[King Bear]

Bauchelain the Evil, on 17 February 2011 - 08:49 AM, said:

Wert, Bakker and Abercrombie have all answered to him. I particularly liked Abercrombie's answer.

Yeah, this guy really missed the point. Doesn't he know that Norse mythology, which was one of Tolkien's inspirations, was way darker and pessimist than any " gritty" fantasy series we have today.

What about the myth of King Arthur, a la Mallory? Yes, Arthur was supposed to return at some stage, and things worked out ok for england in the denouement, but the climax and resolution to main story was pessimisitc and gritty. This from a summary of the ending to Mallory's Le Morte d'Arthur:
"As Arthur and Mordred (each flanked by an honour guard of fourteen) met to bargain on the field between their hosts, an adder bit a knight on the foot, and as he drew his sword to kill it, the worst was assumed, and soon the Battle of Salisbury (Arthur's eleventh and last) had accidentally started.

By evening, the field was strewn with a hundred thousand dead and very few living, other than Arthur, the badly injured brothers Lucan and Bedivere, and Mordred, but at last Arthur had his recreant son in his sights, and taking his spear from Lucan, he went to kill him. He quickly impaled Mordred on his spear, but his son pulled himself along the length of it and as he died he struck Arthur a lethal blow to the head.

Looters had by now appeared on the darkening battlefield, and when the two brothers Lucan and Bedivere tried to move the dying Arthur to safety, Lucan's guts fell out and he died."

Almost everyone gets slaughtered, and Arthur is killed by and kills his own son. Then a guy's guts fall out, and the only true victors are the looters. From Grin's article, I think Grin might claim that Arthur was a noble hero, and, despite the horrific ending, that sets Arthur's tale apart from Erikson et al. But Grin hasn't read tMBotF, so he doesn't know that Whiskeyjack was a noble hero, same with the Kuru Qan, Trull, Brys, Coltaine etc.

***DEADHOUSE GATES SPOILERS******



The story of Arthur is similar to Coltaine's, come to think of it. A great hero who dies in a tragic and horrible way after an orgy of slaughter, but with a promise of a sort of resurrection in the future. And with his death he saves the people he had sworn to protect (as Arthur saves England from Mordred.)



***DEADHOUSE GATES SPOILERS*******

Edit: so WTF is Grin on about, when he says modern fantasy betrays our mythic heritage? Is our mythic heritage Howard or LotRs? He gives no actual examples from myth.

And what about Cu Chulainn from celtic mythology? I remember reading one myth about him where he went into a berserk frenzy and started massacring everyone on the battle-field, friend and foe alike. Sounds less like an Aragon and more like something from Abercrombie. hmmm, maybe an Icarium?

This post has been edited by Bombur: 18 February 2011 - 01:29 PM

[Bauchelain the Evil]

And let's not talk about Greek mythology. The Ascendants of MBotF are really nice people compared to the incredibly jerky olympian gods.

Oh yeah, and there is not one hero in Greek mythology who earns an happy ending.

Oh, and the afterlife sucks so much that Achilles, the "better to die gloriously than live a long life" guy, once in the Underworld wished he had lived a long life as the last of the slaves than to have died young.

This post has been edited by Bauchelain the Evil: 17 February 2011 - 10:02 AM

[amphibian]

Bauchelain the Evil, on 17 February 2011 - 10:01 AM, said:

Oh yeah, and there is not one hero in Greek mythology who earns an happy ending.

Well... Odysseus does get back to his family.

[Bauchelain the Evil]

After ten years of hardships. And he then leaves Ithaca again for another long voyage and on his return he is killed by the son he had with Circe who had come to Ithaca searching for his father.

[QuickTidal]

Bauchelain the Evil, on 17 February 2011 - 04:46 PM, said:

After ten years of hardships. And he then leaves Ithaca again for another long voyage and on his return he is killed by the son he had with Circe who had come to Ithaca searching for his father.

Yup. THIS.

[Cyphon]

I can't wait for the second part.

[King Bear]

Cyphon88, on 17 February 2011 - 05:47 PM, said:

I can't wait for the second part.

yup forget SE and tCG. I'm Grin's fanboy now.... yeah, right.

[Kanubis]

Hmm, my memory is obviously failing me, I could have sworn that LoTR ended with a psychologically traumatised Frodo unable to cope with the world anymore and leaving Middle Earth along with the Elves and stuff, leaving ME as a mundane place bereft of magic.

[amphibian]

Bauchelain the Evil, on 17 February 2011 - 04:46 PM, said:

After ten years of hardships. And he then leaves Ithaca again for another long voyage and on his return he is killed by the son he had with Circe who had come to Ithaca searching for his father.

Where does this story come from? I can't find it in the Wiki or a few other pages I look through.

[QuickTidal]

Kanubis, on 17 February 2011 - 06:31 PM, said:

Hmm, my memory is obviously failing me, I could have sworn that LoTR ended with a psychologically traumatised Frodo unable to cope with the world anymore and leaving Middle Earth along with the Elves and stuff, leaving ME as a mundane place bereft of magic.

I seem to recall this as well.

Basically my initial draw to read LOTR when I was a youngster was BECAUSE it was rather dark. Here was a story that really showed a dark journey and very close to no one comes out at the other end unscathed. In fact, when it comes to a lot of so-called "Tolkien clones" that have come out since those books have (in a number of cases anyways) had the farmboy/stablehand hero comeout at the other end and go back to his normal life, or become king or whatever and never really shows the true traumatic aftermath of how something like taking out a dark lord and his minions would affect the people on the quest to do so. I think Lord Of The Rings totally addresses that (with not only Frodo's inability to cope, but with various other characters as well).

Also, Leo Grin is clearly a troll who was looking to rile up the masses and as Sam Sykes initially said we all should never have bothered with him. We know better than to feed trolls. LOL.

Ah well, at least it was amusing to see all the comments and posts about that jackwad (and his commenting conservative minions).

[QuickTidal]

amphibian, on 17 February 2011 - 06:41 PM, said:

Bauchelain the Evil, on 17 February 2011 - 04:46 PM, said:

After ten years of hardships. And he then leaves Ithaca again for another long voyage and on his return he is killed by the son he had with Circe who had come to Ithaca searching for his father.

Where does this story come from? I can't find it in the Wiki or a few other pages I look through.

textbook, not wikipedia.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 17 February 2011 - 06:58 PM

[Bauchelain the Evil]

amphibian, on 17 February 2011 - 06:41 PM, said:

Bauchelain the Evil, on 17 February 2011 - 04:46 PM, said:

After ten years of hardships. And he then leaves Ithaca again for another long voyage and on his return he is killed by the son he had with Circe who had come to Ithaca searching for his father.

Where does this story come from? I can't find it in the Wiki or a few other pages I look through.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegonus


Here's the part about his son killing him.

Odysseus having to make a long journey until he arrives in a nation that doesn't know what a paddle is and there make a sacrifice to finally appease Poseidon is prophesied by Tiresias in the Odyssey

This post has been edited by Bauchelain the Evil: 17 February 2011 - 06:47 PM

[Pig Iron]

Tolkien is holy for me and I don't want people like mr Grin soiling his name by association. Werts piece was perfect. Tolkien said once that the LoTR was about death. He had been a soldier in the "Great War" and seen his entire generation wiped out. And it shows in his books.

And as it says on Wikipedia that is someone else's (Eugamon probably) sequel to the Odyssey, not Homer. Kind of like Kevin Anderson. At the end of the Odyssey there's blood galore though:

First bleeds Antinous: thick the shafts resound,
And heaps on heaps the wretches strew the ground;
This way, and that, we turn, we fly, we fall;
Some god assisted, and unmann'd us all;
Ignoble cries precede the dying groans;
And battered brains and blood besmear the stones.

Doubt the guy (who's been given much too much attention but it's fun bashing) has read Howard either. Maybe he liked the movie with the Gov in his steroid days?

[QuickTidal]

Pig Iron, on 17 February 2011 - 07:00 PM, said:

And as it says on Wikipedia that is someone else's (Eugamon probably) sequel to the Odyssey, not Homer. Kind of like Kevin Anderson. At the end of the Odyssey there's blood galore though:

First bleeds Antinous: thick the shafts resound,
And heaps on heaps the wretches strew the ground;
This way, and that, we turn, we fly, we fall;
Some god assisted, and unmann'd us all;
Ignoble cries precede the dying groans;
And battered brains and blood besmear the stones.

Doubt the guy (who's been given much too much attention but it's fun bashing) has read Howard either. Maybe he liked the movie with the Gov in his steroid days?

Fair point.

[amphibian]

QuickTidal, on 17 February 2011 - 06:44 PM, said:

textbook, not wikipedia.

I own several Greek, Roman, Norse, Hindu and Chinese epics in book form. I have more than a passing fair familiarity with the Greek myths in particular, in part to my grandmother being a Greek/Roman archaeologist for her entire career and somewhat indoctrinating me in the myths from an early age, and I had never heard of a sequel to the Odyssey that had Odysseus dying in an ill-fated manner before. Saying the above is about the least helpful thing you could have said and needlessly dismissive too.

Thank goodness, Bauchelain replied with this:

Bauchelain the Evil, on 17 February 2011 - 06:45 PM, said:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegonus


Here's the part about his son killing him.

Odysseus having to make a long journey until he arrives in a nation that doesn't know what a paddle is and there make a sacrifice to finally appease Poseidon is prophesied by Tiresias in the Odyssey

Thanks, buddy.

I was kind of hoping that Odysseus escaped the usual Greek hero's fate. Armand Assante was so awesome in the miniseries that the character retroactively deserves a good fate.

[QuickTidal]

amphibian, on 17 February 2011 - 07:15 PM, said:

I own several Greek, Roman, Norse, Hindu and Chinese epics in book form. I have more than a passing fair familiarity with the Greek myths in particular, in part to my grandmother being a Greek/Roman archaeologist for her entire career and somewhat indoctrinating me in the myths from an early age, and I had never heard of a sequel to the Odyssey that had Odysseus dying in an ill-fated manner before. Saying the above is about the least helpful thing you could have said and needlessly dismissive too.

Sorry, there are textbooks that have this story listed in them. That's how I knew about it in fact.

It is clearly, harder to find the info on Wikipedia (as you found out).

Therefore I fail to see how I was being less than helpful nor how it was dismissive.

The information can be found in a textbook. It answered your question about where the information could be found quite clearly.

I realize you don't like me, but there's no need to get testy.

[Griff Edur]

Check out this prat guys:

Here

[masan's saddle]

Sombra, on 17 February 2011 - 09:30 AM, said:

<br />Obvious troll is obvious. Don't feed it.<br /><br />Nothing to see here. Move along. <br /><br /><img src='http://forum.malazanempire.com/public/style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /><br />

<br /><br /><br />

Whilst the subsequent discussions have been very interesting, I feel Sombra has it.

A cursory glance at the wiki concerning Andrew "webmaster" Breitbart and his brand of sensationalist crap was enough for me.

http://en.wikipedia....ndrew_Breitbart

[Stalker]

http://forum.malazanempire.com/index.php?showtopic=20872&pid=832993&st=0&#entry832993

The thread linked above is where the forum has been discussing Grin's post, if anyone is interested in adding their voice to the chorus against the article hehe.

This post has been edited by Stalker: 17 February 2011 - 08:04 PM

[masan's saddle]

Griff,there is already a thread about this over in the General forum.<br /><br />Welcome to the forums by the way.


EDIT 3 things really,

1 Stalker beat me to it.
2 You are not a new member
3 It's the Lit forum not the General, which is amazing really as I just posted on it

Triple fail

This post has been edited by masan's saddle: 17 February 2011 - 08:09 PM