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Goffer posted:Lol, no plot armour or big events happening because he's the main character for this guy I don't think you know what plot armor is. It's not just about not dying (because obviously Paul dies in the sequel lol). The audience can feel the stakes Paul is up against because there's an actual conflict in the story for him to deal with, not just vague meandering from one disjointed event to the next. The book is in fact constructed with this in mind, hence the quotes from in-universe historians in it and the sequels. Paul also genuinely loses people and those consequences weigh on him and affect the decisions he makes. He understands his role as a leader as a consequence. Kvothe is poor when the plot requires it and he is sad because the one woman he wants to sleep with won't sleep with him. That's it. That's his whole character. I bring up Paul being just a kid because being just a kid isn't a meaningful characteristic. It's an emotional development stage and a well-written character takes that into account in addition to other characteristics. Paul has the same impulsiveness and carelessness that any teenager can have, but that is tempered by training and education from those around him who don't want to see him become a victim of his circumstances, one of those being that he's just a kid who doesn't know any better. Arguably one of the most famous scenes from the book, his knife fighting practice with Gurney, is literally about this. Goffer posted:There are 2 Pauls, young and older Paul, seperated by a *7 years later* interlude. The Paul in either half is a static entity, there's no growth to his character within either section. Acquiring a family is not character growth - not even the death of his son changes his character. Young Paul would use the same tactics as older Paul if he were in the same situation. The only difference between the two is his conviction, which is pretty easy to show with a *7 years later* time skip. (In the same vein could as easily say the Kvothe to Kote 7 year transition is "character growth", as Kote has learnt and changed from his experiences.) There is one Paul: he just ages and progresses as a character. Frankly, this is how storytelling works. Despite Kvothe also going through time jumps (such as Tarbean), it doesn't seem to happen for him. The story is even specifically constructed so he doesn't have to deal with the trauma of being a street urchin. A convenient out. I wonder if there's a term in media analysis for when characters don't seem to suffer long-term consequences for the situations they've been in. Paul on the other hand makes decisions based on his lived experiences, which includes the training and instruction he receives from his mother, Gurney, Duncan, and the Fremen. I bring up being a father because it parallels him having been a son who lost a father (and other father figures) only to go on to become a father who loses his son. This impacts how he thinks about his sister, his lover, and his future consort and shapes his rule. It is fairly reductive to point to Paul at two different parts of his journey in the same novel, to ignore all of the things that happened in between those points, and to declare that it is the time jump in the story that changed the character and not all of the events leading to and happening during that jump. For the time jump to work and be accepted by readers, the foundation had to already have been built. This is basic narrative structure. You can't just insert a time jump and have the reader blindly accept that the character got really good at everything somehow in that time. We don't need to see every part of Paul's training and war against the Harkonnens because we see enough of it to understand what was happening in those years off page. The book would have been deadly dull if we saw every skirmish and raid on a spice harvester. We are not at all surprised at his treatment of the Harkonnens at the end or how he brings the galaxy to heel because of the events he has been through. We understand why he chose to launch the Jihad despite knowing how many would die because we saw the odds he was up against and personally witnessed his tragedy. As has been pointed out, Kvothe's setbacks aren't actually setbacks because we find out that losing this or that didn't matter (he'll just get them or a replacement back when the plot requires it), or that he shut off his memory for a period (but we'll have a magic pixie dream girl hiding in the sewers or something because Kvothe is just so much mentally stronger), or there was a convenient roll on the random encounter table that brought him to the next plot point. It's all arbitrary and none of it creates a compelling character that we actually care about. But that's by design. He's meant to be the aggrieved but overlooked genius that so many of the readers think they are or wish they had been in school. He's the nice guy who was too polite to actually say what he wanted to the girl they pined after or the professor they were smarter than, but if he did everyone would definitely stand up and clap.
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Mar 18, 2024 09:08
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Goffer posted:There are 2 Pauls, young and older Paul, seperated by a *7 years later* interlude. The Paul in either half is a static entity, there's no growth to his character within either section. Acquiring a family is not character growth - not even the death of his son changes his character. Young Paul would use the same tactics as older Paul if he were in the same situation. The only difference between the two is his conviction, which is pretty easy to show with a *7 years later* time skip. (In the same vein could as easily say the Kvothe to Kote 7 year transition is "character growth", as Kote has learnt and changed from his experiences.) Why are you so obsessed with bringing Dune into this to attack? I say this as someone who doesn't particularly like Dune, you seem to think it is some good leverage point you can use to defeat criticisms of Kingkiller Chronicles by going "Ah-HAH! You all like THIS thing, and it has a similarities! Hypocrites!" But the thing is, you can get away with doing things depending on how you execute it. This is why I pointed out that Kvothe does not seem to have the thirst for vengeance you want to portray him as having as he just spends a lot of time loving around, hangin' out the mates and doin' pub crawls. He spends time in the library when he can access it but he can still be pulled away by his friends and girlfriend and his relationships don't suffer as a result. This is a criticism speaking about the book in question, not trying to drag in something you can wail on without having to figure out how to defend Kingkiller Chronicles. You want to be on the offense.
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Mar 18, 2024 09:32
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paul is also pretty explicitly placed within the material aspects of his universe, and that informs his decisions, choices, and overall agency. the opening epigraph is even about understanding paul within the wider context of the universe, placing him in his place. paul can see the future and yet all he sees is how much his choices are constrained and not his to make. kvothe, on the other hand, is not placed. he just is. and the decisions and choices he faces are that of a 20-something college guy.
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Mar 18, 2024 09:35
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Kchama posted:Why are you so obsessed with bringing Dune into this to attack? I say this as someone who doesn't particularly like Dune, you seem to think it is some good leverage point you can use to defeat criticisms of Kingkiller Chronicles by going "Ah-HAH! You all like THIS thing, and it has a similarities! Hypocrites!" But the thing is, you can get away with doing things depending on how you execute it. The dune reference got brought up as a thing again, just above, and it was a pretty funny juxtaposition of saying having plot armour and things happen is bad, then immediately saying paul arteidi, noted character that could only have survived due to many unique plot contrivences. I probably could have done without the 2nd post.
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Mar 18, 2024 09:56
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Horizon Burning posted:paul is also pretty explicitly placed within the material aspects of his universe, and that informs his decisions, choices, and overall agency. the opening epigraph is even about understanding paul within the wider context of the universe, placing him in his place. paul can see the future and yet all he sees is how much his choices are constrained and not his to make. It's almost like the framing device for Dune was constructed with purpose to add dimensions to the story and to enrich the reading experience. Goffer posted:The dune reference got brought up as a thing again, just above, and it was a pretty funny juxtaposition of saying having plot armour and things happen is bad, then immediately saying paul arteidi, noted character that could only have survived due to many unique plot contrivences. I probably could have done without the 2nd post. Are you aware that a major theme of Dune and the reason those contrivances are in place is that destiny can't be controlled and disaster follows those that attempt it? Atlas Hugged fucked around with this message at 09:59 on Mar 18, 2024 |
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Mar 18, 2024 09:57
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Goffer posted:The dune reference got brought up as a thing again, just above, and it was a pretty funny juxtaposition of saying having plot armour and things happen is bad, then immediately saying paul arteidi, noted character that could only have survived due to many unique plot contrivences. I probably could have done without the 2nd post. It gets brought up again and again because you won't shut up about it even though it has nothing to do with Kingkiller Chronicles. You talk more about Dune in the KKC thread then you do KKC. You were the first person to bring up Dune in like two years and you did it to try and divert away from KKC's flaws. Kchama fucked around with this message at 10:24 on Mar 18, 2024 |
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Mar 18, 2024 10:22
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Kchama posted:It gets brought up again and again because you won't shut up about it even though it has nothing to do with Kingkiller Chronicles. You talk more about Dune in the KKC thread then you do KKC. You were the first person to bring up Dune in like two years and you did it to try and divert away from KKC's flaws. There's actually quite a lot of similarities once you start to look into it - both hyper competent children, families murdered, spend a bunch of time broke (for years all Pauls got to his name is a bit of water). They study with some guys in robes, are plagued by destiny itself to bring about a dark future, kills/overthrows a king/emporer, and at the end, both regret their life decisions. It's basically the same story
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Mar 18, 2024 11:12
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Oh poo poo, Kvothe killed a king? I must have missed that part Tbf so did Rothfuss
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Mar 18, 2024 12:31
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Goffer posted:There's actually quite a lot of similarities once you start to look into it - both hyper competent children, families murdered, spend a bunch of time broke (for years all Pauls got to his name is a bit of water). They study with some guys in robes, are plagued by destiny itself to bring about a dark future, kills/overthrows a king/emporer, and at the end, both regret their life decisions. Cool that Rothfuss ripped off Dune. Nobody cares. Stop trying to force this thing to protect Kingkiller Chronicles. It's just making the KKC look worse. I get it though. Your Cinema Sins gimmick didn't land, so you're trying for Dune next. Cpt. Mahatma Gandhi posted:Oh poo poo, Kvothe killed a king? I must have missed that part You know, if Rothfuss was a good author then the fact that Kvothe has talked nonstop about his stupid rivalry with Ambrose hasn't made the Chronicler say anything about him being the murdered king mean that he can't be the supposedly murdered king. But he's probably gonna be it anyways, because Rothfuss doesn't know how legends or history or anything works. Kchama fucked around with this message at 12:49 on Mar 18, 2024 |
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Mar 18, 2024 12:45
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Goffer posted:There's actually quite a lot of similarities once you start to look into it - both hyper competent children, families murdered, spend a bunch of time broke (for years all Pauls got to his name is a bit of water). They study with some guys in robes, are plagued by destiny itself to bring about a dark future, kills/overthrows a king/emporer, and at the end, both regret their life decisions. This also describes Darth Vader
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Mar 18, 2024 14:10
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Almost some sort of Hero's Journey or something. Someone should use that to write a bunch of stories.
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Mar 18, 2024 14:13
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There are 2 James Ramsays, young and older James, separated by a *10 years later* interlude. The James in either half is a static entity, there's no growth to his character within either section. Losing a family is not character growth - not even the death of his siblings change his character. Older James wants to row out to the same lighthouse as young James as if he were in the same situation.
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Mar 18, 2024 14:41
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The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings should have had an interlude where the titular assassin spends 2 days forcing Geralt to hear about all of the sex they had in their college days (as a teenager) and how difficult it was to scrounge up coin for smithing and potion ingredients before getting to the dead king bit. Sadly the writers wrre not real professionals.
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Mar 18, 2024 14:50
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Ravenfood posted:The theme of the first book is ostensibly all about puncturing the legend and the second book just turns around and says "yeah, the legend where I spent the night with Felurian and lived is actually way cooler than it first sounds". If there were a single reason to dismiss Rothfuss as a hack who got lucky with his first book, it's this. Despite its flaws, the first book does make an attempt at "my legends are total bullshit here's the boring reality" only for the second book to do a full 180 and bang the "actually, the legends aren't nearly as cool as the reality" drum while using even more previously-written short stories as filling for the book than NOTW did. Ravenfood posted:E2: yes he clearly has suffered some kind of consequence by the time he becomes a bartender. How sad for him. If he is responsible for a bunch of horrible poo poo like is occasionally implied, I somehow feel that becoming a bartender with a fae prince thing as your friend isn't actually a consequence. Being a tavern owner in medieval settings is one of the better positions to hold in a village too (unless the village has multiple taverns which is extremely unlikely), probably better than being a miller and definitely better than being a farmer or even a blacksmith. His "sad and washed up" situation is one that anyone not a noble or merchant would kill for. Especially since he clearly doesn't have a lack of business from the rest of the village. His version of a wretched existence is living the world's equivalent of a rural (upper) middle class life. Lottery of Babylon posted:This also describes Darth Vader The prequels really did a good job at taking an interesting villain and ruining them and an entire story setting. Everything about the Jedi Council and their reaction to Anakin "bringing balance to the Force" is loving insanity. The Jedi were on top and the Sith were basically non-existent. At no point should any Jedi master consider "balance" to be something that'd result in anything good for them or the Republic as a whole. If any of them took 5 seconds to ask "what would bringing balance to the force mean given the current situation" they'd have immediately killed Anakin.
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Mar 18, 2024 16:23
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Evil Fluffy posted:If there were a single reason to dismiss Rothfuss as a hack who got lucky with his first book, it's this. Despite its flaws, the first book does make an attempt at "my legends are total bullshit here's the boring reality" only for the second book to do a full 180 and bang the "actually, the legends aren't nearly as cool as the reality" drum while using even more previously-written short stories as filling for the book than NOTW did. Even the premise isn't very interesting; you could add a lot by simply turning Kvothe into an unreliable narrator and having the other two challenge and second-guess his assertion (if not trusting the reader to do that on their own which, frankly, Rothfuss doesn't have the writing chops for). But starting by straight-up "debunking" - and there's no font size lare enough for those quotes - a legend we are never given the slightest reason to give a drat about is just bad storytelling. Or Storytelling.
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Mar 18, 2024 19:10
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anilEhilated posted:The attempt is really bad, too: I think the most egregious part being "I didn't defeat a dragon, it was just a giant winged lizard" - what the gently caress is the difference? Fantasy in general is really bad about the whole "wyverns/wyrms/wurms/drakes/etc aren't TRUE DRAGONS just cousins" thing and it's extremely annoying in pretty much every case where it happens. If it's some small fire-breathing gecko or salamander type thing sure. If it's a giant scaly winged lizard with a body the size of a wagon/house/etc and it has a breath weapon you're just splitting hairs and being the kind of person who makes their D&D campaign's mages track spell component usage.
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Mar 18, 2024 19:18
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Mzuri posted:Almost some sort of Hero's Journey or something. Someone should use that to write a bunch of stories. Sort of, but like, a failed heroes journey? One that ends in calamity, a darker world and the protagonist filled with regret.
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Mar 18, 2024 21:01
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Goffer posted:Sort of, but like, a failed heroes journey? One that ends in calamity, a darker world and the protagonist filled with regret. Is this your gimmick now? Like the worst thing is we can't even tell if any of that is true because the Kingkiller Chronicles hasn't said poo poo about what actually led to the current state of the affairs. There's scraelings, sure, but they don't seem terribly dangerous considering a pair of basic unarmed villagers manage to kill one with only minor injuries. There's war, sure, but it's not ever stated to be Kvothe's fault. In fact one of the participants in the war being the "Penitent King" implies otherwise. Kvothe is filled with regret, but we really don't know what for. That's one of the biggest failings of the book. We have no idea what is actually going on in the current day, so it is impossible to try and contextualize what happened in his college party days. That's the problem. We're like 1500 pages into the Kingkiller Chronicles and we know very little about the state of the affairs in either the present or the past. It's especially important in these books because the primary premise is that Kvothe is LEGENDARY and did world-changing things that people remember. But we've haven't gotten to the world-changing events, and they've only been talked about in the most vague way possible. 2/3rds of the way through the stories and we still don't have a drat clue who the titular killed king is.
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Mar 18, 2024 21:41
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Imagine, for a moment, a story where Darth Vader surviving the Endor battle. He goes into hiding, a recluse. The new republic has a bounty on his head. A bounty hunter who knows him by reputation tracks him down, and notices he's not a match the profile of "Dark Lord of the Sith", he's just a moisture farmer. Before he brings him in, he is curious to see why, so he goes to have a conversation. Vader leans across the table and says, "let me tell you a tale about the Chosen One". And then after 2 days of telling his story, ending the day with a story about an "attack of the clones", you complain that the story is poo poo because you don't know why Anakin turned into Darth Vader, how he got the suit, or what he regrets.
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Mar 18, 2024 22:10
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It would be pretty bad if the story ended at that point yeah. Thankfully a third movie came out not too long after the second did and cleared everything up.
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Mar 18, 2024 22:14
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and also there's no clones and no wars and no separatists and no droids and no darth maul and nothing happens but there's like seven hundred pages about how he got good grades at jedi school and hung out in the cafeteria with his friends who he was jealous of because they had bigger lightsabers
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Mar 18, 2024 22:16
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Yeah if the story had just stalled there for 10+ years it would suck pretty bad dawg Anyway we've had cinemasins, dune, and now star wars, did you want to pivot to the MCU or lord of the rings next mp5 fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Mar 18, 2024 |
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Mar 18, 2024 22:16
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jar-jar is still there but he's a twelve-year-old girl with huge tits
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Mar 18, 2024 22:17
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Anakin learns the true secrets of sex in the cave on dagobah but despite months of training he can never land Padme and she just adopts
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Mar 18, 2024 22:23
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Goffer posted:Imagine, for a moment, a story where Darth Vader surviving the Endor battle. He goes into hiding, a recluse. The new republic has a bounty on his head. Huh yeah if Star Wars was a completely different story it sure would suck, you got me there. Still afraid to actually reply to what I said with something that isn't "but what about THIS other franchise?!", huh. Also, I'm gonna lay out a much better use of unreliable narrator. Final Fantasy 7. The protagonist is a SOLDIER 1st-Class, a designation for only the legendary great heroes. After the setting and everything has been established, the protagonist is asked to tell his story of how he came to know Sephiroth, the greatest of the 1st-Class SOLDIERs. So he tells the story of how he was assigned to Sephiroth's squad and sent to his hometown to check on the power reactor there as something strange had been happening with it. There he meets up with his childhood friend Tifa (and also a person in the room as he tells the story), and did a normal mission until Sephiroth suddenly went traitor and nearly killed him and wiped out the town. After the story was told, his friend visited him in private and asked him an important question. ("Why did you tell the story as if you were there? You weren't part of Sephiroth's squad.") And suddenly you can't rely on his words anymore, and have to rely on clues to figure out the truth of what is going on. Kchama fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Mar 18, 2024 |
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Mar 18, 2024 22:27
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Also, the Star Wars prequels are intended to be watched already knowing the original trilogy. The audience knows Anakin betrays his comrades and becomes Vader, that the Republic is usurped by the Empire, that the rebellion rises up, that Anakin kills Obi-Wan and serves the Emperor as a military leader before ultimately turning on him and reconciling with his son in his dying moments. The audience knows where the story is eventually leading, can see the pieces that build up to it. If you removed the knowledge all that context and the viewer could not possibly have any knowledge of the future beyond "Someday, Anakin is in a black suit and is sad, also there's a broken spaceship nearby and he's famous", then that would make the Star Wars prequels worse. And let's be real, it's not like they're great in the first place. There isn't much praise more damning than "it's kind of like if Attack of the Clones were shittier."
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Mar 18, 2024 22:34
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The absolute worst thing about capitalism and nostalgia turning childhood memories into products to sell to unhappy and unfulfilled adults is that poo poo that was at best mediocre children's entertainment the first time around is now viewed through the rosiest of tinted glasses to justify purchases and engagement with media that should have been forgotten. The Star Wars prequels are an incoherent mess at their best, a fact that Disney has tried really hard to get people to forget so they can repackage and resell them and a thousand other tie-in products to keep bleeding the stone of Star Wars of all of its theoretical blood. Comparing KCC to the Prequels, and having to change the Prequels to be somehow worse than they actually are in order for the comparison to work, is easily the most damning thing anyone could say about KCC and Rothfuss's ability to tell a story.
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Mar 19, 2024 00:35
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I don't know why you are all arguing with Goffer because Goffer has yet to present an argument that Kingkiller Chronicle is salvageable much less good.
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Mar 19, 2024 01:52
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:I don't know why you are all arguing with Goffer because Goffer has yet to present an argument that Kingkiller Chronicle is salvageable much less good. It's fun watching him squirm and dodge and somehow make the books look worse.
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Mar 19, 2024 02:01
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:I don't know why you are all arguing with Goffer because Goffer has yet to present an argument that Kingkiller Chronicle is salvageable much less good. I just love comparing pop culture properties to genre fiction
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Mar 19, 2024 16:44
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Can anything really be called a success if there aren't midnight lines to get the latest toy releases?
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Mar 19, 2024 16:54
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:I don't know why you are all arguing with Goffer because Goffer has yet to present an argument that Kingkiller Chronicle is salvageable much less good. I hope everyone keeps arguing, this is the most fun the thread has been in ages.
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Mar 19, 2024 18:08
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Reminder that someone did a pretty comprehensive read of the problems with the first book, the "good one" of the two https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3365216&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=122#post458895404 Obviously take it with a grain of salt from a permaban troll/threadshitter but he seemed pretty genuine about what did and did not work for Name of the Wind and would then reference books that did it way, way better.
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Mar 19, 2024 18:42
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pentyne posted:Reminder that someone did a pretty comprehensive read of the problems with the first book, the "good one" of the two Doing In The Wizard did a pretty good readthrough of both books. It helped me get through them because boy, is the prose kinda labored.
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Mar 19, 2024 21:08
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The Ninth Layer posted:It would be pretty bad if the story ended at that point yeah. Thankfully a third movie came out not too long after the second did and cleared everything up. "Thankfully" It's wild how there's an entire series between Episodes 2 and 3 and they contain basically all of the important story poo poo, including pretty much everything about General Grevious, who to movie-watchers is just some weird cyborg with breathing problems and 4 lightsabers who loses to the first Jedi they see him fight head-on. Also the series' final scene leads directly into Episode 3's opening scene. I remember liking Episode 1 as a kid mainly because Darth Maul's twin lightsaber was cool as hell (even if extremely impractical) and Battle of the Fates is a good song. Shame about the rest of the movie and that Lucasfilm decided to go back and gently caress with the original trilogy by adding prequel-like poo poo to the Cantina, make Han shoot first with the worse drag-and-drop edit imaginable, and add prequel poo poo to the end of ROTJ including a sad confirmation that Jar Jar's still alive. Vandar posted:I hope everyone keeps arguing, this is the most fun the thread has been in ages. 
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Mar 19, 2024 21:14
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It's just still really funny that his 'masterstroke' was "Man have you considered that Kingkiller Chronicles is the Prequel Trilogy but MUCH worse?!"
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Mar 19, 2024 21:20
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pentyne posted:Obviously take it with a grain of salt from a permaban troll/threadshitter but he seemed pretty genuine about what did and did not work for Name of the Wind and would then reference books that did it way, way better. Yeah, although I did not enjoy The Egyptian (a frequent reference point) at all.
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Mar 19, 2024 21:38
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Precambrian Video Games posted:The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings should have had an interlude where the titular assassin spends 2 days forcing Geralt to hear about all of the sex they had in their college days (as a teenager) and how difficult it was to scrounge up coin for smithing and potion ingredients before getting to the dead king bit. Sadly the writers wrre not real professionals.
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Mar 19, 2024 21:59
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pentyne posted:Reminder that someone did a pretty comprehensive read of the problems with the first book, the "good one" of the two seriously though it's time to unban lamps.
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Mar 19, 2024 22:01
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I can’t believe this thread finally roped in an actual living breathing Rothfuss fan. Clearly, this is the spice that we were missing.
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