[Terez]

Raymond Luxury Yacht, on Oct 28 2008, 02:59 PM, said:

Terez, on Oct 28 2008, 12:13 PM, said:

hmm, contrived. That's how I feel about, for instance, when Quick Ben said something about unleashing 7 warrens or whatever. That was pure cheez.

If you're trying to lash out by insulting an author I like, it's not going to work. I pick apart authors i like at least as much as authors I don't. SE, like ALL authors I like or don't like, has flaws.

Why would you think I was trying to lash out? You guys are acting like there's some sort of Divine Rule for how characters should be developed. It's obviously subjective, so I don't really understand that tack. I don't generally bitch about Erikson's flaws. I like his books. But I think it's pretty lame how all of you guys pretend that your opinions are the only logical ones.

[Terez]

Cause, on Oct 28 2008, 02:27 PM, said:

I have always wanted to ask. Terez as a huge fan of wot and a womn howd did you take to the whole Rand and three women thing? And his female characters in general

His female characters are just as much caricatures as his male ones. The three women thing doesn't bother me, any more than Myrelle's four Warders (she's "married" to all of them) do.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Terez, on Oct 28 2008, 01:42 PM, said:

Raymond Luxury Yacht, on Oct 28 2008, 02:59 PM, said:

Terez, on Oct 28 2008, 12:13 PM, said:

hmm, contrived. That's how I feel about, for instance, when Quick Ben said something about unleashing 7 warrens or whatever. That was pure cheez.

If you're trying to lash out by insulting an author I like, it's not going to work. I pick apart authors i like at least as much as authors I don't. SE, like ALL authors I like or don't like, has flaws.

Why would you think I was trying to lash out? You guys are acting like there's some sort of Divine Rule for how characters should be developed. It's obviously subjective, so I don't really understand that tack. I don't generally bitch about Erikson's flaws. I like his books. But I think it's pretty lame how all of you guys pretend that your opinions are the only logical ones.

I thought you MIGHT be doing the old "You made fun of my author so I'm going to make fun of yours." If not sorry.

It's not that i think my argument is the only logical one. As already stated, liking an author and their techniques is based on what personally appeals to you. RJ's characters do not personally appeal to me, so to me, his characterization is weak. Some agree with me. Others don't.

[Cougar]

It's manifestly obvious to me as a fan of both authours that SE characters are far more subtle and well developed from a purely technical point of view - they are just better written. Everything else, like you say is totally subjective, whether you dislike the characters is immaterial, whose stories you prefer, or the style of story telling you favour aren't important as everyone will have their own taste which is a fair call.

[Terez]

See, it's that sort of talk that bothers me. I'm a fan of both as well. What makes your opinion on it more valid than mine?

[Werthead]

Quote

Seriously?

Oh yeah. Not so much since the move and it was never like every five seconds or anything (but then neither is the Goodkind thing on Westeros), but people would slag him off with very little reason plus the apparently obligatory comments about how he's obviously going to die soon and all that stuff. Combined with the people on this forum who were actually gloating over RJ's illness and then death plus the juvenile 'hawt girls' threads, and you start seeing why Malazanempire has a bit of a crappy reputation out there amongst the various fantasy forums. I was going to say that things had been looking a lot better since the move, but then there were a few flame-war threads recently which weren't particularly pleasent either.

[murphy72]

Cause, on Oct 28 2008, 12:27 PM, said:

I have always wanted to ask. Terez as a huge fan of wot and a womn howd did you take to the whole Rand and three women thing? And his female characters in general

I'm going to put in my two cents worth on this even though it wasn't addressed to me. As a female and fan of WoT, I thought the three women marrying Rand was hilarious. I laughed so hard, I almost fell off the couch. If those women stick together, Rand won't have a chance.

[Vengeance]

Werthead, on Oct 28 2008, 05:04 PM, said:

Quote

Seriously?

Oh yeah. Not so much since the move and it was never like every five seconds or anything (but then neither is the Goodkind thing on Westeros), but people would slag him off with very little reason plus the apparently obligatory comments about how he's obviously going to die soon and all that stuff. Combined with the people on this forum who were actually gloating over RJ's illness and then death plus the juvenile 'hawt girls' threads, and you start seeing why Malazanempire has a bit of a crappy reputation out there amongst the various fantasy forums. I was going to say that things had been looking a lot better since the move, but then there were a few flame-war threads recently which weren't particularly pleasent either.

Who were the people gloating over RJ's illness and death... Every thing that I saw was how sad people were. Also what flame-war threads???? The "I win" was pretty much kept to the inn. Are there wars going on that people aren't letting me in on.... Seriously guys that isn't cool.... I always thought that we were a nice group of guys... It might be that other fantasy forums as filled with obnoxious pricks who don't know how to joke around and have fun so they come here and it blows their minds..


-Goodkind makes ones eyes bleed and shouldn't be in a discussion about RJ, Marin, or SE. Also his (TG's) crappy TV show is coming on this weekend I can't stand it....I am predicting an outbreak of brain bleeding across the country...

This post has been edited by Vengeance: 28 October 2008 - 11:22 PM

[Falco]

Werthead, on Oct 29 2008, 09:04 AM, said:

Quote

Seriously?

Oh yeah. Not so much since the move and it was never like every five seconds or anything (but then neither is the Goodkind thing on Westeros), but people would slag him off with very little reason plus the apparently obligatory comments about how he's obviously going to die soon and all that stuff. Combined with the people on this forum who were actually gloating over RJ's illness and then death plus the juvenile 'hawt girls' threads, and you start seeing why Malazanempire has a bit of a crappy reputation out there amongst the various fantasy forums. I was going to say that things had been looking a lot better since the move, but then there were a few flame-war threads recently which weren't particularly pleasent either.

Internet. Serious Business.


Anyway, regards the characters thing- for me, a lot of RJ's characters are pretty similar to each other. Almost all the women feel like...not cardboard cutouts, that Eddings, but like a series of sketches done by the same artist of the same object. Subtly different, but essentially the same. The three main male protagonists are a little more fleshed out granted.

SE's characters are for the most past, overpowered for the lack of a better word. But inside, what makes them tick and how they act...that's far more complicated, and ranges the whole gamut of possibilities far more than anything I saw RJ dish up.

This is my opinion. It is not any more valid than anyone elses.

[globish rip]

It's manifestly obvious to me as a fan of both authours that SE characters are far more subtle and well developed from a purely technical point of view - they are just better written.

o c'mon that is not really true in the least. i mean what technical pov are you using? what criterion are you using to judge here? jordan and erkison are asking their chars to do fairly different things and in different ways unless yr willing to concede aspie solipsism like that one dude upthread the scale is always shifting and it can't always be measured the distance between yr own prejudices.

fwiw this from james wood: I think that novels tend to fail not when the characters are not vivid or "deep" enough, but when the novel in question has failed to teach us how to adapt to its conventions, has failed to manage a specific hunger for its own characters, its own reality level.

that's the basis i'd use for a wot chars > malaz chars argument. obv to a certain extent things are subjective, lol women vs. lol nobles is a taste argument more than anything, however it think its fair to judge relative performance. and jordan never betrayed a char in the same way that erkison did udinaas for e.g. or we can talk about "vibrating flatness" (stealing from forster here) the way that jordan uses repeated details does bring a char to life it animates them even if it's same-y and flat. erkison's more "subtle" chars often lack that life tho, so shadowed and greyed as to appear dead.

[Use Of Weapons]

I would draw a distinction between character _portrayal_ and character _development_. In Wu, the only characters who get developed are the ones young enough at the beginnning to require moulding: Paran, Apsalar, Cutter, and the like. The others are generally too old for much change: Whiskeyjack, Dujek, Coltaine, Duiker, the old guard in general, and certainly the ascendants, Imass, Tiste X. These latter may be well _portrayed_, but they cannot be developed.

Whereas RJ has mainly young characters, who need maturing and developing. And I don't think you can argue that we haven't seen changes in Mat, Perrin, Rand, Elayne, Gawain, Nynaeve, Min, and even some of the bit part players of similar age. And likewise, the older characters Moiraine, Lan, Siuan, Thom, and even some Forsaken (not to mention Lews Therin) have received no development per se, but are complex by dint of age, and that complexity is revealed bit by bit.

[Cougar]

Terez, on Oct 28 2008, 09:35 PM, said:

See, it's that sort of talk that bothers me. I'm a fan of both as well. What makes your opinion on it more valid than mine?

Yeah it's just the eternal problem of 'tone' when writing in a conversational style, I don't think my opinion is any more valid than yours in this case it's all rather subjective of course, maybe I should have italicised 'to me', or said 'to me personally' or somesuch. I feel that by any reasonable criteria of English literature Erikson is superior in this one respect.

I think there is an interesting point made about character development by jtsukker later, the only thing I'd say about that is that several of RJs characters just turn into new versions of existing characters; the girls in particular seem to develop into younger versions of the Aes Sedai which is not a style criticism, just disappointing **sniffs**

Werts' unfortuantely somewhat accurate assessment of ME as the juvenile year 7s compared to Westeros' pickup driving 6th formers above reminded me of a discussion on Westeros about characterisation where he amongst others pointed out that the characterisation in GRRM is far more in depth which I'd agree with (read half of GoT and gave up because I didn't want to get involved in another gripping series that won't be finished before I die) than SE. Which made me think that as an authour at some stage you have to make a call about just what aspects of the world you are going to focus on for the sake of length and keeping the story moving. If you are going to fetishise character building like GRRM does then it is going to be at the expense of other elements like world building or story pace etc. If you are going to be a tremendously descriptive writer then the pace will suffer (kind of anti-Gemmellism). Perhaps to say RJs characters are underdeveloped isn't so much a criticism of his shortcomings but a consequence of decision he has made as an authour.

Now with my mod hat on; C4S - if you are going to discuss the use of English please use it yourself, it is very hard to understand the points you are trying to make when you use so much text speak etc. No one cares about the other, finer points of grammar or spelling really just this. This may seem somewhat mean spirited but it only detracts from what seems to be an intelligently made point.

[Terez]

I agree - textspeak is bad.

I think that Rand is one of the most interestingly developed characters in the history of fiction. I've written well over a hundred pages of analysis on the subject...

[Abyss]

Terez, on Oct 29 2008, 03:00 PM, said:

... I've written well over a hundred pages of analysis on the subject...

Terez, on Oct 29 2008, 03:00 PM, said:

... I've written well over a hundred pages of analysis on the subject...

Terez, on Oct 29 2008, 03:00 PM, said:

... I've written well over a hundred pages of analysis on the subject...

I was initially shocked at this until i glanced at my own post count and decided to shut up. People in glass skykeeps should not cast spells and all that...

- Abyss, ...does in fact know someone named 'Rand'...

This post has been edited by Abyss: 30 October 2008 - 07:53 PM

[Aptorian]

Did you know that South Africa named their currency after the Dragon Reborn?

[Cause]

Aptorian, on Oct 30 2008, 09:56 PM, said:

Did you know that South Africa named their currency after the Dragon Reborn?

Of course we have a long history of opposing the shadow. And other black things as well.

Rand is an interesting character, I feel however that after six books of no real growth he is becoming somewhat like a charicture. His protection of women is a prime characteristic but one would have that after a few years out of two rivers surrounded by maidens of the spear he would 'grow up'. And for the love of god yes we know he was innocent and know he is hard, real hard, unbeliavably hard lets have it go somewhere. I like to imagine that his hardness is a kind of growing madness in him from the taint. At least partially.

This post has been edited by Cause: 30 October 2008 - 09:25 PM

[Terez]

Abyss, on Oct 30 2008, 02:53 PM, said:

I was initially shocked at this until i glanced at my own post count and decided to shut up. People in glass skykeeps should not cast spells and all that...

I have well over 10,000 posts between Theoryland's current and previous incarnations.

Abyss said:

Abyss, ...does in fact know someone named 'Rand'...

But do you know Lews Therin?

[MecnunK]

Terez, on Oct 28 2008, 03:29 AM, said:

No need to feel sorry for him. He's pretty much thrilled to have the opportunity.

thats not quite what I meant just that I just feel he is in a no win situation. It cannot be an easy task either way..that kind of sorry... I am sure he is happy to do it or I guess he would have declined.

You seem to know your WOt so I was just wondering if I have missed something in my reading or does House Trankard only have 2 people in it and no-one else?

This post has been edited by MecnunK: 31 October 2008 - 01:13 AM

[Terez]

MecnunK, on Oct 30 2008, 08:10 PM, said:

You seem to know your WOt so I was just wondering if I have missed something in my reading or does House Trankard only have 2 people in it and no-one else?

Well, there are at least three people in House Trakand - Morgase, Elayne, and Gawyn - but yeah, as far as we know there isn't anyone else in the House ruling family (just a lot of people in the Houses that pay tribute to Trakand). It could be that Elayne has cousins she's just not all that close to, though. Judging by Lini's lineage of Trakand women she's been nanny for, it's possible they were all only children, but then, she doesn't have a portrait of Gawyn.

EDIT: I should probably mention that Caraline Damodred introduced Rand to Darlin and the others as her "cousin" (presumably in the loose sense used among the nobility) "Tomas Trakand" when he decided to show up at the rebels' camp. It might be that this implies a larger family, or it might simply imply that the Cairhienin and Tairens don't know much about the Andoran nobility (if Morgase and her children are the only Trakands, then the Andoran nobles would surely be aware of that, but Cairhienin and Tairen nobility might not). On the other hand, the Damodred family is closely related to the Trakands (and another Andoran House, the Mantears) via marriages with Taringail, Moiraine's half-brother. One of those marriage produced Elayne and Gawyn; the other produced Galad.

This post has been edited by Terez: 31 October 2008 - 01:43 AM

[Abyss]

Terez, on Oct 30 2008, 08:33 PM, said:

...

Abyss said:

Abyss, ...does in fact know someone named 'Rand'...

But do you know Lews Therin?

Actually, i was hideously dissappointed to discover yesterday that it's just short for 'Randall'. That deceitful bastard.

- Abyss, will make him pay... oh yes, how he will pay...