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coyo7e posted:Here's a serious question, which book series(es) can people name where the protagonist isn't completely emotionally undeveloped for the course of the story? The Waded Man and Jade Mage Can you name some examples from books that aren't absolute garbage? I'm not trying to be snarky here, I just want a better idea of the kind of character you're talking about, because most of the examples of that kind of thing that I can think of are from some pretty lovely books and all I'm coming up with as an answer is "You run into a lot of lovely characters when you read a lot of lovely books." 
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Oct 30, 2015 06:34
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Kraps posted:Do you have any examples? I'm not at all sure what you mean, anger isn't the only emotion of protagonists in books I've read. Is it because a lot of stories deal with betrayal and revenge? Even then, anger may be appropriate and it still isn't the "only way" they deal with issues. The most recent example I can think of is The Magicians. Quentin is such an emotional retard that he only recognizes that he is angry with someone after he has already started shouting at them.
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Oct 30, 2015 06:42
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And by the end of the series he's matured a lot; the series as a whole is largely about Quentin growing up.
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Oct 30, 2015 06:59
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And the author acknowledges it in the text numerous times that Quentin is being unreasonable, and most of the complications in the novel stem from this, so yeah, it is the whole point.
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Oct 30, 2015 08:39
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navyjack posted:Erwin is a complete tool. Not sure why he's in the book. If you haven't gotten there yet, the scene in The Oval Office will stoke your hate to a fiery inferno. Oh God yes. Erwin felt like he was out of a completely different book. The first 20% of the book was this insanely dark cosmic horror story where the abuse suffered by some of the characters was disturbing. The passage about Father killing Margaret several times a week and then finally breaking her not by killing her, but by telling her he was going to kill her in a certain way and letting her anticipate it was chilling. Then Erwin appears and he is a disgusting Mary Sue character from some kind of terrible military adventure novel. Truly abysmal. After the first part I thought this would be the first 5 star book I had read in a while... It wasn't to be. Steve is kind of bland too, and a lot of the stuff with him is filler, but far less offensive. And then I saw on the internet many reviews praise Erwin as the best character. I know it's a fantasy novel and all so there's a degree of irony in me saying this, but these people are loving troglodytes.
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Oct 30, 2015 10:10
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Neurosis posted:Oh God yes. Erwin felt like he was out of a completely different book. The first 20% of the book was this insanely dark cosmic horror story where the abuse suffered by some of the characters was disturbing. The passage about Father killing Margaret several times a week and then finally breaking her not by killing her, but by telling her he was going to kill her in a certain way and letting her anticipate it was chilling. Then Erwin appears and he is a disgusting Mary Sue character from some kind of terrible military adventure novel. Truly abysmal. After the first part I thought this would be the first 5 star book I had read in a while... It wasn't to be. Steve is kind of bland too, and a lot of the stuff with him is filler, but far less offensive. I don't know why but while reading I imagined Erwin as a Sgt. Hatred type character and it made me sympathetic to him. Even as a Mary Sue he is still way out of his league and ultimately just a pawn Carolyn's plot
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Oct 30, 2015 10:35
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Echo Cian posted:Any given series by Carol Berg. Valen in The Lighthouse Duet is a renegade and ne'er-do-well who just wants to keep his head down and gets wrapped up in mysteries instead. Lucien in The Sanctuary Duet (second book coming out in December!) is an artist and morgue assistant. Portier in The Collegia Magica is a librarian-turned-detective. Things tend to not blow up in her novels (unless Damien is involved, but that's Damien for you). On that note, how is Collegia Magica? I loved Lighthouse and Song of the Beast, but couldn't make it through either Rai-Kirah or Bridge d'Arnath, because they felt overwhelmingly like they were just rehashing the same plotline as SotB, except worse and in more books. So I never bothered checking out Collegia Magica. I seem to be hearing a lot of good stuff about it in this thread, though. (Also, I have a weak spot for magical libraries.)
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Oct 30, 2015 11:49
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Neurosis posted:Oh God yes. Erwin felt like he was out of a completely different book. The first 20% of the book was this insanely dark cosmic horror story where the abuse suffered by some of the characters was disturbing. The passage about Father killing Margaret several times a week and then finally breaking her not by killing her, but by telling her he was going to kill her in a certain way and letting her anticipate it was chilling. Then Erwin appears and he is a disgusting Mary Sue character from some kind of terrible military adventure novel. Truly abysmal. After the first part I thought this would be the first 5 star book I had read in a while... It wasn't to be. Steve is kind of bland too, and a lot of the stuff with him is filler, but far less offensive. I'd recommend reading Mask of The Other by Greg Stolze as a nice antidote to this, but honestly I'd recommend reading Mask of The Other most of the time so what're you gonna do. In terms of emotionally rounded characters... I dunno? I mean, most books I enjoy are peopled with characters who are flawed, but who the text is aware are flawed and explicitly or implicitly acknowledges this. Plus most sf/f centers around conflict and, well, conflict and anger are generally partners in crime. Evfedu fucked around with this message at 12:51 on Oct 30, 2015 |
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Oct 30, 2015 12:48
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Erwin is in the book so he can make the point that Carolyn is suffering from PTSD, and make it more relatable to the reader by relating her bizarre, alien experience to his mundane, familiar one. Also to provide a completely external perspective on her shenanigans. Structurally it makes sense, the problem is that... the book feels a lot like an unfinished house. Actually, it feels like someone drew up the blueprints for a house, bought a plot of land to build it on, bought all the materials you need to make a house and drove them to the site, and then went, "Well, we've got everything that goes into a house all together in one place, and from a certain perspective that's indistinguishable from a house, so we're done". The central plot and the world-building all hangs together perfectly, but everything that should- that is transparently intended to- add emotional depth and weight to that is just sort of... located approximate to but not actually integrated with it. I'm usually quite fond of the "hypercompetent NCO" archetype Erwin is inhabiting because they're super fun, but I have to admit he jars here. And the Oval Office scene is terrible. General Battuta posted:Almost there! It's immediate now, barring disaster it'll only be a few days. 
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Oct 30, 2015 13:10
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Personally, when I read the book, I imagined Erwin as a black guy. So basically, y'all racist. 
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Oct 30, 2015 13:27
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Megazver posted:Personally, when I read the book, I imagined Erwin as a black guy. The best thing in the book is still President Lemay
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Oct 30, 2015 13:32
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Khizan posted:And by the end of the series he's matured a lot; the series as a whole is largely about Quentin growing up. As someone who stopped at The Magicians, I don't know what people mean when they say that Quentin grows up or matures. There are a lot of ways for someone like Quentin to grow up, without gaining any sort of emotional intelligence. It could mean that he finally starts accepting responsibility for his own actions, or that he finds some way to be happy or content with his place in the real world. Maybe he even finds a job, instead of just perpetually being a student. With the audience the author is writing to, I find it entirely possible that Quentin starts with the emotional intelligence of a 5 year old and then ends with the emotional intelligence of a 10 year old, which I guess is technically "growing up". Evfedu posted:In terms of emotionally rounded characters... I dunno? I mean, most books I enjoy are peopled with characters who are flawed, but who the text is aware are flawed and explicitly or implicitly acknowledges this. Plus most sf/f centers around conflict and, well, conflict and anger are generally partners in crime. This is just bizarre. Do you really think emotionally intelligent people just don't experience conflict? Or that a flawed individual can't be emotionally intelligent? Crab Destroyer fucked around with this message at 13:48 on Oct 30, 2015 |
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Oct 30, 2015 13:45
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Megazver posted:Personally, when I read the book, I imagined Erwin as a black guy. Funny. While I haven't read the book, I would take wagers that a military Mary Sue named Erwin was inspired by Rommel.
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Oct 30, 2015 13:48
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Crab Destroyer posted:This is just bizarre. Do you really think emotionally intelligent people just don't experience conflict? Or that a flawed individual can't be emotionally intelligent? Jedit posted:Funny. While I haven't read the book, I would take wagers that a military Mary Sue named Erwin was inspired by Rommel. Anyway, I'm currently reading through previously thread-plugged silly-art sporting No Return by Zachary Jernigan and it's, uh, something. So far it's half bog standard low fantasy and half reaching the planet's orbit by means of alien sex magic. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 13:57 on Oct 30, 2015 |
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Oct 30, 2015 13:50
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Crab Destroyer posted:As someone who stopped at The Magicians, I don't know what people mean when they say that Quentin grows up or matures. There are a lot of ways for someone like Quentin to grow up, without gaining any sort of emotional intelligence. It could mean that he finally starts accepting responsibility for his own actions, or that he finds some way to be happy or content with his place in the real world. Maybe he even finds a job, instead of just perpetually being a student. With the audience the author is writing to, I find it entirely possible that Quentin starts with the emotional intelligence of a 5 year old and then ends with the emotional intelligence of a 10 year old, which I guess is technically "growing up". "As someone who stopped one book into a 3 book series, I don't know why people are saying something happens in the other 2 books that I didn't read. It didn't happen in the one book I read, so when did it happen? In the following two full-length books? Preposterous! I didn't read those!"
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Oct 30, 2015 13:53
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Crab Destroyer posted:This is just bizarre. Do you really think emotionally intelligent people just don't experience conflict? Or that a flawed individual can't be emotionally intelligent? - I think an emotionally intelligent person is less flawed than an emotionally stupid one, speaking as the latter.
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Oct 30, 2015 14:01
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Megazver posted:Personally, when I read the book, I imagined Erwin as a black guy. when i read your post i see this: now, if erwin white, he a wish fulfillment caricature now, if he black, the author stating how things are
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Oct 30, 2015 14:12
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Crab Destroyer posted:The most recent example I can think of is The Magicians. Quentin is such an emotional retard that he only recognizes that he is angry with someone after he has already started shouting at them. I didn't like The Magicians but isn't the point that everyone in there is sort of an emotional retard? Also character development like a previous poster said. Evfedu posted:- P. sure emotionally intelligent people experience conflict, but generally not the sort that involves lasers or stabbing (imo!). What?! This makes no sense at all! Kraps fucked around with this message at 14:17 on Oct 30, 2015 |
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Oct 30, 2015 14:14
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Hedrigall posted:"As someone who stopped one book into a 3 book series, I don't know why people are saying something happens in the other 2 books that I didn't read. It didn't happen in the one book I read, so when did it happen? In the following two full-length books? Preposterous! I didn't read those!" Yeah, I'm just going to waste my time reading two more really terrible books just in case the author eventually addresses one of my complaints with the start of his trilogy. I'm still not sure if I want to continue The First Law trilogy after reading The Blade Itself, but after The Magicians I did appreciate that Logen and Glokta had the emotional intelligence of adults. Even Jezal, who still had some growing up to do, had way more emotional intelligence than Quentin started with.
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Oct 30, 2015 14:16
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Crab Destroyer posted:
If you didn't like The Blade Itself, it only gets sloppier and worse from there, so you probably want to stop while you're 'ahead.'
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Oct 30, 2015 14:22
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angel opportunity posted:If you didn't like The Blade Itself, it only gets sloppier and worse from there, so you probably want to stop while you're 'ahead.' actually the second book is setting up the same stuff as the first and is of the same quality then the third is a gigantic payoff that rules
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Oct 30, 2015 14:22
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Well, I felt the third book was the complete opposite of a pay-off, and I noticed a steady decline in quality from book one to three. A lot of people here love this trilogy from start to finish, but to a guy who was iffy about the first book, and coming from me--a guy who hates this trilogy more than anything--I'd recommend he stop now and not waste his time.
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Oct 30, 2015 14:37
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Kraps posted:I didn't like The Magicians but isn't the point that everyone in there is sort of an emotional retard? Also character development like a previous poster said. Alice stood out as being emotionally intelligent, but lacking in social skills. Like at least as far as I remember she could tell what emotions she and other people were feeling, and had much greater control over her emotional responses than any of the other characters (leaving the room when Janet tells the story of her brother, where Quentin would have broken down in front of the group or tried to throw something at her) even if she had trouble finding peers or making friends. angel opportunity posted:If you didn't like The Blade Itself, it only gets sloppier and worse from there, so you probably want to stop while you're 'ahead.' Neurosis posted:actually the second book is setting up the same stuff as the first and is of the same quality then the third is a gigantic payoff that rules I liked most of the it, but didn't like ending. Or I guess that it didn't actually have any sort of conclusion. I don't normally read trilogies, but it's nice when each book comes to some sort of conclusion, instead of saving all of it for the final book. Crab Destroyer fucked around with this message at 14:43 on Oct 30, 2015 |
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Oct 30, 2015 14:40
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Autonomous Monster posted:Erwin is in the book so he can make the point that Carolyn is suffering from PTSD, and make it more relatable to the reader by relating her bizarre, alien experience to his mundane, familiar one. Also to provide a completely external perspective on her shenanigans. Structurally it makes sense, the problem is that... the book feels a lot like an unfinished house. Actually, it feels like someone drew up the blueprints for a house, bought a plot of land to build it on, bought all the materials you need to make a house and drove them to the site, and then went, "Well, we've got everything that goes into a house all together in one place, and from a certain perspective that's indistinguishable from a house, so we're done". The central plot and the world-building all hangs together perfectly, but everything that should- that is transparently intended to- add emotional depth and weight to that is just sort of... located approximate to but not actually integrated with it. I agree with everything here. Actually I quite liked Erwin because I enjoyed the idea of a military guy who is absolutely unable to tolerate being addressed by his rank, so it kind of gave me a soft spot for him from the very beginning. Basically Mount Char suffers from Debut Novel Syndrome: great ideas, erratic execution and pacing, mediocre characterization. If this had been the author's fifth novel, I bet it would have been much, much better -- and I say that as someone who enjoyed it well enough to look forward to a sequel, or other stories from the Char universe.
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Oct 30, 2015 14:42
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Kraps posted:What?! This makes no sense at all!
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Oct 30, 2015 14:47
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Autonomous Monster posted:Erwin is in the book so he can make the point that Carolyn is suffering from PTSD, and make it more relatable to the reader by relating her bizarre, alien experience to his mundane, familiar one. Also to provide a completely external perspective on her shenanigans. Structurally it makes sense, the problem is that... the book feels a lot like an unfinished house. Actually, it feels like someone drew up the blueprints for a house, bought a plot of land to build it on, bought all the materials you need to make a house and drove them to the site, and then went, "Well, we've got everything that goes into a house all together in one place, and from a certain perspective that's indistinguishable from a house, so we're done". The central plot and the world-building all hangs together perfectly, but everything that should- that is transparently intended to- add emotional depth and weight to that is just sort of... located approximate to but not actually integrated with it. That perfectly describes what I'm feeling about the book about 60% of the way through. I can tell there are these intended emotional beats scattered here and there, but none of them are landing. The book is set up as a search for Father but 90% of what I've been reading has been The Misadventures of Steve and Erwin. As far as Erwin goes, if I was 18 and in ROTC, I might think he's a badass. Since I'm not that, I think he's a two-dimensional bully who thinks he's clever by acting a fool as if he's the first person to ever think of this or pulled it off.
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Oct 30, 2015 14:50
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Shab posted:As far as Erwin goes, if I was 18 and in ROTC, I might think he's a badass. Since I'm not that, I think he's a two-dimensional bully who thinks he's clever by acting a fool as if he's the first person to ever think of this or pulled it off. the worst thing is that the world presented appears to think he is that much of a badass, too. loving jarring.
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Oct 30, 2015 14:53
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Evfedu posted:Emotionally intelligent people have and are able to utilise many more options than just violence/anger to achieve their ends. If you are better at understanding and managing your and other's feelings you will be able to resolve conflict in more ways and head it off before it arises more often than somebody who is poor at understanding and managing their and other's feelings. Sorry if I'm wording this poorly, it seems axiomatic in my head. All of this makes sense, I just don't see how this gets you to "ergo, sf/f protags are bad". This applies to real life as well, and characters in books are as mature/immature as the author needed them to be.
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Oct 30, 2015 14:58
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Kraps posted:characters in books are as mature/immature as the author needed them to be. Contingent on the author being sufficiently emotionally intelligent themselves.
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Oct 30, 2015 15:16
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Evfedu posted:Emotionally intelligent people have and are able to utilise many more options than just violence/anger to achieve their ends. If you are better at understanding and managing your and other's feelings you will be able to resolve conflict in more ways and head it off before it arises more often than somebody who is poor at understanding and managing their and other's feelings. Sorry if I'm wording this poorly, it seems axiomatic in my head. I can't speak for coyo7e who orignally posed the question, but I'm not necessarily looking for characters who have a greater than average emotional intelligence. It doesn't bother me when a character has an average emotional intelligence, as in someone who misreads what other people are feeling or needs time to reflect on multiple conflicting emotions that they are feeling, or even young characters who are still trying to process love for the first time. What bothers me is that it seems like there are protagonists of popular and well-received fantasy books that have an emotional intelligence that is far below average, as in they can't articulate the incredibly strong emotion they are feeling as they are currently feeling it. Quentin's conversation with Jane at the end of The Magicians is one I'll keep bringing up because how emotionally retarded do you have to be to not realize that the emotion you are feeling is anger until after you have started shouting at somebody? If you're shouting at someone you should know that you're angry at them, and what they said that made you angry. But Quentin doesn't recognize his anger until he has already expressed it, and this is at the end of Book 1. Why should I, or anybody, believe that this aspect of his character is ever going to change when he has so many other character flaws that the author might want to have him grow out of?
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Oct 30, 2015 15:22
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Are you going to give any other examples besides The Magicians?
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Oct 30, 2015 15:38
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I haven't read the Magicians, but I have had multiple real life encounters with people who can't recognise that they are angry, to the extent of screaming "I AM PERFECTLY CALM" at the top of their voices. I mean, this is the whole point of what the phenomenon of 'tilt' is in poker.
Fangz fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Oct 30, 2015 |
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Oct 30, 2015 16:05
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Hahahah I shouldn't have said anything, our SVN server just had some kind of catastrophic failure. It's being worked on, nothing was lost, with luck it'll only slow us down a couple days.
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Oct 30, 2015 16:06
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Kraps posted:Are you going to give any other examples besides The Magicians? You're right. I can't think of any other fantasy book I've personally read where that was a problem. I just really hate The Magicians and it's a perfect example of what other people in the thread were talking about. I made an incredibly stupid assumption that since this was a major issue with The Magicians and nobody seems to care, that this sort of thing could very easily slip into other popular fantasy books. Books like The Name of the Wind or The Wheel of Time which I have no intention of actually reading. It was stupid of me to do that though, and I won't do it again.
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Oct 30, 2015 16:09
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Crab Destroyer posted:You're right. I can't think of any other fantasy book I've personally read where that was a problem. I just really hate The Magicians and it's a perfect example of what other people in the thread were talking about. I made an incredibly stupid assumption that since this was a major issue with The Magicians and nobody seems to care, that this sort of thing could very easily slip into other popular fantasy books. Books like The Name of the Wind or The Wheel of Time which I have no intention of actually reading. It was stupid of me to do that though, and I won't do it again. It's not an "issue" with the Magicians, though. The entire point of the narrative arc of the story is Quentin's growing emotional maturity. There's plenty of examples of characterization that is nothing but "me angry." out there - the Magicians just isn't one of them.
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Oct 30, 2015 16:19
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Now The Name Of The Wind, there's an irredeemable dipshit of a protagonist. Sadly, that one can probably be chalked up to the author being a tool.
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Oct 30, 2015 16:31
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Finished The City of Woven Streets. World was very cool but unfortunately the book kinda fell apart in the last 1/3. Liked it overall, but could have been better and tighter.
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Oct 30, 2015 18:47
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anilEhilated posted:
The book takes a little while to kick into gear because the author sorta just throws all the different characters and elements out there, but not in a huge info-dumpy or expository way, so I know it took me a bit just to puzzle out how a lot of things tied together in the setting, or where the plot might be headed as a whole. I liked that about it though, because it managed to completely hold my attention with all the wild poo poo going down in it, while I still didn't know wtf was even going on yet. Also, the sex & body fluid magic is gross as gently caress but I like that about it, it gives the magic in the book just a completely different, alien feeling than what I'm used to in most other fantasy savinhill fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Oct 30, 2015 |
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Oct 30, 2015 18:55
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ToxicFrog posted:On that note, how is Collegia Magica? I loved Lighthouse and Song of the Beast, but couldn't make it through either Rai-Kirah or Bridge d'Arnath, because they felt overwhelmingly like they were just rehashing the same plotline as SotB, except worse and in more books. So I never bothered checking out Collegia Magica. I seem to be hearing a lot of good stuff about it in this thread, though. I lost interest in Bridge of d'Arnath, and Rai-Kirah was good but I don't like it nearly as much as the others. So go read Collegia Magica and Sanctuary right the gently caress now. (The good stuff you heard in the thread was probably from me, I seem to be the only one who suggests Carol Berg amid the swarms of twenty people talking about Wheel of Time again. v  v )
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Oct 30, 2015 22:18
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Shab posted:As far as Erwin goes, if I was 18 and in ROTC, I might think he's a badass. Since I'm not that, I think he's a two-dimensional bully who thinks he's clever by acting a fool as if he's the first person to ever think of this or pulled it off. Exactly. I don't mind him being a hyper competent badass NCO if he was at all a realistic version of that. These people exist, I've served with them, and if he'd had someone with a few years military experience as one of his beta readers, maybe a lot of the things about the character that got on my dick would have been swapped out in favor of the way that actual senior military people conduct themselves.
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Oct 30, 2015 22:39
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