Nashk
Tyrant of Kyushu
- Location
- Kyoshi Island
Burned by Euphonium too eh?
Cliches you can't stand
- Thread starter Mithras
- Start date
Kokurokoki
"IDW DA NYA!"
- Location
- Area S09
I never watched it unfortunately, but having read about it it irked me quite a bit.
I mean, I don't dislike him as a character (with his warts and all), it's just noticeable that he does it. Jaime also has streaks of it in him too but Tyrion comes to mind first because he has a snarky way of dealing with the world around him even if there are others who aren't very gung-ho about religion
- Pronouns
- They/Them
True, I think part of it is he actually had a reason. The other part is that despite his snarky so-called detachment he really did fucking care. Like, he didn't say, "Whatever, the world sucks, let me make a joke about it" when he learned his father had ruined his chance at love. He straight up murdered someone in a hot, attached, rage. Like, his detachment is all 'cool' and stuff, but in the end he still wants to be liked (on his own terms, admittedly) and even loved, and he clearly sorta accepts the intellectual framework of the world, if that makes sense?
Like, his detachment is a pose that he slips out of several times. Eh, not sure how to put it.
DezoPenguin
Text Wall
- Location
- USA
There are three separate problems with baiting in stories:
1) It's insulting, generally, to the LGBT+ community, by degrading their sexualities to meta-level titillation and in-story phases.
2) It interferes with storytelling because it operates on the meta-level, disrupting the flow of the narrative and character development for the sake of deliberately interfering with the audience's perception.
3) It screws with the audience so that their expectations of a show go beyond what's actually in the show because of their familiarity with narrative tropes.
(Love triangles, for example, are already fraught with narrative peril. But just try to put a bisexual person in the center of one, and expect the audience to explode and go to war with itself and probably with the writers. Everything about it will turn into a meta-level debate in five seconds flat. Likewise, audiences are already prone (because people are, well, people) to parse any interaction between characters as feeding shipping urges anyway, and you'll end up getting accusations of baiting any time two characters of the same gender have any meaningful interactions--because there are some shows that actually do it on purpose.)
Reveen
Castro-Trudeauist
Well, when his father ruined his idealized projection of a waifu figure, that is.
Anyway, I think the problem with GRR Martin is not that specific characters don't give a fuck about religion, other clearly do like Catelyn. It's that religion doesn't really seem to have a solid presence in society up until it becomes relevant to the plot, and it doesn't look like the average person on the street really gives a fuck about it either.
It's not just with the Seven, as much as I like Damphair as a POV character he's clearly kind of ineffectual even though he's supposed to be the face of the traditional, ideology based religion of his people. People who aren't his direct followers just seem to be humouring him, and he's pretty quickly marginalized at the Kingsmoot, even though in any other pre-modern culture this guy screaming "NO GODLESS MAN MAY SIT THE SEASTONE CHAIR" would be a pretty big deal and give people pause about following a psycho sorcerer pirate. The closest we get to a religious figure integrated into society is Septon Maribald (who is turned into some born again hippy motherfucker who doesn't know what gods he worships on the show because reasons).
The message I get from it is that Martin thinks that religion in only really relevant to the highly religious, and religious institutions serve society only in their traditionalist, ceremonial capacity.
Contrast with the Witcher, both the books and games, where the religion is even more vague and the characters seem to care even less about it. But there are clear signs that religion is integrated into society. The Priestesses of Melitele heal the sick and teach the young. One of the main characters starts he formal education at one of their temples. Priests and druids are involved in government, and small cult followings of minor deities (usually monsters) spring up everywhere.
It helps that the Witcher in general doesn't give a shit about mixing and matching modernism with it's fantasy. While ASOIAF is trying to be a representation of a pre-modern fantasy world.
Except she wasn't idealized for most of his life, since his father specifically set out to destroy that. It's realizing that that was a mean-spirited plot that drove him over the edge.
I don't think "waifu figure" really captured what happened here, considering what Tywin did and when.
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- Location
- Singapore
When everything revolves around the MC.
Will explain later.
Will explain later.
- Location
- Singapore
ok anyway, when everything revolves around the MC.
case in point: Harry dresden.
Ok, Harry dresden, I don't like for several reasons. But here's one.
ok.... so he's some private investigator.... so thats ok.
Then boom! Suddenly, his grandfather's one of the stronger wizards out there, with a license to kill. And get this, he's the White council's wetworks man. Which means he kills whomever threatens harry. So there goes the tension.
And then harry has a fairy godmother. Who looks out for him. So even less tension.
And then he gets allies. Continuously. Like, the alphas, a lot more..... it kinda gets tiring.
Then he becomes a winter knight, gets soulfire, is a starborn, defeated he who walks behind....
Basically, he's central to every or most plot.
Yeah, I know this happens to most protagonists, but I think the execution is off.
Ellf
Apprentice Wizard
- Location
- Virginia
Uh... Are we even reading the same series? The plot has to revolve around the protagonist or guess what? He's not the protagonist.
Reveen
Castro-Trudeauist
Huh?
Uh, not really? The protagonist is just the viewpoint character and usually the hero. Like, even with Luke Skywalker, who is the most protagonist protagonist to ever protagonize at least half the story doesn't centre around him. The Rebels would still be fighting the Empire regardless of whether he's there or not.
I don't know if it gets bad with Harry Dresden, but in general it's shitty writing to have all these different factions and characters being really interested in the hero and getting their noses up his ass, or for him to keep getting power upgrades unless there's a clear reason for it.
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- Location
- Singapore
There's quite a lot of power upgrdes, and characters being interested. There are reasons, but....
Ellf
Apprentice Wizard
- Location
- Virginia
Honestly, most of the things would be happening without Harry present too. Harry's the viewpoint character, and he's not the most unbiased person. Most of the things that Accelerator mentions have downsides that actually increase tension.
1. He's a PI. Sure, yeah. That's a conceit for the story.
2. His grandfather. Frankly, we don't learn that Ebenezar McCoy is his grandfather until "Changes." We just know that he's Harry's Mentor who stuck out his neck for him to prevent Harry from getting killed due to defending himself. The Blackstaff position we learn about in Book 6, and it takes Harry three books to get over the fact that his mentor, whom he trusted, lied to him. There's your tension. Oh, and let's not forget that there's more enemies that his grandfather has that cause the trouble in Changes in the first place.
3. The Leanansidhe, Harry's Fairy Godmother. When we're introduced to her, she's out to capture Harry and keep him safe by making him into one of her hounds. Harry made a deal with her and didn't pay up. She's come to collect. This creates even more drama when that debt is bought off of her later on. Yeah, we find out that she's been protecting Harry from even nastier nasties, but Harry is oblivious to that until book 12. Oh my, what a lowered tension.
4. Allies. Really? You're complaining about someone making friends? When he just as easily makes enemies? Oh, no. How dare a protagonist get help? The Alphas, (A group of werewolves), The Knights of the Cross, who often are doing their own thing, Murphy, who is his cop partner, and Waldo Butters, an ME. Such an amazing group of allies, I know.
5. Defeated He Who Walks Behind? Yeah, for a given definition of defeated. If you read Ghost Story, it's obvious He Who Walks was jobbing that fight hard. He intended to lose to Dresden. Soulfire? Yes. To balance out the fact that he lost Hellfire. Also, it has a major downside. Winter Knight? Downside. Starborn? We have no clue what that even means yet.
Would the Red Court War have started without Dresden? Yes.
Would the Summer Knight have been killed without Dresden? Yes.
Would the Darkhallow have been attempted without Dresden? Yes.
Would the White Court do their thing without Dresden? Yes.
Would Marcone have stepped in to try and stop it? Yes.
Would he have succeeded? Maybe. But the story isn't about Johnny Marcone. It's about Harry Dresden.
Let's look at Star Wars.
Would the Rebels be fighting the Empire without Luke? Yes.
Would they win without Luke? Dunno. Maybe. Luke's the one who made the shot on the Death Star I. Luke's the one who talked down Darth Vader. Luke's the one who was related to Darth Vader. Luke's the one who effectively defeated the Emperor.
Plot revolves around the protagonist or protagonists.
This doesn't mean that things don't happen that they don't cause. This does mean that when they are involved, they affect things more than the average person. The protagonist can turn the tide of a war. The protagonist can slay the dragon. The protagonist can do any number of things that are necessary for the plot because they're the protagonist.
They can also fail, but when they fail it should mean something. Because they're the protagonist.
Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
- Location
- SoCal
Agreeing with this. There's a difference between a story where the focus is on the hero. Which is completely fine and to be expected, we're reading the adventures of our protagonist after all, and a story that is . . . I guess . . . self aware? that the hero is the hero and thus twists itself into a pretzen to keep them important.
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DezoPenguin
Text Wall
- Location
- USA
I didn't find that it got bad with Dresden, but what I do think is that there was something of a paradigm shift in the series. The initial books were "Harry Dresden, Wizard P.I., investigates hard-boiled detective cases using magic that happen to be about magic." Typical of the hard-boiled detective genre, there was a clear, bright line between Harry, his friends, and his personal life issues generally on one side of the line, and the events of the case, the people he meets in the cases, and the like.
(This is, by the way, where I disagree with @Ellf and why I think Dresden Files readers may differ. There's a difference between "the protagonist is central to the story's resolution" (i.e. "the detective solves the case") and "the protagonist is central to the story's existence" (i.e. the main character is the prophesied Boy King who can pull the sword out of the anvil). The former is necessary except in extremely literary fiction, the latter is not. The latter can be part of both good and bad stories.)
That barrier, however, starts to fragment pretty quickly. It starts simply: the werewolf kids he meets in Book 2 become part of his circle of friends/contacts. There's a continuity of life between Dresden's personal and business worlds. Starting with Book 4, metaplot starts rearing its head. And as things develop, it starts to emerge that Harry is not merely Philip Marlowe solving cases, but he's a central figure in what's going down. Sometimes it's because of his personal connections. Other times it's because events of earlier books have consequences that have fallout in later books. By now, I think it's accurate to say that Harry is actually, personally involved in every metaplot element of significance. You can't cut Harry out of the story; even if you were to switch protagonists completely and start, say, writing with Molly Carpenter as the protagonist, Harry would still be there, a key element in the story.
Your opinion on whether this is an enjoyable, logical development of the plotline and universe, or whether it is a disruptive focus on a single character who becomes a black hole of the plot, is your opinion.
Vyslanté
The self is a prison
- Location
- European Union
So a story that would be Star Wars but seen by a random guy in the Alliance would be extremely literary fiction ?
DezoPenguin
Text Wall
- Location
- USA
Well...actually, yes!
First, remember that "protagonist" and "point-of-view character" are not the same thing. (Consider the obvious example which is again detective fiction: Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Watson is the narrator, but Holmes is the protagonist.) So if your story is "random Alliance guy watches while Skywalker and Solo and Leia and their Amazing Friends rescue people and blow up Death Stars and so on," then that's not an example of what I mean.
However, if what you're saying is that you're writing a story in which a random Alliance guy goes places and does things, but the things he does don't matter to the greater plotline, that he doesn't accomplish anything, that the entirety of the story is him looking at stuff, and thinking about what that stuff means and how does he feel about it, then...yeah, that's literary fiction that happens to be taking place in a science-fiction universe.
Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
- Location
- SoCal
Well, it would be more like random Alliance guy goes places and does things but only influences them at all in aggregate with all of the other random Alliance guys going places and doing things. Meanwhile it's doubtful there is anybody else who could have done what Luke Skywalker did. At least in Episode IV and VI.
Episode IV - It's doubtful anyone else, except maybe another Force user, could have made the Death Star shot.
Episode VI - Without Luke piquing both the Emperor and Vader's interest Vader would have been down on Endor slaughtering Ewoks and Rebel Commandos. Or up in space personally wiping out the Alliance's fighter screen before they ever reached the Death Star's core. Net result the Death Star keeps taking pot shots until the entire Rebel Fleet ceases to exist.
Vyslanté
The self is a prison
- Location
- European Union
Ah, yes, indeed. I quite like when those are separated.
One cliche I can't stand- and which Harry up there was mentioned to have but not limited to him- is characters with relatively mundane origins later on (at least, for their specialty), and then later on, we find out no, they really have one or more special parents/grandparents/whatever.
Like, Luke Skywalker did it and it was great. Harry Potter had stand-out parents but we knew that from book 1, so that's fine. But it's overused and misused and being revealed well after a character's been introduced usually feels off to me.
Peter Parker's parents were *secret agents*. Miles Morales' dad had done a mission with SHIELD (though that wasn't as bad since he was more roped into it). Scott Summer's dad turned out to be a Space Pirate (granted, Corsair is pretty cool, but still!).
Keiichi Morisato of Oh My Goddess has a gearhead dad (makes perfect sense!) and a mom who's... an angelic person implied to be a goddess of luck or something (or at least somehow has enough luck to regularly beat goddesses at Majong- and the goddesses are good at that game- it's hard to say what she is but she stands out).
I cherish when a character has just-normal parents.
Like, Luke Skywalker did it and it was great. Harry Potter had stand-out parents but we knew that from book 1, so that's fine. But it's overused and misused and being revealed well after a character's been introduced usually feels off to me.
Peter Parker's parents were *secret agents*. Miles Morales' dad had done a mission with SHIELD (though that wasn't as bad since he was more roped into it). Scott Summer's dad turned out to be a Space Pirate (granted, Corsair is pretty cool, but still!).
Keiichi Morisato of Oh My Goddess has a gearhead dad (makes perfect sense!) and a mom who's... an angelic person implied to be a goddess of luck or something (or at least somehow has enough luck to regularly beat goddesses at Majong- and the goddesses are good at that game- it's hard to say what she is but she stands out).
I cherish when a character has just-normal parents.
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- Location
- The Old Dominion
Of course having normal parents and an family linage aren't mutually exclusive which can make for tragic start of a journey or it can be amusing when lets say the seemly uptight elven matriarch of the family and mother to the hero's love interest turns out to have been a highwayman in her youth where she meet her husband such in the Raine Benares books.
keios
very normal
- Location
- US
This is one of mine too! I even understand why authors do it: having your orphaned/abandoned MC's parents end up being really important or involved in some Serious Shit allows you to combine plot and character development pretty easily... once I started mapping out my own stories, I saw how easy it was to fall into this trap. But I'm trying hard to resist..!
The two best sets of parents to come out of superhero comics in the last decade or so, IMO, are Jaime Reyes' parents at DC and Kamala Khan's at Marvel.
Flipside, you could go the 'characters know their parents are important, the parents just aren't around for known or unknown reasons.' If your character is, "My parents were two adventurers, presumed dead in..." then it's not that hard to use them in surprise plot.
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keios
very normal
- Location
- US
Yeah, in some ways it reduces to a wish-fulfillment situation. Start out with a normal kid, but then BAM! they're actually the heir to the secret throne of an entire alternate universe and their parents were the most popular rulers ever until they were assassinated! The farther away it is from this, the better it feels: Luke discovers his father is the villain; Harry's main plot-driving discoveries are ultimately about him and not his parents at all. I find that in many stories, I don't actually get annoyed because by the time we get there, I expect the reveal. And this particular trope is often done cleverly. But I just feel a sort of fatigue when I take a step back and survey the available media.