite the huge time gap between them. Likewise, Patrick Stewart has basically looked the same since the 1984 Dune movie.
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Feb 6, 2018 11:07
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Groke posted:Likewise, Patrick Stewart has basically looked the same since the 1984 Dune movie. Since 1984? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUwYwJ2DT_I
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Feb 6, 2018 11:11
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The Discworld TV specials are going to age badly quickly. I never got the logic of casting David Jason as both Ricewind and Albert. I know he's a national treasure but it reeks of vanity casting.
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Feb 6, 2018 11:42
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reality_groove posted:The Discworld TV specials are going to age badly quickly. That's because it was vanity casting. He was a good Albert but a bad Rincewind, so it's lucky that Hogfather was a good adaptation and TCOM was a bad adaptation.
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Feb 6, 2018 12:23
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