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Wag
 
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Marios (9/22/2006)
I read a couple of Lovecraft anthologies a year ago and he does have a healthy dose of Victorian era racial-anthropology - the idea that there's a gradation between man and animal which can largely be viewed in terms of similar traits (generally boiling down to having towns being taken over by idol worshipping mulattos). Again, he may be racist, but at least he's not a hypocrite.
Oh yes, very racist in many ways. The roleplaying games tend to gloss over the more extreme aspects of it - the idea that all 'natives' are barely human cultists. These sorts of ideas were actually fairly acceptable pre-WWII. After WWII it became very bad PR to announce yourself as any form of facist or racist. Though in many ways he wasn't so much a racist as an elitist.
What particularly annoys me is people who try to have it both ways. This fantasy world is a bastion of liberal 21st century ideas. With a King on top! It's not that I mind speculative fiction of either sort - but they really ought to make their minds up. I guess it boils down to importing elements into your story (interesting power structures) but then refusing to actually follow through on the depth you've deliberately imported.
Yes... not to mention George Lucas and his idea of a monarchy that is elected and serves 4 year terms... But I suppose that is partly a common American misunderstanding about monarchs in general and constitutional monarchs in particular. I have had to educate a number of writers I collaborate with over this issue.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Whispering God is your friend... trust the Whispering God... Ruins of Empire 1st - 3rd Feb, 2008, Gladstone scout centre, Chester
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Heroic Knight
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While criticisng the Potter books is much like shooting fish in a barrel, I'm surprised at the explicit criticism for sharing a philosophical flaw with virtually every piece of heroic fantasy since Gilgamesh.
It's really quite hard to think of examples where the hero doesn't succeed due to a combination of exceptional power - from his heritage, or race, or starsign - and exceptional courage or determination - drawn from some tragedy described in chapter two.
It's harder still to think of examples where the hero triumphs through wits, research, creativity, planning, tactics, etc.
Lord of the Rings is something of an oddity, in that it is explicitly stated that greater power means greater vulnerability to the principal antagonist, namely the desire to use one's power.
(chris)
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I do talk a good fight
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Chris, there's a big difference between self-made power & courage, and that which one has inherently due to one's Noble Blood and Manifest Destiny.
Perfy, drop me a mail about the re-use of that bit: sturrock@gmail.com. I'll give it a quick edit & contextualize it a bit better for a standalone page in the Bangor mag.
Tart, nope! It's made very clear by Howard that Conan doesn't have any kind of special blood... it's all nurture, not nature, innit? It's down to long years tracking wolves through the mountains, and all that. It's also very clear, if you look at the stories written at different periods of Conan's life, that he changes with experience and age -- the 16-year-old savage of _The God in the Bowl_ could never have conquered a kingdom, but give him another 20 years of huntin', lootin', an' fightin', and he was good to go.
Admittedly his barbarian upbringing (not bloodline) was superior to the more easygoing lives of civilized men... but Howard's central thesis was that the civilized have it too easy, hence why they'll always fall to the barbarians sooner or later. What he'd have made of the decadent 21st century Western powers being repeatedly trounced by the savage Himelian mountain tribes I don't know... well, in fact, I do have a fairly good idea. 
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Wag
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Ravensbourne (9/23/2006)
While criticisng the Potter books is much like shooting fish in a barrel
I've never actually shot a fish in a barrel, but I imagine it would actually be rather fun, at least for a bit.
Ravensbourne (9/23/2006)
I'm surprised at the explicit criticism for sharing a philosophical flaw with virtually every piece of heroic fantasy since Gilgamesh.
Virtually every piece is pushing it, particularly since "heroic fantasy" is a relatively new genre. I wouldn't exactly count criticising Rowling on those grounds as a direct criticism of the Greek myths - I'd say these were fairly distinct categories (although I do it includes Tolkien).
Moreover, there's an element of setting. I'm perfectly happy to read Lovecraft where he explains that some people (mulattoes) are just closer to animals than man. It's part of the values of that period. I enjoy trying to get a sense of the values of an interesting culture by reading their fiction - reading the Aenead to try to get a sense of what it is they believed to be so obvious as to be barely worth commenting on.
Basically - in Gilgamesh, monarchist/aristocratic assumptions are interesting. In Rowling, they are confused and contradict her attempt to mesh contemporary liberal values with a glutinously, falsely nostalgic view of the past.
Again, it's a matter of degree. Naff fantasy tends to have mega-powerful Eddings-style heroes. Better quality fantasy (Hobb say) has main characters who have some distinguishing feature with some advantages and disadvantages. Really good fantasy tends towards having a number of characters with little or no innately distinguishing features (George R R Martin).
Ravensbourne (9/23/2006)
It's harder still to think of examples where the hero triumphs through wits, research, creativity, planning, tactics, etc.
True - it's rare that authors completely avoid cliche, but that doesn't stop cliches from offending me, nor does it incline me to sympathy for authors who wallow in it.
It's a different genre, but one of the things I've always appreciated about Asimov was the fact that his protagonists never win through brute force. Obviously, it limits the depth a bit, but it breaks away from the cliche where the hero wins by having a square jaw and punching the evil genius out having disabled his guards.
Marios
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Wag
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| Harry Potter - hackneyed, uninspired, tired crap, that makes no attempt to stretch the reader past their government prescribed reading level, being dragged out longer than anyone should have done, written by a lying bitch troll. Thats why I hate it.
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Wag
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| The trouble with Harry Potter is that he always does exactly what a stereotypical "disturbed" teenager would do i.e whatever is the sneakiest, most likely to make him look guilty if caught. But then he acts like a swot the rest of the time- top at sports, great exam results. It's like she's trying to make you believe in him by pouring character types into a mould.
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Heroic Knight
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Andy Rimmer (9/25/2006)
The trouble with Harry Potter is that he always does exactly what a stereotypical "disturbed" teenager would do i.e whatever is the sneakiest, most likely to make him look guilty if caught. But then he acts like a swot the rest of the time- top at sports, great exam results. It's like she's trying to make you believe in him by pouring character types into a mould. Which also matches up with the second take she's been putting in about his father: namely the evidence for his father and father's friends were bullies", which is considered excusable because a) they we were doing it to Snape (who has already been established as Sinister) and b) because Harry's mum liked him anyway (so he must have been nice, really).
No wonder Snape hates to see Harry get all that attention and privelidge, as well as resent the fact that Dumbledore always covers up for his blatant hell-raising.Ian... I would like to disagree on the Tolkein front. Conan does everything himself... he individually kills everyone who threatens him or his friends and stomps around being just-plain-harder-than-you. People love him for it, rather than resenting it... except for bad people, who he kills, who everyone loves him for killing. Frankly, it gets old. One reason I liked David Gemmel's "Jerusalem Man" novels, is that while it starts out with a standard issue Badass-Gemmel-hero-with-a-shtick, over the course of the trilogy the author actually appears to get over it and the focus changes to other people and strengths. I could counter most of your arguments about Aragorn, but I'd look like a fanboy. I even disagree that they are comparable, since Conan was the centre of attention and main character of every book, whereas Tolkein used a cast of heros with the level 2 gardener (Sam) being arguably the main character.
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Heroic Knight
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Conan could take Aragorn anyday of the week, hell he could take the entire Fellowship, and Sauron. In a Tables, Ladders and Chairs Match. In the Hell in the Cell cage.
Anyway. I like The Potter, its a fairly inoffensive and got kids to read a book. For fun. That's got to count for something...
I mean, you could say that they could read a better book. After all, there are thousands out there. But unfortunately, kids nowadays are contractually obliged to follow the Hype™ and therefore don't get to choose what books to read. Hopefully, some will have progressed onto better things...
At least they aren't reading Lord of the Rings, guarenteed to put them of books for life.
("Mommy, this book is boring, they're just walking through a forest.." "Don't worry, something might happen in the next 150 pages")
Costume hippy, live and let live, peace and love for all, man!
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