|
Literally The Worst posted:People calling Harry Dresden a Mary Sue don't actually know what that word means. There's seriously nine straight books about Harry being miserable and getting into worse and worse situations and barely coming out of them thanks to some bullshit plan he came up with at the last second. "Worse and worse situations" which he consistently gets more and more powerful to brute force his way through while constantly being the favoured right hand of fate and/or some powerful creature. Really, the thing that makes him a Mary Sue is that he gets into worse and worse situations and yet still comes out on top practically unscathed every time, because he always digs into some new well of power at the limit of his endurance like he's loving Goku or something. It's not too bad in the first book, second and third are dealable, but after that it just gets atrocious.
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2014 20:40
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 10:36 |
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:"Worse and worse situations" which he consistently gets more and more powerful to brute force his way through while constantly being the favoured right hand of fate and/or some powerful creature. Really, the thing that makes him a Mary Sue is that he gets into worse and worse situations and yet still comes out on top practically unscathed every time, because he always digs into some new well of power at the limit of his endurance like he's loving Goku or something. You and I have different ideas of unscathed. He is teetering on the brink of madness. The world keeps getting crappier and it's basically his fault. He owes his soul to someone who will give him a fate worse than death. I had a friend in college get me to read the SoT. Man I had so many issues with that first book. I kept telling my friend, Richard doesn't seem like a hero. Also since I was just off of a Tolkien kick it felt weird reading a book that was just straight "Normal English." Look forward to reading more.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2014 21:03
|
|
|
TheKennedys posted:I'm only on the first one (finally reading after years of procrastination) and Mary Sue might not be the right term, but he does seem like the type that yeah, gets to be the hero and has the answer to everything, which I guess is kinda built into the type of story where there's very few [insert special type of person] among billions of normal people. It's hard to explain the sense I got off Harry from the first book, but I'm more than willing to give him a chance, it seems like a pretty good series. The first two books are the worst ones in the series because he wrote them to piss off a teacher by writing a deliberately hypercliche noir/fantasy story. The third book is where he actually started trying and it's incredibly obvious, judging the series on the first two books is a terrible idea. Most people actually recommend skipping those two. IamnotJoe posted:You and I have different ideas of unscathed. He is teetering on the brink of madness. The world keeps getting crappier and it's basically his fault. He owes his soul to someone who will give him a fate worse than death. Also all of this. Every power up except one has come with the caveat of "And now things are actually worse. You have this power because you're actually in a worse position than you were a minute ago, and if you deal with that situation you'll lose it." BENGHAZI 2 fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Oct 13, 2014 |
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2014 21:18
|
|
|
IamnotJoe posted:You and I have different ideas of unscathed. Seriously right? I don't know how being killed is "getting away unscathed"... Edit: Yeah I know he comes back but if you've read the books you know it's not like it cost him nothing. Genuine Fake fucked around with this message at 21:27 on Oct 13, 2014 |
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2014 21:25
|
|
|
Holy_Zarquon posted:Seriously right? I don't know how being killed is "getting away unscathed"... Pssst. I am on your side.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2014 21:30
|
|
|
I honestly never got the feeling that he was ever particularly scarred or much worse off from his encounters. It seems like pretty much every time he comes away from it with a power up and the "bad stuff" is mostly done lip service to in the text, but never really feels like it comes out in the storytelling much. The thing is, I feel, that the bad stuff does not ever feel as a trade-off for his powers, or like it happened because he screwed up, it feels like it's something that happened incidentally. These people were going to get hurt, injured or alienated anyway, but now Dresden has gone Super Wizardsaiyan, so he's even more capable of blasting everything with death rays and also he's now a NEW kind of chosen one or a NEW kind of able to do something no one has done before ever! I also largely feel kind of cheated because the first book's conceit, "wizards aren't all-powerful, they have to think and their magic takes preparation" largely gets replaced with "PEW PEW, LASERS" a few books in.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2014 21:59
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:I honestly never got the feeling that he was ever particularly scarred or much worse off from his encounters. It seems like pretty much every time he comes away from it with a power up and the "bad stuff" is mostly done lip service to in the text, but never really feels like it comes out in the storytelling much. The thing is, I feel, that the bad stuff does not ever feel as a trade-off for his powers, or like it happened because he screwed up, it feels like it's something that happened incidentally. These people were going to get hurt, injured or alienated anyway, but now Dresden has gone Super Wizardsaiyan, so he's even more capable of blasting everything with death rays and also he's now a NEW kind of chosen one or a NEW kind of able to do something no one has done before ever! I think you would appreciate the last couple books. Let's just say he's definitely pretty broken. IamnotJoe posted:Pssst. I am on your side. Oh I know, I was agreeing with you. The edit was more me preemptively defending my statement.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2014 22:13
|
|
|
Munkeymon posted:Jack Ryan beats Kvothe any day. Can't speak to Dresden. Jack Ryan definitely fits the Mary Sue mold. Right from the start you get told he is special because he was a military policeman and they get trained to beat up Army Rangers OMG. And any supposed flaws he has don't matter because all the women still want him anyway despite him apparently not being attractive.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2014 22:26
|
|
|
chiefnewo posted:Jack Ryan definitely fits the Mary Sue mold. Right from the start you get told he is special because he was a military policeman and they get trained to beat up Army Rangers OMG. And any supposed flaws he has don't matter because all the women still want him anyway despite him apparently not being attractive. I've been reading Clancy for decades. Jack Ryan was never an MP. He was a marine who broke his back in a training accident and it never comes up other than a) he knows how to use a pistol, b) a fear of flying, and c) a well ingrained reflex for salutes. The problem with Ryan was that the only promotion left for him was Pope. Now John Clark, that might have been some authorial wish fulfillment.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2014 22:58
|
|
|
Holy_Zarquon posted:I think you would appreciate the last couple books. Let's just say he's definitely pretty broken. Ehhhhhh. The problem I have with Dresden is that he's now empowered by like three or four different world-shattering superpowers and all the big names that could ever exist in the ~*~supernatural community~*~ are deeply interested and invested in him and etc, etc. Like, I enjoyed it a lot more when it was more lovely WIZARD COP.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2014 23:02
|
|
|
TProfessorCirno posted:Ehhhhhh. The most interesting thing to happen in a long time was the Murphy short story where she talks about how Harry is basically a big autistic weirdo.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2014 23:22
|
|
|
chiefnewo posted:Jack Ryan definitely fits the Mary Sue mold. Right from the start you get told he is special because he was a military policeman and they get trained to beat up Army Rangers OMG. And any supposed flaws he has don't matter because all the women still want him anyway despite him apparently not being attractive. You're thinking of Jack Reacher there, not Jack Ryan. And yes, Jack Reacher fits that mold to a T.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2014 23:23
|
|
|
ProfessorCirno posted:Ehhhhhh. I'm kind of ambivalent about this, because his recent upgrade in power has also coincided with him actually starting to plan ahead and occasionally getting legitimately clever, which was absent in books 5-11. I do miss the era when box cutters could be a weapon of mass destruction.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2014 23:31
|
|
|
thespaceinvader posted:You're thinking of Jack Reacher there, not Jack Ryan. And yes, Jack Reacher fits that mold to a T. The Jack Reacher books are also a British man poking fun at that type of character and story, though.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2014 23:32
|
|
|
TheCenturion posted:I've been reading Clancy for decades. Jack Ryan was never an MP. He was a marine who broke his back in a training accident and it never comes up other than a) he knows how to use a pistol, b) a fear of flying, and c) a well ingrained reflex for salutes. You're totally right with Clark. Ryan is definitely some authorial wish fulfillment of the other sort, though: he's basically Tom Clancy if Tom Clancy worked for the CIA, and if the CIA worked the way that Clancy thinks it does. Even though he's not a kill-dozing super-soldier, he is a multimillionaire history professor/CIA analyst, married to a brilliant eye surgeon who also manages to be a perfect mother to his two children, who gets to regularly plan and execute secret missions and boss around elite kill teams, and (spoilers for Debt of Honor and Executive Orders) ends up the president twice because the Japanese flew a plane into the Capitol building (killing off basically the entirety of the elected federal government -- most of congress, the Prez and VP, and the entire Supreme Court) and not-Ted Kennedy sucks so hard. This allows Ryan to rebuild the entire country in his image, once that nasty rapist Ed Kealty (not Ted Kennedy, totally not!) is taken care of. The books before Debt of Honor are pretty fun mil-adventure, though. It's only after that that the super political and xenophobic stuff starts to pile in, occasional weird ideas ("Why don't we get the Swiss guard to administer Israel? Both sides will totally got for this!") aside. (For those curious about the CIA's opinions on Clancy's work, there was a brutal parody of Hunt for Red October passed around the offices that has made its way online. You can read it here: http://gawker.com/read-the-cias-parody-version-of-tom-clancys-most-famo-1440143480 ) Toph Bei Fong fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Oct 14, 2014 |
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2014 23:57
|
|
|
ProfessorCirno posted:Ehhhhhh. The thing to remember when reading the Dresden books is that Jim Butcher is a tabletop RPGer and Dresden essentially exists in an RPG style world. Each book he beats a big bad and gains a level and gets a new power up. When he starts out the first book he's a level one murderhobo and gets to deal with the same low level 'goblins and orcs' that all first level characters are challenged by, but now he's leveled up enough to gain his own fiefdom and become a real power player like any other 10th+ level murderhobo. By the end of the series he will probably be ready to gain his first immortal level. If anything TG should appreciate that despite being a wizard he's very physical and not afraid to solve some problems by casting 'fist' a couple times on someone's face if needed.
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2014 00:17
|
|
|
Browsing on 3DS. Typing a pain. Cannot update from here, but CAN shut thread. Back in a few days, everyone!
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2014 00:20
|
|
|
So in more "the Sword of Truth is a cursed artifact" news, it has two huge downsides! Rather than explain them, because that would be the sane thing to do when dealing with magical WMDs, Zedd quickly appoints Kahlan as the Seeker and has her smash the poo poo out of an evil tree.quote:"When I left the Midlands with this sword, Darken Rahl used his magic to place the larger of these two trees here, to mark me, to be able to come for me at a time of his choosing. So he could kill me. The same Darken Rahl who had Dennee killed." Her countenance became darker. "The same Darken Rahl who hunts you, to kill you like he killed your sister." Hate flared in her eyes. Her teeth clenched, making the muscles in her strong jaw line stand out. The Sword of Truth rose from the ground. Zedd stepped behind her. "This tree is his. You must stop him." That's right: not only does he gently caress with her, he also has her blow up something planted in memory of his dead wife. The High Wizard, everybody! Anyway, Richard is then told to attack the other tree, and the sword stops every time within inches of it. Perception is key, which apparently makes labelling it the sword of TRUTH a bit of a misnomer when every rear end in a top hat can defeat it like it was a lie detector. Blah blah there is an entire speech about how Richard and Darken Rahl are the same because they both perceive themselves to be in the right. This is quote:Richard unfolded his arms and sighed. "While all of this is interesting, it isn't going to frighten me away from doing what it is I must, what I believe to be right. So what is this business about a price to using the Sword of Truth?" "If you aren't berserking when you use this sword, murder makes you FEEL THINGS." So yeah let's chalk up more poo poo in the "why in the hell did this get created?" column. Anyway, this is the part where the book actually picks up for a little, because Richard has to play Boy Detective for a bit, and his first mystery to solve: how the gently caress are they going to get to the Midlands without walking through literal Hell? quote:Richard ignored the question, too deep in his own stream of thought to answer, and instead turned back to the mountains. It was true; there was a pass across the boundary! His father had found it, and used it! That was the only way the Book of Counted Shadows could have been in Westland. He couldn't have brought it with him when he moved here, before the boundary, and he couldn't have found it in Westland; the book had magic. The boundary wouldn't have worked if magic had been here then. Magic could only be brought into Westland after the boundary was up. Note I said "picks up" and not "improves", because Goodkind can't write a mystery or a puzzle to save his life. Anything similar is going to be either very, very easy to pick out as a reader, or utter bullshit because someone (read: Zedd) is holding back a key piece of information he didn't think to share before the eleventh hour. Either way, Richard is probably gonna solve it in a chapter's time at this phase of the story because early on "Oh, I memorized a book of prophecy" is game-breaking. In the morning, a mob arrives to try and kill Zedd, who they keep calling a witch. Kahlan threatens them to no avail because nobody knows dick-all about her powers/profession, Richard nearly kills a man the instant he draws the sword. Zedd then proceeds to own. quote:"Gentlemen. Oh, John, how is your little girl?" Zedd loving rocks.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2014 22:20
|
|
|
Should be doing one or two posts a day until I finish the first book at this rate, spent the time with sketchy internet writing.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2014 22:21
|
|
|
DARKSEID DICK PICS posted:In the morning, a mob arrives to try and kill Zedd, who they keep calling a witch. Kahlan threatens them to no avail because nobody knows dick-all about her powers/profession, Richard nearly kills a man the instant he draws the sword. Zedd then proceeds to own. I figured if you had a problem with this part, you'd have a problem with this SPECIFIC part, knowwhutimsayin? I don't care how good a speaker you are, a crowd of people aren't going to suddenly not be able to feel their dicks with their hands. You can't talk somebody into losing a sense.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2014 22:46
|
|
|
"To prove that I'm not evil, I'm now going to castrate all of you!" Also a bit of casual misogyny there.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2014 22:47
|
|
|
Eh, I let that one slide as a 'significant shrinkage' issue myself. Other than that though Goodkind is terrible at these sorts of speeches and it just gets worse as the series progresses.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2014 22:52
|
|
|
Oh, oops, I cut that off a line too soon. Yeah, Zedd actually didn't cast poo poo, he just played a trick on them and then some koro poo poo happened.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2014 22:58
|
|
|
MonsieurChoc posted:"To prove that I'm not evil, I'm now going to castrate all of you!" Don't forget being called a woman is termed as 'demeaning'.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2014 23:15
|
|
|
Wait, I thought Zedd couldn't appoint a Seeker? How did he make Kahlan a Seeker?
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2014 23:44
|
|
|
Nihilarian posted:Wait, I thought Zedd couldn't appoint a Seeker? How did he make Kahlan a Seeker? quote:He turned to Richard. "Draw the sword." The unique ringing, metallic sound filled the late-afternoon air as the sword came free. Zedd leaned closer. "Now, I will show you the most important thing about the sword, but to do so I need you to briefly abdicate your post as Seeker, and allow me to name Kahlan Seeker." Yeah, Zedd lies a lot.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2014 23:47
|
|
|
isn't there something in the later books- actually maybe even later in THIS book- which makes Zedd's 'and now you have no penises' thing make even less sense and be something he shouldn't actually have been able to do?
Stallion Cabana fucked around with this message at 06:14 on Oct 25, 2014 |
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2014 06:12
|
|
|
I don't think tricking people breaks the rules.
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2014 06:26
|
|
|
Stallion Cabana posted:isn't there something in the later books- actually maybe even later in THIS book- which makes Zedd's 'and now you have no penises' thing make even less sense and be something he shouldn't actually have been able to do? Probably referring to the fact that Zed can only use "additive" magic, not "subtractive" magic. Which I always thought sounded pretty dumb. But as mentioned, this isn't magic just "the power of suggestion" taken to a ridiculous extreme.
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2014 06:38
|
|
|
oriongates posted:Probably referring to the fact that Zed can only use "additive" magic, not "subtractive" magic. Which I always thought sounded pretty dumb. The whole 'additive versus subtractive' thing never quite made sense to me. He deomnstrated it by saying that he could grow his beard but he couldn't make it disappear and my instant thought at age... probably 10 or so... was 'but he could just ADD some air between his skin and the beard hair and it would fall off'. It's a solid logic (rather like Eddings' WIll and Word in the Belgariad, where the only thing magic can't do is make something not be) but he never really explores it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2014 08:18
|
|
|
That excerpt reads exactly like a lovely chain email your grandma would forward you only instead of it ending with a marine punching a professor in the face for Jesus a wizard is stealing people's testicles for something or other.
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2014 08:34
|
|
thespaceinvader posted:...It's a solid logic (rather like Eddings' WIll and Word in the Belgariad, where the only thing magic can't do is make something not be) but he never really explores it. I've always rather liked Will and the Word in the Eddings' books because there were always consequences when you did stuff with magic. Like this one time where Belgarion causes a massive thunderstorm without really thinking about what loving with weather patterns can do. He gets a visit like half a year later from his super angry wizard grandpa who lectures him about how he and his fellow crotchety old wizard friends had to spend the last six months fixing crazy weather across the world because he messed with things he didn't understand.
|
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2014 13:24
|
|
|
oriongates posted:Probably referring to the fact that Zed can only use "additive" magic, not "subtractive" magic. Which I always thought sounded pretty dumb. I was more impressed that, to a man, literally nothing ended up more valuable than penis. Because of course. Family? Nope, all about that dong.
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2014 20:12
|
|
|
AVeryLargeRadish posted:I've always rather liked Will and the Word in the Eddings' books because there were always consequences when you did stuff with magic. Like this one time where Belgarion causes a massive thunderstorm without really thinking about what loving with weather patterns can do. He gets a visit like half a year later from his super angry wizard grandpa who lectures him about how he and his fellow crotchety old wizard friends had to spend the last six months fixing crazy weather across the world because he messed with things he didn't understand. Also Eddings is an interesting writer.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2014 03:38
|
|
|
Eddings is one of the least original major fantasy writers. But he owned it. He didn't have any interest in telling new stories, he wanted to tell old stories, but tell them well. He calculated the entire thing out, exactly which tropes he'd use, which stock characters, and he polished it until it was perfect. It's incredibly derivative, but it's so well done it's extremely entertaining. Goodkind is neither original nor good at writing.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2014 05:04
|
|
|
Moinkmaster posted:I was more impressed that, to a man, literally nothing ended up more valuable than penis. Because of course. Family? Nope, all about that dong.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2014 08:23
|
|
|
Also, that the crowd didn't collectively decide to kill the witch to get their dongers back.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2014 09:18
|
|
|
JackMann posted:Eddings is one of the least original major fantasy writers. But he owned it. He didn't have any interest in telling new stories, he wanted to tell old stories, but tell them well. He calculated the entire thing out, exactly which tropes he'd use, which stock characters, and he polished it until it was perfect. It's incredibly derivative, but it's so well done it's extremely entertaining. My friends and I read the Belgariad/Malloreon/Elenium during high school. They ate it up. I ended up hating it for years afterward, until I realized that they read remarkably well as elaborate genre parodies. I still didn't enjoy them as much as my friends had, but I suddenly had a lot more respect for Eddings as a writer. I'm still not sure where I stand on Feist.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2014 15:35
|
|
|
Bieeardo posted:I'm still not sure where I stand on Feist. Didn't he... plagiarize a lot of his worldbuilding stuff? Or maybe I'm confusing him with someone else. I really liked Daughter of the Empire. Oh, I found it: http://ferretbrain.com/articles/article-134 quote:The thing is, while I do enjoy Ray Feist's books, I just can't bring myself to give him any money because he's a thief.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2014 16:38
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 10:36 |
|
|
The Riftwar is also 30 books long at this point. It was hard to keep up momentum reading the Wheel of Time.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2014 18:22
|
|