the broken, on 01 October 2014 - 09:35 PM, said:
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You know, I can't actually think of many stories that actually follow the 'farm boy' trope, and in the ones that do, they're never 'just' a farmboy. Bilbo Baggins is 'middle aged landowner', Luke is Vader's son, Harry is famous for his parents...
Yes, but the details, the greater destiny, the finer points are an aside... the Farm Boy archetype is, in essence, a viewpoint character entering a new, bigger, world. All your examples follow that route. So do Jordan's Rand Al'Thor, GRRM's Jon Snow, Alexander's Taran Wanderer, McCaffery's Lessa, Butcher's Tavi, Feist's Pug and Tomas.... the trope goes on and on and on....
I'm another one who now has difficulty with a book that starts with a naive character being thrust into the big evil world. There are exceptions and exceptionals, but now, and in particular since i read the first four books of MBF a decade ago, i WANT the author to trust me to figure it out and not spoonfeed me 'everything i need to know'. Don't tell me how magic works because you think you need to explain it in the first five chapters... blow my mind, show me crazy shit and let me figure it out along the way. That investment is exactly what draws me in and put an author on my 'must-pre-order' list.