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achillesforever6 posted:Oh Eaters of the Dead is great too and the 13th Warrior is an underrated movie. I've been meaning to revisit 13th Warrior since my Beowulf stream. Haven't seen it since it came out. I remember at the time it felt disjointed, kinda hacked up and scrambled, but I wonder if my compass for that has been completely recalibrated in recent years by crap like Fant4stic, Suicide Squad, and Justice League, and 13th Warrior will look pretty okay in comparison.
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Jan 21, 2018 08:23
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Finnegans Wake was the only good fictional work ever created.
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Jan 21, 2018 08:25
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All the Jurassic Park talk makes me think just how freaking amazing Trespasser could have been if it had actually come off as envisioned. That game does a lot of expansion on John Hammond too. Now I want to watch Research Indicates' LP of the game again and you probably want to as well.
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Jan 21, 2018 08:36
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Kim Justice posted:Now I want to watch Research Indicates' LP of the game again and you probably want to as well.
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Jan 21, 2018 08:42
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CountFosco posted:Eragon is unreadable. Actually unreadable. I couldn't force myself to make it through another chapter. Compare this to Harry Potter, where the writing is not revelatory, but neither painful, and the falsity of Bravest of the Lamps proposition is laid bare. That's just nonsense. Harry Potter isn't mediocre, it is outright "painful" in its writing. Just a random example: Half-Blood Prince posted:Typically, ten minutes into the lesson Hermione managed to repel Neville’s muttered Jelly-Legs Jinx without uttering a single word, a feat that would surely have earned her twenty points for Gryffindor from any reasonable teacher, thought Harry bitterly, but which Snape ignored. This is the second-to-last novel in a series that was supposed to grow up alongside its reader. This is Rowling's refined prose, but it's still operating on the level of bad children's literature. The comic effect of stuff like "Jelly-Legs Jinx" and Harry Potter's teenage indignation is buried in clumsy clauses (and having worn out their welcome after several books). That penultimate clause even mangles the sentence so that it seems like what Snape is ignoring is Harry's internal narration. Here's another part from earlier in the chapter, where Rowling misses on satisfying (if obvious) humour by not escalating the list of absurd magic courses: quote:Hermione was immediately cleared to continue with Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, Herbology, Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, and Potions, and shot off to a first-period Ancient Runes class without further ado. Even the fan musical handles this better: ´Very Potter Sequel' posted:RON WEASLEY: Charms - sucks! Potions - sucks! Transfiguration - sucks! MariusLecter posted:Sorry if I missed this on previous pages. "I just think that it's kind of sad that such rampant negativity can be spawned from such a franchise that is all about never allowing darkness to win and holding onto hope at all costs." While I agree that the backlash has roots in fandom irrationality, maybe he should ponder if treating the Star Wars franchise as an ideal to strive towards is what has made fans such weirdoes. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Jan 21, 2018 |
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Jan 21, 2018 10:47
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:That penultimate clause even mangles the sentence so that it seems like what Snape is ignoring is Harry's internal narration. I have no clue how you read that sentence so badly, nesting a sub thought in commas and returning to the first thought is extremely common and perfectly understandable.
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Jan 21, 2018 11:17
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Akett posted:I have no clue how you read that sentence so badly, nesting a sub thought in commas and returning to the first thought is extremely common and perfectly understandable. The interjection that Harry Potter "thought bitterly" is in the middle of the clause which explains what he was bitter about. This seems to be a case of Rowling trying to write this narration as if it were dialogue. It works as if it was inserted to break up a long line of dialogue, like this: quote:“Your adversary has no warning about what kind of magic you’re about to perform,” said Hermione, “which gives you a split-second advantage.” The clause has the effect of "inflecting" the narration as if it were dialogue, and confusing the rhythm of the sentence. The basic issue is that there are one or two superfluous clauses, and there are some very easy ways to fix this. The first is to integrate the penultimate clause to the previous one, and thus define this as a character's thought earlier in the sentence (second sentence added for clarity): quote:Typically, ten minutes into the lesson Hermione managed to repel Neville’s muttered Jelly-Legs Jinx without uttering a single word, a feat Harry thought would surely have earned her twenty points for Gryffindor from any reasonable teacher, but which Snape ignored. He swept between them as they practiced, looking just as much like an overgrown bat as ever, lingering to watch Harry and Ron struggling with the task. A better one would be doing that and also removing the final clause, because it's also redundant: quote:Typically, ten minutes into the lesson Hermione managed to repel Neville’s muttered Jelly-Legs Jinx without uttering a single word, a feat Harry thought would surely have earned her twenty points for Gryffindor from any reasonable teacher. Snape swept between them as they practiced, looking just as much like an overgrown bat as ever, lingering to watch Harry and Ron struggling with the task. The adverb "bitterly" is simply unnecessary: it's abundantly clear that the character feels that his friend has been slighted and that the teacher is cruel. But there's only so much you can polish the prose, because it's littered with the kind of phrases that Rowling has bludgeoned the reader with for six books. For example, Harry Potter's indignation is framed with that hideously worn "twenty points for Rustlenuts" thing. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 13:49 on Jan 21, 2018 |
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Jan 21, 2018 12:09
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FoldableHuman posted:I've been meaning to revisit 13th Warrior since my Beowulf stream. Haven't seen it since it came out. I remember at the time it felt disjointed, kinda hacked up and scrambled, but I wonder if my compass for that has been completely recalibrated in recent years by crap like Fant4stic, Suicide Squad, and Justice League, and 13th Warrior will look pretty okay in comparison. I remember that the earlier part of the movie feeling weirdly paced. Most of the movie takes place in the viking village, which I am pretty sure covers few days or a week of time, but they start the movie by quickly glossing over the two long voyages the main character took from the Middle East to get there and how he learned their language along the way. There’s a HUGE shift in the passage of time.
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Jan 21, 2018 17:15
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I knew this would happen. Someone was going to post actual examples and BOTL was gonna go "nope, those are poo poo" because ultimately all of this is subjective and there's no such thing as objectively good prose. Granted, it's a bit funnier considering he posted his own examples specifically to mock and couldn't even do a good job at that. It's so easy to just poo poo on things, proving something is good/passable is practically impossible when your opponent can just go "Nope, it's poo poo!" E: VVV I still consider it part of the Metal Gear Solid canon, but you are technically correct, the best kind of correct. WampaLord fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Jan 21, 2018 |
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Jan 21, 2018 17:26
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I love all of this. Thank you, BOTL. Also, WampaLord posted:Prey did "nanomachines, son" better than Metal Gear Solid That was Metal Gear Rising. 
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Jan 21, 2018 18:25
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This thread, morons: "Anything" BOTL, an intellectual: "Actually, anything is bad"
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Jan 21, 2018 18:41
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I dare anyone to think of a better book title than Guns of Avalon.
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Jan 21, 2018 18:53
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MonsieurChoc posted:I dare anyone to think of a better book title than Guns of Avalon. The premise for that one owns hard. Eugh, now I want to reread Amber, and not only did I give my collection away but I have too many other things to read, not the least of which is the latest Analog.
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Jan 21, 2018 18:56
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It's poor sentence structure but hardly enough to make me want to vomit out of every orifice of my body. "More obviously bad" just means "worse". You said that less obviously had things are just as bad because they still promote terrible cultural ideas but that's clearly a lie, poor sentence structure is not a toxic cultural idea that needs to be stopped. Also "exception that proves the rule" means that if I say something like "Parking only allowed here on Weekends", then that exception proves that there is a rule for "No parking on weekdays". It does not mean: "Everyone hates spiders" "I don't hate spiders" "Well you're the exception that proves the rule" Your prose is "less obviously bad" but still incredibly bad Internet criticism! Augus fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Jan 21, 2018 |
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Jan 21, 2018 18:57
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WampaLord posted:I knew this would happen. Someone was going to post actual examples and BOTL was gonna go "nope, those are poo poo" because ultimately all of this is subjective and there's no such thing as objectively good prose. For some reason people find it harder to believe that good prose exists ("objectively") than that Harry Potter is badly written. Have you considered that you just don't read enough good prose literature? I gave reasons why Rowling's prose is bad: it's an affectless string of clumsy and overused phrases. In broader terms, Rowling's prose just part of that strange genre phenomenon where authors write of magic and enchantment in banal limited third-person prose derived from adventure novels - the comic spectacle of teenage wizards trying to cast spells without speaking is reduced to this: quote:“An answer copied almost word for word from The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Six,” said Snape dismissively (over in the corner, Malfoy sniggered), “but correct in essentials. Yes, those who progress to using magic without shouting incantations gain an element of surprise in their spell-casting. Not all wizards can do this, of course; it is a question of concentration and mind power which some” — his gaze lingered maliciously upon Harry once more — “lack.” Your objection seems to be that I didn't mock the examples well enough, and this describes the problem with your whole stance pretty well - your idea of badness is primarily something to mock. If you really want to see average comic prose in a genre fantasy, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke springs to mind. This is a short passage that does not involve spells being slung around at all, yet is much more fanciful: quote:"Oh! Indeed!" cried Mr Norrell, irritably. "People believe that magic begins and ends with fairies! They scarcely consider the skill and learning of the magician at all! No, Mr Strange, that is no argument with me for employing fairies! Rather the reverse! A hundred years ago the magio-historian, Valentine Munday, denied that the Other Lands existed. He thought that the men who claimed to have been there were all liars. In this he was quite wrong, but his position remains one with which I have a great deal of sympathy and I wish we could make it more generally believed. Of course," said Mr Norrell thoughtfully, "Munday went on to deny that America existed, and then France and so on. I believe that by the time he died he had long since given up Scotland and was beginning to entertain doubts of Carlisle . . . I have his book here." Mr Norrell stood up and fetched it from the shelves. But he did not give it to Strange straightaway. Now Clarke always zeroes in on how academics pompously lecturing on theory of magic is innately comical, and also employs the character's pathetic aspect well. Rowling in contrast doesn't capitalize on how absurd it is to reduce spells into technical components, so the scene doesn't fulfil it's comic potential. She also treats the schoolroom angst seriously, which is why it veers between intimation of petty evil and hints of kid's humour ("Jelly-Legs Jinx," "overgrown bat"). e: Augus posted:It's poor sentence structure but hardly enough to make me want to vomit out of every orifice of my body. "It doesn't drive me to AVGN-esque hyperbole" is damning with faint praise. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 11:12 on Jan 24, 2018 |
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Jan 21, 2018 19:02
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:I gave reasons why Rowling's prose is bad: it's an affectless string of clumsy and overused phrases. In broader terms, Rowling's prose just part of that strange genre phenomenon where authors write of magic and enchantment in banal limited third-person prose derived from adventure novels - the comic spectacle of teenage wizards trying to cast spells without speaking is reduced to this: Well there’s your problem. Or part of it, anyway. This passage isn’t meant to be spectacular or funny; it’s a group of children studying in school with a nasty teacher, and nothing humorous is occurring. Magic is just a part of everyday life to these characters, even Harry. The fact that there’s missed comic potential doesn’t mean anything when the author wasn’t aiming to be comedic. I actually agree with you that the prose is clumsy in many places and I have other unrelated reasons to dislike Harry Potter but I don’t think it’s as bad as you claim it is. It manages to tell the story well enough, and if the reader enjoys the story than nothing else really matters. Other people have asked this but I’ll echo it: can you give an example of a book that, in your opinion, has excellent prose?
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Jan 21, 2018 20:28
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Augus posted:"More obviously bad" just means "worse". You said that less obviously had things are just as bad because they still promote terrible cultural ideas but that's clearly a lie, poor sentence structure is not a toxic cultural idea that needs to be stopped. "Art doesn't need to be better" - poster in thread about art criticism e: Bakeneko posted:Well there’s your problem. Or part of it, anyway. This passage isn’t meant to be spectacular or funny It's a scene of apprentice wizards casting spells called "Jelly-Leg Jinx" while an evil teacher character called Severus Snape acts menacingly. Your mistake is arguing about authorial intention and then projecting your own interpretation as authorial intention. The scene is bland and unfunny because it's "everyday life," even though that doesn't really make sense. Is your everyday life really boring or what? Bakeneko posted:It manages to tell the story well enough, and if the reader enjoys the story than nothing else really matters. "It doesn't matter if art is not good" - poster in thread about art criticism e2: Bakeneko posted:Other people have asked this but I’ll echo it: can you give an example of a book that [...] has excellent prose? Mervyn Peake's Titus Groan, to stay within the realm of fantasy. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 00:15 on Jan 22, 2018 |
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Jan 21, 2018 20:28
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it_is_the_children_who_are_wrong.jpeg JSaMN is so good. I love her 1/2 page footnotes. Anything keeping with the nonexistent meta-literature tradition of Borges is alright with me. The Ladies of Grace Adieu is pretty good, I'd recommend reading it if one liked JSaMN
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Jan 21, 2018 20:44
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:"It doesn't matter if art is not good" - poster in thread about art criticism To me, and I suspect lot of other people, the story is the actual art. The prose is just the delivery mechanism. It can be varying levels of good or bad, and obviously having better prose is better for the book, but as long as it performs this function well enough I'd say it’s at least okay.
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Jan 21, 2018 20:54
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Bakeneko posted:To me, and I suspect lot of other people, the story is the actual art. The prose is just the delivery mechanism. It can be varying levels of good or bad, and obviously having better prose is better for the book, but as long as it performs this function well enough I'd say it’s at least okay. This thread is more about the art/film/tv/culture criticism than about the material. I mean, when it doesn't go on multiple-page derails. 
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Jan 21, 2018 20:58
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This just reminds me, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was the first time I saw the word "ajar." So when I read the phrase, "the door was ajar." I just thought, "Wow, doors can be jars? Harry lives in a crazy, magical world."
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Jan 21, 2018 20:58
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Conal Cochran posted:This just reminds me, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was the first time I saw the word "ajar." So when I read the phrase, "the door was ajar." I just thought, "Wow, doors can be jars? Harry lives in a crazy, magical world." I guess they missed a word when they were dumbing it down for the American release!
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Jan 21, 2018 20:59
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Bakeneko posted:To me, and I suspect lot of other people, the story is the actual art. The prose is just the delivery mechanism. It can be varying levels of good or bad, and obviously having better prose is better for the book, but as long as it performs this function well enough I'd say it’s at least okay. So it doesn't matter how a painting is painted, how a piece of music is played, how a movie is directed, how a play is performed, how a speech is delivered, and so on? The medium is not the message, in other words.
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Jan 21, 2018 21:01
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I think it's okay that people like bad books. I am happy they are reading. What is the alternative? We make no books unless they fit a specific criteria? We burn all the bad ones? It's one thing to criticize prose for the sake of criticism. It's another to say "This prose is bad, so this book is bad, so this book shouldn't exist." And that seems to be the line of argument. Edit: I guess I mean what is the "so what" of the thesis here don longjohns fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Jan 21, 2018 |
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Jan 21, 2018 21:08
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Conal Cochran posted:This just reminds me, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was the first time I saw the word "ajar." So when I read the phrase, "the door was ajar." I just thought, "Wow, doors can be jars? Harry lives in a crazy, magical world." How the gently caress have you never heard the "when is a door not a door" joke
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Jan 21, 2018 21:15
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:So it doesn't matter how a painting is painted, how a piece of music is played, how a movie is directed, how a play is performed, how a speech is delivered, and so on? I never said it doesn't matter. A good story can be ruined by being told badly, so the telling is still important. Edit: to flip this around and tie it into the thread’s actual topic, here’s Phelous’ latest review, in which Derek Jacobi’s considerable acting talent fails to rescue a terribly-written script for Bevanfield’s Aladdin mockbuster. Bakeneko fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Jan 21, 2018 |
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Jan 21, 2018 21:16
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If only BOTL could tell the content of his own posts without the prose being godawful.
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Jan 21, 2018 21:22
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It's kind of odd how many people are intently defending Ready Player One and saying it doesn't matter that it's badly written. People enjoy it, and is that not enough? failing forward posted:I think it's okay that people like bad books. I am happy they are reading. What is the alternative? We make no books unless they fit a specific criteria? We burn all the bad ones? It's one thing to criticize prose for the sake of criticism. It's another to say "This prose is bad, so this book is bad, so this book shouldn't exist." And that seems to be the line of argument. This fear of criticism of beloved works leading to authoritarian repression is just baffling. If you criticize Harry Potter novels for their form, you apparently might as well be urging people to burn them. Instead an ideal first step would be for people to consider why they're arguing that stories can be good despite formal problems, but can only bring up awful stories like Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton or the Harry Potter novels. It seems far more reasonable to defend actual great stories with lacking prose, such as the works of Joseph Conrad. Otherwise, it simply gives the impression that this defense applies only to things people might have read as children. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Jan 21, 2018 |
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Jan 21, 2018 21:34
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:It's kind of odd how many people are intently defending Ready Player One and saying it doesn't matter that it's badly written. People enjoy it, and is that not enough? No, the opposite happened, we were mocking RP1 and you came Kramering in to go "But there's worse books to mock!" Quote anyone who defended RP1.
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Jan 21, 2018 21:49
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WampaLord posted:No, the opposite happened, we were mocking RP1 and you came Kramering in to go "But there's worse books to mock!" Every argument presented to defend Jurassic Park and Harry Potter is applicable to RP1 
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Jan 21, 2018 21:52
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Every argument presented to defend Jurassic Park and Harry Potter is applicable to RP1 No, that's the entire point we're trying to hammer into you, RP1 is uniquely bad for being a bestselling book.  Good luck finding anything like that in Jurassic Park or Harry Potter. It's just listing references, and that's the vast majority of the book. e: VVV The story is poo poo too, but I hosed up by breaking the cardinal thread rule of not replying to you, but you're so dumb in that MisterBibs kind of way where normal people just want to shake some loving sense into you. Have you ever been slapped really hard in the face? I hope you have been. WampaLord fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Jan 21, 2018 |
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Jan 21, 2018 21:56
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WampaLord posted:No, that's the entire point we're trying to hammer into you, RP1 is uniquely bad for being a bestselling book. That's just the prose. What really matters is the story. e: WampaLord posted:Have you ever been slapped really hard in the face? I hope you have been. That's a really bizarre thing to fantasize about. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Jan 21, 2018 |
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Jan 21, 2018 21:57
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Well this sure was a something! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCI6FwBvhJ8
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Jan 21, 2018 21:57
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Edit: ^^^ I hope this kid's moms hear this call. That would be amazing.  Augus posted:Also "exception that proves the rule" means that if I say something like "Parking only allowed here on Weekends", then that exception proves that there is a rule for "No parking on weekdays". Not the case. "Proves" in this case is an older, mostly obsolete definition meaning "tests." It's the same definition used in the "proof of the pudding," where the whole phrase is "the proof of the pudding is in the eating." So, your second example is actually a correct usage, and your first example doesn't make any sense. BotL is still dumb and should be ignored. Puppy Time fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Jan 21, 2018 |
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Jan 21, 2018 22:22
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"You think Harry Potter's prose is bad? I hope you have been slapped hard in the face at some point in your life."Absurd Alhazred posted:Well this sure was a something! I prefer to think that kid was really dedicated to the bit. It would be a kinder world. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Jan 21, 2018 |
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Jan 21, 2018 22:25
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WampaLord posted:No, that's the entire point we're trying to hammer into you, RP1 is uniquely bad for being a bestselling book.
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Jan 21, 2018 22:28
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Puppy Time posted:Not the case. What? Sorry, dude, but what that is totally wrong. For starters, the idiom didn't originate in English and exists today in several other languages, where an archaic connection between prove and testing doesn't even exists, and it and least in German, is has the exact meaning that Augus wrote about. Not to mention that it originated from Roman Law.
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Jan 21, 2018 22:31
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I just meant what is the end goal. I was being hyperbolic. My fault it didn't come across that way. I am genuinely asking because I have had this same argument before in classes and in my living room. What's the point? Is the goal to make people who like the books feel bad for liking them? Is the goal to get people to stop reading them? Is the goal to simply point out the flaws and draw attention to them? Okay, why?
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Jan 21, 2018 22:34
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It's SUPER WEIRD how bad books get popular when humanity is super discerning about their consumption of music, movies, and TV to the point that only the groundbreaking elite see any mainstream appeal and no trash ever makes a profit. I just can't figure out how people only go to watch cinematic masterpieces like Transformers and Big Bang Theory but read books that are worse than other books. It boggles the mind, truly. I just can't figure it out.
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Jan 21, 2018 22:35
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Well this sure was a something! That was like some wonderful performance art.
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Jan 21, 2018 22:39
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