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Mel Mudkiper posted:It isnt, that is my point. Can you expand on this? Because it seems obviously wrong to me.
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Mar 17, 2019 18:36
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 12:36 |
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Measuring the success of a product only speaks to its qualities as a product. You cannot measure to the artistic merit of something through the lens of product and consumption. The idea that we can is part of the cultural brainwashing of capitalism. But success as a product is connected to the qualities of the experience. Commercial success is a proxy for entertainment, not entertainment itself. If you want to make the argument that broad popularity isn't the same thing as artistic merit, I'd agree with you. But the idea that capitalist brainwashing is the only connection between "people spent money on a thing" and, "people liked a thing" is nonsense. Antivehicular posted:Wait, so Sanderson is writing a racism analogy where sufficient virtue can actually turn you into the privileged class? holy hell The legitimization and de-legitimization of authority is a running theme throughout Stormlight. Dalinar and Gavilar are both jumped up thugs who seek to legitimize their power by becoming the kind of virtuous rulers who would have deserved to be kings. As a class, lighteyes are the reverse. Greedy and violent thugs who cling to the signifiers of legitimacy even after the knowledge of what light eyes meant has been forgotten. Patrick Spens fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Mar 18, 2019 |
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Mar 18, 2019 17:28
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Flesnolk posted:You can’t blame literally everything on “capitalism exists”. I mean, we can't stop him.
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Mar 18, 2019 19:00
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I never said that I'm having a hard time separating that from, "commercial success only tells you about success of a product, not about the qualities of the work."
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Mar 19, 2019 00:26
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"Qualities" not "quality." Coke isn't good for you, but the combination of sugar, spice and acid is *tasty.* Mel seems to be saying that wide commercial appeal is utterly divorced from any traits inherent to the work.
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Mar 19, 2019 00:37
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Mel Mudkiper posted:A commercial product being successful only tells you that it was successful as a commercial product Ok, but is commercial success connected to anything about the products/works? Is it completely arbitrary/market based what leads to one work being widely popular and one being ignored? Or is there some difference between the actual objects of coke and club soda that explains the vast difference in popularity? Is it that there might be a difference, but capitalism messes things up so much that we can't actually tell?
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Mar 19, 2019 01:03
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Excellent question. The point is that if you wish to consider commercial success, you must consider that commercial success is attributable to a wide variety of factors that might have different levels of influence on each item. We can ascertain reasons why a commodity was successful, but that may be due to a complex network of reasons. To assume we can make a direct correlation between the success of the product and the quality of the product is to be reductive to the point of meaninglessness. I'm not saying popularity is correlated with quality in the "how good is this" sense. I'm saying that mass appeal tells you something about the work. Sanderson's popularity doesn't tells us if he's a good author or not, but it does tell us that his work resonates with people. onsetOutsider posted:And entertainment is one of the largest measures of success imo, for this medium of entertainment that is books. I do disagree with this. Patrick Spens fucked around with this message at 01:44 on Mar 19, 2019 |
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Mar 19, 2019 01:41
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 12:36 |
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Disillusionist posted:Alright thread, since the best part of the previous Bonfire were the reviews, I've decided to take a stab at one. I have a decent TBR pile of cheap ebooks I've logged on Kindle over the past few years and I'm sure some of them are awful. Pick one of the following and I'll read it and give my review: I'll toss in a vote for Too Like the Lightning.
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Jun 8, 2019 05:20
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