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Man I liked The Magicians. Books are allowed to be depressing. Protags are allowed to be lovely and self centered. Quentin is a continuous fuckup who can't get over his own hangups, so it doesn't matter if magic is real or not, he's still going to be unhappy. For a book filled with possibilities for dues ex machinas (in some cases literally), they resort to using them to advance the plot infrequently (and when they do, there are significant consequences). I also liked the way it played with genre tropes, and how bumble gently caress the main characters are when they finally get to Fillroy. Like a bunch of 20 year olds are going to have any idea what to do in a magic, separate universe without loving everything up. That said, "this book is depressing" is a fair critique if you're reading solely for escapism. The series is more often maudlin than it is blithe.
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Jun 8, 2017 16:06
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Benson Cunningham posted:Man I liked The Magicians. Books are allowed to be depressing. Protags are allowed to be lovely and self centered. Quentin is a continuous fuckup who can't get over his own hangups, so it doesn't matter if magic is real or not, he's still going to be unhappy. For a book filled with possibilities for dues ex machinas (in some cases literally), they resort to using them to advance the plot infrequently (and when they do, there are significant consequences). I also liked the way it played with genre tropes, and how bumble gently caress the main characters are when they finally get to Fillroy. Like a bunch of 20 year olds are going to have any idea what to do in a magic, separate universe without loving everything up. Its one thing to have a lovely main character, if you own it and recognize they are lovely people. Its another to have a lovely main character and yet treat the character as if he is not a lovely person. Magicians is the first. I'll let you guess the second.
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Jun 8, 2017 16:58
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Rothfuss gets close to outright calling Kvothe a shithead a couple of times, but it's almost immediate washed away every time because he's "in the right" for being a shithead, while everyone else isn't. It'd be neat if it's something that resolves itself in the 3rd book, and it ends up he's burned all of his bridges, but he got forgiven by a woman who he tried to boil alive from inside, so I'm not holding my breath.
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Jun 8, 2017 17:16
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In some version of this world Rothfuss is obsessively reading this thread's suggestions, and creating either the best or the worst piece of modern fantasy. Hopefully it's not this one.
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Jun 8, 2017 23:52
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The Magicians trilogy is good. I just like bringing it up when people are talking about magical fuckups.
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Jun 9, 2017 04:52
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Dienes posted:Its one thing to have a lovely main character, if you own it and recognize they are lovely people. Its another to have a lovely main character and yet treat the character as if he is not a lovely person. Grossman is not a good enough writer to pull that off, though. I mean, obviously your ostensible protagonist can be an anti-hero or even the villain, but when the obvious self-insertisms start and the entire book is a mire of depression and narcissistic self-pity, I do have some serious trouble enjoying that book. Credit where credit is due, the first book is only mostly derivative and he has some smart twists and turns, but I don't have the stomach for the rest of that crap and I consider GRRM light reading. Not gonna pretend this is anything beyond my personal opinion, though, I'm well aware there's good cause to disagree with me. Dreqqus posted:In some version of this world Rothfuss is obsessively reading this thread's suggestions, and creating either the best or the worst piece of modern fantasy. Hopefully it's not this one. I'd take either or, so long as he finishes the loving thing. It's been ten years since the first book goddamnit
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Jun 9, 2017 08:56
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ulmont posted:The only thing that wasn't on the nose was the dragon bit. Didn't the 'not a dragon' still end up being a giant fire breathing lizard?
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Jun 9, 2017 17:45
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Ostiosis posted:Didn't the 'not a dragon' still end up being a giant fire breathing lizard? anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Jun 9, 2017 |
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Jun 9, 2017 17:51
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Ostiosis posted:Didn't the 'not a dragon' still end up being a giant fire breathing lizard? Yes, but you see, it wasn't a dragon. Those stupid loving idiot peasants didn't even know the difference. loving idiot gross stupid peasants. loving jerks, gently caress them. They don't even know what poor is until they're poor enough to buy a horse for a one way trip. loving morons.
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Jun 9, 2017 20:25
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Benson Cunningham posted:Man I liked The Magicians. Books are allowed to be depressing. Protags are allowed to be lovely and self centered. Quentin is a continuous fuckup who can't get over his own hangups, so it doesn't matter if magic is real or not, he's still going to be unhappy. For a book filled with possibilities for dues ex machinas (in some cases literally), they resort to using them to advance the plot infrequently (and when they do, there are significant consequences). I also liked the way it played with genre tropes, and how bumble gently caress the main characters are when they finally get to Fillroy. Like a bunch of 20 year olds are going to have any idea what to do in a magic, separate universe without loving everything up. The book had some interesting threads but it felt like it was too determined to beat you to death with its message. Yeah, human beings in general are miserable self-destructive shits and having access to "magic" probably wouldn't make us any less so. Deconstructing the settings and flaws inherent in the illogical worlds of Potter and Narnia, silly fantasy books literally designed for the amusement of children, just didn't strike me as particularly clever. Also everyone and their cat seems to be piling on the "what if whimsical fantasy settings were actually more realistic and adult?" bandwagon nowadays. and CS Lewis is now a pedophile who stole his stories from the kid he was molesting. edgy.
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Jun 10, 2017 02:43
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Subvisual Haze posted:and CS Lewis is now a pedophile who stole his stories from the kid he was molesting. edgy. Wait what
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Jun 10, 2017 04:14
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Whether we like it or not, Harry Potter and other escapist young adult genre fiction has entered the adult zeitgeist. There is plenty of room to explore it from a less kid friendly vantage, especially if 30+ year olds continue to cling to the fandoms if their tweens.
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Jun 10, 2017 05:51
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PJOmega posted:Whether we like it or not, Harry Potter and other escapist young adult genre fiction has entered the adult zeitgeist. There is plenty of room to explore it from a less kid friendly vantage, especially if 30+ year olds continue to cling to the fandoms if their tweens. Right. If people insist on making Harry Potter metaphors about virtually any real world scenario I think there's space to critique it. Subvisual Haze posted:The book had some interesting threads but it felt like it was too determined to beat you to death with its message. Yeah, human beings in general are miserable self-destructive shits and having access to "magic" probably wouldn't make us any less so. Deconstructing the settings and flaws inherent in the illogical worlds of Potter and Narnia, silly fantasy books literally designed for the amusement of children, just didn't strike me as particularly clever. Also everyone and their cat seems to be piling on the "what if whimsical fantasy settings were actually more realistic and adult?" bandwagon nowadays. and CS Lewis is now a pedophile who stole his stories from the kid he was molesting. edgy. Potter as the story continued is a sometimes confusing mess of tones and target audiences. Its fourth book has more pages than the first three combined. Rowling takes stabs with varying levels of success at themes beyond silly fantasy for the amusement of children.That coupled with its cultural impact I think makes Harry Potter worthy of critique. Narnia as well is deserving of further analysis. The Lewis analogue in The Magicians is superficially obvious but if you dig deeper you could read it as how a genre exploits its source materials.
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Jun 10, 2017 12:42
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Paragon8 posted:
I don't think that the problem is that they're not deserving of critique or analysis, I think the problem is that "what if CS lewis was a pedophile" is a Robot Chicken episode instead of a critique. Shallow reversal isn't analysis. To bring this conversation back to Kingkiller: that's why Rothfuss can't actually incorporate any of the themes about stories or legends or heroism that he claims to be addressing in his books. It's tvtropes style obsession with "subversion" instead of actually saying something.
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Jun 10, 2017 13:48
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Grenrow posted:I don't think that the problem is that they're not deserving of critique or analysis, I think the problem is that "what if CS lewis was a pedophile" is a Robot Chicken episode instead of a critique. Shallow reversal isn't analysis. To bring this conversation back to Kingkiller: that's why Rothfuss can't actually incorporate any of the themes about stories or legends or heroism that he claims to be addressing in his books. It's tvtropes style obsession with "subversion" instead of actually saying something. I think saying that story arc is a Robot Chicken episode or edgy for edgy's sake is reductionist. It's part of the story and not some kind of attack on CS Lewis there's context to its inclusion in the narrative. I'm not saying Grossman is pulling a Nabakov level seminal masterpiece including that element but just because The Magicians isn't a 10/10 doesn't mean its without merit. And yeah to bring it back to Rothfuss - Kingkiller is frequently bandied about to be the genre deconstruction that Grossman did far more successfully which I think makes it an interesting comparison.
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Jun 10, 2017 18:09
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Well it sounds bad, but how's the prose?
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Jun 10, 2017 18:18
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Well it sounds bad, but how's the prose? Good to very good, if I remember correctly. The fox sex is the most embarrassing thing about the books. The main character is friend-zoned until there's a Once and Future King-esque animal transformation sequence, and he and the love interest are finally freed from their human inhibitions.
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Jun 10, 2017 18:39
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Well it sounds bad, but how's the prose? It was well written. The main problem is the story. For about half the book it actually has a plot pushing things along (standard listless smart boy goes to wizard school and experiences interesting things, scary things, and makes friends), but then it gets obsessed with beating its readers over the head with its theme. Almost every chapter in the later half will have the main character have an internal monologue about how magic isn't making him happy, have one of his friends imply magic doesn't make them happy, have a mentor/friend straight up tell the protagonist that magic won't make them happy, or relay a story about a third party who experienced tragedy in their life related to magic.
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Jun 10, 2017 18:51
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BananaNutkins posted:Good to very good, if I remember correctly. The fox sex is the most embarrassing thing about the books. The main character is friend-zoned until there's a Once and Future King-esque animal transformation sequence, and he and the love interest are finally freed from their human inhibitions. You're remembering the book very wrong assuming I'm remembering it at all correctly. The whole fox god scene was how the girl who doesn't get into hogwarts gets super messed up but Quentin wasn't there. She follows a parallel track to magic that is dark and grungy compared to the school and involves getting raped by the fox god.
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Jun 10, 2017 23:36
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Not the fox god thing. The part where they are arctic foxes doing it is super creepy.
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Jun 10, 2017 23:55
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VULPES SEED
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Jun 10, 2017 23:57
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Paragon8 posted:And yeah to bring it back to Rothfuss - Kingkiller is frequently bandied about to be the genre deconstruction that Grossman did far more successfully which I think makes it an interesting comparison. A lot of nerds view deconstruction as "thing, but dark/somewhat cynical" so of course they'd view Kingkiller as an example of it.
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Jun 11, 2017 02:08
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A lot of nerds think that genre destruction is a thing, for whatever reason.
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Jun 11, 2017 08:58
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:A lot of nerds think that genre destruction is a thing, for whatever reason. Like a work that is so acrid they think it "destroys a genre" or?
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Jun 11, 2017 10:09
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Lightning Lord posted:A lot of nerds view deconstruction as "thing, but dark/somewhat cynical" so of course they'd view Kingkiller as an example of it. I think that's pretty much it and might be why The Magicians ends up being so divisive. At its core fantasy is about escapism and The Magicians undercuts that in a way that Kingkiller does not. I respect if people want to read what they expect and The Magicians certainly isn't a good read for them in that case. I enjoyed it as a different take on a genre that has become more homogenous with only a few exceptions. Which is what frustrates me about Kingkiller because it was presented to me as a seminal genre defining work. At least Grossman attempts something more interesting even with the weird reoccurring fox stuff.
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Jun 11, 2017 11:12
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Paragon8 posted:At its core fantasy is about escapism
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Jun 11, 2017 11:27
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Lightning Lord posted:Like a work that is so acrid they think it "destroys a genre" or? It goes against the conventions, cliches, and tropes of the genre and defies or undermines reader expectations. So the hero dies, they don't save the princess, the treasure wasn't worth anything, the monster was just a regular animal, etc. GRRM gets credited a lot for popularizing this in fantasy. Rothfuss could actually have done something interesting if all of the legends turned out to be mundane. But then they all ended up being not spectacular on a technicality or literally actually spectacular.
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Jun 11, 2017 13:51
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Atlas Hugged posted:It goes against the conventions, cliches, and tropes of the genre and defies or undermines reader expectations. So the hero dies, they don't save the princess, the treasure wasn't worth anything, the monster was just a regular animal, etc. Yes, pretty much: a faux-literary term for people who think on the level of tropes.
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Jun 11, 2017 14:00
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Nakar posted:Is it though? I think that ends up reducing the entire genre to trivialities. All fiction is to some extent escapist, but I don't think any form or genre is inherently "at its core" solely about escape. I think you're overestimating the extent to which Grossman's work actually undercuts anything. If I was writing an academic paper I would have qualified that term more. I don't think escapism is a trivial theme I'm sorry if I presented it as that. I do think it is an important part of the fantasy genre though. Portal fantasy, a huge subgenre within fantasy, is literally protagonists escaping their typically bad lives to explore a fantastical world. Other fantasy heavily leans on mundane protagonists finding out they're relevant to the world. It is more debatable if you consider stuff like Conan and the more contemporary grim dark stuff to be escapist in the way it explores power fantasies. I think that's a fair criticism of Grossman especially with the subsequent sequels. I think what is interesting about The Magicians is the last few chapters where the protagonist does gain access to ultimate power and kind of just hates it. I'd say it was pretty poorly paced but it's far more successful at what it wants to do than Rothfuss being all oh yeah there was a huge pirate battle but that's a story for another day.
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Jun 11, 2017 14:14
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Paragon8 posted:I think that's a fair criticism of Grossman especially with the subsequent sequels. I think what is interesting about The Magicians is the last few chapters where the protagonist does gain access to ultimate power and kind of just hates it. I'd say it was pretty poorly paced but it's far more successful at what it wants to do than Rothfuss being all oh yeah there was a huge pirate battle but that's a story for another day. These questions tend to be easier to frame in fantasy if only because we can swallow the explanation as part of our suspension of disbelief and focus on the effect it has on characters who experience it. Of course that's true of any genre and not every work actually utilizes its narrative to explore those issues.
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Jun 11, 2017 21:42
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Dienes posted:Its one thing to have a lovely main character, if you own it and recognize they are lovely people. Its another to have a lovely main character and yet treat the character as if he is not a lovely person. The second is Harry Potter, because Harry is a poo poo character and if Rowling was actually a good author she'd have let him die in the Deathly Hallows and pulled a "surprise motherfuckers, Neville is actually the chosen one" though I imagine most of the diehard HP fans would've called for her head if she'd dared to do something like that plus having the title character die and stay dead would be kinda harsh for a kids' series. Still would've made for a much better ending though.
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Jun 12, 2017 01:34
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At least JK actually published an ending.
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Jun 12, 2017 02:22
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Lightning Lord posted:A lot of nerds view deconstruction as "thing, but dark/somewhat cynical" so of course they'd view Kingkiller as an example of it. Well, then they'd be wrong because the Kingkiller stuff is fantasy, and "fantasy, but dark/somewhat cynical" is the classic definition of Dark Fantasy. What Grossman does is write fox furry porn (thanks for reminding me about that by the way) and a hosed up version of Harry Potter. I can see an argument towards his "deconstructing" the "Harry Potter-like" genre by taking a theme that lends itself to a more classical monomyth-type storytelling and inserting general life/person shittyness into it, sure. But like all postmodernist/poststructuralist bullshit, it ends up sucking in a very unentertaining way. More importantly HIJK posted:At least JK actually published an ending. I will assume Rothfuss is a hack until he delivers the last book. Then I'll have proof.
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Jun 12, 2017 07:58
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Yes, pretty much: a faux-literary term for people who think on the level of tropes. Or it's a convenient term to describe a specific type of book to help describe it to someone who may want to read the book.
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Jun 12, 2017 15:15
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ShinsoBEAM! posted:Or it's a convenient term to describe a specific type of book to help Well yes, anything that's described as a "deconstruction" is generally a good thing to avoid.
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Jun 12, 2017 15:22
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I'm surprised that nobody has brought up Thomas Covenant yet, seeimg as it's the grandaddy of this kinda bullshit.
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Jun 13, 2017 07:02
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Rime posted:I'm surprised that nobody has brought up Thomas Covenant yet, seeimg as it's the grandaddy of this kinda bullshit. Please explain, because the only thing I know about this is the series starts with the guy thinking he's in a dream, so he rapes a barmaid, and then that action is constantly brought up and referenced a ton of times and is the core source of angst and drama in the series.
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Jun 13, 2017 10:28
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Covenant is a bitter rear end in a top hat who gets hit by a car, wakes up in fantasyland, realizes it's all a dream and does some hosed up poo poo because he believes nothing is real. Turns out it is real, and he waffles a back and forth between reality and fantasy for another 9 books while remaining a hugely lovely person. First book was a pretty decent riff on the "ordained hero" trope for the time it was written in, admittedly. Continued attempts to "deconstruct" fantasy were bad, and it spawned asscancer like Kvoth.
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Jun 13, 2017 16:13
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Well they're about equal in how well-written and how inventive their fantasy worlds are. Still, the one thing Covenant had going for him is that he wasn't a Mary Sue. The thing about "deconstructing" this way is that it's not, y'know, deconstruction. It's nice to be aware of the fact there are genre conventions which you may or may not adhere to but there is nothing particularly inventive or "deconstructive" about that. e: Saying that as someone resigned to Derrida going completely over his head and not minding it that much. Just sayin'. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 17:28 on Jun 13, 2017 |
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Jun 13, 2017 17:23
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Rime posted:Covenant is a bitter rear end in a top hat who gets hit by a car, wakes up in fantasyland, realizes it's all a dream and does some hosed up poo poo because he believes nothing is real. Turns out it is real, and he waffles a back and forth between reality and fantasy for another 9 books while remaining a hugely lovely person. Wew lads, that's a spicy take. I mean, other than missing the point so hard that I have to wonder if you fried your brain on TVTropes. Also, Elric of Melniboné predates Covenant by a few years.
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Jun 13, 2017 21:10
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