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Arcsquad12 posted:The best alternative to TvTropes is the novel "How Not To Write A Novel." I remember borrowing that book from a library in California. It's good, but I returned it before I could finish. I may have to buy or download it. And I'd also like to add The Dictionary of Literary Symbolism, as it does what TVTropes claims to do, but fails to: explains different symbols in literature, what they're used for, why an author would use them, and (shocker of shocks) it has examples from Shakespeare and mythology. It's good for understanding literature, if nothing else. The online version of it (http://www.umich.edu/~umfandsf/symbolismproject/symbolism.html/) is kind of dry, but still good. The book version written by Michael Ferber (https://www.mohamedrabeea.com/books/book1_4209.pdf‎) is better and should be in your personal library (whether it's a folder on your computer or an actual shelf of books in your house).
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Feb 8, 2014 19:09
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You don't need a degree in english literature to do proper analysis. You just need common loving sense and a bit of self awareness. Complaining that Tropers don't get books and how they should start reading classics isn't the right way to go about it. I don't read a lot of classic literature, or a lot of influential movies. Most of the stuff I read is bad tie-in franchise fiction and Terry Pratchett novels. The difference is that in this thread, we don't treat everything as equal. A pornographic fanfiction does not hold the same narrative value as a Tolkien novel. I am confident enough in myself to accept that most of what I read is crap, I don't feel the irrational urge to defend what I enjoy and declare it monumentally important.
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Feb 8, 2014 19:20
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The idea that TTGL is any kind of "response" to Eva is pretty laughable when you consider that it came out 10 years later, in an entirely different cultural climate.
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Feb 8, 2014 19:25
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I'm imagining a troper saying that lolicon is a reconstruction of Nabokov's Lolita and it makes me really sad
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Feb 8, 2014 19:42
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here's some stuff from the discussion section of tv tropes's lolita pagequote:Im confuse, only watching the movies, did Lolita seduce H.H. or was that just in his head? quote:I haven't seen the films, but the novel is intentionally ambiguous about it. H.H.'s main goal is to garner sympathy from the reader, so naturally he would try to convince us that "she made me do it". At the same time, it's entirely possible that at some point or another Lo did knowingly seduce him, and she was a bit of a troubled girl anyway.
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Feb 8, 2014 19:57
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Yup, toxic cesspool of pedophilia.
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Feb 8, 2014 20:00
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DStecks posted:The idea that TTGL is any kind of "response" to Eva is pretty laughable when you consider that it came out 10 years later, in an entirely different cultural climate. I mean, you can have works that are responses to earlier works interpreted through current cultural climates. See: Watchmen. TTGL isn't really a deconstruction or reconstruction, its a celebration. It incorporates all the classic elements of the giant robot genre throughout it's entire existence. An actual reconstruction would be Eureka 7 which takes elements of the varied history of the genre and tries to transpose them on characters that actually act like real people and have reasonable motivations. A deconstruction of the genre would be 8th MS Team which is about the Gundam universe equivalent of Vietnam and more importantly is focused on the lives of the guys piloting normal mech suits (ie the dudes who get blow up by the hundreds in normal Gundam shows). Since that was a show that was actually made with the purpose of exploring parts of the genre that get handwaved or passed over in normal shows for the sake of sticking to conventions or traditional elements (not that the actual plot of 8th MS Team is immune to these, it's not).
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Feb 8, 2014 20:25
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El Estrago Bonito posted:I mean, you can have works that are responses to earlier works interpreted through current cultural climates. See: Watchmen. So what is Valvrave, then
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Feb 8, 2014 20:27
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crowfeathers posted:So what is Valvrave, then A Bad Idea.
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Feb 8, 2014 20:37
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crowfeathers posted:So what is Valvrave, then  Edit: Should probably post evidence, whoops. Deus Sex Machina posted:Apparently, the Valvrave is powered by it. kaleidolia fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Feb 8, 2014 |
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Feb 8, 2014 21:19
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my dad posted:This is one of the things that annoy me the most about this thread. Do you just assume that everyone who posts on an English-speaking website needs to know and understand English literature? English is the language of the Internet (along with Russian, to a lesser degree) and a lot of people are forced to learn it in order to communicate in an international community. TvTropes are full of people to whom English is a foreign language. "Litereature" and "English" are often used interchangeably in American academics. Courses on things like One Hundred Years Of Solitude or Things Fall Apart or The Tale Of Genji would fall under the English department. And sure Book Barn is full of threads on popular books and not necessarily more literary things (I assume, I've never been there). But the thing is that we don't try to pass it off as an academic resource. And seriously? How do you expect people to know that you didn't read a book but went through the trouble of googling the slang from it?
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Feb 8, 2014 21:43
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Broniki posted:What's crazy is that none of this is even true. Giant robot shows were light-hearted fun for 5-7 years tops, then shifted dramatically in focus in 1979 when Gundam came out. Gundam introduced the child soldiers, the collateral damage, the psychological trauma, the mentally hosed up characters and the grey morality and by the time NGE came out these were entrenched as the standards of the genre, represented in almost every show for nearly 20 years. Anno wasn't a critic, he was a fanboy, but people have such a vague idea of what came before NGE that they assume its cynical tone had to be some grand response to something. I was under the impression that Shinji being a dude who does poo poo like jerks off on unconscious girls was some sort of slam on otaku culture, but I barely know anything about anime. I haven't seen the loving thing and I'm likely not ever to, but it seems to me a lot of poo poo from it like Rei and Asuka are supposed to be critiques of the things they became, fetishized characters to put on body pillows. Then again since I've never watched it maybe Anno did intend for internet weirdos to nut on figurines of them? I read an essay that compared Anno to Alan Moore, in that they created an iconic work that was misconstrued by most fans and creators who followed and ending up unintentionally damaging the medium they worked in, but a big part of that was the assumption that Anno was indeed misunderstood. Moore ran away from Watchmen, but Anno ran right back, so maybe people did understand. Lightning Lord fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Feb 8, 2014 |
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Feb 8, 2014 22:03
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my dad posted:'English' literature There was a recent Guardian article in a similar vein (although not as focused on 'classics' of any literature) to this as some authors had discussed it at the Jaipur festival: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/20/writers-attack-overrated-american-literature-jaipur-festival Writers attack 'overrated' Anglo-American literature at Jaipur festival posted:"If you write in Japanese or Vietnamese or Portuguese you have to wait … to be translated, and translated literature never really works immediately as English literature unless it wins the Nobel or some big prize," Guo said. "In a way the easiest and laziest way is to write in English. What a struggle to write in any other language than English. "
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Feb 8, 2014 22:11
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Lightning Lord posted:I was under the impression that Shinji being a dude who does poo poo like jerks off on unconscious girls was some sort of slam on otaku culture, but I barely know anything about anime. I haven't seen the loving thing and I'm likely not ever to, but it seems to me a lot of poo poo from it like Rei and Asuka are supposed to be critiques of the things they became, fetishized characters to put on body pillows. Then again since I've never watched it maybe Anno did intend for internet weirdos to nut on figurines of them? I think Anno's opinion of otaku has morphed a lot with time. When he made Eva he was depressed, and the self-loathing comes through in the show and movie. He seems to have softened up since then however. I really like this quote from him (from a 2003 interview I think) quote:I feel that otaku have already become common to all countries. In Europe, in Korea, in Taiwan, in Hong Kong, in America, otaku really do not change. I think that this is amazing. I say critical things towards otaku, but I don’t reject them. I only say that we should take a step back and be self-conscious about these things. I think it’s perfectly fine so long as you act with an awareness of what you are doing, self-conscious and cognizant of the current situation. I’m just not sure it’s a good thing to reach the point where you cut yourself off from society. I don’t understand the greatness of society, either. So I have no intention of going so far as to call for people to give up otaku-like things and become more suited to society. Only, I think there are many other interesting things in the world, and we don’t have to reject them. NGE was definitely a slam on otaku culture. The point of contention is the idea that it was a slam on the giant robot genre, which misses the point of what he was doing completely as well as being false.
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Feb 8, 2014 23:02
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I haven't read it, but isn't the gimmick of Lolita that the main character is suave/articulate/charming enough that you're supposed to almost buy into what he's saying, before snapping back and going "No, this dudes a goddamned kid-fucker trying to make me think kid-loving is okay?"
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Feb 8, 2014 23:08
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A lot of people don't get that Humbert is self-deluded and justifying after the fact (and if I remember right, a pathological liar). It's a great example of a book where the narrator lies straight to your face, so to speak. Problem is, people tend to take him at face value, leading to a lot of people who believe him and assume that Lolita was, in fact, a horrible little harlot, intent on seducing innocent men.
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Feb 8, 2014 23:20
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MisterBibs posted:I haven't read it, but isn't the gimmick of Lolita that the main character is suave/articulate/charming enough that you're supposed to almost buy into what he's saying, before snapping back and going "No, this dudes a goddamned kid-fucker trying to make me think kid-loving is okay?" Yes. Yes, it is, but as Kaboom Dragoon (and others) have said, Tropers misinterpret it. Penny Paper fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Feb 8, 2014 |
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Feb 8, 2014 23:21
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Kaboom Dragoon posted:A lot of people don't get that Humbert is self-deluded and justifying after the fact (and if I remember right, a pathological liar). It's a great example of a book where the narrator lies straight to your face, so to speak. Problem is, people tend to take him at face value, leading to a lot of people who believe him and assume that Lolita was, in fact, a horrible little harlot, intent on seducing innocent men. also known as the "piers anthony" defense
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Feb 8, 2014 23:22
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Lightning Lord posted:I was under the impression that Shinji being a dude who does poo poo like jerks off on unconscious girls was some sort of slam on otaku culture, but I barely know anything about anime. I haven't seen the loving thing and I'm likely not ever to, but it seems to me a lot of poo poo from it like Rei and Asuka are supposed to be critiques of the things they became, fetishized characters to put on body pillows. Then again since I've never watched it maybe Anno did intend for internet weirdos to nut on figurines of them? It's a metaphor for otaku culture at large. Shinji wasn't that hosed up for most of the series. The scene you're referring to is the culmination of a series of increasingly bad decisions and events coming back to haunt him. When he does this, he's basically completely isolated from society - everyone he knows is either dead or alienated from him, so his next step is to go crying to a girl for help that's completely incapable of doing so. Likewise, otaku generally end up alienating everyone from their lives through their behavior, and that leads to an inability to find fulfillment through normal relationships. So they turn to anime girls for social and sexual fulfillment. There's not a whole lot of difference between jacking off to a comatose girl that you like and an anime girl that you like. Neither will tell you 'no'.
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Feb 8, 2014 23:39
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tropers can (not) understand satire
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Feb 8, 2014 23:50
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MisterBibs posted:I haven't read it, but isn't the gimmick of Lolita that the main character is suave/articulate/charming enough that you're supposed to almost buy into what he's saying, before snapping back and going "No, this dudes a goddamned kid-fucker trying to make me think kid-loving is okay?" Yes, but the way it's set up Nabokov doesn't even rely on you to snap yourself back; he regularly throws in lines designed to snap you back. One example I remember is a section around the middle of the novel where Humbert describes his idyllic road trip life with Dolly for a few pages and how she was totally happy with him, and then in the last line of the section the truth slips out with a casual mention that she cried herself to sleep every single night. And for those who still didn't get it, at the end Humbert confronts another pedophile, Quilty, who uses similar tactics against Humbert to those Humbert uses against the audience. Humbert calls him on his bullshit and kills him. I honestly don't understand how anyone who actually read all of Lolita could come away with the impression that Humbert was a victim of Lolita's sluttiness. As far as I can tell, someone could only come away with that impression if they either stopped reading 1/3 of the way through or were already predisposed to side with the pedophile for horrible reasons of their own. Here's what TvTropes thinks is most important to say about Lolita: quote:Lolita is a 1955 novel by Vladimir Nabokov about the relationship between erudite pedophile Humbert Humbert and his stepdaughter/kidnappee Dolores Haze. The action takes place between 1947 and 1952, and is chock-full of convoluted wordplay, multilingual puns, and allusions to everything from entomology to Edgar Allan Poe. Originally written in English and set in the US, it had to be published in France as pornography because no one else would touch it. Nabokov himself pointed out that this is probably the main reason why parents don't name their daughters "Lolita" any more. "Lolita contains puns and was controversial. Anime child porn! It has film adaptations. Anime child porn!"
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Feb 9, 2014 00:01
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Lightning Lord posted:I was under the impression that Shinji being a dude who does poo poo like jerks off on unconscious girls was some sort of slam on otaku culture, but I barely know anything about anime. I haven't seen the loving thing and I'm likely not ever to, but it seems to me a lot of poo poo from it like Rei and Asuka are supposed to be critiques of the things they became, fetishized characters to put on body pillows. Then again since I've never watched it maybe Anno did intend for internet weirdos to nut on figurines of them? People keep bringing up the "jerks off on a girl in a coma" scene every time Eva is mentioned, so to provide some context for those who have not and will not watch the series: the scene in question happens in the opening of End of Evangelion, the series-ending movie, at the tail end of Shinji going through an entire series worth of emotional and psychological trauma, and its basically meant to represent Shinji reaching an absolute nadir of self worth and stability - he even immediately follows it up with calling himself a hosed up wreck and proceeding to spend the next hour of runtime as a catatonic. The big problem with tropers trying to "analyze" stuff like evangelion is that it relies heavily on the works that came before it, but those are works that troopers have never actually watched. I would say that the best comparison for Anno would be Quentin Tarantino, both of their works are heavily referential to the media they grew up with, but Anno paints in shades of Ultraman and Go Nagai rather than crime movies and the Shaw brothers. You can't analyze evangelion without having a knowledge of its source works any more than you can analyze Kill Bill without ever having seen a kung fu movie. Evangelion wasn't a scathing attack on otaku culture, it was basically a grown up nerd looking at the stuff he grew up with and thinking "wow, the implications here are kinda hosed up if you think about it" which morphed into self loathing over having bought into the message of glorified toy commercial so thoroughly. Now, the remake/sequel, that's definitely a mockery of otaku, and its hilarious watching people lose their poo poo over it.
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Feb 9, 2014 04:55
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mr. stefan posted:Now, the remake/sequel, that's definitely a mockery of otaku, and its hilarious watching people lose their poo poo over it. there's a remake? what
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Feb 9, 2014 04:58
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crowfeathers posted:there's a remake? what The Rebuild series is a four film adaptation of the original anime, that initially played things pretty close to the source material before taking a nosedive into what the gently caress territory.
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Feb 9, 2014 05:03
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crowfeathers posted:there's a remake? what Anno is directing four movies that started out as a remake where shinji "mans up" and starts acting more in line with classic anime heroes, only for his big moment of bravado in the second one to gently caress everything up and kick off the apocalypse in the third, completely derailing the plot. Its amazing.
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Feb 9, 2014 05:04
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I've never seen evangelion, I don't actually know a lot about it 
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Feb 9, 2014 05:07
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mr. stefan posted:Anno is directing four movies that started out as a remake where shinji "mans up" and starts acting more in line with classic anime heroes, only for his big moment of bravado in the second one to gently caress everything up and kick off the apocalypse in the third, completely derailing the plot. Its amazing.  That sounds glorious, I was avoiding it because of Eva overload when I was an anime fan but now I got to find this.
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Feb 9, 2014 05:31
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TvTropes posted:Darth Wiki: Obsidian Rhapsody
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Feb 9, 2014 05:31
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TvTropes posted:Calvin and Hobbes: The Series is a Fan Fic series co-authored by Swing 123 and garfieldodie. It is perhaps the main installment in what is unofficially known as the Calvinverse.
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Feb 9, 2014 05:33
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TvTropes posted:Darth Wiki: TV Tropes Wiki Villain Song
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Feb 9, 2014 05:37
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So what I'm getting is that "deconstruction" from the last several pages seems to mean any series with some self-awareness or that doesn't just use old cliches verbatim.
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Feb 9, 2014 06:06
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If there's one thing Tropers love more than sperging on Tropes, it's "subverting" them.
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Feb 9, 2014 06:12
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Arcsquad12 posted:If there's one thing Tropers love more than sperging on Tropes, it's "subverting" them. TvTropes posted:I mean... UGH.
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Feb 9, 2014 06:16
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So, I actually found a page that lists the analysis of tropes/works/meta concepts/creators. Unsurprisingly, it's kind of lacking. It's actually kind of depressing, since over three quarters of it is cartoons, anime, and video games. Let's take a look at their analysis of the new BBC Sherlock. Their title: quote:Sherlock as Speculative Fiction A little bland, but gets right to the point. I'm also going to get right to the point and post the last sentence, which contradicts their title. quote:It may or may not qualify as speculative fiction in its own right, but the allusions to other stories and genres, together with metafictional elements that reference the source material and tap gently on the fourth wall have helped to create a world that is familiar yet new, hilarious yet terrifying, and all in all, just as rich, entertaining and flexible as Conan Doyle’s original work. What's the point of even titling your critical essay 'Sherlock as Speculative Fiction' when even you aren't able to decide for yourself what it is? If you're going to write an essay, at least be decisive! Also a funny line from the conclusion: quote:Sherlock is one of those shows that is extremely difficult to pin down into a single genre. “Crime thriller” and “Detective story” just don’t do it justice. Looking at the fan output alone, one could quite easily be forgiven for assuming it was, for example, a dark romantic comedy, a delightful series of children’s picture books about a clever little otter, or hardcore pornography. I'm sorry, but fanart is not cannon. It doesn't have any bearing on the genre of the work itself! If you're going to attempt to pigeonhole a story into a genre (and admittedly, Sherlock does stretch the limits of "detective thriller" somewhat), stick to what the show's writers are producing, not what the fans are producing. The essay does bring up a nice bit about the cross-pollination between Sherlock and Doctor Who. The shows are produced by the same people, so it makes sense that the shows would drop reference to one another, just for kicks. It does bring up an interesting point: quote:You see, a recurring trend that seems to occur between the two shows is that Moffat and Co. will germinate the seeds of an idea in an episode of Sherlock, explore the concept to its real-world limits, and later transplant it into Doctor Who with a fantasy twist. Sherlock contains the foundations of many interesting speculative fiction concepts, and it is absolutely fascinating to watch these ideas get re-interpreted in another context. Part of what makes many of Moffat’s Who episodes so terrifying is that they have a foundation in real-life philosophical and psychological concepts, and likewise, what makes Sherlock so thrilling is that it teeters right on the edge of plausibility- it constantly threatens to jump headfirst into the speculative and the supernatural, but is always pulled back into the realm of possibility right at the last minute. Instead of exploring that thought, the essay writer quickly jumps off the rails and begins comparing Sherlock to supernatural entities and science fiction characters. Which is kind of dumb, because even in the new version of Sherlock, his abilities aren't all that much different than from the books - he's a guy with encyclopedic knowledge, good at observation, and has astounding deductive abilities. I don't see any alien or supernatural powers here - he's not a psychic, although he might seem to be one at times to others. For example, he is compared to a vampire: quote:So, what is Sherlock meant to be, if not human? Let’s see, now… we have a tall, handsome, socially reclusive Byronic Hero with a pale complexion and dark hair. He rarely eats or sleeps, has an ambiguous addiction, and keeps human body parts in the fridge. The only thing that disqualifies him from being revealed as a vampire is that vampires are usually much more discreet. That is the sum total of their evidence. There's no real comparison between a vampire and Sherlock - vampires aren't astounding logicians, while Sherlock can leave the house during the day. But he's handsome and brooding, so that must mean he's a vampire! Moving on down the essay, there's an interesting section on the metafictionality of Sherlock, which discusses the self-reflexivity of the show (Sherlock likes to reference the original Sherlock stories a lot. But again, the writer manages to find their way off the rails. It uses this metafictionality to claim (sort-of) that this makes Sherlock a magical realist show (wtf) quote:So, how do we classify this show in terms of its relationship with the speculative and the supernatural? Enter the concept of Magic Realism. Magic Realism is an unusual, hard-to-define genre involving a relatively realistic setting containing hints that there might be supernatural forces at play. The characters generally either fail to notice these phenomena, or simply take them in their stride as a normal part of life without asking too many questions. Often, but not always, the supernatural elements are surreal enough that the audience can reasonably argue that they were imagined by the characters, or subdued enough that one could just as easily say they were never there in the first place. Perhaps Sherlock is an example of this genre? My thought is the essayist has never read a magical realism story (of course they haven't, it's too literary for them), and they're really reaching to make the show something more than it is. The essay is also marred by a bunch of bad writing. In an essay, it's critical to get rid of any unnecessary words, any tangential asides. Otherwise, it loses the punch of a clear, concise thought and instead becomes a meandering mess. quote:(It’s… kind of a weird show.) quote:Perhaps it sounds as though I’m going off on a random tangent about how they got Sherlock in my Doctor Who, but, I assure you, this is leading back to my main point. Eventually. quote:John is soon dragged into a world of mystery, adventure, and the ongoing battle of good and evil. The two form an unlikely bond, with John regaining his sense of wonder and enthusiasm, and his companion finally understanding the importance of friendship and human connections. Actually, it does. quote:Other things Sherlock gets compared to throughout the series include fairy tale characters (a recurring motif in “The Reichenbach Fall”), aliens (John calls him “Spock” at one point), and celestial beings (“I may be on the side of the angels, but don’t think for a second that I am one of them”). quote:Add this to the fact that he seems to be able to see some of the subtitles and captions (he seems to observe the text message he’s sending to Mycroft, and blows it away with a raspberry) and it appears that we might be dealing with a character who has significant fourth wall breaking capabilities (The fact that you can send an email to him and receive one back does not help). Bad analysis, bad essay writing, 3/10 see me after class. vv Yes, but in their defense it's kind of hard for anyone to use it properly. vv Venusian Weasel fucked around with this message at 06:29 on Feb 9, 2014 |
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Feb 9, 2014 06:17
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Little Blackfly posted:So what I'm getting is that "deconstruction" from the last several pages seems to mean any series with some self-awareness or that doesn't just use old cliches verbatim. deconstruction has an actual meaning in literary theory terms but they never use it properly
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Feb 9, 2014 06:18
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crowfeathers posted:deconstruction has an actual meaning in literary theory terms but they never use it properly Oh I know, but real literary deconstruction is half-insane post-structuralist nonsense. No offense to any fans of Derrida, he was a cool dude, but he was also a bit of a lunatic. Tropers just seem to use it to mean "look how cleverthis show is", couched in academic terms to make them seem smarter than they are. also, A friend told me recently that the problem with Sherlock was that you could tell it was written by Dr. Who writers. I agreed with him completely. I can't stand Dr. Who, even is some of the concepts that have been described to me by friends seem cool (like the aliens that you forget about them the second you aren't looking at them). But I think people read a lot more into the show than is really there. Same with Sherlock. Yes, they reference the originals, but the whole show is just one gigantic fellatio session for the idea of Sherlock the autistic detective, so its not really surprising that they would pad everything with continuous references to the original, since they are obviously fans. I doubt very much that Moffat was trying to create the televised version of House of Leaves with his continuous gay couple jokes.
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Feb 9, 2014 06:35
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crowfeathers posted:here's some stuff from the discussion section of tv tropes's lolita page Errr, disregard that, I meant to say "lolicon anime glorious nippon pantsu"
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Feb 9, 2014 07:02
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MisterBibs posted:I haven't read it, but isn't the gimmick of Lolita that the main character is suave/articulate/charming enough that you're supposed to almost buy into what he's saying, before snapping back and going "No, this dudes a goddamned kid-fucker trying to make me think kid-loving is okay?" You don't even have to almost buy into it. The point where Lolita 'seduced' him is written about elliptically, but it's completely set up as abusive for anyone who's literate enough to understand the concept of the unreliable narrator. Specifically: - Humbert attempts to sedate Dolly that night so that he can molest her in her sleep. She's only awake because it turns out the doctor he asked for sleeping pills gave him a placebo. He was given a placebo because he'd previously been prescribed regular sleeping pills but had rejected them because he carefully tested them by Mickey Finning his wife and experimenting with how hard it was to wake her up afterwards. It's a massively premeditated crime. - The description goes thus: quote:She saw the stark act merely as part of a youngster's furtive world, unknown to adults. What adults did for the purposes of procreation was no business of hers. My life was handled by little Lo in an energetic, matter-of-fact manner as if it were an insensate gadget unconnected with me. While eager to impress me with the world of tough kids, she was not quite prepared for certain discrepancies between a kid's life and mine. Pride alone prevented her from giving up; for, in my strange predicament, I feigned supreme stupidity and had her have her way - at least while I could still bear it. In other words, Dolly is somewhat sexually experienced but also sexually ignorant, and he exploits that. Physical force is implied in 'at least while I could still bear it', reinforced by the fact that in the next section, he evokes 'a last dab of colour, stinging red, smarting pink, a sigh, a wincing child.' Add to that the fact that he describes her as finding it painful to sit down the next day and complaining 'I had torn something inside her,' and that he admits she stays with him because 'she had absolutely nowhere else to go,' and you have to be half-asleep to see it as a willing seduction. - Later on in the book, her unwillingness and his sordidness are completely blatant: quote:...it was in her power to deny me certain life-wrecking, strange, slow paradisal philtres without which I could not live more than a few days in a row, and which, because of the very nature of love's langour, I could not obtain by force. Knowing the magic and might of her own soft mouth, she managed - during one school year! - to raise the bonus of a fancy embrace to three, and even four bucks, O Reader! ... she would firmly clutch a handful of coins in her little fist, which, anyway, I used to pry open afterwards unless she gave me the slip, scrambling away to hide her loot ... what I feared most was not that she might ruin me, but that she might accumulate sufficient cash to run away. With an unreliable narrator you have to look at what they admit to doing, not what they say about it, and Lolita is one of the most famous cases of that. Probably it's just bad reading skills combined with ulterior motives, but I think it's probably also the tropiness. If you're used to thinking of fiction as Lego bricks, the idea of comparing different sentences in the narrative to see whether they support or contradict each other is just not in your sightlines. It requires you to think of the book as a conscious and original creation in which the author exercises skill in creating voice and tone, and that can't be done by stacking bricks, so let's not admit it can happen.
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Feb 9, 2014 09:36
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Hey, get this literary analysis poo poo out of here; we're supposed to be talking about how the book contains an Unreliable Narrator and Handsome Lech and inspired a Misaimed Fandom.
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Feb 9, 2014 10:19
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The tropes page for it used to mention that H.H. is likeable and makes you think what he does is alright, but they actually seem to have erased that.
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Feb 9, 2014 10:21
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